"Musings on dragons" Topic

I suppose the up coming Desolation of Smaug got me thinking about those kind of things only nerds like myself would consider. For example considering that in most fantasy settings whether it be a novel or your D&D game dragons tend to be depicted as apex predators. In other words they are at the tip top of the food chain. Now setting aside all the physics issues of size, metabolism, and how do you get all that mass to achieve lift much less flight, how much does one of these critters need to eat to sustain all the energy required just to get moving in the morning? And let's be honest based upon the actual metabolisms of birds and bats it takes a ton of energy to sustain flight. Eating like a bird is really a misnomer, as birds, and bats for that matter, eat a lot.

I have been contemplating this because when I design my role play scenarios I like to have a certain amount of plausibility within the confines of a fantasy setting. Dragons are the most fun and terrifying things to throw in a game. However, I feel at least, dragons should be a rare beast indeed because of the food chain issue. Set aside what would be required for a dragon to reach adulthood, as I think few would, yet think of what one adult dragon would have in area for a feeding ground!

Another consideration, at least in my games, is that dragons are intelligent. Therefore, they would know that to devastate their food supply would be a bad idea. Well maybe not as taking homo sapiens as an example we are rapidly devastating one of our protein sources in regards over-fishing.

Anyway what are your musings on the matter of dragons and how they would fit into the ecological system?

Dragons are inherently magical, and this probably applies to their metabolism, too. One sacrificial virgin is enough to sustain them for years, in some cases.

Most folk lore, fantasy literature (including Prof. Tolkien) and games, suggest that Dragons sleep for decades if not centuries at a time. This conserves their energy, reducing caloric demands and thus their impact on the local ecosystem. They also suggest, as you indicate, that such beasts are rare with huge territories. But when they are awake, they ravage food supplies and devastate their territories; only to nap for a 40 or 60 or 100 years while their food stock is replenished.

I had the same metabolic questions about Oliphants as portrayed in the LotR movie. How much fodder does it take and what do you do with all the… output.

Dragons in my game have always been highly intelligent so will choose wisely. I tend to think of them with bird-like bones so while they have huge bulk (sometimes) they have disproportionate weight. That rationalizes in my mind flight capability. That said, a dragon will almost never be able to lift off the ground directly. I made mine climb to some point where they could launch themselves and hopefully catch an updraft. So once landed they are hard to get airborne again.

Actual food I didn't care to address too closely. A few chewy sheep, the odd virgin, intruding adventurer… yeah, that will do it.

Good questions.

Heat rises, dragons are very hot, therefore they can fly … yeah, I'll go with that.

Dave

There is the magical angle – or sacrificial virgins have a LOT of calories ;)

Closer to the OP, though, I took my cues from Tolkien a bit and assumed that dragons were like another apex predator (okay, omnivore) – bears – and tend to sleep a lot whenever they're not actually hunting. Basically, they can down -shift their metabolism for periods of time. It's not too crazy a notion, either, because other large reptiles – crocs, or komodo dragons, I forget which – also have two 'settings' for their metabolisms. When they're lazing around in the sun they're metabolically slow – yet when they're active for immediate hunting their metabolisms take on some characteristics that are almost like warm-blooded animals and they are highly active. And crocs, at least the Nile ones, are really efficient at storing food energy – in some areas they get nearly all of their calories for the year during the single week when the wildebeast migration gets to their river. The rest of the year they eat occasional fish and a few opportunistic kills, but are mostly in near hibernation.

So, if you put those features together with the intelligence of dragons you get the following:

1. Dragons have a 2-stage metabolism – when fully active they are on a fast burn and can access a lot of energy and use it quickly – BUT they spend 98+% of their time in a "slow-motion" near hibernation state conserving energy. Dragons may live for hundreds of years but they spend the same amount of time 'active' as a human lifespan…

2. Dragons require a large hunting area AND/OR a site where there is a steady stream of protein morsels. That is why dragons hoard valuables but never spend anything – they know that the lure of gold will bring a steady trickle of adventurers right to their doorstep and no exhausting hunting is necessary!

3. Dragons' metabolisms go through stages as they age. Hatchlings spend a proportionately large amount of time active, which is possible because they are relatively small. They move around, raid herds and villages, and most don't reach adulthood. Mature dragons are the ones that found a secure unexploited niche (cave, ruin, etc), accumulated a hoard and spend a lot more time sleeping. They grow and work on expanding their secure niche and still go on hunting excursions when the adventurers are scarce. The mature dragons that are smart and successful become breeders – they are enormous and have massive hoards on secure niches, where they nest. They spend most of their time dormant, waiting, mating. A breeder is probably only active once every few human generations, but if one ever does get roused it is apocalyptic for anything down-range.

4. Dragons are territorial in relation to other dragons – but have higher tolerance for the opposite sex. Nearly all breeders are female, and an old female will tolerate a number of males in her territory as long aas they are smart enough to avoid doing things that threaten her security. If one leads threats back to her nest, he probably be the next meal….

So there you have the outline for an ecology of dragons. You could dress it up a bit, too, such as having some types be attracted to warm locales (geothermal sources) because it provides a free energy source (or at least reduces the need for calories for heating their bodies).

5 Hour energy drinks?

In my High Fantasy games Dragons were always a plot device, rather than some monster that most adventurers put on their bucket list.

In my 'realistic' fantasy game, dragons were a critter with a place in the ecology.

I had the same metabolic questions about Oliphants as portrayed in the LotR movie. How much fodder does it take and what do you do with all the… output.

Where do you think Orcs really come from?

Tolkien was just being politely discreet with the whole elf thing.

I remember when I first got into Advanced D&D, and saw all the different colors of dragons. I wanted to create an ancestor for them all. My solution was the Brown (or Common) Dragon; a small, non-intelligent dragon with a relatively weak acid breath weapon (I had reasoned that the reactivity of the acid could explain many of the effects of the different breath attacks).

Ron

Dragons are hollow, kinda like cheap chocolate bunnies.

Pattus pretty much makes the case for where I was going with my thinking. I too was thinking of the bear and/or the crocodile model of metabolism.

I also like what Brian stated about dragons being part of the ecology. Which bears the question what does a mature dragon contribute to the balance of nature? What would be the downside if dragons disappear from the circle of life?

Going back to the D&D model with all the different variants of dragons either by color or metal appearance it makes one wonder if dragons being intelligent have much in the way of a complex social structure. Too often as Brian mentioned there are players who want to put a dragon on their bucket list. But it is also important for the game master to make dragons more than just speaking behemoths that breath fire/acid/frost/et. all, and horde treasure but then behave like an oversize lion.

When an older dragon awakes I like how Pattus mentioned that it would be an apocalyptic event. Well at least in the case of the so called evil dragons it would be apocalyptic. I want to touch on the alignment issue in a moment. You have a dragon that has slumbered for say 100 years and it is now time to see how the landscape has recovered and time to feed and possibly mate. Now the matting aspect could be truly apocalyptic if you consider that a mature female would most likely attract many male suitors each tearing up the landscape fighting for dominance. Now that could be an interesting adventure.

Another thing to consider is that an established dragon that come forth to make mayhem every 100 years would attract a lot of attention or perhaps if the devastation is so complete create an area that is taboo to following generations.

On the alignment issue I have always thought that dragons would also have a very different attitude towards morality that would be completely alien to humans. Perhaps longer lived elves might have an affinity for how a dragon thinks and believes, but not humans.

Anyway please continue the discussion.

There is the magical angle – or sacrificial virgins have a LOT of calories ;)

Many a truth was spoke in jest; it could be that one proper sacrifice would give the dragon a lot of magical energy. He could make do with non-magical energy, but a properly sacrificed virgin would give him a bigger charge than a whole herd of not particularly chaste cattle. It doesn't make sense from a physics standpoint, but maybe that's where magic and reality intersect.

Ron

Are there enough dragons around for there to be significant mating contests? I imagine dragons as being pretty scarce with a "one per district" policy.

I've always been confused as to why dragons want that big hoard of treasure when they never buy anything. (Sort of like Warren Buffett). Is it just like a raven, they see something shiny and have to have it or does it benefit them in some other way.

Also, in the Smaug trailer he wakes up and you see all that gold tumbling over his eye. Wouldn't that be kind of dangerous, getting a couple of dubloons in his eye could scratch his cornea and make for one angry dragon.

But then I guess dragons are always angry so it probably doesn't matter too much.

Considering flight, perhaps there's more to the flight than just the wings. Perhaps dragons naturally produce hydrogen as a by-product of their consumption, which both acts to reduce their relative density (and thus allows them to achieve flight with relatively limited wingspan), and is either the fuel or a primary component of the fuel for their fiery breath.

Also, consider that a dragon assault usually involves consuming a considerable supply of prey, all at once, thus both making up for the energy used during the attack, AND allowing the dragon to reach a lesser metabolic state sustainable with only the occasional virginal snack, OR to hibernate until sufficient prey returns, should the region become desolate.

On another note, I recall back in my D&D youth a discussion in Dragon that dragons might work out mutually beneficial relationships with various humanoid tribes to provide security and a shared abode in return for manual services— say, bringing in the occasional virginal snack, or, um, performing necessary "housekeeping" chores (clearly an assignment placed upon those members of the tribe in poor standing with the chieftain).

Or it could all simply be magic.

I like the Dragon in Elizabeth Moon's latest stories set in Paks world. A Dragon is more a force of nature. It is also a shape shifter of sorts. Appearing human one moment to interact with humans and then appearing in its dragon form. Its young are more like fire elementals, wild, uncontrolled and unintelligent. Basically more godlike then mortal,they were among the first creature created in the world, older then elves. Don't mess with the dragon or you will regret it.

I find hard to explain the whole flight isue, other than by its magic nature.

About the ecology issue, please take in account that some dragons are really gargantuan beasts, more akin to godzilla than the average dragon from myth or literature.

I cant recall if smaug was as big in the book as it is in the movie, but i think that the olifants in lotr books were just elephants of good size, but not larger than real world elephants; no the skyscrapers that were showed in the movie.

Saying that, most dragons from literature, myth or even rgs, arent so big. In ad&d, you have the famous image with the adventurers and the small dead dragon hanging from a tree. Most of the illustrations from monster manual or dragon magazine shows dragons twice or three times taller than average humanoid. That put them about the size of a medium dinosaur.

Even most of the great dragons in movies like dragon heart or.."fire reign"? (i cant recall the exact title) werent greater than a great dinosaur.

And if dinosaurs of that size could had a real world ecology, i cant say why dragons couldnt have one.

I dont like dragons the size of a great komodo, but i never liked those godzilla-size dragons in our games. I cant get around the fact that even with magic, the average group of warriors dont stand a chance against one of them. The dragon can kill all of them Just by dropping dead over them

"… how do you get all that mass to achieve lift much less flight …"

Methane gas. Light it off and you have an afterburner…. ;-)

Speaking of the issue of dragon flight, it should be noted that in many cases legendary Western dragons did not fly at all. In the Far East the celestial dragons flew (or really slithered through the atmosphere) without any wings.

Sticking to the less god-like dragons of the West, this gives options for winged and wingless varieties. Some are purely serpentine, others with legs. Even the famous fiery-breath does not appear in legend until relatively late. I think Beowulf had one of the first fire-breathers, but the dragon slain by St. George was semi-aquatic, wingless, and appears not to have had any breath weapon. In the ancient world a number of dragons and dragon-like entities are said to have had venomous breath. The monster that guarded the Golden Fleece (not the Hydra!) was more like an enormous snake, and this also coincides with the creatures slain by Heracles.

In the case of large flying animals, these have existed. Take Quetzalcoatlus, for example, as big as a giraffe, hollow-boned, huge wing-span. Imagine a creature with a somewhat similar body plan, but with a more dragon-like head and the ability to breath flame (or spit venom, vomit caustic fluid, etc). Also hand it a tail more like Rhamphorhyncus.

Rhamphorhyncus was a much smaller and earlier flying reptile, but has more dragon-like features:

@leidang – It's simple really. Look at us; we have more unpainted or painted lead around than we'll ever paint or play with, but we always want more! "Oooooo, shiny…"

You could always track down The Last Dragon

link

It tried to give some background to things.

How about Dragon Kings and Emperors?

In the GURPS RPG book "Reign of Steel," which is a Terminator-type post apoc setting, an alternate fantasy setting they outline is a world ruled not by AIs, but by Dragon Kings. These alpha predator, intelligent magic using beings have all carved out empires and kingdoms for themselves and have varying degrees of relations with humanity/other sapient beings that range from Benevolent Rulers who rule as wise kings over their many peoples, to Xenophobic Despots who have purged every sapient save dragons from their territories.

I remember a couple of tv documentaries that tried to establish how a dragon could be real by comparing them to pteradons, birds, crocodiles, and so one. Even came up with how the fire breath would work (gas builds up in stomach or separate pouch, electric igniter in mouth, lots of flame preventative slime).

These dealt more with wyvern style (smaller, arms are the wings)

I dont buy the bladders filled with lighter than air gas that help them to lift their bodies.

You need one cubic meter of lighter than air gas to lift just one kg.

Those gas filled blades couldnt hoard enough gas just to lift the skin covering those blades

I dont buy the bladders filled with lighter than air gas that help them to lift their bodies.

You need one cubic meter of lighter than air gas to lift just one kg.

Those gas filled blades couldnt hoard enough gas just to lift the skin covering those blades

I for one didn't say "lift." I said, "reduce the relative density." Or call it "make lighter." The wings still provide the lift (else why have them?). But just as birds have hollow bones to reduce their mass, dragons might have gas-filled bones or bladders to reduce their own relative mass, making winged-flight possible with a lower wingspan and airspeed. (Remember, anything can fly, if it has enough wing surface and can generate sufficient velocity. It's all just basic Newtonian physics.)

Let's take Smaug, for example. He's the prototypical modern fantasy dragon. It's implied he's huge— he consumes several ponies in his assault on the dwarf camp, so he's got quite a gullet. For simplicity's sake, let's give the ponies an average weight of 500 lbs.. According to the text, Smaug ate six ponies in the attack, presumably bones and all— that's 3,000 lbs, or a ton and a half! Given that the other ponies escaped (he expected to hunt them down later), he must at least have been able to capture the six he did eat relatively quickly, and while on the wing, and then return to the mountain, also on the wing. Since matter can neither be created nor destroyed, and it's unlikely his digestive process worked quickly enough to expel any waste mass, that means he added a ton and a half to his own weight and was still capable of flight (though, given that six or more critters escaped, much slower or less maneuverable flight). However, this doesn't mean that Smaug himself weighed more than a ton and a half— bald eagles, for example, have been known to fly carrying masses equal to or greater than their own weight. But if we assume that, whether in his gullet or carried back as a take out, Smaug can match the eagle's capabilities in terms of maximum load, we'll put Smaug right in the ton-and-a-half range on an empty tank (as it were).

Using birds as a standard (very different critters, yes, but what is a dragon?), we see wingspan to weight ratios of anywhere from roughly 1:1 (lbs-inches, hawk) to 3:1 (lbs-inches, albatross). Again, for simplicity's sake, we'll split the difference and call it 2:1. A 3,000 lb. Smaug gives a wingspan of 6,000 inches, or 500 feet! That seems right outside what we expect of Smaug, magnificent or not! (It's also larger than the wingspan of the "Spruce Goose," the largest airplane ever built, by nearly 200 feet!) Smaug is big, but perhaps not that big.

But perhaps Smaug's mass is not nearly so great, and his lift capacity is much higher than an eagle's, pound for pound. Let's go so far as to make him able to lift half again his own weight, putting him at 1,500 lbs. (0.75 ton). Dial that ratio down a bit, too, say 1.5:1 and we get 2,250 inches or 188 feet (give or take), or about 57 meters. This doesn't seem unworkable for a creature such as Smaug… and turns out to be almost spot on to what the new film implies (the Air New Zealand Smaug portrait depicts the dragon as being 177 feet long, with presumably a nearly matching wingspan, so close enough to my estimate of 188 feet as makes no difference. Well, as dragons go).

Now, how much lifting force is required to get 0.75 ton airborne? And how does Smaug generate it? Is it solely from his wingbeats?

Note an important detail in the text of The Hobbit— Smaug gives off both light and heat— light enough, in fact, for Bilbo to see clearly and to some distance into a vast, underground chamber with no other sources of light— he can even see the walls, and treasure stretching off into other chambers. That's quite a glow coming from the sleeping beast. Edison would be envious. Furthermore, Smaug is so hot he's painful to be near, like a roaring fire or a blacksmith's forge. So whatever powers Smaug's metabolism, it's way over-powered— his internals are fire hot. Lifting gas? You'd better believe it— with that much heat, he's a sleeping hot-air balloon, just with what he breathes into his lungs. Enough to make him fly? Well, no, because he's clearly lying on the ground (well, on his treasure bed), not floating like some kind of genie. But enough to make him effectively lighter than his apparent size would imply? Certainly.

Indeed, what happens when Smaug breathes in? His chest expands, and his lungs fill with air— air that is clearly cooler than his internal temperature, by double digit degrees (maybe even triple digit). His body immediately heats this air, which expands even more— and Smaug gains at least partial lift, just by sucking in air. Back that up with wingbeats, and up he goes. Once airborne, like any other flying creature he can take advantage of thermals (always present around mountains) as well as careful steep glides and wing thrusts to increase his velocity— and then it's just a matter of maintaining a decent velocity to stay aloft. The lifting gas effect is no longer needed— so he can expel that super-heated air (plasma?) whenever he desires.

So, it's entirely possible for Smaug's flight capability to be "natural" (or at least scientifically plausible) based simply on wings and internal body temperature.

Of course, how he achieves and maintains a body temperature of that level is another question entirely…

Nicely done Parzival. On the issue of body temperature part of that would be his mass as larger creature do generate more heat at least where mammals are concerned. Current theories on dinosaurs in addition to the thinking they were warm blooded also suggest that at younger ages they had downy hair-like feathers to help maintain heat. A full grown T-Rex would not need the feathers to keep warm as its mass would be enough. For the sake of argument we will say that dragons while a species onto themselves are warm blooded, very warm blooded, and their evolution has made their metabolism in such a way to not be harmed by the high body temperature. Which to quote from the original Aliens movie makes them one really tough bastard.

I had the same metabolic questions about Oliphants as portrayed in the LotR movie. How much fodder does it take and what do you do with all the… output.

Makes excellent fertilizer for the next round of fodder, as long as the critters stay on the move.

Doing a little bit of wikidiving, Mammoths were pretty big, 4m tall and 12 tons for the biggest specimens and averaging 3m tall and 8 tons. Male saltwater crocs are ~6m long and 2 tons for the largest specimens.

So I think we can safely use 10+-2 tons as the upper bound on Dragon weight.

I also like the 'two-speed' metabolism idea, since that would let you make a hungry dragon a massive threat to a nation.

Feanoric alpha particles interact with sub-etha vibrations to create bio-sympathetic hyper-eco sustainability.

Next.

Parzival,great food for thoughs. I whatched the desolation of smaug yesterday, and i couldnt help thinking about this thread

I also like what Brian stated about dragons being part of the ecology. Which bears the question what does a mature dragon contribute to the balance of nature? What would be the downside if dragons disappear from the circle of life?

Dragons are actually a bigger part of the economy than the ecology. Without dragons, the kingdoms of fairieland would be ruined by rampant inflation from all those unguarded hoards. Someone's gotta keep that gold scarce. They're also a natural deterrent to men fighting each other over the hoards. There's nothing worse than some pesky dragonslayer coming along to upset the peace and economy ;D

I also like what Brian stated about dragons being part of the ecology. Which bears the question what does a mature dragon contribute to the balance of nature? What would be the downside if dragons disappear from the circle of life?

They thin down the herds of Balrogs that would otherwise run rampant…. ;-)

But didn't Balrogs ride on dragon mounts at the Fall of Gondolin? ;D The dragon proletariat have thrown off their oppressors, eh?