Dragons

Setting A:
>dragons are animals, superbly clever animals cabable of outsmarting most people but animals nonetheless
>absorb magic into their bodies, shed excess magic in the form of crystallized scales
>categorized into three groups;
>sundragons, that are stereotypical flying and firebreathing fuckers, use their wings as solar panels to bask in sunlight to get energy
>moondragons, xenomorphed drakes that fly to earth from the moon and back only to reproduce
>stardragons; eldritch fuckers, probably aliens or something, also invisible except when the stars are aligned right, may or may not shed blood that grants superhuman powers or even apotheosis and transcendence to mortals

Setting B:
>Skyrimmed dragons, sentient beings that had their own culture, language, writing and shit
>extinct, giants ate all their food, then their eggs and finally the dragons themselves

Setting C:
>Dark Soulsy dragons, immortal beings predating all other living sentient creatures
>vary drastically, some are furred, others scaled, feathered or just ''scaleless'', with some being small enough to fit in a pocket and the largest being the size of a mountain
>also vary immensly physically: some are limbless worms, others have four limbs (quadropeds), some have a set of wings, some more than one set of wings etc.
>completely sexless; when a dragon ''dies'', and turns to mist and is reborn later like a phoenix from a giant egg that forms from that mist centures later
>being creatures that never die nor are born naturally they are regarded as enemies of life, leading some to oppose them
>however being changeless and eternal they are also enemies of entropy. leading some to hunt them down in order to obtain their essence for immortality
>regarldess, any and everyone who has ever for whatever reason had feud with dragons always end up serving them
>in the end dragons always win

I have that too, but limit it to dragon wizards.

Though I do it for fetish.

Seismic breath. Does thunder damage and cracks the earth in a line if they are level with the ground or breaks the earth in a rounded shape if they are flying and angling it downward.

I like having many types of dragons, just like there are many types of crustaceans. The biggest line between interpretations of dragons is their intelligence, so I can have both options by making a storyline that dragons have degenerated over the years to double the amount of autistic categories I get to fill out. Then I can further fuck around with elemental breath types if necessary to add complexity.
Therefore:
>Huge, cunning dragons that walked upright in the distant past and guard oceans of treasures
>Small fiendish dragons who guard petty things like wells. They're the ones that are an even match for a human knight.
>Cool hydra
>Retard hydra
>Cool snake-like dragon
>retard snake-like dragon
>cool two-legged dragon
>retard two-legged dragon
>cool turtle dragon
>retard turtle dragon
>Fairy dragon that's literally just a giant pissed off goose.
>Fairy dragon that's literally moonlight butterfly
>etc. WIP obviously
Then after all those I throw out the categories and make an immortal, omnipotent and awful dragon who is getting lonely and desperate because no matter what he shapeshifts into he still cums pure lava and everyone he loves dies.

>legacy captcha is no longer supported
Guess this is my last post on Veeky Forums then guys. I regret nothing and everything simultaneously.

Dragons are never born. They are embodied. Dragon is a powerful elemental spirit that enters the world and becomes material based on his craving. As he gorges he grows in power and ravages the area he preys upon. He will eventually attract the vengeance of local inhabitants.. Dragons are inteligent and posses a lot of gnostic wisdom but they are ultimately motivated by nothing more than their hunger. In fact if they are not feeding they just slumber.
They will assume a form that is proportional to their power level and most efficient at obtaining the object of their lust. They can appear in this deadly dragon beast form or as a powerful humanoid that blends in yet invokes feelings of terror and smallness in onlookers.
Dragons look and nature will reflect their original element/source.

Like most of it, but not the last two, large magical dragons are great

It's going to sound like /pol/ nonsense, but I make them somewhat Jewish.
>Dragons are the descendants of the Trickster God, Anzu
>All dragons bow before The Raven Queen, a prophet of Anzu
>More legalistic dragons take to cataloguing her every word, establishing a code of conduct and precedent of disputes between dragons
>Dragons are manipulative and arrogant, but extremely pious, with staunch divides between each brood stemming from different interpretations of the Words of Anzu
>Dragons are spread far throughout the land and completely self-sufficient, but gather in the Court of the Raven once every half-moon to discuss the state of affairs, settle disputes, make alliances or deals, and revel in the musings of the Raven Queen.

I like dragons to be giant and ancient creature. They are sapient and can speak but they're still basically better animals: they're greedy, selfish, jealous and solitary creatures that like to snooze on a pile of gold and like shiny things. They are inherently magical but not mages themselves.
They're not evil, nor good, they simply are. Human concepts of good and evil or right and wrong can't be used on them the same way you wouldn't use them on a lion, or an eagle.
Most are shitters who will kill and eat you if you get too close to them, but some, especially the really old ones, enjoy a good conversation between meals

Literal manifestations of the Devil's power.

Vaguely sexy

what's wrong with the image captcha?

Sort of like this. Dragons were originally created as bio engineered weapons of war for an ancient conflict, with a lot of variety, as each lineage could be considered different "models" and assorted variants based on what they were needed to do

semi-intelligent warmachines of the Old Empire.
Still patrolling borders that are long gone or waging ancient wars forgotten by scholars and oracles alike.

But why would you want them to polymorph into a human then?

>Dragons can turn into humans
What started this trend?

I have it they can shapeshift into most things. She’d (or he) would mostly be in human form for going about town or for sex.

Otherwise the most popular forms would be horse (to save money), dragon (because dragon) and cat (space and cats are the only other animal allowed to be as smug as a dragon).

Well it’s either that or be a scalie.

Following your own scheme, mine are like this:

> At least as intelligent as the most brilliant humans once they reach maturity (is a matter of wisdom and accumulated knowledge rather than just their own brains).
> Proud to the point of narcissistic idiocy in extreme cases and short tempered. They're not necessarily evil, but they have such little consideration for anything that isn't themselves or their own offspring that they could very well be considered evil.
> Can't speak the languages of elves, humans and other mortal races without magical aid. They have their own language, which anything without wings and a tail would have a hard time speaking.
>Only the oldest dragons can cast spells, and only a few. Dragon magic is a myth in the setting, intended to explain how persuasive dragons can be.
> No color/alignment system; any dragon can have any coloration, though they tend to have a main color and a complementary one (a red dragon with golden stripes, for instance).
> They all have two breath weapons; main one (fire, acid, poison, cold, etc.) and gas based alternative. They can run out of juice for their main.
> Big. Really ancient dragons reach epic proportions. Think of Smaug in The Hobbit movies.

Main setting
>Think of a snake, but feathery, and it has four wings
>Now think of the same but teaching people the secrets of agriculture
>there are many of these and each teaches you different stuff
>They ask of something of equal value in exchange
>Sacrifices are good too

The rest of my settings
>Smaug but less of an asshole

>I prefer more animalistic dragons that are simply rare and extremely powerful beasts that are surprisingly smart and loyal but not quite enough to be considered sapient.
Best option right here. Even better when the players are never QUITE sure that they aren't fully sapient.

Dragon's where so large in the world that they spanned miles, and they died off and made for large shelters and cities. The term dragon is more shorthand for giant eldritch being. Each city worships the corpses as gods.

Came here to say this. Love me some Warcraft dragons. Shame they're unable to breed after Cataclysm.

My setting only has five dragons total, each one representing a different magic type after they all split off from a single massive original dragon who was the source of magic.

How do *I* do my dragons?

Buy them dinner, then do them from behind, grabbing their milky tits, to make sure I put a bun or several into her oven.

the big titted air-head, but ultimately benevolent kind.

>implying you're supposed to fuck dragons in the first place

But why would they want to be in a human form for sex?

Around "How to Train Your Dragon" Intelligence. It varies, though is typically less than a human but more so than other animals. Show clear evidence of higher brain functions and clear emotional ability but are not capable of speech though they can understand it extremely well with exposure. No "good or evil" just different inclinations on how to react to humans but can form permanent bonds with the appropriate training.

All dragons breath fire and just fire, however the color and characteristics (Explosive blasts, streaming infernos, globs of magma etc) of the fire is based on their current diet. A dragon has a furnace for a stomach so they can eat just about god damn anything. Metals have the greatest effect on the characteristics and Dragons are very good at determining which metals and mixtures have which effects on their breath.

Dragons are born with their scales a lighter shade of their parents but what a dragon eats will alter the color of it's scales the next time it sheds it's skin. Dragons shed about once every year around the end of winter. A pinkish red dragon is one that eats mostly meat and should probably be avoided for the implication of it's carnivorous nature. Ironically this makes dragons with darker metallic coloration safer since it indicates these beasts are content with a how volume, low energy, metal diet of dirt and rock. Mixed diets lead to mixed coloration. These are only guidelines though and it's perfectly possible a Dragon has switched to a man eating diet and simply hasn't shed to reveal this behavior change yet.

They are typically the size of a juvenile alligator at birth (2 meters) and typically stop growing at a bit above 21 meters in temperate regions but are only limited by food availability. A dragon can make a conscious decision to gorge itself and grow in size to give it an edge in territorial disputes but it has to account that a food shortage could cause their larger body to starve them.

They're the archetypical greedy cunts, powers based on color and ages, etc... Not always evil, just typically too arrogant to work with others. Typically a bit of magic power.

Dragons are the big bastards at the top of the pile, but have to low into a low-activity, almost-hibernating state for weeks at a time due to the amount of energy they expend hunting. So, they seek servants to hunt for them, so they can stay awake.

The ruler of the world's largest nation is a dragon who realized that he actually liked his servants, so he took advantage of a near-apocalypse situation to declare himself ruler of whatever he could fly to.

Variety?
Multiple orgasms?

>Only chromatics
>Only the five colors
>Each is descendant from an aspect of Tiamat
>Bahumat is effectively the draconic devil who was once consort to Tiamat but spent too much time amongst lesser beings and was corrupted by them
>Dragons are generally involved in their own games jockey for favor
>Dragons that take direct action (sack towns, kidnap princesses, etc) are looked down upon unless they're quite young

i follow most of OPs guidelines but
>Adult dragons are usually as old as they get, as around this time their greed and power will have attacked large adventuring parties to kill them
>color determines their sense of morality but events in their lives can change that
>dragons start using magic around adulthood, with some breeds valuing it more than others
>elder and great wyrm dragons are incredibly rare, and only 3 have existed in my world. they are second in power to Gods alone.
>as well as color differences, there are location differences as well. northern dragons are the most physically powerful but also tge rarest. eastern dragons are frailer but more inclined to use powerful magic. desert dragons are barely considered sentient and don't grow much larger than elephants, ect
>metalic dragons are more extreme in their morals. a good metallic Dragon is akin to a paladin. an evil chromatic Dragon is a BBEG in the making.
>taking human form is frowned upon by most dragons, but those in the southern hemispher use human form often to manipulate human events in their favor

Eight Chromatics (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet, and the mythical Octarine)
Eight Metallics (Gold, Silver, Mercury, Copper, Antimony (!), Iron, Tin, Lead, and the ninth, yet-to-be-made Occultum, which will probably devour one of the other varieties).

coinsandscrolls.blogspot.ca/2017/12/osr-metallic-dragons.html
coinsandscrolls.blogspot.ca/2017/05/osr-chromatic-dragons.html

They are more real than most things. The rest of reality is like painted scenery. They are powerfully neurotic and weird. Some become bankers. Some become tyrants. Some hunt goats in the mountains.

Intelligent, but with variance. Cruel, but not sadistic. They represent the deadly sins and virtues. They hoard all sorts of things, not just gold.

I always had dragons as Gods, or as close as you could get to Gods.

They can basically be separated into two main groups, 4 or 5 fingered.

4 fingered are the more classic types, but still more powerful than a human in every way, every single one is also innately magical, but not the stupid pixie shit but im talkin magical like that one guy who decided to min-max a level 30 wizard in a drunken one-shot. They are also big, like really big, Smaug would be a good example for a 4 fingered dragon in terms of size. Their wingspan is like double their length and more more birdlike, as in the wings are connected to the front limbs of a dragon, like a pterodactyl.

Also Napalm breath.

5 fingered dragons are exactly like 4 fingered dragons but probably, 2-3 times as big, are more intelligent, more magical and are basically gods. There are also only 12 of them.

The only real variable between dragons is their personality and scars, they may differ in terms of hue but other than that there isn't really any difference

The only real reason that dragons haven't come out and slaughtered everything is because they see them as negligible as bugs and they can just create anything they need with magic so theres no need to go out.

So if ya do get into combat with them, not only will they be trying to squish you and breathe fire but theyll also be using as much magic as possible. Why breathe fire on a party when you can just teleport them into space? Or just use a haste spell and suddenly gain twice the attacks.

But at least if ya do end up killing a dragon then you can make some pretty sweet armor.

They all descend from the same stock. Primeval, elemental creatures they were. Many suspect a single progenitor, but what IS known is that as those basal dragons radiated outward, they adapted.

Some took on the chill of the poles, others the turbulence of the seas, and others still the fires of the volcanoes or the stone of the deep places. Some grew wings or retained them, others lost their wings or had never needed them. Eventually, the final template for each modern type came to be, and from these first clans, every dragon that now exists descends.

If another type of creature seems strangely draconic, its creator or ancestor was probably a dragon that ascended to godhood/mutated/other thing.

If Celestials ARE the Heavens and Fiends ARE the Hells, then Dragons ARE the Material.

Dragons aren't a specific species, but a family of several different scaled, winged creatures. Further, a family of false dragons exists, these being winged amphibians.

kinda like this but to kill a dragon requires a huge effort, you will require a army and all that it entails, you better have all your fucking ducks in a row, you better have secured supply lines, you better have slaves holding weapons and light sources around the field just to die/pass new weapons etc to your army as they will inevitably loose them.
and to shore up hands so they don't have to go in with one handed weapons and one torch to see (if they are in a deep cave/dungeon.

thing is they should be the most feared and dangerous monsters on the prime matarial plane. and I don't think they ever get that respect. most games I've played in see them as meat shield versions of drakes, I never see their magical/intellectual side used. and no dm; myself included that I have played with has ever used them to their full potential.

TL;DR: if the dragon is adolescent or older it should be a TPW for a common party size regardless of level. (maybe unless a wish is used??)

It's just the logical conclusion of depicting them as intelligent and magically skilled creatures, it makes sense they would take a more familiar form to interact with humanoid creatures.

Humans turning into dragons probably.

You sure Mary Shelley wrote that one? I can only find info on it as a folktale of unknown origins.

probably the chinese or the greeks

One thing I liked about dragons in earlier Warcraft material (circa DotD to TBC) was that they blended the benevolent demigod role with the more traditional dragon traits. Not to village-burning Smaug levels, of course (black dragonflight aside), but they could certainly be capricious and territorial, especially the younger ones.

Notably, I'm not sure you ever met a non-hostile dragon in vanilla WoW who wasn't in disguise.

Richard Knaak gets a lot of (deserved) flak for being a terrible writer, but I think the way he fleshed out the dragonflights was great. I can't help but feel that whichever WoW writer has decided to nuke all his creations is throwing a lot of baby out with the bathwater.

I personally prefer them as mythical and legendary beasts that have some kind of cosmic role of varying intelligence.

Dragons: As listed in the MM but without alignment being stuck. Lawful Evil Red Dragons make a lot of sense and Chaotic Evil Blue Dragons make a lot of sense.

Wyrms: These draconic beasts vary in physiology but are relatively unintelligent but still have breath weapons.

Drakes: these creatures have either four limbs and no wings or wings with only back legs. They may have a breath weapon, they may have other forms of defense, but they are relatively unintelligent.

Linnorms: These dragon-like monsters have no wings but their number of legs can range from zero to twenty. They have no breath weapon but are as intelligent as true dragons.

Wyverns and Pseudodragons remain in separate categories because of lore fuckeries, I don't want to overwrite the established norm for these.

The term "Unintelligent Dragon" would mean something comparable in intelligence to a Wyvern or a Griffon.

fuck I also forgot to mention "Primordial Dragons".
These aren't technically dragons, they are Celestials, Elementals, Fey, or Fiends but look and act like members of dragonkind.
This is confusing at first but the numbers of "Primordial Dragons" out there are so low they're unique encounters.

"Celestial Dragons" are rare, in fact only one known type still exists, these are the Electrum Dragons who have both fire and cold breath weapon attacks.

"Fiendish Dragons" are commonly known as 'Horned Devils' but also the big nasty Brimstone Dragons slumber and scheme in the Nine Hells while Hellfire Wyrms serve the Infernal Legions on the fields of battle in Oblivion against their Abyssal adversaries.

"Elemental Dragons" are just massive elementals that look like dragons and have breath weapons related to their element.

"Fey Dragons" are simply 'Faerie Dragons' and nobody really wants to talk about those assholes.

Color coded dragons is fucking stupid.

I like the old school big fuckin' jewel covered 300 IQ species enslaving spell casting arrogant boisterous sadistic devilish monstrosity a real fuckin' dragon should be

I'd make a horror fantasy with survivors instead of adventurers, so seeing your friendly neighborhood skeleton is spooky enough, walking without muscles and tendons all, "this shouldn't be possible" etc., but seeing a motherfucking dragon is an experience as horrific as meeting good ol' Cthulhu in CoC.
>I prefer more animalistic dragons
Imagine if killer whales could also walk on land. Now, imagine if they could also fly.
>earth dragons
Hot lava breath. Alternatively, they spew smoke with lapilli and a few larger rocks, volcanoes can actually do more damage to human communities with those than with lava.

I BELIEVE I CAN FLYYYYY

...

No, you're fucking stupid.

Dragon Vampires. And Vampire Dragons

Yeah, i feel like dragons dont get enough respect, like if they're so smart then why don't they use magic? or if they cant use magic then why don't they make their entrance to their lair a choke point so they can always hit the entire party? not to mention i think the whole "dragons are greedy" thing is weird, like why? do they just like shiny things? why do they have so much love for coins that they can never spend? makes no sense.

I like metallic/chromatic dragons. Chromatics are more fun, in the way villains are generally cooler. They should always be characters- being centuries-old lizardcats with plenty of time to accrue quirks and idiosyncrasies, and they should never be something the party just wanders up to and hits until it dies. They have a character, they should be prominent enough and challenging enough they aren't just resolved in a combat and you actually get to strut that character a little.

I'm pretty sure they can still breed, they just lost a lot of their magic powers. The blue dragonflight is around in legion amd they have a lot of babies/eggs that you feed and shiet

It was mentioned at some point towards the end of Cataclysm that the dragons were effectively sterile, hence why it's a big deal if they can find eggs. I'm not sure how much that's stuck.

Not much I'd say, but I do remember that being the case

Awesome but nothing special. Dragons are just basically lizards or anoles but with wings and more powerful etc.
The apex of the reptilians. Natural animals. Except they can grow to immense size, and are capable of great intelligence. Can shapeshift into humans. Live exceptionally long lives. They owned the land before the humans. And they still do own the land. Even if there is a great city or nation. They could be the king or queen, or in the shadows pulling the strings. Occationally they are defeated. Some are good. Some are bad. But they are all awesome.
Dragons can spawn kobolds from non fertalized eggs, or dragonborne(rare) or other dragons.
Although competition between dragons in intense. Which is why they rarly breed.
But overall they are just an animal just like any other race. Except they been around much longer.

Should a dragon's size be tied to their age? What about their difficulty or health?

So heaven has angels as its enforcers, hell has demons, earth/Material Plane has Dragons. Dragons are divine creations ostensibly made to be a deterrent against the weird otherworldly creatures that would otherwise plague the world, they are gate keepers and enforcers both. To this end they were each granted fantastic abilities over the elements, resistances, shapeshifting, immortality, etc.

However, because they arent pure good or evil, they are susceptible to being led astray, either using their incredible power to enforce their will (good or evil), or succumbing to apathy and predation, especially now that angel/demon/gith invasions are fewer.

Tl;dr- dragons are the watchmen, but theres no one who watches the watchmen now, the watchmen dont have much to do, and they have immense power and time on their hands.

>How do you do your dragons, Veeky Forums?
Head down, tail up.

Depends on what I'm using them for.
>stories/ttrpgs
Color-coded by breath weapon, but not by morality. Goal is always a bigger, more impressive hoard and territory, but methodology differs by dragon. Mostly only the younger ones do town-razing and stuff like that. Hatchlings about the size of a large dog, adults big enough to hold a cottage in their mouths with room enough to open the doors.
>lewd/ERP
"Sexual tyrannosaur" is an understatement; dragonesses go into a really strong heat every [undefined], when they aggressively seek a mate, often using (un)fortunate appropriately-sized creatures as living dildos until their lust is sated, and males tend to seek getting off if they're not doing much else. Most can shapeshift, few do more than change their size to accommodate their partner. Common for a dragon to have at least one thrall who pretty much exists to pleasure their master on command. And for the *really* fun ones, the most apex of apex predators, known to hunt for food,
sport, and pleasure. No dragon has ever been known to die digested by a nondragon,
though there are rare cases where a dragon will voluntarily rest awhile inside a friend's body. All are capable of cockvore or unbirth,
but willingness varies on dragon, with some only doing so with close, trusting friends,
others offering it as a voluntary alternative to the normal route, and others still semicasually putting prey up/down there. Tailvore is rare,
but not unheard of, usually with the dragon's tail splitting apart like a flower's petals to consume their prey. Most dragons know a reformation spell for their prey friends, knowing full well they'd give into temptation anyway.

I also enjoy hammerspace dragons from both a lewd and a setting-detail perspective, with the little guys occasionally looking for work as a group's sort of "living bag of holding" for those not experienced enough to afford a normal BoH.

>Notably, I'm not sure you ever met a non-hostile dragon in vanilla WoW who wasn't in disguise.

Spirit of Azuregos?

They breathe boolet.
[ROARS IN DAKKA]

>corvid-level dragons
Bonus points for mimicry, casual tool use, and that head-tilt thing birds do.

A > C > B

Not him, but
>slowly disappearing "select until none are visible" bullshit
>annoying to control via keyboard
>further away from the based original captcha with the distorted fake words that used to inspire comics

So long as the Court of the Raven is closer to, say, Congress (but more effective) rather than Illuminati, that doesn't sound *too* /pol/.
Also, I'd read the *shit* out of a dragon Talmud. I've recently begun finding some really interesting interpretations here and there, including one where the rabbi explains that, in a certain passage, the phrase "God opens her eyes, and she sees a well" is used instead of "God creates a well in front of her" to mirror how we are often blind to help while deeply despondent, and that solutions exist even if we cannot see them right now. That shit, but with *dragons?* That sounds fucking amazing.

>implying wanting to fuck a dragon is wrong

>not capable of speech
Mentally or just physiologically? I found a post awhile ago with Toothless mouthing words:
kayathedragon.tumblr.com/post/167427447749/
Also, wonderful dragons. Good job!

>superbly powerful, far, far above average compared to other races
>but nothing special
I don't follow.

Azuregos starts out neutral, and won't attack unless attacked first.
Vaelastrasz first shows up in his disguise form, but can be asked to help against Rend Blackhand and Gyth in his regular form. Later on he becomes a raid boss.
Eranikus can be spoken to in his shade dragon form in the Sunken Temple, and in the scepter of the shifting sands questline he first shows up as a dragon form enemy, then shifts to humanoid form to have a chat.
Anachronos is happy enough to talk in his dragon form and hand out quests related to both the shifting sands and Atiesh. But like Azuregos, he'll turn hostile if attacked first.
Awbee, a dying whelp in Blackrock Spire is also in his true form but being a whelp he probably hasn't even learned shapeshifting yet.
There were a couple of black dragonkin involved in the Onyxia's Lair attunement quest (horde version) as well but they probably don't count as you had to be disguised to talk with them.

Burning Crusade didn't add too many, either. I only remember three cases. The Netherwing Drakes, whose main point of contact was Mordenaku in his disguised form. Sabellian, who mostly used his disguised form and only revealed his true form in one quest to lay low a gronn. Kalecgos, who flies in in full draconic glory before shifting into humanoid form for a chat, and his broodmates attacking the demon forces in Sunwell. It wasn't until Wrath that chatting with dragons became commonplace.

Dragons are very cute. Other attributes are generally secondary.

that's an awful lot of HERESY user
what's a hammerspace dragon though? are they cute?

Grigori

Thanks, I agree on the gold thing, my dragons will collect very rare and effective magic items and artifacts, they would have collected them in their formative years when these items may have been a threat..

as for gold, I think that is just a boon so the players will bother with taking one down.. there should be some reward. but I agree it should be something more sane, maybe a chest or 2 full of plat for when they shapeshift.

>Rare and few. Like, single-digit quantity available or known about.
>All dragons know about each other and actively work against each other to be the top dragon, overtly and covertly.
>Different colors, different breath attacks.
>Near-immortal. They live for thousands of years should they die of old age.
>Naturally magical. It isn't just about the animal features or the breath.
>Huge creatures. Physically and mentally imposing (in grid-size terms, the smallest that should be is a 3"x3" space on a grid)

I'm cool with them being able to polymorph too, but it isn't a requirement.

MILFS

They did the whole cataclysmic dickwaving thing for a while but as the years dragged on they realized that only brought more dragonhunters to their lairs. Can't keep a good hoard if some monkey-lookin' pricks are poking you all day and night.

So now they do the cute recluse thing.

I replaced dragons with Sphinxes, which works because the main powerful artifacts are runes left by the gods. Since they can understand the runes, they're more powerful, and also I'd just really like to try fucking one.

I don't understand, how do they replace dragons precisely?, as the hoarding monster?

To be fair, most people (and especially anyone involved in the biggest factions on Azeroth) are assholes that basically spend all their time being dicks to one another when they're not interrupted by some other dick with a bigger group.

savage beasts that can and will fuck you up. testosterone driven bat-reptiles that breath fire and shit death. apex predator of ground, air and sea.
and not in any way friendly because FUCK YOU

>flying orcas
Jesus fuck man. Imagine dragons with that type of intelligence and general sadistic assholery.

Hunting in packs, using a coordinated wind from their wings to blow small prey out of trees or off of cliffs, having a few encircle a group of prey with fire while they take turns sweeping through the center of the ring and snagging prey...

I once tried to do something different with them in a 13th age game that fizzled out. I was bored with dragons as big flying lizards, so I decided I would make them massive warriors in magic/techno battle plate. In biology they were like amped up lizardmen who were immune to the element the corresponded to. But the battle plate could eject massive talons, let them fire a beam weapon (corresponding to their element) from their helmets (which looked a lot closer to the traditional dragons head in design) and had a sort of jump pack to let them fly.

The idea which never got fully fleshed out was hat they were a race of warriors created for something called "The Dawn War" by the gods to fight demons. After that they were retired to their own elemental planes, where they had a sorta Egyptian God-King thing going on with lesser breed servants as their thralls.

Orcas in A-10 Warthogs. Jesus Christ.

Patrician taste

>implying that Lucoa is anywhere near best girl

As the hoarding monsters, the beefgate monsters, and the "smart, deadly semi-large to fucking giant thing to throw at the party" monster. I just like them more than dragons, so instead of say, a dracolich, I use a powerful Sphinx sorcerer who became a mage. You could also use manticore/sphinx hybrids(?) if that's to your liking.

Huh. For some reason I was expecting vore, but that was a decently-done story. A little predictable by partway through, but it hits its points fairly firmly and doesn't leave me with interest for a sequel.

Any thoughts on this?

no, think yoda.
and they have shape shifting abilities. they can look like what ever they want to...

I think most people do something similar to it, or at least a lot of traditional fantasy does. I think it is slightly because fantasy has the predilection for "older = more powerful and cooler" and it also ties in with dragon's being nonhuman. In the same way that some animals seem to "never stop growing" dragons have a similar inhuman nature to them, and it also helps along with their general power being greater the more they age.

Personally: I go with this concept 100%, but I tend to lower the general power level of all dragons but a wide margin. I dislike all "fully grown" dragons having a mandatory "max level" sticker over them in terms of who can fight them. I think most average dragons should be a equal match for a fully armored, well trained and chivalrous knight.

>and they have shape shifting abilities

Some do, some don't. I prefer they don't, so disregard the possible shapeshifting abilities and consider only their natural forms.

I like them huge (on the scale of mountains) and more akin to a natural disaster that you have to weather than an actual being you can fight.

In general I run low power campaigns, so I prefer dragons to be something that the players have no realistic way to fight or will ever encounter, but if they're lucky they'll get to see one flying very high up and very far away. I've occasionally involved them in plots, for example an enemy general attempting to attract a dragon to land in the player's nation, which would naturally be accompanied by hurricane winds and devastating earthquakes, but in general I just keep them as background fluff and as explanation for certain geographical features (a dragon once landed here so now there's a weird shaped lake and plants grow weird).

>dragons aren't magical.
get out.
why fucking ask the question then?
if you are going to boilerplate your fluff on it anyway.

I like the sort of mythological basis of dragons where their size and characteristics can greatly vary. I also like to play with player expectations, just because a dragon is small, doesn't mean it's weak. Unlike a Giant, whose power comes from a suggested size, dragons can have a more insidious power and form.