A Diatribe on Dragonkind.

So, what do we know about dragons?

They're reptilian, for a start, and this could well indicate cold blooded. Their relatively infrequent feeding would tend to support this hypothesis.

They're big. No question there, everyone agrees. At least horse sized, and probably house sized. Of course, people tend to exaggerate, bringing shrews down to gnat dimensions, and postulating mosquitoes that fly away with small children, but I think we can be certain they are considerably larger than humans. Which sets us off on the next detail:

They fly. Oriental dragons fly without the use of wings; and Mesopotamian artists added wings symbolically to a number of their subjects, anyway, indicating speed and liberty; they added them to lions, for the liberty of library steps, and souls, giving the conventional image for angels, despite biblical descriptions indicating totally non-human forms of the latter. So we can't be any too confident of the accuracy of the illustrations. Still, it seems that western dragons have wings, albeit insufficient to overcome the cube/square law and get the beasts into the air. And once flying they are hardly aerodynamic masterpieces; that serpentine flexibility is everything you don't want in an airliner, and long and thin and pointy is not optimal for air friction. (apart from wyverns; but their "two legs, two wings" physical layout suggest they come from a completely different line from the rest of hexapodal dragonkind. Convergent evolution, no doubt.) If they nest on clifftops, perhaps they could use thermals to avoid losing height, and snatch prey while maintaining speed, but taking off from level ground is something outside our present physics; call it magic.

They control fire. In this they are unique; even insects, who've tried everything never managed this, (salamanders maybe, but I suspect they're just a small species of dragon) and it's across the board; even cheerful, chubby-faced Chinese dragons' portraits show stylised wisps of smoke emitted from their nostrils, while occidental dragons tend to use flame as a combat weapon, or in generalised destruction.



They live a long time; possibly not the 'thousand years' of legend, but certainly numerous human generations. Indeed with the 'Smaug' model (ultra territorial, ultra solitary) there is some indication they were created at the same time as the world, with no mechanism for either ageing or reproducing, just carrying on until killed. My dragons, being cold blooded, live for a certain number of heartbeats, rather than years, so are entirely dependent on temperature and activity; the cooler they are, the longer they last objectively by human standards. By their own consciousness related duration, of course, they all live about as long, assuming they're not killed before.

Intelligence? What use is that to a top of the food chain predator? Why should a solitary hunter develop a language centre at all, let alone a multisymbolic one, capable of translating and learning various human languages? The only things a dragon has to say to other dragons are "Shove off, or be prepared to die, this is my territory." or "Hey, honey, care to co-operate in making an egg?", and even a tortoise can communicate that, with a very limited vocabulary. Why should I suppose dragons are solitary? Ignoring the fact that it's always one dragon your hero goes up against, can you imagine any prey big enough to require a pack (or whatever the collective noun for dragons would be if they ever collected) of the beasts? So, there is no evolutionary pressure towards intelligence in dragons, beyond, of course, the cunning needed to catch prey. The "created from scratch" origin becomes more useful in this circumstance; if you have a master being manufacturing species to order there's no extra difficulty incorporating communications skills into the mix. No, I don't like this solution and, requiring symbol-manipulating intellect in my creatures defined that dragons educate their young, and fast, so language is a juvenile leftover.

Lighter than air. It could be that the flight and the fire are related. No, I'm not considering rocket-boosted takeoff; you'd almost have to start flying tail first, and twist round when in the air. Either that or expect serious cooking of tail. There's the theory of the lighter than air dragon, a thin, sinuous beast on the ground (although longer legged than your average illustration) whose body is mainly inflatable gas bag. When he wants to fly, he generates a lighter than air gas, and blows up into a far more airworthy shape, ultimately floating away. Now the cube/square law starts to work with us; a dragon like this would have to be big to develop enough lift to be useful. Most of the biologically generable lta gasses are inflammable; helium would be just too difficult to generate. It might be methane, although that is generally associated with a vegetable diet, while dragons are probably exclusive carnivores. (All right, they might be omnivorous, but there are no reports of a dragon stripping a tree of fruit, or rooting for potatoes; it's always killing a sheep, or expecting a virgin to be staked out as tribute. That's not proof, I know.) So I suspect hydrogen; reasonably easy to generate, and the most lift of any gas, but the risk of fire (from thunderstorms if nothing else) is considerable (see the 'Hindenburg') So it is quite likely that burning it off in a controlled manner is preferable to simply venting.
Perhaps a leaping dinosaur (many seemed to be bipedal) shared with bullfrogs and many lizards an inflatable throat pouch which made them look bigger or more sexually attractive, when this was blown up from the stomach rather than the lungs he could leap further, stay in the air longer. Over the generations the air sack extends over more of the body surface, a neck ruff extends and becomes stronger, capable of redirecting the body in the air, and the overall size increases as bigger= more lift. Tempting as this explanation is I don't like it:- firstly because your grounded dragon is weak, with fragile, hollow bones (leaving less fossil evidence) and no great muscle mass, its only effective weapon being its fire, while legend speaks of powerful teeth and claws, but also because of the scales. Everybody is in agreement they have scales.You don't armour plate a zeppelin; and if the skin thins out enough that the beast is actually floating in the air (more lift than weight) it's going to be very vulnerable to punctures. Probably a flock of crows could mob it, as there is no way it could risk breathing fire on itself.


Good or evil? If they are mere beasts, incapable of higher thought, the question doesn't arise. You kill the wolf stealing your sheep, the tiger turned anthopophage but, unless you imbue it with volition, you don't consider it evil. Perhaps a punishment delivered by an angry deity, like the volcano that drove you out of your village or the mighty storm and subsequent river overflow that lost you your growing season, but a force of nature, not a malevolent demon. But with an intelligent, reasoning dragon – one to whom vast wisdom might be ascribed, or else malignant cunning – the definitions might not be equivalent. Our definitions of good are largely socially based (with a strong undercurrent of personal convenience – this nomad leader is unspeakably evil because he bases his actions only on what is useful for his tribe; he does not consider the farmers and town-dwellers he massacres truly human, so feels no regret for their passing) and an asocial, solitary creature might have different opinions. Selfishness might be a virtue, love a temporary aberration, to be ashamed of. This would, of course, make translation between the two species of anything more complex than "You walk to tree." very complex and time consuming.

Hoarding. Obviously, rumours of vast wealth in dragon residences could be just a standard "inaccessible places" scam. After all, what would choose to sleep on nasty shaped metal things, even if straw is counter-indicated for a fire breather? And what value have gold coins or jewels have for a dragon, apart from the aesthetic? He can hardly pop down to the supermarket and buy himself a leg of royal tax inspector. Indeed, the idea of commerce would never occur to a solitary being –*much like human nobility, if there's something they want, they take, unless someone or something is strong enough to prevent them.
It could be bait in a quite sophisticated trap, to avoid those inconvenient trips to the supermarket by getting your meat to deliver itself. Slightly fairer than the technique of demanding a maiden each summer solstice, anyway. It would involve careful observation of the prey species, finding out which of the non-perishable objects removed from a victim are most attractive to future prey, but no-one doubts a determined hunter could manage this.
On the other hand – or forepaw – if magic is required for flight dragons are presumably sensitive to its presence, and small pieces of jewellery, armour and weapons are standard repositories for enchantments and spells. It could well be that all the objects collected are merely a reserve of power, and the precious stones or metals an irrelevant detail.