The Gaming Den

These terms in a historic sense basically mean "big scaly monster" but in modern fiction tend to refer to specific species or stage in a lifecycle of a big scaly monster. So my two questions be...

1) Is there a work of fiction you figure has the best definition of what makes a dragon a dragon and classifies them?

2) If you've got your own fantasy heartbreaker stewing in your chest, how do you classify dragons and wyverns and drakes and such?

I get the impression of drakes= quadraped without wings with a more cat/dog-like body than snakey, I think D&D did that but I'm not sure who did that first.

Given that drake is also the term for a male duck, I think flying should be integral to the definition when talking about varieties of scaly monster.

In my mind, hydras are (semi-)aquatic serpentine monsters with multiple heads, which regrow in pairs when cut off (ie, to my mind, all hydras are "Lernean"). Bestial intelligence. Drakes are smallish, winged, and lowish in intelligence, maybe dog level. Wyverns are larger, winged with only four limbs (two wings and two legs), and bestial in intelligence. I've been playing D&D for so long, I can't remember if the stinger is from myth or D&D.

Wyrms are either a limbless variety of scaly monster, usually bestial in intelligence, and very large, or a late stage of life in "true" dragons.

A commonly seen point of differentiation is that dragons have six limbs while drakes, wyverns, and the life only have four. In drakes and their kin the forelimbs have been modified to form wings, like in bats and birds. In dragons, they have a wholly separate wing girdle with the wings oriented above the back and therefore allowing to use their forelimbs as manipulators. This seems to be particularly common in fantasy where the dragons reason and speak, since it gives them something to use as an equivalent to hands.

1) Is there a work of fiction you figure has the best definition of what makes a dragon a dragon and classifies them?

The cheeky answer here is A Natural History of Dragons which approaches the idea from a naturalist perspective.

First...

I don't know if 4 vs 6 limbs is a good rule for what makes a dragon. It certainly didn't always apply in D&D.

I take dragon as a catchall for scaly non-humanoid monsters. Only reasons why dinosaurs wouldn't be dragons are 1) they're real, and occupy different cognitive space as such and 2) they're closer to birds.

In M:tG, a Drake is a dragon-creature with the forelimbs as wings (like bats). Apparently, that's also the dictionary definition of a wyvern. I'd probably ditch 'drake' unless you wanted to specify that male dragons are particularly dangerous and use it to refer to the male wyverns specifically.

I do like 'wyrm' to mean a dragon that either has vestigal legs or none at all, and no wings or very small wings. I imagine they would live in dense forest or jungle where flight (for large creatures) confers no advantage.

When I hear 'dragon', I assume four legs plus wings.

Hydra for me means a scaly monster with five or more heads, which can regrow if removed.

This doesn't really leave much room for Chinese Dragons under that name.

Dead, Eastern dragons would be under wyrm by your categories.

Eastern dragons fly without wings at all and don't really fit my idea of a wyrm. I mean, they may look similar superficially, but the differences are significant enough that I can't imagine them being related.

Something like this

deaddmwalking wrote:Eastern dragons fly without wings at all and don't really fit my idea of a wyrm. I mean, they may look similar superficially, but the differences are significant enough that I can't imagine them being related.

Something like this

Reminds me of this guy; gets asked to give a talk about the taxonomy of dragons.

Four limbed dragons are making a comeback, because it's hard for human actors to play six-limbed dragons.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/ ... t/datchzn/

tl;dr: The idea of dragons as big, scaly lizard/snake monsters that maybe fly and maybe breath fire is pretty much a Eurocentric framework that doesn't even apply to European legends that well, and gets really hinky when applied to something like Quetzalcoatl or Chinese lung. Shadowrun did it's damndest to actually work dragons into a single taxonomy, but ultimately it's a crap shoot.

There's the idea of an ancient Indo-European religion with a central theme of a storm deity slaying a scaly monster (Indra slaying Vritra) that went on to inspire a bunch of other stuff. "Hero kills a big bad" is a very broad concept but it is amusing to speculate.

Something I've been wondering is if there is a direct connection between Norse and Chinese serpent mythology. Wyrm comes from the old norse 'ormr' which means serpent or creepy crawly thing. The Chinese character 虫 started off as 'snake' and also expanded its meaning to include worms and other slithering things. There's also ancient Chinese snake monsters associated with water and poison like Norse ormr are.

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As for how I'd do the big scaly monster thing for an English speaking audience...

Wyvern: 4 limbs, two feet and two wings tucked in like a bird, often has a tail weapon. Also have a subcategory for the ones that walk around on their wings like bats or Pteranodons

Drake: For the heck of it make them a relative/subcategory of wyvern that adapted completely to walking around on land. So some can have vestigial wings as a neat visual thing, maybe have a skin flap to glide when they charge at prey. Some can swim.

Wyrm/Serpent: Refers to Norse style serpentine dragons with or without limbs. Can dwell on land or sea. The ones without legs tend to be called serpents.

Dragon: 6 limbs, two are wings. Tends to have a fancy breath weapon and sapience.

Naga: The East Asian 龍 is also used to refer to South Asian naga which entered Chinese thought via Buddhism. So the Garuda vs Naga conflict in the Vedas was adapted to the Chinese dragon too. I figure calling East Asian dragons 'naga' helps differentiate them from European dragons and associates them with a snakey form, sapience, magic use, and shapeshifting into humanoid or other forms.

A dragon is whatever group of monsters you want to be affected by a Dragonslaying sword.

Seriously. Fantasy classification systems are among the least interesting bits of fluff in any setting, and only really do any work as mechanics tags.