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Dragon shapeshifters: confusing in the extreme

Tom

Istar
How do they friggin' work?

Dragon shapeshifters are a pretty popular element in fantasy--and I can see why. You can have the awesomeness of a dragon, as well as the versatility of a human, all wrapped up in one character. But they just bug the heck out of me--they make no sense! A fire-breathing winged reptile the size of a Greyhound bus that can transform into a bipedal primate? Implausible!

I'm not asking for a scientific explanation, but usually there's no explanation at all, just some handwaving about magic. How on earth do you explain this?
 
Possibly using magic to convert the dragon's body mass compressing it to another form. Converting the dragons since and shrinking it with magic would be easier then changing would be looking at human biology we have a tail bone which a dragon's tail can convert too. Shoulder blades for the wings from there its looking at fact of allowing magic to affect its physical body so it would allow the transformation using a series of events to turn, starting with shrinking to proper size and adjust the body proportions to the counterparts of biology.
 
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Trick

Auror
I think, if I ever used this in a story, I would probably explain it with the human absorbing matter (and space, atoms containing lots of empty space) to turn into the dragon and then shedding it to turn back. It would be less technical in a story (or else, BORING!, right?) but that's my thought on it.
 
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Reaver

Staff
Moderator
I'm not knocking your logic Tom. I get that it's hard for you to suspend disbelief in this instance. However I'd be remiss if I didn't ask: Since when does fantasy have to make sense?

Am I the only one who sees the contradiction?
 
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Tom

Istar
Well, I don't mind other people not explaining it. That's your cup of tea. But I've always wanted solid explanations for the phenomena in my stories--that's just the way I am. I have a scientific mindset.

I'm asking about dragon shapeshifters because I'm kicking off a story that features one as the main character. It's also a noir detective fantasy, with a technology level equivalent to the 1930s-1940s. So there needs to be at least some logical explanation for shapeshifters existing.
 

X Equestris

Maester
Shapeshifting in general is kind of hard to give a good explanation for. Here's the explanation I've got for my world so far:

Mages in my world have an inborn connection to the Outerworld, a world of spirits from which the physical world was created. They can use this connection to move energy from the Outerworld to the physical world, or vice versa. Now, shapeshifting itself is something of a lost art, and knowledge of it is usually only available through deals with spirits or demons. It requires the skin of the creature one wants to transform into. Once you have the skin, a great deal of energy is required to reshape the mage's body and create something that, on the outside at least, looks like the creature one wants to be. And a lot of energy will be needed to change back into one's original, human form.

There are going to be differences between a shapeshifter and the real deal, though. A human turning into a dragon will be much less dense than a real dragon. A human turning into a cat will be much more dense. Ultimately, it's probably best for a shapeshifter to change into something similar in size to a human, as anything much bigger or smaller requires considerable skill that very few magic users have.

That's how I've worked it out. It could use some more work, but that's the basic idea.
 
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DMThaane

Sage
In a world I'm working on magic is neither energy or matter but is a more esoteric substance capable of mimicking either. Although it can't be used for such 'physical' transformations a similar system certainly could. In this theoretical 'dragon' it would actually have a limited amount of true physical mass and would use magic as a sort of 'floating mass' absorbing it or shedding as required. This could offer other interesting effects such as allowing a 'dragon' to shed mass to generate lift or absorb it before crashing into something (like an armoured airship or a ravenous kraken) to increase the damage. Presumably I'd also explain the fire-breathing through similar mechanics and there'd be some address to how it accesses so much magical power and why others cannot. Perhaps it can tap into a magical field that a Tesla-like inventor could be attempting to access or perhaps it siphons it out of the planet or other objects and needs to remain close to a source to avoid potentially 'starving' itself.

Anyway, that's one pseudoscientific explanation that could be used in an Victorian-esque or post-Victorian-esque tech level.
 
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Saigonnus

Auror
I agree with you Tom. I kind of bothered me too, at least from the "logic" standpoint. I still enjoyed reading them though because of the cool factor (not to mention I was in my early teens the last time I read something featuring them) I think if I were going to incorporate them into a story however, I would make the humanoids larger (10-12 feet tall) and the dragons considerably smaller, (15-18' long from nose to tail) so that the readers won't have to suspend their disbelief too far, and you could still have the coolness of transforming and flying away. Even a dragon that size, with razor sharp claws, teeth, armored hide and breath weapon would be very dangerous to humans... And if you have them live/hunt in packs, even more so.

Might be good for a villain or enemy cult to be so "formidable".
 
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Hi,

Short answer - it's magic!

Long answer - it's friggin magic! You don't need to give an explanation. You just need to establish that it happens and make it convincing enough that a reader will believe it. If you have to wrap things up in some sort of pseudo scientific explanation are you really writing fantasy at all?

And have you read Gordon R Dicksons dragon knight books? They're brilliant.

Cheers, Greg.
 

teacup

Auror
Well, I don't mind other people not explaining it. That's your cup of tea. But I've always wanted solid explanations for the phenomena in my stories--that's just the way I am. I have a scientific mindset.

Well since you mentioned cups of tea and scientific mindsets I'll have to hit you with the problem of the dragons being able to fly at all.



(correct me if I'm wrong on any of this, anyone, as this is mostly just my own reasoning.)
How could a dragon fly if it's so large, unless somehow not very heavy? It has to overcome the downward force due to gravity, but the more mass the dragon has, the stronger this force will be. So, larger wingspan and very good muscles to exert a larger overall force downwards to overcome the force due to gravity should work, but then you're adding even more mass.

I've not looked much into just how realistic dragonflight actually is (just going off my own reasoning here) yet but I think unless the dragon has very little mass compared to its large size, it would not be able to overcome the force due to gravity well enough to effectively fly.

I think (could be wrong) the real life case is that we don't have huge flying birds because increasing wingspan large enough to make such large creatures fly makes the downward force of gravity always more than the forces pushing upward after a certain mass is reached - beyond that, the creature will be too heavy and only be getting heavier the more you increase wingspan, at which point the forces up can never overcome the force due to gravity down. (Not good at explaining stuff, so hope that made sense.)

I don't know how much sense a strong, living creature of very little density makes, though, so you might have to limit the size of your dragons to a realistic size or figure out some magical reason for their flight aside from flying like a bird does if you want this to be accurate.

I think Avatar (not the Last Airbender) did it with their large flying birds by having moon very close to the planet (or something like that?) which meant the resultant force down due to gravity was lessened due to an upward force due to the moon's gravitational field, allowing large creatures to overcome (the much smaller than Earth's) downward gravitational force.




Now, to actually answer your question...Sorry, got carried away there lol.
It depends on your magic system. If it is a big mysterious thing and that's how it stays, you could just keep it at that if you wanted as long as energy isn't being created out of nowhere I guess.
There have been some good suggestions here. I can't think of another one off the top of my head right now, though :p
 
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How wedded are you to the specifics? If you can't imagine them shapeshifting, then maybe they shouldn't shapeshift, at least not in a literal sense. (I wrote a character once who could give off an aura of being a dragon, making other people enter a semi-hallucinatory state where they saw him as a powerful reptilian.)
 

X Equestris

Maester
There once were some pretty huge flying birds, the teratorns, of which Argentavis Magnificens was the largest. Pterosaurs got even bigger because they didn't have feathers, which limit maximum size. Quetzalcoatlus was about as tall as a giraffe when it was on the ground. The real issue is that these huge flyers were mostly wing. Having your dragons be mostly wing sort of reduces how imposing they are.

Personally, I got around the size issue by
1) them having very light, hollow bones that are also very strong
2) them having two legs and two wings instead of four legs and two wings, which makes them a little more aerodynamic
3) having only the really old ones being of a size that we really think of as "dragon sized". The younger ones are smaller, though they are still a decent threat to most people.
4) having them use a bit of innate force magic to reduce their weight while flying. I already explained the breath attacks with innate, instinctive magic, so why not this? Human mages can't make themselves fly because there are lots of factors to control, but dragons just use a bit of magic to supplement their existing biology.
 

teacup

Auror
There once were some pretty huge flying birds, the teratorns, of which Argentavis Magnificens was the largest. Pterosaurs got even bigger because they didn't have feathers, which limit maximum size.

Again, I could be way off with this as I'm just going from my reasoning without actually reading into this stuff, but would the atmosphere not have had an effect on this, too? Were these able to be huge and able to fly because of the different atmosphere at the time, so if here today wouldn't be able to fly well? (These are all from way back, right? If not then never mind, I'm wrong :p)
 

Tom

Istar
How wedded are you to the specifics? If you can't imagine them shapeshifting, then maybe they shouldn't shapeshift, at least not in a literal sense. (I wrote a character once who could give off an aura of being a dragon, making other people enter a semi-hallucinatory state where they saw him as a powerful reptilian.)

Doesn't need to be too specific. Just a general overview that makes sense.

The explanation I have in-story is that, when a dragon shapeshifts into human form, all its extra mass is burned off as the magical energy needed to fuel the transformation. A dragon in human form can't shift into its original form right away; it has to wait until has enough magical energy built up to convert into its lost mass. Pretty simple, but it works with the magic of the setting--that is, magic as a massive energy source that can be tapped into and is constantly renewing itself.
 

X Equestris

Maester
Again, I could be way off with this as I'm just going from my reasoning without actually reading into this stuff, but would the atmosphere not have had an effect on this, too? Were these able to be huge and able to fly because of the different atmosphere at the time, so if here today wouldn't be able to fly well? (These are all from way back, right? If not then never mind, I'm wrong :p)

Nah, these(the teratorns, that is) were pretty recent. As in "humans and human precursors were around in the same time period as them" recent. The atmosphere has been mostly the same since the Carboniferous period, when there was much more oxygen in the air. Bugs back then were huge. The largest flying insect lived in the Carboniferous period. It was a dragonfly like creature with a wingspan about a foot across, if I remember right.
 
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teacup

Auror
Nah, these were pretty recent. As in "humans lived alongside them" recent. The atmosphere has been mostly the same since the Carboniferous period, when there was much more oxygen in the air. Bugs back then were huge. The largest flying insect lived in the Carboniferous period. It was a dragonfly like creature with a wingspan about a foot across, if I remember right.
Coool :D
So am I right aside from it's possible if they're mostly wing?
 

Trick

Auror
Looking at these might help in understanding the impracticality of actual dragons:

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Of course, that's why dragons are fantasy creatures
 

Trick

Auror
Pretty much. Big flying creatures still don't weigh very much at all, so that's something you have to work around if you want your dragons to have large bodies.

I may not have read as many dragon stories as many others but I have no recollection of dragons being described as light. They would be far less formidable if they weighed significantly less than land animals of similar size.

Plus, wouldn't hollow bones become a real issue in battle? I know they can be strong but it seems unlikely they would hold up against an elephant charging into them to protect their young or something. Plus, if their weight is so important for flight, they wouldn't be able to carry off very heavy prey... that would result in almost constant hunting.
 

X Equestris

Maester
I may not have read as many dragon stories as many others but I have no recollection of dragons being described as light. They would be far less formidable if they weighed significantly less than land animals of similar size.

Plus, wouldn't hollow bones become a real issue in battle? I know they can be strong but it seems unlikely they would hold up against an elephant charging into them to protect their young or something. Plus, if their weight is so important for flight, they wouldn't be able to carry off very heavy prey... that would result in almost constant hunting.

That's my point: if you want big, heavy dragons, you have to work around it somehow. Otherwise they'll end up looking like pterosaurs or something. I have my dragons use magic to lower their weight while in flight. You can have lighter gravity on your world. Or you can throw any effort at biological realism out the window. Whatever works for you.

On the second point, maybe, maybe not. I had my dragon bones be almost supernaturally strong. In-universe scholars don't know how it's possible. And they live in areas that are very difficult to reach. Otherwise, they only land when they want to, or when they're forced to the ground by weather or injuries. So there's relatively little risk to them. That's probably an issue dependent on world building. For point three, Quetzalcoatlus managed to live and scavenge just fine, so I'm sure it's possible. They ate at the site of the kill and if they fed their young, they could have carried food back to their nests in their beaks or stomach, like birds do today.
 
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