Thread 96005629

Dragons are one of the archetypal things you expect to see in fantasy, arguably even more than other mainstays of the genre like Elves, Dwarves, Gandalf-style wizards, etc. Be they monsters, incarnations of pure Good, Evil, or some other force or being, actual gods or other divine beings, shapeshifters who can take on human form as needed, or what, Dragons seem to capture our imaginations like no other, with cultures all over the world having legends of dragons and similar creatures. So, I figure it couldn’t hurt to talk about how you handle dragons on your own settings, and what your favorite depictions are. Art of dragons is fine too!

For me, I love how MtG does it, and I’ve basically stolen Bolas for my own campaigns a few times.

>>96005629 (OP)
Worldbuilding has its own general.

>>96005629 (OP)
I never use them. I think the last time my players fought a dragon musta been in the 90s. The only opportunity for me to use them is when we play D&D, and the fact that they're all super-geniuses makes them a less interesting enemy than any other super-genius evil army leader. And it prevents them from being used as "fuck-huge ravening beasts" because no super-genius is gonna act that way.

>>96005679
Oh, except Dark Sun, I forgot. My campaign we've played a few sessions of in Dark Sun has the Dragon of Tyr as basically a force of nature. It appeared near the beginning of the game and threw Tyr into a panic and let the players escape/join the Veiled Alliance. The game is original box set, City of Tyr, Dune Traders, and Elves only.

I think people using "god like all power forces of nature dragons who are also wizards" actually spoils them a bit. Dragons should be strong and scary, but not SO strong and scary that you can only use them as god-like threats that 99% of players will never reach. I prefer them "weak" and common enough that you might actually fight one occasionally and the DM won't be so scared of letting you befriend one or even become a dragon rider at some point as a high level campaign goal.

While I get why people do it I personally have a bit of a pet peeve against spellcasting dragons because, to me, the entire point of dragons is they are the strongest PHYSICAL threat out there in a standard fantasy world. It's something you must overcome with great force, where as the strongest MAGICAL threats are different kinds of creatures requiring much different means to defeat, like a Lich or Wraith that keeps coming back from the dead and requires magic to beat once and for all. Dragons are arrogant enough that they only trust in their claws, wings, and breath. I get why people give them magic though since if they're smart and evil it's an easy force multiplier, I just don't like it personally.

>>96005629 (OP)
There's a major demon in my setting that has draconic traits inspired by the nibelungenlied but otherwise otherwise there aren't any in my setting because at the time I made it I was sick of dragons in fantasy and wanted to instead base it around Mythological giants wh I think are really cool and super poorly used relative to their prominence in the old stories

>>96005679
>>96005957
Eh, it's weird you guys say this because in most media recently I feel as though dragons constantly get shown up and sidelined by humanoid villains/enemies and have become just jobbers or unimportant beasts with only secondary relevance as the dragon rider for example always takes precedence over the dragon which gets depicted often as disposable or not a character.

>>96006745
I feel like that's just the other side of the same thing we're saying. D&D has written them out of having a good niche in the game by making them too much. They've got everything, so they're not interesting.

I'd like dragons as monsters. Big ass beasts that are terrifying and eat everything. But if they're giant wizard genius flying immortal super-powered and blah blah blah. It's just dull. What they are? "Really good at literally everything" isn't very interesting.

My favorites are the Dragons illustrated by Todd Lockwood

>>96007041
See, I don't get this at all. If they're just another animal then what sets them apart from any other vaguely powerful flying beast? Dragons as is thought of in DND typically are a triple apex, they have the sea, skies, and land as places they can be and they are more than mere beasts intellectually which if they were not, would make them utterly trivial to defeat or get around. In the vast majority of media dragons eat shit all the time because they are just dumb animals that will fall for any random stupid trick that instantly kills them.

>>96007106
Oh, fuck yeah boy.

>>96007118
>If they're just another animal then what sets them apart from any other vaguely powerful flying beast?
That's my thinking as well.
I like dragons like I like my aboleths, not beasts, but intelligent, powerful creatures.
Not godlike, but definitely out of reach for the average mercenary, unless it's a really young one.

>>96007118
>If they're just another animal then what sets them apart from any other vaguely powerful flying beast?
Being iconic, not-so-vaguely powerful flying beasts. I don't need something new and original. I need something FUN. Slaying a dragon is fucking cool. Playing 4d chess with the supersorcerer can be fun too, but if that's what it is then what the fuck does his being a dragon have to do with anything? I'd rather him just be the supersorcerer that I can do more interesting things with. Dragons in D&D just have too much of everything to make them interesting at doing any specific thing.

>>96007150
But how can it be cool if slaying them is trivial and no longer something impressive? My most hated fantasy convention has to be bestial dragons because most of the time it isn't very impressive to kill them because they are just animals that outside plot mandated perceived threat are actually trivial to deal with. That said super genius dragons is something I more associate with something shaped like an eastern dragon, but intelligence/speech is still something I prefer on dragons even if they aren't geniuses.

>>96007217
Who says it has to be trivial? I think we must be talking past each other, somehow. No one is saying "dragons should be basic mooks." But that's not the same thing as "every dragon should be the ultimate mary sue with every power and zero flaws."

>>96007236
>"every dragon should be the ultimate mary sue with every power and zero flaws."
But this is hardly actually true. Dragons are often jobbers even when they are supposedly meant to be seen as so powerful.

>>96007217
Darklands. The best cRPG ever, released by Microprose in 1992. Want to fight a dragon? First you've gotta chase rumors halfway across the empire. Then you've gotta narrow it down to a region by investigating reports within nearby cities. Eventually you've gotta travel into the wilds and begin investigating the villages it has burned down. Eventually you've gotta fight the dragon in a field where it will fuck your shit up. Then you finally, eventually, chase it back to its lair for a final battle.

That's a fucking cool quest line where the dragon is the one and only thing, and it's terrifying and exciting and full of combat and you see the broader impact of your actions and the dragon on the world.

>>96007264
Ok now you're just talking in circles. You already said that, I already responded to it, and now you're saying the same thing again after responding to my response by misconstruing it. What're we doin, here?

>>96005629 (OP)
For dragons, my preferred take is to make them elemental in nature, the remainders of a primordial time when the forces of the elements where more wild and untamed, creatures that are just as much the essence of their element as they are flesh and blood, unlike most other modern creatures that lean much more towards one or the other. When a flame dragon is using its breath weapon on a target, it’s not merely doing something as mundane as igniting a flammable gas, they’re harnessing the elemental fury in their heart and directing it out of their mouth, like a flame spell that they know from birth, and they don’t typically live in volcanic or desert regions merely because they can withstand the conditions while most other creatures can’t, but because they can actually feed on the heat to help sustain themselves, even allowing themselves to hibernate for years or even centuries at a time. Each element has its own breed(s) of dragon, with a few rare hybrids, water dragons being more serpent-like, with wings that are more like flying fish fins, or more whale-like ones that love deep in the sea, flame dragons being mainly divided into volcano-dwellers like this one and desert-dwellers whose bodies are duller to blend in better with the sand and whose fire breath is more focused and mainly used to heat sand into glass and cut off prey, ice dragons that live on mountains that cause avalanches to bury prey and ones that live in tundra and prefer to disguise themselves and freeze prey solid in ambushes, and so on. Is there anything I need to improve on or ways I can make the dragons of different elements more distinct? And what settings/systems do elemental dragons well, assuming that you don’t have any in your own?

>>96005629 (OP)
Given the chance, I always rape the dragon. Male? Female? It doesn't matter. The absolute soul crushing sensation I instill on them when an inferior, lower than insect, species paints their guts with my pitiful load of monkey seed is only second to when I do the same thing to a Beholder.

So, how do I handle dragons? Non-consensually.

>>96005629 (OP)
Do you prefer your dragons to have wings separate from their forelimbs, or merged like with wyverns? I liked the dragons in GoT, so you know what I’ll say.

Speaking of, what do you think of wyverns and other dragon-adjacent creatures like lindworms?

>>96009340
Six limbs for sure, it's too iconic.
But I don't mind the GoT look either, I do like how they modeled their dragons a lot.

>>96012007
Sick.
I really like when the dragon's hind limbs are more like hands but not fully like it, which is what that image is I think.

It's not my first exposure to the idea of dragon ecology and biology, but fucking hell, I love the 3.5e Draconmicon so much.

>>96009340
It's a matter of presentation/utility for me. I'd almost never use a wyvern design if the dragon is intended to be intelligent.

Dragons doing parenticide duels as expection to inheritancr is somethingthat just feels completely right.

>>96013251
Never heard of it, but thanks, what do you like so much about it?

>>96005635
Nicol Bolas is canonically into gay incest. You take that too?

>>96018739
What the heck are you talking about?

>>96022280
Go ask /mtg/ about the Nicol Bolas novels.

>>96018681
There's a lot. From the mechanics of the book (classes, feats,spells, etc), to how it's written like a researcher cataloguing shit, to the ideas of how the dragons (and other creatures) behave, how their biology work, the way they tend to relate to other usually shorter lived races, to crazy shit like introducing the idea of fucking vampire dragons.
Lots and lots of things one could incorporate in their campaign (D&D or not) or use to build a character.
The book is pretty thick, and all about dragons, and it's awesome.
Also the art. I really like the art.
Maybe in a couple of years when my character gets to lvl 15, I'll slap the book on the table and ask my DM for a Dragon Cohort. That sounds like a fun idea.

>>96005629 (OP)
>talk about how you handle dragons on your own setting
It's basically a mix of Council of Wyrms + Eberron.

The Dragons are the intelligent, magical, shapeshifting rulers of the setting and the various humanoid races their subjects/partners/allies/pets.

>>96009340
This >>96014239

Wyverns are already supposed to be the more "realistic" type of dragon, might as well give them normal animal intelligence as well.

Six limbed dragons are inherently unrealistic so makes sense to just go all the way and turn them intelligent magical creatures.

>>96026032
>Council of Wyrms + Eberron.
That sounds awesome.
What sort of shenanigans have the players gotten to in that setting?

>>96027616
I could only run a few sessions before I had to stop due to burnout, but during the final battle I gave them a magic item that let them summon the main dragon quest giver to perform an airstrike, and the final boss was a half-dragon mage whom was defeated after I let the Barbarian throw a cannon at him.

>>96005629 (OP)
We played a world hopping campaign and a long-time adversary of ours, a black dragon, joined with some other minor antags and escaped retribution at the end of the game, so i ran a brief adventure in another world where she had become a Cyber-Greatwyrm. I even got a piece done of them fighting it for the group

>>96022335
You know what, I'll take your word for it.

>>96022280
>>96022335
The whole thing about Bolas being gay for his brother is just a joke based on how obsessed with him he is plus some dialogue from the novel that can be very easily read as gay subtext, but Bolas did canonically have sex with some dude while shapeshifted into a man.
I don't remember the exact details, but in one novel there was a scene where a character realizes that Bolas has been fucking with him and recognizes his human form as a guy who is implied to have fucked his lover, and IIRC that same character was later retconned into being gay so the lover in question was probably a man as well.

>>96030973
>can be very easily read as gay subtext
Ask the writer on twitter, its not subtext.

>>96027973
>was defeated after I let the Barbarian throw a cannon at him
That's pretty fucking funny.
Which system were you guys playing?

>>96033545
Fuck, wrong image.

anybody remember a tsr-related mag, where there was a circle of druids which included a red dragon, whom was in turn neutral aligned?

>>96033545
Just regular 5e DnD.

The Barbarian definitely wasn't actually strong enough to throw the cannon, but it was the end of the campaign so I just let him do it to have fun.

>>96033731
No, but that sounds cool.
I was idealizing a Gold Dragon that was raised by Druids and took on a Vow of Poverty despite its most base instincts.

>>96036019
Cool.
I played in a 5e Eberron campaign all the way to lvl 12 or so, where the last fight was against a Red Dragon performing a ritual. We disrupted the ritual and the dragon fucking exploded with only the barbarian managing to stay standing after the explosion.
That was fucking sick.

>Stronghold Builders Guidebook
Heh, our DM is reading that due to one player's new character being a Wizard with an Artificer Cohort and using the Landlord feat from that book to start with a castle or something.

>>96005679
>All super-geniuses
White Dragons are feral dimwits.

>>96005629 (OP)
I put some world building into this mspaint picture just has a demonstration of dragon hierarchies.

>>96005629 (OP)
One of my favorite dragon tropes is the idea of the dragon rider, like picture related. What is needed to do this concept justice?

>>96039149
Dragonriders are rad as fuck.

>What is needed to do this concept justice?
How do you mean? At a system level, campaign level, player level?
Anyhow, give the 3.5e Draconomicon (>>96013251 >>96024559) as well as the Dragonlance books a read.
There's a lot of content that's geared towards Dragons and riding them as thralls or buddies.

>>96039492
I was thinking more along the lines of in terms of the world. Though I also forgot to ask what settings and systems work best for playing as one, thanks for the recommendation.

>>96039518
>I was thinking more along the lines of in terms of the world
There's an infinity of ways to go about that, from it being a mythical sort of alliance, to a historical artifact, to something that's not unheard of, to even a world where it's a common thing.
That will also depend on the nature of the dragons in question, if a rider's dragon is more like a pet or a partner.
There's a D&D 5e third party supplement called Odyssey of the Dragonlords that might also be of interest.

I do like dragon riders but I feel like it’s better when the situation is reversed. You have not mastered the dragon. The dragon has mastered you. You are the dragon’s pet, and he is having you climb onto his back as extra firepower, and to cast support spells, and possibly to act as his personal squire and herald. The rider is the submissive one in the dragon relationship.

>>96039554
>picrel

Drakengard 2 had one of the best dragon/dragonrider relationships I've ever seen. Severely underrated.

Of course, the whole gaming world knows the result of Ending E.

>>96042920
The dragon is like a dad to the main character right?
I loved the relationship between Caim and Angelus in the first game. How they started as grudging allies, two hateful creatures that seemingly only cared for slaughter (and his sister in Caim's case), and ended up genuinely, sincerely caring for one another.
I didn't cry when I first got ending A, but I did feel like it for a moment there.
Powerful stuff.

>>96024559
>Maybe in a couple of years when my character gets to lvl 15,
Meant level 18, actually.
My character is level 15 right now, and will surely be level 16 by the end of the party's current shenanigans.
Anyhow, I'll hijack the thread to ask for some opinions now that I know that our DM lets us customize our cohorts.
How should I build that dragon?
One possibility I though of was a Very Young Gold Dragon with levels in Monk, Totemist, and both a Vow of Poverty and a Vow of Peace/Non-Violence, that way the dragon would serve as both mount and a form of passive support during fights.
Sounds a little snowflake-ish at face value, but in the setting we are playing at, these kinds of unique combinations and blends aren't all that uncommon, at least at the this high level.
Anyhow, I'm accepting suggestions. Mechanically, thematically, whatever.
My character is basically a worshiper of the local Torm equivalent. Like a Paladin but less strict, so the alignment of the critter would have to be good, or neutral at most.

>>96039660
That is a neat twist, have any games or other settings actually taken that approach?

What's the best color for dragons? I prefer the classic red, though black and green are good as well.

>>96054337
Translation please?

>>96054477
>>96054337
Image didn't attach, here.

>>96005629 (OP)
Are there any particularly famous/dreaded dragons in your settings, and what goes into one that will fill your players with a particular amount of dread? For mine I’m planning on including an elder red dragon who controls a dungeon that randomly reshapes itself every time a party enters.

>>96054412
Green is my favorite color, so that’s my choice.

>>96054412
This is furryporn isn't it?

>>96054337
>>96054477
>>96054485

>>96060993
I would go as far as to add a worm type that has the two front limbs but no hind limbs just for completeness but otherwise I can vibe with this.

While I never liked Takir as a setting I do like the idea of feathered dragons being a dragon subtype so, in my mind, certain legendary birds like Rocs would be dragon adjacent.

>>96061026
I do have a soft spot for feathered dragons. Reminds me some of their olden day portrayals as a chimera of sorts.
And they can look real cool.

>>96043321
Go for a feathered dragon like >>96061026 and >>96061071 mentioned.
Take something like a brown dragon and slap a half-celestial template on it.

>>96061142
I suppose I could stuff the thing full of templates instead of class levels since it's not meant to be an active combatant anyway and I'm going for something thematic.

>>96063827
I fully agree with that. Thanks for this picture, BTW.

>>96039492
Yes. Yes they are. We need more of them.

>>96039492
>>96074285
My biggest problem with dragonriders is in most cases, the dragon gets reduced to being just a mount and no longer a character and is basically entirely secondfiddle to the rider instead of them being portrayed more as partners.

>>96005629 (OP)
What are some good reasons why dragons keep abducting princesses? I like the idea that they couldn’t care less about the princesses themselves, they just want to ransom them for gold to add to their hoards.

>>96074352
Yeah. Being a lover of intelligent dragons, I like it when the dragon and the rider are partners.
Buddy cops, partners, that kind of thing where they are more like equals than not.

>>96076194
A princess (or princesses) are the shining jewel of a royal bloodline, they must be the fairest, noblest, loveliest of all because they are carry the legacy and blood of the royalty. Some more esoteric or philosophical dragons are prone to abduct princesses because their metaphorical value goes far above than regular jewels or riches.

>>96076318
Okay, so how do the dragons keep the princesses healthy and contained?

>>96076194
Bragging rights. For other dragons on how long they can keep the princess that is.

Here's an idea, Dragonriders of Pern campaign but with smart dragons.
How would you guys run it and using which system?
Bonus point if it's a system that's not D&D.

>>96074352
Not always though. Just look at Toothless.

>>96030973
Nu-WotC also made Aragorn and the rest of the royalty in Middle Earth black so you can safely ignore everything they put out

>>96076194
It’s an excuse for the princesses to get a vacation from their royal duties.

>>96005629 (OP)
I don't give a shit about dragons, plus nowadays they're all about being either degenerate crap or comedic.

Dragons are very flexible as characters or worldbuilding devices. It's why we love them so. But what settings would you lot say did dragons the worse. Either just poorly or the most boring or whatever.

>>96116620
Fire Emblem dragons fucking suck. In most of their games they are basically just the pathetic dying out victim Elf trope/the villain either by choice or circumstance and even have a clause in their lore where they need to remain in human form and lock away their true power or else they lose their minds and go insane and become rampaging mindless monsters who must be slain.

>>96117335
Not that anon, but that does sound like they fucking sucks.

>>96097493
This. WotC is cancer.

>>96097493
I find it so funny that they made him black. A few years prior, you could’ve gotten me to be outraged, but it’s just hilarious that this managed to get to print.

I will use worm, wyrm, dragon, wyvern and monster interchangeably even when referring to the same dragon.

>>96136619
Degenerate behavior anon.
At least be consistent.

Fireborn is a cool RPG where you can play as a dragon rediscovering itself in the modern era, and also remember it’s historic power. It has very intricate customization rules for your creation, but unfortunately its release got rushed and FFG dumped it as soon as they could. Still a neat concept and rule system at its core.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fireborn

>>96142824
>and rule system at its core.
Tell me about that. What's neat about it?

>>96142824
Unfortunately the game had nothing aside from the rule system which I remember a few people said they found overly complicated. The book was also a mess it desperately needed an editor or two to go over it several times. There was nothing to build on, it really needed some setting details or an adventure or two. I read it a long time ago and was myself unsure of how to actually play it at the table.

The system of play it imagined where you are playing two timelines side by side, one where you are your mythical dragon past self and one where you are a modern mundane person who has forgotten what they once were was a very cool idea.

It does showcase just how hard it is to get a unique system and setting off the ground. No one wants to support these things, and advertisement for them is next to impossible unless you're are one of the big players. I would be up for playing it but don't think I could ever get a group going or pull enough of a campaign together with the released stuff.

>>96130907
Is there a version of this for male dragons?

>>96143546
No, the reasoning given was that its because male dragons outnumber females. It was also originated from /trash/ so obviously the main reason it exists is because they are dragonfuckers on 4chan.

>>96143546
I was going to say no idea by I'll take >>96144363's word on it.

I'm flirting with the idea of writing a story with dragonriders and shit.
Shoot me ideas and interesting or cool stories of sessions you guys played featuring dragons, preferably with dragon riders too, but not necessarily.

>>96143469
I was replying to "how do you handle dragons in your setting".
Plus, it's still fun to visit threads about things I don't like in case there are inspiring ideas or art around.

Hate how so many settings are afraid to give dragons the capacity to act as forces of change and ambition. Either they're treated as wild animals to be slain or tamed, or if they're of the intelligent variety, they just claim some shitty cave, and then sit there for infinity until someone comes and kills them. These sapient, hyper-intelligent, enormous, powerful, magic-using one-man armies SHOULD be conquering their own empires and instead they just end up as sideshows.

>>96150089
Shit like the Xorvintaal is cool as hell.
I have a session in 30ish minutes and there's a good chance we'll get blasted to hell by a black dragoness that was slowly terraforming the place and amassing an army of minions to attack the monarchy of the place.
We kind of threw a spanner into things and she's fucking pissed now.
So yeah, I agree,

>>96150089
Oh yeah, and I think PF's Golarion does that in at least one place.
I remember something about a dragon being the leader of a kingdom and doing some eugenics with the "lesser" races.

>>96150089
Because if dragons acted as intelligent as they are said to be, they would be ruling the setting instead of humans or elves which most writers don't want. Even as villains nowdays, the dragon usually plays second fiddle at best to a humanoid villain. So the most common choice is the dragon is a dumb beast, or if not, it's a dying symbol of obsolescence like how elves sometimes are, but usually treated far worse because they are more inhuman.

>>96150089
>>96150180
In Forgotten Realms, there was a story/lore about how the dragons did actually rule, but then the ancient elves made a Mythal linked to a star called the King Killer Star that causes dragons to periodically go insane and basically revert to animals and tear down their own civilization/murder each other and become easier to kill due to the lack of intellect so that they can never again have a true civilization.

>>96150236
The Dracorage mythal.
Really cool stuff.

>>96150359
Eh, it's w/e to me. I always see stuff like it as kind of contrived.

>>96150236
>In Forgotten Realms
Nothing in this shit setting matters.

>>96150180
I would actually love it if dragons did play the role of the 'king quest giver' to the players instead of a traditional human king. Imagine how much more grandiose it would feel to be given a quest by a fucking dragon instead of some old guy who just happened to be born into the role.

Even better, imagine if the role of knights was replaced by dragonborn. Instead of knights being some aristocratic warrior caste, they were a meritocratic order who consisted of people that the dragon deemed sufficiently loyal and competent, and so he used his power to turn them into a dragonborn, loyal to him and with the power to carry out his decrees and laws throughout the land.

Thoughts on biblically accurate angel celestial dragons?

>>96151869
And how does the bible describe angel celestial dragons?

>>96005679
>the fact that they're all super-geniuses
The last I checked White Dragons were little more than raging beasts.
>Gandalf-style wizards
Merlin archetype is a thousand years old, meanwhile...
>Dragons seem to capture our imaginations
This is your brain on pop culture. What you call dragon is modern reimagining of a monster whose sole purpose was to be killed by the hero.

>>96151888
White Dragons are dumb compared to others, but an adult is still around baseline human int (8) no? Anything higher is the realm of heroes.

>>96037336
I am still weirded out by the idea that "kobold" to some people means weird dragon furry slave, when originally a kobold was basically a mischievous gnome.
I never played DnD, so there is that.

>>96151884
Inaccurately

>>96151984
Next thing you're gonna tell me it's weird Gnolls are hyena people instead of mix of Gnomes and Trolls.

>>96151869
Cool aesthetically.

>>96152122
Dunno, I never heard of gnolls before getting in contact with DnD.

>>96143185
It’s a type of dice pool game. You have 4 stats governing mental and physical actions and reactions. You can move an amount of dice to a pool equal to the amount of skill you have in the action you’re trying to perform. Normies can only do this once a round, dragons can do it twice because they are cool like that. Combat was also funny in that ut was set up as wuxia action chains, with fatalities as rewards.

But yeah, as >>96143427 says, there was a lot of stuff piled on top of the fundamental system which hurt it, and outside the player and DM book, not much was ever released for it besides a starter adventure.

>>96156683
>Combat was also funny in that ut was set up as wuxia action chains, with fatalities as rewards.
I'm not a fan of wuxia, but that sounds sick as fuck.

On the matter of dragon rpgs did anyone try Scion: Dragon? I always felt that it took a lot of inspiration from Fireborn. Unfortunately I bounced off Scion hard, so while I liked the pitch of Scion: Dragon more it just ended up in my pdf vault.

>>96150783
The risk with that is Dragons just become scaly living gods rather than being powerful mortal royals.

>>96157721
I am mostly okay with that. I mean, shit, we've had god-kings IRL (at least, they were considered gods by their own people) and those guys weren't even dragons.

>>96157721
And that's bad because? The more important question is what's their reign like.
Do they rule fairly? Enjoy perpetual golden age. If it ain't broken…
Do they rule like a petulant little cunt? Round up some adventurers and do an assassination plot.
Cunt rulers surround themselves with pawns that would fall to infighting the moment big guy is out of the picture.

A fair immortal ruler sounds like a fucking dream come true.
>no wars
>no rebellions
>no worry about succession
>no ensuing power struggle
>neighbours leave the you fuck alone
Imo, if they can make their kingdom prosper and keep the peace, they deserve that god-king title.

>>96158826
Even in a world where dragons are god kings they need not be singular in that aspect.
There could be other competing nations that have wizard god kings, demi-god god kings, etc etc.
It would be a very mythical world for sure. Some real high level shit.
Could be pretty fun actually.

>>96162177
I suddenly imagined a quest given by any of those god-kings for an adventurer party, which is a part of an ongoing prank war between those kingdoms.
I'm just tickled by the idea of such powerful beings playing 4D chess to settle grievances by pulling elaborate but, ultimately, harmless pranks on each other.
Probably something for a lighter-toned campaign with more shenanigans that combat.

>>96117335
How could we fix Dragons in Fire Emblem without changing 'too' much of the lore then?

In my setting dragons are basically covetous demons, the more something is cherished or desired by mankind the more they want it. They feed on feelings of avarice, envy, grief from loss.

Thus their lairs are filled with gold but they go in more for refined bars/minted coins rather than raw ore (they'll still take it). Cut gems, jewellery, fine clothes, exotic perfumes, famous works of art, all ideal plunder, especially from people who'll spend the rest of their lives missing it. If a piece like a painting is eventually forgotten about and fades from history, the dragon will destroy it to make room.

They of course also abduct people, magically imprisoning and enslaving them. Musicians, playwrights, religious leaders, monarchs. Public fame and adoration is good but love that is especially powerful and true is their favorite union to break. Same rule as above, the dragon will keep them sustained and even beautiful, but if the person is forgotten about or say their lover accepts and moves on from their grief, they're dead.

Burglary and rescue operations are expected and desired. A dragon with a low value hoard is weak and vulnerable, ripe for stronger dragons to cannibalize or a dragon slayer to target. There are even famous thieves who "soften up" a dragon by thinning its horde before a slayer takes a shot.

>>96166219
Classic dragon = greed.

This may be autism, but I don't like most depictions of dragons in media because they never seem to depict them like older myths and stories. To me, a dragon is an intelligent and horrible monster, it's strong and can raze cities but a particularly strong adventurer or party could kill it. Every dragon is a unique creation, has a name and appearance for itself. They're less a species and more like particularly evil "things".
I prefer dragons to be like that, similar to their depictions in old stories or in JRRT's works. Ancalagon the Black, Glaurung, Fafnir, the dragon from Beowulf are all examples of these evil beasts that are less a species and more monsters spawned from some dark pit or otherwise uniquely created. They're intelligent but they have no ambitions beyond greed and destruction, they don't make tax policies or rule kingdoms or anything. Just kill and hoard, and when they die the tale is remembered as a unique adventure instead of "you killed a white dragon of moderate age, we'll buy the scales for 100 kromer".

A lot of settings now make dragons either too strong or too normal. That's just a "red dragon", one of many red dragons, or alternatively dragons are mega strong demigods who can cast spells with ease. To me this detracts from the appeal of a dragon as an ultimate monster, because it's either reduced to another species of monster or is an obnoxious god who rules over people.

>>96173733
I feel like this role of a unique evil monster has shifted to things like demons, and those corrupted by them.
And since dragons were no longer such a monster, their role has changed too.
Drawing from their long lifespan and highly-magical nature, they became those powerful godlike beings that exist as a living force of nature that can raze a city, or break the siege on one.
I think the uniqueness of each one is good, though. A long lifespan would lead to becoming more and more eccentric, until each dragon was unlike any other, each requiring a unique approach, whether for diplomacy or slaying.

>>96173827
You aren't wrong, but demons seem to lack that special element to them when placed in the same role. A demon feels a lot more based on religious wrongs and good vs bad dichotomy, more like it's pure consolidated evil. They can be engaging but they're more of a typical monster to me.
Dragons have a certain quality to them by contrast, I hesitate to say a regal temperance but it's the closest approximation that comes to mind. The dragon feels equal to the hero, it is an evil less decided by a lens of good vs evil (like demons) and more like a beast from a different time, it has more character. Smaug pops into my head, he's an archetypal dragon and he loves riddles and playing with his food. He is horrible to face yet somewhat cowardly, he hoards wealth and is an individual. There isn't a sense of spirituality to Smaug as there is for demons, he's a great big monster crafted in the same way a man is molded from clay, but different. Like an art piece.

Again it's a bit of autism, I just really like those depictions of dragons. Just these very unique things that above all else demand a sense of awe, they break the mold. To have them be turned into just another class of monster feels wrong.

>>96174619
>A demon feels a lot more based on religious wrongs and good vs bad dichotomy, more like it's pure consolidated evil.
One thing about anime that appeals to me is how japs took demons and stripped them of religious, and sometimes moral context, at least as far as Judeo-Christian stuff goes, I know jack about Shinto, though, so there could be something there instead.
So they were simply powerful beings, greatest of whom led armies, while the rest were anywhere between second-best, and cannon fodder.
Sometimes the "demon" status implied some kind of exceptionality, rather than being an actual demon. Demon Lord is a good example of such status.

More to the point, I actually agree with you anon, albeit in a rather roundabout way.
I'd prefer abovementioned demons and the like to be the designated bad guy or a monster with a bounty on it's head.
I like when dragons are treated neutrally, as powerful individuals, not monsters for slaying.
This, to me, fulfils that need to command a sense of awe and respect for their power.

>>96174679
I do also like how anime and japanese media restructures demons in that way. Sure, the good vs evil schtick of devils and angels can be appealing, but it makes interactions with demons very boring in a way.
Ironically, I even prefer Balrogs to demons because at least they have a rich history in the Silmarillion and are less literal devils and more fire spirits that have turned to evil (they're also cool).
But yes, I do like dragons as powerful individuals. Neutrality is also interesting to me, especially when they're the last of a previous conflict. Glaurung and his ilk served Morgoth diligently during the War of Wrath, but after the battle the dragons were self serving and neutral if still evil.
It's not even that I demand dragons to be pure evil, I just prefer them as individual beings. Funnily enough, it feels like dragons have undergone the same thing that demons have over in the West: dragons are seen as cool and powerful without even being usually evil, and these days I see more dragon-riders or dragon warriors or dragon priests when compared to honest to goodness evil wyrms.
That's another thing, they're not called wyrms much anymore, nor associated with foul underground areas or general disgusting or terrible things.

>>96174746
Because dragons have undergone a change similar to how elves have compared to their origins. DND in particular seems to pick and choose the traits by mostly mixing the physicality and base habits of old dragons but merges them with the more intelligent, lofty, and awe inspiring nature of the eastern dragon, including the ability to assume human form.

>>96174746
The point of treating dragons neutrally is emphasizing the individual dispositions.
One dragon could be a sagely royal advisor that has seen kingdom through turmoil and helped bring peace and prosperity.
Another is an unapologetic human fetishist that walks around as a shapeshifted human, complete with a poorly thought out "backstory" and cringe-inducing "how do you do, fellow humans".
Third is a petty cunt that would raze villages over a slight from someone there, because he can't be fucked to find the responsible human to punish.
In short, this urges you to make your own judgements about each individual dragon, rather than painting them all with one color, with some outliers.
>wyrms
Insert Dune joke. Actually, there might be some influence here too, since sandworms are viewed more as a living force of nature, than a beast.

>>96150089
>These sapient, hyper-intelligent, enormous, powerful, magic-using one-man armies SHOULD be conquering their own empires and instead they just end up as sideshows.
Reason being that as mighty as these creatures are or may claim to be, they are still flawed in some undoing way. Greed, narcissism, xenophobia, paranoia or reclusive all fit someone who thinks they're the smartest person in the room.

>>96175366
They don't have to be perfect in every way, just better than the sad excuses for a king that humans usually have.

>>96175366
>capable of continent-sundering feats of magic
>can take on entire armies, and emerge victorious without so much as a scratch
>can rule all they survey through mere intimidation, and occasional gout of fire
>but, ultimately, they all are apathetic and unambitious
>they would rather nap all day on their hoard than conquer kingdoms
>even stealing the occasional royal is done by agreement
>in exchange for something to add to the hoard
>dragons — the realm's largest NEETs
Honestly, this makes a disturbing amount of sense.

>>96175366
Yeah, but it veers way too close to being contrived a lot of the time. Like the excuses exist specifically because the writer would prefer dragons don't rule and no other real reason.

I'm writing a setting or story, not sure yet, it's still taking shape, where dragons isolated themselves after some cataclysm and have been unheard off until recently for reasons.
Their classification (clans) is based on their general appearance, mostly size and color, and things like elemental affinity (Earth, Stone, Water, Fire, and Air), shape of their scales, etc, so very D&D inspired.
Sorted by size, the types are White Gold = Gold > Silver = Copper > Tin.
Different clans can interbreed, but the resulting offspring is always the mother's kind, although it might have characteristics from the father like frills, secondary color, shape of the scales in some parts of the body like the underside, etc.
Another difference from D&D is that these dragons are not sorcerers, they are like D&D Druids if Druids didn't cast spell and instead were intimately entwined with the "natural world".
They sing to the stone and it parts, they coax plants to grow and move, that kind of thing, having no concept of "magic", since those things come as naturally to them as flying.
They eat meat but also wood and rocks and metals.
Crucially, since their thing is nature, they aren't really good or bad by default like D&D dragons. I can imagine different groups focusing on different aspects, growth vs death, creation vs erosion, etc.
The idea is still very much taking shape, but it's a start.

>>96005629 (OP)
We need more undead dragons, what’s your opinion on them? I’d like to see more dragon undead affected by their environment like picture related.

>>96187306
>what’s your opinion on them
There's not much to have an opinion on, they are fucking sick.
How interesting they are depends on what dragons are too.
E.g.
Dragons are big hulking apex predator beats? An undead dragon is a menace and a half. An unstoppable undead juggernaut.
Dragons are intelligent magic creatures? An undead could be a mindless maelstrom of claw and muscle leaking hazardous magic everywhere, or worse, a lich.
That's also a dragon.
That's fucking scary.

>>96187306
How they become undead would be a point of fascination.

I've been trying to come up with unique chromatic dragons. That is, they had shit happen to them so they stand out from the rest like a Red Dragon who became undead because he wanted to figure out how to breath negative energy or a White Dragon whose wings were cut off and she has a bunch of magic swords, spears, and axes stuck in her scales that makes her go into an insane frenzy.

>>96201909
May I suggest magic-bound contracts, forcing the law-aspected breed into service even after death.
Doesn't have to be dark either - it could be a sworn oath to protect a kingdom, with dragon going at it even after he was slain in battle.
Something something if the spirit is willing, the body abides.

>>96207607
Translation please?

>>96209483
>This is a dragon named Fuxi. TL note: shortened "fuchsia"
>Fuxi is a very simple dragon.
>He doesn't make complex plans, so his life is fairly simple.
>Fuxi sees enemy -…
>…Fuxi burns enemy.
>Simple and uncomplicated.
Na zdorovie.

>>96005629 (OP)
Besides Bolas, how well does MtG do dragons?

>>96201885
That one employee looks so done, lol. Why is the dragon sleeping there, the burger smell?

>>96005635
How does MTG do it? Saying this as a newbie

>>96221584
>Why is the dragon sleeping there
Because she can, of course.

Please post more dragon rider art.

>>96237898
I know that artstyle.

>>96242440
You do? I just found it randomly online.

>>96237898
>>96242440
>I know that artstyle.
That recognisable bulge is Chromamancer

>>96030973
>but Bolas did canonically have sex with some dude while shapeshifted into a man.
Based
>but in one novel there was a scene where a character realizes that Bolas has been fucking with him and recognizes his human form as a guy who is implied to have fucked his lover
Lmao

>>96247039
Looks like some cool stuff here, thanks!

>>96247039
>bulge
Bulge? What are you talking about?

>>96264664
Referring to the meme comment "I recognize that bulge" but substituting artstyle.

>>96267363
Is the eponymous bulge still a banner?

>>96268364
[code]wget https://s.4cdn.org/image/title/{0..400}.png[/code]
I couldn't find it and got 404s after 268

>>96268701
Not him, but thanks I guess?

>>96210948
Has anyone tried to mind control Fuxi if he’s so simple?

>>96005629 (OP)
Yes, dragons are the best. Wyverns suck. Seriously, they’re just oversized and scaly bats.

>>96304304
What about Chinese dragons?

>>96015102
>apsu: why can't you just be normal?!
>dahak: *screams*

>>96037101
comparatively feral dimwits. they outrank most mortals in terms of reasoning but that means little when your species' social circle comprises dragons beyond even those lofty heights and that will always treat you like an animal anyway

>>96225353
ah, kamigawa. fuck what they did to you

>>96225381
it's hard to say that definitively. creature types across multiple planes can share commonalities (especially in today's damn-the-lore, here's-your-themepark set design) but usually differ at least a bit plane to plane. the dragons he's referencing, from dominaria, are not born natively but spawned as mana beasts from particularly chaotic magic storms. the eggs rain down and they hatch, and their environs and personalities shapes their development. most are inherently volatile beings of predation (or red-aligned, a par of magic's color-based system of not only magical type put also cosmic import, philosophy and often morality) but in many cases dragons can break from color trend to be mixed colors/different colors/noncolor, especially particularly powerful ones. the standard dragon abilities across most sets/planes allow for flight and for spending mana (the basis of magic, often occurring through spells, abilities or most reliably frm the ambient environment) to boost their damage or attack other beings outside combat. but powerful dragons can have a bevy of abilities, often developing high intelligence and dominion of their surroundings. that anon's pic is a very old and powerful scheming dragon that became what's known as a planeswalker, a vanishingly rare sentient who were born with and ignited a "spark" that allows them to world hop across the multiverse. he's so old he came from a time where planeswalkers were all essentially wizard gods but then plot shit happened and they can't do that anymore so now he schemes to become godlike in his own right. he has a sort of twin ghost brother that is also a planeswalker and acts more as a multiversal steward but was also happy to fuck over a plane by introducing dragon storms to it which raged out of control.
anyway the nature of dragons is variable across the planes. in most they are essentially dangerous and sometimes clever animals. in some they are spirits or elementals or other, it's case by case

>>96005629 (OP)
Favorite depiction are stone dragons from DS1 and dragons dogma

in my own settings dragons are immortal and incredibly intelligent able to use cunning tactics and innate draconic magic along side their natural physical capabilities, created by a vengeful god to be the generals of massive armies of monsters demons and orc like humanoids
only sorcerers (the best of them are almost god like spell casters that can level continents and split oceans unlike most weak depictions of magic in most other settings) and other dragons can beat them

>>96005629 (OP)
Just had a thought, what about Dragonborn or other humanoid races with draconic heritage/features, is it a good idea to include them or do you feel that having them takes away the impact of including actual dragons or some other downside?

>>96005629 (OP)
> talk about how you handle dragons on your own settings
They are near equivalent to fallen angels. The dragon gods that created the setting made the dragons in their image and fully immortal demigods. But after the setting blew up and when put back together was infested with the parasitic mortal races of humanoids, they brought their gods with them. And in a big godwar the humanoid’s gods took away the dragon race’s true immortality and cursed them to live natural if at least quite expansive lifetimes. Now most are rare and have an inbuilt hatred of the human races, and many hate the dragon gods who allow some of these mortals to worship and gain magic from them. Followers of Not!bahamut are seen as an insult rather than a brother in arms.

>>96150089
>Hate how so many settings are afraid to give dragons the capacity to act as forces of change and ambition

The most famous MMO does that, even when they wanted to change the world, the lore was that the dragon gamer got tired of doing nothing and went full edgelord.
https://youtu.be/Wq4Y7ztznKc?si=_M3OJhHM0tSSTtBJ

It was even copied by its competition a few years later.
https://youtu.be/h542YbZuwkQ?si=X2ajZksx6lEOYoH9

>>96323900
I forgot the image

I can't fucking believe this thread is still up.
Neat.

>>96326707
Dragons are awesome, it's just a fact.

>>96326707
It must've been the oldest thread on the board for a while now.

I was pretty active in that kobold thread we had a while ago before it reached post limit. This was already the oldest thread back then.

>>96320621
They exist as an evolution of lizardmen concept and as a solution to "playable dragon".

I want to run a game with porcs and dragon riders but I don't want to run D&D for the tenth year in a row but I admit I am too lazy to deal with the crunch of Pathfinder.

>>96338233
5e with the dragonlords 3rd party supplement I guess?
It sucks how little support for the dragonrider fantasy there is in most ttrpgs, even the ones of the "fantasy super hero" variety

>>96336129
Fuck that's gnarly. Sick art.

>>96320621
I like half dragons better as a sign of draconic influence than some vaguely dragon-related thing like dragonborns.
They aren't too different than kobolds in that aspect as far as I'm concerned.

>>96339506
>Fuck that's gnarly. Sick art.
Thanks, glad to hear that I'm doing something right by posting that image I found.

>>96005629 (OP)
Dragons are neat. Big fan of Tolkien's dragons. I'll drop some of my favorite art of them, and some of his poems about them.

Scatha the Worm (revision C, circa 1954)
He was blind and cold,
but he could smell gold.
He was long and rich,
and eased his belly's itch
with sharp bright stones;
but his toys were bones:
hands of dwarves and skulls of men
that were piled in his den
licked smooth and white
Not for his was flight:
a wingless drake;
Not for him was fire:
a slimy snake, fouler than mire,
Crawling and creeping on
like a slow death
Freezing with fear
and his cold breath,
Crushing and grinding
under his white womb;
his dwelling stank
like a dark tomb.

>>96344158
The Hoard (second stanza, revision E)
There was an old dragon under grey stone;
his red eye blinked as he lay alone.
His joy was dead and his youth spent,
he was knobbed and wrinkled, and his limbs bent,
with the long years to his gold chained;
in his heart's furnace the fire waned.
To his belly's slime gems stuck thick,
silver and gold he would snuff and lick --
he knew the place of the least ring
beneath the shadow of his black wing.
Of thieves he thought on his hard bed,
and dreamed that on their flesh he fed,
their bones crushed and their blood drank:
his ears drooped and his breath sank.
Mail-rings rang. He heard them not.
A voice echoed in his deep grot:
a young warrior with a bright sword
called him forth to defend his hoard.
His teeth were knives, and of horn his hide,
but iron tore him, and his flame died.

>>96344201
Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold (last few stanzas)
The pines were roaring on the height,
The winds were moaning in the night.
The fire was red, it flaming spread;
The trees like torches blazed with light.

The bells were ringing in the dale
And men looked up with faces pale;
The dragon's ire more fierce than fire
laid low their towers and houses frail.

The mountain smoked beneath the moon;
The dwarves, they heard the tramp of doom.
They fled their hall to dying fall
Beneath his feet, beneath the moon.

Far over the misty mountains grim
To dungeons deep and caverns dim
We must away, ere break of day,
To win our harps and gold from him!

>>96339506
I don't wanna run dnd rrrrrreeeeeeee. Fuck I'm stuck running 5e aren't I. Damn it. I do love running black dragons though. There was a backerkit campaign for a TTRPG that said it was about dragon bonding but then there's almost nothing on the page about dragon mechanics besides "it's about emotions not combat! Combat bad!!" Ok where are these emotional bond mechanics that make the dragon more than a glorified flying mount? IDK maybe I'll see about tinkering with some of them new release systems, I've run Daggerheart for some people and don't mind it, not like I'm going to get a group together to run Fellowship or something.

>>96350912
I guess you could try one of the generic systems like GURPS. Those should support pretty much everything.
I think 13th age has a supplement all about dragon riding too?

>>96357608
I backed the D6 Second Edition kickstarter so may even look at tinkering with that since it's new and shiny, new and shiny tempts people to try a new system. I'll going to take my current campaign out the back of the shed after next session anyway so I'll have plenty of time to get mad at trying to figure out what system I want to use in the end.

>>96357692
Wish that I had noticed this when it was actually ongoing. Not him, but I’ll take a look, thanks!

Which systems have built in options to let players play as dragon riders anyway?
And I mean proper full fire breathing, flying, clawing dragons, not a glorified fire breathing horse like PF 2e's drake.

>>96076194
Ransom is pretty good on its own.

Also just bait, baiting for food or just more treasure from the adventures who try to save her.

I think princesses and maybe especially virgin princesses could have some magic component that dragons crave.
Like how unicorns only appear for maidens, could be just that, they want a virgin princess so they can attract a unicorn.
Or the presence of a princess allows them to cast certain enchantments, like a spell to make their eggs hatch, or maybe their firebreath runs dry and they need a princess to cast the spell that refills it.

>>96360194
While I'll encourage people to buy it if they have the means, I'll likely upload my pdfs to the share thread if someone doesn't do it before I remember to. I might bite the bullet and back the digital tiers of the shitty looking one I mentioned before, Drakonym, to also share that

>>96005629 (OP)
A vore artist probably drew this image.

I'm not a fan of giant dragons. Not much bigger than an elephant at max size.

>>96364110
Absolutely not. The mouth isn't detailed enough, and is not focused on.

>>96364121
That channel is fucking great.

>>96364159
people make fun of a lot of pokemon for being "manlets" because they expect them to be mountains. Having everything be massive in size ruins the impact of when you DO have something massive be an issue. I feel like a lot of people who want their creatures to be larger than a elephant or a blue whale have never been up close to one of those large animals to feel the difference in size versus walking around sky scrapers and other large inanimate objects.

>>96364159
I'm a fan of big dragons when they are old and few and when all of that matters.

>>96364707
>a lot of people who want their creatures to be larger than a elephant
Funnily enough, that's the scale I'm working with in a story I'm writing.
The co-protagonis dragon is about as tall as an asian elephant or an orca, with the largest dragon alive being about twice that size (GoT tv show dragon size?), otherwise the rules of engagement change too much. A fight against something gargantuan is more like fighting a moving building than a living creature, something like that.
Which can work if you really take into consideration what that means, but that's not what I want to write about.
A flying fire breathing humpback whale is scary enough as is.

All this size stuff has given me an idea. What if you don't have to choose between sapient and bestial dragons, and just have one be the result of the other growing up, both in size and in intelligence?
Like some kind of magic-assisted maturation, which, if disturbed (i.e. by your friendly neighborhood evil overlord) would result in a giant but feral scaled menace to sic on enemies.
Treasure hoards or being wizard's familiars would, then, be more of a means to help them grow ever smarter and more powerful by feeding on their magic, which is a nice piece of world-building for those inclined to bother with it.

>>96364159
Imo size should be strongly tied to age, and thus the power of any given dragon, with allowances for racial differences and whatnot.
A hatchling may be the size of a dog, but the elders could be as big as a castle, and more powerful than all the army defending one, mages and all.
An old dragon should evoke awe and terror in equal proportions, both by his size, and by the power he wields, both mystical and mundane.
The most party should ever face is an adolescent-young adult dragon, anything above would need an army, even with wizards in the party.

>>96005629 (OP)
How much devastation can a dragon in your world cause if they really get down to it? Mine can ravage a whole countryside if really riled up.

Mine would be around that scale, yeah.
The oldest, largest ones might be able to take on a small fort or fortified city.

>>96381571
That pic makes me wonder: cyberware for dragons yay or nay?
I mean, wouldn't it be awesome to have something that can concentrate the fire breath to a tight jet of concrete-melting plasma?
We've seen a cyborg t-rex, but a borged-out dragon sounds ever scarier, to be honest.
Even before you start messing with magical and magitech enhancements, just pure cybernetic augmentation.
>but wouldn't boosted fire breath melt the chrome?
Magnetic nozzle maybe? Keep it moving fast enough that it drags the surrounding air with the stream, drawing in cooler air and help keeping the implants from melting?
Theoretically, it can turn some of the breath's thermal energy into kinetic too, which is pretty cool.

I think meeting a heavily-augmented dragon in something like Shadowrun would be the perfect moment to show a high-powered party that there's always, ALWAYS a bigger fish… reptile, draconid, whatever.

>>96382246
An idea just came to me.

Take the typical wyrm who would be flightless and lacking the physical features of typical dragons and them teaming up with Humans to get augmented to allow them to be more dragon like

>>96385458
Well that's one reason not to make the squishies go splat or flash-frying them.
I can already picture the lore, showing wyrms as the "betrayers" that traded their kin for wings of steel and fire, forged by the lesser races.

>>96385781
The Wyrms are the primary keepers of knowledge and development but need Humans to help them do a lot of the actual surgery and developement they can't do.

In turn, with their long lives and perfect memories, they can teach future generations.

>>96005629 (OP)
Are aquatic dragons based or cringe, and what are some ways to make them more interesting?

>>96387926
Dragons with clear adaptions to their biomes are cool.
Maybe not to the level of your pic, but something between that and a classic dragon.
Like the forgotten realms brown dragon that lost its flight capability as an adaption to their environment and life style.
Also, it's pretty funny to me how unknown this guy is considering that he's been around since D&D 1e and in every edition since up until 4e.

>>96005629 (OP)
I hope you're at least being paid to do this. Christ

>>96005679
Does this guy know the monsters in the books are just examples? holy shit lol

>>96005957
lame and gay, a dragon should be a fucking apocalypse

>>96007041
wrong, they've got everything and that makes them interesting. you sound like you believe in slave morality kek

Every time I see this picture I think about how the building it's perched on should collapse because of its weight.

>created 53 days ago
>Only on page 7
>still up
How the fuck hasn't this thread been archived yet

>>96389872
Yeah, not sure how I feel about 4e rolling the Brown Dragon and the 3e Sand Dragon into one thing.

I did like the lore for them though.

>>96401175
/tg/ is dead

>>96401175
is this your first bumpfag thread

>>96402083
No actually it's not, but this is an especially egregious example

>>96401477
Brown Dragons in 3.5e (updated from 3.0 via an web article) are Sand Dragons, no?
Or was there another sand dragon called sand dragon?
Was there also a Yellow Dragon somewhere?

>>96404455
there was indeed an actual sand dragon type in the book Sandstorm - Mastering The Perils Of Fire And Sand

>>96404861
Right. There it is.
Damn.
I really should read Sandstorm one of these days. Frostburn is one of my favorite books.
I've seen this guy before, he looks really dope.
So 4e merged brown and sand into a single entity?

This board needs to be deleted

>>96005679
based

>>96404949
Why?

>>96404930
It came closer to renaming Sand Dragons to Brown Dragons and calling it a day.

>>96408414
That's extra gay.
Almost as gay as 5e turning FR Song Dragons into just Silver Dragons.

>>96409154
Well Sand and Brown dragons were already very similar except for their breath weapons and Brown Dragons being described as slightly more evil.
The sand breath attack was way more unique and it needed the color name since 4e was promoting both it and the Deep Dragon to full Chromatic status.

>>96409243
>since 4e was promoting both it and the Deep Dragon to full Chromatic status.
Why did they decide to do that?

>>96399966
Dragon wizard, nice. Why isn’t that more common?

>>96382246
>cyberware for dragons yay or nay?
It sounds based, so yay.

>>96432524
Fair ebough.

>>96435360
Indeed. Shame that more settings don't do stuff like that.

>>96005629 (OP)
>dragon thread
I gotta ask.
What book be it a TTRPG or chapter book or any other media did dragons right?

>>96438558
See >>96013251

>>96438558
I really like how Runequest made dragons a strange powerful cosmological forces that can be interacted with but was maybe not great to fully comprehend. Their influence can be felt throughout the setting at the edges.

Dragons are beasts. I don't want talking, spellcasting, magic-item-using dragons. I want big flying fire-breathing animalistic lizards that are meaner than an abused cat.
>b-but they're too easy!
the fuck they are

>>96441073
>the fuck they are
lol, they absolutely always will be trivial unless you go the Tarrasque/kaiju route and make them arbitrarily nigh invulnerable. Otherwise it's just a matter of exploiting their animal mind. Just bait them into a trap, or poison/trap their food with explosives or other things like destroying their eggs while they aren't looking.

>>96150089
In my setting that I'm working on the dragons are basically the Camarilla from VTM. Basic gist is that a lot of dragons were wiped out in a not!whaling/genocide campaign that followed a period of industrialization. At the time it was believed that dragons were nothing but mindless beasts that were bad for business, and this is the narrative that most people believe. In reality there is a massive conspiracy to wipe all types of dragons out, going so far as to do serious levels of mindfuckery on entire populations of longer lived races to make them forget the truth. The dragons, not wanting to be wiped out by said shadowy conspiracy, formed uneasy alliance and went underground. Now they work from the shadows and orchestrate things like puppet masters. Except they really REALLY hate working together, so they spend their time politicking and arguing which almost always rapidly devolves into infighting.

>>96441073
Doesn't DOTA do both approaches? Most dragons are non-sapient, but there are some that are basically demigods who are reborn by possessing a dragon of their breed if their current vessel dies, IIRC.

>>96005679
Well they're all egotistical sociopaths. Mortals can't POSSIBLY rival ME in power. Those other dragons weren't as good as ME.

>>96441951
Oh shit that sounds cool as hell.
I'm stealing some of that.

>>96446181
I should also mention that the ones that got wiped out were mostly of the older, larger variety, as those ones would be either too proud, too vain, or in the case of some of the metallics too trusting of former friends and allies to think they were at risk of death by harpoon and butchers knife. What's left are a handful of dragons around 300 or younger of all types that mostly stay hidden in secret villages or hideaways in cities. And any time one thinks they're too good for cooperation and secrecy and goes out on their own, well the papers the next day read the last dragon was finally killed.

>bumpfag thread
Dragons are a dark reflection of humanity’s fear of nature, both in a literal sense and in the primal instincts some of us still fall victim to.
They are greedy, tyrannical, prideful, vain, lazy, jealous, hateful, cruel, and utterly amoral. There are no “good“ dragons, by human morality. They are true apex predators given intelligence. Dragons can be reasoned with, so long as they have something to gain, but that’s a dangerous game.

>>96320621
I don't mind Dragonborns and other Humanoid Dragon races being around. In my setting there's a whole plane meant solely for Draconic creatures and Dragonborns are like the core race for humanoids over there
You can get real funky with race designs when allow draconic humanoids in your setting

>>96448726
That reminds me a bit of demons in Frieren. Basically, demons are an evolved form of monsters that preyed on humans by mimicking their voices, but while they now look more humanoid they are so mentally alien that they simply cannot escape their drive to kill humans, and the few that DO want to coexist with humanity are incapable of comprehending that killing humans and said coexistence are mutually exclusive.

>>96005629 (OP)
For me dragons are expressions of nature’s rage against mankind, born when a nature god was slain by another god on behest of their worshippers.

>>96455250
For me dragons are weapons created by the god of creation as weapons in his quest to indirectly become the singular capital G God.

>>96452154
ah, so jews basically

My campaigns rarely get to high enough level where a dragon encounter wouldn't just tpk the party.

>>96456162
We are currently after a xorvintaal black dragoness that's probably going to kick our asses.
We are all mentally and spiritually preparing ourselves for a TPK.
It'll be pretty fun to go there prepared to shit only to be met with stuff like "oh, her acid bypasses magical protections, get fucked boyo".
It's going to be so fucking fun.

>>96458385
>We are currently after a xorvintaal black dragoness that's probably going to kick our asses.
What exactly is she plotting? Taking over a country? Assassinating a Good-aligned dragon?

>>96461232
So far? Causing a lot of trouble.
At first, we were walking around the mushroom jungle doing (seemingly) unrelated things and stumbled upon some light terraforming, such as some rivers turning acidic, some spots becoming swamps, that kind of thing.
A while after that we went to rescue some dudes that were kidnapped by some demon orcs from hell (the abyss maybe?) and stumbled onto an old abandoned fortification of some sort that was swarming with evil ant dudes, who had also kidnapped some of the folks we were looking for.
The leader of the ant dudes had some weirdly draconic powers. After beating a whole ass army of ant-men, the leader fled into the caves under the fort and we followed.
Long story short, we ended up all the way down some forgotten dungeon where the dragoness was moving her hoard to, and the ant dude was like one of her generals.
Now she's pissed as fuck at us.
There's also a whole sort-of-prophetic deal one of our party members is involved in that has to do with dragons and intersects with the dragoness.

>>96461281
Oh yeah. She's taking part in the xorvintaal, so she's plotting something big regardless, probably taking control of the whole island-country, but we haven't confirmed that exactly.
Apparently, there was another dragon in the island that controlled the mountains (where we stole half her hoard), but it either fled or she killed it.

>>96005629 (OP)
Problem I've had with dragons is that the main thing you do with them is slay them. Seems kinda silly for them to be extremely rare, even the young ones, and for it to take centuries to get a big one when it only takes 1 strong party to kill one and that same party can just go around killing more and more dragons. Then there's the times dragon might get defeated by normal people like what happened to Smaug. There's just no sensible way for dragons in most settings to exist if you have thousands of years of history and adventuring.

It has never been relevant to a game but dragons are just very successful kobolds. Still rare, still powerful and sometimes smart but the pool they have the potential to grow from is large.

>>96463236
the only problem is the lack of writer restraint
every setting has gobs of leveled adventurers/heroes with at least semi-optimized builds and party compositions, most of the time they have really high ability scores, and of course plot armor

I don't think you should be limited to E6, but I try to stay in that mindset.
https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/587/roleplaying-games/dd-calibrating-your-expectations-2

Remember to keep on page 10 bumping and I'll see you bumpfag thread.

>>96468945
That’s supposed to be a dragon? I thought that Christianity views dragons as a symbol of the Devil? There’s a reason there’s tales of sacred knights killing then, after all.

>>96471773
The highest order of angels, the Seraphim, might be dragons. They are described to have many pairs of wings and their name translates to "serpentine ones".

>>96472665
reptilians confirmed

>>96472665
>Bible has dragon angels
>Gets humanformed by chapter 3 to increase religion's popularity with normalfags
Some things never change.

>>96476929
but tits tho

>>96477131
Tits are the second best thing in life.
Right after dragons.

>>96441951
..Isn't that just Shadowrun Dragons?