Where did the tradition of dragons coming in chromatic and metallic varieties originally come from, before it was a D&D thing? Was it just made up for D&D or did it take inspiration from something else that came before? And how was it decided that chromatics are evil and metallics are good?
Also general dragon discussion too I guess
I'm pretty sure dragonlance started this
I don't know much about the Dragonlance setting, but I have to guess from the name that dragons were important, probably as much or moreso than lances. Could you elaborate on their role in the setting- were they "just" dragons or did they have a special place in the lore?
don't mind me, just posting some gifs, also, if anyone has more of these, please share.
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I don't have any pictures, just a link to the old Periodic Table of Dragons project I remember helping with on Veeky Forums long time ago.
It started with Original D&D. Gold dragons were basically Chinese dragons and the only Lawful-aligned dragons.
Someone who understands physics, does this check out? (Assuming the dragon has very light bones and maybe a buoyant gas-sac)
Seconding this question. Though I am pretty sure that the *red* one is *not* quite right; the "fingers" should be coming closer together on the upswing to reduce the surface area.
>Brass
Ugly jewnose. Begone.
>Copper
Friendly, admirable, sort of cute in a punk sort of way.
>Bronze
Basic bitch, can't go wrong.
>Silver
Violatable fuccboi.
>Gold
It's like trying to fuck a paladin. Good luck asshole.
>White
Ever fucked a canvas before?
>Black
HNNNGGG
>Green
If you didn't have that big stupid horn on your face you'd be kind of cute.
>Blue
Slip in and out, fuckin' smootscale shadow the hedgehog faced motherfucker
>Red
Fuck no just look at that thing.
I don't into aerodynamics much but my guess as a layman is that upward thrust is disproportionately distributed between the front end and the middle/back end, which could cause the dragon to tend towards a nose-dive instead of flying straight. That said, maybe it can be compensated for with the positioning of the head?
Green dragon is basically a gator with a horn, which I guess fits. Bronze is the cooler looking aquatic dragon. IDK what the fuck happened to Brass, looks like he headbutted the side of a mountain a few too many times.
There's nothing wrong with Red and Blue, nothing at all.
I do not think that is the point of the chart.
So who is your favorite dragon, lads?
Red dragons (as destructive monsters ala Smaug) and gold dragons (as holy beasts ala basically any good dragon in any JRPG ever) are overplayed cliches. Can anyone suggest some non-D&D fiction that has dragons that don't fall into those cookie-cutter archetypes/colors?
What's the point if not to rate their fuckability?
Dragons having different colors predates D&D, but ascribing different attributes to the different colors originates from D&D.
Inb4 hammerspace autism
According to 500 year old story Journey to the West, there's a Chinese idiom that "a dragon will produce nine offspring, and each is different from the others". I dunno what exactly it's supposed to be talking about but I don't think it's literally talking about dragons. Perhaps some kind of metaphor about one's will or something. However, Journey to the West takes it at face value and uses it as an explanation for an evil dragon in an otherwise law-abiding dragon family. I guess there's a bunch of different colours of dragon-siblings mentioned:
"How many sons did your sister have?" asked Pilgrim [Sun Wukong, monkey king]. "Are they all monsters somewhere?" The Dragon King said, "My sister has nine sons altogether, but eight of them are good ones. The first, Little Yellow Dragon, lives in the Huai River; the second, Little Black Dragon, lives in the Ji River; the third, Blue-Backed Dragon, lives in the Yangzi River; the fourth, Red-Whiskered Dragon, lives in the Yellow River; the fifth, Futile Dragon, strikes the bell for the Buddhist Patriarch; the sixth, Reclining-Beast Dragon, guards the roof beam in the palace of the Daoist Patriarch; the seventh, Reverent Dragon, guards the imperial commemorative arches for the Jade Emperor; and the eighth, Sea-Serpent Dragon, remains at the palace of my elder brother and guards the Taiyue Mountain of Shanxi Province. The ninth son is the Iguana Dragon; because of his youth and lack of official appointment, he was told last year to live in the Black River to nourish his nature. When he acquired a name, I would have transferred him to another post."
So it describes dragons in a variety of places, and some serving different religious leaders, and further distinguishes them by colour or other attribute, but it seems like the colour's more of a nickname or appellation. Anyways they're just mentioned in passing and I do love bringing up legends etc.
>buoyant gas-sac
Where the idea that this might help dragons fly has come from?
There isn't a single animal that can float in the air using gas.
Ember. She's a cutie
I mean, I GUESS that must be one of the resonant eigenmodes, and since the wings are so stupidly long, then yeah, at low flapping frequency you'd still be able to see it.
Hydrogen is both highly flammable and highly buoyant in earth's atmosphere. It doesn't take a top notch writer to put the two together when attempting to make dragons more "realistic".
That said theropods have used air filled structures in their bones to reduce weight/ improve endurance for millennia, eventually allowing them to develop flight. Its not the lighter than air gas bladders you may be thinking off but a dragon using gas bladders to aid flight isn't that far fetched.
The whole "Hurr durr different colors means different traits" thing has always activated my autism, even since I was in elementary school, reading this old D&D book about dragons.
I mean, that's just autistic. That's for autistic people. Autists like anime because their large, emotive features are easy to digest and are hard to misinterpret. Same thing with dragons. I just want to have a red or black dragon, who breathes regular ol' fire (none of this "blue dragons breathe scalding water or ice or electric" shit or whatever the fuck it is that they breathe"), and I want that red or black dragon to just be, you know, a regular ol' dragon. He's smart, cunning, fierce, and powerful, but at the end of the day, he's just a creature, as majestic as he may be.
MAYBE the dragon can speak, but it's more like how a Yautja or a parrot speaks human language, in that they can just barely understand it enough to use it in a sort-of-right context and mimic human language without being able to invent any language of their own. Also, sometimes I like to make it so that the dragon can actually enunciate quite clearly, and even imitate the voices of people you know, which makes it a little tense and creepy sometimes.
Anyways, I'm rambling and I've stopped making a lot of sense, but my point is
>Don't be autistic
>Dragons are just regular ol' creatures (just very majestic and intelligent ones), not some dumb color/autism spectrum thing
>Color should be based on logic, rather than, like, emotion or something (It's red because its diet, and also because it wants to attract mates or something. Or it's black because it blends in with the black mountains or whatever; not because it's evil, because that's retarded.)
And I know I didn't mention this, but I think this unironically, and screw the people who think otherwise:
>Dragons should have two bat-like wings and two legs. None of this "4 legs and two wings on its shoulders" bullshit.
Also, serpent dragons are cool.
>Dragons should have two bat-like wings and two legs.
Strictly speaking isn't that a wyvern? Completely different mythological beast. Then again heraldry isn't always consistent with its animal depictions.
Sounds like you like Wyverns.
Yeah, but the school of thought I subscribe to is the "all wyverns are dragons, but not all dragons are wyverns" sort of deal.
There's the ones with 4 legs and two shoulder wings, which I don't like for logic reasons. There're the serpent-like dragons a la Quetzalcoatl or Haku from Spirited Away (I like to portray them without wings, and just crawling along the floor like lizards, in the same way that legless lizards are not snakes but just legless lizards, wingless dragons are still dragons but wingless). Then there are the ones with no legs at all, with wings, which I find confusing and have not implemented into my settings at all, and finally, ones without any legs or any wings, and just slither around like giant snakes, but are still technically in the draconia family.
Don't give enough of a damn to fix spelling and punct. errors as well as pointless rambling.
>I mean, that's just autistic. That's for autistic people.
>"Hurr durr different colors means different traits" thing has always activated my autism
I do like wyverns.
I prefer them to dragons as much as Ben Franklin preferred to turkey to the bald eagle.
I bet you don't even drink a gallon of milk a day
If anything the black should be the gatordragon. Greens don't usually go in water.
I can agree with the part about certain colors being certain traits, especially when DM's try really hard to push the "NUHUH, A CHROMATIC DRAGON CANT BE A GOOD GUY NO MATTER WHAT" that shit makes my autism crazy.
That said, it sounds like you want to simplify them way too much, dragons are all varied and breath random shit like salty acidwater / lightning / fucking bugs I dont know, because they're magical, same for the speaking and all the shit they do. That's half the reason they're as big of a deal as they are, it'd be a lot more bland if the de-facto creature of DnD was just a big lizard that can talk like a parrot, they're literally overflowing fountains of magic and mana with all sorts of crazy shit
Practically every other setting has them be just lumbering, dumpy yet majestic lizards though, like monster hunter
also that's called a wyvern, we have a word for that exact thing, wyvern, you trumpetchoking dumpknuckle
Originally there were only 6, the chromatic dragons and the gold dragon which was more like the Asian dragon. They eventually came up with they metallic dragons, which I hate on the principle of good/evil symmetry.
That said I do like the imagery of the chromatic dragons, with strong colour associations and themed abilities. In the case of 5e,ive basically taken the more mechanically interesting metallics and painted them chromatic.
Also screw dragons being able to polymorph into humans, maybe as something unique to a dragon, but not all of them.
You're the trumpetchoking dumpknuckle, you ass-wrangling ass wrangler.
I guess my problem, in this case, is the age old "have you considered NOT playing D&D?" conundrum. I've only ever run and played homebrewed settings, so I'm a bit unfamiliar with the D&D style dragons except for that one really old book I had when I was a kid. In most settings I've run and played, I guess they were just regular old, you know, wyverns or something, and that's as dramatic as dragons ever got. Anything more just felt superfluous and World of Warcraft-y to me.
TL;DR
I grew up surrounded by people who considered wyverns to be the ideal form of dragon and now that I'm older, I agree with them.
What did you call me you yellow bellied snake-sucking guacamole bowl?
But yeah I do feel where you're coming from, I guess most all my other experience with dragons would be videogames where they're just big screamy lizards, so I can sort of appreciate the spin DnD puts on it.
I still think it's silly to not want four-legged winged boys to exist though, dumpy as they may be, more variety never hurts. Really do wish that wyverns got more representation in western settings / tabletops though, I always appreciate their much more bestial vibe
It was completely a D&D thing.
I can't get majesty off of the long-necked and winged reptile design that's everywhere. It's always going to make me think of a plaster statue holding a glass ball first and every painting of a little farty bog doggy trampled under St George's horse is cooler.
I prefer the quasi humanoid dragon
Kinda wish more ttrpg's used them
I like the bodyplan of stereotypical fantasy dragons, but it's the posture that is all fucked up. If they're quadrupeds, they should have a head that is generally in-line with their torso, not a weird overly bent upward pointed neck and forward-projected chest. It just doesn't look like the sort of traits that creature would need.
Why does a dragon need a long neck that does that? Do they eat things in trees? No, and if they did they would just fly, or knock the trees over or something (dragons). Do they need the neck for a high vantage point? No. Again, they fly. Firing angles for flames? Flying.
Snakey-ones aside, they should have a posture more like a lion, dog, wolf, big cat, crocodile, etc, etc.
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That horse has seen some serious shit...
quetalcoatl, in most descriptions, had no legs bud, just two wings. thats where fantasy gets its COATL from. and i've never seen a coatl with legs. you're screwed up on your terminology.
I think Dali's concept might be that the horse remembers across timelines The dragon still can't believe you've done this, and George is more into it than ever, but the horse is rolling his eyes with his whole identity.
>screw dragons being able to polymorph into humans
I'd rather screw a dragon who doesn't polymorph into a human.
>I've never seen a coatl with legs
Behold Flight Rising's snekderg.
Jeeeeesus Christ.
I think this might be art. I know this because it makes me feel a certain emotion; fear.
European dragons are not really differentiated by colour too much, but Asian dragons are, with gold ones being celestial gods
I only agree in the sense that I think dragons shouldn't be super intelligent and have spells.
But having white dragons breath cold, come from cold places, and have cold personalities is ez mode characterization and totally fine. I feel that a massive monster with thick armor hide, claws, and the breath weapon AND FLIGHT is more then enough though, massive modern fantasy dragons that can use a castle as a latrine aren't good for verisimilitude.
The best dragons are the ones that could be killed by a group of trained hunters, or maybe one demigod-like high level character. Not world enders like many modern fantasy dragons are. Keeps them more restrained and reasonable as foes and allies.
>Anyways, I'm rambling and I've stopped making a lot of sense
Yes, and you weren't making any sense in the first place.
Besides that your take on dragons is shit, as you revealed in a later post by growing up with people with a very limited and shitty take on dragons.
Dragons aren't just regular ol creatures. Some can be, but many aren't. They are inherently magical, they have to be in order to be the way they are. And they do follow logic, despite your ignorant autistic rambling, in that each color follows an elemental alignment, with each dragon expressing an affinity for a specific elemental damage type and associated coloration, with other symbolic associations being attached too.
>Also screw dragons being able to polymorph into humans, maybe as something unique to a dragon, but not all of them.
Thats strictly for metallics and only the more powerful ones, like silvers and golds. You know, the dragons which like to live among humans and which tend to affect humanity the most, sometimes by being leaders.
Besides, most of the fucks posting on here have never actually read up on the many, many dragons that have existed or exist in D&D. Pathfinders list of dragon type creatures is pretty extensive, and its inclusion of "Chinese" dragons (Imperials) in the True Dragon category is really nice.
All dragons are good, at least in bed.
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You're one of those autists I was talking about, user. This is just embarrassing for you, I sincerely hope you're kidding.
P.S.
Check these dubs
Well congratulations, you got yourself dubs.
Now what's the next step of your master plan?
Spamming this thread...WITH PICTURES OF WYVERNS
Just one because I'm sleepy
Dergons
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Consider: dragon flying with a squad of kobolds on their back, armed with crossbows and magic staves
Captcha: cumming mann
Does lewdanon post much anymore?
This does not check out. The dragon would either have to be aquatic or very small (as in, smaller than an ant) for this type of locomotion to work.
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Dargons, you nitwit
>buoyant gas-sac
Where the idea that this might help dragons spray fire has come from?
There isn't a single animal that can spray fire using gas.
Dragons polymorphing into humans comes primarily from eastern myths IIRC, and was often done by "good" dragons as a sort of test, and by "evil" dragons for trickery.
I think that a big problem with dragons is that world designs tend to define dragons into races which dampens the amount of diversity from the source material, especially in western myths where dragons very a lot more in form than the eastern myths. A build your own dragon system would be superior if a GM wanted to draw from more than one interpretation of what constitutes a dragon.
I personally prefer dragons to be a highly diverse race full of mutations that make each individual dragon unique in appearance and ability, even if they still follow the basic idea of flying death snake that guards treasure.
Oh, hell yes, to fuck with dragons having a taxonomy. They should all be one of a kind legendary travesties.
Black Dragons that are either essentially demons, or draconic witches? (In a setting where they are sentient, why can’t they sell their soul for infinite power?)
Also a pet idea of mine are feathered dragons from a new world type setting. Colorful ones in the jungles, and dull colored ones in the north. Also bald eagle dragon because freedom.
I’d say that the long neck is to act as a multidirectional nozzle for their fire breath. Gives them a lot more aim than if they had a shorter neck.
Wyverns are superior to dragons because dragon anatomy and physics is completely nonsensical and would never work
what a waste of quads
quads dont lie
Wyverns > Dragons
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>Pathfinders list of dragon type creatures is pretty extensive, and its inclusion of "Chinese" dragons (Imperials) in the True Dragon category is really nice.
Yeah, Pathfinder broadly divides dragons into "True Dragons" (your chromatics, metallics, etc) and "Dragons" (wyverns, wyrms, etc, basically everything else). And as far as True Dragons go, you've got
>Metallic
Same as always, generic good dragons that range from CG to LG depending on sort
>Chromatic
Again, same as always, evil dragons
>Primal Dragons
Dragons with a close connection to elemental planes, such that they are typically only found there, includes Crystal, Magma, and the terrifying Umbral dragons among others. Mostly but not always Chaotic.
>Imperial
The previously mentioned "Chinese" style dragons which are mostly found in Golarion's TotallyNotAsia continent, supposedly servants of cosmic balance and all represent either TN or an extreme alignment like LG or CE.
>Esoteric Dragons
Not much to go on lore-wise but they're all at least partially Neutral in alignment if not completely and hail from the Astral and Ethereal Planes and therefore associated with stuff like dreams and thought. Cast with Pathfinder's Psychic magic instead of Arcane magic.
>Outer Dragon
Similar to esoteric dragons in that there's little lore about them, these guys are still from the Material Plane but they live in/travel through outer space. Really cool concept and very cool looking, IMO, so the complete lack of lore is disappointing. Alignment is always Neutral on one or rarely both axis. They look pretty trippy, pic related.
It's sort of neat to have all these different kinds of dragons that reflect what happens to dragons after generations in other environments, but the shit-show that is lore for Pathfinder's official setting means it's handled pretty shallowly.
Why do dragons/kobolds end up being such fetishbait for so many people? Like, not even judging, just curious.
Well there seems to be a drive to make everything sexy. Plus monstergirls are trending. Dragons being THE fantasy creature, it’s a natural target to make sexy.
This is one of my favorite dragons. What do you think of them.
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youtube.com
Are reptilian Kaijus dragons? Or do they belong in their separate order?
Kaiju is really just a size category. A dragon can be a kaiju if it's big enough, but it will always be a dragon first.
>I haven't worked on the story I'm writing involving dragons in over a month
Fuck. Motivation is so hard to come by.
This
>wyvern
Projects strength with massive wings supported by shoulder and chest muscles; looks bestial on all fours crawling on folded wings
>six-limbed dragon
Looks like your dog in a halloween costume and wrecks its own spine trying to fly
When the dragon is that big I can't help but think it's just staring at the ship as it goes by the same way we'd stare at a squirrel running across the road because it's as good as anything else to stare at.
PF dragons are shit.
Is it so unfeasible that the wings on six limbed dragons are as muscled or close enough to the wings of wyverns? Or at least enough to fly (assuming they have lighter than air flammable gas in their guts to make them lighter than they should be)?
It's possible, sure, but the way they're usually depicted makes them look like they've been tacked onto an otherwise quadrupedal body frame.
In shadowrun, they, like most supernatural mosnters are hexopods. Shadowrun was a war between the Hexopods and the Spirits, and the Hexopods are currently winning (up until insect spirits happened, then all bets were off for everyone).
I think it depends on how much efforts put into the design. I’ve seen a few were the look like an extra pair of shoulders, and more that look just tacked on. I like the idea of ‘realistic’ dragons, as in ones that look like they could be real if magic muddies some physics, but I think it’s something most people don’t think of.
RYNN, WE MUST PART WAYS AGAIN SO YOU CAN HAVE SOME SEMBLANCE OF DIFFICULTY SINCE YOU'LL PROBABLY JUST CHEESE EVERY FIGHT WITH MY DRAGON BREATH
Kaiju are a separate thing, or at least I think of them as so. Obviously, in the end that would come down to individual settings. A fight between a Kaiju and a dragon would be interesting but probably favor the Kaiju, at least if we're talking Godzilla-style Kaiju versus D&D-style dragons.
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At least in PF, the answer would be Kaiju. Only a Mythic Wyrm Red Dragon approaches even close to the CR of notGodzilla.
That dragon has a nice butt.
Based Wyvern/Quads poster
> using songs of vengeance to awaken the beast
> wreaking havoc on enemies with radioactive breath and heavy metal
I kind of wish there was some sort of resource that let you generate random dragons like how old-school artifacts functioned.
My boi nizzy-mizzy, obviously
All the smarts, hunger for power, and air of superiority you love in dragons, without the gross "I'm an untouchable, 9,000,000,000,000,000,00,000 year-old god dragon who secretly planned every bad thing that's ever happened to you" flavor that Bolas oozes with every appearance.
Still better than the way Divinity 2 did it.
Godzilla is about 300-400 feet tall depending on the version and he's not even the largest kaiju. The largest dragons in DnD normally (obviously depends on the setting) are less than 100 feet long from head to tail, which probably means they barely clear 50 feet tall.
You are dealing with something around 8 times the vertical size of a dragon and then you consider the square-cube law. From size alone a Kaiju should be a match for dozens of dragons at the same time. Spells and spell like abilities could even the playing field though, Kaiju often have breath attacks and similar, but dragons often have real "do whatever the fuck you want" magic.
cringe
Autistic retards who cite realism for things they don't like but ignore it for things they don't like are fucking pathetic. Wyverns wouldn't work either, dumbfuck.