What are your dragons like?

The dragons of my primary fantasy world are mammalian, members of the weasel family. In general, fairly slim and light for their length (which is not excessive but 'big enough'). Some fly, some don't (but have vestigial wings). Four limbs only—none of that four legs plus wings stuff (though in theory such exist in other worlds). As other weasels, they have scent glands at their rear and are entirely willing to spray one with them. This is their 'fire' and it can be pretty devastating. Think enormous skunk.

These dragons are smart. They have language, at least some breeds. They are capricious and greedy. In that, not so different from the typical dragon of tradition.

Incidentally, I labeled the flying reptiles that survive in that world 'wyverns.' But they are not dragons, not really.

 

The dragon that makes an appearance in my next book, the way I have it written in the current draft anyway, is a manifestation of a being from another world. It takes the form of a dragon. I found this picture by Jack Holliday, and decided to roll with it. So this is the general idea:

​

 

The dragons in my world are fairly standard. Six limbs, large, territorial, intelligent, magically powerful. But they need a lot of food and can't handle cold all that well. Combined with how they don't cooperate with their own kind, they're not the dominant species of the planet.

Indeed, humans have hired their services on occasion, though it is hard. They want a lot and few are willing to leave their territory for any length of time. So usually it is the young that go for it, but those aren't as powerful. If they were, they'd be back home ousting an older dragon from their territory.

 

Where to begin. I use all the traditional dragons like eastern, western, Wyvern, drake, etc. Most are animal smarts while very few are human level. They need magic to function as without they can't do simple things like fly or eat. Some may eggs while others give live birth. Some have the females as dominate members of a group.

There is much more I can share when I get home and can look at my notes.

 

This is going to sound crazy but my dragons are just big, fire-breathing reptiles. They’re animalistic and exceptionally rare - legendary, even. In fact, they might have died out a while ago.
They are also of demonic origin, with the original dragons coming straight from the netherworld.

 

Dragons get complicated in the universe of the Sister Continents. The “First Dragons” are multi-dimensional beings described as large enough to blot out the sun, a dozen of them nose to tail would circle the world in orbit, some have wings, others don’t, so in a sense they are a bit more asian than the classic western dragon. They are attracted to surges in the Elemental energies which they use to reproduce, but every generation of dragon devolves, and that’s where dragons become their own reference book, heh heh.

 

All of them. Okay, maybe not so much all of them, but many of the fictional types of dragons exist. All under the same type and connected in a way, mostly known for the standard six limb set up but even that get's turned around. But they can all be traced back to the Salamanders of old. They are also kind of based on the genetic sort of profile of the synapsids, making them a sort of magical mammal like reptile. And as they come in all sorts and varieties they are found in all biomes. From wyrms to golden dragons and little bitty fairy dragons. They can grow huge and are often seen in the D&D color schemes and then some (and more if a drow get's a hold of a bunch of paint and a sleeping one).

They can be very ambitious but it tends to end with them dead and barbecued. The ones that go places channel their ambitions in different ways. Which is why one dragon owns the largest beer business in the world and another has an entire merchant empire built on tea. Other dragons just hide out or go disguised, pay their taxes like normal citizens and don't raise too much fuss because the older races can always eat them.

 

In Yeola, for the most part, dragons are cute and cuddly, and make pretty ideal pets!

They're partial to fruit.

 

Oo, nice. I like big dragons, too!

Over on another forum I described the take-off of a dragon with a 20K km wingspan / 44M sqkm wing area. Blotting out the Sun was the least of people's problems -- there just wasn't much left of the planet after she took off and flew away! I don't think she would count as either oriental or occidental, though.

 

Yeah, the First Dragons are something other, not really Earth-myth. Their descendants, on the other hand, become something we would recognize as dragons from Earth mythology around the world, as well as other things.

 

If people want overpowered Dragons, I wrote some that are gods above gods. We all know how some dragons like to horde. There are some that found the powers of "The One" worth stealing. Too bad they stole the God of gods powers with no instruction manual to go with it. Makes for a fun story that the proverbially ameba got their hands on advanced technology with no chance on how to use it.

This goes with the vast history of dragons I made only to kill them all before writing the first book.

 

I'm not yet entirely decided if I will actually include dragons at all. But I think they make a very good physical manifestations of the lesser regional nature gods that are spread all over the world. So they would very much more like long than dragons.

 

If I do include dragons, it will be as they are portrayed in Christianity: as agents of Devil. Essentially, they will be physical incarnations of demons. I am thinking about maybe including "natural" dragons too, though - on verge of extinction due to being confused with their demonic counterparts and hunted down.

 

My dragons are somewhere between cats in behavior and reptiles. They are a fairly classic western style with ear fins that allow enhanced hearing, sharp spines along their back, horns, a snout horn, claws, fangs, and all that goodness. Their difference is they are as intelligent as humans if not more so, they are immortal and die only if killed, they have scales that look like and are worth more than any gemstone (the dragonslayer race collect these), they dance between the line of the physical and magical, they aren't as magical as the fae who have pure magic and are in essence magic put to a physical form and they aren't as unmagical and physically-based as the giant race. They have naturally occurring magic armor as well as their scales being nearly uncuttable, they breathe fire or some sort of breath weapon and can learn magic. But their strongest ability is the ability to sway the visual center of the minds of other races. A human could look at a dragon and the dragon could convince the human he was seeing another human easily while a fae would be harder to trick it is certainly possible. They tend to trick those they are traveling with into seeing them as humanoid even if the people know they arent as in the words of one of my characters "People just do not look at you the same when you're a huge purple reptile with wings and horns that breathes fire instead of a young girl in a purple dress with black hair." The females in my books are more snake like and long enough to coil around males of equal age and very agile, while the males are muscular, lizard like and stronger.

 

I've made the Dragons in my world ancient beings created by the Lizard-kind race as siege weapons against the Elvens high walls.

 

Guess I've gone the opposite direction. Mine's old and wise, as well as fat. He lives in a castle in the sky and rarely visits the residents that live below him but mentors the orphans he's raised and still keeps an eye on. Yeah, that's one on the backburner that I need to get back to...

 

In the Sundered Spheres the eleven Great Drathons are mammalian, gigantic and vastly wise and astonishingly powerful. However every generation of their offspring devolves, so that a fourth generation dragon might be half the size and unable to fly, while a tenth generation dragon has only animal intelligence and is scarcely larger than a horse. Some types breed true in their devolved state, some don’t and continue to devolve further into tiny dragon-like critters. The Eleven are immortal, but their ‘wolf-drake’ descendants live fifty years at most. It is tragic to those of dragon-kind, but especially to the Eleven who are too arrogant to admit weakness and so blame anyone but themselves, making them reclusive and a bit embarrassed to admit to parenting any of their children.