Why do half-dragons exist from a lore perspective in DND

[Mundus33]

Now I know that the main reason half-dragons exist is mainly because of both Sorcerers and people wanting a half-dragon archetype; but from a lore perspective to me it doesn't make much sense. Why would a dragon have relations with a human/whatever are they like humans and are just ready to get down whenever(from a lore perspective). That contradicts the fact that even Good dragons have a big ego and view themselves as above other mortals I mean from a dragons perspective it's "technically" bestiality since they view most things as prey or a means to an end.

Dragons also aren't social creatures and usually don't mate for life from what I've read some stay together until the egg hatches and get the wyrmling started but they end up leaving. I also can't find anything about Dragons falling in love. Half-Dragons are also much weaker than regular dragons so it brings up the question of why.

On a sidenote I think the idea of dragons just being down with anyone and anything kind of hilarious especially considering their long lifespans they probably have some super weird fetishes.

[Piedmon_Sama]

So, like, if a book didn't say somewhere "dragons can totes fall in love" you assume that love is like, mysterious to them? When they're supposed to be actually like, basically smarter than humans in all respects? Also like, who cares if Half Dragons don't have the power level of regular Dragons, just 'cuz you're a Dragon you gotta be like Vegeta and be like "HRRRNGH MY SON MUST BE... STRONGG" Evil ones wouldn't care and good ones would consider their offspring to have numerous advantages among humanoids anyway

[Kalmageddon]

On a sidenote I think the idea of dragons just being down with anyone and anything kind of hilarious especially considering their long lifespans they probably have some super weird fetishes.

That's the actual lore justification in my head.
"Look, human, after a millennia or so, regular dragon sex just doesn't cut it anymore, ok? I... experimented... And guess what? Tendriculoses are caring and giving lovers. Who are you to judge?"

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Because revenge is a dish best served cold, and it's just too funny if the princess ends up kicked out by her brave hero several months after the wedding because their kid is scaly and breaths fire.

[Mundus33]

So, like, if a book didn't say somewhere "dragons can totes fall in love" you assume that emotion is like, totally closed to them? When they're supposed to be actually like, basically smarter than humans in all respects? Also like, who cares if Half Dragons don't have the power level of regular Dragons, just 'cuz you're a Dragon you gotta be like Vegeta and be like "HRRRNGH MY SON MUST BE... STRONGG" Evil ones wouldn't care and good ones would consider their offspring to have numerous advantages among humanoids anyway

I'm just saying from a logical perspective I don't know why a dragon would get jiggy with it with anyone other than another dragon. I mean maybe Dragons can fall in love but a dragon falling in love with a human is like a human falling in love with a monkey not gonna say its impossible but unlikely.

Also none of this question is really serious it half curiosity/ half humor.

[Professor Chimp]

I just assume they all experimented in college.

[Koo Rehtorb]

Who says they're falling in love?

[Millstone85]

Polymorph does weird things to your libido.

[CharonsHelper]

Also like, who cares if Half Dragons don't have the power level of regular Dragons, just 'cuz you're a Dragon you gotta be like Vegeta and be like "HRRRNGH MY SON MUST BE... STRONGG"

Besides which - they might not get as strong as a millennia old dragon, but 20-40 years down the line a half-human/half-dragon will likely be more powerful if he becomes an adventurer.

I actually did a storyline about that and an evil dragon. He intentionally had bunches of half-human kids with the idea that he was spawning a badass army which would be ready in a mere 30ish years. He even had some half-dragon mounts for them to go into battle on. (Hey - dragons are freaky!)

[DigoDragon]

I'm just saying from a logical perspective I don't know why a dragon would get jiggy with it with anyone other than another dragon. I mean maybe Dragons can fall in love but a dragon falling in love with a human is like a human falling in love with a monkey not gonna say its impossible but unlikely.

Dragons don't have to go for the love angle. Maybe the dragon sees potential for minions that are stronger than typical pure-blood human, elf, or dwarf slaves. Maybe the dragon has a kobold cult worshiping them and they want to sire a leader who'll be able to lead those kobolds in successful raids, while still being loyal to the dragon.

The theory I like to go with is that the dragon was bored and decided to polymorph into a humanoid for a night to carouse and learn the local gossip. However, things go south when they get drunk and accidentally bumped into the PC bard....

[Random Sanity]

I got a better question - why would a dragon, with his vast lifespan and inability to care about the consequences for a few warmblooded mayflies, NOT seek physical pleasure amongst these lesser creatures? From a dragon's perspective, what are these tiny mortals there for, if not for his amusement?

[ngilop]

So, like, if a book didn't say somewhere "dragons can totes fall in love" you assume that love is like, mysterious to them? When they're supposed to be actually like, basically smarter than humans in all respects? Also like, who cares if Half Dragons don't have the power level of regular Dragons, just 'cuz you're a Dragon you gotta be like Vegeta and be like "HRRRNGH MY SON MUST BE... STRONGG" Evil ones wouldn't care and good ones would consider their offspring to have numerous advantages among humanoids anyway

I literally have no idea what this says, but the general feel of valley girl ness of it all makes me agree 111% (Because I can't even) cookies if you get that joke.

[Mikemical]

Dragons are the Bards of the Monster Manual.

Spoiler: Compelling Argument

Show

Also, they're cute AF

Real talk, good dragons can develop affection for certain individuals they become close with. Silver dragons sometimes give advise or help good adventurers, brass dragons love conversation and exchanging stories(therefore a Bard would be a very attractive partner), gold dragons hold good and honor in high esteem(making a classic Paladin the ideal suitor), just to list three examples.

Evil dragons could have plans which may include creating spawn that would be useful to them in the future. Or as explained in the Book of Edgy Tryhardiness(Vile Darkness), some dragons could have skewed inclinations regarding what is valuable and worth adding to their hoard. How much worth is a princess' maidenhood? If he takes it, then it's permanently his and cannot be taken back. Or maybe he chooses to hoard a village's first-born daughters because of their sentimental value to their families. And sometimes, dragons are irresponsible jocks that just sleep around because "I'm technically immortal and females only wanna bang every 200 years or so, meanwhile, there's all these little people I could easily woo to my bed."

[Lemmy]

To create new delicacies. Half-dragon halfling tastes delicious!

Also, when you live thousands of years, you probably end up trying a lot of freaky stuff...

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I actually did a storyline about that and an evil dragon. He intentionally had bunches of half-human kids with the idea that he was spawning a badass army which would be ready in a mere 30ish years. He even had some half-dragon mounts for them to go into battle on. (Hey - dragons are freaky!)

That's awesome. It's also completely fitting given what the OP was talking about. If getting freaky with a human is already akin to bestiality, why not a horse?

In fact, why not skip the middle man and make half-dragon centaurs? They're large (as are horses and other mounts for humans), so I think that would give them a flight speed, right? I can't imagine that not being an awesome enemy army to fight.

[hymer]

Maybe we shouldn't be looking all at the dragons. E.g., the Orbs of Dragonkind must, through the aeons, have fallen into the hands of the perverted, the silly, and the extremely curious on occasion. And then there's the mad alchemist using infusions of dragonblood to unspeakable purposes.

[Martin Greywolf]

If you want a nice, logical way for half-dragons and other assorted dragon-related weirdness to exist, there's a simple explanation: it wasn't the dragons.

Thing is, dragons are powerful, magical and immortal (or at least damn close to being immortal from the perspective of a human) - wouldn't you want to be a dragon? And when people really, really want something, ethically questionable experiments are just a step behind.

Long story short, it's the humans who are trying to acquire one thing or another that the dragons have from birth, be it flight, durability, longevity, breath weapons and so on and so forth. These experiments can sometimes survive and, even more rarely, are capable of procreation.

Another possibility may be that dragons, especially the less moral ones, simply use sex as one of the many means of manipulating people, and since they have access to shapeshifting magic, it works pretty well reasonably often. The dragons likely don't have the same hangups about sex that the mortals/humans/modern society have, and they may well not be terribly nurturing to their own half-breeds.

And lastly, if you want to go really old school, and I mean Fafnir old school, dragon blood can have strong properties and contaminate whatever it touches. Effects vary by many factors, which is to say they vary by what the DM needs them to do.

[CharonsHelper]

That's awesome. It's also completely fitting given what the OP was talking about. If getting freaky with a human is already akin to bestiality, why not a horse?

In fact, why not skip the middle man and make half-dragon centaurs? They're large (as are horses and other mounts for humans), so I think that would give them a flight speed, right? I can't imagine that not being an awesome enemy army to fight.

Actually - no horses in what I had planned out. Think half-dragon griffins & hippogriffs!

And the advantage to humans is that they can integrate with normal society. Sure - being half-dragon will get them looked at askance, but PCs do that when they're weird races. Plus - nothing that a hat of disguise can't fix.

He didn't have enough spawn to have a conquering army. I think that it was 100ish. (Even a dragon's fertility has limits!) More a small bad-ass strike force which could go wherever he needed them. Still freakin' scary since they all had PC classes and all the half-dragon bonuses.

[Zombimode]

For Eberron: because the Prophecy demanded it

For other Settings: because Xorvintal

[Necroticplague]

1. The children of half dragons can also be half-dragons. It takes a few generations for the blood to dilute outwards to be reduced to the Draconic template.
2. Dragons have been shown to be fundamentally human in their mindset. Even if some of their emotions are more dominant drives, they still have a human psychology that would lead to the same occasional lapses in judgement as anything else. (related note: teenage dragons are the same size as human).
3. Even viewing lesser creatures as merely a means to an end, why would that be in any way related? Why can't the dragon's own pleasure be a valid end (and if said lesser creature ends up with some bastard spawn because of it, oh well, not the dragon's problem)?
4. Bestiality isn't really much of a valid comparison. Bestiality is an ethical weird point in real life because of problems associated with non-sapient creatures giving informed consent (since it's possible for them to be too dense to be informed, and have difficulty communicating consent). It's also a reflexive disgust for many for evolutionary reasons (long story short: those who stuck within their own species tended to have more kids for obvious reasons). Neither of these problems exist for dragons in dnd (given that, well, half dragons can exist, and there exist other sapient creatures).
5. Because dragons live a long time, and tend to have some form of plot going on, it's possible for having and raising half-dragon children to adulthood could serve their own plots. I.e, pawns in a long-running game of xorvintal, future adventurers that can help expand it's horde, A superior next generation to help slay a rival.

[LibraryOgre]

Dragons also aren't social creatures and usually don't mate for life from what I've read some stay together until the egg hatches and get the wyrmling started but they end up leaving. I also can't find anything about Dragons falling in love. Half-Dragons are also much weaker than regular dragons so it brings up the question of why.

Half-dragons originally came from the Council of Wyrms setting; they could only be the offspring of male dragons capable of naturally polymorphing and female demihumans (due to the setting, not humans). That, in and of itself, limited it to three types of Lawful Good dragons... bronze, silver, and gold. Silvers, in particular, are noted as being sympathetic with the more mortal races; expansions on the concept in 2e ("Part Dragon, All Hero" by Roger Moore in Dragon 206) kept those basic concepts around. Greyhawk and Waterdeep dragons are both noted as having extensive sympathy with humans.

As for dragons not falling in love, I would suggest you read Legend of Huma by Richard A. Knaak, and the Chronicles trilogy by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman; in both, you have female dragons who fall in love with mortals; Huma and Gilthanas, respectively. Since it is female dragons with male (demi)humans, no offspring was possible by the rules laid out in Council of Wyrms... though there are suggestions that Usha Majere may have been a Krynnish half-silver, a slightly different sort of beast than the standard half-silver of Council of Wyrms.

[Jay R]

I don't find that aspect of a relationship to be worth role-playing. What the dragon saw in the princess forty years ago is simply not necessary knowledge to playing a sorcerer, just as I don't contemplate my parents' private relations when striving in my own career.

Besides, my experience in dealing with the world convinces me that nobody ever really understands anybody else's choices in this regard. If I can't understand what my best friend of many years sees in his girlfriend, why would I expect to understand the romantic or physical urges of a member of a totally different species with a completely alien viewpoint.

[Waker]

Dragons are the Bards of the Monster Manual.

Spoiler: Compelling Argument

Show

Also, they're cute AF

What manga is this from?

[Mikemical]

What manga is this from?

It's from a guy named sanzu on pixiv. He does a lot of dragon-related short comics, but nothing lewd, and nothing meaningfully long either. And unfortunately, the only manga he got published(My Girlfriend is a T-Rex) only got 27 chapters before he said he wasn't doing anymore chapters and was focusing on his short, independant comics.

[BWR]

Generations of crazy wizards using captured dragons for magical experimentation, in my game.
One PC is the (potentially) crowning achievement of the experiments: a human who had some of the powers of a dragon (dragon disciple rather than the template). Liberal use of the Vivisection spells and Clone to minutely observe and record the results.

So no sex, just magical GMO.

[Honest Tiefling]

Honestly, dragons and humans are basically the two races of DnD that'll screw anything. Demons, devils, celestial, possibly doppelgangers, fey, werewolves, halflings, dwarves, it's all good.

I think the very classic idea of Aragon and other human/elf hybrids just got dialed up to 11 at some point and it became an easy way to introduce more races for settings/books. Through I wonder if it is more or less common then the 'Wizard did it' form of hybridization.

[Sredni Vashtar]

Isn't there some sort of canonical ritual to become a half-dragon? I'm using something similar in my campaign, and I forgot exactly where I got the idea.

[Darth Ultron]

Now I know that the main reason half-dragons exist is mainly because of both Sorcerers and people wanting a half-dragon archetype; but from a lore perspective to me it doesn't make much sense. Why would a dragon have relations with a human/whatever are they like humans and are just ready to get down whenever(from a lore perspective). That contradicts the fact that even Good dragons have a big ego and view themselves as above other mortals I mean from a dragons perspective it's "technically" bestiality since they view most things as prey or a means to an end.

Dragons also aren't social creatures and usually don't mate for life from what I've read some stay together until the egg hatches and get the wyrmling started but they end up leaving. I also can't find anything about Dragons falling in love. Half-Dragons are also much weaker than regular dragons so it brings up the question of why.

On a sidenote I think the idea of dragons just being down with anyone and anything kind of hilarious especially considering their long lifespans they probably have some super weird fetishes.

I'd guess you have not read any D&D books, novels and rule books, from the past 40 years or so?

Intelligent Beings fall in love, it is just one of the mysteries of life, and love itself is a mystery. Why does X like Y? They just do. So you can see plenty of humans and dragons liking each other (really, you can find humans that love dragons, really, Goggle it if you dare) and falling in love. A human might like the 'power' of a dragon, and a dragon might like the 'vulnerability' of the human, for example. Or it could just be that they are soulmates.

Even if good dragons felt they were 'above' the humans....well, that does not say they won't 'mate' with them (Um, again, you might want to Goggle history here....and again, if you dare.)

Dragons are not 'social', at least not 'group social', but they do like to have a lover/companion/mate......and sure 75% of dragons do the ''mate and run'', but that does say 25% don't.....

How many D&D dragon love stories would you like.....D&D fiction is full of them.

A ''half dragon'' is weaker then a dragon, but sure is more powerful then a human...assuming 'power' matters.

Well, um, mating with anything that moves is s super weird fetish, no? And this is a dragon lore thing too, as some dragons like to spread the ''seed of their dragon kind' around and live in a world of ''all their children'.

[weckar]

Dragons with a Zeus complex. I could see that happening honestly.

[5ColouredWalker]

From memory, some of the more social shape changing ones (Copper I think) hang around with mortals all the time for fun, and sometimes get laid.
This eventually resulted in half-dragons, which the others noticed.

Later on, Half-Red dragons canonically exist from Red Dragons deliberately breeding them for use as guards/slaves/soldiers because they're more powerful than other mortals.

Other varieties? No clue off the top of my head