D&D General Dragonborn Physical Features

[Scribe]

it is more I do not see much of fantasy fiction that is fantastic beyond damn magic or monsters they could try other things

Besides Magic, and Monsters what exactly are you looking for out of Fantasy???

 

[Mecheon]

Yeah, same on both counts. Whether dragons are exactly lizards or not, they nevertheless look like reptiles, so mixing in mammalian features is just weird.

I'm sorry to drag this in from a while ago but, dragons don't really look fully reptilian, and every single winged dragon in D&D's history has had a mammalian feature.

Right so we're going to have to talk about what exactly is a 'reptile' here but, D&D's done a push pretty constantly that dragons don't work like lizards or even archosaurs: birds, crocodiles, and their extinct relatives. Yes, birds are reptiles if we're using 'reptile' in strictest sense, hence why I'll split "lizards and snakes" as distinct from them. Turtles are also another distinct group of reptiles who's relationship is muddy, but given Tortle haven't come up in this thread I don't think we need to go down that rabbit hole.

The 3.5 Draconomicon mentioned their legs functioned more like those of felines than anything, and while I absolutely could bring an absolute liteny of evidence about how the pillar-like legs and stance of dragons excludes them pretty conclusively from anything lizards and snakes and negates any lizardfolk debate there simply enough (pushing towards either an archosaur or out-of-reptile relation), there's a far large and more blatent structure they all share that no reptile has ever evolved in its life.

The wings. Dragon wings are bat wings.

That's the long and short of it. No lizard or snake has ever evolved flying structures (I acknowledge there have been many, many, many gliding lizards, but none of these have structures like dragon wings), and while archosaurs have, the wings of pterosaurs and birds are completely different to those of dragons

Given their overall structure being outside of any lizard that has ever been and the presence of a mammalian wing structure, not to mention an explicitly feline bone structure, dragons are clearly a late hold over from early Synapsidia, sharing relation with things like Dimetrodon, which share a similar upright stance (per trackway evidence) but aren't reptiles in any definition of the word. While Dimetrodon itself is generally agreed to not have scales, other earliy Synapsids did. Modern Synapsids are, of course, mammals

Why is there an anti halfling rant in the middle of the not-dragon-enough people talk?

They had it coming.

I'm sorry but they are not close at all. Lizardmen and Dragonborn are closer, and Lizardmen make a ton more sense as a core option/trope.

Dragonborn and Lizardmen have different niches though? Dragonborn are the Klingon niche, proud noble warrior folks who are recognisably such

 

[Scribe]

Dragonborn and Lizardmen have different niches though? Dragonborn are the Klingon niche, proud noble warrior folks who are recognisably such

Feels like that's the Orc niche, or Goliath niche just as much as it is the Dragonborn niche.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Dragons are highly active hexapods. They are as far beyond lizards as we are beyond fish.

 

[Scribe]

Given their overall structure being outside of any lizard that has ever been and the presence of a mammalian wing structure, not to mention an explicitly feline bone structure, dragons are clearly a late hold over from early Synapsidia, sharing relation with things like Dimetrodon, which share a similar upright stance (per trackway evidence) but aren't reptiles in any definition of the word. While Dimetrodon itself is generally agreed to not have scales, other earliy Synapsids did. Modern Synapsids are, of course, mammals

 

[Mecheon]

Feels like that's the Orc niche, or Goliath niche just as much as it is the Dragonborn niche.

Orcs are orcs, they own the niche already, also a bit of barbarian wild-man to it that you can toy around with, but they absolutely don't have 'nobility' to it, while dragonborn do

Goliaths are either half-giants or wilderness survialists which, once again, doesn't have that noble warrior group to it.

Dragons are highly active hexapods. They are as far beyond lizards as we are beyond fish.

They don't share structure with hexapoda (insects and a bunch of not-insects) at all so we can infer they're a group of synapsids who independantly evolved another pair of limbs, possibly due to the interferance of magic. See also their relatives, the Hydras, who maintain what we can infer as the ancestral Dracomorpha (Dragons and their relatives) body plan, but have instead multiple heads. Drakes are theoretically fore-runners to this, while I'd say given their eloganted form, Lung are related closer to those ancestral forms than to modern dragons

I could do a listing of the various groups and how it all interlinks.

I have Sacabambaspis as an avatar. I can and will go off on crazed paleontology explanations at the drop of a hat.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I'm sorry to drag this in from a while ago but, dragons don't really look fully reptilian, and every single winged dragon in D&D's history has had a mammalian feature.

Right so we're going to have to talk about what exactly is a 'reptile' here but, D&D's done a push pretty constantly that dragons don't work like lizards or even archosaurs: birds, crocodiles, and their extinct relatives. Yes, birds are reptiles if we're using 'reptile' in strictest sense, hence why I'll split "lizards and snakes" as distinct from them. Turtles are also another distinct group of reptiles who's relationship is muddy, but given Tortle haven't come up in this thread I don't think we need to go down that rabbit hole.

The 3.5 Draconomicon mentioned their legs functioned more like those of felines than anything, and while I absolutely could bring an absolute liteny of evidence about how the pillar-like legs and stance of dragons excludes them pretty conclusively from anything lizards and snakes and negates any lizardfolk debate there simply enough (pushing towards either an archosaur or out-of-reptile relation), there's a far large and more blatent structure they all share that no reptile has ever evolved in its life.

The wings. Dragon wings are bat wings.

That's the long and short of it. No lizard or snake has ever evolved flying structures (I acknowledge there have been many, many, many gliding lizards, but none of these have structures like dragon wings), and while archosaurs have, the wings of pterosaurs and birds are completely different to those of dragons

Given their overall structure being outside of any lizard that has ever been and the presence of a mammalian wing structure, not to mention an explicitly feline bone structure, dragons are clearly a late hold over from early Synapsidia, sharing relation with things like Dimetrodon, which share a similar upright stance (per trackway evidence) but aren't reptiles in any definition of the word. While Dimetrodon itself is generally agreed to not have scales, other earliy Synapsids did. Modern Synapsids are, of course, mammals

Dragons are commonly referred as "fire-breathing lizards." Of course a hexapod is not an actual reptile in real taxonomy sense, but they are perceived as reptile-like for obvious reasons.

Dragonborn and Lizardmen have different niches though? Dragonborn are the Klingon niche, proud noble warrior folks who are recognisably such

Nah. I already have the orcs for the fantasy klingons.

 

[Mecheon]

Dragons are commonly referred as "fire-breathing lizards." Of course a hexapod is not an actual reptile in real taxonomy sense, but they are perceived as reptile-like for obvious reasons.

Bats and pidgeons are commonly referred as 'flying rats', but that's still wrong on both halves. Dragons are clearly completely unrelated to the lizard side of sauropsidia, and don't even physically function like any lizard, even wyvern-esque ones can't be lizards due to the blatent mammalian features they share. An archosaurian identity is easier to argue for if you're wanting to keep in sauropsids, which'd put them in with birds and crocodiles, but stem-mammal makes the wings make more sense

Nah. I already have the orcs for the fantasy klingons.

I'd argue orcs fill a different niche and 'orc' is powerful enough on its own that it's its own niche, but, you do you

I will defend dragons being nothing like lizards however, because nerdy spec zoology is my jam

 

[Crimson Longinus]

@Mecheon dragons are "nothing like lizards" in the same way than the pegasi are nothing like horses.

 

[Mecheon]

@Mecheon dragons are "nothing like lizards" in the same way than the pegasi are nothing like horses.

If a dragon was just a winged lizard we wouldn't be having this discussion but, they're not even built like lizards. Physically they're nothing the same? They're more like dinosaurs if anything, and if you say dinosaurs are lizards? That is wrong in every sense of the word. Dinosaurs are achosaurs, not squamates.

Like. Okay. Lizards, right? One half of squamates, along with snakes. Here's a bunch. You'll notice their legs always have that bent thing to them and go off to the side. Lizards physically cannot hold their bodies that high off the ground. Modern lizards have what we call a sprawling posture, which you can see in them given the way their legs sprawl to the side.

You may argue crocodiles but! Crocodiles aren't lizards. They're archosaurs. They're closer relatives of birds than lizards. So we can disregard crocodiles entirely because we're talking Lizards.

Here's the most recent dragon artwork. You'll notice dragons do not sprawl. Dragons have tall, pillar-like erect legs that go under them. This is not the condition that lizards have.

Which of these three leg postures looks more like that of a dragon's stance? Lizards only have the one of the left, and I'd argue the middle and right ones are closer to how dragons are portrayed. That isn't a lizard like stance. Therefore? Dragons aren't lizards.

The only way 'dragons are just winged lizards' works is if you disregard the artwork and lore entirely. Crocodiles are not lizards. Dinosaurs are not lizards. Turtles are not lizards. Dragons are not lizards. Heck, even D&D back in 2E said they're closer to dinosaurs and equates dragonkin like Hydras to being 'crocodile like', which puts them squarely outside of lizards entirely