Dragons and magic

[Aldarion]

In my world, there are several types of magic, which are connected to religions but also to sides of the world. Primary (story-wise) are Water and Fire. But water and tree worship are connected. And magic itself is connected with magical creatures. Now, I am unsure of when and how exactly I will be introducing dragons, but I do want to have them - even if only to be mentioned as mythological beings.

So, I have made these connections between magic type and type of the attack used by certain dragon species/group:
Plant magic dragons: Acid
Fire magic dragons: Fire

However, I am unsure of what connection to make for water magic dragons. Acid? Boilling water? Boilling water is certainly debilitating, but compared to acid and fire it seems to be far less lethal. Another possibility I considered is ice, of supercooled variety (so maybe -200 - -250 °C / 25 - 75 K), but what effect would such an attack have on surroundings and living beings? And what can remain liquid at such temperatures and yet not immediately turn into gas upon being ejected? Only thing I can think of are certain types of alcohol... can't figure out whether drunkard dragons are funny or terrifying.

Of course, there is also a question of how to associate dragons with air and earth... only thing I can think of is to have former fly without wings and latter not fly at all or even burrow.

 

[Riva]

Considering acidity is given by the water ion H3O+ that would make acid pretty correlated to water (though you must have an actual acid in solution, unless it's fantasy ecc..).
As for a substance that remains liquid from ambient temperature to -250 C I don't know any, there could be but that's pretty wide temperature range. It would have to have a large thermal capacity, hence many intermolcular bonds (hydrogen bonds or even ionic bonds but that would make it a solid I guess). But that would make it that at lower temperatures it solidifies.
The only thing I can think of is water that's very compressed by something or something like liquid nitrogen but thermally isolated, but that would render the attack pretty useless.

In my world "ice magic" if you will, works kind of by a heat&frost method. You have the caster absorbing the thermal energy from an area, storing it as potential energy in his "spirit", and quickly shifting it to another area, so you have like a cone of frost on one side and a heat release on the other.

As for air and earth dragons I'm not sure, maybe make the air dragon spit lightning (uh, or maybe it would be cool to have it channel lightings from storms it flies through through its wings and store them in its belly until needed) and have the rock dragon, I don't know, you could make him the only chill dragon of the gang I don't know

 

[Yora]

If they are mythological beings, how about magic?

If you go into the chemistry ice breath, you also push yourself into the physics of winged flight for giant reptiles and other things that won't hold up to scientific scrutiny.

 

[Riva]

Also that, yes

 

[Aldarion]

Considering acidity is given by the water ion H3O+ that would make acid pretty correlated to water (though you must have an actual acid in solution, unless it's fantasy ecc..).

I know... and in fact, in my setting, plant and water magic themselves are correlated.

If they are mythological beings, how about magic?

If you go into the chemistry ice breath, you also push yourself into the physics of winged flight for giant reptiles and other things that won't hold up to scientific scrutiny.

I am aware of that - besides, how else do you make wingless dragons fly? But I want to know general effects of such attacks. Too much magic makes it hard to decide on properties of things.

 

[Riva]

Oh I reread that, I might have got it wrong sorry.

You mean that if acid is already taken up by plant dragon, then what magic would water dragons use?
If that's so you could make it so whereas fire and plants dragons can only breath their element (if I'm getting it right), water dragons are capable of hydrokinesis on large scales (similarly to Avatar the legend of Aang), to make up for the relative lack of destructiveness of water.

Sorry I'm must be a bit tired.

 

[ShadeZ]

regarding water/ice dragons. Usually mine have an ice spit skill so that on contact what ever they 'spit' on freezes solid. Water dragons can also spray and freeze water from their mouths if they are near water sources to drink from. They tend to be immune to cold and are skilled swimmers but don't like the heat much.

 

[Aldarion]

Oh I reread that, I might have got it wrong sorry.

You mean that if acid is already taken up by plant dragon, then what magic would water dragons use?
If that's so you could make it so whereas fire and plants dragons can only breath their element (if I'm getting it right), water dragons are capable of hydrokinesis on large scales (similarly to Avatar the legend of Aang), to make up for the relative lack of destructiveness of water.

Sorry I'm must be a bit tired.

Could work.

regarding water/ice dragons. Usually mine have an ice spit skill so that on contact what ever they 'spit' on freezes solid. Water dragons can also spray and freeze water from their mouths if they are near water sources to drink from. They tend to be immune to cold and are skilled swimmers but don't like the heat much.

Yeah, that would work. Thanks.