Species: The Dragon
Apr. 8th, 2014 06:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bordersmodsWhile tetrapods take their very name from their four limbs and the state persists in every bird, fish, and frog, a certain branch of the dinosaur family tree deviated from this reliable plan, creating the warm-blooded, winged, and eventually sentient family dragonis: six limbed, six-digit creatures more commonly called dragons.
Physiology
Dragons range in height from five feet tall at the shoulder, to at the largest twenty-eight feet at the shoulder. A dragon is classified as "small" if they reach from the smallest size, five feet, to about ten feet. Mid-sized breeds, the broadest category, range from about ten feet to twenty, and dragons classified as "large" are anything over about twenty feet. For most breeds, the male is the larger, though for the smallest breeds, females tend to be the larger. There are two overall species of dragon, classified based on their body types: serpentine, where the dragon from nose to tail-tip is five to six times as long as its height from foot to shoulder, with a particularly elongated rib-cage and generally shorter legs; and solid, where the dragon is on average three times as long as it is tall, with longer legs and a broader chest and shoulder breadth. The two classes of dragons do not breed well together, usually creating sterile offspring unless powerful magic or a lot of luck is involved.
Most dragons are covered in a scaly hide, often with bony protrusions that resolve themselves into spines, horns, or armored plating. European dragons in particular are uniformly scaled, always of the "solid" body type species, and often wildly colored. Some dragons, however, have a thick, pebbled hide or even fur. Most of those with fur are arctic or mountain breeds, and most are either Asian or American. African-native dragons tend towards having scales and lots of spines. A very few dragons, most of them South American or from the South Pacific, actually have feathers.
While the number of talons on each claw remains the same from breed to breed, and even between the two dragon species, at five talons and a dew claw or thumb, or occasionally four talons, a dew claw, and a thumb, the number of wing tines does not. Some dragons have two or three "fingers" and a "thumb" to their wings, while some have six and no thumb, and others have only one long tine with only a stabilizing bone at the elbow. One breed in the Himalayas even has stabilizing tines up and down the wing arm, rather than any fingers at all. Their bones are not completely hollow, but they are lighter than those of ground-dwelling reptiles or mammals, and they are aided in flight by two large air sacs nestled outside the lungs that fill with gases lighter than air, that gives them more buoyancy in both air and water.
Dragon lifespan is much longer than that of a human for all but the smallest breeds. The larger the dragon, the longer they live: while small breeds might live upwards of one hundred years and then some, mid-sized breeds tend to live closer to two hundred, and the largest breeds have been recorded at nearly three. The larger and longer-lived the breed, the less often they reproduce, making larger and longer-lived breeds also the rarest and hardest to keep from dying out. Since dragon society has largely become entwined into and dependent on humanity, more larger breeds have been able to survive than might have lived in the wild.
Like birds and reptiles, dragons lay eggs to reproduce, one or very rarely two at a time. The smaller breeds might clutch five times over their shorter lifespan and be more likely to lay two at once, while the larger ones only twice or, at most, three times, with it being almost unheard of to lay two at once. In the wild, two growing dragonets would be impossible to keep fed when each one was the size of a horse upon hatching. Hatchling dragons eat enough to double their weight and and grow enough to double their length every two weeks, in the first months of their lives, and while they are capable of flight and hunting after only a couple days out of the shell, it's dangerous for them to do so, and usually parents-- or, much more commonly, humans-- provide for them until they understand the rules of whatever nation they find themselves in and can start to earn their own way.
Eggs themselves are kept in heated places, in the wild buried in desert sands, hot springs, or in the lava flows of active volcanoes, or else the parents must keep very close to them to keep them warm with their own bodies. Gestation is short, from two months in a small breed to six in a larger breed, and incubation can last anywhere from two more months to two years, for the largest breeds. Humans keep eggs in heated sands, under heat lamps, or in spa-like conditions, as available.
Psychology
All recognized breeds of dragon are fully sentient and self-aware, able to plan for the future and consider the past, but as among humans, the level of their intelligence varies. Most fall at average intelligence for a human or below. IQ scales don't apply well to dragons, as they think much more spatially and viscerally than a human, but as a comparison, if 100 were the average human score, the average dragon score is more likely to be 75 to 85. Very few reach a gifted level, fewer still a genius level, and most of those are skilled in one or two areas, like engineering or poetry, rather than across the board.
In this manner, the often massive creatures can seem somewhat childlike to a human, and more trusting than they perhaps should be, secure in their own size rather than smarts. They often have difficulty with abstract, human concepts such as morality, duty to something beyond the immediate connections they feel, and countries in general, unless explained in terms more appropriate to their species.
Dragons have their own culture, outside of the human culture they acclimate from hatching, but most of it is guided by the desire to be the strongest, fastest, biggest, and most agile. As they are social creatures, they follow a variety of social rules to keep the peace amongst each other-- the most important and all-encompassing being that the largest and strongest are always on top of the social scale, though these top dragons also have a responsibility to protect the smaller. Treasure and wealth is another strong force in a dragon's life, as they have a somewhat magpie-like nature, and nearly all have some kind of hoard, whether it be of gold, invisible credits, fine china, or something else. It's worth the life of dragon, fay, or human to try and steal from one’s hoard.
In extension from this possessiveness of things comes a possessiveness of people and other dragons that can be considered "theirs". At hatching and especially as the dragon is growing up, attachments formed can grow very strong, and it forms a part of its flocking instinct. A dragon's earliest connections, the ones that feed and protect it, grow to become protective in turn, keeping dragons in the same flock from fighting in earnest. The vast majority of disagreements within a flock are handled in a ritualized fashion rather than a truly vicious fashion, and the only real viciousness is displayed towards enemies outside the group. A dragon will do almost anything to protect a hatchling-formed flock, which is one major reason the governments of most modern nations continue to match eggs with human partners at hatching, because the dragons can be manipulated through their partners. Even dragons who slip through the cracks, either too strong-willed or turned renegade later in life, hidden by their parents or born "wild", will eventually find something to latch on to, whether it be a person, a new flock of other dragons, a thing or place, or more rarely a cause.
Daily Life in America
Though the USA isn't the most integrated of the nations of the world, where it comes to dragons and humans living together-- that would be China and a couple African nations-- it is well up in the list: clearly marked laneways in the air and on the ground are reserved for dragon flight; technology has firmly adapted around dragonic abilities; and the majority of the population doesn't fear being eaten by dragons. That integration is just limited to certain zoned parts of cities, the rural areas, and rather proscribed roles.
In order to gain full dragon-type citizenship, a dragon must be partnered with a human from the point of hatching. That connection, formed early enough, becomes the accepted means of controlling the dragon's behavior: nearly every dragon will do almost anything to protect his or her human companion, if the bond between them is formed early enough or they are well-matched a little later in life. Dragons who avoid being paired, either through a more independent mindset, lack of a suitable candidate, or refusing to take another partner if the first is lost are considered a different class of citizen, with more limits on their freedom. Most of these choose to flee to the wild lands or another country, if they can.
The majority of dragons in the USA, Mexico, and Canada, however, are partnered. Eggs are kept together in hatching complexes, some private and some government operated, where parents might tend them or might leave them in the care of humans and professional dragon brooders, as they wish. Parents have some say in the candidates offered their eggs, but not the final say. The matching of eggs with candidates is handled by the organization running the complex, which is most often the government, with a small percentage run privately.
A dragon may take anywhere from a year to three years to reach his or her full growth, depending on how much growing he has to do. During the first year, or sometimes two for the larger breeds, dragonets and partners stay at the complex they began at, as the dragonet learns reading, navigating modern technology, and spending a lot of time eating and sleeping. Their partners continue to learn dragon care and responsibility, as well as how to safely ride with a flying dragon.
After "graduation", different sized dragons have different options. Smaller dragons are often used as mail service, public or private, or as border patrols and long-distance spies. Those not snatched up into government work can also take up a lot of professions humans can, having more ability to interact with humans. Larger dragons are more limited in their professions, while the demand for individuals in those professions is great. Most go into either the military, government-sponsored construction work, or transportation.
Most larger cities and public buildings are built with dragons in mind. Details of how human life has changed with the inclusion of dragons can be found here.
Dragons and fay, however, do not have such an integrated life. Some ancient wrong-- or competition for resources, or some other reason; no one can really say why-- pitted the two species as enemies far in antiquity, and now dragons and fay are hard-pressed to get along. From the shell, adult dragons teach their young that the fay are not to be trusted, always trying to get their way through cheating, lying, magical means. Dragons are strongly resistant to magic-- not immune, but it takes a very powerful spell and often several casters working on concert to affect them-- which helps even the score, and might well be part of why the fay hate them, right back. There is a lot of research into the magical resistance of the dragons, including the school of thought that it is a kind of magic, itself, suggested by the fact that dragon-human hybrids have a perhaps one in four chance of showing actual, magical talents, themselves.
Most Common Breeds
North American breeds: (listed in size order)
~Washington Regal - east/south coastal - competent swimmers/fishers, named for George Washington supposedly "taming" them (large)
~Queztal Serpent - Mexican serpent - feathered (large)
~Cherokee Green - great plains, ranges into southeast as well (mid-sized)
~Shimi Oxono (simply “dragon”, in Chumash) - west coast, spits acid (mid-sized)
~Sonoran Arroyo Gliders - desert dragons, poisonous bite (mid-sized)
~Barrow Whites - arctic dragons, thickly furred and horned (small)
~Ujarak-Tikaani (“rock-wolf” in Inuktitut) - mountain dragons, exceptional fliers (small)
~Salluit Runner Dragons (“the thin ones” in Inuktitut) - tundra dragons, swift runners, follow herds (small)
South American breeds: (listed in size order)
~Andean Otoronco Dragons - (“jaguar” in Quechua) mountain dwelling, lightly furred, rather catlike (small)
~Wanuch Otoronco Dragons - (“to kill jaguars”, Quechua) jungle and mountain dwelling, closely related to Andean mountain dragons (small)
~Yucatan Oro - gold-colored, fire-breathers, with a dark-sighted variant called the Loltun Oro, native to the Loltun Caves area (small)
~Brazillian Boiuna - mythical creature, "Black Snake", serpentine, dark colors and patterns, poisonous bite (mid-sized)
~Andean Sut'ijankas (“Blues”) - fishers, possibly related to distant Washington Regals (mid-sized)
~Williwaw Cape Horn Serpents - furred and serpentine, largely ocean-dwelling, capable of creating massive blasts of air and sound that can be used as a weapon (large)
Common Imports:
~European uniformly scaled, rather "generic" in shape but wildly colored
~Chinese have hide and hair, more serpentine
~Japanese serpentine, but scaled
~African breeds tend to be smaller and duller-colored but burlier, also more spiny
Related Species
There are a few non-sentient relatives of dragonkind across the continents. The deserts of Africa have six-legged lizards, and the mountains of China the flying serpents who, while they share wings and skin-type with Chinese dragons, evolved more like snakes, lacking in actual legs. Sea serpents, often much like dragons in size and appearance but without the self-awareness that makes them sentient, abound in seas from pole to pole. North America's only natives are smaller versions of a solid-build dragon that never grow more than two feet long, while South and Central America are home to a species of bird with an extra set of legs.
Most of these lesser relatives of dragons are untamable, and difficult to catch anyway, but that doesn't stop people from trying. The capture of eggs is the most effective method, but the bond is much more tenuous than that of a true dragon. In most countries the keep of domesticated dragon-relatives is illegal, and the trade is kept underground.
Physiology
Dragons range in height from five feet tall at the shoulder, to at the largest twenty-eight feet at the shoulder. A dragon is classified as "small" if they reach from the smallest size, five feet, to about ten feet. Mid-sized breeds, the broadest category, range from about ten feet to twenty, and dragons classified as "large" are anything over about twenty feet. For most breeds, the male is the larger, though for the smallest breeds, females tend to be the larger. There are two overall species of dragon, classified based on their body types: serpentine, where the dragon from nose to tail-tip is five to six times as long as its height from foot to shoulder, with a particularly elongated rib-cage and generally shorter legs; and solid, where the dragon is on average three times as long as it is tall, with longer legs and a broader chest and shoulder breadth. The two classes of dragons do not breed well together, usually creating sterile offspring unless powerful magic or a lot of luck is involved.
Most dragons are covered in a scaly hide, often with bony protrusions that resolve themselves into spines, horns, or armored plating. European dragons in particular are uniformly scaled, always of the "solid" body type species, and often wildly colored. Some dragons, however, have a thick, pebbled hide or even fur. Most of those with fur are arctic or mountain breeds, and most are either Asian or American. African-native dragons tend towards having scales and lots of spines. A very few dragons, most of them South American or from the South Pacific, actually have feathers.
While the number of talons on each claw remains the same from breed to breed, and even between the two dragon species, at five talons and a dew claw or thumb, or occasionally four talons, a dew claw, and a thumb, the number of wing tines does not. Some dragons have two or three "fingers" and a "thumb" to their wings, while some have six and no thumb, and others have only one long tine with only a stabilizing bone at the elbow. One breed in the Himalayas even has stabilizing tines up and down the wing arm, rather than any fingers at all. Their bones are not completely hollow, but they are lighter than those of ground-dwelling reptiles or mammals, and they are aided in flight by two large air sacs nestled outside the lungs that fill with gases lighter than air, that gives them more buoyancy in both air and water.
Dragon lifespan is much longer than that of a human for all but the smallest breeds. The larger the dragon, the longer they live: while small breeds might live upwards of one hundred years and then some, mid-sized breeds tend to live closer to two hundred, and the largest breeds have been recorded at nearly three. The larger and longer-lived the breed, the less often they reproduce, making larger and longer-lived breeds also the rarest and hardest to keep from dying out. Since dragon society has largely become entwined into and dependent on humanity, more larger breeds have been able to survive than might have lived in the wild.
Like birds and reptiles, dragons lay eggs to reproduce, one or very rarely two at a time. The smaller breeds might clutch five times over their shorter lifespan and be more likely to lay two at once, while the larger ones only twice or, at most, three times, with it being almost unheard of to lay two at once. In the wild, two growing dragonets would be impossible to keep fed when each one was the size of a horse upon hatching. Hatchling dragons eat enough to double their weight and and grow enough to double their length every two weeks, in the first months of their lives, and while they are capable of flight and hunting after only a couple days out of the shell, it's dangerous for them to do so, and usually parents-- or, much more commonly, humans-- provide for them until they understand the rules of whatever nation they find themselves in and can start to earn their own way.
Eggs themselves are kept in heated places, in the wild buried in desert sands, hot springs, or in the lava flows of active volcanoes, or else the parents must keep very close to them to keep them warm with their own bodies. Gestation is short, from two months in a small breed to six in a larger breed, and incubation can last anywhere from two more months to two years, for the largest breeds. Humans keep eggs in heated sands, under heat lamps, or in spa-like conditions, as available.
Psychology
All recognized breeds of dragon are fully sentient and self-aware, able to plan for the future and consider the past, but as among humans, the level of their intelligence varies. Most fall at average intelligence for a human or below. IQ scales don't apply well to dragons, as they think much more spatially and viscerally than a human, but as a comparison, if 100 were the average human score, the average dragon score is more likely to be 75 to 85. Very few reach a gifted level, fewer still a genius level, and most of those are skilled in one or two areas, like engineering or poetry, rather than across the board.
In this manner, the often massive creatures can seem somewhat childlike to a human, and more trusting than they perhaps should be, secure in their own size rather than smarts. They often have difficulty with abstract, human concepts such as morality, duty to something beyond the immediate connections they feel, and countries in general, unless explained in terms more appropriate to their species.
Dragons have their own culture, outside of the human culture they acclimate from hatching, but most of it is guided by the desire to be the strongest, fastest, biggest, and most agile. As they are social creatures, they follow a variety of social rules to keep the peace amongst each other-- the most important and all-encompassing being that the largest and strongest are always on top of the social scale, though these top dragons also have a responsibility to protect the smaller. Treasure and wealth is another strong force in a dragon's life, as they have a somewhat magpie-like nature, and nearly all have some kind of hoard, whether it be of gold, invisible credits, fine china, or something else. It's worth the life of dragon, fay, or human to try and steal from one’s hoard.
In extension from this possessiveness of things comes a possessiveness of people and other dragons that can be considered "theirs". At hatching and especially as the dragon is growing up, attachments formed can grow very strong, and it forms a part of its flocking instinct. A dragon's earliest connections, the ones that feed and protect it, grow to become protective in turn, keeping dragons in the same flock from fighting in earnest. The vast majority of disagreements within a flock are handled in a ritualized fashion rather than a truly vicious fashion, and the only real viciousness is displayed towards enemies outside the group. A dragon will do almost anything to protect a hatchling-formed flock, which is one major reason the governments of most modern nations continue to match eggs with human partners at hatching, because the dragons can be manipulated through their partners. Even dragons who slip through the cracks, either too strong-willed or turned renegade later in life, hidden by their parents or born "wild", will eventually find something to latch on to, whether it be a person, a new flock of other dragons, a thing or place, or more rarely a cause.
Daily Life in America
Though the USA isn't the most integrated of the nations of the world, where it comes to dragons and humans living together-- that would be China and a couple African nations-- it is well up in the list: clearly marked laneways in the air and on the ground are reserved for dragon flight; technology has firmly adapted around dragonic abilities; and the majority of the population doesn't fear being eaten by dragons. That integration is just limited to certain zoned parts of cities, the rural areas, and rather proscribed roles.
In order to gain full dragon-type citizenship, a dragon must be partnered with a human from the point of hatching. That connection, formed early enough, becomes the accepted means of controlling the dragon's behavior: nearly every dragon will do almost anything to protect his or her human companion, if the bond between them is formed early enough or they are well-matched a little later in life. Dragons who avoid being paired, either through a more independent mindset, lack of a suitable candidate, or refusing to take another partner if the first is lost are considered a different class of citizen, with more limits on their freedom. Most of these choose to flee to the wild lands or another country, if they can.
The majority of dragons in the USA, Mexico, and Canada, however, are partnered. Eggs are kept together in hatching complexes, some private and some government operated, where parents might tend them or might leave them in the care of humans and professional dragon brooders, as they wish. Parents have some say in the candidates offered their eggs, but not the final say. The matching of eggs with candidates is handled by the organization running the complex, which is most often the government, with a small percentage run privately.
A dragon may take anywhere from a year to three years to reach his or her full growth, depending on how much growing he has to do. During the first year, or sometimes two for the larger breeds, dragonets and partners stay at the complex they began at, as the dragonet learns reading, navigating modern technology, and spending a lot of time eating and sleeping. Their partners continue to learn dragon care and responsibility, as well as how to safely ride with a flying dragon.
After "graduation", different sized dragons have different options. Smaller dragons are often used as mail service, public or private, or as border patrols and long-distance spies. Those not snatched up into government work can also take up a lot of professions humans can, having more ability to interact with humans. Larger dragons are more limited in their professions, while the demand for individuals in those professions is great. Most go into either the military, government-sponsored construction work, or transportation.
Most larger cities and public buildings are built with dragons in mind. Details of how human life has changed with the inclusion of dragons can be found here.
Dragons and fay, however, do not have such an integrated life. Some ancient wrong-- or competition for resources, or some other reason; no one can really say why-- pitted the two species as enemies far in antiquity, and now dragons and fay are hard-pressed to get along. From the shell, adult dragons teach their young that the fay are not to be trusted, always trying to get their way through cheating, lying, magical means. Dragons are strongly resistant to magic-- not immune, but it takes a very powerful spell and often several casters working on concert to affect them-- which helps even the score, and might well be part of why the fay hate them, right back. There is a lot of research into the magical resistance of the dragons, including the school of thought that it is a kind of magic, itself, suggested by the fact that dragon-human hybrids have a perhaps one in four chance of showing actual, magical talents, themselves.
Most Common Breeds
North American breeds: (listed in size order)
~Washington Regal - east/south coastal - competent swimmers/fishers, named for George Washington supposedly "taming" them (large)
~Queztal Serpent - Mexican serpent - feathered (large)
~Cherokee Green - great plains, ranges into southeast as well (mid-sized)
~Shimi Oxono (simply “dragon”, in Chumash) - west coast, spits acid (mid-sized)
~Sonoran Arroyo Gliders - desert dragons, poisonous bite (mid-sized)
~Barrow Whites - arctic dragons, thickly furred and horned (small)
~Ujarak-Tikaani (“rock-wolf” in Inuktitut) - mountain dragons, exceptional fliers (small)
~Salluit Runner Dragons (“the thin ones” in Inuktitut) - tundra dragons, swift runners, follow herds (small)
South American breeds: (listed in size order)
~Andean Otoronco Dragons - (“jaguar” in Quechua) mountain dwelling, lightly furred, rather catlike (small)
~Wanuch Otoronco Dragons - (“to kill jaguars”, Quechua) jungle and mountain dwelling, closely related to Andean mountain dragons (small)
~Yucatan Oro - gold-colored, fire-breathers, with a dark-sighted variant called the Loltun Oro, native to the Loltun Caves area (small)
~Brazillian Boiuna - mythical creature, "Black Snake", serpentine, dark colors and patterns, poisonous bite (mid-sized)
~Andean Sut'ijankas (“Blues”) - fishers, possibly related to distant Washington Regals (mid-sized)
~Williwaw Cape Horn Serpents - furred and serpentine, largely ocean-dwelling, capable of creating massive blasts of air and sound that can be used as a weapon (large)
Common Imports:
~European uniformly scaled, rather "generic" in shape but wildly colored
~Chinese have hide and hair, more serpentine
~Japanese serpentine, but scaled
~African breeds tend to be smaller and duller-colored but burlier, also more spiny
Related Species
There are a few non-sentient relatives of dragonkind across the continents. The deserts of Africa have six-legged lizards, and the mountains of China the flying serpents who, while they share wings and skin-type with Chinese dragons, evolved more like snakes, lacking in actual legs. Sea serpents, often much like dragons in size and appearance but without the self-awareness that makes them sentient, abound in seas from pole to pole. North America's only natives are smaller versions of a solid-build dragon that never grow more than two feet long, while South and Central America are home to a species of bird with an extra set of legs.
Most of these lesser relatives of dragons are untamable, and difficult to catch anyway, but that doesn't stop people from trying. The capture of eggs is the most effective method, but the bond is much more tenuous than that of a true dragon. In most countries the keep of domesticated dragon-relatives is illegal, and the trade is kept underground.
