Guide on Novels and Games - FANTASY - RACES - DRAGONS

> **DRAGONS**

This race probably appear in all the mythologies, in a way or another.

Their origin is quite various, for example Fafnir, a dragon present in the nordic myths, was a Dwarf that after being cursed changed into a dragon... if we use science for exaplain dragons than we can think that in the past some people saw some big reptiles like alligators and komodo dragons or even some dinosaur fossils somewhere, and thanks to this is possible use science for explain such mythical creatures.

APPEARANCE:

The common dragon is mainly a giant four legged reptile but some dragons don't really respect this description and this come from their type.

Their scales can be of various colors, the most classic colors are red, blue, green and black... yellow too is used but for what I know the four that I listed before are the most common one.

If we talk about dragon as humanoids we need to divide them into beastman like and werebeast like where they show male and female show dragon traits like horns, scales, eyes, tail and/or wings.

BIOLOGY:

Depending on the type, dragons can have different types of variation but basically they are reptiles with some "upgrades" so basically one can take a look to the best points of various reptile's races and fuse them for obtain a unique strong biology, for example alligators have a great resistence against sickness and dragons have an high res against sickness too.

LIFESPAN:

Here we step in a world of various variations so we can say that their life span can wave between thousand of years to limitless.

REPRODUCTION:

Keeping under consideration various factors I have to make a list for this section:

* Eggs, as beasts then, given various factors (various authors and that they are a different type of reptiles), female dragons lay eggs but this is mainly applied only on female dragons... personally I remember that there is a story where dragons don't really have a gender and any of them can lay eggs.
* Human pregnancy, in this case dragons reproduce like humans and is applied to beastman like dragons and all the female dragons that take a human form. I remember that there is a character half human half dragon but really know how it's born.
* Conversion, in this case the member of another race morph into a dragon or is transformed into one by someone, like another dragon, or something, like a cursed tool.

VARIATIONS:

Dragons are mainly divided into Western and Asian dragons (Japan, China and Korea)

* Western dragons are, most of them, four legged giant being with wings. I said "most of them" because there are various types of that differ from the standard one like the lesser dragons, that are small and don't have wings, the wyvern, that have the wings and the front legs fused together, and the wurm that are basically draconic serpents that don't have legs.
* Asian dragons have long snake-like bodies, four legs and A PAIR OF LONG MOUSTACHE... I'm sure that there is a better way of put the whole thing but they are moustache and there is no way that I'll negate that. In the case of the asian dragons is need to say that, in the chinese mythology, some of them appear like fish while others appear like turtle, probably the black turtle of the four guardian beasts called Genbu in Japan and Xuanwu in China is a type of dragon that resemble a turtle.

After this type of classification there are others that involve:

* Size, sometimes is used for understand if its an adult one, a young one or a lesser one
* Scales color, the color is sometimes used in various ways, for example I saw that certain authors used it for indicate their attribute (like blue for water dragon and green for wind) or their strong point (like green one have high DEF while blue ones have high magical powers).
* Body composition, in some works certain dragons are not only made of bones and flesh but of elements or are totally composed by an element like a water dragon made only by water.

POWERS & ABILITIES:

The powers and abilities of dragons can change depending on their type, and eventually, role in the story so I'll list what come to my mind about them:

* Strenght, dragons are normally giant being and this lead to them be physically very strong, in the time dragons were used as symbols of power.
* Magic power/ability, dragons are know for have great magical powers and are able to use high tier spells and curses.
* Breath, a common feature that we usually see in the dragons used in novels and games is the ability of breath something... probably the first example that come in the mind of everyone is a dragon that breath fire but if one look around it will see that there are dragons that can breath other things like poison (like humans after eat onions and garlic), lightning or water.
* Regeneration, as very strong being some dragons have shown an powerfull regenerative ability that make them recover from various type of damages but this don't mean that they don't leave scars or similar things
* Fly, dragons are able to fly, western one can do it using their own wing but the asian dragon that don't have wings can fly via magic or using a natural ability that make them fly.
* Shapeshifting, dragon as race are able to use magic for make them change into humans or another race
* Magic resistence/immunity, it exactly how sound, since they have great magical power is not impossible have high res against magic to the point of almost nullify it
* Dermal armor, in term of power is a special "skill" owned by naturally by being that have hard skin, since dragons are know for have hard scales say that they have this power is not wrong.
* Unique skill, in certain works dragons have personal and unique skills that are not owned by other dragons but this don't mean that all the dragons have one or that they born already with a unique skill... basically a dragon can develop a unique skill or born with one.

SOCIETY:

From what I saw around, dragons as race can have two type of government:

* Royalty by blood, basically they have a royal family that govern the race like humans.
* Royalty by power, the dragons have as leader the most powerfull one of them and if someone want to take the position of dragon king/queen it need to defeat in fight the current one.

Usually dragons as animal shaped race live in large zones where they can move freely so mountains and valleys are usually their environment but dragons as beastman like and werebeast like don't really need very large places so they can create settlement like humans do.