Shield Dragon

* Juvenile
* Baby
* Egg

File:Juvenile.png

*Arriving in a fury in the nick of time comes the **shield dragon**! This dragon is strong, honorable, interesting, elegant, loyal, and devoted. This dragon's scales are smooth yet cold to the touch, as if they were made of iron.*
    —Nogard's description of the **shield dragon** in The Book of Dragons
The **Shield Dragon** is a rare quad dragon of the Cold, Earth, Lightning, and Water elements. It's main element is Cold.

## Abilities

### Weapons

The **Shield Dragon** has strong horns on its head and razor-sharp knife-shaped scales on its front legs.

### Defenses

Though the **Shield Dragon**'s scales feel like iron, they are not actually made of iron. Actually, they are pretty soft, except the ones on their front legs. This dragon will rely on "offence is the best defence".

### Other Abilities

**Shield Dragons** master a lot of battle techniques and can run very fast. It will fight like an angry bull. An intelligent, quick-thinking bull with wings, mind you.

### Breath Weapon

The **Shield Dragon** breathes small items made out of the same material as their scales. Still very soft, but painful as they are fired at high speed.

### Weaknesses

The **Shield Dragon** does not have an actual shield to defend itself and can be killed in its sleep. Its skin is relatively thin. Luckily, they are the only creatures living in their habitat except for birds.

## Habitat

### Regions

**Shield Dragons** are very rare but are known to live on a mountain from which few people know the location, known as M.O.U.N.T.A.I.N.. It is located in the uncharted areas of the Marvelous Lands, a part of The Far East.

### Preferred Home

They settle in the caves in the mountain with a comfortable temperature.

### Sheltering/Nesting

**Shield Dragons** settle in the warmest corner of the mountain.

## Diet

**Shield Dragons** eat the grass growing on the mountain.

## Lifestyle

### Behavior and Personality

**Shield Dragons** are honorable creatures which will never attack creatures less powerful than them except when heavily provoked or attacked by a large group.

### Social Order

**Shield Dragons** live in one big group on their mountain. They are loyal to each other and there are no real leaders, though younger ones will mostly obey the instructions of the older ones.
In very rare occasions, **shield dragons** will leave the mountain for a completely solitary life. These **shield dragons** usually get bonded to wizards.

### Relationship to Wizards

**Shield Dragons** in the wild rarely see wizards, as wizards who even know where the mountain is rarely actually visit it, and if they do so they mostly hide themselves.

## Life Cycle

### Mating

**Shield Dragons** live in a large group, so picking a mate is not difficult.

### Birth

All the eggs are stored at the top of the mountain. Actually this is a pretty dumb location. There may be no creatures who will steal or eat the eggs, but ocassionally a clumsy Joyful Jay may sit on an egg and let it roll down and break. And the newer eggs are laid at the top, so if an egg at the bottom hatches, it will mostly send other eggs rolling.

### Infancy

Since all infant **Shield Dragons** come from the big pile of eggs, no-one is sure who are the parents of each infant, so the whole group cares for the babies.

### Adolescence

Adolescents will perform activities the adults will do too: eat, look if there are other creatures trying to take over the mountain (which will probably never happen), make the sleeping caves as comfortable as possible, and such things.

### Adulthood

An adult will perform about the same activities as described above.

### Life Span

**Shield Dragons** become about 100 years old. The oldest known **Shield Dragon** was 118 years old.

## History

### Discovery

The **Shield Dragon** was only recently discovered due to their distant habitat. They were discovered by the explorer Ron Dache. Ron Dache had been exploring M.O.U.N.T.A.I.N. for about a month, and had found nothing interesting. When he finally found the **shield dragon** herd, he celebrated until knocking over the egg pile. He then got out of there as fast as he could.

### Origin of Name

**Shield dragons** are named after the shape and texture of their razor sharp legs.

## Magic

**Shield Dragons** are associated with Terramancy, Hydromancy, Electromancy and Cryomancy, and have something to do with Theomancy too.