Dragon of the World – North America

Ages ago, I did a short post on Dragons of the World, where I whizzed around the globe, highlighting the different dragons which lived in various parts of the world. This month, I’m going to delve into more depth on the subject. Starting in my home continent of Europe, and travelling east, we shall look, in more detail, at the various kinds of dragon you can expect to find around the world.

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American Amphithere (or Moth Dragon)

American dragons, both North and South, are renowned for being feathered dragons, and the Moth Dragon is no different. Predominantly purple in colour, however blue, green and red variations have been noted. They have a long neck, soft spines the length of the body, two wings, but no legs, instead, using a long tail to grip onto branches and their wings are capable of beating so fast that they can hover in place, making them the only dragon able to do so.

These dragons live all over america, in open grassland, canyons and rocky foothills, quite fond of warm open climates. Due to this, their diet is made up of the large indigenous mammals of North America, typically buffalo. Sometimes horses or cowboys out late at night. They have a nasty bite, and use their body for constriction, and posses flame breath, and will use them without much provocation.

They are small pack animals, typically up to ten in number, and will all rally to hunt or protect young dragons. They used to be solitary animals, but were nearly hunted to extinction, and since then seemed to have changed behaviour to avoid extinction, and the rising population of these dragons seems to indicate that it is working.

Dwarf Dragon

Commonly found in Canada, but occasionally in Northern parts of Asia, such as Siberia, the dwarf dragon is, as the name suggests, small. It can range between 6 inches to a foot in size, with four limbs and tiny wings, although it can walk on it’s too hind legs and use its front legs to carry objects around, and they are well designed to do this. Notably, it can carry a hefty weight around without much struggle, up to three times its own body weight.

The dwarf dragons are commonly bright blue in colour with paler stomachs, and bright red eyes. They don’t rely on camouflage to escape larger predators, but are very quick, nimble, and use large numbers to evade or drive off predators. Dwarf dragons in the wild tend to live in hives of up to several hundred strong, ruled by a single queen. A swarm can be very deadly, since large numbers can easily swarm and overwhelm a target (but they can be distracted by shiny objects, and handle of sequins has been known to work well) but on their own these dragons are seldom dangerous, and are easily tamed and trained as house pets. Although they are prone to biting.

Biting, ripping, tearing and nipping are their main forms of attack, but they are most notable for their aerial acrobatics and their love of shiny things. If they have an audience, they will happily perform tricks, however, if they fly low, they might be trying to steal your watch or jewellery!

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That’s it for the North American dragons. Next week, South American dragons.

Dragons of the World – Australasia

Ages ago, I did a short post on Dragons of the World, where I whizzed around the globe, highlighting the different dragons which lived in various parts of the world. This month, I’m going to delve into more depth on the subject. Starting in my home continent of Europe, and travelling east, we shall look, in more detail, at the various kinds of dragon you can expect to find around the world.

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Marsupial Dragons

Like much of the other fauna in the Australian outback, the marsupial dragon has a number of very distinct features that are not found in any other dragon off the island. However, they do have scales, and can breath fire, and have a number of feature in common with the dragon, so that there is no question they are dragons.

They stand on their two hind legs and have two very short forelimbs, much like a kangaroo, although they stand at 15 to 18 foot high, They have short spines around their head and down their spine, and vestigial wings, which although they cannot fly with, can help them run or bound extraordinary distances, up to 30 feet with one single movement. They come in colours of green or blue, with pale scaled bellies, and, again like the kangaroo, they have a pouch in which they carry their young. Like other dragons, they initially lay eggs, and then deposit the eggs in the pouch, which has a very high temperature for incubation. When they hatch, the baby pushes the shell of the eggs out, and then spends a couple of the pouch as it grows.

These dragons live all around Australia, but are concentrated in the south east, where there are large eucalyptus forests. They like caves or boulder mounds as their lairs, but only tend to use them at night, and have a habit of sleeping out in the forests during the day, perhaps because they like the warmth of the sun. Typically, they are small pack animals, like lions, where one male will live near or with a small number of females, typically up to six. Although they all posses the same weapons, males will more redily attack than females, using a breath weapon that more resembles heavy smoke than fire, and their short front arms are capable of delivering a hefty punch, if you get near enough to them. The feet are even more dangerous, and can kill with a single kick.

Tasmanian Dragon

Often mistaken for a Koala, this tiny dragon looks more like it has fur than scales from a distance, and it is only when you get close up that you can see the differences – smatterings of scales on flanks and backs, and a long tail. They also have wings, and although these are incapable, they are good for gliding purposes, making travelling between trees easy for these small dragons.

They have four limbs, with claw adapted for tree climbing, as they make their lairs in the tops of trees. Whilst they are resident in the tree, they will claw up the bark to make it known to other dragons that they are using this tree. Although these nests are quick and easy to build and can often be changed, especially given the number of forest fires that occur in the outback. The only time a nest will not move is when there are chicks in there, as they do not leave the nest until they are old enough to glide. Interestingly, Tazzy Dragons are some of the only dragons to have live births rather than laying eggs.

The colours of their scales/fur is a yellow-brown hue, and the backs and tails have dark brown stripes which help to camouflage it in the trees.  This also helps with catching meals – by silently gliding down from the treetops, the prey is usually unaware of the Tazzy Dragon until it is too late. They mainly eat other small mammals, possums, wombats, even wallabies on occasion. They have very good sight and hearing, making night-time and daytime hunting possibilities for this creature.

Unfortunately, due to the number of bush fires, and the dwindling numbers of their prey in the wild, this species is thought to be on the decline.

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It’s a small continent, but it does have some unusual dragons. Next up in the series, North American dragons.

Dragons of the World – Asia

Ages ago, I did a short post on Dragons of the World, where I whizzed around the globe, highlighting the different dragons which lived in various parts of the world. This month, I’m going to delve into more depth on the subject. Starting in my home continent of Europe, and travelling east, we shall look, in more detail, at the various kinds of dragon you can expect to find around the world.

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Lungs

Asia is famous for it’s wingless dragons, often called lungs, which are usually benevolent dragons and can fly despite their lack of wings. There are four distinct types of lung, with the variation in dragon corresponding to location of the dragon in the world, and they can be easily told apart by the number of claws on each foot.

Chinese Lung

Chinese Lungs, no surprise, live in China, although the tend to prefer the eastern and southern part rather than the colder north. You will often find them living or spending time around rivers and lake, since Chinese Lungs have long been associated with beneficial events, and there is little more beneficial to the land than a good rainfall. Because of this, they have a predominately fish diet, although sometimes small to medium sized birds are in there. Unusually, they like cooked food as well, most dragons prefer raw meat.

They are often blue to dark blue in colour, with a few reported sightings of black Lungs. They have very a great many tendrils on their heads and tails, almost feather like in appearance, and these can go yellow or even white as the Lung ages. Some people have compared the tendrils to that of a lion’s mane, it can get so bushy. A Chinese Lung has five claws on each foot.

Chinese Lungs are both clever and benevolent, and live for extraordinary amounts of time, often over a millennia. In this time, they are able to collect vast amounts of knowledge and wisdom, and this includes a fondness for languages. The average Chinese Lung is capable of speaking over a dozen languages, and although they do not live near human settlements, they are more then happy to converse with humans, as long as the human is respectful towards them.

Japanese Lung (or Ryu) 

Like Chinese Lungs, Japanese Lungs love water, but they prefer hot spots, making the many hot springs and volcanoes in Japan a favoured home for these dragons. They do not, however, have a strict fish diet, and are omnivores, taking in a vast array of food from whatever they can find, although they are very fond of fresh berries.

They are smaller than the Chinese dragon, but more varied in colour, with blues, greens, reds and golds all spotted on various Ryu. Both sexes of Ryu have a small pair of horns on top of their head, quite antler like in appearance, and females have feathered tails, whereas males are otherwise unadorned. Each foot has three claws.

Not quite as peaceful as their Chinese cousins, they will used those horns to attack those they threatened by, although more often they will just escape into the nearest steam pool. They are intelligent, but they do not share the love of languages of the Chinese and will only talk in Dragonese to other dragons. They are however, masters of writing, and some beautiful examples of dragon calligraphy can be found in shrines throughout Japan.

Korean Lung (or Yong)

Less friendly than either the Chinese or the Japanese Lungs, Korean Lungs share the love of hot water of the Japanese, and will nest in hot springs or volcanic waters. They have also been known, if they find an appropriate pool, to heat it up themselves. This also helps with hatching their eggs, since a constant temperature of just boiling water is needed to incubate them properly.

They are very narrow, but longer than the Chinese Lung, reaching up to 50 feet in length at their largest. They have four claws on each foot, and a similar head shape to the Chinese, but no spines along their back and fewer tendrils on the face. Colours for these dragons are yellows and golds in a range of shades, with white manes.

Mainly their diet consists of small mammals, such as deer found in the country. They use their long bodies to strangle and constrict the prey, before swallowing it whole, much like a snake would. It is unknown whether they can disjoint their jaws. They also seem to have a strange dance-like pattern or coiling movement that they can use on prey, which has a hypnotic effects, making it easy for them then wrap their bodies around the prey.

Tibetan Lung

Tibetan Lungs, above all else, are very shy. They are very peaceful creatures, and quite wise, and get on well with the monks that live in the mountains of Tibet. Shared meditation sessions between monks and dragons are rumoured to happen on occasion, and are said to bring the monks great enlightenment, even though the dragons never speak. It isn’t known whether this is because they can’t speak, or because they choose not to.

Despite living in snowy mountains, the Tibetan dragons have not evolved for camouflage, with bright red and orange colours predominate in their scales. They are fairly sleek dragons however, with thin bodies, short heads and necks, spines along the back and a few around the head and tail. This is probably due to the high altitude and low oxygen levels of the mountains. They have five claws on each foot, but unlike the Chinese Lung, one is positioned at the back of the foot, probably to help with climbing icy surfaces.

Their favourite food is the Yeti, which also lives in the harsh cold of the Tibetan mountains, but because of the rarity of this food source, Yak is also predominant in their diet. Primarily they use a strong bite as their main attack, and are strong enough to hold onto struggling prey as they kill it.

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And there you have the dragons of the Asian continent. Next up, Australasian dragons.

 

Dragons of the World – Africa

Ages ago, I did a short post on Dragons of the World, where I whizzed around the globe, highlighting the different dragons which lived in various parts of the world. This month, I’m going to delve into more depth on the subject. Starting in my home continent of Europe, and travelling east, we shall look, in more detail, at the various kinds of dragon you can expect to find around the world.

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 Wyvern

Wyverns are different from European/Western dragons in the number of limbs that they possess. They have a long, lizard like body, wings, but only two legs, the hindlegs, which have powerful claws for grappling and holding onto perches. They are also much longer than European dragons, although don’t stand that much higher – typically 18ft tall, but 50ft or more long. Then tend to come in a variety of green to green/brown colours, and are mostly unadorned on the head, maybe a couple of chin bristles at the most.

Wyverns, due to their large size and gracefulness in the air despite it, are known to be very good hunters, often going for prey as large as elephants, hippos and rhinos, dropping from high heights on the targets before using claws and weight to crush it. Although it has been observed that they rarely go for giraffes, with no easily found reason as to why this is. They are however fairly friendly towards humans, although riding one without a harness is ill-advised due to their rough skin. And they have occasionally been known to pick up stray humans, mistaking them for smaller herd animals.

Wyverns tend to spend most of thier time on the wing, flying above the desert and savannah regions of Africa in the large portions of open air there. A good time to watch them is during mating season, as males attract females but putting on fantastic aerial displays, which usually happen in late spring/early summer. If they come down to mate they will choose a rocky outcrop for the nest, although a remote area of sand dunes can also be utilised. Some of them will also use sites such as these to store a hoard, but it is more of an unusual behaviour for a Wyvern.

Hydra

The hydra’s most distinctive feature is its multiple heads. Records have the number of heads on one hydra to be anywhere between three and seven, however there are legends which state that they can have many more. The rumour that they grow two heads for every one that drops off appears to be false, however, they hydras go engage in a process called splitting – when the hydra reaches a great age one head will separate from the body, and will grow to become an entirely new hydra, and this is how new hydras are born. However, this process appears to be lengthy, and the head which drops off is very vulnerable until it grows big enough to defend itself, hence why this species has never had a very large population.

Hydras are not the largest of the dragon species overall, without taking the length of each neck and head into account of course, coming in at 40ft in length. They tend to hide around the Mediterranean sea, both on the African and European sides, living in dark caves along the coast, possibly in extinct or dormant volcanoes, even ancient ruins will do, anywhere they can get deep underground is ideal for them. The are not actually sea dwelling dragons, although a lot of literature seems to suggest that they do. it is thought that perhaps they choose lairs with underwater entrances to better protect their privacy, and to stop other dragons from finding them. They are the only cannibalistic dragon species, preferring to eat the eggs and young of other dragons.

They favour greys and browns for colour, to better blend in with darker caves, and have very smooth scales, a variety of different sizes depending on the location on the body where the scale grew. They do have a lot of spines on their heads and back, which some dragonologists have suggested are poisonous. Not that a dragon with multiple heads needs much more of an advantage in combat.

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And that’s the African dragons. Next in the series, Asian dragons.

Dragons of the World – Europe

Ages ago, I did a short post on Dragons of the World, where I whizzed around the globe, highlighting the different dragons which lived in various parts of the world. This month, I’m going to delve into more depth on the subject. Starting in my home continent of Europe, and travelling east, we shall look, in more detail, at the various kinds of dragon you can expect to find around the world.

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The European (or Western) Dragon

The most common image of a dragon in the western world is one with a scaly body, four legs, two wings, long neck and tail, and this is what we see in the European dragon. They vary in size and colour, with red, green and dark colours being more prominent (although pale colours are sometimes seen, more so in colder countries), and a typical adult will stand at about 5m tall (16-17 feet). The scales on the belly are smoother, and slightly paler than he scales on the back, and often these dragons will have spines running the length of the back and tail, and often spines/horns on the head, sometimes in multiples.

Their wings give them the ability to fly, meaning that territories for these dragons are large, often out of necessity as well as ability, since they will eat a lot, mainly off large herbivore creatures such as sheep, deer, cows and other farm stock. The continental feature of Europe mean that lairs are most commonly found in forests and mountains, with mountains being the preferred choice. Caves and cave system make for very good homes for European dragons, especially if it is more isolated and far from human habitation. If you are searching for a forest dragon, pine forests seem to be more popular with them, possibly related to their evergreen nature.

These dragons are intelligent, and more than able to hold a conversation, although the older the dragon, the more likely it is to prefer Latin, (all dragons speak the dragon language, and most of the intelligent ones will speak a human language, with the younger ones more likely to choose English or Spanish as common languages). They are also known for hoarding, with vain or greedy streaks in many of them. That is not to say they are inherently evil or mean, but meeting with one will go better with a gift or compliments (they usually know what you are trying to do, but like it enough that it goes down well). Shiny things are best, although make sure that quality is good, although some dragons have special interests, such as old books, or musical instruments. If you can research you particular dragon beforehand, it might pay off when you attempt to meet with it.

In case it doesn’t go well, these dragons are armed with claws, teeth, breath weapons, and watch out for the tail as well, some dragons will use it as a whip or club. A dragon with large horns may also use those, but this is rarer.

Knucker

Some people think that Knuckers might just be juvenile European dragons, but there seem to be enough differences between these small dragons and the Europeans ones to make that unlikely.

These dragons are very small for dragons, about the size of a tall human, so less than 2m or around 6 feet tall. Like the European dragons they have four legs, two smaller front ones, and two larger back ones. And they do have two wings, but unlike the European dragons, these are tiny, vestigial things, and they cannot fly with them. Most of the time they appear to be brown in colour, but this is probably because they are caked in mud and dirt almost all the time. Behind the mud, the scales true colours are thought to be dull reds, greenish blues, and there probably are some who are naturally brown as well. They have spines and frills on head and back, and the frills around the head can often give an indication of mood, depending on how they are positioned.

They are usually so dirty because of their chosen lairs within holes and other small, damp locations. Forests, swampland, near rivers are all good places for them. They hunt these locations for smaller prey, rabbits, fish, birds and so forth and have even been known to go for small children. They use their long body to hold down and strangle a victim, in the manner than snakes do, and then have sharp claws to tear flesh, as well as a venomous bite, which is highly corrosive and can eat through most metals.

They too have a habit or hoarding, although they go for household items, such as glass bottles, metal plates and cutlery, china. Sometimes a knuckers hoard can look a bit like a box full of charity donations. They are, however, slightly timid creatures, so if an adult wants to fetch something that they have taken, it is more than possible to go into the knucker hole and retrieve it. An adult can also protect a child from a knucker attack with loud noises, to scare it off.

Basilisk

Debated at time whether it belongs in the dragon category, or with such other mythical beasts as the phoenix and cockatrice, I have included it here because in its most documented natural form, it shares many traits with dragons.

The Basilisk is a shapeshifter, apparently able to shapeshift into any dragon or pseudo-dragon species (one of the reasons it is thought to be a dragon species itself, is because of this affinity for dragon shapes). Because of this, it is hard to know what it’s true form looks like. Some accounts say it is a giant snake like body, others say it more resembles a velociraptor, with short front arms, long back legs, and a thing running body. And thee are just the two most common descriptions.

One thing that is common is it’s eyes. Big emerald green eyes are a constant feature between all shapes that the basilisk takes. However, the myth that staring into the eyes of a Basilisk causes instant death does appear to be true, as any dragonologist that has tried to do this has failed to come back from the field. It is also thought to have a exceedingly venomous bite, but again, there is a lack of evidence.

It is known that the Basilisk is fond of eggs as a food source. It appears to be indiscriminate as to which species it like the eggs of, and probably eats other foods as well. Most reports of Basilisks have come out of the south of England and Switzerland, which could give some indication that is likes cooler, rainy habitats.

The reports that the crowing of chickens frighten it away are unverified. Do not rely on this method to save yourself from a Basilisk.

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And there you have some common European dragon species. Next in the series, African dragons.

Empire Y3E4

So,four times a year, I and a bunch of my friends, take ourselves to a field and pretend to be citizens of a great empire, and I run around doing my magic thing and being one of the six grandmasters of magic.

Normally, after this event, I do a hot and nots. It’s a thing that a lot of players do where they talk about the bits of the weekend that they enjoyed, and the bits that were not so good.

However, this event, event 4 of year 3, I do not have hots and nots.

Or, rather, my hots and nots of the events have been utterly eclipsed by one single thing:

DRAGON!

Photo Credits to Judith Dawn Taylor & Charlotte Moss.

They made a freaking dragon! (Okay, technically a Drake, but who cares!)

It was mobile and everything, the neck moved, the mouth opened, it bobbed up and down, there were sound effects, smoke pouring out from it’s mouth due to excellent special effects.

After the main fighting was done, I went over to see it (still in character, being a human mercenary as we were monstering) and it was amazing, they had put so much thought and detail into it.

And then we realised that we had eight or so prisoners.

And a dragon.

😀

We fed the prisoners to the dragon.

All of the love to those poor players that did get eaten, they roleplayed it magnificently. Some of them were screaming and crying, others tried to attack the giant head, punching and kicking it, struggling with the orc monsters that were dragging them towards the head. I mean, it was epic, so so epic, and I had front row seats!

So happy.

They have since released a blog post, which you can find here, detailing how they went about making the dragon head, and even knowing how it’s done only serves to make it more amazing, as you realise just how much work PD puts into the games that it runs. It’s amazing.

So I have no hots. I have no nots, all I have is the magnificence of a dragon overulling all of my weekend. And I am so okay with that.

Author Event – Cressida Cowell

I was expecting something similar to the last author event I went to, the Garth Nix one, where we were sitting in the Waterstones cafe and having this intimate Q&A session.

What I had completely forgotten, was that Cressida Cowell and the How to Train Your Dragon series, are aimed at children. Not matter how fantastic the books are, and can be appreciated by adults, they do, in fact, live in the children’s section.

Which meant that I was sitting in Waterstones cafe, with five minutes to go, wondering where everyone else was, when the helpful cafe man tells me the event is in the large building round the corner, not the cafe. Thankfully, I made it on time, got my poster and my book, and since I was on my own, squeeze into a seat rather near the front.

Oh, and as a bonus? There were some of the GoGoDragons there, including my personal favourite, Webby! The schools that were attending the event (yes, some schools are awesome enough to bring their students to events like this) brought their GoGoSchoolDragons with them as well, so there were five big ones and five little ones. It was a lovely setting.

And then Cressida herself came out, and she was simply fantastic. Just, awesome. When she spoke, it was clear to see the enthusiasm and love for what she does, and she really does love having all the kids around. She talked a lot about her own childhood, showing us pictures from when she would stay on this uninhabited island (because her dad wanted to bird watch) with her starting to write, aged approximately nine, and then giving the audience, largely made up of approximately nine year olds, advice on how to write stories, and be creative. And it wasn’t bad advice for us older ones either.

So, she showed us some childhood memories, she did some reading of the books, including the dragonese parts of the book where the adults had to cover their ears because it is not appropriate language for us to hear! She talked about vikings, she showed us some stories and map that kids had sent into her (apparently she gets a ton of letters and pictures like this and loves it).

She talked a lot about inspiration, and where she gets her ideas from. I had no idea that she was illustrator as well as writer, and frankly it just make me respect her all that much more, but she talked about how she uses real life to inspire her. For instance, quite a few dragons that she’s come up with are blends or two or more creatures. The monstrous strangulator is made up of a fish that look like a grumpy man, and another fish that has a see-through head because it dwells on the ocean floor and needs to see the prey above it. The Giant Bee eater is a cross between a basking shark and a manta ray. As she kept saying, reality is often strange than fiction, and nature is more powerful than we are!

She even, during her long talk, answered some of the questions that I had. For instance, in the films, Toothless is definately not as he is in the books. And that’s because in the books, Vikings have hunting dragons and riding dragons, but the riding dragon doesn’t turn up until book six or so. The film-makers were doing the film in 3D, and had this large expanse of sea and sky to play with, so they decided to combine Hiccup’s two dragon from the books (Toothless and Windwalker) into one dragon in the films that could fly from the start. And yes, she had always intended to have the slow reveal of the early adventure meaning more than you think they do, and everything ties together in circles and cycles.

Of course there were questions asked by the audience. All kids, because lets face it, when kids are actually excited and involved in something, you let them run with it. And from this we learnt that this is the last book in this series, but Cressida loves the world she’s created so much, that maybe, just maybe, other books set in this world will happen. As long as there are dragons, I will love them.

Oh, one more little fact. David Tenant is the voice for all the audio books. And the trailer for the last book that they showed us at the end. David. Freaking. Tenant. I don’t normally go for audio books, but I might just have to now!

After the long talk, during which I was hugging my Toothless cuddly toy, there was a signing. I managed to end up being last in the queue, but there were two girls ahead of me, around my age, and we chatted and found a fair bunch in common. One of them nearly stole my cuddly toy as well. I just think it’s awesome when people can share a love of the same thing.

So it took a while, but I did get to meet her! And I got to tell her how much I enjoyed the books, especially the joy I had of realising that there was a huge plot at work here, and it had been going on since book one. She replied that that was one of the reasons she loved writing books, to hear the reaction of her readers. I got the new book and my original, old copy of HTTYD signed. Then they stamped them with the slavemark, and I got a badge as well!

I was just so happy to have gone to this event. I love hearing authors talk about their work, especially when they love it, and I love it. And also dragons.

Dragon Elements

I’ve talked about colours and breeds of dragon before. But there is another way of classifying dragons – elements.

Depending on what kind of dragons you are dealing with, a dragon might embody an element. And whilst the classic four are very much around (earth, fire, water and air) you can also find such dragons as ice, lava, lightning, metal, smoke and other such unusual elements.

If you are dealing with elemental dragons, then it pays to find out which element you are dealing with, and the element will give you clues as the the nature, habits and deadliness of the dragon that you are interacting with. Generally a dragon will have only a single element, but this can either be a ‘pure’ element such as fire, or a cross element such a smoke (fire x air) or lava (fire x earth).

Air Dragon/Wind Dragon/Storm Dragon

Whilst a number of dragons can fly, the air elemental dragon are masters of the skies, with unparalleled grace and speed when they take flight.

Often dragons of this element have a certain amount of control over the breezes and winds of a location, which they can either use to aid their own flight, or just to play around. The element of air is associated with mental quickness, joy and intelligence, but can also be fickle, moving on from one thing to another in a flash, and air dragons love to gossip. Given the openness of the skies and the attitude of air dragons, the emotion or ideal they embody most is freedom.

Physical these dragon will often be light in colour, pale blue or cream is common, although some are bright yellow. All of them have wings, some of which are so thin as to be practically see through, although they can always stand up to the fiercest of winds that they might call upon. Rarely, a dragon may even have the double wing arrangement as seen on butterflies, although these dragon tend to be much smaller than their other brethren.

Air dragons aren’t very aggressive, and much prefer to fly away rather than fight. However, if you do provoke one, then you will need to watch for their speed, as well as the possibility of lightning breath. Storm dragons have a very powerful lightning breath attack that they can use, and direct much more accurately than natural lightning strikes. Air and Wind dragons often use their wings and breath to create gusts around the field of battle, making it hard for their opponent to stay in one place.

One interesting thing about air dragons is that they seem to share a trait with magpies – a love of shiny things. Whilst all dragons are known for hoarding, air dragons seem to do it less for the gold itself, and more for the lustre of the object. An air dragon’s hoard may well be small, but if the light catches it, it will be dazzling.

Fire Dragon/Lava Dragon

Fire dragons are exactly as you expect them to be – passionate, courageous, enthusiastic, quick tempered and prideful. If you should ever interact with one, then try not to challenge it, as these dragon love proving themselves against anyone, especially in combat, and tend to anger if they don’t win. If you’re lucky, you’ll get an honourable one who won’t eat you, but those tend to be rare.

Physically these dragons have thick, heavy bodies, with lots of insulation to regulate the enormous amounts of heat that they produce. Common colours are reds of any shade, and sometimes they are touched with oranges and yellows. Their necks are longer than most other types of dragon, and it is theorised that this somehow helps them with their breath weapon.

A fire dragons ideal habitat is in a volcano, especially lava dragons, who eat lava as a regular occurrence. Dragonologists aren’t sure if this gives them any nutrition, but they certainly seem to love it. If they can’t get a volcano to themselves (since they are very territorial), then a lair has to be warm, ideally dry, with a large hunting range. Deserts are thus also common places to find them. Steam dragons are a rare exception. Although they love warmth, they also like water, so if you find a deserted hot spring, you might want to make sure that it isn’t actually a steam dragon’s lair.

Just like volcanoes, these dragons have the ability to go into hibernation, and lie dormant for decades, sometimes even a century or more at a time. Strangely, fire dragons can also be significant helpers in purification rituals. Fire is seen as one of the ultimate cleansers, as it can burn away everything, just leaving you with ashes to grow from, much like a phoenix.

Water Dragon/Sea Dragon/Lake Dragon

Long and sinuous, dragons of this element like to live in or nearby any body of water, whether that be an ocean, sea, lake, river or stream. Typical colours are a range of blues, greens and silvers, with the occasional splash of purple, especially for the deep dwellers. They rarely have wings, and short legs as they spend most of their time in the water swimming and have evolved to be streamlined for that purpose. Quite often they will possess tendrils, or ‘whiskers’ on their face which is thought to help them with navigation in the water. Fins along the spine and webbed feet are very common, and aid with swimming. They also have inner and outer eyelids, the first being completely clear and used whilst underwater as protection.

All types of this dragon can be referred to as Water Dragons, but people tend to classify them depending on what type of body of water the dragon lives in. The dragon tends to adapt to the environment it choose to live in; for instance, a river dragon will not grow larger than half the width of the river to allow itself to continue to move around. A stream dragon can be positively tiny depending on the stream, whereas water dragons that choose to dwell in the deep ocean can become larger than ships. There are more commonly seen in the northern parts of the world, as it seems that they prefer colder parts of the world.

Water dragon are associated with emotions, especially calmness, change and movement. Due to this they are said to be able to both still over-active emotions, or to start them moving again, especially to break free of something holding a person back.

If you should interact with a water dragon, and out of all the dragon types water dragons are most likely to interact with human, you should remember that it will always be calm on the surface, and you might not know what is going underneath, just like rip-tides in an ocean.

If you do manage to offend one, then they have two main methods of attack. The first, is that they have a separate stomach that stores a large amount of water, and they can blast this out at extremely high pressures. The other, is that they can use their long bodies and tails to wrap around you and pull you into the water with them, and they hold you there until you drown. Thankfully, this second attack is thought to be only used for the most irritating of visitors.

Earth Dragon/Mountain Dragon/Forest Dragon/Metal Dragon

Earth is stable, responsible, rigid, stubborn, prosperous, and above all, patient. This can lead many to think that earth dragons and their brethren are lazy, but they aren’t. They carefully think about their possibilities and potential outcomes before they take action. If they don’t consider something worth their time or effort, then they won’t move. However, if these dragon decide that moving it something that they want to do, then nothing will stop them.

Earth probably has the most variety in it’s sub-species. As well earth, you can have mountain, metal, mineral, forest or wood dragons. All come under the earth category, as they all have very similar traits and characteristics.

These dragons typically have a form that most would associate with a Western Dragon – large body, four legs, wings, tail, variable neck length. Mostly you can tell the different type apart by looking at their skin. Forest and wood dragons have very rough and uneven skin, much like bark. Whereas earth or mountain or stone dragons are much smoother. That, and forest and wood dragons are almost sure to live in a wooded area, whereas earthier dragon tend to prefer a slightly more open space. All of them will be dark brown, dark grey or darker greens

Whilst these dragon do have a breath weapon, they are more famed for claws and bite that they use to hunt and kill prey. Originally this led to a lot of conflict with farmers and hunters, as the dragons would take whatever they wanted as food, however as soon as humans realised these were intelligent creatures, they reasoned and bargained with them. Now earth dragons can be found warily foraging around the fringes of human settlements, although never the biggest cities of a country.

As is their nature, they are not easy to provoke, and will often ignore irritations. However, they have been known to cause earthquakes and mudslides and other such natural disasters, which tend to reach far beyond the original target. Actions that widely damage natural places, such a deliberate forest fires, are known to provoke them.

Light Dragon/Darkness Dragon

Although it might appear at first that these dragons are opposite in nature, dragonologists now believe that they are merely mirrors or each other, like two sides of the same coin.

They both have similar appearances, long body and tail, two wings, two feet, often with feathered crests, occasionally even feather wings. However the two are easy to tell apart since light dragons are white, silver, or very pale gold, and darkness dragon are black and deep midnight colours.

Both dragon are very intelligent, but don’t assume that light and dark means good and evil. Darkness dragon have quite a shy streak (although many people say that it is simply hard to spot a dark dragon against a dark sky), and if you manage to have a conversation come off as quiet and reserved, but have piercing insights into reality, and often give excellent guidance. Light dragons are easier to converse with, and are very social creatures, especially good in situations which require mediation or a large amount of talking.

Strangely, although records exist of conversations with these elemental dragons, there is no record of a fight ever breaking out, either between the dragons themselves, or between dragon and human. No one quite knows why this is.

Stories do exist of the power of these dragon over light, or the absence or it, but observations are often unclear, as manipulating the light would interfere heavily with our perception of the event.

Spirit Dragon

Some people debate whether this is an element or not, much like they debate the existence of the soul. For those people that claim to have seen one, they are fervent in their descriptions.

These dragons are reportedly small, without a corporeal body. As such, they either tend to have no colour, or a rainbow like translucence. Other features such as wings, legs, length and shape vary so wildly from account to account, that some people think it must be the imagination that creates these dragons.

The people who have met them agree on one thing, these dragons are exceedingly wise and experiences, giving advice and hints as to achieve balance in life. Some dragonologists theorise that these dragons only appear to those greatly in need, whereas others say that they only appear to those who are already in balance with themselves. And those are just the theories that believe in their existence.

Of course, this is not an exhaustive list. There are many more dragons, small cross breeds that have not been widely documented usually, that exist in the world.

If you were an elemental dragon, what do you think you would be?

GoGo Little Dragons!

I have done it! I have visited all 120 little dragons around Norwich! Took me a while since I was mainly doing it on Lunch breaks and stuff, but Thursday’s are my day off and I finally had nothing else to do, so I could romp around the city and find the others that I hadn’t yet!

Officically this part is called GoGoSchools, but I think GoGo Little Dragons suits it better.

You can find a link to the entire albums for like 350 photos here, but I’m going to showcase some of my favourites for you here.

Starting with, the rainbow club! We have, Skittles, Colour Burst. I love a good rainbow, and these are favourites. Also a shout out to one of my readers who has informed me his son’s school painted Skittles – here he is in all his window glory.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next, we have Rainbow. Weirdly, not quite a rainbow in himself, but I love the marbelling effect that was used to create his skin. I remember painted marbles and rolling them around tins, best sorts of art are created with random objects and fun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two very sparkly ones now, Sparky (apologies for the lighting, it was in a dark room) and Fearsome Francis the Fiery. Sparky was very nicely made with lovely rich colours and hints of sparkling in places. Francis could also belong in rainbow club, making her double cool, but there was so much glitter on her, I had to put her in here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As well as the dragon statue itself, there can be awesome things painted on it, like Scales and Stories had lots of things, including more dragons (can you see who is painted here on the left? Made me grin a lot) painted inside it’s big scales. Cosmos on the right had runes painted into his wings, which I found rather cool.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love the artwork on these two – Vincent van GoGo, obviously replicating sunflowers, and Tell me a Dragon had the seasons painted over him. He also had some story lines, and is located in an awesome local bookshop. Got to love stories and dragons in the same instance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This dragon is called Browick. He’s in here because he’s my best friends favourite dragon that he saw when he came round and amused me for an afternoon by finding all 19 dragons living on one of the Malls in Norwich. We got badges for doing so ^.^ And it is adorable to see a dragon in school uniform.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And lastly I show you Cosmic. I’ve probably said that Draco is one of my favourite big ones, so you can see why I like Cosmic so much.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Basically the same! So cute.

At the end of the trail, all the little dragons go back to the schools that made them. So whilst I am sad that I cannot nab one of them for myself, it’ll be lovely for the kids that had a hand in decorating them to keep a hold of them. And I have lots of lovely pictures.

And sometime in the future (hopefully soon) I will have my own tiny version of Draco to have an love. And I’ve bought ticket to the auction so I can see all the dragons go onto their new homes. I’ve mostly been convinced that buying one for myself is a bad idea since I have nowhere to put it and technically there are a lot of other things I could spend that amount of money on.

Mostly convinced.

Dragons on a Thursday

Well hello there gorgeous!

So I have this beautiful little lady now in my study, looking over at me. She’s got the perfect space in her tail for a d20 dice, and she can keep an eye on me as I write (or don’t). The perfect companion for me 🙂

So yesterday I was telling you about how I wasn’t feeling myself lately. Today, however, was different.

I got to sleep in, which is always a nice start to the day, and then my best friend, who I don’t get to see in real life enough, came up for the day.

We went and got sushi.

We found 19 mini dragons in one of the malls.

We got badges as a reward.

We played little big planet.

He’s just left for home and we’ll play some Heroes of the Storm when he gets back.

Aren’t best friends amazing?

Good food, fun activities, and a person to share it with. That got me out of my funk (although I have just gotten rather annoyed at my tablet and connecting cable, as they seem to refuse to transfer picture from tablet to computer)

And we got to see quite a few of the baby dragons that are around the city! Same as their 84 large brethren, just smaller, 120 dragons painted by schools from the area are around the city in shop windows and retail stores. We saw some of the ones in the forum, and the 19 in Castle Mall, receiving a rather nice badge for the trouble of doing so 🙂 I’ve been meaning to do them for a little while, but I keep being busy with stuff. So it was nice to get it started.

I also found that they’ve done an official guide for the GoGoDragons, released this week. I picked up a copy, of course, so I now have a book with picture of all the dragons from all angles, with the information about the sponsor and the artist and inspiration for each of the designs, it was just what I was looking for, without even knowing it.

So yes, it was just a bit of a passing low point. Lots of dragons, and a good dollop of friends has helped me get out of it.

I will be posting up an album of the little dragons, but I’ll be doing it after I visited them all, so give me a little more time 🙂