06-30-2016, 01:32 PM | #21 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Thoughts On Dragons
Well, why should a dragon follow deals made with individual humans? They have such short lives with descenedents/successors usually acting as if that deal made just last century was forgotten. Back stabbing lying monkeys, the lot of them.
But like ants, it's less hassle to placate them with promises not to wreck their little nests than to risk the swarms that make such a mess and might even kill a proper dragon or two.
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06-30-2016, 01:36 PM | #22 | |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: Thoughts On Dragons
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06-30-2016, 02:36 PM | #23 |
formerly known as 'Kenneth Latrans'
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Wyoming, Michigan
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Re: Thoughts On Dragons
In my world, dragons are the first of four races to exist in the world and the race of which the dominant religion's Christ figure was born. They're people like any of the other groups, but tend to be larger, more powerful, and slower to breed. Humankind eagerly breeds with them, thus leading to the proliferation of half-dragon races such as lizardmen and nagas who vastly outnumber pure dragons.
There are also dragon-like animals subject to the same targeted weaponry, but as with apes and humans, or elves and pansy flowers, have no shared ancestry. These are about as likely to be called dinos, saurs, or just reptilian animals as they are to be conflated with true dragons.
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06-30-2016, 06:26 PM | #24 |
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Everywhere that freedom rings
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Re: Thoughts On Dragons
I've always looked at Dragons as one of the top "monsters" in a fantasy universe. May be not the end all be all of things, but they definitely should be frightening and dangerous to tangle with. I don't know if they have to necessarily be indestructible or battleship tough, but they really should be quick and have raw devastating power.
I like to imagine that the size and speed of flight of such a creature causes even the stout to flee to safety. The aftermath of a fire blast should sap the will to fight and cause conviction to fail in the most battle hardened veteran. I doubt I would make the fear aspect a supernatural attack even the heroes have to roll save against, but I would definitely make the NPCs auto-fail or have to make a roll. Force the players into the role of the only ones capable of stopping the menace. So for me many would fail to even dare to challenge such a thing after they've seen what it could do. Given the tactics it could employ outside of its hidden lair, it wouldn't really need that many hit points. The what they are, for me, is the big deal. I feel like if its just an animal, its hard to fit into a semi-realistic world given the average person's notion of what it would likely need to eat (every day even). In High-Fantasy they're just there. But when you get lower than that and the world is wrapped in more common concerns, it will make it hard to wonder why the Dragon hasn't destroyed everything yet. So I always lean towards Dragons as magical for one reason or another. I like how D&D: Dark Sun had the sorcerer kings wish to change into Dragons for more power.
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06-30-2016, 10:26 PM | #25 |
Join Date: Feb 2007
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Re: Thoughts On Dragons
No doubt. Shelob falls far short of Ungoliant, too. The lesser dragons of later Ages are to Smaug as the lesser Spiders are to Shelob, but both the Third Age great ones pale in comparison to their primordial ultimates.
For that matter, Ancalagon is not in the same league as Ungoliant. She appears to have been more like the Valar than dragons, part of the ancient primal order somehow corrupted. |
07-01-2016, 05:41 AM | #26 | |
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Vermont
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Re: Thoughts On Dragons
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I prefer dragons as mute beasts, not too much larger than real-life (or prehistoric) apex predators, and I often substitute poison for fire. This works well in low-fantasy and sword and sorcery campaigns. It allows for St. Georges and Sigurds to do their thing while being too much for the local villagers to hand on their own. Some day I may model my dragons on Le Guin's from the Earthsea books, instead.
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07-01-2016, 06:24 AM | #27 | |
Join Date: Jul 2006
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Re: Thoughts On Dragons
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07-02-2016, 07:15 AM | #28 |
Banned
Join Date: Feb 2016
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Re: Thoughts On Dragons
honestly, the most influential text for me was the monster manual. metallic, chromatic and then the gem/psychic ones. but when i made my own worlds, i used eastern dragons, nature gods.
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07-02-2016, 02:43 PM | #29 | |
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Shropshire, uk
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Re: Thoughts On Dragons
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Dragons on this sort of scale can be modeled based upon real world predators so many of the issues go away quietly, food demand remains heavy but it is achievable and nobody asks how they haven't destroyed everything. This is actually the big selling point of dragons, they remain easily recognisable despite being capable of being tailored for a variety of roles and contexts- something that is true for very few other large mythical or fantasy creatures. Last edited by Frost; 07-02-2016 at 06:10 PM. |
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07-02-2016, 05:36 PM | #30 |
formerly known as 'Kenneth Latrans'
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Wyoming, Michigan
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Re: Thoughts On Dragons
I have all those appearances in my setting, but it's purely the differences in shape that are what we'd call races within the greater race of dragonkind; personality, coloration, and natural weaponry not being color coded in any way.
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Tags |
dragon, dragons, fantasy genre, world building |
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