Can we get a good dragon thread going? How do you use dragons in your campaigns? Are they near or above human intelligence or are they just incredibly powerful animals? Also,
>>47312350
>Also,
...Also, why are red dragons best dragons?
Y'all don't like dragons?
>>47312488
Whelp, guess I'll just dump some dragon art.
>>47312705
>>47312364
Because red ones go faster.
>>47312350My BBEG is a dragon
Can we get more dragons perched on castles/other large structures?
Dragons are a kind of evil elemental/outsider, not having a normal life cycle, but instead spawning from/attracted by people's greed. Sort of like money succubi.
>>47312741
I will aid in the art show, and dragons are basically used as one of the major precursor races in my setting.
Demons, Angels, whatever the current major forces for law and chaos are, these are all just second generation elementals in my setting, infant gods. The real primordial races, the old beings, the shape Life took as it is understood by all non-divine beings, that is what creatures like dragons are in my setting. Which is a hassle, because I have to make them work as both super-powered forces of nature and as a civilization. Currently only a few dragons exist on my main setting world, only a small handful of them able to adapt to its harsh environments.
I kinda of want to make a setting with many kinds of cute and disarming types of dragons; like fruit dragons or bird dragons instead of the various types of colors and metals we normally get.
However I don't want them to be TOO cutesy not make the setting take them not serious enough. Also going for the whole 'dragons are gods' route might work but its kind of boring.
>>47315190
fruit dragons a cute from PAD
>>47312350
>Playing Rogue Trader
>Motivated by wealth
>Amoral and quite violent
>Extremely Greedy
>View others as 'lesser beings'
>Hoard all the loot.
>Mostly view others at servants or play things
>Frequently bask in private gallery/treasure chamber
>Arrogant as fuck
>Often demand worlds that can't defend themselves pay 'tribute'
>Actually kidnapped princesses several times
>Go questing for treasure
>Be extremely decadent
.... not sure when I realized I was RPing a Dragon disguised as a human, but now I can't see anything else.
Been talking to my GM about running a game where my character's a Plainswalking Dragon set up as a RT. See if anyone even notices the difference.
I feel like less is more where dragons are concerned. They've become so ubiquitous in fantasy that instead of invoking fear and awe they run the risk of making players think "Oh, another dragon." So as a rule of thumb I operate under the idea that, in any given setting, dragons are very rare. They're big, they breed slowly, and spend long periods in hibernation, so that when somebody does encounter one it's a big deal.
I think there's something to be said for the idea that players and by extension the mortal races of the setting aren't totally sure if dragons are self aware or not. They're encountered rarely, most encounters aren't very conducive to conversation, and even if they can talk they're so old they probably speak a dead language, and speak it very poorly due to little practice.
One idea I had for why dragons act the way they do is that to them, dreaming is their natural state of existence. During their long periods of hibernation dragons aren't just sleeping. They are dreamwalking, talking to each other, exploring the mysteries of the universe, etc. Their entire culture and the vast majority of their existence is spent in dreams, to the point that the brief periods when they must wake to find food, mate, and collect hoards are interruptions. To them, the waking world is as immaterial as dream are to use, for the most part. As a result they don't put much value in the material world (with a few exceptions), and from the perspective of other species they seem aloof and amoral, treating most other organic life forms as food to fuel their long hibernation periods and not much else.
>>47318916
That's a pretty nice idea, think I'll steal it for my setting
>>47319031
Yeah, I'm proud of the idea, though I've yet to find a good way to incorporate hoarding behavior into it, given that this take on dragons involves them being much less material-minded. I suppose one could try and take some inspiration from the dragon in John Gardener's "Grendel," who seems to partially exist in a quantum state, unmoored from time, and has such reached a point of such existential nihilism that it has decided the only thing that matters in this arbitrary universe is collecting gold and sitting on it.
The other thing I've toyed with is the idea that dragons are personified fate. That's how the Romans seem to have seen their hoarding behavior: there's a Roman fable where a fox burrows into a dragon's den, finds it hoarding gold, and asks it why it is doing so, when the gold provides no real benefit. The dragon responds that this is its fate, ordained by the gods. Likewise the dragon in Beowulf seems almost foreordained, its meeting with the lord of the Geats a matter of wyrd. It's also sort of true of dragons in general: their main role in old myth and legend is to guard stuff: treasure, stolen princesses, fresh water springs, etc etc. They're there to provide an obstacle to the hero getting what he wants. That's their whole role, their hoarding behavior has little explanation beyond that. They are fated to guard these things, because the hero must have a challenge to overcome. I'm not sure quite how to work this into dragons as characters, how being personified agents of fate would shape their personality/species, but I think it's an idea I want to experiment with more.
>>47319268
>I've yet to find a good way to incorporate hoarding behavior into it, given that this take on dragons involves them being much less material-minded.
A common take is they draw on the metaphysical power of 'value'.
Dragons are only flesh and blood, mortal creatures by the loosest of definitions. They're more magic than meat. Therefore, they must feed their metaphysical side as much as their physical side.
Gods feed on worship and faith.
Different types of demons can feed on suffering, or a specific vice or sin.
Elementals draw metaphysical power from their natural element.
Dragons feed on the concept of value. Therefore, they need to collect things considered valuable.
>>47312364
That's an odd way to spell blue
>>47319650
>PF dragons
Gross.
>>47315190
Dragons originally came from another plane of existence with much higher levels of magic; in this plane it's physically exhausting for a dragon to maintain its true form, so they save their energy most of the time by adopting much smaller forms based on the local wildlife.
Your little friend can blow up into a city destroying juggernaut, but he can't do it for more than half an hour.
Big angry animals
Hunted mostly to extinction by now absent giants a few thousand years ago
Breed and rule in the forgotten depths of the world. Ocassionally captured and used by powerful people (personally or politically)
>>47312714
I fucking love Tarkir dragons. They suppose a nice twist to the traditional representation of dragons in fantasy media.
>>47319268
perhaps the short forays into the waking world are so depressing compared to the unlimited intangibility of the dream realm that they are overcome with jealousy and greed, so when it is necessary to wake for food, breeding etc, they will try and surround there nest with things of "worth" (however they may perceive it) in order to dull the emotional blow of leaving the dream-world. If anything it would give better reasoning for them to be so emotionally erratic and spiteful instead of the "because they are wild beasts" excuse.
To experience not just the magnificence of your god like body and physical prowess above all living things but to also be able to experience something as significant as the Dream-world, and then to be thrust back into the real world where all that is of no tangible "worth" to the insignificant, ignorant, insect mortals; the only way to gain their respect is through shows of force or hoarding what they deem valuable: princess',treasure,souls,knowledge,etc.
There's no point being powerful if you can't show it off, and how is a mortal supposed to understand the true nuanced magnificence of a Dragon's experience? They can't possibly comprehend it, so the Dragon would be compelled to show it's dominance in ways mortals can comprehend.
>cool looking salamander for your thoughts
>>47312350
Dragons in my campaign setting are almost extinct; there are only a few hundred,and most of them are less than a few decades old. Millenia ago dragons and giants fought a catastrophic war that almost brought both species to extinction; while the remaining giants tried to survived in the surface, remaining dragons (like, big ass dragons that grew so big they need to support their flight with magic) went to deep underground lairs to hibernate and wait for the world to heal. In the meantime, smaller draconic races (wyverns, drakes and wurms) took their place in the ecosystem. When dragons resurfaced about 1000 years ago, they reclaimed their place as reptilian saurians, forming "kingdoms" where they rule over their lesser cousins.
Also,one of the gods in my setting is a red dragon; when he awoke from his sleep, he found the cavern had collapsed around him, so he had to use magic-fueled fire to free himself. The consecutive explosion was so big it destroyed some petty kingdoms in the vicinity, and inspired such terror and awe it turned him into a new divinity.
>>47321499
>reptilian saurians
Sorry,went full reatard for a sec; reptilian tyrants.
Forgot to add; no alignment linked to color,and no fixed colours. Different species can hybridate and produce different coloured babies,though at least one whelpling from every batch of eggs will have the same colour of one of its parents. The rest will have mixed colours,usually forming patterns like snakes.
Dragons are selfish and regard almost every other creature as food/potential servants,but they're waiting 'till their numbers grow to take over the world. Almost all of them are Neutral/Evil, though some Chaotic/Neutral are more open to parliament and negotiation rather than pure terror, and some Neutral/Good dragons can be found, usually as allies of powerful mortals or some god.
Posting moar Dragons.
>>47324886
>>47324916
>>47324592
Got the blue one
>>47325790
That's a recolored red dragon
>>47324916
...Santa dragon?
>>47324607
Well this answers a very old question for me.
>>47324916
The dragon who stole Christmas is a greats seasonal one shot
I prefer both
>>47319268
>Yeah, I'm proud of the idea, though I've yet to find a good way to incorporate hoarding behavior into it, given that this take on dragons involves them being much less material-minded. I suppose one could try and take some inspiration from the dragon in John Gardener's "Grendel," who seems to partially exist in a quantum state, unmoored from time, and has such reached a point of such existential nihilism that it has decided the only thing that matters in this arbitrary universe is collecting gold and sitting on it.
Hell yeah, best dragon in all of literature
Grendel is a great book
>>47319268
>Likewise the dragon in Beowulf seems almost foreordained, its meeting with the lord of the Geats a matter of wyrd.
The way I always interpreted that was that it was another form of the uncivilized, like how Grendel and Grendelmom were these outsiders from an older less evolved past that had no place in the new world of writing and (though the Geats hadn't quite gotten the hang of it yet) Christianity.
Especially due to the fact that the dragon lives in what was some ancient hall that once belonged to less civilized antediluvian-ish people, and now all of his loot was oxidized and old and nobody cared anymore. He's not allowed to enter the Heorot, just like Grendel and Grendelmom weren't, so he gets angry and lashes out.
Plus whoever wrote Beowulf probably would've known that "dragon" was a biblical thing, so whether or not the dragon in beowulf was Satan, they would've at least been somewhat related.
Not that I'm disagreeing with you, Beowulf has a lot going on, and there's definitely some serious wyrd going on too.
tl;dr I took a class on medieval epics once, and the best dragons exist on a metaphorical level rather than just being big lizards.
>>47326411
I always loved Semaus Heany's line about the Beowulf dragon:
>More wyrd than wyrm, more an embodiment of fate than just a set of reptilian vertebrae.
The dragon was waiting for Beowulf, at the end of his long journey.
>>47324592
>>47324607
>>47325790
Dragons lack vestibulo-ocular reflexes?
>>47314825
Fucking hell, every time. The eyes on this one give me an unexpected sense of dread.
Dragons, true dragons, are ancient beings of Chaos and destruction, older than the oldest gods and bound deep in the earth when the world was created. Each one is completely unique, and a living apocalypse who's awakening is preceded by omens, cults, and disasters. They're also seedbeds of monstrosity, and you could fill a library with bestiaries detailing all the horrible, fucked up monsters spawned by dragons, spawned from dragons, or warped by dragons into maniacal beasts.
>>47329970
Animals that can move their eyes don't need them. Most birds for example can't so they need to keep their head stationary to focus on something
Eons ago, an elder thing crash-landed on the planet and decided it would remake the place in it's image. It gave form to 13 aspects of itself that would govern the various elements and needs of the world, taking the form of 13 demigod-races. Dragons were the third of 13 created, when the Hydra/life-serpents caused "the growing things to multiply in unexpected propensity", and the Naga/death-serpents couldn't just slaughter everything to keep it in check. So the Dragons/fire-serpents were created, to burn away the old so that the new can flourish. "The world was a pyre, and the Dragons saw that it did not sit inert."
They're intelligent, but not like we are. We're a former scavenger and pack hunter that evolved out of that and into intelligence. Dragons are like an apex predator that achieved intelligence without evolving out of that mindset. Peak human intelligence would be slightly above average dragon. The younger ones stick together in packs, but the adults are mostly solitary unless they come together to discuss some matter. And they barely have a culture, much less a society. The oldest take the form of a normal race and leave their domain in the Eastern Steppes to wander the earth. The first of their race and the closest thing they have to a king, Sirrush, is technically a god, but what dragon would worship something besides itself? He would measure slightly larger than Ancalagon the Black in his largest form, but most adult dragons would be proud to reach half that size. They can be in any number of colors, but their element is fire, and their color doesn't correspond to any particular set of abilities. Relatively standard 4-legs 2-wings european variety, something like the body of pic related and the wings of >>47312705. wyverns and smaller, less intelligent dragons called drakes are offshoots and not connected to their god-head.
/autism
How weird do your dragons get, /tg/?
>>47331731
>>47333049
I keep shit simple.
All Dragons are distant children of Tiamat: a formless shadowy shapeshifting creature that battled the gods at the dawn of the creation and could sprout any number of eyes, teeth, claws, wings, spines, or whatever else she wanted. She and her offspring are the source of many monsters in the world.
Dragons are among her most prized offspring and each one is entirely unique. They don't care much for one another, though, and spend most of their time flying around like they own the places, and in most places they do.
>>47334171
>>47335139
>>47335877
>>47319795
Shit is sleek and sexy. 10/10 would serve under this blue dragon overlord.
You can keep your fat faced, derpy spiked, generic D&D dragons to yourself.
>>47336561
shush you, beauty is in the eye of the beholder
and beholders are ugly motherfuckers
>>47336290
>>47337474
Dragons are a very big thing in my setting. They used to be rulers of the world and still are in some places. The continent where the game takes place killed all of them because they were much more solitary and hostile towards each other than on other continents. Currently, the BBEG of the campaign is a dragonborn cult trying to resurrect the dead dragons to restore what they see as the "natural order of things".
In a story I'm writing dragons are pretty useless. They're so focused on bloodlines and honor that they can't get much done, a fact which the elves exploit heavily. This is mad even worse by how arrogant the dragons are—pretty much the only race they fear are the humans, who previously had them inslaves beige being banished to the frozen hell Earth years centuries ago, and they don't give other, more powerful races the respect they deserve. So when they decide to declare war on the elves, thinking it should be easy, it goes extremely poorly.
The Elves decide to banish the dragons to Earth for their arrogance, causing widespread panic. We join the story with the first dragon banished.
He's a bit of a special case—supposedly nobility but secretly half commoner. He's also pretty much directly responsible for the fate his clan is to suffer. He's sort of looking forward to being frozen to death. After all, his foolish belief that he could accomplish anything with his filthy bloodline doomed his race.
Then he gets to earth and finds that it's not actually very cold. He also finds that the humans are somehow alive, and decidedly less murderous and evil than he expected—in fact, they're actually relatively nice. The one he meets immediately is, at least.
The story then becomes a comedic political thriller as the human and his newly-found dragon companion work with the government to try and find some way to manage the total shitshow that will be several hundred thousand dragons being banished to a place full of creatures they think are essentially demonic in nature. It's also a bit of a personal journey for the dragon as he realized the entire bloodline thing is completely bullshit.
It's coming along well so far. I decided to rewrite it when I was already 100 pages in, but the decision is paying off extremely well.
>>47341043
I remember you from a previous dragon thread. Thought your story was really good. Are you posting it anywhere?
>>47341207
It's on the same doc. I'll post a link when I get home.
I'm rewriting stuff now, so hopefully it's improved.
>>47337836
>>47341207
https://docs.google.com/document/d/162A6TMrHJvMoYhklpu-4jDihB_8U2shOtR-h_nzop4g/edit?usp=sharing
There. Hopefully you like the rewrite even more.
>>47343574
>>47344109
>>47344783
>>47344983
>>47312350
> SW Pathfinder Crossover like Gate
> Fly around in Sith Infiltraitor
> See Dragon
WERE HAVING LIZARD SOUP TONIGHT BOYS!
>>47345528
>SW Pathfinder Crossover
What the fuck is wrong with you?
>>47312350
Ah Dragons. Powerful supernatural creatures, the kind of things that are strong enough to alter the course of a nation should they throw their weight around hard enough. Dragons are native to just about every continent in various forms, from the Lung Dragons in the east, Wyverns and Lindwyrms and other European Dragons in the old world, the mysterious and powerful dragons backing or serving as warlords in Africa...
In modern America, dragons are few and far between. If they aren't dead or in politics/entertainment, they're probably feral.
Relevant to my campaign, the local boss of the Irish Mafia has an irish mythological dragon under his thumb.
>>47345578
When your DM runs out of creative Ideas for D20 games besides running the same "Defend the galaxy from Yuzathong/Empire" the party eventually will make it up on their own by flying to the far reaches of the galaxy and doing their own shit.
Also half the party has been watching Gate and wanted to do something similar.
FYI: players can't be from Pathfinder, only SW. Were trying to conquer golarion for our new Empire.
>>47345435
Above human intelligence. Near godlike in their ability to use magic.
One did create mankind after all...
>>47346333
>>47346371
bland at first glance, god being a dragon doesn't sound too unique, elaborate please
Dragons are primodrial beings of Pure Energy and spirt and thus are truly immortal in a way that Celestials (read : "Gods") are not.
When they assume physical forms it can be anything they wind up inhabiting so it's not unusual for a hill side to sprout wings all of a sudden or even for the haul of a ship to grow legs.
The only thing is even though they have true immortality they don't have the same level of intelligence as regular mortals and celestials and are more beast like.
However, should you be able to slay one whatever matter was used to make up it's body carries very powerful magicial properties and are prized possessions in whatever dat and age they appear in
>>47312725
You, sir, are onto something.
>>47346794
>Gods come to spot in universe
>Decide to make solar system
>Decide to make it a solar system with a habitable world
>Decide to make guardians for the solar system to protect it from the horrors in the dark
>They were in the form of dragons
>The dragons were akesh and distis two brothers.
>Gods then proceed to seed world with life
>Gods thinking art accomplished move on to create more art
>Both do their job guarding the worlds
>Both begin to study the very magics the gods used in their spare time between kicking eldritch horror ass in space to due their job more effectively
>Distis grows to see fighting the enemy pointless and tries to persuade akesh to join and abandon this world to venture the stars
>Akesh upholds his vows he gave the gods and says he will kill Distis if he breaks his
>Distis seeing the futility in persuading him tries to kill akesh outright
>Akesh while losing the fight puts distis into a coma by casting him down onto the world
>Akesh too succumbs from his wounds only dieing and falls to the world creating the great crater in the desert.
>His blood seeps into the ground imbuing it with the life magic of the gods
>An oasis is born along with new life
>The intelligent race born from that life is mankind
>who then proceed to worship akesh and just proceed to be neutral traders, nomads and vagabonds really.
>Only other race then the distis spawned elden who have access to magic however.
Sorry if it's shitty and long winded but those two dragons and their fall are cause for pretty much all the strife in my universe.
dragons are to lizards what humans are to apes. i don't include evolution in my settings (not a creationist, it's just too messy to shove into a world that has a fuckton of deities creating/destroying life constantly) but i make them advanced animals. they have societies, cultures, and gods but they aren't godlike themselves. some dragons are more animalistic/mundane/tribal, while some are more magical/intelligent/civilized.
i stick pretty hard to the metallic/chromatic dichotomy though. i have metallic dragons as generally more civilized but fewer in number, whereas chromatic dragons are less cohesively organized but more widespread.
one idea i liked from the inheritance trilogy was that one structure built by dragons from rock with their breath. i like to include well-hidden dragon complexes, built crudely from natural features. they're mostly theoretical and players almost never find them/know they exist but i like having them
>>47347223
>Distis seeing the futility in persuading him tries to kill akesh outright
why?
why would distis need to kill akesh to pursue his goals? assuming a god-created superpowered guardian isn't prone to stupidity-fueled anger
>>47347356
You're right I think the motive needs some tuning. Any suggestions?
>>47347472
off the top of my head, distis desires freedom above all else and both of them are chained (with divine magic, think like a geas spell) to the world they were charged to guard, and distis figures out that because of the wording of the command the only way he can leave the world is if the world is no more. he wants to destroy the world, akesh won't let him. mortal kombat
Dragons come from the earth and are created to protect it. They spend most of their lives sleeping, waiting for the call to protect the earth from those who would greedily defile it for precious metals and gems. Dragons grow larger and larger over time, never stopping. When they die they turn to stone, the largest becoming mountains. The mountain ranges that dot the land are actually sites of ancient battles where many great dragons fell.
>>47347809
Some races hold the belief that the land itself is a great a dragon that died in a titanic battle at the beginning of time, and brought forth all of creation.
More dragons!
In the setting I use, Dragons may or may not actually be extinct, and both Dragonborn and Kobolds worship them as gods. The interesting thing, which hasn't been explored by anyone in my setting so far, is that a Dragonborn or Kobold who has never been exposed to Db or K culture and has never been told tales of dragons, will fabricate his or her own myths about dragons and begin to worship that concept.
Dragonborn live in the magical places of the world and have spirited away themselves from Humanity, because humans think they look like demons and consequently kill the fuck out of them. Kobolds actually generally wander the world as eternal pilgrims and explorers with religious bents, traveling in packs of 20-60 and eternally searching for some form of proof that the Dragons had existed. Some become so desperate after so many generations of travel and hardship that they either give up and join in on civilization as a whole (they're even more sought out than High Elves for academic purposes, usually as translators, transcribers, writers, accountants, economists, and record-keepers), or just settle for worship of anything vaguely reptilian as a way to force their dreams to be fulfilled.
>>47315235
What do dragons have to do with puzzles anyway?
>>47343877
That's rad bro. 10/10 Would read again
>>47324945
That is one big bulky boy
>>47341789
Oh man, that Otyugh breaks my heart. Poor guy
>>47346794
