Results 61 to 90 of 112
-
2024-05-16, 03:08 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2015
- Location
- Texas
- Gender
Re: What work cemented the visual look of western dragons?
No love for Vermithrax?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ermithraxp.jpgAvatar by linklele. How Teleport Worksa. Malifice (paraphrased):
Rulings are not 'House Rules.' Rulings are a DM doing what DMs are supposed to do.
b. greenstone (paraphrased):
Agency means that they {players} control their character's actions; you control the world's reactions to the character's actions.
Second known member of the Greyview Appreciation Society
-
2024-05-16, 03:39 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2007
- Location
- San Antonio, Texas
- Gender
Re: What work cemented the visual look of western dragons?
One thing I find interesting is prescriptivism about what is and is not a dragon.
Consider, for example, the dragons of Skyrim... arguably one of the most prominent representations of dragons in the last decade. And I still had to argue with my 9 year old that, yes, they are dragons, even though they don't have six limbs and a tail. Kid has never lived in a world without Skyrim dragons... and trying to tell me they aren't dragons because they have four limbs.The Cranky Gamer
*It isn't realism, it's verisimilitude; the appearance of truth within the framework of the game.
*Picard management tip: Debate honestly. The goal is to arrive at the truth, not at your preconception.
*Mutant Dawn for Savage Worlds!
*The One Deck Engine: Gaming on a budget
Written by Me on DriveThru RPG
There are almost 400,000 threads on this site. If you need me to address a thread as a moderator, include a link.
-
2024-05-16, 04:43 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
- Location
- Birmingham, AL
- Gender
Re: What work cemented the visual look of western dragons?
-
2024-05-16, 04:47 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2023
Re: What work cemented the visual look of western dragons?
Honestly, given Tolkien's statements that Fafnir and Beowulf's Dragons are the only 'real' dragons I don't know if the St. George story was his biggest influence.
Frankly, I think Vermithrax can be entirely credited to the popularity of the Wyvern bodyplan in modern media, I don't think we see ASOIAF's Dragons or Skyrim's Dragons or even the film version of Smaug looking like they do without her influence. Some of those we have direct quotes for (Martin's spoken about how Vermithrax is his favourite dragon and several dragons in Fire and Blood (Vermax, Vermithor) are named for her, Reign of Fire concept artists are on record saying they based their dragons on her) and some of those I'm less certain for (although given the non-zero amount of ASOIAF in Skyrim I'd say Vermithrax is a grandparent even if she's not a direct ancestor).
I was also right about the Pterosaur influence, they looked at Rhamphorynchus as a guide for Vermithrax's flight profile. It's really cool how the discovery of extinct non-avian flying reptiles has informed how we design dragons.
Sure, but that's classic nerd pedantry. Back when I was a kid and Skyrim had just come out I was doing the exact same nonsense, and it happens for more than just dragons. Humans love making boxes to put things into.
I do wonder where the "Wyvern / Dragon" distinction even came from though. Heraldry maybe?Last edited by Errorname; 2024-05-16 at 04:53 PM.
-
2024-05-16, 05:30 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2016
Re: What work cemented the visual look of western dragons?
"If you want to understand biology don't think about vibrant throbbing gels and oozes, think about information technology" -Richard Dawkins
Omegaupdate Forum
WoTC Forums Archive + Indexing Projext
PostImage, a free and sensible alternative to Photobucket
Temple+ Modding Project for Atari's Temple of Elemental Evil
Morrus' RPG Forum (EN World v2)
-
2024-05-16, 07:08 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2012
- Gender
Re: What work cemented the visual look of western dragons?
Mechalich brought up the idea back on the first page, and it does seem solid.
But the wikipedia article does suggest the changes to heraldry, which started with dragons having a random mish-mash of limbs and other features, came from the spread of bestiaries. So some medieval nerd wrote a book making a distinction and it got spread around and became so popular it influenced other medieval nerds who wrote more books and eventually influenced the nerds who composed heraldic devices for the nobles.
To me this makes more sense than for the heraldic distinctions to come first, because if dragon just meant 'reptilian beast' in heraldry then that is still a workable definition, for the distinction between a dragon and a wyvern to make sense requires that people could fail to recognise one if both were being called dragons, so there must have been an idea of a properdragon already forming for the heraldry to be compared to.Sanity is nice to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.
-
2024-05-16, 08:18 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2023
Re: What work cemented the visual look of western dragons?
While on the subject of paleontology influencing dragon designs I want to shout out Caraxes from HOTD for his four-winged paravian inspired design. Microraptorians had a cool wing arrangement and applying it to a dragon resulted in the best looking dragon in a show with some pretty cool dragon designs.
-
2024-05-16, 10:09 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2016
-
2024-05-16, 10:22 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2023
Re: What work cemented the visual look of western dragons?
-
2024-05-16, 11:14 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2016
Re: What work cemented the visual look of western dragons?
"If you want to understand biology don't think about vibrant throbbing gels and oozes, think about information technology" -Richard Dawkins
Omegaupdate Forum
WoTC Forums Archive + Indexing Projext
PostImage, a free and sensible alternative to Photobucket
Temple+ Modding Project for Atari's Temple of Elemental Evil
Morrus' RPG Forum (EN World v2)
-
2024-05-17, 02:52 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2009
Re: What work cemented the visual look of western dragons?
Dragon just means serpent
Coatl just means serpent.
So the problem with this argument is it is really only in the West for the past few centuries that you could arguably not call a dragon a serpent so that's the culture should either revert to the snakey Greek form or stop squatting on the word and pretending these... scaly lizard cat things are any sort of dragon.
(Incidentially Coatls are seemingly a DND thing, Quezalcoatl is the dragon god of Mesoamerica but doesn't have dragon friends that I can discover)
-
2024-05-17, 05:01 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2012
- Gender
Re: What work cemented the visual look of western dragons?
Sanity is nice to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.
-
2024-05-17, 03:39 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2023
Re: What work cemented the visual look of western dragons?
The feathered serpent is a recurring cultural motif in multiple mesoamerican cultures, so there is more than one, but it's a lot more akin to different cultures expressing the concept of 'storm god' differently rather than a race of monsters.
Although pluralizing singular monsters is a fantasy staple as this point, hardly unique to Quetzalcoatl, although that his original conception was as a top god makes it unique. I can't say I've run across many games where a "zeus" was a recurring sort of enemy.
-
2024-05-17, 03:45 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
- Location
- Birmingham, AL
- Gender
Re: What work cemented the visual look of western dragons?
The Mod on the Silver Mountain: Let's move away from real-world religions and gods.
-
2024-05-17, 05:52 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2015
Re: What work cemented the visual look of western dragons?
'Really big snake' is a very common artistic motif in pretty much all human cultures where snakes are found in the environment, since snakes are by far the deadliest animal to humans in the world (not counting mosquitos, because in that case the diseases are the actor). Humans are more afraid of snakes that pretty much any other animal, something that can be demonstrated psychologically using recognition tests. That this motif evolved into a variety of different forms in different areas, with enough cross-cultural contact in Eurasia to unite a lot of them under the 'dragon' umbrella is pretty normal.
-
2024-05-20, 01:53 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2009
Re: What work cemented the visual look of western dragons?
Fun fact: Dragons in Far to the North have venomous bites in addition to being able to breath fire. In appearance they are "typical" dragons, but in other ways they are very different from any other dragons I've read about.
Spoiler: FttNDragon reproduction is a bit more like vampiric reproduction. Dragon venom can kill human men, or at least destroy some of their bodies. But human boys who get dragon venom in their body actually turn into young dragons.
Female humans are not affected in the same way by dragon venom. So far it is unknown if dragon venom affects girls at all, though the author has given hints outside the comic that if we get a sequel, she will provide a clear answer in the story. There's also so far no hint in the comic as to what dragon venom does to enbies, though again the author has hinted that she knows the answer and will reveal it in a later volume.
-
2024-05-20, 03:24 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
Re: What work cemented the visual look of western dragons?
If only dragons were real that would be awesome.
It's time to get my Magikarp on!
-
2024-05-20, 04:04 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2007
- Location
- The Land of Cleves
- Gender
Re: What work cemented the visual look of western dragons?
I think there are two different questions being conflated, here. What most people seem to be answering is when the modern dragon body plan first appeared. But that's not what the OP is asking; the question is about when that dragon became the standard. It's a very different question: Sure, there were modern-style dragons in the Middle Ages, but there were also creatures like this
Spoiler
that got called dragons, too (that's the original Tarrasque, for all us D&D players).
In other words, when did non-modern-style dragons (mostly) stop appearing?Last edited by Chronos; 2024-05-20 at 04:06 PM. Reason: Spoilered large image
Time travels in divers paces with divers persons.
—As You Like It, III:ii:328
Chronos's Unalliterative Skillmonkey Guide
Current Homebrew: 5th edition psionics
-
2024-05-20, 04:18 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2015
Re: What work cemented the visual look of western dragons?
They never stopped appearing, they stopped being called dragons. The reason is heraldry, which was obligated to define what the various animal devices appearing on coats of arms were, with codification taking place gradually but being pretty much locked in place by the end of the 15th century. In British Heraldry, specifically, which matters for the English-speaking world, a dragon was defined as a four-legged creature. Creatures of similar appearance, such as the wyvern, cockatrice, and basilisk were defined as 'not dragons' for the purpose of heraldry.
-
2024-05-20, 04:41 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
-
2024-05-20, 04:49 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2007
- Location
- The Land of Cleves
- Gender
Re: What work cemented the visual look of western dragons?
On thinking about it some more, there is one notable exception: A highly-iconic modern dragon, that is massively large, with fore and hind limbs, a weaponized long tail, and a breath weapon... but with a short neck and no wings.
Time travels in divers paces with divers persons.
—As You Like It, III:ii:328
Chronos's Unalliterative Skillmonkey Guide
Current Homebrew: 5th edition psionics
-
2024-05-20, 04:56 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
- Location
- Birmingham, AL
- Gender
Re: What work cemented the visual look of western dragons?
-
2024-05-20, 05:01 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2023
Re: What work cemented the visual look of western dragons?
This also got reinforced by the need for games to have bestiaries of distinct enemy monsters, so a lot of splitting and taxonomization happened with loose folkloric concepts. With Dragons that was mostly colour coding the stock dragon, since so much of the work of splitting 'dragon' up had already been done.
Wings are very important to the modern dragon, and Godzilla has always been more of a dinosaur.Last edited by Errorname; 2024-05-20 at 05:06 PM.
-
2024-05-20, 05:11 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
-
2024-05-20, 05:38 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2009
Re: What work cemented the visual look of western dragons?
Fun fact: Godzilla has used the atomic breath like a rocket to fly. Probably jumped over several sharks during that flight
(Sorry for the sound in that clip, I could not find any better)
-
2024-05-20, 05:41 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
Re: What work cemented the visual look of western dragons?
Godzilla is close to a dragon though in my opinion.
It's time to get my Magikarp on!
-
2024-05-20, 08:06 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2023
Re: What work cemented the visual look of western dragons?
-
2024-05-20, 08:21 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
- Location
- Birmingham, AL
- Gender
-
2024-05-20, 08:30 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
Re: What work cemented the visual look of western dragons?
Ok. That sounds reasonable and valid.
Are you serious or are you joking? But I'll play along anyway. Dragons are magical, so no, and also you're a dragon yourself Peelee. Speaking of which, why did you ask me those questions anyway? I'm not angry at you at all but I'm just curious.It's time to get my Magikarp on!
-
2024-05-20, 09:04 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2013
- Gender
Re: What work cemented the visual look of western dragons?
“Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”