Dragons

Dragons were a powerful race of soul-bearing beings in Tirónar, believed to have gone extinct over a millennia ago. Previously native to the craggy plateaus of western Haneul, dragons soon spread their influence all over the continent in a way only humans have done since. While any dragons in Tirónar are long dead, there is still some speculation that dragons may have even traveled across the sea to other parts of the world, where some may yet still remain.

Dragon changelings are called Kings’ Eye, and while the Dragons are long dead and firmly entombed in the past, some Kings’ Eyes continue to exist to this day. However, in the millenia since the Dragon’s extinction, enough distinctions have developed between Kings’ Eyes and their non-changeling peers.

## Physical Traits

### Size

The size of a baby dragon depends on a few factors. Like other reptiles, dragons do a trade-off thing where you either have lots of small babies or less big babies depending on how much resources are available. More resources = fewer big babies, because they are more likely to survive, while fewer resources = more small babies, because the more babies there are, the more likely at least a few will live. The average baby dragon is about the size of a real-world adolescent komodo dragon.

Dragons were, at their largest, the largest beings in Tirónar. While giants were generally about the size of a slightly above-average dragon, an older dragon could easily dwarf a giant. Giants are half the size of the largest trees, so around 50 ft or so. So dragons range from itty bitty babies to wingspans beyond 100 ft! It's super varied overall, but generally the younger the dragon, the smaller it is. Presumably, dragons would continue to grow until their deaths, but few lived to grow too large. Dragons would generally self-maintain their population sizes because they were very territorial and would fight each other if things got too crowded.

### Scales

Legend says that the scales of dragons were actual hardened flames shifting across their bodies.

For a visual representation of what would have looked like, check out this video I stumbled upon by The Slow Mo Guys that inspired this concept (jump to 2:00):

Unfortunately, if the scales of a King’s Eye are anything to go by, this legend is only sorta true. While the visual effect is definitely there, the scales are not actually made from hardened flames. Instead, it’s just a trick of the light.

That being said... no one in living memory has ever actually seen a dragon; they went extinct a millennia ago. And while dragon changelings (king’s eyes) are a good basis for studying these ancient creatures, we don’t know for certain that every element of their physiology would have been identical...

Still, unless some new research demonstrates otherwise, the fiery scales of the dragons are likely nothing more than a myth.

### Fire

Dragon fire is more or less a normal gas-based flame. Believe it or not, dragon fire isn't an act of magic, but just a physical ability of dragons as a species, kinda like how skunks naturally make stink spray and snakes naturally make venom. I'm not entirely sure what science governs the color of gas-based flames, so you can get creative with that if you want.

This gas comes from a secondary stomach, where some of the byproducts of its diet are stored as a waste product like how the bladder stores some forms of human waste, and then has a separate tube to be expelled from and ignited from the mouth. This gas is then ignited by a spark created by the dragon's teeth. Many dragons would also use their magic to manipulate their flames into thin jets or massive fireballs.

### Wings

Tirónar's dragons evolved to use their flight abilities for altitude and maneuverability. Tironár isn't super big and the dragons are territorial so they aren't going to be taking a lot of long-distance trips. With the mountains and craggy rocky plateaus of regions like Haneul, they'd need to be able to turn quickly to maneuver. So Tironár dragons would have been more likely to be the wingspan to body length ratio of 1:1.

### Variants

I'm not going to rule out the idea that maybe there are dragons who crossed the sea and survived tucked away and isolated, but they would have likely adapted to look very different after so long apart. In fact, rumor has it that there may be dragons of this sort in Effrens. These dragons are said to breathe poisonous mist of venomous liquid, rather than fire. While these dragons began with wings similar to those of Tirónar's dragons, with wings made for height and maneuverability. However, as time went on and more dragons were born and getting territorial, it's likely that dragons with coastal territories would probably survive better if they could take long trips off over the ocean and then dive to catch fish for food instead of trying to grab goats and stuff from the mountains. Eventually, these would have evolved to the point where they could probably cross the ocean and a group would have likely left in hopes of finding new territory. In their modern, evolved state, these dragons have the wingspan to body length ratio of 2:1.

## Social Traits

Due to their size and territorialism, dragons were very independent beings. Younger (and therefore smaller) dragons were more social than their elders. As they grew larger, the need for food would slowly force young dragons to spread out into their own distinct, agreed-upon territories. Mating age generally corresponded to the age where dragons were large enough that only a couple could live within close proximity and sustain themselves.

There would have been alliances between other dragons, with the understanding that they wouldn't encroach upon the space of the other, and would sometimes help the other fight for space if the alliance/friendship was very strong, but they didn't live in "clans" or family units or anything like that. Very isolated, just like Tirónar itself.

Interesting side-note, dragons territorialism came with something akin to honor. You didn't want other dragons on your territory, but you also respected their territory as well. Dragons were expected to only claim the territory they needed to sustain themselves, taking into account the resources already being used by the grounded sentient population. For a long time, dragons were seen as a sort of guardian type creature.

## Magic

Like all beings with souls, dragons could use magic. Dragons were full to BURSTING with magic, which would be unlocked from the moment they were born.

However, unlike humans and their mind-based magical focuses, dragons had something called a physical focus. Physical focuses do the exact same job as their mental counterparts but focus the magic through a physical trait, rather than a phycological intent. This is a trait they share with unicorns, whose physical focus is their horn. For dragons, this physical feature was their eyes, which, according to old stories, had a slitted pupil to ensure that they had complete control over how much magic they used at any point.

A dragon's eyes are the physical focuses of the magic in their souls, in the same way that a human's eyes are a physical feature that lets us focus the light coming from the outside world into an image. Just as other animals use things like echolocation to "see" instead of using eyes, in this world, some creatures focus the magic of their souls through a mental focus instead of a physical one.

If a human loses their eyes, they can't necessarily find a new way of seeing, but they can still use their other senses to get around and get a sense of their surroundings. We might not ever develop echolocation, but we can still make it work. Just like how, if someone loses their tongue (a physical thing that lets us focus vibrations of our throats into communication) or otherwise becomes mute, they can still communicate through sign language.

Therefore, if a dragon lost their eyes, they could still do magic, but it would be very difficult to adapt. They'd have to learn from scratch (i.e. unlock it again), and it would never be as precise as the magical skills they had before because they'd be stuck with all the downsides of a mental focus, where you have to be very self-aware as a person to hone it into something useful and controllable.

To go back to the blindness analogy: Humans are designed to use eyes to see. They are not designed to use echolocation. However, if they go blind, they can learn to "see" through listening to the world around them, though not as clearly as they would with sight, nor as clearly as an animal designed to use echolocation could interpret those sounds.

Similarly, dragons are designed to use eyes to focus their magic. They are not designed to use mental focuses. However, if they lose their physical focus, they can learn to focus their magic mentally, though not as precisely and easily as they would with their physical focus, nor as easily as a being designed to use a mental focus to cast magic.

TL;DR: Yes, beings with physical focuses could learn to use a mental focus if they lost their physical focus and thrive with this disability, but it would be an incredibly difficult learning curve and would put them at an inherent disadvantage.

## Dragon War and Extinction

As human civilizations started to expand, territories that would have once supported a dragon were now less full of food. Desperation turned to greed, while this war started out as a normal territorial dispute, it soon escalated into an extreme version of this phenomenon. When the issue of space was resolved, the fighting didn't stop, leaving fire and death in their wake as they destroyed themselves.

Some wonder if the same magic now used by The Enemy was also discovered by the dragons during this war, leading to this abnormal increase in hostilities. Based on what little we know about this magic from "The Ranger's Tale," we know that this corrupted magic from the Fae Realm was abandoned deep within the Western Forest during Feadhainn's peak. We also know that there were at least some dragons living in or near the Western Forest, due to the appearances of Kings' Eyes within the forest and the number of documented human changelings with draconic features within Duilintinn. Therefore, it stands to reason that this magic may have been found and used by the dragons to accomplish so much destruction, to the point of their own extinction.

Next to nothing is known about the pre-historic civilizations of Halennor and Lantraeth because they were utterly destroyed by this conflict. Feadhainn survived, but barely, never truly recovering their former glory.

Meanwhile, Haneul probably made it through this tragedy better than the surrounding nations. We know for a fact that dragons used to populate their western plateau because Haneul has by far the most passed-down knowledge about dragons than any other people group on the continent. While Haneul’s ancient civilizations certainly were set back culturally and technologically by this disaster, they seemed to be able to pull through in the aftermath. Most likely, living in such close proximity to these mighty beings pushed the ancient peoples of Haneul to prepare for draconic threats, allowing their culture to survive while their neighbors fell into ruin. If nothing else, ancestral memory from living right next to a bunch of dragons would definitely explain why the people of Haneul are so hyper-vigilant and chaotic to this day…

### Superstitions

In the aftermath of the Dragon War, many people believed that the nations to the north were the *source* of the danger.

Now, if this belief was something along the lines of “the dragons that devastated the world as we know it came from the north,” they wouldn’t be wrong. But no, the actual belief was usually something along the lines of “the civilizations to the north *caused* this tragedy and can/will do so again.”

Obviously, this is a far cry from the truth; several civilizations were destroyed to the point that we barely know more than they *existed*, and while Haneul pulled through better than the other kingdoms, it would also suffer extreme losses.

Despite the inaccuracy, this superstition was widely and consistently believed until the Waldren Occupation began, at which point it began to evolve.

On one hand, the ease with which Waldren conquered much of northern Tirónar seemed to contradict the myths. On the other hand, Haneul would successfully keep the Waldren fleet at bay for the *entire era,*so many future iterations of this superstition would focus specifically on Haneul.

Simultaneously, the economics-driven culture of the Waldren imperialist force was extremely critical of any sort of superstition, believing it to be a tactic to discourage their attempts to capitalize on the continent. As more colonization took place and Waldren’s culture began to diffuse itself into the various cultures of Tirónar, the myth became a bit less universal in nature.

Finally, the advances in technology and international communication between the nations of Tirónar during the later Interim Years and continuing into the Modern Era seemed to tear away the curtain of mystery that surrounded Haneul. Even so, to this day, much of the ancient superstitions survive in the form of jokes about Haneul’s chaotic natural landscape and sociopolitical culture.

## Changelings

Like all beings with souls, dragons can also manifest as changelings, called King's Eyes.

Kings’ Eyes are small, floating creatures found in the marshes and caves of northern Tirónar. Since they are dragon changelings, they are extremely rare.

Very little is known about the role that Kings’ Eyes played within draconic culture, but one thing is clear; when the Dragon War drew to a close, the Dragons had gone extinct, but some Kings’ Eyes remained. They were rare remnants of a lost time, and quickly took on a legendary, almost mythological status

### Physical Traits

King's Eyes look like a single large, floating eye, sometimes with patches of scales, tiny wings, and/or a flexible tail.

While they start out about the size of a soccer ball and grow very slowly, theoretically, they also grow for their whole lives, just like dragons. No one is quite sure what the lifespan of a king's eye is, so no one knows how big they can get.

### Social Traits

They are a small, but incredibly intelligent creatures. Strangely enough, their behavior is extremely similar to the dragons of myth and legend, whose bones can be found deep in the same caves where The King’s Eye resides. Their primary characteristic is their protective, almost hoarding nature. Whether it be a tree, cave, pond, fellow creature, hidden treasure, or- for only the rarest, greatest of men- a person, The King’s Eye will protect their chosen ward with their life; with or without their permission.

Though incapable of speech, they are uncanny judges of character. Just one moment of eye contact with the small, floating creature will be enough for it to decide whether you are friend or foe. If it decides you are a friend, it will let you pass unscathed, so long as you do no harm to the creature, place, treasure, or person it protects. If it deems you a foe, however, beware; The King’s Eye can spit a poisonous spray of from its tail and will not hesitate to make its displeasure known if you are found unworthy. That being said, the character discernment abilities of a King's Eye don’t get more specific than generalized opinions such as "HELL NO," "maybe," "oh I like this one," etc. They aren’t mind-readers, nor can they instantly know everything about a person and their specific traits with a single glance. Instead, it’s more like a gut feeling about whether or not someone can be trusted in the current context (i.e. a King’s Eye might get a different gut feeling about the same person depending on if the context involves fighting alongside them, leading them, or just tagging along with them). However, these gut feelings are far stronger than what humans experience; while adult humans doubt their gut feelings all the time, only baby king's eyes do that.

King's Eyes usually live in caves in the wild, which serve as protection from the elements and gives them a single entrance and exit to watch. If anyone tries to attack, they have to go through that single path, where they'd be sitting ducks to a king's eyes' magic. They sleep curled up on their tails,  forming a round cushion for their head/eye/whatever. This is enough support for them to sleep comfortably, so they don't need to make a nest. However, some King's Eyes will still make nests from their hoard, often sleeping on, near, or beneath it.

Since most king's eyes only have scales on their tails, maybe a bit on the backs of the round eye-bit if they're lucky, they're pretty vulnerable and don't get a lot of benefit from roaring and being scary in the way their non-changeling draconic peers do. In the wild, their main survival strategy is to be very quiet, get an instant-read on the thing approaching them by making eye contact as quickly as possible, and immediately either blast them with poison or not before they have a chance to attack their relatively squishy bodies.

### Communication

Kings Eyes don’t verbally communicate, but have incredibly expressive body language composed of pupil dilation, flight patterns, and tail movements that is pretty easy to understand, even for someone who’s never seen one before. In practice, this involves a lot of expressive, literal eye-rolling, bouncing, thrashing tails, and occasional slaps if you seriously deserve it.

In many ways, their behavioral patterns are very similar to that of a cat’s. Head butts are a sign of affection because the front of the eye is so vulnerable. Additionally, their pupil movement reflects their mood in the same way a cat’s does. For example, thin pupils indicate focus, combined with either relaxed, tense, or thrashing tail movements to either mean “I’m focusing on something I like,” “I’m focusing on something scary because I’m anxious,” or “I’m about to zap someone,” respectively. On the other hand, dilated pupils indicate excitement, with tense body language showing anticipation and bouncier movements meaning happiness and enthusiasm. Finally, squinted pupils show that a Kings’ Eye is mostly relaxed; the smaller the slit, the more comfortable and safe they feel.

In addition, similar to how toucans will smack their beaks against things to kinda survey their surroundings or to just make noise, Kings Eyes will sometimes use their tails to make actual sounds. They often whack nearby objects with their tail to get something’s attention or express various emotions.

Finally, Kings’ Eyes will also ripple and shake from head to toe to indicate various emotions. A single, quick shake before settling down usually means a Kings’ Eye is relaxed, much like a dog spinning in a circle before lying down. On the contrary, if a Kings’ Eye starts thrashing or vibrating vigorously for at least several seconds, usually while making direct eye contact, that means they are angry and they want you to know it. It’s the equivalent of screaming at someone.

### Magic

King's Eyes have physical focuses just like their non-changeling peers, and it's no coincidence that a dragon changeling is shaped like the same feature as their physical focus. However, it is difficult to pin down exactly *why* this is the case; only that there is some sort of correlation. What we know is that the physical forms of changelings reflect the state of the species as a whole, are based on the remains that the Fae Folk can find, usually include any physical focuses, and also fit an established "idea" that the Fae Folk have about what this species should look like. Which of these details are causes and which ones are effects? Do Fae Folk include physical focuses because that fits their idea of what a species should look like, or because that's all they can find to base it off of? Or is it that because Fae Folk can only find the remains of physical focuses, that's their idea of what a species should look like? Is the symbolism/reflection of the state of a species a coincidental side effect of the Fae Folk not being able to find stuff to base the changelings off of, or is it an inherent part of how the Fae Folk decide what their "ideal" of what the physical form of the species should look like? No one knows for sure, but you could spend all day debating it.

### Samwise

> *See More: Samwise*
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During the quest for Duilintinn, a King’s Eye bonded with King Sean and has stayed by his side to this day. Lovingly nicknamed Samwise (or Sam, for sort), the King’s Eye followed the young leader, earning him instant respect and awe. Many historians cite the constant presence of this magical creature at the King’s side to be one of the primary reasons he was able to found such a prosperous and unified kingdom at such a young age. Samwise became such an iconic part of Duilintinn’s history and iconography that, when The Watch was created, they chose the King’s Eye as the magical animal on their insignia, in order to reflect their role as an ever watching force protecting the king and kingdom from any who would threaten their lands.