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?

>>96005629 (OP)

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?

>>96076272

>>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.

>>96113530

>>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.

>>96151984

>>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.