All Wyverns are dragons, but not all dragons are Wyverns

They are both are Feline

Wyverns are the common offspring between polymorphed Dragons and mortals, born of a carnal union with no love(such as the usual rape reserved for virgin snackrifices). If the mother is a mortal it's a lethal single baby pregnancy, much harder to abort thanks to the resilent draconic blood. If the mother is a Dragon, she is likely to spawn a dozen or more eggs and release them into the wilderness to act as mindless predators. Much more rarely, this sort of union will give birth to a half-dragon, or even a member of the non-dragon species with a sliver of draconic power in them.

Wyverns are a subfamily of the dragon family. How many subfamilies exist?

Sorry, I had a point there but I fucked it up. "Draco Nobilis" (classic smart dragons) are to Wyverns, etc etc.

>Smaug is described as a 4 legged and 2 winged dragon
>Even Tolkien's drawings depict him as that
>"nah, nowhere says smaug has 6 limbs, also 6 limbed dragons are unrealistic"
Fuck Hackson

Of course.
Isn't this how it's always done?

Draco Europeanis, the four legged two wings version
smart dragons are rather recent, not classical at all

As many as the setting demands. Actually that would be a great setup for the "Dragon Simulator RPG" someone on here kicks around every so often.

Yes they are but a tiger is a tiger a Dragon is a Dragon a drake or a wyvern is not a Dragon it's a draconic subspecies with its own name and characteristics, but a wyvern should not be called a Dragon anymore than a house cat should be called a tiger..

Draco Interra
Draco Musculebrum
Draco Anguis
Draco Regium

sunday afternoon with nothing to do

What if "Dragon" was the genus, though? What if the classic four-limbed+two wings breed was a species under the heading of Dragon?

See:

What about the Asian Dragons? You know the ones, they have four legs and are really long.

What about winged serpents? Think Quetzalcoatl.

Anything else is stupid.
Dragon is such a broad term. Nobody is going to look at OP's pick and not yell DRAGON!

oh boi

What is a dragon with wings but no legs called? Where do feathered serpents stand?

>Where do feathered serpents stand?
They don't. No legs.

>Draco ouroboridae

I like this.

kek

Draco Regium Rex "The Dragon King" aka The meanest motherfucker on the neighborhood

You are technically correct, the best kind of correct.

If a fucking snake with antlers and a fumanchu counts as a dragon, a wyvern does too.

Then what would the classic western Dragon be called? The genus remains unnamed and to be agreed upon, but when people hear Dragon most don't think of the other Dragon like species do they.

They should use the name they are given in there original cultures Chinese dragons could be the long subspecies for example.

Quetzalcoatl was a god, not a species.

>Draco Long
I dig.

Dragon dragon (Dracus dracus in latin). This happens all the time.

We would call it Europeanis.
A European dragon.
>most don't think of the other species
most that play DnD or want to act smart on the internet
most people indeed think of something like movie Smaug with a dragon

Wyverns are european too.

Europe has all kinda dragons m8.

I know, I just hate it when people call a wyvern a Dragon, it rustles my jimmies

dragons aren't real so you can call them whatever you want this argument is silly and pointless

>implying Quetzalcoatl, Qu'kumatz and Kukulkan aren't the triune god-progenitors of a race of plumed serpents in this setting
>implying the same can't be said of Nidhogg or Jormungand and the linnorms of the North, et cetera for each region through which you pass

Yes, but there were other feathered serpents.

I mean, I don't like that argument because I would get annoyed if I saw a unicorn referred to as a centaur, but "true" dragons having a specific body shape is based on nothing substantial though.
You don't need a justification for calling wyverns dragons, you need a justification for why they're not.

>You don't need a justification for calling wyverns dragons, you need a justification for why they're not.
I don't know, man. It's like calling a lion a cat. It's technically correct but at the same time it's not.

Because it is unnecessarily confusing for those of us who like things explained with more than 'its magic lol"

why?
at what point was a wyvern ever canonized as a non-dragon being?
Dragon was never a species. A dragon is serpentine monster, that's all the word means.

Draco Regium
Draco Regium Rex
Draco Regium Ignis
Draco Regium Frigidum
Draco Regium Ferrus
Draco Regium Aes

that's because cats and tigers are real and there are rules for what things are and aren't

fictional creatures don't have rules for what they are and aren't

No. I've always seen wyverns as simply sharing a common ancestor. Like a fox compared to a wolf.

so, they belong to the same family then? what would that family be called?

Wyverns are a draconic subspecies but dragons are a very specific thing

At least that's how it works in my setting, because there's no objective definition of 'wyvern'

The dragon familiy?
draconian family?

That's what everyone but the wyvern lover has been saying

Well, if you want modern taxonomy, they'd be either dracidae (the dracines) or draconidae (the draconines).

What are you talking about? How is that confusing?
I'll tell you what's confusing. Coming face to face with a dragon that's consistently referred to as a hydra, wyvern or sheonlong and then hearing that there's dragons in the setting and it's creatures that are totally different from the dragon you've been interacting with.

I'm fine with wyverns being a lesser genus of dragon, closely related enough to basically be simply called a dragon by the untrained.

They can even have the same magical traits or habits as true dragons (even their classification is dragon).

The distinction should only really be made by trained adventurers or scholars and the significance is only really in the severity of the threat. They basically do the same thing but one is a much bigger deal.

What if they are both dragons but called different things.

Like Pike and Salmon are both types of fish.

Draco Verum (true dragons) and Draco Wyvern (Wyvern)

It rustles your jimmies when people say something correct?

Read the thread and see why you are wrong as explained by a dozen different people.

A hydra, a wyvern and a Dragon look completely different that's why they have different names, how can you not get this?

If they are true dragons why not just call them dragons and use a different name for the genus?

I think what he's suggesting is that the word "dragon" doesn't actually refer to any specific creature, but is rather a collective term for such things.

The only thing that makes something a dragon is that it's a serpentine monster. That's it.
The first myths with dragons jsut had giant limbless snakes.
This DnD classification is pissing me off, especially since people are pretending there's any sort of universality to it.
Because then the others wouldn't be called dragons when they obviously are.

I'm ok with it. In low-magic settings where you want a dragon that is more biologically plausible, you kind of have to go with a wyvern body plan.

I've been watching a lot of documentaries on the explosion of lineages from the Reptiles lately. Pteranodons were reptilian(ish), but with many dinosaurian features and their own unique way of flying. Dinosaurs of course eventually became birds. And then you have mammals, with their own biology. Each lineage seems to have its own approach towards child-rearing, thermoregulation, and respiration. IE very basic biological differences.

So to me, dragons are a fourth lineage. Breathing is like a bird/dinosaur: lungs and air sacs. They're mostly cold-blooded quadrupeds, like reptiles, but are capable of a degree of thermoregulation via a "heat gland" that drastically ups their metabolism for brief periods. They take off like pterasaurs (vaulting off their front legs/wings) via their heat glands and then mostly soar. They can also spit fire (again using their heat glands and an enzyme that they spray like napalm). Fighting, especially on the ground, often consumes Heat as well. Membranes in the muscular, fibrous wings can fill with fluid as another part of the thermoregulation system; it keeps them from overheating from spending Heat but also warms them via the sun.

So the default classical dragon is a wyvern: a 300lb+ soaring predator who spits fire on large herbivores from above and then glides safely while the animal burns to death. Then it feeds (gradually regaining Heat), before taking off again. Wyverns live and rear their young (from eggs, of course) in eyries: caves in cliffs or mountains. Availability, territoriality, and mate competition over the best decorated eyries is a major limiting factor on the species. From such a height, they can take off without spending Heat. Mate competition and territoriality lead to intelligence.

(cont)

It works fine as headcanon for a campaign, so long as you recognize that in reality the number of limbs doesn't matter and don't go around sperging off at other people about how only four limbed dragons are DA REAAAALLLL ones.

Other dragons exist. Four-legged flightless dragons, sea dragons, wyrms. Each have advantages and disadvantages, all are smart for animals but none are intelligent. Some have alternate uses for their heat glands. Each bodyplan has dozens of species.

General Dragon biology is a weird in-between case that splits the difference between avians and reptiles. Ideally, you get the metabolic parsimony of a reptile but the ability to heat themselves up in emergencies and temporarily get bursts of mammal-like performance. Ideally. In fact, as any experienced hunter knows, a dragon needs more food than a reptile and is easily worn out if you can enrage it and force it to spend itself out of Heat. Wyverns have this problem in spades because their eyries tend to be very cold. And then there's obviously the same problem that plagued the terror birds: protecting the vulnerable eggs.

So dragons are dangerous and powerful and have their niche, but they don't really replace existing animals. Which IMO is exactly what I want in a fantasy setting.

>WYVERN!
>What?
>Wyvern?
>What's that?
>It's a big flying lizard that has two wings and two legs...
>Like a dragon?
>No!... Well, yeah, but there's taxonomical...
>Why didn't you just say dragon?
>Because it's different!
>But what coul- Wait, why did yell "wyvern" in the first place?
>Because it's attacking the town!
>THEN JUST YELL DRAGON!
>IT'S NOT THE SAME!
>NO ONE KNOWS WHAT A FUCKING "WYVERN" IS!
>IT DOESN'T HAVE FOUR LEGS!
>LEGS DON'T MATTER WHEN IT HAS TEETH AND CLAWS!

Wyvern is a dracus guivernus. He is, by definition, a dragon. He's not a dracus dracus though.

>The only thing that makes something a dragon is that it's a serpentine monster. That's it.
The first myths with dragons jsut had giant limbless snakes.

Oh shit it's a Dragon slay it before it burns down the village...

Meanings change over time, the old gets replaced by the new and on modern usage a Dragon is a 4 legged winged firebreathing lizard, you small piece of firewood.

For example?

>In the aftermath of a dragon attack, dragonslayers arriving at the scene noted that is was quite typical of a dragon attack.
>Atypically it was noted that the words, "TWO LEGS," were written on the side of a building, apparently in the writer's own blood.
>It has become known as the most perplexing and perhaps most unhelpful final words ever scrawled in someone's death throes.

If you are interested in fantasy at all you should know the difference between them and if you are not it wouldn't come up.

Except it's not the modern usage. It's the usage by some D&D nerds. Not even all of them, I'll grant you that your wyvernfaggotry would not be welcome in any table I've played in.

>If you are interested in an american bad product that completely raped fantasy

I think you're overestimating how many people are using this "modern usage"
it's really just some people trying to seem smart on the internet
You're not arguing for using "who" where "whom" was once the only correct word, you're arguing for "whomst've'd"

Or most depictions since Tolkien some 70 years ago.

No; I prefer having wyvern being somewhat more distant to the draconic family, not completely unrelated, but enough to drae a line like we do between birds and reptiles.

Still doesn't make the other 30% not dragons. Nobody was sperging about dragonballs being actually longballs. The wyvern shit is exactly the same.

>It's really just some people trying to seem smart on the internet

Well yes, we are the only people likely to care about such things.

Most people in this thread agree that wyverns are dragons.

Since dragons (unlike let's say owlbears) belong to common knowledge and imaginarium, the opinion of a minority of internet nerds is not the relevant one. If we were talking about let's say Beholders it might ne different.

I just hope my Sword of Dragonslaying isn't as pedantic as you fucks.

Yeah and latkes are NOT fucking hash browns.

Google Dragon, what do you get? Not pictures of wyverns, there is a reason for that.

If none knows what's a wyvern how did the first guy yelled "wyvern"?
if the wyvern and the dragon had no sensible differences why did people came up with different denominations?

seems more like the second guy is trying to justify ignorance instead of overcoming it.

He was a pedantic nerd.

I googled wyvern instead

I do actually.
And I use duckduckgo, so it's not personalized

>Google Bird, what do you get? Not pictures of ostriches, there is a reason for that.

...

In fairness, the specific context was just the popularity of the respective body types
when I say "hey a bird" you DO look up
he's still wrong though

I don't know, can you suggest a genetic lineage that would support your claim?

Along with images like these
they're all dragons

We never tried to oppose that classic four leged dragons are one of the most common and popular depictions of dragons. I don't think anybody tried to.

You do know where you are right?Good so you know that it is called a wyvern not a Dragon.

I like Monster Hunter's classification

Elder Dragons range from the atypical dragon with 6 limbs to things like Nakarkos which is basically a necromancer cuttlefish

Brute Wyverns range from things like Tigrex to Glavenus and Astalos

Wyverns includ Rathian/Rathos

Bird Wyverns include monsters like Malfestio and the Drome/-aggi family

Yeah, that's how words work
things have specific names, while still falling under broader category
dragon is a broad category

>on modern usage a Dragon is a 4 legged winged firebreathing lizard

No, that's the usage by a select cabal of TTRPG nerds.

To everyone else a dragon is just a giant fire-breathing lizard, the number of limbs involved being meaningless. That's the modern usage of the term.

But hey, feel free to go argue with some normie about how the Zodiac dragon isn't a dragon because it doesn't have wings. That should be an excellent lesson for everyone in the vicinity on the adversities of autism.

A wyvern is, literally, a dragon. Specifically a dragon with two legs and a barbed tail.

So what do you call the classic Dragon when you want to differentiate between it and other types, bear in mind y'all like to call all the Dragon types by the same name.

>To everyone else a dragon is just a giant fire-breathing lizard
Is a giant dragon-looking lizard that doesn't breath fire a dragon?