Let's Talk About Dragons

[Lunaairis]

I lean towards the non-intelligent dragons when I write stories. But I can be easily persuaded to enjoy talking dragons in any form of media. (Paarthurnax for the win!) I usually don't like reading stories with dragons as they tend to be too 'stereotypical fantasy stories' which isn't normally my thing. I like it in my gaming but not in my reading. I do love the look of dragons, any dragon. Wings, no wings, four legs, two legs, scales,fur, horns every where, sleek like a snake, the imagination that can go into creating a dragon I absolutely love.

I was originally not going to have dragons in my current world. But I don't know? some idea hit me and then I really wanted to have them in it. Started thinking about things like being stuck in traffic because dragons are nesting on sky scrapers and some 'dragon slayers' have the road blocked off to deal with the problem.

Dragons in 'In the black' are normally rat-to-dog sized snake like creatures with tiny arms and legs. Their body size is nearly entirely made up of their wings and tail. They tend to live in nests made up of sticks and regurgitated animal fur. The floor of the nest is made up of sand and dirt which the dragon will use to cover their eggs to keep from burning from a direct hit of their fiery breath. They are kind of like crows in that they like to collect shiny bobbles to impress mates and decorate their nests.
During a normal walk through the woods its not uncommon to find dragons away from their nest and sleeping upside down on a tree branch. Often a sign they just ate. People sometimes keep these ones as pets, but its not encouraged. (your insurance is likely to go up if they find out you have one.)

Normal Dominion Dragon breeds​

Now the not normal variety of dragons come from the northern parts of the old world. They live in the mountains and a few types of these dragons will often take shelter in caves or abandoned mines. The ones that do this, do not make nests and are also not interested in shiny things. These dragons are the larger variate and are between wolf and lion sized. They do not make good mounts, or pets due to their temperament and diet.

illegally imported old world dragon, about to be slayed​

People are idiots though and often import the larger dragons into the Dominion as eggs or hatchlings. Then when the dragons grow too big, and escape they often find themselves coming face to face with an officer or animal control, dragon slayer.

 

[ChasingSuns]

I personally have one dragon in my story. He takes on a sort of Gandalf-esque role to some of the heroes. The rest of the dragons are thought to be dead, but they have just flown away to live on a far away continent, because they got tired of all of the war and hatred on the continent that the story takes place on. They are generally good creatures, although their personalities vary as much as those of humans. That's about as far as the lore has gone for now because I haven't even introduced the one dragon into the story yet. I'm sure I'll be adding more to the history once I get there though.


I do think that dragons are one of those things that have been overdone a bit, but I also think that there are ways that they can be done well. I was originally concerned with the cliches surrounding them, but then I realized that I could just either remove those parts of the dragon lore or change it in some way. Besides, I've done pretty well at staying away from anything too cliche so far, so I think I can afford to have a little bit of it in there

 

[Queshire]

You do not **** with dragons, or at least not true dragons. That's pretty much rule 1 in my story. They're cataclysms embodied in flesh. That's not an exaggeration. They can cause earthquakes with each step or a tornado with a flap of their wings and that's even without using magic. If they do use magic, well, they're compared to a magical nuclear reactor for a reason.

Luckily for us squishy humans they are few enough in number that for most of the world it's one to a continent. North America is unusual is that there's four of them. Dragons consider the Earth as something like a garden for them to enjoy so while "weeding" is a possibility, most of them are lazy enough that they're just content to enjoy the garden as it is.

Furthermore, it's become something of a fad among them in recent centuries to play at being a "king" though what counts as their kingdom varies.

One spends his days masquerading as a world famous multi-billionaire. His company is a house hold name in the muggle world for producing everything from toothpaste to flat screen TVs, though a fair number of his products has some magic sneaked into them in order to get a leg up on their competitors. On the supernatural side, his company basically serves as the walmart of the magical world. They sell anything from twelve packs of healing potions to portable magic mirrors that act as smart phones. He's the youngest of the True Dragons commonly known.

Another runs his own entire magical country hidden from muggle eyes right in the middle of America's heartland. He's pretty much the Big Good of the setting, though he can be a bit of a troll at times. Currently I'm thinking about naming him Sigurd and say that he claimed the name after taking revenge on the dragon slayer of Norse mythology.

The third is the Wyrm of the North. Though generally apathetic to most things, for some reason he absolutely loathes human mages. As a result all the monsters and things that go bump in the night which would normally be trimmed down by the efforts of human heroes have flocked to his shadow. He's pretty apathetic about those monsters, but upon occasion his pride can be used to move him to support his "subjects." So, as a result of this, while Canada is pretty safe for most muggles, it's a grim land where death and darkness lurk around every corner for those in the supernatural set.

I haven't given much thought to the fourth dragon. I'll probably have her be female and she'll take after Asian dragons or sea serpents instead of European dragons. Technically her area of influence includes Western US, Hawaii, and parts of western Canada and Mexico, but her real kingdom lies under the waves and she mostly concerns herself just with what's under the water. In sheer size her territory is the largest but since, ya know, it's underwater it mostly just ignores what goes on above the waves.

It's also commonly thought that there's a South American dragon, one responsible for the occasional outbreaks of zombie plague, but it's never been conclusively proven one way or another. As the author I think I'll probably go with it being the work of a dragon, but I'm not committed.

I haven't really given much thought to other dragons in the world beyond that. Coming up with stuff out of my ass I think....

The single most powerful dragon is Antartica. Ok, so not all of antartica, but still big enough that he'd be measured in miles. He's currently mid-hibernation.

Europe currently doesn't have a dragon in residence. True dragons are stupidly powerful, but they can still be killed and Europe is the center of the world when it comes to dragon slaying. Due to the current political climate of the magical world such a dragon slaying would be unlikely to occur, but for most true dragons Europe is generally considered annoying and unpleasant. They'd just rather not bother with it. Despite this though, a rumor has been going around the magical world lately about a dragon egg hidden somewhere in Europe that's getting close to hatching. How the other true dragons will respond if this turns out to be true and if something unpleasant happens to their youngest kin could be truly apocalyptic.

There is an Asian dragon, that much is confirmed. Who it is and what country they call home is more questionable. China, Japan, Russia and more. There's evidence and accounts to support each, but the truth is still hidden and the other True Dragons are remaining quiet. Truthfully their dragon in residence could be considered a "multi-headed" dragon. They split their multiple heads into different bodies and spread out to all the different countries. At least one of their bodies unabashedly plays the stereotypical martial arts master capable of using their chi to perform amazing feats 100% straight. Nobody knows if that body actually serious or just pulling some sort of elaborate joke.

The African dragon is just as apathetic as the Canadian dragon to his kingdom and shares the Pacific dragon's disinterest in the surface, only instead of underwater his domain lies deep under the earth.

Finally the Australian dragon... Hm, I think I'll have him be the closest thing there is to a "failure" of a true dragon. He's remained in human form so long that he barely remembers how to use his dragon abilities and all he cares about is culture, wine and food.

As a note, though being a true dragon makes you a world power, they are hardly the only ones. Their pride is such that they generally wouldn't consider any other beings to be their equal, but there are certain other legendary individuals or combined organizations / nations whose strength affords them a certain amount of respect from the true dragons.

In addition, underneath the true dragons there's numerous various beings which could be considered to possess Dragon-like qualities such as wyverns. The true dragons' attitudes to them varies. They still have their pride though, so if one of the lesser dragons or a "dragon slayer" that deals with the lesser dragons ever come across as offending them through their actions then then the offended true dragon might decide to have... words with them.

 

[Sheilawisz]

That's some great artwork as always, Luna!

Terry Ervin: I really like the idea of dragons able to shoot liquid nitrogen at their enemies, that is really super cool (no pun intended!). Great weapon, I would love to see that happening on screen if your stories get adapted to movies or a TV series someday.

The acid thing is very good too, and scary. It reminds me of that old Danish movie about a deadly giant monster called Reptilicus (which scared me a lot when I was a little girl), and some of my Mages have the ability to throw super destructive green acid-like liquids at each other in battle.

About fire: Sometimes people describe fire attacks in Fantasy as simply fire, but... What kind of fire? How powerful is it? What is its color? After all, the fire from a candle is nothing like the fire from an Oxyacetylene torch. In the case of my dragons, their magical fire is really nasty at best and truly all-annihilating stuff at worst.

I also love to describe different colors of fire.

The Jabberwocky from Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland shoots violet bolts of lightning, which have the ability to both blow its enemies to smithereens and cause nightmarish fires... I love that =)

I used to have some dragons with the ability to shoot large amounts of poison gas like elemental Chlorine, what do you think of that?

 

[glutton]

I have different dragons in many of my works but in the book I'm editing now, the dragons and dragonkin that have been seen are air elemental and if they have a breath weapon, it is a blast of concentrated wind (not as weak as it sounds, the strongest of them can blow a massive hole in a fortified city wall). The King/Queen Elemental of Air (largest and most powerful of their kind) is a dragon with a 500' wingspan, so yes ridiculously huge, who has the aforementioned breath weapon plus can form a shield of solidified air in front of her, create tornados and a cloud big enough to hide an army of elementals, levitate things with wind, and probably other things involving wind/air she hasn't shown. She easily blocks blasts from a magical mecha's energy rifle with her air shield and then smashes it with little effort.

She gets beat up by the 5'1 nonmagical heroine wielding a giant hammer of course, cause Girl Pride. The same girl confidently jumps off her flying mount while hundreds of feet in the air to 1 or 2-shot smaller dragons and has defeated multiple other kaiju-sized King Elementals before so it's not too embarassing. XD

 

[Sheilawisz]

Hey Glutton, that's a really huge and terrifying dragon that you just described!

I do like that particular weapon that consists of concentrated wind blasts, powerful enough to blow holes through the fortified walls of a city. I have a question, though: Is there a lot of noise spreading around when the dragon does that? I just imagined a terrible and deafening roar that accompanies the devastating attack.

Now that we are talking about dragons so much, I think that I'll probably scan my old drawings of various dragons and share them at the Fantasy Art Forum. It could be fun! Some of them are like thirteen years old, but I still keep them and I am likely to draw even more in the near future.

My drawings are bad, but they would give you a good idea of the dragons in my imagination.

 

[glutton]

I do like that particular weapon that consists of concentrated wind blasts, powerful enough to blow holes through the fortified walls of a city. I have a question, though: Is there a lot of noise spreading around when the dragon does that? I just imagined a terrible and deafening roar that accompanies the devastating attack.

Yes there is a loud howling which terrifies most people who aren't grown up former loli warriors powered by cuteness/excessive meat consumption. XD

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Dragons are part of the mythology of my world, with a very distinct mythology of their own with a devolution of the species over eons... there's a reason for that, but it's a long story, LOL. Hence, they range in power from gods to Smaug to wee buggers a knight can stick a lance through. One of the few elder dragons to appear by name and interact with mortals is Gersvoresh’kûmjotu’kî, and she holds wisdom from the Age of God Wars and the Age of Warlords. She isn't one of the First Dragons who were present at the creation of the world, but she what I call second generation... meaning what passes for gods wouldn't mess with her.

There isn't a dragon cliche I hate, least not that I know of. Hoard gold? sure, whatever. Breathe fire? sure, whatever. Eat dwarves for lunch? All dragons should do that, stinky dwarves anyhow.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

The hoarding gold doesn't bother me, but I find the gold-sticking-to-their-bellies-as-armor annoying. Gold is HEAVY. I know the dragon's heavy in the first place and we accept that without questioning, but being coated in metal heavier than lead (that probably offers very little protection anyway) is stretching reality. anyway. Pet peeve of mine.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Well, if a pork bone can grow into a human's body... it isn't inconceivable that a morbidly obese dragon snoozing on their of gold for a decade might have their scales grow around the gold, heh heh.

The hoarding gold doesn't bother me, but I find the gold-sticking-to-their-bellies-as-armor annoying. Gold is HEAVY. I know the dragon's heavy in the first place and we accept that without questioning, but being coated in metal heavier than lead (that probably offers very little protection anyway) is stretching reality. anyway. Pet peeve of mine.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Well, if a pork bone can grow into a human's body... it isn't inconceivable that a morbidly obese dragon snoozing on their of gold for a decade might have their scales grow around the gold, heh heh.

Super obese dragon? I could see that, but it's not getting into the sky and staying there without seriously powerful magic, haha!

 

[Ankari]

I have dragons in my world. Their power is such that many would think of them as deities. They break the laws of conservation in that they can create matter and/or energy. Their intelligence is beyond comprehension. Yes, they are huge.

How do you fly, you ask? Well, they control gravity as well. Luckily for the people of my world, there exists fifty known dragons. Unluckily, they form a dragon swarm every century or so and destroy cities. The rate of such swarms have been increasing.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Seems like a lot of people here have the huge, all powerful type! Anyone here a fan or writer of tiny dragons?

 

[skip.knox]

I have dragons in my world, but they are not yet clearly defined. They will play a role akin to that of the Vikings--they weren't there, then they were, they visited all kinds of destruction for a couple centuries or more, then they faded away though did not disappear.

One wrinkle of mine is that dragons are not natural. They were created by a wizard or perhaps a group of wizards, but once created they were capable of procreation. But their biology is flawed, so eventually they dwindle. The world at the time, of course, understands nothing of this. It's all just back story.

A corollary of the wrinkle is that the wizards took multiple shots and this resulted in a certain variation in types of dragons. One of these resulted in the lindwurm, a flightless dragon that lives underground. That's the only one I've developed much. It has a role to play in my larger system of magic in that a lindwurm secretes magic jewels, so over time it builds up a treasure trove. A lindwurm doesn't plunder humans; humans plunder lindwurms.

 

[Steel Dragon]

First, my criteria of a dragon.

Four legs.
Wings.
Intelligence.
Breath weapon.

Anything else is not a dragon.

No. It's not.

"But, but, but..."

No, you're wrong. It's not a dragon if it doesn't have those things.

That said, I take my ideals of dragons from D&D and World of Warcraft. Different kinds and colors of drags have different breath weapons, come from different places and have different ecologies. In my world, for example, gold dragons are the most evil and power hungry of all dragons. They are the most cunning and brutal. Silver dragons are their anthesis.

Dragons in my world have variable breath weapons, but there is some cross over. Multiple dragons breath different kinds of fire, for example.

At the moment most of my dragons are in a state of racial hybernation, and will be for the first series of books. As I progress, one of the stories will be centered around them.

 

[Sheilawisz]

Hello Steel Dragon!

First of all, Welcome to Mythic Scribes. You must really love dragons if you are called Steel Dragon, I see. I love dragons of various styles, but I understand your love for those four characteristics that you mentioned in particular. That is a really cool type of dragon.

I agree that the Breath Weapon is definitely a must-have for all of our fantastic winged monsters.

Do you have violet dragons, or maybe purple? Colors are very important to me too, not only in dragons but in other things as well. I think that a very dark, nearly blackish brown would be a very intimidating color for a dragon.

How large are your dragons?

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

First, my criteria of a dragon.

Four legs.
Wings.
Intelligence.
Breath weapon.

Anything else is not a dragon.

No. It's not.

"But, but, but..."

No, you're wrong. It's not a dragon if it doesn't have those things.

That said, I take my ideals of dragons from D&D and World of Warcraft. Different kinds and colors of drags have different breath weapons, come from different places and have different ecologies. In my world, for example, gold dragons are the most evil and power hungry of all dragons. They are the most cunning and brutal. Silver dragons are their anthesis.

Dragons in my world have variable breath weapons, but there is some cross over. Multiple dragons breath different kinds of fire, for example.

At the moment most of my dragons are in a state of racial hybernation, and will be for the first series of books. As I progress, one of the stories will be centered around them.

What you mentioned is more or less my definition of a dragon (excepting that a few species lack a breath weapon)

 

[Drakevarg]

In a word? Dragons represent power. I find it fairly jarring when a dragon ISN'T the apex predator of any food chain they care to introduce themselves to. It's the same reason I roll my eyes whenever someone tries to pad out their badass resume by saying they've slain gods. Killing a god doesn't make you sound mighty, it makes the god in question sound weak.

Now dragonslaying, by contrast, is a time-honored tradition in mythology. But I think such a feat should be a career highlight, not something you do as a hobby. It's impossible for the dragons of Skyrim to remain awe-inspiring when you knock one out of the sky on a daily basis with all of the ceremony most people put into swatting a wasp that got into the house. And that casualness doesn't make you feel like a legendary badass, it just makes the dragons seem underpowered.

I guess in summation, I adore dragons. They're the first half of my name for a reason. But dragons are like cakes. You can't have them all the time or they stop being a treat.

 

[Queshire]

First, my criteria of a dragon.

Four legs.
Wings.
Intelligence.
Breath weapon.

Anything else is not a dragon.

No. It's not.

"But, but, but..."

No, you're wrong. It's not a dragon if it doesn't have those things.

That said, I take my ideals of dragons from D&D and World of Warcraft. Different kinds and colors of drags have different breath weapons, come from different places and have different ecologies. In my world, for example, gold dragons are the most evil and power hungry of all dragons. They are the most cunning and brutal. Silver dragons are their anthesis.

Dragons in my world have variable breath weapons, but there is some cross over. Multiple dragons breath different kinds of fire, for example.

At the moment most of my dragons are in a state of racial hybernation, and will be for the first series of books. As I progress, one of the stories will be centered around them.

I have to disagree with intelligence. To me a dragon should be a force of nature in a scaly body and most of the time intelligence takes more from that than it adds. Now, I'm something of a hypocrite for this since all of my dragons are intelligent, but they all have decidedly inhuman elements to their intelligence.

Actually, I have to disagree with all the rest, though not as much as intelligence. Asian dragons lack wings, whether having a wyvern type body, snake like body or lamia like body they don't need four legs, and fangs and poison can be just as dangerous as a breath weapon. It's far more important that it fills the role of a dragon rather than fitting any sort of cookie cutter body shape.

In a word? Dragons represent power. I find it fairly jarring when a dragon ISN'T the apex predator of any food chain they care to introduce themselves to. It's the same reason I roll my eyes whenever someone tries to pad out their badass resume by saying they've slain gods. Killing a god doesn't make you sound mighty, it makes the god in question sound weak.

Now dragonslaying, by contrast, is a time-honored tradition in mythology. But I think such a feat should be a career highlight, not something you do as a hobby. It's impossible for the dragons of Skyrim to remain awe-inspiring when you knock one out of the sky on a daily basis with all of the ceremony most people put into swatting a wasp that got into the house. And that casualness doesn't make you feel like a legendary badass, it just makes the dragons seem underpowered.

I guess in summation, I adore dragons. They're the first half of my name for a reason. But dragons are like cakes. You can't have them all the time or they stop being a treat.

Ah, but just think about how much of a badass it makes you when for everyone ELSE killing a single dragon would be the highlight of their career.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

In a word? Dragons represent power. I find it fairly jarring when a dragon ISN'T the apex predator of any food chain they care to introduce themselves to. It's the same reason I roll my eyes whenever someone tries to pad out their badass resume by saying they've slain gods. Killing a god doesn't make you sound mighty, it makes the god in question sound weak.

Now dragonslaying, by contrast, is a time-honored tradition in mythology. But I think such a feat should be a career highlight, not something you do as a hobby. It's impossible for the dragons of Skyrim to remain awe-inspiring when you knock one out of the sky on a daily basis with all of the ceremony most people put into swatting a wasp that got into the house. And that casualness doesn't make you feel like a legendary badass, it just makes the dragons seem underpowered.

I guess in summation, I adore dragons. They're the first half of my name for a reason. But dragons are like cakes. You can't have them all the time or they stop being a treat.

Underpowered dragons do somewhat lose their dragon-ness. Though I have dragons in my work in progress that are cat-sized, they are still almost as intelligent as humans and can spit poison, fire or worse things. The largest are about the size of a draft horse in terms of body size. Its really their intelligence, superior senses, and breath weapon that makes them dangerous, not their size.