The Great Debate

Which one is the best and Superior

I've always liked drake style dragons, like Glaurung.

Amphiptere
because they're the only ones that consistently give a damn about the people around them instead of wanting to be left alone or just mindless beasts.

All of the above.

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Your picture is shit. Not only are lindwurm and wyrm misspelled, but anyone who knows an iota of Norse mythology could tell you that a lindwurm or linnorm looks like what the picture calls a wyrm.

You shouldn't get your classifications from fourth-tier fantasy series.

It needs a barb or stinger on its tail to be a wyvern.

Slime dragon!

Get out of here, slugfucker.

Perhaps I could change your mind, little girl?

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All of those are arbitrary, meaningless categories, because until a handful of fantasy writers convinced their autistic fanbase to enforce purity in dragon classifications, all of those terms were used interchangably to refer to all forms of dragons.

Wyverns are stupid

That drake looks more like a dog than a lizard. I hate people who draw mammals instead of lizards.

I agree, brute wyvern > fanged beast.

pssst...so do all of them

The one that doesn't want to eat you or use you as a pawn in their games of power.

Agreed. Though the "Wyvern" is my favorite if the dragon is just a savage beast.

Amphiptere. Flying snakes are dope as hell.

Daenerys picks wyverns so I pick wyverns

But user this is a lindwurm

Dragons!

Dragons and Wyrms are cool. Drakes are normally cool, but not in that picture.

The thing is, that guy is wrong, as pedants usually are. Linnorms in Scandinavian mythology weren't consistently imagined as the same thing. Sometimes they had no legs and no wings, sometimes they had two legs and no wings, sometimes they had no legs and wings, and sometimes they had two legs and wings.

That lindwurm is wrong.
Why even try to diverse dragons from other dragons?

I love plague of gripes, but this is the one thing where he's being am absolute faggot about.

>tfw cant take dragons too seriously because in my native language they are calledd "Salmon snakes"

Oh man, imagine the posibilties for salmon steaks, if you had 3 meter long salmon snakes..

>Lindwurm is misspelled

No its not. Its german so yes this is the correct spelling.
Also a Lindwurm can look like pretty much whatever, pic related he looks like a normal dragon in that depiction.

What you are referign to with the piture titled "Wyrm" is a Tatzelwurm which isnt even a dragon per se but only a related creature from the Alps

>>Lindwurm is misspelled
>No its not.
I wouldn't call it misspelled. I'd say "lindwrum" is an entirely different fucking word

Fuck, that'd be pretty amazing.

Gotta watch out for dire bears though, I bet they'd prey on salmon snakes - at least the juveniles

Actually it's supposed to be crag/rock/mountain snake, but linguistic mutation fucked that up at some point.

>Lohi, Louhi, Louhikko
Yeah i can see where this is coming from. Still, will always make me think of a giant snake like fire breathing salmon.

I imagine giant salmon-headed snake that constantly oozes venom off its slimy body, and that's pretty metal.

I unironically go with monster hunter's identifications
>Wyvern -> 4 limbs, winged
>Brute wyvern -> 4 limbs, punches and charges, flightless
>Elder dragon -> 6 limbs, rare af, latent power kept them alive for so long, often only one still survives

That series got so many things right
Like gore magala (zombie dragon, later revealed to be an older dragon) being unable to die and rather just reanimating and running away after the fight

That and the fact the weapons made from the half evolved specimen suck until you contract and beat the zombie virus

The three on the left are all dragons. None of them is a wyvern as a Wyvern has a venomous stinger.

Holy shit this explains SO MUCH. There was a card called 'Loki' in the old ccg Wyvern, and it was literally just a flying, giant fucking salmon-snake. I can't find a picture of it anywhere, but oh my god. I was so confused as a kid.

lol

>because until a handful of fantasy writers convinced their autistic fanbase
Not that it is a big difference, but some of these distinctions have much deeper historical roots. The infamous Wyvern vs Dragon thing, in particular, is a heraldry classification invention from England dating back to 16th century or so.

It is still completely arbitrary and there is no reason to take it seriously UNLESS you are actually a heraldrist yourself. But it does have a bit more root to it.

>Drake styled dragons.

Mein negger.

Reminder that the non-dragons are an abomination that should be cleansed on sight and part of why our race was considered unintelligent brutes for centuries because some fuckers couldn't keep it in their pants when they saw a snake or a crocodile or a lizard.

Fucking dragon posters.

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Where Eastern dragon and mulit head like hydra
or Tiamat fit into?

Wyrm is best, because of their immense size

Feathered dragons make more since birds are just Dinosaurs

FUCK OFF autist. I guess it's wrong to give different names to lions/tigers/and jaguars because they are all panthera. Go fuck yourselves

I just realized. Tons of people sexualize dragons and I never got it (aside from the obvious reasons) because I own reptiles. There's one thing every portrayal leaves out: reptiles are all flabby squshy-bodied dorks, not toned hard-scaled bad-asses.

That was my point user

But Daenarys is shit. She will even lose a dragon for her idiocy.

Using your pic terminology:
> Wyvern and drakes for straightforward powerful beasts
> Wyrm for when I need his passing to cleanse the world. Also gorilla warfare
> Dragon and Lindwrum for powerful cleverly twisted monsters
> Amphiptere for more mystical draconic beasts

Shaggy Maggy is my favorite punching bag

Mine's the raths
As long as you can count to 6 you can bully them with hammer

Copypasta from /v/ because somehow it was the more reasonable board for a change:

>Daily reminder that the "strict" distinction between Dragon and Wyvern comes from 16th century English HERALDIC NOMENCLATURE, is purely arbitrary and exists specifically and exclusively for the purpose of clarity in verbal descriptions of noble house crests. Heraldic nomenclature, as anyone who ever studied historiography will know, is legendary for it's complex and extremely arbitrary nomenclature laws.

>Historically and mythologically, it has very little or no funding. Wyvern comes most likely from Old French Guivre and further from latin Vipera (snake), while the word Dragon comes through latin from greek: drák?n meaning (a giant) snake. So really, etymologically they are just two different historical paths to the same semiotic class. As for their visual attributes and qualities... anyone who EVER looked into history of depiction of either will know that there is absolutely NO unity between various depictions of dragons and related creatures across the entire European history and space: they vary in numbers of legs, wings (actually presence of wings is not in any way conditional), size, even fucking number of heads: the only thing they all share together is a snake-like qualities.

>So really: debating whenever wyverns are type of dragon or not, or if they are defined by a number of appendages is fucking retarded. They are semiotically nearly identical concepts of great mythological snake-like creatures usually representing chaos, evil, vices, but occasionally (especially among non-christian societies) also nobility and power.

>In modern fantasy, the arbitrary distinction based on number of limbs from english heraldry has been copied into some popular fantasy table-top rulesets, and that is where it got popular among the wide public. But it really is just an arbitrary adoption of an already arbitrary distinction to begin with, and it really plays no semiotic relevance.

I'd also like to add that "drake" comes from the same source as "dragon" and that "wyrm" likewise means "snake". Meanwhile "lindworm" and "amphiptere" are also originally heraldic distinctions.

They're all dragons. Really, the only thing that's actually lacking here is a specific term for four-legged winged dragons.

>Old French Guivre
To illustrate your point: in French, mtg wyrm cards are translated "guivre". Despite "guivre" being a variant of "Vouivre" also called wyverne.

>No its not. Its german so yes this is the correct spelling.
>being this retarded
user, the pic says "lindwrum". Wrum.

Hey, that is my fucking post. This kinda makes my day.

Well, just to be completely specific, "dragon", "drake" etc... come from greek drákōn which we never see used in reference to real snakes, but rather seems to have always meant "mythological snake like creature". There is a theory that it comes from the greek words dérkomai: "to see with clarity".
Wyvern comes from latin Vipera, which comes from vivi-pera: "to give live birth", refering to the fact that most poisonous snakes don't lay eggs, but rather birth live small younglings. It's reasonable to assume that originally it was vivipera anguem/serpens, "live-birthing snake", where the second half was eventually dropped to save time.

At the same time, wurm and lindworm come from old german and from old proto-indian wrmi (worm or wiggling, swirling creature - seemed to include snakes too).
So the etymological history is pretty widely disparate. It's actually pretty curious that the three end up refering to so similar set of symbolic attributes and general associations.

There is no best, just different flavours of awesome. Favourites differ from person to person.

>I-Its stupid to differentiate pythons from cobras because they are all snakes!

>Daily reminder that the "strict" distinction between Dragon and Wyvern comes from 16th century English HERALDIC NOMENCLATURE, is purely arbitrary and exists specifically and exclusively for the purpose of clarity in verbal descriptions of noble house crests.
This. The fact that a hand and a fist are two different things in heraldry doesn't mean they're separate and unrelated in real life.

>Meanwhile "lindworm" and "amphiptere" are also originally heraldic distinctions.
I don't think this is true actually, the linnorm appears in Norse mythology before heraldry appears on the continent AFAIK.

You really aren't very smart, are you?
Here is a pro-tip: snakes and pythons are biological categories for empirical differences between creatures that can be empirically studied.

Dragons and Wyverns are symbolic categories for abstract concepts that can't be studied in en empirical fashion and to which biological laws have no fucking relevance.

Pay attention, that's not what they're saying.
They're saying it's stupid to not call a wyvern a dragon, simply because it doesn't have the "required number of limbs" which isn't really a thing in medieval folklore.
So to compare it to your analogy it'd be like saying
>Pythons aren't snakes because they're not Cobras!

It's more like trying to differentiate snakes from serpents, under the belief that serpents possess a specific kind of scale that makes them different

That's a good point, actually. If we really want to get to the bottom of this we'd have to see what kind of creature was originally described as a linnorm and if it was the same as what was later codified as a lindworm in heraldry. I suspect the original meaning may have been less specific, similar to "wyrm," but I must admit I don't know.

In my setting dragonkind can be studied empirically faggot.
Nobody who distinguishes between wyverns and dragons give a single shit about medieval heraldry you fucking nerd

>Nobody who distinguishes between wyverns and dragons give a single shit about medieval heraldry you fucking nerd
And none of them are right

I'd say the only people who have any objective basis for distinguishing between wyverns and dragons are people who give a shit about medieval heraldry.

>In my setting dragonkind can be studied empirically faggot.
Nobody gives two flying fucks about your faggy settings, kid. Seriously, nobody. I can assure you that not even the few poor souls you roped in to suffer within it.

>my setting
We're not talking about your specific fantasy setting you dumb goof.
Also
>you fucking nerd
Where do you think we are?

>Differing number of limbs is the same thing as different scales

>Why are you guys distinguishing between vampires and zombies they are all undead!

That's not the point, the point is that you can't just claim that a wyvern isn't a dragon simply because it lacks features this other dragon has.
In this case, have a different number of limbs doesn't stop a wyvern from being a dragon. In the same sense that having different shaped scales doesn't stop a python from being a snake.

Again man, that's not what's going on here.

Only dragons with 2 wings and 4 limbs could be considered true dragons. Others are lesser beings, unworthy of this title.
They are still related to dragons, so are automatically infinitely higher than any non-dragons.

Why can't you? So by your rules you can't claim that a vampire and a zombie are different since they are both undead. Nor can you differentiate between a gryphon and a hippogryph
I don't believe you nerd

Different shaped scales is nowhere near the same thing as number of limbs. Are you fucking retarded?

Can you tell me what a wyvern and a dragon both are?

I hope all three dragons and her life.

Maybe she gets eaten by them.

They don't exist but in most pop culture dragons a 4 legged and wyverns are 2 legged with wings just like in most pop culture vampires are blood sucking creatures that die to sunlight regardless of the original myth.

Those are also real animals. That exist. In real life.

That doesn't answer my question. Vampires and zombies are both undead. Dragons and wyverns are both what?

Reptilian monsters

Do we have a word for those?

Except in the ones where they don't

We had an entire discussion about this, you know why you can't just claim that. These aren't real animals, you can't make statements based on emprirical evidense that doesn't exist.
Also, you not believing me about what I'm trying to say is your problem, not mine.
>again with the nerd flinging
Why are you so upset by the idea of wyverns still being dragons?

Draconids.

Does anything besides The Witchr use this?

You are right they aren't a real. So I don't want to hear you complaining when dwarfs are slender, beautiful 7 foot tall magically adept beings and elves are 2 foot tall bearded beings that live underground and love gold and beer.

Google tells me it's also the name of a cyclical meteor shower near the Draco constellation, and a race dragon type pokemon trainers who live in a meteor shower prone region.

Technically speaking, dwarves are rooted in norse elf mythology. They weren't very short and were indeed extremely good with magic.

Stop dragon genocide, the wyvern uprising is real!

Yeah, weren't they synonymous with "dark elves" originally?

so dragons can have 0-4 legs and 2+ wings but all dragons with two legs are wyverns got it. I wish people had never learned the word wyvern

Still mad about The Hobbit. Tolkien explicitly distinguished between dragons and wyverns. You had one job, Peter.

On the other hand Tolkien used dragon, wyrm, and drake interchangeably.

What is wrong with the heraldic version of a seahorse? It's obviously not supposed to be the fish that exists in real life.

I used to love classic dragons the most, but lately, I've fallen in love with wyverns. The limb structure makes a little more sense to me, they're like big nasty pterosaurs. It's really the way that they walk that I love. Dragons stride regally or gallop, wyverns have a monstrous waddling crawl. It's much more intimidating in my opinion. Dragons are more majestic and impressive with heads held high, but wyverns have that snake like neck whipping around at human level which is much scarier.

What do you call dragons with eight legs, two heads, two crowns and eleven eyes?