Who uses dragons in their stories, and what rules do you use?

My dragons are as diverse as humans, Aerana or Elves. There are many different varieties in each class, but these are the ranks by intelligence and power.

Seachran: Shapechangers, wisest, most powerful, most intelligent, lords of their race. The kings and queens of their races. They hold the high Wing of the Seachran Council, and seats on the Aerana Council as well. Several have taken Aerana mates and the Aerana form over their native dragon forms.

Dragons: Largest, limited changing abilities, powerful, intelligent, close to Lords, except less changing ability, these are the local rulers of the Drakes and Wyrms.

Drakes: Smaller, A few have illusion abilities, less intelligent and wise, often greedy and sly, not immortal, most cannot shape change.

Wyrms: Greedy, sly, looked down on by other Classes, less intelligence and wisdom than Drakes, serve drakes and dragons as guards and servants, cannot shape change, have relatively short lives.

Ive got dragons in my story.
They dont exactly exist in the world as much as they are just used to symbolize the gods. They are held in the belief of a dying religion, called Drakazcul, to be the creators of the world and the beings in it.
Once again, though, the dragons do not have a physical presence, since they are spiritual beings. Each dragon, however, does have a representative Dragoon; a sort of Arch-angel. One of the Dragoons is a character in my story.

The land's "old-school" dragons were basically very territorial lizards whose strength (and size & intelligence) was predicated on the size of their territory — and the amount of magic in it.

As magic was manipulated and lei-lines laid and nexii created, the lizards were able to grow larger, because in smaller territories there was more magic.

Now, a lizard able to hold a single high-level nexus as its territory, can grow to be huge.

Ergo, dragons!

They can fly because they can absorb and manipulate magic .

My dragons are animals with strong Fire tendencies. There are two main species. Southern dragons are huge and black and live in the mountains. They don't play a huge part in the story, but there is an incident involving a half-tamed Southern dragon and a few characters who don't know what they've gotten themselves into, and it doesn't end well (for them. The dragon does fine.) These guys are under the impression they can tame it because they're used to Melorvan dragons, which are smaller and a little more docile and in Melorva are used for war or sport or riding if you're brave enough.

My dragons are exactly like the dragons of earth. Myths, fake, never really existed, and the product of delusional minds.

So, yes there is a lot of folklore about them, but that is the extent of their existence. Until book three, when there is a sighting that seems very credible, and even though it would probably prove to be real, it never is.

My series is entitled Dragons of Albon but I think my version is probably much different from what people expect. The Dragons in my story are gang members fighting to take down the government. They are totally human, not shape-shifters or were-dragons. They do have special talents (telekinesis, pyro-kinesis, precognition, telepathy, etc.) but in their world that is nothing incredible because everyone has them. There are other gangs (AKA terrorist groups) in the city as well but for this series I’m focused on the Dragons.

This is probably not what you meant when you posted the topic though.

I really haven't decide whether or not to use dragons in my story. In my world, dragons are only a legend; no one in recorded history has ever seen one. But there have been rumors of strange creatures in the eastern mountains...

Dragons are few in my story so far. I haven't become deep enough into it to really begin to introduce them. But there are several factions of dragons that I have planned. Each faction has control over their respective planets and some are even slaves under specific races.

The main two I focus on are the Time Warden and The Draider. The TW, as they tend to be called, are a gathering of Metallic Dragons. [Bronze, Silver Dragons] That control the flow of time from their home base on the main ruling planet, Har'do II. The Draider are genetically altered Cosmotic Dragons [Celestial] who serve under the Taurian Drow of Taur IV.

There are few others but they mostly concern of pocketed groups and resistances.

I'd love to here more about your multi-planet approach to your story. Sounds VERY interesting. If you want, you can post excerpts or chapters in our submissions area.

Ah, I'll have to get in-depth with that once I can finish a planetary map of the Solar system! But I'll get on that now!

..Hmm.. going to need a bigger scanner.

One of the biggest problems with dragons in *all* fantasy is their personality - they essentially act human, just meaner or wiser or somesuch, even if they're claimed to be reptiles.

They're not human, though, nor even humanoid like dwarves and elves. They're something completely different, completely 'other'. Not only should their minds be as different from ours as their bodies, but that should be expected and deviations from it unusual.

I'll give an example of differences, using the typical reptilian dragon and my own extensive experience with reptiles:

1) The concept of 'teach' would be non-existent without parental care or close-knit social structure - the word itself wouldn't exist.
2) It territorial, 'friend', 'trust', 'empathy', 'kindness' and other such concepts would be totally alien.
3) If there's no parental care, 'love' would also not exist.
4) Many emotions would be massively different - does sadness even exist for them?
5) solitary/territorial species would never even think twice about murder for trivial reasons, especially of non-dragon species.
6) a solitary species would be unable to even understand the concept of rules, laws, and social mores - such things would be as beyond it's experience as quantum chromodynamics.
7) Hate and vengance would likely also not exist if there's little chance for repeated interactions between dragons.
8) The concept of 'consent' and 'rape' might be difficult for species where mating means chasing down a female and besting her in strength to prove you're a worthy male.
9) Territorial species would *never* leave their territories - the only reason quests exist in fantasy is because fantasy is written by nomadic primates.
10) For solitary/territorial species, 'help' is a concept that just does not exist.


It's not just bodies that evolve, it's brains. What we are, who we are, and everything we've ever done, is shaped by our ancestry as social primates. To expect an asocial / territorial reptile to think in a way that's even understandable to us is silly. Their minds should be as alien as their bodies. IMHO, this makes them more difficult to write, but also a lot more interesting, precisely because they are so fundamentally different.

Mokele

For my dragons, the lines of consent and ownership are very blurry, and very different from human ones.
Nor do they go on quests, although some of the old ones follow the Aerana in their migration west after the wars.

Nor are they reptilian so much as their own unique species. I love realism at times, but I don't read realistic things to get out of my own head, take a vacation somewhere else. If we wrote perfectly scientific creatures, there goes nearly every element of fantasy. So I sacrifice realism to have the Seachran, Aerana, and Dana.

I fell in love with fantasy because of Dragons and Elves and complex heroes. Dragons are a part of world mythology, and they continue today.

Yea, who reads fantasy expecting to find accurate behavioral patterns for giant magic lizards? Because, come on, what fun would that be?

The point isn't accuracy, it's that if they're different, make them *truly* different, in mind as well as body.

Underscore wrote:

Yea, who reads fantasy expecting to find accurate behavioral patterns for giant magic lizards? Because, come on, what fun would that be?

Actually, I think that could be very interesting you'd just have to get creative.

Mokele, that was a great list. I love the stuff you're feeding us, keep it coming

Personally, I've always felt that dragons SHOULD be totally alien and superior to humans. I've also always felt that they should not be classified into types and races, as that strips them of their magic. Simply saying that 'here be dragons' can be an effective thing. Dragons should never be explained.

Sorry for the short post, but I agree completely with that.

RoberII wrote:

I've also always felt that they should not be classified into types and races.

Ditto. Elemental related things should be left to the videogames.

Well...anybody who knows anything about my story will know the restrictions I'm under with my Dragon-types. They will play their role, of course, as they are a powerful group with strong elemental attacks, but are also difficult to raise and control.
James' partner, for example, thinks very highly of itself when compared to the others, often showing off and exhibiting a slight superiority complex, as is mirrored by his trainer. As it grows, however, James might have a little trouble keeping all of that power focused and under control...destructive power and hubris are not a beneficial combination...
-sandragon13

mornara wrote:

Who uses dragons in their stories, and what rules do you use?

Dragons are my favored beast and I use them quite often in my stories. They often range from being shape shifters, appearing gigantic in stature in their "human" forms to being omniscient beasts of unyielding wisdom and strength.
I don't like villianizing them to where they only appear as fire-breathing, treasure hoarders that feast only on sacrificial virgins and battle knights in shining armor; that is such a poor role for such a majestic mythological creature, IMO.
As for rules, aside from giving my dragons "human-like" personalities to allow them to interact with characters in my stories, rules depend on their cast in the story line...such as the one I'm currently writing-he's an arrogant, average Western dragon, long living but capable of dying, with the ability to fly and cause great amounts of devastation. He prefers to live in a large underground city and that is his territorial hunting ground, but he doesn't always stay underground. He has the ability to breathe fire, but only does so when attacking a large group. He's a loner aside from his Drow companion, whom he took under his wing after completely destroying her city when she was younger and being that he is a loner, he hasn't sought out the elder dragon to learn magic. However, among his horde of silver, his chosen treasures, he does acquire books about draconian magics which his Drow companion studies, but has little interest in learning it himself. He is also very possessive of his companion as he is of his horde. He lets her think of him as a pet, but he isn't anyone's pet.
I do try to keep it close to the ancient legends and lore about dragons.

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Personally, I've always felt that dragons SHOULD be totally alien and superior to humans. I've also always felt that they should not be classified into types and races, as that strips them of their magic. Simply saying that 'here be dragons' can be an effective thing. Dragons should never be explained.

If I may dredge up somebody else's old post in the interest of maybe generating some more discussion... I see your point RoberII, but I disagree. The majority of fantasy worlds make a point of capturing and categorizing magic, so why should magical creatures be any different? There is a place for stories in which magical things are always just catching the corner of your eye, but I see this much more in fairy tales than full-length works. I get somewhat annoyed, actually, when I run across a dragon in the middle of an otherwise well-conceived world with no hint of how it got there or why it speaks the protagonist's language. For that matter, I've never really bought into the idea of dragons speaking a language at all. Don't they have reptilian heads? Let's see you pronounce a tongue twister with a forked tongue and sharp pointed teeth. Though maybe I shouldn't make a judgement like that while I'm still willing to accept a dragon's ability to breathe fire. It's just not a dragon without breathing fire. /tangent

Sorry, WishingStar, I only saw your post just now.

Well, the whole 'colour-coded for your convenience' thing is just silly to me. Having 'dragons' is enough. Why should there be more than one kind? Whenever I see something like that, I smell DnD. Still, I'm not saying that all dragons should be the same but a thing like "blue dragons breathe ice instead of fire" is... Well, not too cool in my opinion. (Yay, PUN!) Sure, you could have ice-breathing dragons, but keep it on a case-by-case basis. Drawing neat lines around wild and magical creatures inhibits their magic.

A great example would be the dragons from A Wizard of Earthsea. They're never explained in the first three books (although I hear that she goes into greater detail on the dragons later ) They're just THERE. Just like, say, Smaug. This means that you're actually afraid of them, since you don't know exactly what they can do - you just know that they're immensely powerful, and in many ways beyond the conventional rules of magic.

Oh, yeah, I agree with you about the DnD problem. My take on dragons, though, is that if they exist, they're living creatures just like, for instance, your horses or lizards or birds. Why should there be different types of dragons? Because there are different types of every other creature on the planet, and if you want to make dragons different in that way, I think you should at least have a reason why all their near evolutionary relatives have gone extinct or whatever. They can have magic, sure, but they shouldn't be so steeped in magic that they randomly do things that have absolutely no survival benefit, like turning out bright blue. The only exception I can think of is if your dragons are artificially created by wizards or a dark lord or some such, because then of course their designer can make them whatever color strikes his/her fancy. On the other hand, from a suspension-of-disbelief standpoint, I find being immensely powerful with a human intellect and yet still the last of its kind just as difficult to accept as being color-coded for convenience. If dragons are so smart, why do they so often exist only to steal human treasure and terrorize human towns? Why haven't they built their own society and economy? Why do they speak only human languages?

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My take on dragons, though, is that if they exist, they're living creatures just like, for instance, your horses or lizards or birds. Why should there be different types of dragons?

Well, the problem is that large predators tend to have huge ranges and lots of competition. Consider cats in Africa - there are dozens of small species, but only 3 big ones - lions, leopards and cheetahs - each so different that they scarcely overlap in ecology at all. Extra-huge, ravenous creatures like dragons would have even higher competition. An even better example is the Tyrannosaurids - once Tyrannosaurus evolved, it supplanted or drove out every other sizable predator, totally exterminating the Albertosaurs, leaving only medium sized and small predators which posed no threat.

Mokele

I think that danger here lies in thinking of dragons in too realistic a light. Dragons are more a force, a primeval urge, even, than a creature. I mean, they're symbols of some of our deepest emotions - avarice and lust and ULTIMATE COSMIC POWER. They raid and plunder and eat virgins for breakfast for crying out loud! They're not meant to be realistic, not even in the widest possible sense of the word. That's also why they're so explicitly TIED to magic in many settings. LeGuin, for instance, has her dragons talking in the language of magic, with dragons being the only ones able to lie in it.

Mokele wrote:

Quote: My take on dragons, though, is that if they exist, they're living creatures just like, for instance, your horses or lizards or birds. Why should there be different types of dragons? Well, the problem is that large predators tend to have huge ranges and lots of competition. Consider cats in Africa - there are dozens of small species, but only 3 big ones - lions, leopards and cheetahs - each so different that they scarcely overlap in ecology at all. Extra-huge, ravenous creatures like dragons would have even higher competition. An even better example is the Tyrannosaurids - once Tyrannosaurus evolved, it supplanted or drove out every other sizable predator, totally exterminating the Albertosaurs, leaving only medium sized and small predators which posed no threat. Mokele

I agree with this if they are completely carniverous. But what if they developed into a more Obniverous diet.

I do like the idea that they could develop thier own societies and if they were obniverous, they would be able to live together in a more familiar society to humans (perhaps). Actually this might require shape shifting abilities or even different types of dragons developed to different jobs in the society.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting these remarks by taking them too personally, since I have multiple dragon species in my world, but I actually was thinking of big cats when I said "different types--" I have one type of dragon that lives solitary in the mountains, maybe analogous to a cougar (not African I know, but the different terrain separates them even more, right?) and another smaller type that lives in packs in lower plains areas, more lion-like. I wasn't aware of the Tyrannosaurus situation.

Whether or not they're meant to be realistic... I guess that's opinion. If you want to use them as a symbol for something wild and powerful and inexplicable, then yeah, explaining them defeats the purpose. I just can't think of them that way, probably because it's my personal belief that there is an explanation for everything in the universe, even if we don't know it,so when I'm creating my own universe I need to understand everything I create, even if my characters don't. One of the things I like about dragons is it gives me an opportunity to make something new and unique without being wholly... well... random. Your dragons may raid and plunder and eat virgins for breakfast, as per original Western mythology, but that stereotype has been broken often enough already that it's not longer even remotely required to have a satisfying dragon in a story. I'm a fan of good dragons, myself, just because they're too cool to always be defeated at the end. But even more than "good" dragons I like wild ones that don't subordinate themselves to your cause or anyone else's. If my dragons are symbolic of anything, I'd say it's by virtue of being untameable--not excessively greedy, not evil, but an unstoppable and somewhat impersonal force of nature.

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I agree with this if they are completely carniverous. But what if they developed into a more Obniverous diet.

That depends a lot on ecology - in grasslands, with little high-quality vegetation, they'd be mostly carnivorous, but in a jungle with ample fruit and digestible leaves, they might be better. It also depends on body size - big things need to eat more, and tend to defend food resources that are permanent.

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Maybe I'm misinterpreting these remarks by taking them too personally, since I have multiple dragon species in my world, but I actually was thinking of big cats when I said "different types--" I have one type of dragon that lives solitary in the mountains, maybe analogous to a cougar (not African I know, but the different terrain separates them even more, right?) and another smaller type that lives in packs in lower plains areas, more lion-like. I wasn't aware of the Tyrannosaurus situation.

Well, during the reign of the Tyrannosaurs, there was little mountain uplift, meaning that most of the US was the same biome - fernland plains with interspersed forrest. As you describe, with species in different biomes, that's no problem, as they wouldn't compete.

Mokele

I know that we have spoken a lot of dragons being simular to cats, but what about having a canine perspective on the psychology of the creatures. Do you think a pack mentality would work for dragons?

Or what about more of a herd mentality. Of course this would be more of a herbivor but would a dragon still be a dragon if it ate plants??

Or to really throw off the reader, what about an insectile psychology? THat is as about as alien as we can get in our world.

Dragons are one of my main obsessions. In my first book the main character acquires a book about raising dragons and here are some of the things it says about them:

"When raising dragons, I’m sure that the first thing you would want to know is “what do they eat?” as most dragons are hungry as soon as they’re born. Contrary to popular belief, dragons very rarely eat princesses, maidens, etc. Dragons are omnivorous meaning they eat vegetables and fruits as well as meats. At a young age however it is important for them to have mostly meat, as it stimulates their growth. They prefer dark meats such as steaks; for newborns this is especially important as giving them the food they most enjoy will help them to bond with you faster. Many people are under the mistaken impression that this meal should be served raw. Dragons, in fact, cook all their food. So, unless you want your home burned down by the dragonling’s attempt at a crispy meal, I suggest you present them with cooked meat… "

"Once fed, Dragons become very drowsy and will most likely wish to take a nap. Unless you are prepared to remain in one place for what could be hours on end, I would suggest putting yourself out of their reach. Humans have proved to be incredibly comfortable beds for young dragons…"

"There are only three known species that can communicate telepathically with a great deal of training. Those are *ericius, unicorns, and dragons. Though ericius can only communicate with each other and unicorns must pierce whomever they wish to communicate with, with their horn (although some unicorns have been noted to speak verbally)…"

"Dragons are the only creatures who can instantly communicate telepathically with every other species known to man (and probably a few that we don’t know about). What’s more, they can do so from birth, though it does take longer for them to begin to form complete sentences if they are being raised by someone unfamiliar with their Draconic tongue…"

"…Dragons are one of the easiest creatures to differentiate between sexes. Males will always be green, blue, black, or gold. Females will always be red, rusty orange, white, or silver..."

But I may have different rules for dragons for different books. I've found that it's a blast to make up your own rules and such about different mythical creatures.

*(Ericius- commonly known as “hedgehog”. During harvest seasons it is known to roll upon its spiny back to collect grapes and other such fallen fruit to bring back to its young) <--- I found that in an online bestiary. Cool eh?