Dragons... size and history

[Nathan Yospe]

On Fri, 20 Jun 1997, Matt Chatterley wrote:

:[All original text quoted to keep in the right context]

:On Thu, 19 Jun 1997, Alex Oren wrote:

:This is how it went with the group I used to play with. We ended up with
:so many house rules, we unanimously decided "Lets make our house rules the
:firm rules, and use the actual books as house rules" kinda thing.

Having done all of my fantasy campaigns as a player (I run sci-fi and
futuristic espianage) I don't know all the details of mechanics, but I
still remember my one real run in with a dragon. (well, one of three... I
remember all three quite well.) In essense, this world's dragons (Kirnagi,
I think they were called) were about 20 meters long, with considerably
greater wingspans, were not particularly brilliant, sub sentient, but were
quite fast and fierce. They were also filled with a rather explosive
fluid. They did not breath flame. In any case, they were consistant, and
too big for a mere human(oid) to take on. My character was a theorist who
had come to investigate a rather unique fluctuation in the magical field,
and gotten in over his head. Faced with a trio of hungry dragons, and the
corpse of a fourth, he ends up blowing up the corpse. He almost escaped,
using the blast to cover himself... but he slipped and failed to get
behind cover, and died. The second and third encounters involved serious
mages, and one managed to scare off a dragon with a hail of projectiles,
in one case. In the third case, we all got eaten. Made the reptiles a lot
easier to take seriously.

:> Keeping that in mind, let's discuss dragons...

:Heh. Funny this should come up - I was chatting with one of my associates
:on Caffeine about dragons the other day, because he wanted to tie in a
:dragon-quest with one of the sects of mages.

:The first point we noted is that dragons are extremely large. In our
:imaginations, a hatchling would be twice the size of a human, and a fully
:grown dragon upto 50 times the size of a human (most likely in terms of
:wingspan, rather than just height). By virtue of huge size, their relative
:strength, toughness and so forth would be enourmous (stats for our players
:are more or less static - a 20 is a very very good starting stats),
:starting in the hundreds, if not nearing thousands. The vast size, claws,
:and of course intelligence associated with them would give them effective
:'multiple attacks' per round (or rather, the ability to hit multiple
:targets).

In my Vales series, the dragons are rare, and take several centuries to
mature. A larval dragon is about six inches long. Few survive to first
molting, which takes fifty years, but the survivors spurt from a foot long
pre molt to a five foot dragonling. Second molt goes from ten feet long to
about thirty. Final molt goes from forty, and subsentient, to about 30
meters, sentient, but involves a century long period of underground
molting and growth, the duration of which a dragon has skin as soft as,
for example, a whale's. Dragons (mature) are ambivalent about humans, and
never eat them. They do, however, occasionally kill them, with reason. I
always felt that the standard "large flying lizard" failed to do the
dragon justice. They should either hold far greater malice than simple
hunger, or ancient hatred for persecution, or ambivalence, or reserved
wisdom (the heremitic dragons are always fascinating), but not simple
intellegent ferocity. Nothing that large would survive with an attitude
like that in a human dominated world. I DID like the dragons from
"Dragonheart".

:Assuming an army were to attack a dragon (A smallish army.. say 50 men):

:The dragon is 50 times the size of a human, and can easily be surrounded
:by all of them (especially if some use polearm weapons and attack over the
:shoulders of the others). The dragon can hit upto 10 of them in the space
:of time they can swing at it, and if it hits, will almost certainly kill.

:In about 6 swipes, the dragon is going to be enjoying a very nice feast.

A smart human, of course, undermines a dragon's lair. Or poisons it.

:Of course, this is a very BIG dragon, and only someone very stupid would
:try to attack it without something suitable.. infact, at all.

Unless they have a greater motive than gaining experience.

:Has anyone given thought to extending the 'dragonlore' and 'history' from
:RPGs into something more?

Nearly half the fantasy/sci fi authors in existance.

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Nathan F. Yospe - University of Hawaii Dept of Physics - yospe at hawaii.edu