Thoughts on Dragon hide armor

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Well, when I'm being really honest, I'll admit that I prefer my dragons to be Alien-style xenomorphs poured into heraldic dragon molds to better match genre visuals. I'm not sure what kind of armor you would get from those, but the acid-resistant, high-DR kind I mentioned earlier is where I went with it the last time.

To be even more honest, I don't know much about the dragons of my Ärth setting yet. Or rather, I haven't made up my mind when it comes to several different options.

One thing I do know is that the first dragon-slaying happened in the stone age. Because Ärth is a some-humans-are-freakin'-awesome setting.

And by the 10th century, the Kelts have a small band of elite Dragon-Slayers, equipped with huge amounts of powerful magical gear (much of which can be turned to uses more general than the slaying of dragons - their bows have serious range bonuses, making them excellent assassination tools, for instance).

But what dragons are? How intelligent they are? I don't know. They might be Satanic or pseudo-Satanic creatures (that would fit with the Divine/Pagan/Satanic metaphysical distinction). But they might not. They're extinct in north-western Europe (the last dragon slain there was probably Fafnir), and if they're intelligent then they regard NW Europe as a no-go zone because they prefer humans to be frightened of them, not the other way around.

One thing I do know is that they're pretty rare, because there's some ecology involved. Even if they only need to eat 1/5 or 1/20 or whatever as much meat as they'd realistically require. And there's much to harvest from their corpses, if they're killed in battle, but probably not if they die of natural causes. Maybe they decay very swiftly, especially the hard body parts that would otherwise be useful?

[Kalzazz]

In my modern day GURPS WW Dragons of Hawaii Campaign and the Ponyville, MA Campaign (which was inspired by the GURPS WW Dragons of Hawaii Campaign and stole the WW Dragons Dragon Template . . . . it also was heavily inspired by Ninja High School, Smallville, Buffy, and of course My Little Pony plus some other random things), Dragons are a race that grants Alternate Form: Dragon thats fairly close to 0pts, and your Class is more important than your Race to differentiate people

They are very prone toward reverting to human form when slain, so, making dragonhide armor is problematic

Dragonskin (the bullet resistant armor) is also generally better than dragonskin (what dragons have naturally)

In godogma's campaign set in Boston (which borrowed from the WW Dragons of Hawaii Campaign for templates and setting and such) I played a dragon gadgeteer who wore a commando battlesuit when planning for combat . . . . that, uhm, did not entirely work very well, as she only very rarely took Dragon form. Dragon Martial Artists who can do Kung Fu with bladed hands as humans or with massive draconic ST and long talons as dragons did much better

[Mr Frost]

In a world I'm developing , dragon hide is a naturally layered even split of flexible {the underlying skin} and rigid {the scales} ranging from 1F+1 for hatchlings to 8F+8 for ancients {it does vary by location too , so a suit of variable DR by location can be made from one dragon as can suits of less than maximum D.R.} .

Dragons are unaging {except they keep growing though ever more slowly} but when they get jaded enough , usually well after 1,000 years , they simply choose to die and generally don't care what happens to the corpse ; this is where most suits come from , though still very rare {it's not as though a literally bored to death dragon will care to seek out folk interested in skinning Him when He dies} .

Younger dragons also sometimes hire themselves out as mercenaries and some suits are made from those that die in battle .

Many dragons are perceptive enough to smell the emotional state and basic frame of mind the dragon was in at the moment of death and often very skilled wizards so there is a very good chance they will know if the dragon you're wearing was murdered for it's hide or not and if it was a relative .

Their reaction to you wearing dragon armour will depend on how the material was obtained {a dragon that dies naturally is invariably concidered to have surrendered it's corpse willingly to whomever wants to claim it} .

The particulars of a suit depends on the process used to make it into armour , but the best {using alchemy , crafting spells and plenty of skill} will yield armour half the weight of it's mundane equivalent {halve the base weight so for example Light Layered Leather becomes 7.5lbs base weight and Brigandine 5lbs} is self maintaining {and will slowly regenerate damage to its' self} , provides one or more levels of Temperature Tolerance , of presentation quality and has a cost modifyer of +99 {typically more given the rarity and coveted nature} .
It cannot have Fluted , Duplex or Of Quality {already has such} but can be Expertly Tailored .
They can be {and usually are} enchanted when made .

Armour types can be made as Leather or Scale and still remain flexible {and thus be concealable} or Segmented or Brig . Armour type can be layered {Scale on Leather for example} once without DX penalty but will be one suit , not 2 .
Max D.R. is the the D.R. the dragon had at death .


Yes , it's meant to be pretty spiffing .

[Xplo]

I always assumed that adult dragons should have hide that turns blades - so minimum DR around 7, like steel plate armor. Presumably, armor made from it should have the same DR, more or less, and it's probably heavy enough that it pretty much is plate armor, albeit really exotic-looking plate armor. Might be a little lighter, and of course it doesn't rust. Granted, that's rather dull.

Actually, you could go completely gonzo with the DR, and load up the armor with elemental resistances (with the caveat that it can only protect the wearer from elemental attacks that strike the armor directly - so it'll ward off fireballs, but taking a nap in a burning barn'll kill you). There are, after all, plenty of ways to kill an armored man that have nothing to do with defeating his DR, so it's hardly invincibility. But it might be wise to save that sort of thing for games where dragons are incredibly rare and powerful, and the armor correspondingly rare.

[lwcamp]

In myths and legends, dragon parts do weird things that don't have a lot of relationship to the actual use of the part when the dragon was alive. Dragon hearts grant the ability to understand the speech of birds, dragon teeth grow into fully equipped warriors within minutes when planted, that sort of thing. So you could always just go oddball with powers granted by dragon armor. Like granting the Morph advantage, or mind-controlling gophers within 100 hexes, or giving great skill at smithing. Maybe each dragon skin grants different abilities.

Maybe dragons can only reproduce by being slain and having their skin fashioned into armor. Anyone who wears the armor turns into a dragon.

Luke

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by lwcamp

In myths and legends, dragon parts do weird things that don't have a lot of relationship to the actual use of the part when the dragon was alive. Dragon hearts grant the ability to understand the speech of birds, dragon teeth grow into fully equipped warriors within minutes when planted, that sort of thing. So you could always just go oddball with powers granted by dragon armor. Like granting the Morph advantage, or mind-controlling gophers within 100 hexes, or giving great skill at smithing. Maybe each dragon skin grants different abilities.

Maybe dragons can only reproduce by being slain and having their skin fashioned into armor. Anyone who wears the armor turns into a dragon.

Luke

Here's a slightly less 'out there' concept: dragon-skin armor gives big DR, maybe can be used to anchor other magical protections, maybe it bounces attack spells or offers protection against heat/cold (natural and attack based), maybe it even gives boosts to ST or HT. Mix and match as desired, but...but...dragonskin armor makes you more vulnerable to spell/mind power using dragons, a mortal wearing dragonskin armor is especially vulnerable to the mind-controlling or emotion-influences of dragons.

Or if dragons have some inherent evil nature, it might be that dragonskin armor carries it over, corrupting the wearer slowly over time. The big benefits of using it are a little like the One Ring, over time the benefits are a come-on or lure to get you to use something you shouldn't use.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by lwcamp

Maybe dragons can only reproduce by being slain and having their skin fashioned into armor. Anyone who wears the armor turns into a dragon.

Heh, heh, heh!


/me thinks furiously about which strains of dragon will flourish under such an unconventional reproductive strategy.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Brett

Heh, heh, heh!


/me thinks furiously about which strains of dragon will flourish under such an unconventional reproductive strategy.

The ones that can afford to put hits out on their relatives in order to get mates later?

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

The ones that can afford to put hits out on their relatives in order to get mates later?

They don't need mates. They need people to make armour of their hides and wear it.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Brett

They don't need mates. They need people to make armour of their hides and wear it.

Need and "need" are two very different things. wink, wink, nudge, nudge.