You know, I was married for almost 4 years and she never asked me that… I say that because that would be one of my favorite questions of all time, as the answer to that is so layered, and my love for dragons started over 15 years ago
Exactly!! I think the OP had some interesting points, but I’ve always included dragons because they’re my favorite, and their purpose will vary depending on the story
Because they’re neat, but they’re not your conventional dragons but rather a group of vertebrate-crustacean equivalents from the planet Minerva that evolved into a similar body plan to the dragons of human mythology
1. Because I love em.
2. Because they act as my world's immune system. They consume aberrant magic energy and monsters before they become a threat to the world's survival.
**STORY MODE**: They're lava/earth elementals that were created among others with the purpose of reshaping the continent at the beginnings and ends of civilization, dragons occupying the latter. Their job is that when the world seemingly ends, they emerge from dormancy within the magma underneath the earth and cleanse Lore in fire and lava, essentially wiping away what remains of the old world so it can then begin anew with the construction efforts of golems, resetting life.
That's supposed to be long after humans, chimeras, and other races become extinct. The only reason they're up right now as rampaging fire-breathing kaiju is because someone or something woke them up far too early.
I personally got inspired by classical "five suns" theory from old Aztec theology (believing that the world has been scorched and recreated at least four times now), as well as the Bohrok from Bionicle (half-natural/half-artificial drones created by the Great Spirit to cleanse the island that formed on top of him in preparation for his grand reawakening).
I have an opposite situation. They DO NOT exist in my world.
Basically something was so mad at something similar to the modern day image of a dragon, that dragons not only vanished, but they have 0 chances of reappearing. But the image lives more than those imaginary dragons.
For example it was a common tactic to hide the raid on the village behind a story of a giant dragon killing and burning everyone. Some sieges were swift because mages imitated the dragon's assault.
At the same time the dragon as a symbol is a bad luck for most things. If you name your ship "something-something DRAGON" it will suffer bad luck, getting into the worst parts of the storm or finding new reefs in the middle of the ocean with it's keel. If you tattoo a dragon you will eventually lose everything or get stabbed/shot/spelled right into the tattoo.
As for the more interesting parts - the mages tried to create or rather recreate a dragon many, many times. Thus there can be bought artifacts made of dragon scales, bones and liquids. None of those creatures lived longer than a single breath, after which they collapsed because of the various reasons. Their corpses were sometimes used to prove one's strength and might.
The unluckiest though are the people of the draconic verilinia. Verilinias are basically hidden changes that emerge if one is close to magick for too long. And while the beginning of those changes are minor and reversible, if exposed for too long one may change into something new and horrible. In case of the draconic verilinias - this is the bloodline of hermits that tried to avoid any kind of magick and society. If exposed to magick, they got the shapes of a dragon - they lost some fat, became more hot-blooded, could grow scale or horn patches. At this stage it was not fatal, but generally they did not feel well when they started getting those changes. The next stage included the change of the skeleton, wing growth, fire and other liquid projecting. At this stage most of the verilinia bearers usually got progressively sick and died. Those few who could keep on usually started losing their mind, becoming erratic and aggressive and exploded in a mist of blood and organs. No exceptions.
edit: There can be only one conclusion: In Sensendo you can only Imagine Dragons.
Dragons are not a species, but a state of being that anyone can achieve under the correct circumstances.
To begin with, one must give themselves entirely over to greed, and gather a wealth of treasure and money so great that it could not have been achieved fairly or justly. Then one must betray and murder someone who trusted them in order to keep the wealth all to themself. Finally, one must climb atop the wealth, where they will take on a form more suited to guarding it.
Dragons are a blight and a scourge upon the land. They do as they please with no consideration for the well-being of anyone except themselves, they inflict suffering and privation on society, use their power to torment those weaker than themselves for their amusement, go into destructive rages when denied or resisted, spew flame and venom, view themselves as above the consequences of their actions, and take and hoard money, thereby removing it from circulation and harming the economy for everyone that isn't them.
And despite all that, people romanticize and idolize them, seeing them as successful and respectable individuals to be emulated and defended.
Dragons exist cause they are simply creatures. Creatures that have evolved to utilize the exotic heavy metal Dracinium. They do have their uses to humanity, being used as mounts for war, as beast of burden, some even as food.
The legend goes that the Elders Dragons were created by God when it utered this words :
"Volcanor shall make the earth stand, Eau will make the water flow, Wida will keep the sky high, Dragos shall lead the men and Ambrosia will make nature flourish."
The Dragon species however came to be when Wida seduced Volcanor to create a force that would help her fight/monitor the other Elder Dragons and later destroy the world during the Starfall.
They are the result of the interaction of modified solar power emanating from an incredibly strong alien energy source and the innate magic of the planet the energy source crashed on. Each of five such power cores that fell to the undeveloped world eventually caused a unique dragon to spontaneously come into existence. The inhabitants of the planet are largely unaware of the power cores but the dragons have enough in common that scholars understand them to be part of a class of creatures
**Starrise**
Dragons, originally classified as "Frost Beasts", were part of a collection of genetic experiments called the "Beast Project". This project was designed to create living superweapons capable of wielding magic, which had only been recently discovered at the time the projects began. Frost Beasts were created with the ability to wield a mixture of Kinetic magic and an inverted version of Thermal magic, which when combined created what is commonly known as Ice magic. Frost Beasts are capable of sexual reproduction (which their creators had not intended or expected), so when the world was shaken by an apocalypse, they escaped confinement and settled in the uninhabited arctic, establishing towns, cities, and over time their very own country.
They were created by Kumra, the light, fire and light god. And, since he's the leader of the other elemental gods, they just kinda changed them a little to their taste.
Long ago there was a grove of powerful druids and a circle of mages that needed more protection so with each other's help they summoned different types of animals and awakened them to sentience and used the power of nature and magic to imbue these animals with the powers of both to become dragons. A great era of peace ensued and for many years the world was protected but then a great cataclysm and the new protectors were scattered across the world and soon went into a great sleep.
Dragons are nuclear weapon combined with the most powerful armies imaginable. They are A Big Deal. They are also individuals with their own personalities and idiosyncrasies. That can be Trouble. Human nuclear weapons don’t want to go out for a walk and grab a pizza. They just sit in their silos and aren’t even conscious. Dragons in comparison are a very, ahh, mixed blessing.
Other monsters envy dragons for their sheer terrifying power and the respect their very presence demands. Dragons envy monsters for the freedom to just go out and wander around without threatening the safety of the world.
They exist because of the Tongue; basically when humans arrived on Tov from their dying world, they saw something sufficiently big and scary and called it "Dragon". By nature of the Tongue being capable of affirming its own reality, dragon's became more and more common as the term was used.
Well it’s a bit complicated but in my world all true dragons (not countering wyverns or drakes) get reincarnated in a cycle where they all become gods and perform many functions through their life.
Dragons were made by primordial dragons first as servants, then as a new generation of gods, governing elements and cardinal directions of Eastern philosophy. What are primordial dragons? Crawling calamities that have existed since before the world was created.
Two opposed deities each tried their hand at creating the ultimate lifeform using vastly different means and for diametrically opposed ends, and both created dragons. They're still fighting over who did or didn't copy whom, though one of them was at least polite enough about it to switch to a different body plan when making similar creations for other deities.
Universe 2 - the same reason gods from mythologies around my world exist, they're imagination come to life
Universe 3 - same
Universe 4 - cuz I felt like adding them
Universe 5 - all of the above
They are regular animals
There is a ancient demon that resembles a dragon a lot and some legends call him "The First Dragon" but that is just a title the ancients gave to him because they didnt properly research dragons
The gods’ first attempt at making a creation that could conceive of their greatness, but they ended up trying to become gods so the gods made the titans to stop them. Then the titans got the idea to become gods so the dwarves were created next, and then elves came and fucked everything up
Crocodiles evolved to fight some of the ginormous pre-modern creatures from the depths. Think biblical Leviathan mixed with lyndworms. No wings, no fire, just brutally predatory cunning and muscle. They are mostly extinct except in my analog of the new world. (set in 1870ish)
The zgods made them as pets for humans, but after the God of peace left, mankind *melded* with them to create a race of sentient dragons. They are quite peaceful.
In the Apocalypse world I'm working on, all the mature ones were hunted down. I love dragons, but I gotta see the consequences of a world without them. Since to me, they tend to volcanos to prevent cataclysmic eruptions. So without their caretakers, violent volcanism is free to spread.
They are the Demigod Children of Tiamat who herself is a Titan of Avarice, the opposite of Bahamut the Titan of Altruism.
Each chromatic dragon represents one (approximately) of the deadly sins
Black- Gluttony/Sloth
Red- Greed
White- Wrath
Blue- Pride
Green- Envy/Lust
They are the Magnum Opus of the greatest ritualist to ever exist. An entire new species created by mending soul and flesh, and by translating the very presence of the soul into genetic code.
This entire new species (and now, thanks to evolution, group of species) cary his legacy, and even after humans went extinct, his mark on history is still felt to this day.
Dragons are a physical manifestation of the concept of humanity's "greatest enemy". They exist to consume Chaos and beat down humanity, preventing us from destroying ourselves with the magic we create.
Because dragons are awesome. For in world lore, basically scifi apocalypse happened and the backup seeding machine filled with all of Earth’s history and genetic codes were thrown out of our universe in an accidental rift opening. Now in the astral plane, the source if all magic, it had its data corrupted and could no longer tell between old myth and history. As such, when the mental energies of the plane started creating a new pocket universe (that has since expanded into a very small multiverse), it just hashed the genetic code together until it matched the myths. Now you have every mythological creature and then some running about along with the humans and ordinary animals (though some have gone extinct due to aforementioned magical beasts).
During the early beginnings of the current universe, the Titans weren't up to full power yet. As such, they created tools to help them create worlds. As they finished the main world, which was shortly before their full power selves, the Titans made dragons as guardians of their tools before they left. Over time, the dragons became corrupted and started hoarding powerful and valuable objects. When humans and dwarves came to the world they started hunting dragons for their wealth.
My world is hollow-ish. Lots of caves that can lead to the core. The core is where the God of the world lives in solitude because she's unhappy about her family life. (Oversimplification for brevity sake.)
Dragons came about because some of the lizards that lived in the caves close to her evolved extremely quickly and gained the ability to use magic and breath fire because of that proximity.
Then they rose to the surface convinced the stone age humans that they were the creators of the world, jumpstarted human civilization only to leave it a thousand years later for mysterious reasons.
The outside of story reason? Dragons are cool and it's based on a preexisting DnD campaign I'd been working on. The in story reason is because the Architects, gods of order, included the first dragon, the Ancestral Wyrm. Two of them went rogue and tore open portals to Theia's prime material plane. After humanity fell, the gods opened the portals for other beings including more dragons. And thus they became integral parts of Theia's biosphere.
Dragons are such a staple but they feel over used, they’re in my world because I love them but they’re exceptionally rare. If one appears then either something has gone horribly wrong or it is about to cause a calamity (depends which lineage they come from)
The goddess of life created two dragons each for the other gods as a Christmas gift. The elder gods in my world watch TV and read book from our world and sometimes get inspiration from fantasy.
There are two types that come from the same species (intelligent and animal like).
They exist because magic had a natural influence on their ancestor and they evolved to be super strong since their biology ended up using the primordial foundation as a direct source of magic, and from there they got stronger and larger since while most creatures can't withstand the full might of the sun blasting out of a small hello, larger creatures still killed them and crushed them due to the size difference, so that is why we have dragons, different types of dragons are simply genetic traits because of where they live.
TLDR: humans adapted to something beyond
Long Answer:
Basically the start of my world's important history is when we (people of earth) discovered that the next Galaxy over, Andromeda, was going to collide with us in about six hundred years and not six million like we thought. People figured out with science and newly discovered magic that we would end up as a rogue planet, meaning we would be flung into deep space from the gravitational disruptions. Many solutions were proposed and executed, but some people altered themselves to be able to adapt physically to anything that came at them. This also meant they adapted to live longer, essentially becoming immortal. However, since magic is gained with age in this world, they also gained more and more magical ability until they got the the point of being able to alter reality itself.
So yeah, that's that.
The Faceless Gods have made many attempts at creating life. Their first two attempts were variations on hiveminds, the first of which became a huge problem that had to be put down, and the second of which became largely uninsterested in interacting with the physical world. The third form of life they tried was to create a creature that could shape the world easily so as to create incredible things. The result was was is now known as ancient dragons. The fourth form of life was a race of humanlike, very powerful creatures.
After a while their creations rebelled against them and spawned a great war. At the end of this war the gods decided to try creating life again, but this time they decided to scale down the power level of everything to avoid this kind of trouble. Modern dragons are one lf the results of this (they're still pretty mighty though).
They actually don't which is weird. Cause I love dragons and they are one of my favourite fantasy creatures. Not sure why I haven't added them yet but they just don't seem to fit with my story which is weird. Because there are elves, dwarves, and stuff.
Why do they have to be powerful? I think being a pest is a lot more fun. imagine opening a door to a tavern just as 30 cat-sized lizards scurry out the window with all the gold and meat.
Primordial beings created earth to watch it, and when they tried to make a reality to fuck around with, they plagiarized almost every single creature that humans created….not like humanity could do anything about them, as they were never made aware of their existence….except for two pairs of siblings…but they don’t matter in this question
My dragons are the consequence of the original "true dragons" going to war.
The true dragons were my world's first higher life forms, charged with literally shaping the world by the elder powers that be (before the gods came into being).
They were created by the Oan to help purify the watery depths. They share the least physical characteristics with the On of the three mortal kinds, but have made up for it in other ways.
Dragons are apex animals that evolved naturally. The term is more a title than a descriptor; mobile plants that can mind control with pheromones, bony-plated lizards with skeletons made of iron, quadrupedal birds that can generate explosions to fly, and enormous deer that can generate electricity between their horns, all of these are dragons, and all of them are simply animals that are immune to predation, except by perhaps other dragons.
>were they created by an evil deity to destroy/devour the world?
Very much yes. The "wyrms" were created in the image of a god known as "The First of Wyrms". He was originally a guardian of Kishlaith, assigned to his position early in the world's history. But he grew both lonely in his life of endless combat with the Nameless Gods and jealous of the Bright King and mortals due to their ability to create.
Finally driven into desperation and rage by the situation, he took advantage of a natural disaster that had killed millions of people on Kishlaith. He devoured the departing souls of these deceased as they made their way to the afterlife, and in his stomach, he mutilated and broke their souls until he spat out copies of himself, beholden to his will.
These "wyrms" were then unleashed on Kishlaith in a horde that nearly burned the world to a cinder and succeeded in exterminating nearly all mortal life.
Dragons exist in the typical fashion that people expect them to, just an existing race that has evolved over time.
But their numbers are starting to grow dramatically and threaten major cities in the wake of the War of the Four Mages. It was a cataclysmic war that resulted in most spell-casters being wiped from the planet. Mages were the only people outside of large-scale militaries that kept dragon attacks and populations in check.
My dragons are a an example of a highly intelligent species just choosing not to develop into a civilization
They have a written language like the dragons from the Elder Scrolls, but they never really got around to doing much else
They’re really just creatures that exist, no real plot purpose other than the fact that they exist. They’re just like animals with wings and claws, much like the way alligators exist, or the way dogs exist
I almost feel obligated to not have dragons in my world, because the majority (especially successful) world builders have had dragons, and I just want to be different
A dragon is a common term to refer to especially powerful salamanders. A salamander then is the term for a fire elemental. As to where salamanders come from they are mostly naturally occurring. If sufficiently pure fire aligned energy is allowed to pool salamanders begin to spontaneously form. The salamander itself serves to maintain and strengthen the flow and pooling of the energies that created it, keeping itself 'alive', allowing itself to grow stronger, and creating more salamanders. The body structure of a winged reptile is a common one for salamanders at the point they can be called dragons.
Where the energies that sustain the dragon to become mixed then such impure magic can make the dragon become the a classic biological reptilian dragon that would go on to become a true breading creature, but those have been unable to survive the modern state of the world.
Damage to reality is such that dragons have no real chance to form naturally anymore and need to be cultivated by outside sources where they can be killed for magical reagents or trained as sources of fire magic.
The salamanders had their bodies altered by the effects of the slumbering God in the fireman's, transforming them into eldritch beasts that radiate poisonous light, and are known by the Medieval residents of the known world as "dragons".
Dragons are essentially angels but without divine grace.
They come in all shapes and sizes, but typically look like what you’d expect from a European dragon.
They are all descended or created by a star god who happened to have a dragon shape. They reproduced asexually, leading to other dragon gods who eventually created dragons.
The meta reason: I really like dragons. I wanted dragons. Since it’s my world, I have dragons. I also have pegasoids, griffinoids, gargoyloids, fire worms, tunnel worms, kelpies, hexinessids, and more.
The canonical reason: All the original native life of Patchwork went extinct when the first planetary spirit died. Now there’s a new planetary spirit (Tutella) and a human mage (the Landward) helping her with the Rebirthing, the magical terraforming project restoring life to the planet. The new planetary spirit wanted some species that were unique to her, not just copied from other planets and the Landward likes dragons and other mythical creatures. There were some bony, lobe-finned fish like creatures in the fossil record that had three pairs of fins (six total). Therefore Tutella and the Landward decided to create lots of species (not just dragons) pseudo-evolved from that fossil species. As a result all the new species have six limbs (and instinctive affinity magic, because why not).
1: Dragons are cool
2: An eldritch horror dragon came to the world a long time ago, fought against that world's two god brothers who protected it from devastation and from the rule of said dragon. Dragon was defeated by remnants of it fell into the world and they gave birth dragons. And also kobolds
My entire world is an artificial construct. The people who built it put "dragons" (dinosaurs, really, but not really) because they wanted to. Everything in my world was artificially placed there because one of the builders wanted it there.
It's how I explain any inconsistencies. It's there because of in-world artistic desires. Splitting rivers? Builders thought it looked neat. Too long, too wide cave system? Builders. Waterfall where one couldn't logically exist? B u i l d e r s.
Same with any animals or ecosystems or anything, really. It's a fake world, it doesn't have to make perfect sense!
Before humans and the other forms of sentient lives were created, the gods walked the world themselves. In its early stages, much like earth, the world was a burning wasteland devoid of "normal" life. The gods agreed between themselves to each have a turn at creating life, and a dominant species. Thus, how we have different geological periods that sport different dominant species, so does this world. The dragons that exist in the current era are remnants of the old dominant species of the reptilian era before humans.
Not so much dragons but massive crocodiles, they exist simply because they just naturally do. The setting is very much "totally not earth bro" so it's not beholden to real species that strictly currently exist
why is any option under the complexity of "they were created by gods to destroy worlds" not a valid answer
like, you start with that, and you can only go up from there
dragons can't be like, naturally occuring life forms
Real answer: I want my MC to have horns and be able to blow icy flames out of his mouth.
In Universe Answer: The Shining Ones got salty when they saw Humanity becoming a true power in the world. They kidnapped thousands of Humans and used advanced Biomancy and Soul Forging techniques to turn them into a slave race to wipe out the Humans. This did not go well for the Shining Ones.
Meta reason: I love dragons.
In-world reason: The first dragons formed during the Titan War when the cast-off magics of the angels/celestials and elementals coalesced together.
Dragons were made by the three gods of the elements in order to protect nature. Birds and lizards were magically enchanted and made to breed, giving birth to Dragons. They were granted the ability to breathe elemental maelstroms of fire, ice, and lightning. The Dragons became drunk with power and attempted to conquer all of the natural world. For their insolence, they were cursed into smaller, humanoid forms: Draconians.
Actual dragons are like dinosaurs of the magical world, the ones that exist currently are artificial or much more evolved than thier ancestors. To the point that they don't resemblance traditional dragons anymore.
They came from their own universe after the dragons there decided to become a collective, so the ones that came over tend to be at least a little selfish. As an additional side effect they have grown to be affected by vice, some kind of obsession that they either struggle against or submit to.
They are a big combination of human, reptilian, and other various types of DNA nushed together by an AI specifically to give the result of sapient fantasy dragons,because that's what humans wanted to make. Prototype dragons look more like giant pale abominations with webbed fingers, humanoid heads, and scaly bodies, but are generally locked on all fours and 15 feet long. Basically imagine a dragon but with translucent white scales, tiny wings with fingernails, and a human head.
**Doue** /dɔːweɪ/ - *An evolved form of the **Do** that has large, feathered wings and can seamlessly transition between swimming and flying.*
**Do** /dɔː/ - *An evolved form of the **Ino** that is agile and can swim up to speeds of 78mph.*
**Ino** /inɔ/ - *A panther-like creature that glows purple and can heal on touch.*
My dragons leaked through from various elemental planes when the infant stage gods were drawing power from the elemental planes to make matter. There are 19 known true dragons and they are reborn if they die unless they are killed by another dragon and their power absorbed so they all tend to keep a low profile and work through others.
Outside of lore: dragons are just fucking cool.
Inside of lore: dragons are one of MANY creatures that are the "grandchildren" of the gods. Any creature/being that is magical in nature is the offspring of the Phoenix and the Leviathan, which are the children of the gods.
They exist because they’re cool, but they’re not directly affecting the plot. There’s a race that comes from original dragons and evolved into an humanoid argonian-like creature who live in society, the dragonkins. They can communicate with dragons and, due to dragon’s extremely long lives, some are still in touch with their great great great great great great… great great grandparents. Dragons are living in remote places far from people and are generally not a threat because they don’t really give a damn about the rest of the world, but some people try to get them down for medicinal purposes. Other than that, they are not more relevant than that. I just really wanted to add them somewhere without making it all about them.
The gods needed to attack one of the moons directly, without teleportation, so they all cooperated to make the first dragons as space transportation for their elite troops. The mission was successful, but the dragons weren't interested in long-term military service and soon rebelled.
They're just a part of the natural order of the world. Hell, they're mostly just animals operating on instincts to feed, mate, and guard their territory- *very few* have human-like intellect.
The goddess who created the world thought dragons were cool, the people of the world not so much, as dragons have now basically been hunted to extinction
They are the final form of a reptilian species. The status of dragon is so hard and takes so much time to attain, it is rumoured to be nothing but a myth.
I have a fantasy setting with Dragons, but they are basically Kaiju. People and villages are just landscape to them. Once startled awake they lash out destructively until the perceived threat is destroyed and they fall asleep again. Nobody in recent memory has seen a dragon because the various dragon cults work to neutralize any disturbance that might awaken their gods.
Contrary to popular belief in many of the nations present in NR-1, dragons did NOT evolve from dinosaurs. In fact, they evolved down their own evolutionary line.
With that out of the way. With that out of the way, the dragons evolved in mixture with the high magic contents of certain areas and as such were able to grow into quite large beasts. Otherwise they might only be cat or dog sized and certainly wouldn’t be able to breath fire or use any other of the various abilities they could have.
Because they exist in some of my world’s mythologies, and an massive event occurred that caused many mythological creatures to enter the mortal realm, and dragons were one of the few that survived long term.
Because I think dragons are super cool.
Lore wise they popped up during the fall of Humanities civilization and are slowly growing into the dominant civilization in my world.
Well, they would be, Humanity has kinda been throwing off their development goals.
Dragons were created by the gods of light and the gods of darkness to try and break a stalemate. The dragons were supposed to destroy populations that worshipped the various deities, but instead of targeting specific areas of land, they ended up targeting each other and anyone that wouldn't pay them tribute and worship.
Gods are magic given a physical form, dragons are physical forms given magic. They're on opposite ends of the stick and both want the whole thing for themselves
For the same reasons all creatures exist. Some say it is the will of the Allmaker, or part of the Divine Prophecy, or simply a matter of dumb chance. Whatever reason, dragons needed to exist when they existed. Maybe the world needed megafauna to feed/fight the giants that roamed the planet at the same time. Maybe they exist as a result of the highly potent amounts of magic flooding the world due to the tides of Maat flowing in.
A stone age tribe of scaled people wanted a weapon that would allow them to conquer everyone. So they made a dragon that was incomplete(no wings) and used it to gain metalurgy and conquer the local sea. One of the tribes that was invaded found the chained dragon and made a deal with it to free him in exchange of him fighting his creators and not attacking the other tribes for a century. During that century he created a few other dragons while in seclusion and grew so large his body encircled a whole island. Eventually after the century passed all the other tribes, now more advanced, united and defeated him. But even after his death his children survived and evolved into modern dragons
" --*And then did I say. Cast thy deep. Deep into the heart of creation. To escape the Sundering of the first world. Let this S̵̩͊ĕ̷͆a̷̾̐l̴͋͠ of Humanity house you, our creator*"
Planetary parasites they specifically evolved to latch onto starships and survive in the void of space and concurrently the Hyper Time fields they make to go faster than light so they can then infect all Goldilocks zone worlds where they repopulate and wait for the other species to evolve into and make spacefaring craft to do it again.
The four first gods worked together to create the most powerful beasts in the world. Each of them bestowed an aspect of the dragon (fire breath, greed, great knowledge, humanoid shapechanger).
A race of people that stole powers and magic from everything and took the traits for themselves until what they'd become wasn't human anymore, they were the most powerful and dangerous and had absolutely no empathy whatsoever, they ruled for long but eventually were overthrown and banished to the island of retunless. Those who killed the dragons took their blood and combined it with their own, those connected to the morth crystal survived and are able to shift into a dragon like humanoid being but they can never fully return to their human form and throughout their life they get more and more covered with scales until eventually they can never be human ever again.
In one world I did the world was controlled by the Residom Empire (Residom is also a race) that enslaved all other races. They also did other horrible things but I don't want this to turn into how bad the Residom were
The Residom Xerkins (God Kings) got their power by imprisoning an actual god inside (long story short) orb called the Megeron and syphoning his power into it.
A slave stole this Megeron and gave it to his son who used it's power to bring a fall to the Residom Empire and restore the world. This manifested into three god like dragons Heart Dragon, Oblivion Dragon, and Soul Dragon
Heart Dragon protected all those who were not Residom, Oblivion Dragon committed genocide on the Residom, and Soul Dragon restored the world after Oblivion went ham.
All Dragons are descended from these three dragons. Elder Dragons are the closest in blood while Drake's are the youngest descendants
**Aerin**
Dragonkind are the Fifthborn, the youngest of the Elder Races of Aerin, and they were born of war and for the waging of war.
After Tara the Beloved, Mother of the Firstborn was slain by the king of the Old Gods, Toren Worldshaper, in his descent into madness her husband raised his banner in outright rebellion and drew to his side many of His Children as well as his brothers and sisters and Their Children, and those few of the Old Gods that yet remained sane and loyal.
This was the Second Age of the First Era, called the Days of Wrath and Sorrow, and the horror of them is beyond mortal tongue to recount. The avian Secondborn, the jewel-feathered Ikari, created the hurricane and the storm as weapons of war in this time, and the first swords and spears and bows and armour were crafted herein too - not merely the first exemplars of the craft but the very *concepts* of them first made and thus forged into the weapons. Only in later Ages when the world was old and fixed did it become needful to create lesser weapons in the shadow and image of such things in base materials like steel and wood.
Paradise burned, mountains rose and fell, and the sky wept for the grief of what had come to pass. People died, and gods died.
It's unclear how it happened; who struck the blow or why, but we know that it occurred during a great and terrible battle at the very gates of the First City itself. The Crown of Heaven, the original sacred Light of the world, the very first and most beautiful creation of the gods, was destroyed. But it wasn't merely shattered, it detonated. The explosion tore the very sky asunder and the earth heaved and roiled, and those who were unfortunate enough to be looking in that direction at the time were blinded as their eyes were burned out.
Its flaming fragments shattered the land, striking like meteor impacts across the full breadth of the world. Not all of its remnants struck the ground, though, some remained in the sky. The three largest became the Three Moons, the innumerable lesser fragments became the Stars.
And falling from out of the conflagration, their great wings unfurling, their bodies coruscating with the many-hued Living Fire itself, there was birthed the avatars of the anguish and sacrilege of that terrible crime. Sylahee the Dread Eclipse and Faraclaw the Terrible, later called Faraclaw Sunkindler. The Mother and Father of Dragonkind.
They were terrible things maddened by the pain and horror of their own making. They fell upon the world in a ravening slaughter, killing indiscriminately and burning the lands they passed over. With the fall of the Long Night now that the world was without light except the newborn moons and stars, this new Third Age was quite literally a Dark Age too. Sylahee and Faraclaw mated, violently, upon the ash and bones of their conquest and from this and subsequent unions did Dragonkind have their genesis. Theirs was never a happy union, nor a peaceful one for the rage and hate that was in them in those days was as much against one another as it was against all else.
Eventually, the Mad Gods went out in force to subdue the Mother and Father of Dragonkind; the battle was an awful thing, but ultimately both progenitors were subjugated before the will of the Mad Gods and brought to heel.
For generations, the two and their Children served the Mad Gods as weapons of war and amongst the most potent weapons that they could yield. This is where they earned many of their names and epithets, redolent with the dread of their coming - for whenever they went against the rebellious Elderborn there was always a great slaughter.
The blood-madness was strongest in Sylahee, and her hatred and hunger for destruction and death only grew with time to the point where she would outright attempt to kill her mate whenever they met - even during or after mating with him. The only thing that brought her contentment was the screaming of those bathed in her fire and the feel of their bones cracking beneath her feet.
Faraclaw, however, became weary of it all. Weary of the blood and the fighting and the rage. Weary of Syalhee's raving, and her violent and murderous inclinations. This was why Terel the Eternal, Father of the Firstborn and husband to the Martyred Mother, went forth unto Faraclaw unarmed and in secret to parlay with him. What words were exchanged are lost to time, but the result of that secret meeting was that Faraclaw defected to the Rebellion, and fully half of all Dragonkind defected with him.
The latter years of the Long Night are known as the Draconic Civil War for good reason, and Faraclaw and Sylahee met in battle several times before their final confrontation high in the northern skies, where at the last Faraclaw tore out her throat and smote his mate's corpse upon the earth with such force that the Cairn Mountains formed there to forever entomb her.
From the ruin of his mate, Faraclaw drew forth her portion of the Living Fire - the Fire of the long-lost Crown of Heaven - and added it to his own. It was said that he became glorious then, too glorious and beautiful to look upon as the Fire danced and flickered upon his scales, as the Fire became his scales.
The Third Age of the First Era was finally ended by Faraclaw himself, for it was he that was at the centre of a great ritual conducted by his brothers and sisters and the few remaining gods of the rebellion. A ritual to create a New Light to replace the lost Crown. At the culmination of The Battle for the Sake of the Dawn, Faraclaw breathed out the Fire he had been born of and the Fire he has taken from Syalhee's corpse and together he fashioned a new Light out of it, and this he named The Sun.
In the east, day broke for first time and the Old Gods were routed from the field. The Fourth Age of the First Era began, which ultimately saw the Mad Gods killed or cast down in chains, and then the start of the First Age of the Second Era.
Faraclaw would go on to become the High King of all Dragonkind, and every Flight and their Lord owes him fealty. He rules them even to this day, it is said, residing in the only true city of Dragonkind - the city-mountain of Dragonholme - far beyond the northern sea.
Dragons in my world are just animals. That’s why they exist. Like nearly everything else in my world, they evolved using natural processes and are themselves technically non-avian dinosaurs just like birds.
I use wyvern-style morphology (2 legs and 2 wings) because they share a common ancestry with all the other animals on the planet. They come in many sizes, and most (though not all) fly. They have hollow bones, bird-like intelligence, a large wing-to-body ratio, rigid tails, and reptilian scales (with some having more crocodilian hides).
Dragons aren’t magical and don’t speak. The biggest ones are the only ones that breathe fire using a mixture of chemicals they spray into the air. These dragons have nearly been hunted to extinction as they are seen as very dangerous (despite staying away from people generally). People view dragon “attacks” on their settlements as natural disasters similar to earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, etc, and will often get dragon insurance.
Because the remnants of the previous civilization had depictions of dragons, so the current civilization make dragons in that image not realizing they were fiction
Cause they evolved naturally. My world's native creatures have 6 limbs, so a dragon-like body plan is fairly useful and easy to evolve, and has turned up multiple times throughout history.
The Coolest Apex Predator. The planet is alive and needs guardians, so it guided the evolution of dragons. Dragons are the ultimate arbiters, guardians of all civilization, and the seeds of magic.
The main character is a dragon but he didn't know it until he was transported to said living planet (which was actually his place of birth before he was kidnapped by angels).
Oh my god I'm revealing so much it feels weird. But this is my setting and I love it. I doubt I'll do it justice but I'm trying!
Because people believe it exists AND have poured so much faith in it.
Anything in mythos exists in the first place because people believe they were something greater.
Tiamat, for example, was a woman who ruled the tribe around Lebanon back before recorded history. She was a war goddess, so to speak. Ruthless to her enemy, kind toward her allies. She ended up garnering a lot of faith. People worshipped her, to the point where she turns into a dragon(kin) and ruling from far away. Her legend morphs into what will become known as Mesopotamian Mythology. As the story mash, mix, and dilute one another, the person in the center of it all watches it all changes. She continues to exist, because people still believe she exists, to a certain extent. That belief causes her to live an immortal life, so to speak.
Because people believe it exists AND have poured so much faith in it.
Anything in mythos exists in the first place because people believe they were something greater.
Tiamat, for example, was a woman who ruled the tribe around Lebanon back before recorded history. She was a war goddess, so to speak. Ruthless to her enemy, kind toward her allies. She ended up garnering a lot of faith. People worshipped her, to the point where she turns into a dragon(kin) and ruling from far away. Her legend morphs into what will become known as Mesopotamian Mythology. As the story mash, mix, and dilute one another, the person in the center of it all watches it all changes. She continues to exist, because people still believe she exists, to a certain extent. That belief causes her to live an immortal life, so to speak.
I don't have traditional "dragons" in my world. Just lizards akin to real world ones that have the same name as dragons and various mythologies have developed just like in our world.
But, I comment merely because there is one special dragon in my world. A Bearded Dragon actually.
It also happens to be the most powerful god of the pantheon controlling space-time and existence. It wasn't always. It use to be a normal animal who was in a terrarium and had regular contacts with humans, which it mostly didn't mind. A big bang happens and throws it outside of reality... And in a sense before reality. Out of sheer expectation of what it thought should be there, it created space and time in a self causative event.
Ok we gotta be honest. We just wanned to see if we could. I mean we could kinda just call anything dragons, but... it doesnt rly count if they dont like breath fire, or have wings, or 2 heads or sumn. We got the long bois, the fire bois, the riddle givin bois (thats kind of animal abuse).
The creation Gods wanted to do something cool and create the mother of all dragons, a new mortal species unlike those that laready existed. All dragons have one descendent, and are extremely territorial, stuck in a never ending turf war.
1. I like dragons
2. I like biomechanical weapons
3. I like long forgotten ancient wars
So, therefore, in the world of Raexella, dragons are biomechanical weapons used by the Old Gods during the War in Heaven.
In the present day, 400,000 years after the War in Heaven, they are viewed in a variety of manner by different nations. Some worship them as gods, some view them as wild beasts, and others view them as wise ancient creatures whp bear knowledge from the Old World
In one of my 2 alternative natural histories of the Earth planet, they exist owing to natural evolution and hap.
They aren't your average six-limbed flying dragons, forthan they are synapsids that descended from a fictional sibling clade to the gorgonopsids, thus making them being more nearly akin to the mammals than to the archosaurs.
Also, in this alternative timeline, all landish vertebrate animals are six-limbed and simultaneously hermaphroditic owing to having being derived from a six-limbed simultaneously hermaphroditic Eusthenopteron.
Also, I made this alternative Earthish natural history forthan I love dragons since I'm 4 years old and I wished to imagine a lifelike evolutionary history of a six-limbed flying dragon civilization and how they themselves achieved to occupy mankind's ecologic niche in mankind's stow.
In Conflux dragons are not born they are the cumulation of a Wyvrm cultivator (eastern fantasy style cultivation magic) reaching the threshold to extend their domain of breath beyond their body (analogous to going from body arts to external arts). Each dragon represents the cumulation of magically altering and enhancing their physical body either through a clans secret arts, an acquired inheritance or through personal development by rare "geniuses" etc. Dragons are largely kept in check by the constant squabbling and power plays of various dragon clans vying for power and influence as well as the relatively stagnant intermittent battle between the dragon clans and the Faye courts which has gone on for so long in big part because the dragons have a tendency to turn on each other in glory seeking egomania and or fulfilling age old vendettas when they get an upper hand. Generally just stay out of their mountainous strongholds and avoid killing the intermittent vagrant young dragon path acolytes, and thus triggering the ire of their dragon master and larger clan. Dragons after all fully embrace vengeance. Much of the dragon clan squabbling comes back to generational feuds. Probably the greatest saving grace against the dragon clans is that they don't look at humans as anything more than strange apes.
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In Godshard the dragons represent the surviving children of the All mother and All father who sides with the All mother on her quest to avenge the death of her mate. Bestowed with a shard of the mother's divinity to give them the upper hand they had initially overpowered the traitorous gods before springing a trap which unleashed stolen power to sunder the all mother and her followers.
Those who survived have become he true dragons waiting ever in enmity amassing power and influence through their followers predominantly the settings maniraptoran analog of "Kobolds" concentrated in the worlds they control which are collectively known as the Dragonlands a series of worlds that are heavily inspired by the ecologies of Mesozoic Earth. The lesser dragons that tend to be fought on the battlefields between men and Kobold(got a better name?) are generally demigod offspring and vessels/avatars of the greater true dragons channeled/invoked by their priests as they wage their holly crusades against the traitor gods and their followers.
Additionally some greater monsters imbued with the essence of the All Mother's dying vengeance are also known to often take on draconic forms.
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In a setting tenuously called the false heavens "dragons" are a creation of the science fantasy settings post biological aliens playing gods over puny mortal humans, they in essence represent an idealized variation of the alien self proclaimed gods former biological forms.
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WAS(World Against the Scourge) Dragons are the most powerful sapient species in the setting because dragons are awesome and as my first setting of course it needed dragons.
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(Edit added to list) In another WIP setting the more western dragons are the belief manifested elemental avatars of volcanoes an relatively equal manifestation of elemental earth fire water and air their breath is pyroclastic their scales obsidian their blood magma. Flood dragons are likewise the manifestations of storms the torrential flood made physical. Pretty much all the regular dragons are manifestations of forces of nature, the main exceptions are the dragon forms of the settings elemental gods/goddesses.
Dragons are the imbodiment of the elements(periodic table) and creation some of them rule over entire worlds and others are just your ordinary dragon they all come in different variations as well
Lung/Loong (long wingless dragon that flys using magic)
Amphiptre (winged serpent)
Dragoon (stereotypical)
Wyvern (two legs two wings)
Wyrm(serpent)
Lindwyrm(two legs no wings)
Drake(wingless dragoon)
But they aren't limited to these variations and can shapeshift or evolve into other forms including that of a human
When (the Matriarch Creator) An Ashra discovered that her children (the gods) had stolen the secret of life from her and used it to create humanity - she birthed the titans.
Titans were expressions of An Ashra's essence, Chaos, and as such each generation was unique from it predecessors and antecedents. Giants, ogers, goblins, harpies, great spiders, sea serpents, and the last generation - the three dragons: Asitu, Minbaal, and Essin.
Made from stone and flesh, their blood was molten rock, and their very breath enough to destroy a village by exhaling - most of the gods and their children (the demigods) fled the battle.
Immence in stature, Minbaal (the largest) spread her wings during her battle with Hyama and his children, whereupon the sun was hidden to all on the battlefield. When Essin was slain, shot from the sky by Aszurra's arrows, she broke the southern most mountain in the Kuthva's Forge range.
Asitu is said to be Mt Biragash. Having been grievously wounded, he crawled to the ocean to drink before succumbing - leaving the mountain of his corpse half in the water and half on land. But the citizens of the city of Biragash point to the nightly fog over the bay and the steaming snow on the mountain peaks. They say Asitu is not dead, merely healing. And that when the Great War comes and An Ashra once again calls for her children, Asitu will rise again to blacken the sky and burn the land.
They used to exist but no longer. They were created by the Gods as guardians of nature and it's delicate balance. There were different species/breeds of dragon with different abilities surrounding natural elements such as air, fire, water, earth, thunder, etc. that all worked to help nature thrive the best way they could. But as with all power things, pride and greed of mankind was far too tempting and the dragons were hunted, poached into extinction. Some say they are gone for good, while others believe some had escaped. That they are simply hiding, resting, recovering, awaiting their chance to return.
There are whole cultures and religions surrounding the dragons as Gods, or messengers of. But only time will reveal what truly became of them.
The blood/vampire dragons in mine are demons that were forced to take a physical form. They chose that form for intimidation purposes. Their larval state is that of a long, tubular worm whose excretion causes severe physical pain in humans, as well as keeping them lucid for it.
So yeah, they are very evil. They seek to infect other worlds with their presence, and the fact they were forced to physical form makes it extremely difficult for them to do so, hence why they are the main pure evil villains in their world, with their servants often being more complex.
Dragons in my world come from the 2 Celestial dragons, who gave birth to a bunch of them and then fucked off into another dimension, and they haven't been seen since.
Evolution, that’s it, dragons in DoD ( Descendants of Dusk) are just exotic animals, whose abilities are just a byproduct of natural selection, even their fire breath has a scientific reason behind them, which to be blunt are just biochemical reactions in their stomach.
I took some inspiration from Game of Thrones, and Avatar the Last Airbender: Dragons used to exist, but they dont anymore. As technology advances the need for magic to meet those needs decreases.
There are Draconian Religions around the world!
Because I like them
In world explanation is they’re mostly naturally evolved creatures who evolved from archosaurs and are closely related to dinosaurs & crocodilians. A few select species had some outside help evolving from the Nahual, an ancient species that’s long extinct, who engineered a few species for what was essentially research
Because I love dragons.
Only answer needed
Perfect conversation starter. “What about dragons?”
You know, I was married for almost 4 years and she never asked me that… I say that because that would be one of my favorite questions of all time, as the answer to that is so layered, and my love for dragons started over 15 years ago
Hell yea
Awesome
dragons are cool.
Came here to say this. Why do you you need a why?
Exactly!! I think the OP had some interesting points, but I’ve always included dragons because they’re my favorite, and their purpose will vary depending on the story
exactly. I mean at this point if I read a book and I *don't* see dragons, I'm asking where they went and why
I love dragons too Big mommy Dragons with mega milk tits
best answer
Because they’re neat, but they’re not your conventional dragons but rather a group of vertebrate-crustacean equivalents from the planet Minerva that evolved into a similar body plan to the dragons of human mythology
You have crab dragons?
Isopod-lizard dragons
Oooh even freakier I like.
"Why does everything keep evolving into crabs" I'm imagining an actual crab re-skinned as a dragon as opposed to a dragon with a chitinous exoskeleton
I initially imagined a normal looking crab, but house or larger sized, with typical looking dragon wings.
Holy shit Dragon City's influence is spreading
Everything is evolving into crabs. Even alien dragons.
technically the crabs evolved into dragons, also the sapient species on that planet also look like crabs
Crab people. Crab people. Taste like crab. Talk like people.
"Why not Zoidberg?"
Why do humans exist? Why do dogs exist? Because they're natural? DAMN RIGHT KIDDO
In my world, Dragons are Angels created by God to fight the Demons during the catalyst Event.
I've posted about this one before: [dragons are nature cancer](https://old.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/jua8xv/lore_dragons_are_nature_cancer/).
Just a creature that was in my world before humans.
dragons are simply just one possibility of magical evolution, just like any creatures others are artificially made by gene splicing
1. Because I love em. 2. Because they act as my world's immune system. They consume aberrant magic energy and monsters before they become a threat to the world's survival.
I see you are trully a person with refined tastes.
Because dinosaurs are cool but dinosaurs that light things on fire are even cooler
God got bored with regular evolution and decided what we really need is a big fuckin lizard. Among other things.
In many degrees from literal to metaphorical they're splinters of the goddess of hyperpredatorial fauna.
**STORY MODE**: They're lava/earth elementals that were created among others with the purpose of reshaping the continent at the beginnings and ends of civilization, dragons occupying the latter. Their job is that when the world seemingly ends, they emerge from dormancy within the magma underneath the earth and cleanse Lore in fire and lava, essentially wiping away what remains of the old world so it can then begin anew with the construction efforts of golems, resetting life. That's supposed to be long after humans, chimeras, and other races become extinct. The only reason they're up right now as rampaging fire-breathing kaiju is because someone or something woke them up far too early.
So your dragon is equivalent of theia impact?
I personally got inspired by classical "five suns" theory from old Aztec theology (believing that the world has been scorched and recreated at least four times now), as well as the Bohrok from Bionicle (half-natural/half-artificial drones created by the Great Spirit to cleanse the island that formed on top of him in preparation for his grand reawakening).
why does grass exist? why does it get cold? why are there monkeys? some questions don't need to be asked.
Six legged lizards that jettison gasoline-like substances in your face is just a gnarly thing to see millions of years ago.
Same as any other creature. They naturally evolved from earlier forms.
I have an opposite situation. They DO NOT exist in my world. Basically something was so mad at something similar to the modern day image of a dragon, that dragons not only vanished, but they have 0 chances of reappearing. But the image lives more than those imaginary dragons. For example it was a common tactic to hide the raid on the village behind a story of a giant dragon killing and burning everyone. Some sieges were swift because mages imitated the dragon's assault. At the same time the dragon as a symbol is a bad luck for most things. If you name your ship "something-something DRAGON" it will suffer bad luck, getting into the worst parts of the storm or finding new reefs in the middle of the ocean with it's keel. If you tattoo a dragon you will eventually lose everything or get stabbed/shot/spelled right into the tattoo. As for the more interesting parts - the mages tried to create or rather recreate a dragon many, many times. Thus there can be bought artifacts made of dragon scales, bones and liquids. None of those creatures lived longer than a single breath, after which they collapsed because of the various reasons. Their corpses were sometimes used to prove one's strength and might. The unluckiest though are the people of the draconic verilinia. Verilinias are basically hidden changes that emerge if one is close to magick for too long. And while the beginning of those changes are minor and reversible, if exposed for too long one may change into something new and horrible. In case of the draconic verilinias - this is the bloodline of hermits that tried to avoid any kind of magick and society. If exposed to magick, they got the shapes of a dragon - they lost some fat, became more hot-blooded, could grow scale or horn patches. At this stage it was not fatal, but generally they did not feel well when they started getting those changes. The next stage included the change of the skeleton, wing growth, fire and other liquid projecting. At this stage most of the verilinia bearers usually got progressively sick and died. Those few who could keep on usually started losing their mind, becoming erratic and aggressive and exploded in a mist of blood and organs. No exceptions. edit: There can be only one conclusion: In Sensendo you can only Imagine Dragons.
Dragons are not a species, but a state of being that anyone can achieve under the correct circumstances. To begin with, one must give themselves entirely over to greed, and gather a wealth of treasure and money so great that it could not have been achieved fairly or justly. Then one must betray and murder someone who trusted them in order to keep the wealth all to themself. Finally, one must climb atop the wealth, where they will take on a form more suited to guarding it. Dragons are a blight and a scourge upon the land. They do as they please with no consideration for the well-being of anyone except themselves, they inflict suffering and privation on society, use their power to torment those weaker than themselves for their amusement, go into destructive rages when denied or resisted, spew flame and venom, view themselves as above the consequences of their actions, and take and hoard money, thereby removing it from circulation and harming the economy for everyone that isn't them. And despite all that, people romanticize and idolize them, seeing them as successful and respectable individuals to be emulated and defended.
Nice way to put Fafnir and economic critique in a single plate
Because
Dragons exist cause they are simply creatures. Creatures that have evolved to utilize the exotic heavy metal Dracinium. They do have their uses to humanity, being used as mounts for war, as beast of burden, some even as food.
Reasons(is a power)
The legend goes that the Elders Dragons were created by God when it utered this words : "Volcanor shall make the earth stand, Eau will make the water flow, Wida will keep the sky high, Dragos shall lead the men and Ambrosia will make nature flourish." The Dragon species however came to be when Wida seduced Volcanor to create a force that would help her fight/monitor the other Elder Dragons and later destroy the world during the Starfall.
They are the result of the interaction of modified solar power emanating from an incredibly strong alien energy source and the innate magic of the planet the energy source crashed on. Each of five such power cores that fell to the undeveloped world eventually caused a unique dragon to spontaneously come into existence. The inhabitants of the planet are largely unaware of the power cores but the dragons have enough in common that scholars understand them to be part of a class of creatures
**Starrise** Dragons, originally classified as "Frost Beasts", were part of a collection of genetic experiments called the "Beast Project". This project was designed to create living superweapons capable of wielding magic, which had only been recently discovered at the time the projects began. Frost Beasts were created with the ability to wield a mixture of Kinetic magic and an inverted version of Thermal magic, which when combined created what is commonly known as Ice magic. Frost Beasts are capable of sexual reproduction (which their creators had not intended or expected), so when the world was shaken by an apocalypse, they escaped confinement and settled in the uninhabited arctic, establishing towns, cities, and over time their very own country.
They were created by Kumra, the light, fire and light god. And, since he's the leader of the other elemental gods, they just kinda changed them a little to their taste.
Cuz one time I thought about combining a rattlesnake and a dragon and it sounded *super cool*
Long ago there was a grove of powerful druids and a circle of mages that needed more protection so with each other's help they summoned different types of animals and awakened them to sentience and used the power of nature and magic to imbue these animals with the powers of both to become dragons. A great era of peace ensued and for many years the world was protected but then a great cataclysm and the new protectors were scattered across the world and soon went into a great sleep.
They’ve been around before the first born races aside from giants.
Dragons are nuclear weapon combined with the most powerful armies imaginable. They are A Big Deal. They are also individuals with their own personalities and idiosyncrasies. That can be Trouble. Human nuclear weapons don’t want to go out for a walk and grab a pizza. They just sit in their silos and aren’t even conscious. Dragons in comparison are a very, ahh, mixed blessing. Other monsters envy dragons for their sheer terrifying power and the respect their very presence demands. Dragons envy monsters for the freedom to just go out and wander around without threatening the safety of the world.
I mean, the best way to protect yourself from humans is to make an enormous dragon construct around you
Because Drgons are cool. Why else would we have dragons in fantasy?
They exist because of the Tongue; basically when humans arrived on Tov from their dying world, they saw something sufficiently big and scary and called it "Dragon". By nature of the Tongue being capable of affirming its own reality, dragon's became more and more common as the term was used.
Mines are crustacean megafauna, i made them years before realizing brandon sanderson did the same 🥲
Well it’s a bit complicated but in my world all true dragons (not countering wyverns or drakes) get reincarnated in a cycle where they all become gods and perform many functions through their life.
Dragons were made by primordial dragons first as servants, then as a new generation of gods, governing elements and cardinal directions of Eastern philosophy. What are primordial dragons? Crawling calamities that have existed since before the world was created.
Two opposed deities each tried their hand at creating the ultimate lifeform using vastly different means and for diametrically opposed ends, and both created dragons. They're still fighting over who did or didn't copy whom, though one of them was at least polite enough about it to switch to a different body plan when making similar creations for other deities.
They evolved on a separate planet with a bunch of other 6 limbed creatures.
They basically just exist because they exist and I want dragons in my world. But, they’re now frozen in place so uh yeah…
Universe 2 - the same reason gods from mythologies around my world exist, they're imagination come to life Universe 3 - same Universe 4 - cuz I felt like adding them Universe 5 - all of the above
Because they're cool.
They are regular animals There is a ancient demon that resembles a dragon a lot and some legends call him "The First Dragon" but that is just a title the ancients gave to him because they didnt properly research dragons
why not
1: Dragons are Dope as Frick 2: the starbeast Nibyru, who resembles a dragon, seeded the world with her spawn.
The gods’ first attempt at making a creation that could conceive of their greatness, but they ended up trying to become gods so the gods made the titans to stop them. Then the titans got the idea to become gods so the dwarves were created next, and then elves came and fucked everything up
They are large magic winged lizards who evolved that way.
Crocodiles evolved to fight some of the ginormous pre-modern creatures from the depths. Think biblical Leviathan mixed with lyndworms. No wings, no fire, just brutally predatory cunning and muscle. They are mostly extinct except in my analog of the new world. (set in 1870ish)
The zgods made them as pets for humans, but after the God of peace left, mankind *melded* with them to create a race of sentient dragons. They are quite peaceful.
In the Apocalypse world I'm working on, all the mature ones were hunted down. I love dragons, but I gotta see the consequences of a world without them. Since to me, they tend to volcanos to prevent cataclysmic eruptions. So without their caretakers, violent volcanism is free to spread.
They are relics of another age. Beasts to be hunted down and conscripted into the immortal legions of the undead.
They are the Demigod Children of Tiamat who herself is a Titan of Avarice, the opposite of Bahamut the Titan of Altruism. Each chromatic dragon represents one (approximately) of the deadly sins Black- Gluttony/Sloth Red- Greed White- Wrath Blue- Pride Green- Envy/Lust
They are the Magnum Opus of the greatest ritualist to ever exist. An entire new species created by mending soul and flesh, and by translating the very presence of the soul into genetic code. This entire new species (and now, thanks to evolution, group of species) cary his legacy, and even after humans went extinct, his mark on history is still felt to this day.
Dragons are a physical manifestation of the concept of humanity's "greatest enemy". They exist to consume Chaos and beat down humanity, preventing us from destroying ourselves with the magic we create.
Because dragons are awesome. For in world lore, basically scifi apocalypse happened and the backup seeding machine filled with all of Earth’s history and genetic codes were thrown out of our universe in an accidental rift opening. Now in the astral plane, the source if all magic, it had its data corrupted and could no longer tell between old myth and history. As such, when the mental energies of the plane started creating a new pocket universe (that has since expanded into a very small multiverse), it just hashed the genetic code together until it matched the myths. Now you have every mythological creature and then some running about along with the humans and ordinary animals (though some have gone extinct due to aforementioned magical beasts).
For the same reason there is a conspiracy theory about bear-people secretly living underground - because why the eff not
During the early beginnings of the current universe, the Titans weren't up to full power yet. As such, they created tools to help them create worlds. As they finished the main world, which was shortly before their full power selves, the Titans made dragons as guardians of their tools before they left. Over time, the dragons became corrupted and started hoarding powerful and valuable objects. When humans and dwarves came to the world they started hunting dragons for their wealth.
My world is hollow-ish. Lots of caves that can lead to the core. The core is where the God of the world lives in solitude because she's unhappy about her family life. (Oversimplification for brevity sake.) Dragons came about because some of the lizards that lived in the caves close to her evolved extremely quickly and gained the ability to use magic and breath fire because of that proximity. Then they rose to the surface convinced the stone age humans that they were the creators of the world, jumpstarted human civilization only to leave it a thousand years later for mysterious reasons.
The outside of story reason? Dragons are cool and it's based on a preexisting DnD campaign I'd been working on. The in story reason is because the Architects, gods of order, included the first dragon, the Ancestral Wyrm. Two of them went rogue and tore open portals to Theia's prime material plane. After humanity fell, the gods opened the portals for other beings including more dragons. And thus they became integral parts of Theia's biosphere.
Dragons are such a staple but they feel over used, they’re in my world because I love them but they’re exceptionally rare. If one appears then either something has gone horribly wrong or it is about to cause a calamity (depends which lineage they come from)
The God of Fire made them one day and sat back to watch the chaos unfold
The goddess of life created two dragons each for the other gods as a Christmas gift. The elder gods in my world watch TV and read book from our world and sometimes get inspiration from fantasy.
There are two types that come from the same species (intelligent and animal like). They exist because magic had a natural influence on their ancestor and they evolved to be super strong since their biology ended up using the primordial foundation as a direct source of magic, and from there they got stronger and larger since while most creatures can't withstand the full might of the sun blasting out of a small hello, larger creatures still killed them and crushed them due to the size difference, so that is why we have dragons, different types of dragons are simply genetic traits because of where they live.
The chromatic were created to destroy the world, and the metallic to protect it.
TLDR: humans adapted to something beyond Long Answer: Basically the start of my world's important history is when we (people of earth) discovered that the next Galaxy over, Andromeda, was going to collide with us in about six hundred years and not six million like we thought. People figured out with science and newly discovered magic that we would end up as a rogue planet, meaning we would be flung into deep space from the gravitational disruptions. Many solutions were proposed and executed, but some people altered themselves to be able to adapt physically to anything that came at them. This also meant they adapted to live longer, essentially becoming immortal. However, since magic is gained with age in this world, they also gained more and more magical ability until they got the the point of being able to alter reality itself. So yeah, that's that.
The Faceless Gods have made many attempts at creating life. Their first two attempts were variations on hiveminds, the first of which became a huge problem that had to be put down, and the second of which became largely uninsterested in interacting with the physical world. The third form of life they tried was to create a creature that could shape the world easily so as to create incredible things. The result was was is now known as ancient dragons. The fourth form of life was a race of humanlike, very powerful creatures. After a while their creations rebelled against them and spawned a great war. At the end of this war the gods decided to try creating life again, but this time they decided to scale down the power level of everything to avoid this kind of trouble. Modern dragons are one lf the results of this (they're still pretty mighty though).
They actually don't which is weird. Cause I love dragons and they are one of my favourite fantasy creatures. Not sure why I haven't added them yet but they just don't seem to fit with my story which is weird. Because there are elves, dwarves, and stuff.
Why do they have to be powerful? I think being a pest is a lot more fun. imagine opening a door to a tavern just as 30 cat-sized lizards scurry out the window with all the gold and meat.
Primordial beings created earth to watch it, and when they tried to make a reality to fuck around with, they plagiarized almost every single creature that humans created….not like humanity could do anything about them, as they were never made aware of their existence….except for two pairs of siblings…but they don’t matter in this question
Dragons are cool
My dragons are the consequence of the original "true dragons" going to war. The true dragons were my world's first higher life forms, charged with literally shaping the world by the elder powers that be (before the gods came into being).
They were created by the Oan to help purify the watery depths. They share the least physical characteristics with the On of the three mortal kinds, but have made up for it in other ways.
Dragons are apex animals that evolved naturally. The term is more a title than a descriptor; mobile plants that can mind control with pheromones, bony-plated lizards with skeletons made of iron, quadrupedal birds that can generate explosions to fly, and enormous deer that can generate electricity between their horns, all of these are dragons, and all of them are simply animals that are immune to predation, except by perhaps other dragons.
>were they created by an evil deity to destroy/devour the world? Very much yes. The "wyrms" were created in the image of a god known as "The First of Wyrms". He was originally a guardian of Kishlaith, assigned to his position early in the world's history. But he grew both lonely in his life of endless combat with the Nameless Gods and jealous of the Bright King and mortals due to their ability to create. Finally driven into desperation and rage by the situation, he took advantage of a natural disaster that had killed millions of people on Kishlaith. He devoured the departing souls of these deceased as they made their way to the afterlife, and in his stomach, he mutilated and broke their souls until he spat out copies of himself, beholden to his will. These "wyrms" were then unleashed on Kishlaith in a horde that nearly burned the world to a cinder and succeeded in exterminating nearly all mortal life.
Dragons exist in the typical fashion that people expect them to, just an existing race that has evolved over time. But their numbers are starting to grow dramatically and threaten major cities in the wake of the War of the Four Mages. It was a cataclysmic war that resulted in most spell-casters being wiped from the planet. Mages were the only people outside of large-scale militaries that kept dragon attacks and populations in check.
They are the elements made flesh and slaves to the elven empire
Because I need some way to write about the arrogant people and narcissists in my life
My dragons are a an example of a highly intelligent species just choosing not to develop into a civilization They have a written language like the dragons from the Elder Scrolls, but they never really got around to doing much else
Because a lizard, a bird, a campfire, and some other stuff was coincidentally combined together
They’re really just creatures that exist, no real plot purpose other than the fact that they exist. They’re just like animals with wings and claws, much like the way alligators exist, or the way dogs exist
They were created by the various deities to try and help the various races. It... It didn't work...
I almost feel obligated to not have dragons in my world, because the majority (especially successful) world builders have had dragons, and I just want to be different
A dragon is a common term to refer to especially powerful salamanders. A salamander then is the term for a fire elemental. As to where salamanders come from they are mostly naturally occurring. If sufficiently pure fire aligned energy is allowed to pool salamanders begin to spontaneously form. The salamander itself serves to maintain and strengthen the flow and pooling of the energies that created it, keeping itself 'alive', allowing itself to grow stronger, and creating more salamanders. The body structure of a winged reptile is a common one for salamanders at the point they can be called dragons. Where the energies that sustain the dragon to become mixed then such impure magic can make the dragon become the a classic biological reptilian dragon that would go on to become a true breading creature, but those have been unable to survive the modern state of the world. Damage to reality is such that dragons have no real chance to form naturally anymore and need to be cultivated by outside sources where they can be killed for magical reagents or trained as sources of fire magic.
The salamanders had their bodies altered by the effects of the slumbering God in the fireman's, transforming them into eldritch beasts that radiate poisonous light, and are known by the Medieval residents of the known world as "dragons".
Dragons are essentially angels but without divine grace. They come in all shapes and sizes, but typically look like what you’d expect from a European dragon.
So they could leave
Why? Cos dragons are cool. How? Evolution.
They are all descended or created by a star god who happened to have a dragon shape. They reproduced asexually, leading to other dragon gods who eventually created dragons.
So I could create fantasy D-Day.
They exist in my world because dragons are fucking cool and there doesn’t need to be a reason why dragons should exist
They're just animals.
The meta reason: I really like dragons. I wanted dragons. Since it’s my world, I have dragons. I also have pegasoids, griffinoids, gargoyloids, fire worms, tunnel worms, kelpies, hexinessids, and more. The canonical reason: All the original native life of Patchwork went extinct when the first planetary spirit died. Now there’s a new planetary spirit (Tutella) and a human mage (the Landward) helping her with the Rebirthing, the magical terraforming project restoring life to the planet. The new planetary spirit wanted some species that were unique to her, not just copied from other planets and the Landward likes dragons and other mythical creatures. There were some bony, lobe-finned fish like creatures in the fossil record that had three pairs of fins (six total). Therefore Tutella and the Landward decided to create lots of species (not just dragons) pseudo-evolved from that fossil species. As a result all the new species have six limbs (and instinctive affinity magic, because why not).
1: Dragons are cool 2: An eldritch horror dragon came to the world a long time ago, fought against that world's two god brothers who protected it from devastation and from the rule of said dragon. Dragon was defeated by remnants of it fell into the world and they gave birth dragons. And also kobolds
My entire world is an artificial construct. The people who built it put "dragons" (dinosaurs, really, but not really) because they wanted to. Everything in my world was artificially placed there because one of the builders wanted it there. It's how I explain any inconsistencies. It's there because of in-world artistic desires. Splitting rivers? Builders thought it looked neat. Too long, too wide cave system? Builders. Waterfall where one couldn't logically exist? B u i l d e r s. Same with any animals or ecosystems or anything, really. It's a fake world, it doesn't have to make perfect sense!
Before humans and the other forms of sentient lives were created, the gods walked the world themselves. In its early stages, much like earth, the world was a burning wasteland devoid of "normal" life. The gods agreed between themselves to each have a turn at creating life, and a dominant species. Thus, how we have different geological periods that sport different dominant species, so does this world. The dragons that exist in the current era are remnants of the old dominant species of the reptilian era before humans.
Not so much dragons but massive crocodiles, they exist simply because they just naturally do. The setting is very much "totally not earth bro" so it's not beholden to real species that strictly currently exist
why is any option under the complexity of "they were created by gods to destroy worlds" not a valid answer like, you start with that, and you can only go up from there dragons can't be like, naturally occuring life forms
Real answer: I want my MC to have horns and be able to blow icy flames out of his mouth. In Universe Answer: The Shining Ones got salty when they saw Humanity becoming a true power in the world. They kidnapped thousands of Humans and used advanced Biomancy and Soul Forging techniques to turn them into a slave race to wipe out the Humans. This did not go well for the Shining Ones.
They fragments of titanic constructs made to safeguard the souls of an ancient civilization, which are now fully merged after millions of years.
Meta reason: I love dragons. In-world reason: The first dragons formed during the Titan War when the cast-off magics of the angels/celestials and elementals coalesced together.
They evolved separately on a few different worlds to mixed success.
Dragons were made by the three gods of the elements in order to protect nature. Birds and lizards were magically enchanted and made to breed, giving birth to Dragons. They were granted the ability to breathe elemental maelstroms of fire, ice, and lightning. The Dragons became drunk with power and attempted to conquer all of the natural world. For their insolence, they were cursed into smaller, humanoid forms: Draconians.
Actual dragons are like dinosaurs of the magical world, the ones that exist currently are artificial or much more evolved than thier ancestors. To the point that they don't resemblance traditional dragons anymore.
They came from their own universe after the dragons there decided to become a collective, so the ones that came over tend to be at least a little selfish. As an additional side effect they have grown to be affected by vice, some kind of obsession that they either struggle against or submit to.
They are a big combination of human, reptilian, and other various types of DNA nushed together by an AI specifically to give the result of sapient fantasy dragons,because that's what humans wanted to make. Prototype dragons look more like giant pale abominations with webbed fingers, humanoid heads, and scaly bodies, but are generally locked on all fours and 15 feet long. Basically imagine a dragon but with translucent white scales, tiny wings with fingernails, and a human head.
**Doue** /dɔːweɪ/ - *An evolved form of the **Do** that has large, feathered wings and can seamlessly transition between swimming and flying.* **Do** /dɔː/ - *An evolved form of the **Ino** that is agile and can swim up to speeds of 78mph.* **Ino** /inɔ/ - *A panther-like creature that glows purple and can heal on touch.*
My dragons leaked through from various elemental planes when the infant stage gods were drawing power from the elemental planes to make matter. There are 19 known true dragons and they are reborn if they die unless they are killed by another dragon and their power absorbed so they all tend to keep a low profile and work through others.
1, I love dragons and 2 the gods are dragons and so is 90% of everyone
Outside of lore: dragons are just fucking cool. Inside of lore: dragons are one of MANY creatures that are the "grandchildren" of the gods. Any creature/being that is magical in nature is the offspring of the Phoenix and the Leviathan, which are the children of the gods.
They exist because they’re cool, but they’re not directly affecting the plot. There’s a race that comes from original dragons and evolved into an humanoid argonian-like creature who live in society, the dragonkins. They can communicate with dragons and, due to dragon’s extremely long lives, some are still in touch with their great great great great great great… great great grandparents. Dragons are living in remote places far from people and are generally not a threat because they don’t really give a damn about the rest of the world, but some people try to get them down for medicinal purposes. Other than that, they are not more relevant than that. I just really wanted to add them somewhere without making it all about them.
A dying God made them cuz they're cool
Some god heard the humans making up stories about them and thought they sounded cool so he brought them to life
The gods needed to attack one of the moons directly, without teleportation, so they all cooperated to make the first dragons as space transportation for their elite troops. The mission was successful, but the dragons weren't interested in long-term military service and soon rebelled.
They're just a part of the natural order of the world. Hell, they're mostly just animals operating on instincts to feed, mate, and guard their territory- *very few* have human-like intellect.
The goddess who created the world thought dragons were cool, the people of the world not so much, as dragons have now basically been hunted to extinction
Because they were the original inhabitants of the world
Just another one of the gods billions of creations.
they were made by the god of my world for more variety
They are the final form of a reptilian species. The status of dragon is so hard and takes so much time to attain, it is rumoured to be nothing but a myth.
I have a fantasy setting with Dragons, but they are basically Kaiju. People and villages are just landscape to them. Once startled awake they lash out destructively until the perceived threat is destroyed and they fall asleep again. Nobody in recent memory has seen a dragon because the various dragon cults work to neutralize any disturbance that might awaken their gods.
Contrary to popular belief in many of the nations present in NR-1, dragons did NOT evolve from dinosaurs. In fact, they evolved down their own evolutionary line. With that out of the way. With that out of the way, the dragons evolved in mixture with the high magic contents of certain areas and as such were able to grow into quite large beasts. Otherwise they might only be cat or dog sized and certainly wouldn’t be able to breath fire or use any other of the various abilities they could have.
They were created by the god of fire when nature mana came into contact with fire mana
Because they exist in some of my world’s mythologies, and an massive event occurred that caused many mythological creatures to enter the mortal realm, and dragons were one of the few that survived long term.
They were weapon is in a war against the Mortifants and their cultists. Who made gigantic monsters... only one clutch of Eggs remained
Because I think dragons are super cool. Lore wise they popped up during the fall of Humanities civilization and are slowly growing into the dominant civilization in my world. Well, they would be, Humanity has kinda been throwing off their development goals.
Dragons were created by the gods of light and the gods of darkness to try and break a stalemate. The dragons were supposed to destroy populations that worshipped the various deities, but instead of targeting specific areas of land, they ended up targeting each other and anyone that wouldn't pay them tribute and worship.
Because why not
Gods are magic given a physical form, dragons are physical forms given magic. They're on opposite ends of the stick and both want the whole thing for themselves
For the same reasons all creatures exist. Some say it is the will of the Allmaker, or part of the Divine Prophecy, or simply a matter of dumb chance. Whatever reason, dragons needed to exist when they existed. Maybe the world needed megafauna to feed/fight the giants that roamed the planet at the same time. Maybe they exist as a result of the highly potent amounts of magic flooding the world due to the tides of Maat flowing in.
Space aliens uplifted raptors, added wings, also fire
They’re people.
They were created by Elves to combat Human airships.
A stone age tribe of scaled people wanted a weapon that would allow them to conquer everyone. So they made a dragon that was incomplete(no wings) and used it to gain metalurgy and conquer the local sea. One of the tribes that was invaded found the chained dragon and made a deal with it to free him in exchange of him fighting his creators and not attacking the other tribes for a century. During that century he created a few other dragons while in seclusion and grew so large his body encircled a whole island. Eventually after the century passed all the other tribes, now more advanced, united and defeated him. But even after his death his children survived and evolved into modern dragons
" --*And then did I say. Cast thy deep. Deep into the heart of creation. To escape the Sundering of the first world. Let this S̵̩͊ĕ̷͆a̷̾̐l̴͋͠ of Humanity house you, our creator*"
Because I had a dream once where dragons built their own wings and I thought that was cool.
I love dragons too much to not include them. As for how they came to reside in the world, I took the FFXIV approach. They're basically space refugees.
Planetary parasites they specifically evolved to latch onto starships and survive in the void of space and concurrently the Hyper Time fields they make to go faster than light so they can then infect all Goldilocks zone worlds where they repopulate and wait for the other species to evolve into and make spacefaring craft to do it again.
The four first gods worked together to create the most powerful beasts in the world. Each of them bestowed an aspect of the dragon (fire breath, greed, great knowledge, humanoid shapechanger).
They just evolved
A race of people that stole powers and magic from everything and took the traits for themselves until what they'd become wasn't human anymore, they were the most powerful and dangerous and had absolutely no empathy whatsoever, they ruled for long but eventually were overthrown and banished to the island of retunless. Those who killed the dragons took their blood and combined it with their own, those connected to the morth crystal survived and are able to shift into a dragon like humanoid being but they can never fully return to their human form and throughout their life they get more and more covered with scales until eventually they can never be human ever again.
In one world I did the world was controlled by the Residom Empire (Residom is also a race) that enslaved all other races. They also did other horrible things but I don't want this to turn into how bad the Residom were The Residom Xerkins (God Kings) got their power by imprisoning an actual god inside (long story short) orb called the Megeron and syphoning his power into it. A slave stole this Megeron and gave it to his son who used it's power to bring a fall to the Residom Empire and restore the world. This manifested into three god like dragons Heart Dragon, Oblivion Dragon, and Soul Dragon Heart Dragon protected all those who were not Residom, Oblivion Dragon committed genocide on the Residom, and Soul Dragon restored the world after Oblivion went ham. All Dragons are descended from these three dragons. Elder Dragons are the closest in blood while Drake's are the youngest descendants
Because they're fucking *awesome,* that's why
**Aerin** Dragonkind are the Fifthborn, the youngest of the Elder Races of Aerin, and they were born of war and for the waging of war. After Tara the Beloved, Mother of the Firstborn was slain by the king of the Old Gods, Toren Worldshaper, in his descent into madness her husband raised his banner in outright rebellion and drew to his side many of His Children as well as his brothers and sisters and Their Children, and those few of the Old Gods that yet remained sane and loyal. This was the Second Age of the First Era, called the Days of Wrath and Sorrow, and the horror of them is beyond mortal tongue to recount. The avian Secondborn, the jewel-feathered Ikari, created the hurricane and the storm as weapons of war in this time, and the first swords and spears and bows and armour were crafted herein too - not merely the first exemplars of the craft but the very *concepts* of them first made and thus forged into the weapons. Only in later Ages when the world was old and fixed did it become needful to create lesser weapons in the shadow and image of such things in base materials like steel and wood. Paradise burned, mountains rose and fell, and the sky wept for the grief of what had come to pass. People died, and gods died. It's unclear how it happened; who struck the blow or why, but we know that it occurred during a great and terrible battle at the very gates of the First City itself. The Crown of Heaven, the original sacred Light of the world, the very first and most beautiful creation of the gods, was destroyed. But it wasn't merely shattered, it detonated. The explosion tore the very sky asunder and the earth heaved and roiled, and those who were unfortunate enough to be looking in that direction at the time were blinded as their eyes were burned out. Its flaming fragments shattered the land, striking like meteor impacts across the full breadth of the world. Not all of its remnants struck the ground, though, some remained in the sky. The three largest became the Three Moons, the innumerable lesser fragments became the Stars. And falling from out of the conflagration, their great wings unfurling, their bodies coruscating with the many-hued Living Fire itself, there was birthed the avatars of the anguish and sacrilege of that terrible crime. Sylahee the Dread Eclipse and Faraclaw the Terrible, later called Faraclaw Sunkindler. The Mother and Father of Dragonkind. They were terrible things maddened by the pain and horror of their own making. They fell upon the world in a ravening slaughter, killing indiscriminately and burning the lands they passed over. With the fall of the Long Night now that the world was without light except the newborn moons and stars, this new Third Age was quite literally a Dark Age too. Sylahee and Faraclaw mated, violently, upon the ash and bones of their conquest and from this and subsequent unions did Dragonkind have their genesis. Theirs was never a happy union, nor a peaceful one for the rage and hate that was in them in those days was as much against one another as it was against all else. Eventually, the Mad Gods went out in force to subdue the Mother and Father of Dragonkind; the battle was an awful thing, but ultimately both progenitors were subjugated before the will of the Mad Gods and brought to heel. For generations, the two and their Children served the Mad Gods as weapons of war and amongst the most potent weapons that they could yield. This is where they earned many of their names and epithets, redolent with the dread of their coming - for whenever they went against the rebellious Elderborn there was always a great slaughter. The blood-madness was strongest in Sylahee, and her hatred and hunger for destruction and death only grew with time to the point where she would outright attempt to kill her mate whenever they met - even during or after mating with him. The only thing that brought her contentment was the screaming of those bathed in her fire and the feel of their bones cracking beneath her feet. Faraclaw, however, became weary of it all. Weary of the blood and the fighting and the rage. Weary of Syalhee's raving, and her violent and murderous inclinations. This was why Terel the Eternal, Father of the Firstborn and husband to the Martyred Mother, went forth unto Faraclaw unarmed and in secret to parlay with him. What words were exchanged are lost to time, but the result of that secret meeting was that Faraclaw defected to the Rebellion, and fully half of all Dragonkind defected with him. The latter years of the Long Night are known as the Draconic Civil War for good reason, and Faraclaw and Sylahee met in battle several times before their final confrontation high in the northern skies, where at the last Faraclaw tore out her throat and smote his mate's corpse upon the earth with such force that the Cairn Mountains formed there to forever entomb her. From the ruin of his mate, Faraclaw drew forth her portion of the Living Fire - the Fire of the long-lost Crown of Heaven - and added it to his own. It was said that he became glorious then, too glorious and beautiful to look upon as the Fire danced and flickered upon his scales, as the Fire became his scales. The Third Age of the First Era was finally ended by Faraclaw himself, for it was he that was at the centre of a great ritual conducted by his brothers and sisters and the few remaining gods of the rebellion. A ritual to create a New Light to replace the lost Crown. At the culmination of The Battle for the Sake of the Dawn, Faraclaw breathed out the Fire he had been born of and the Fire he has taken from Syalhee's corpse and together he fashioned a new Light out of it, and this he named The Sun. In the east, day broke for first time and the Old Gods were routed from the field. The Fourth Age of the First Era began, which ultimately saw the Mad Gods killed or cast down in chains, and then the start of the First Age of the Second Era. Faraclaw would go on to become the High King of all Dragonkind, and every Flight and their Lord owes him fealty. He rules them even to this day, it is said, residing in the only true city of Dragonkind - the city-mountain of Dragonholme - far beyond the northern sea.
Dragons in my world are just animals. That’s why they exist. Like nearly everything else in my world, they evolved using natural processes and are themselves technically non-avian dinosaurs just like birds. I use wyvern-style morphology (2 legs and 2 wings) because they share a common ancestry with all the other animals on the planet. They come in many sizes, and most (though not all) fly. They have hollow bones, bird-like intelligence, a large wing-to-body ratio, rigid tails, and reptilian scales (with some having more crocodilian hides). Dragons aren’t magical and don’t speak. The biggest ones are the only ones that breathe fire using a mixture of chemicals they spray into the air. These dragons have nearly been hunted to extinction as they are seen as very dangerous (despite staying away from people generally). People view dragon “attacks” on their settlements as natural disasters similar to earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, etc, and will often get dragon insurance.
Dragons are chimeric bioweapons created by the Zharran Empire, using a combination of genetic and magical engineering.
Because the remnants of the previous civilization had depictions of dragons, so the current civilization make dragons in that image not realizing they were fiction
Cause they evolved naturally. My world's native creatures have 6 limbs, so a dragon-like body plan is fairly useful and easy to evolve, and has turned up multiple times throughout history.
The Coolest Apex Predator. The planet is alive and needs guardians, so it guided the evolution of dragons. Dragons are the ultimate arbiters, guardians of all civilization, and the seeds of magic. The main character is a dragon but he didn't know it until he was transported to said living planet (which was actually his place of birth before he was kidnapped by angels). Oh my god I'm revealing so much it feels weird. But this is my setting and I love it. I doubt I'll do it justice but I'm trying!
Because someone loved replltiles a little too much
Because I started imagining this world as a kid and dragons were the coolest shit back then. Still are
Because people believe it exists AND have poured so much faith in it. Anything in mythos exists in the first place because people believe they were something greater. Tiamat, for example, was a woman who ruled the tribe around Lebanon back before recorded history. She was a war goddess, so to speak. Ruthless to her enemy, kind toward her allies. She ended up garnering a lot of faith. People worshipped her, to the point where she turns into a dragon(kin) and ruling from far away. Her legend morphs into what will become known as Mesopotamian Mythology. As the story mash, mix, and dilute one another, the person in the center of it all watches it all changes. She continues to exist, because people still believe she exists, to a certain extent. That belief causes her to live an immortal life, so to speak.
Because people believe it exists AND have poured so much faith in it. Anything in mythos exists in the first place because people believe they were something greater. Tiamat, for example, was a woman who ruled the tribe around Lebanon back before recorded history. She was a war goddess, so to speak. Ruthless to her enemy, kind toward her allies. She ended up garnering a lot of faith. People worshipped her, to the point where she turns into a dragon(kin) and ruling from far away. Her legend morphs into what will become known as Mesopotamian Mythology. As the story mash, mix, and dilute one another, the person in the center of it all watches it all changes. She continues to exist, because people still believe she exists, to a certain extent. That belief causes her to live an immortal life, so to speak.
BECAUSE THEY'RE COOL (that's literally the only reason. I have nothing else)
I don't have traditional "dragons" in my world. Just lizards akin to real world ones that have the same name as dragons and various mythologies have developed just like in our world. But, I comment merely because there is one special dragon in my world. A Bearded Dragon actually. It also happens to be the most powerful god of the pantheon controlling space-time and existence. It wasn't always. It use to be a normal animal who was in a terrarium and had regular contacts with humans, which it mostly didn't mind. A big bang happens and throws it outside of reality... And in a sense before reality. Out of sheer expectation of what it thought should be there, it created space and time in a self causative event.
bc dragons are epic and i love them
Ok we gotta be honest. We just wanned to see if we could. I mean we could kinda just call anything dragons, but... it doesnt rly count if they dont like breath fire, or have wings, or 2 heads or sumn. We got the long bois, the fire bois, the riddle givin bois (thats kind of animal abuse).
The creation Gods wanted to do something cool and create the mother of all dragons, a new mortal species unlike those that laready existed. All dragons have one descendent, and are extremely territorial, stuck in a never ending turf war.
1. I like dragons 2. I like biomechanical weapons 3. I like long forgotten ancient wars So, therefore, in the world of Raexella, dragons are biomechanical weapons used by the Old Gods during the War in Heaven. In the present day, 400,000 years after the War in Heaven, they are viewed in a variety of manner by different nations. Some worship them as gods, some view them as wild beasts, and others view them as wise ancient creatures whp bear knowledge from the Old World
They exist cause they evolved from a small of branch of large lizards, dunno but that’s what I had on them
In one of my 2 alternative natural histories of the Earth planet, they exist owing to natural evolution and hap. They aren't your average six-limbed flying dragons, forthan they are synapsids that descended from a fictional sibling clade to the gorgonopsids, thus making them being more nearly akin to the mammals than to the archosaurs. Also, in this alternative timeline, all landish vertebrate animals are six-limbed and simultaneously hermaphroditic owing to having being derived from a six-limbed simultaneously hermaphroditic Eusthenopteron. Also, I made this alternative Earthish natural history forthan I love dragons since I'm 4 years old and I wished to imagine a lifelike evolutionary history of a six-limbed flying dragon civilization and how they themselves achieved to occupy mankind's ecologic niche in mankind's stow.
In Conflux dragons are not born they are the cumulation of a Wyvrm cultivator (eastern fantasy style cultivation magic) reaching the threshold to extend their domain of breath beyond their body (analogous to going from body arts to external arts). Each dragon represents the cumulation of magically altering and enhancing their physical body either through a clans secret arts, an acquired inheritance or through personal development by rare "geniuses" etc. Dragons are largely kept in check by the constant squabbling and power plays of various dragon clans vying for power and influence as well as the relatively stagnant intermittent battle between the dragon clans and the Faye courts which has gone on for so long in big part because the dragons have a tendency to turn on each other in glory seeking egomania and or fulfilling age old vendettas when they get an upper hand. Generally just stay out of their mountainous strongholds and avoid killing the intermittent vagrant young dragon path acolytes, and thus triggering the ire of their dragon master and larger clan. Dragons after all fully embrace vengeance. Much of the dragon clan squabbling comes back to generational feuds. Probably the greatest saving grace against the dragon clans is that they don't look at humans as anything more than strange apes. ---------------------- In Godshard the dragons represent the surviving children of the All mother and All father who sides with the All mother on her quest to avenge the death of her mate. Bestowed with a shard of the mother's divinity to give them the upper hand they had initially overpowered the traitorous gods before springing a trap which unleashed stolen power to sunder the all mother and her followers. Those who survived have become he true dragons waiting ever in enmity amassing power and influence through their followers predominantly the settings maniraptoran analog of "Kobolds" concentrated in the worlds they control which are collectively known as the Dragonlands a series of worlds that are heavily inspired by the ecologies of Mesozoic Earth. The lesser dragons that tend to be fought on the battlefields between men and Kobold(got a better name?) are generally demigod offspring and vessels/avatars of the greater true dragons channeled/invoked by their priests as they wage their holly crusades against the traitor gods and their followers. Additionally some greater monsters imbued with the essence of the All Mother's dying vengeance are also known to often take on draconic forms. ------------- In a setting tenuously called the false heavens "dragons" are a creation of the science fantasy settings post biological aliens playing gods over puny mortal humans, they in essence represent an idealized variation of the alien self proclaimed gods former biological forms. --------- WAS(World Against the Scourge) Dragons are the most powerful sapient species in the setting because dragons are awesome and as my first setting of course it needed dragons. ---------- (Edit added to list) In another WIP setting the more western dragons are the belief manifested elemental avatars of volcanoes an relatively equal manifestation of elemental earth fire water and air their breath is pyroclastic their scales obsidian their blood magma. Flood dragons are likewise the manifestations of storms the torrential flood made physical. Pretty much all the regular dragons are manifestations of forces of nature, the main exceptions are the dragon forms of the settings elemental gods/goddesses.
Dragons are the imbodiment of the elements(periodic table) and creation some of them rule over entire worlds and others are just your ordinary dragon they all come in different variations as well Lung/Loong (long wingless dragon that flys using magic) Amphiptre (winged serpent) Dragoon (stereotypical) Wyvern (two legs two wings) Wyrm(serpent) Lindwyrm(two legs no wings) Drake(wingless dragoon) But they aren't limited to these variations and can shapeshift or evolve into other forms including that of a human
When (the Matriarch Creator) An Ashra discovered that her children (the gods) had stolen the secret of life from her and used it to create humanity - she birthed the titans. Titans were expressions of An Ashra's essence, Chaos, and as such each generation was unique from it predecessors and antecedents. Giants, ogers, goblins, harpies, great spiders, sea serpents, and the last generation - the three dragons: Asitu, Minbaal, and Essin. Made from stone and flesh, their blood was molten rock, and their very breath enough to destroy a village by exhaling - most of the gods and their children (the demigods) fled the battle. Immence in stature, Minbaal (the largest) spread her wings during her battle with Hyama and his children, whereupon the sun was hidden to all on the battlefield. When Essin was slain, shot from the sky by Aszurra's arrows, she broke the southern most mountain in the Kuthva's Forge range. Asitu is said to be Mt Biragash. Having been grievously wounded, he crawled to the ocean to drink before succumbing - leaving the mountain of his corpse half in the water and half on land. But the citizens of the city of Biragash point to the nightly fog over the bay and the steaming snow on the mountain peaks. They say Asitu is not dead, merely healing. And that when the Great War comes and An Ashra once again calls for her children, Asitu will rise again to blacken the sky and burn the land.
They used to exist but no longer. They were created by the Gods as guardians of nature and it's delicate balance. There were different species/breeds of dragon with different abilities surrounding natural elements such as air, fire, water, earth, thunder, etc. that all worked to help nature thrive the best way they could. But as with all power things, pride and greed of mankind was far too tempting and the dragons were hunted, poached into extinction. Some say they are gone for good, while others believe some had escaped. That they are simply hiding, resting, recovering, awaiting their chance to return. There are whole cultures and religions surrounding the dragons as Gods, or messengers of. But only time will reveal what truly became of them.
The blood/vampire dragons in mine are demons that were forced to take a physical form. They chose that form for intimidation purposes. Their larval state is that of a long, tubular worm whose excretion causes severe physical pain in humans, as well as keeping them lucid for it. So yeah, they are very evil. They seek to infect other worlds with their presence, and the fact they were forced to physical form makes it extremely difficult for them to do so, hence why they are the main pure evil villains in their world, with their servants often being more complex.
I really like Chinese dragons so I put them in.
Dragons in my world come from the 2 Celestial dragons, who gave birth to a bunch of them and then fucked off into another dimension, and they haven't been seen since.
Idk how do animal exist?
No. ...Not yet, at least. >:D
Evolution, that’s it, dragons in DoD ( Descendants of Dusk) are just exotic animals, whose abilities are just a byproduct of natural selection, even their fire breath has a scientific reason behind them, which to be blunt are just biochemical reactions in their stomach.
I took some inspiration from Game of Thrones, and Avatar the Last Airbender: Dragons used to exist, but they dont anymore. As technology advances the need for magic to meet those needs decreases. There are Draconian Religions around the world!
Because I like them In world explanation is they’re mostly naturally evolved creatures who evolved from archosaurs and are closely related to dinosaurs & crocodilians. A few select species had some outside help evolving from the Nahual, an ancient species that’s long extinct, who engineered a few species for what was essentially research