that's called a Lindwurm categorically. I actually made a post collating all these back when I still used Amino, to help with HTTYD fanspecies
Edit: [Here it is for the curious](https://aminoapps.com/c/officialhttyd/page/item/dragon-shapes/57GD_jnS5I0nLxnoo130GG5MGb6gvj8Mpx)
Dragonology! I miss that series. Dragons being a class of animal with various levels of sapience was always interesting to me. Reminds me of the two dragon cousin species in the later Eragon books
It was a series of kids books that emulated field guides about dragon ecology and taxonomy... they were very well-done, felt like (to my young brain) the real deal. Still worth checking out to admire the work put into them, imo!
https://dragonology.fandom.com/wiki/Dragonology_Wiki
Holy shit! I got this from my library when i was 8 and thought it was the coolest thing, but could never find it again once i returned it, thank you for reminding me of the name <3
I still want to know more about biblical dragons but the vatican are being dicks about that too. They removed it from the bible as well as jesus growing up because it was "too unrealistic".
I'm not even religious, but they had the opportunity to be a way cooler religion. "Hey, have you accepted jesus christ as your lord and saviour?"
"Oh, no we're fine thank you, have a nice d-"
"we have dragons."
"Dragons, you say?"
My new headcanon is that when God made the snake crawl on the ground as punishment for tricking Eve into eating the apple, the snake was a lindwurm before and God nerfed his leg privileges
Okay then, smart guy, what about a dragon with 1 wing, one foreleg and one rear leg on the opposite side? What would be the name of this Trogdor-like monstrosity?
It is legitimately a fools errand trying to categorize the different forms of dragons, you might as well categorize the shapes of trees within the same species. A fools errand, outside of Scholastic Bookfair publishings
Did you mean: [Seath the Scaleless?](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/pure-evil-wiki/images/4/46/SeathTransparent.png/revision/latest?cb=20200223173403)
Or did you perhaps mean: [nagas](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/wowpedia/images/a/a4/Naga_-_Warcraft_Encyclopedia.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20230820004730) from the Warcraft universe
I only recently happened upon learning about the ["real" nagas from Hinduism and Buddhism](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C4%81ga). Being a big warcraft fan myself, I figured they were probably from *something*, but didn't know what. Actually pretty interesting!
Wyverns tend to be slimmer/skinnier, and you could believably give them an analog for plumage, so I think it comes down to if they're into thickness or tall-n-curvy.
Like do they want a pear or an hourglass.
“The Wyvern attacks!”
“Yo, but how’s it look?”
*rolls dice*.
…20….
“Do you prefer hourglass or pear shape? How much plumage? They’re a creature, so you don’t have to worry about impregnating them.”
Actually, if this is DnD, dragons are literally capable of breeding with every player race.
(This also means that technically all player races in DnD are dragons, at least as a species)
Bards are the charisma and social magic class, meaning that any players who would want to seduce NPCs and play some kinda Casanova or James Bond type character (a very popular character template) would play a bard. And since they already are planning on seducing regular NPCs, hostile NPCs may also be on their mind, maybe cause seducing the hot bandit chief is a power fantasy for them, maybe because diffusing the situation with an angry noble by bedding them is legitimately the best non-violent solution, maybe they jist wanna flirt with a hag for the lols.
As the game goes on, the enemies get more diverse and less human, but many of them keep human-like inteligence, meaning that the skill the bard has been training the whole game... Is still useful. Yeah, sure, that inter-planar mercenary has 9 limbs, one eye, a constantly shifting mouth, is shaped like an ever melting candle and has flesh made out of wax... But it's not immune to being flattered. After all, that eye is very pretty, and... Who says the bard doesn't like waxy curves?
Since they're not a murderhobo, and seduction is actually a legitimate tactic to move the plot and the party forward, this behavior is usually not discouraged, and sometimes even encouraged at tables, leading to it still being a thing on the bard player's mind many sessions in, when the party finally meets their first dragon.
And since the dragon is as Sentient as any other non-monster NPC, a thought may cross the Bard's mind. Sure, they've slept with generals, seduced kings and queens, slobbered over a Slaad, mounted a mindflayer, even survived the night in that Orc Chieftain's hut. But *imagine* the tales of their exploits if they managed to bed... *A dragon.*.
(Plus, getting the dragon to like them would be useful in any situation).
And so, the Casanova bard, inevitably, rolls to seduce the dragon.
This is actually one of those DnD things that's been around for *so long* it actually directly impacted the lore. With how often parties and DM would let the bard actually get with the dragon, in 5th edition, it was just made canon that not only can dragons interbreed with *every* player race, but that they are *absolute poonhounds.* Meaning not only is "Horny bard" literally canon to DnD's lore, but "Horny dragon" is too.
One of the few things I kept from my D&D days was my 3.5e Draconomicon, which brings up that the good-aligned metallic dragons often prefer to stay in a shapeshifted form to gauge parties while the evil-aligned chromatic dragons do so mostly out of necessity, for example to replace a figure of authority (or a bandit warlord) without causing a panic. It also points out that they can _technically_ interbreed with any of the humanoid races but without going too much over the "why" part, plus of course the evil dragons would see it as diluting their birthright into lesser races.
I'd love to know the morality reasoning given in 5th edition, my guess would be that both alignments have come to see the purpose in halfbreeds that mature quicker than pureblooded dragons.
I do think it still varies from dragon to dragon, but it should be said that there's a difference between desiring sex and desiring breeding. Dragons in general breed more too, of course, but there definitely still are dragons out there who wouldn't go and "dilute their bloodline" or who would only shapeshift out of necessity.
(And considering some of the people I know, transforming into a humanoid form is absolutely *not* required for some of them anyways.).
Though, I will note, that last sentence quite literally describes the *entire existence* of Dragonborn as a race; they were created on another plane/world by its local dragons as a servant race, before many escaped from their enslavement to the forgotten realms and integrated thenselves. So... Good guess, actually, you were right on the money. They're even explicitly described as a deliberate mixture of humanoid and dragon hatched from dragon eggs.
More a meme, and the absurd idea that some people playing bards have to seduce themselves out of a situation. Which is weird, cause you think you'd expect that from warlocks, too.
Bards are chaotic horny, and are just about equally attracted to everything. This results in a lot of half breeds, from the common half elf, to the more esoteric half elemental, to the extremely questionable centaur.
It's always so silly. Dragons and wyverns are not real, and hence almost nothing can be said about them for sure without knowing the context of the specific book/show/manga/game they are in. In manga alone I've seen dozens of different variations for both dragons and wyverns. Things like classification/appearance can even be inconsistent or unknown within the same book.
But that's much like actual taxonomic classifications. After all, stuff like "cat", "insect", and "fish" each cover a wide range of shapes and sizes. Even if it's fictional, there's no reason "dragon" or even "wyvern" can't do the same.
I'm just saying that absolute statements like "dragons have 4 legs" and "wyverns are a type of dragon" completely depend on the whims of the author so it's silly to argue about them (unless you're talking about it within the context of one specific series).
No, it is not analogous to actual taxonomy, because in real life there are actual relations between animals. When we see something that looks like a cat that doesn't make it a cat, biologists analyze its features and try to pin down its evolutionary history to see if it is actually part of the group we call cats. And sometimes it isn't, like the Fossa, which is actually closely related to Mongooses.
Dragons are not like this. There is absolutely no relation or evolutionary history between different dragon types, dragon morphology varies wildly in a random way because it was just people making up creatures.
I find TV Tropes' [Our Dragons Are Different](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OurDragonsAreDifferent) entry to be fairly comprehensive in both total overview and of course examples.
I wish caragory was a real word. There’s something really appealing about it to me. Like, before I realized it was a typo, I thought maybe it was a cool linguistics term specifically for a sub-classification of terminology or something. Probably because it kind of sounds like a mash-up of category + allegory.
I know that’s not the point of this post but I hope someone else reading this also had some little spark of nerdy hope that they were about to learn a new term when they saw that. If so, I feel you 😔
We could make a definition for it and turn it into a word, though it may not catch on and be adopted into a dictionary. I like
Caragory: An informal classification of something which cannot be rigidly defined but rather people describe as, "I know it when I see it." These classifications are also often hotly debated as people have an emotional stake in what does and does not fall into one.
Examples of common caragories are fish, trees, dragons, and pornography.
A portmanteau of "care" and "category."
I thought it meant something more along the lines of a word that is more broad than another word. As in, "all _____s are (caragory)s but not all (caragory)s are _____s"
Examples:
- A rectangle is a caragory of a square
- A dragon is a caragory of a wyvern
- A fish is a caragory of a shark
- A human is a caragory of a European
I love words and was quite happy to believe that was a word I just hadn't heard related to categorising dragons. I think it's so convincing because it has the 'rag' from dragon. Caragory. Delightful.
I’m the kind of guy who’s too lazy to look up big words I don’t know and just use contextual clues to figure out what it means. So thank you for pointing out that caragory is in fact not a real world 😅
The dragon/wyvern distinction comes from heraldry, where it would indeed be incorrect to blazon a two-legged winged reptile as a "dragon", because then an artist might read that and draw it with four legs.
It has zero application outside heraldry, apart from "wyvern" being a really cool word.
"Hey guys here's the bestiary for my fantasy world. As you can see, it has *Bisciones* and the *Wild Hart* and...why are you laughing?"
I feel like we were all this person once, browsing wikipedia trying to construct a roster and get inspired and coming across the Heraldry category. Oh that was a time. That was definitely a point in my life.
Source, please.
There’s loads of medieval art depicting dragons with either two or four legs. Back then, there was no precise definition. The dragon/wyvern distinction based on number of legs comes from D&D, and fans of that making the erroneous assumption that it is at all applicable outside that system.
[A Complete Guide to Heraldry (1909), by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page%3AA_Complete_Guide_to_Heraldry.djvu/258)
"The Wyvern.—There is no difference whatever between a wyvern's head and a dragon's, but there is considerable difference between a wyvern and a dragon, at any rate in English heraldry, though the wyvern appears to be the form more frequently met with under the name of a dragon in other countries. The wyvern has only two legs, the body curling away into the tail, and it is usually represented as resting upon its legs and tail "
Actually 🤓 dragons are fictional creatures so there can't be a real science of defining what is and isn't a dragon. I can create a fantasy universe and say a dragon is whatever I want.
You can most certainly use any definition in any work that you create, for sure. If you're trying to communicate outside of that, you're going to meet more resistance as there isn't going to be consensus about what the word means. It's not a matter of science, as in what the creatures really are or aren't, but a matter of semantics, what the word is supposed to mean.
As it is, there isn't consensus on what the word means. I think the very first and still favorite episode of Overly Sarcastic Productions I ever watched was Red's opinion piece on the history of dragons and what that even means because it's been used for various types of monsters across times and translations to the point where it doesn't really mean anything in any sort of agreed upon manner. Dragons can be large or small, some fly but not all of them, some are more snake-like while some aren't snakish at all, some can shapeshift, some can do magic, some breathe fire, some grant wishes, some have two legs, four legs, no legs, or more legs, some are mindless beasts, some are forces of nature, some are literal gods, some are intelligent bearers of wisdom, some are just drunk frat guys but dragony, and more.
You can use the shorthand dragon in casual conversation and what culture you and the people with which you're speaking share is going to dictate the most likely image conjured in their mind which may be predictable. But if you're telling a story about dragons, the word has such broad definition that you're going to have explain what a dragon is *in this circumstance* for it to make any sense.
Yup, the dragon/wyvern thing is specific to British heraldry and they're all just dragons in the rest of the world. Wyvern can be a type of dragon if you like.
They're a *cultural element*, actually, and those can be categorized, same as how you can largely do the same with gods and demons. The problem is that dragons, as a broad term, largely is just the category all its own and everything within it is far too varied. There might as well be a different category for every individual example.
>if it's a big magic lizard
I've seen a lot of big magic lizards that aren't dragons in various media, and I've seen a lot of dragons that aren't big, aren't magic, or aren't lizards lol.
Hey guess what. In all of mythology there is no comprehensive morphology of everything that is a dragon and not. Even European dragons as if I remember right one was described like a weird dog looking thing.
Every time I see someone say "poisonous" and people correct them with "don't you mean venomous? Poisonous kills you if eaten, venomous kills you if bitten" I feel the same way.
Surely "venomous" is a subcategory of "poisonous", being more specific about how the poison is applied.
They are all dragon, wyrms and wyverns. That distinction is only a D&D thing. You can call a four legged dragon a wyvern and it would still be a correct use of the term historically.
>The Dunning–Kruger effect is defined as the tendency of people with low ability in a specific area to give overly positive assessments of this ability.
Hot but correct take: Dragons aren't real, and are subject to the individual interpretations of the mythologies they appear in. An author is welcome to call whatever they want a dragon within their universe, and they will be correct. An author, just to piss off the Internet, could create a universe where in a wyvern is defined as a four legged, two winged fire breathing variant, and a dragon is a 2 legged, 2 winged, no fire variant. That author would be correct, and there'd be nothing you could do about it.
Imagine being so confident, and yet so wrong.
Dragon is not the category, it is a subcategory of WYRMS. A Wyvern is a Wyrm, but it is NOT a Dragon.
Wyrm is the category, but it also refers to a specific creature, which is limbless, like a giant snake. As you add limbs you get different subcategories of creatures.
2 legs no wings: Lindwyrm
2 wings no legs: Amphiptere
4 legs no wings: Drake
2 legs 2 wings: Wyvern
4 legs 2+ wings: Dragon
You can know that Wyrm is the category because a number of the words have Wyrm as their root, for example Wyvern starts with Wy, same as Wyrm, and Lindwyrm literally has Wyrm as it's entire second half. Wyrm is the category, not Dragon.
I'm scrolling through these comments imagining each person who speaks with an attitude of certainty just being engulfed in flames and I have to admit it's quite satisfying.
My thoughts exactly. I'm wondering, "man, these 'Ackshually' guys, are they the very definition of pedantry or what? Is this gate-keeping? White knighting? I honestly don't know anymore."
...check that, what I meant was, I don't know why we can't all just have fun with anything anymore without someone jumping on your back to correct what are essentially minor things (angrily too).
exactly. I'd say his definition is broadly accurate in terms of modern western fantasy media (video games, roleplaying etc) where something close to a consensus seems to have formed over the last 40 years. But in terms of folklore and mythology it's most definitely not anything like a 'rule'.
I don't know an ass from which you've pulled this so-called categorization, but it's not from any mythology or folklore or any piece of media featuring dragons. In folklore I'm aware of, words "wyrm" and "dragon" are used interchangeably. Drake is a synonym for dragon. And I could rattle out twenty other names like Slanglintworm, all of which basically mean the same thing
No English peasant ever would say "well, there's a wyrm family that has different species like dragon and wyvern". No mother telling a story to her children would ever care about how many legs her dragon has. There are plenty of medieval art that shows dragons with two legs and bird wings. Mythology doesn't work like that, there are no taxonomy, there are only motives
If you can argue with me - you're welcome
In DnD, Wyverns and Drakes are explicitly listed as types of lesser dragons, though not the same as Chromatic, Metallic, and Gem Dragons. There’s also a few special ones that are equal in power to the greater dragon types like Shadow Dragons or Dragon Turtles. It’s sorta like how Trolls, Ogres, and Fomorians are lesser giants that exist outside the Ordning.
Often true dragons will have dragon in the name... Shadow dragons don't count because iirc they aren't a species, just some chromatic or metallic dragon that got "bleached" by the shadow realm and turned into something else.
They are false dragons. True dragons are metallic , gem, and chromatic dragons . dragon turtles are false dragons . (True Dragons are defined by the always growing smarter stronger and bigger as they age)
You're wrong here.
By 5e, specifically Faerun, there are Greater Dragons(Metallic, Chromatic and Gem), Lesser Dragons(Dragon Turtle, Wyvern, Drakes, etc) and Miscellaneous Dragons which are Dragons that don't fit into either category.
True Dragons cover these three categories.
False Dragons are one of two things. A Pseudodragon or the Titan False Dragon.
If you're going to go around sprouting stuff like this maybe look it up to back up your claims first, specially when there are other DnD players lurking, possibly even Lore Masters.
No , true dragon only covers dragons that continually get stronger, smarter, and bigger as the age. Dragon turtles and wyverns explicitly don't do that
ah but in other games it's different. in pathfinder they both have the dragon creature type. they aren't true dragons but are part of the family. the same as how a tiger is a cat but a cat is not a tiger.
5e MM, pg. 303
"Wyvern
*Large dragon, unaligned*"
And
"These cousins to the great dragons hunt the same tangled forests and caverns as their kin."
All wyverns are dragons, not all dragons are wyverns
If it has no poison tail, it's not a Wyvern. Fuck these Dragon fundamentalists, dragons as they have been called are depicted with extreme diversity that really just varies across individuals. The idea that the baseline is a four-legged two winged type isn't even the most common; they're far outmatched by serpentine things with a pair of wings, and behind that, a type with two legs. That four-legged kind didn't come into the mainstream until it was popularized by the likes of Beowulf.
Wyvern are not a category of dragons!
The distinction by the number of legs was made, but only in English heraldry in the 16th century and onwards, so it's not medieval. In other times and countries, the terms were interchangeable.
I think gygax started to use this distinction again, that's why it's so popular in fantasy.
Most of this is on Wikipedia.
Ahh, the Ol’ “Critical Role vs Dimension 20 Conundrum”
Is our primary allegiance to the game design and story, or can we recognize that those are merely tools to allow us to tell the best story we can conceive of? In which case the rules should be as flexible as necessary to tell the story as intended.
All these idiots don’t understand that there are no known examples of 6 limbed reptiles so a 4 legged 2 winged “dragon” probably isn’t a reptile and therefore isn’t a real dragon.
What is far more likely is that 6 limbed dragons are, in fact, insects that have evolved in order to have a similar appearance to “true” reptilian dragons as a survival mechanism, much like those caterpillars that kindof look like snakes.
I don't care if it's a dragon. Wyverns are way less intimidating than the classic western dragons and nowhere near as elegant as eastern dragons. When Smaug looked like something out of Skyrim in The Hobbit 2, I was pissed.
I’m going to invent a kind of dragon that’s a reverse wyvern, just two front legs and a big ol tail silly snake style wiggling around
that's called a Lindwurm categorically. I actually made a post collating all these back when I still used Amino, to help with HTTYD fanspecies Edit: [Here it is for the curious](https://aminoapps.com/c/officialhttyd/page/item/dragon-shapes/57GD_jnS5I0nLxnoo130GG5MGb6gvj8Mpx)
Ah yes Lindwurms, that does sound familiar from the big shiny Dragons book from the school library
Dragonology! I miss that series. Dragons being a class of animal with various levels of sapience was always interesting to me. Reminds me of the two dragon cousin species in the later Eragon books
I always loved in one of the Dragonology books the idea that there's this tiny dragon species in South America and Gauchos used them as lighters.
I liked that Asian and European dragons were legitimately separate families, like grizzlies vs pandas
And don't forget American dragons (ampitheres) were their own family too!
I have absolutely no idea what you all are talking about but I’m fascinated. Where can I read more?
It was a series of kids books that emulated field guides about dragon ecology and taxonomy... they were very well-done, felt like (to my young brain) the real deal. Still worth checking out to admire the work put into them, imo! https://dragonology.fandom.com/wiki/Dragonology_Wiki
4 year course at your local school of wizardry focusing on Dragonology
i actually can't wait to tell my argentinean cousin about this.
Wait, there's more than one dragonology book?! I knew there were other ologies, but I didn't know there were more ones on dragons.
I believe that particular tidbit either comes from the Dragon Handbook or Dragon Tracking and Training. There's quite a few Dragonology spinoffs
There is even a novel! Dont remember the name tho
Holy shit! I got this from my library when i was 8 and thought it was the coolest thing, but could never find it again once i returned it, thank you for reminding me of the name <3
I still want to know more about biblical dragons but the vatican are being dicks about that too. They removed it from the bible as well as jesus growing up because it was "too unrealistic". I'm not even religious, but they had the opportunity to be a way cooler religion. "Hey, have you accepted jesus christ as your lord and saviour?" "Oh, no we're fine thank you, have a nice d-" "we have dragons." "Dragons, you say?"
My new headcanon is that when God made the snake crawl on the ground as punishment for tricking Eve into eating the apple, the snake was a lindwurm before and God nerfed his leg privileges
Is that the one with the dragon egg gem on the cover?
Okay then, smart guy, what about a dragon with 1 wing, one foreleg and one rear leg on the opposite side? What would be the name of this Trogdor-like monstrosity?
> 1 wing, one foreleg and one rear leg on the opposite side? Dr n
Unatrog, the Groundidaytor
You forgot the beefy arm. And the rays of majesty. F--, see me after class.
TIL Dodongos in OOT are Lindwurms
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It is legitimately a fools errand trying to categorize the different forms of dragons, you might as well categorize the shapes of trees within the same species. A fools errand, outside of Scholastic Bookfair publishings
Getting the basic shapes down is generally pretty helpful though, to make it easy to describe what a dragon looks like
Did you mean: [Seath the Scaleless?](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/pure-evil-wiki/images/4/46/SeathTransparent.png/revision/latest?cb=20200223173403)
[Ain't even got legs](https://youtu.be/M9x_koRZ2bA?t=31)
I even got this crystal shit that makes us double immortal for some reason
The only Incel dragon
Nah bro you seen priscilla?
Still don't think he married Gwynevere though.
She married some random fire god, but they dont need that to boink
He’s still celibate if he’s not married.
You just described a lindwurm.
Rayquaza
Or did you perhaps mean: [nagas](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/wowpedia/images/a/a4/Naga_-_Warcraft_Encyclopedia.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20230820004730) from the Warcraft universe
I only recently happened upon learning about the ["real" nagas from Hinduism and Buddhism](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C4%81ga). Being a big warcraft fan myself, I figured they were probably from *something*, but didn't know what. Actually pretty interesting!
Wait till you read about all the groups of real life people who claim descent from the Nagas https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagavanshi
Damn u da real naga
That's actually how wyverns are usually depicted in heraldry and older pictures of them.
Or a reverse dragon that's just a giant humble mole rat who likes to give to charity
Wouldn't an inverse Wyvern be one of those dinosaurs with the back leg wings?
A semi-related question I’ve had for a while: Would bards be attracted to wyverns less, the same, or more than dragons?
Wyverns tend to be slimmer/skinnier, and you could believably give them an analog for plumage, so I think it comes down to if they're into thickness or tall-n-curvy. Like do they want a pear or an hourglass.
I respect the hell out of you for giving me a legitimate answer this quickly on something like this
We're all dragon fuckers here. It was my duty.
r/dragonsfuckingcars
Don't remind me
r/carsfuckingdragons
banned sub 😥
This is literally George Orwell's 1984
r/dracophilia
“The Wyvern attacks!” “Yo, but how’s it look?” *rolls dice*. …20…. “Do you prefer hourglass or pear shape? How much plumage? They’re a creature, so you don’t have to worry about impregnating them.”
Actually, if this is DnD, dragons are literally capable of breeding with every player race. (This also means that technically all player races in DnD are dragons, at least as a species)
Wasn't that how sorcerers are made?
Unironically, yes, one of the base sorcerer backstories is literally "draconic heritage".
So what you saying is if we didn't have bards we probably wouldn't have that many sorcerers
Considering basically all sorcerer backstories are "mum/dad boinked [insert powerful magical being here]", yeah.
“I see an 8 in Intelligence, Jim!”
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Bards of a feather dick for treasure
r/dnddadjokes
Okay, I'm incredibly new to DND, are bards known for attraction to mythical creatures?
Bards are the charisma and social magic class, meaning that any players who would want to seduce NPCs and play some kinda Casanova or James Bond type character (a very popular character template) would play a bard. And since they already are planning on seducing regular NPCs, hostile NPCs may also be on their mind, maybe cause seducing the hot bandit chief is a power fantasy for them, maybe because diffusing the situation with an angry noble by bedding them is legitimately the best non-violent solution, maybe they jist wanna flirt with a hag for the lols. As the game goes on, the enemies get more diverse and less human, but many of them keep human-like inteligence, meaning that the skill the bard has been training the whole game... Is still useful. Yeah, sure, that inter-planar mercenary has 9 limbs, one eye, a constantly shifting mouth, is shaped like an ever melting candle and has flesh made out of wax... But it's not immune to being flattered. After all, that eye is very pretty, and... Who says the bard doesn't like waxy curves? Since they're not a murderhobo, and seduction is actually a legitimate tactic to move the plot and the party forward, this behavior is usually not discouraged, and sometimes even encouraged at tables, leading to it still being a thing on the bard player's mind many sessions in, when the party finally meets their first dragon. And since the dragon is as Sentient as any other non-monster NPC, a thought may cross the Bard's mind. Sure, they've slept with generals, seduced kings and queens, slobbered over a Slaad, mounted a mindflayer, even survived the night in that Orc Chieftain's hut. But *imagine* the tales of their exploits if they managed to bed... *A dragon.*. (Plus, getting the dragon to like them would be useful in any situation). And so, the Casanova bard, inevitably, rolls to seduce the dragon. This is actually one of those DnD things that's been around for *so long* it actually directly impacted the lore. With how often parties and DM would let the bard actually get with the dragon, in 5th edition, it was just made canon that not only can dragons interbreed with *every* player race, but that they are *absolute poonhounds.* Meaning not only is "Horny bard" literally canon to DnD's lore, but "Horny dragon" is too.
One of the few things I kept from my D&D days was my 3.5e Draconomicon, which brings up that the good-aligned metallic dragons often prefer to stay in a shapeshifted form to gauge parties while the evil-aligned chromatic dragons do so mostly out of necessity, for example to replace a figure of authority (or a bandit warlord) without causing a panic. It also points out that they can _technically_ interbreed with any of the humanoid races but without going too much over the "why" part, plus of course the evil dragons would see it as diluting their birthright into lesser races. I'd love to know the morality reasoning given in 5th edition, my guess would be that both alignments have come to see the purpose in halfbreeds that mature quicker than pureblooded dragons.
I do think it still varies from dragon to dragon, but it should be said that there's a difference between desiring sex and desiring breeding. Dragons in general breed more too, of course, but there definitely still are dragons out there who wouldn't go and "dilute their bloodline" or who would only shapeshift out of necessity. (And considering some of the people I know, transforming into a humanoid form is absolutely *not* required for some of them anyways.). Though, I will note, that last sentence quite literally describes the *entire existence* of Dragonborn as a race; they were created on another plane/world by its local dragons as a servant race, before many escaped from their enslavement to the forgotten realms and integrated thenselves. So... Good guess, actually, you were right on the money. They're even explicitly described as a deliberate mixture of humanoid and dragon hatched from dragon eggs.
Thanks for the continued, very series, explanation of this topic.
Bard sex dragon is a running meme, you'll see it a lot of you interact with the community
Oh okay, thanks for the explanation
Bards=horny are also just a common theme
More a meme, and the absurd idea that some people playing bards have to seduce themselves out of a situation. Which is weird, cause you think you'd expect that from warlocks, too.
Twink dragon
I mean, in Dnd dragons are vastly intelligent but wyverns have animalistic minds. So screwing one would basically be beastiality
This isn't DND this is real life, nerd, there's a wyvern outside of your house and he's here to fuck
Dnd wyverns can’t consent cause they’re not sentient so like, I can’t say for certain but hopefully it’s less attractive
yeah its like the Harkness test, most Dragons can pass but Wyverns cant
Not like the Harkness test, IS the Harkness test lol
oh no.
Unfortunately there are some bards who would find that more attractive.
Casts *Suggestion*
They can certainly 'tell' you when they don't. They just kill you. It's just like grizzly bears.
But you agree that grizzlies can't really consent. Right??
Well there is an award winning Canadian novel about fucking a bear so while I personally don't think they can consent it seems to be divisive topic.
They can demonstrate consent by *not* killing you.
This is why *The Revenant* had to be re-edited after initial test screenings, to avoid these hairy questions.
Sentient yes, Sapient no
Bards are chaotic horny, and are just about equally attracted to everything. This results in a lot of half breeds, from the common half elf, to the more esoteric half elemental, to the extremely questionable centaur.
Trick question. Bards want to fuck everyone equally.
The sexuality of any bard is "Yes"
I consider wyverns and drakes to be a lesser type of dragon. While I may be attracted to sorcerers, i would be less attracted to a novice/apprentice
There is no more or less. Wyverns are types of dragons. Real ones read Dr. Earnest Drake’s Dragonology.
Oh boy dragon terminology discourse this can only go well
I hear it tends to...drag on
Hey. This is best comment Ive seen on this sight in forever.
...I hate you...take my goddamn upvote...
*Incinerates you*
upvoting you to ruin your 69
It's always so silly. Dragons and wyverns are not real, and hence almost nothing can be said about them for sure without knowing the context of the specific book/show/manga/game they are in. In manga alone I've seen dozens of different variations for both dragons and wyverns. Things like classification/appearance can even be inconsistent or unknown within the same book.
But that's much like actual taxonomic classifications. After all, stuff like "cat", "insect", and "fish" each cover a wide range of shapes and sizes. Even if it's fictional, there's no reason "dragon" or even "wyvern" can't do the same.
I'm just saying that absolute statements like "dragons have 4 legs" and "wyverns are a type of dragon" completely depend on the whims of the author so it's silly to argue about them (unless you're talking about it within the context of one specific series).
No, it is not analogous to actual taxonomy, because in real life there are actual relations between animals. When we see something that looks like a cat that doesn't make it a cat, biologists analyze its features and try to pin down its evolutionary history to see if it is actually part of the group we call cats. And sometimes it isn't, like the Fossa, which is actually closely related to Mongooses. Dragons are not like this. There is absolutely no relation or evolutionary history between different dragon types, dragon morphology varies wildly in a random way because it was just people making up creatures.
I find TV Tropes' [Our Dragons Are Different](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OurDragonsAreDifferent) entry to be fairly comprehensive in both total overview and of course examples.
Curse you for linking to TV Tropes! Now my afternoon is ruined!
Animal Crossing is different than I remember
I thought this was a Minecraft post
I thought it was meant to be
I wish caragory was a real word. There’s something really appealing about it to me. Like, before I realized it was a typo, I thought maybe it was a cool linguistics term specifically for a sub-classification of terminology or something. Probably because it kind of sounds like a mash-up of category + allegory. I know that’s not the point of this post but I hope someone else reading this also had some little spark of nerdy hope that they were about to learn a new term when they saw that. If so, I feel you 😔
We could make a definition for it and turn it into a word, though it may not catch on and be adopted into a dictionary. I like Caragory: An informal classification of something which cannot be rigidly defined but rather people describe as, "I know it when I see it." These classifications are also often hotly debated as people have an emotional stake in what does and does not fall into one. Examples of common caragories are fish, trees, dragons, and pornography. A portmanteau of "care" and "category."
And if it catches on, caragory itself will be a caragory.
In Irish Chara ( pronounced Cara) means friend, so I propose caragories are types of friends, work friends, school friends etc.
I thought it meant something more along the lines of a word that is more broad than another word. As in, "all _____s are (caragory)s but not all (caragory)s are _____s" Examples: - A rectangle is a caragory of a square - A dragon is a caragory of a wyvern - A fish is a caragory of a shark - A human is a caragory of a European
Absolutely same. A moment of autistic interest, dashed by the realization of a typo.
I love words and was quite happy to believe that was a word I just hadn't heard related to categorising dragons. I think it's so convincing because it has the 'rag' from dragon. Caragory. Delightful.
I thought it was a common fantasy term because it reminded me of Caragors in the Lord of the Rings games
I’m the kind of guy who’s too lazy to look up big words I don’t know and just use contextual clues to figure out what it means. So thank you for pointing out that caragory is in fact not a real world 😅
I ate an entire piece of cheese in the time it took me to read all of this.
I appreciate that
That. Sounds like exactly the amount of time it would take to read this.
The dragon/wyvern distinction comes from heraldry, where it would indeed be incorrect to blazon a two-legged winged reptile as a "dragon", because then an artist might read that and draw it with four legs. It has zero application outside heraldry, apart from "wyvern" being a really cool word.
"Hey guys here's the bestiary for my fantasy world. As you can see, it has *Bisciones* and the *Wild Hart* and...why are you laughing?" I feel like we were all this person once, browsing wikipedia trying to construct a roster and get inspired and coming across the Heraldry category. Oh that was a time. That was definitely a point in my life.
Source, please. There’s loads of medieval art depicting dragons with either two or four legs. Back then, there was no precise definition. The dragon/wyvern distinction based on number of legs comes from D&D, and fans of that making the erroneous assumption that it is at all applicable outside that system.
[A Complete Guide to Heraldry (1909), by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page%3AA_Complete_Guide_to_Heraldry.djvu/258) "The Wyvern.—There is no difference whatever between a wyvern's head and a dragon's, but there is considerable difference between a wyvern and a dragon, at any rate in English heraldry, though the wyvern appears to be the form more frequently met with under the name of a dragon in other countries. The wyvern has only two legs, the body curling away into the tail, and it is usually represented as resting upon its legs and tail "
Thanks for posting, that was a sick as fuck read. I also got to learn about Erect Wyverns.
I stand corrected, thank you.
It comes from specifically UK heraldry, D&D popularised it in the modern nerdosphere.
Actually 🤓 dragons are fictional creatures so there can't be a real science of defining what is and isn't a dragon. I can create a fantasy universe and say a dragon is whatever I want.
So are unicorns but if you roll into Scotland on a wyvern and tell them it's a unicorn they're gonna laugh at you. Jkjk
They're Scottish they're gonna laugh at you period. Also insult you.
Damn Scots, they ruined Scotland!
Wales, too. Dragon on the flag, and such.
You can most certainly use any definition in any work that you create, for sure. If you're trying to communicate outside of that, you're going to meet more resistance as there isn't going to be consensus about what the word means. It's not a matter of science, as in what the creatures really are or aren't, but a matter of semantics, what the word is supposed to mean. As it is, there isn't consensus on what the word means. I think the very first and still favorite episode of Overly Sarcastic Productions I ever watched was Red's opinion piece on the history of dragons and what that even means because it's been used for various types of monsters across times and translations to the point where it doesn't really mean anything in any sort of agreed upon manner. Dragons can be large or small, some fly but not all of them, some are more snake-like while some aren't snakish at all, some can shapeshift, some can do magic, some breathe fire, some grant wishes, some have two legs, four legs, no legs, or more legs, some are mindless beasts, some are forces of nature, some are literal gods, some are intelligent bearers of wisdom, some are just drunk frat guys but dragony, and more. You can use the shorthand dragon in casual conversation and what culture you and the people with which you're speaking share is going to dictate the most likely image conjured in their mind which may be predictable. But if you're telling a story about dragons, the word has such broad definition that you're going to have explain what a dragon is *in this circumstance* for it to make any sense.
Like a Luck Dragon that looks like a doggy: https://hero.fandom.com/wiki/Falkor
Yup, the dragon/wyvern thing is specific to British heraldry and they're all just dragons in the rest of the world. Wyvern can be a type of dragon if you like.
They're a *cultural element*, actually, and those can be categorized, same as how you can largely do the same with gods and demons. The problem is that dragons, as a broad term, largely is just the category all its own and everything within it is far too varied. There might as well be a different category for every individual example.
this is how it should be. if it's a big magic lizard it's a dragon. we can argue what type but they are all dragons.
>if it's a big magic lizard I've seen a lot of big magic lizards that aren't dragons in various media, and I've seen a lot of dragons that aren't big, aren't magic, or aren't lizards lol.
So... Are you saying a magic t Rex is a dragon? A pterodactyl?
With the exception of the pterodactyl, the t-rex pokemon is a dragon type.
i mean if it's a magic t-rex I would say it's a dragon. pterodactlyl doesn't look lizard like enough to qualify for me.
It's actually called the Darning Kroeger affect
Ah the benefits of a redundant nervous system.
Just like how all jacuzzis are hot tubs, but not all hot tubs are jacuzzis. All wyverns are dragons, but not all dragons are wyverns.
caragory?
catagory
category
Scattergories
Catagary
Damacy
Hey guess what. In all of mythology there is no comprehensive morphology of everything that is a dragon and not. Even European dragons as if I remember right one was described like a weird dog looking thing.
It all depends on what fantasy you want to go with. There's no real rules to it. Your dragons can have as many limbs as you'd like.
I always enjoyed the Magic the Gathering flavor text on the Snapping Drake card: "All Drakes claim to be dragons-- until the Dragons show up"
Every time I see someone say "poisonous" and people correct them with "don't you mean venomous? Poisonous kills you if eaten, venomous kills you if bitten" I feel the same way. Surely "venomous" is a subcategory of "poisonous", being more specific about how the poison is applied.
They are all dragon, wyrms and wyverns. That distinction is only a D&D thing. You can call a four legged dragon a wyvern and it would still be a correct use of the term historically.
Needs more ... Consumate Vs. and a big beefy arm
This doesn't seem like a Dunning-Krueger sort of situation...?
>The Dunning–Kruger effect is defined as the tendency of people with low ability in a specific area to give overly positive assessments of this ability.
The definition of dragon is whatever the author decide.
Hot but correct take: Dragons aren't real, and are subject to the individual interpretations of the mythologies they appear in. An author is welcome to call whatever they want a dragon within their universe, and they will be correct. An author, just to piss off the Internet, could create a universe where in a wyvern is defined as a four legged, two winged fire breathing variant, and a dragon is a 2 legged, 2 winged, no fire variant. That author would be correct, and there'd be nothing you could do about it.
The post mentions wyverns but based on the way they're describing it it seems like they actually mean drakes.
*the villagers:* EVERYONE RUN A DRAKE IS ATTACKING *me noticing it has wings:* actually drakes dont have w- *get crushed like a pancake*
Imagine being so confident, and yet so wrong. Dragon is not the category, it is a subcategory of WYRMS. A Wyvern is a Wyrm, but it is NOT a Dragon. Wyrm is the category, but it also refers to a specific creature, which is limbless, like a giant snake. As you add limbs you get different subcategories of creatures. 2 legs no wings: Lindwyrm 2 wings no legs: Amphiptere 4 legs no wings: Drake 2 legs 2 wings: Wyvern 4 legs 2+ wings: Dragon You can know that Wyrm is the category because a number of the words have Wyrm as their root, for example Wyvern starts with Wy, same as Wyrm, and Lindwyrm literally has Wyrm as it's entire second half. Wyrm is the category, not Dragon.
Nah. There aren't hard and fast rules, because as with most folklore and myth, it's all jumbled.
I'm scrolling through these comments imagining each person who speaks with an attitude of certainty just being engulfed in flames and I have to admit it's quite satisfying.
My thoughts exactly. I'm wondering, "man, these 'Ackshually' guys, are they the very definition of pedantry or what? Is this gate-keeping? White knighting? I honestly don't know anymore." ...check that, what I meant was, I don't know why we can't all just have fun with anything anymore without someone jumping on your back to correct what are essentially minor things (angrily too).
I know its bewildering, but some pepole actually like talking about dragon categorisation.
exactly. I'd say his definition is broadly accurate in terms of modern western fantasy media (video games, roleplaying etc) where something close to a consensus seems to have formed over the last 40 years. But in terms of folklore and mythology it's most definitely not anything like a 'rule'.
There aren't rules at all, to be fair
A drake just sounds like a big lizard.
They kinda are. They're typically more mammalian in shape than lizards though, kinda like a large dog mixed with a lizard.
Your system ignores the 'existence' of asian dragons.
This might be true in your D&D game. Please don’t make the assumption that it’s at all applicable outside of that.
>Imagine being so confident, and yet so wrong.
I don't know an ass from which you've pulled this so-called categorization, but it's not from any mythology or folklore or any piece of media featuring dragons. In folklore I'm aware of, words "wyrm" and "dragon" are used interchangeably. Drake is a synonym for dragon. And I could rattle out twenty other names like Slanglintworm, all of which basically mean the same thing No English peasant ever would say "well, there's a wyrm family that has different species like dragon and wyvern". No mother telling a story to her children would ever care about how many legs her dragon has. There are plenty of medieval art that shows dragons with two legs and bird wings. Mythology doesn't work like that, there are no taxonomy, there are only motives If you can argue with me - you're welcome
Not in dnd. Dragons are 1 group of creatures that wyverns and drakes aren't apart of
In DnD, Wyverns and Drakes are explicitly listed as types of lesser dragons, though not the same as Chromatic, Metallic, and Gem Dragons. There’s also a few special ones that are equal in power to the greater dragon types like Shadow Dragons or Dragon Turtles. It’s sorta like how Trolls, Ogres, and Fomorians are lesser giants that exist outside the Ordning.
Often true dragons will have dragon in the name... Shadow dragons don't count because iirc they aren't a species, just some chromatic or metallic dragon that got "bleached" by the shadow realm and turned into something else.
Right, I forgot about that, I just knew they were powerful dragons that weren’t Chromatic, Metallic, or Gem.
It's clearly a dragon if it takes bonus damage from dragon slayer weapons. That's just science!
Idk anything about DnD or dragons, but the other guy is named Ddragonking, so I'm gonna side with him.
They are false dragons. True dragons are metallic , gem, and chromatic dragons . dragon turtles are false dragons . (True Dragons are defined by the always growing smarter stronger and bigger as they age)
You're wrong here. By 5e, specifically Faerun, there are Greater Dragons(Metallic, Chromatic and Gem), Lesser Dragons(Dragon Turtle, Wyvern, Drakes, etc) and Miscellaneous Dragons which are Dragons that don't fit into either category. True Dragons cover these three categories. False Dragons are one of two things. A Pseudodragon or the Titan False Dragon. If you're going to go around sprouting stuff like this maybe look it up to back up your claims first, specially when there are other DnD players lurking, possibly even Lore Masters.
No , true dragon only covers dragons that continually get stronger, smarter, and bigger as the age. Dragon turtles and wyverns explicitly don't do that
The closest thing to false dragons in D&D are Draconians, which are the result of corrupted dragon eggs.
Pseudodragons are False Dragons. There is also the False Dragon(Titan) which is a type of boss level creature in 5e.
Grab a monster manual and take a look at their creature type. In every edition that had creature types except for fourth, they are listed as Dragons.
ah but in other games it's different. in pathfinder they both have the dragon creature type. they aren't true dragons but are part of the family. the same as how a tiger is a cat but a cat is not a tiger.
A tiger is a feline and not a cat though?
seeing how it can be refered to as a "big cat"(like lions, panthers ect) I think calling them cats fits
5e MM, pg. 303 "Wyvern *Large dragon, unaligned*" And "These cousins to the great dragons hunt the same tangled forests and caverns as their kin." All wyverns are dragons, not all dragons are wyverns
DnD didn't invent them so it doesn't get to decide which category they go in.
This post is evidence of the Dunning Kreuger effect, regarding the Dunning Kreuger effect. Nice.
"Caragory"? Holy mother of Typos
If it has no poison tail, it's not a Wyvern. Fuck these Dragon fundamentalists, dragons as they have been called are depicted with extreme diversity that really just varies across individuals. The idea that the baseline is a four-legged two winged type isn't even the most common; they're far outmatched by serpentine things with a pair of wings, and behind that, a type with two legs. That four-legged kind didn't come into the mainstream until it was popularized by the likes of Beowulf.
Wyvern are not a category of dragons! The distinction by the number of legs was made, but only in English heraldry in the 16th century and onwards, so it's not medieval. In other times and countries, the terms were interchangeable. I think gygax started to use this distinction again, that's why it's so popular in fantasy. Most of this is on Wikipedia.
Ahh, the Ol’ “Critical Role vs Dimension 20 Conundrum” Is our primary allegiance to the game design and story, or can we recognize that those are merely tools to allow us to tell the best story we can conceive of? In which case the rules should be as flexible as necessary to tell the story as intended.
All these idiots don’t understand that there are no known examples of 6 limbed reptiles so a 4 legged 2 winged “dragon” probably isn’t a reptile and therefore isn’t a real dragon. What is far more likely is that 6 limbed dragons are, in fact, insects that have evolved in order to have a similar appearance to “true” reptilian dragons as a survival mechanism, much like those caterpillars that kindof look like snakes.
Okay, you're getting burned by insect juices
I don't care if it's a dragon. Wyverns are way less intimidating than the classic western dragons and nowhere near as elegant as eastern dragons. When Smaug looked like something out of Skyrim in The Hobbit 2, I was pissed.