D&D General Are dragons wings too small/little?

[dave2008]

Never said there was. Nothing about "unobtainium" is exclusive of "magical material." It just means a material with desired properties for a given application (e.g., constructing a working dragon), which does not exist in reality.

I thought you were arguing it didn't need to be magical. Regardless, I see this was already discussed before I responded so no need to clarify again.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

In case nobody brought it up, the 3e Draconomicon goes fairly deep into dragon physiology. There are a few different points that relate to flight, but the most important one is that they have an internal organ (with a faux Latin name) that channels elemental energy, which empowers both their flight and their breath weapons.

While the book has a lot of 3e crunch, the first 1/3 to 1/2 is useful for players of other editions.

I can't remember much about the 2e Draconomicon, so I don't know if it addressed the flight question, but I know it was smaller, mostly fluff, and I also enjoyed it. (I like dragons; a lot.)

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Blood that is 20% the density of normal blood should require far less energy to pump through a large body; and the dragon's arteries and veins could withstand much higher blood pressure than a normal animal's.

Though generally speaking dragon blood is depicted as being just as dense as regular blood, if not moreso, and possibly resistant to coagulation, way moreso than the Blood of St. Januarius (as in, staying a mobile liquid all the time, if kept in a closed container.)

You get other stuff too. Dragons are saturated with magic, to the point that their whole anatomy has it. Blood, scales, humors, sinew, bone, everything.

 

[Dausuul]

Though generally speaking dragon blood is depicted as being just as dense as regular blood, if not moreso, and possibly resistant to coagulation, way moreso than the Blood of St. Januarius (as in, staying a mobile liquid all the time, if kept in a closed container.)

Blood makes up about 10% of an animal's weight, and one of the things we need unobtainium for is to drastically reduce the dragon's density.

The scale I described above was a 40-foot body, 200-foot wingspan. If you look at Drogon in "Game of Thrones," he seems about that size or a bit bigger (his season 8 length is given as 150 feet, but only about one-third of this is body, with neck and tail making up the rest). At this scale, you need the dragon to be 20% of the weight of a normal animal, so you could achieve the necessary lightness without altering the blood.

To go much beyond that, however -- if you want dragons on the scale of Vhagar or Smaug -- the blood has to change. Either it must be less dense, or the dragon must have a lot less of it. Either way reduces the amount of work required to pump it.

I was assuming we would simply be reducing density across the board, so everything including blood is 20% (or 10%, or less) of normal weight.

 

[LordEntrails]

But dragons ARE magical... Most of them cast spells.

Why not levitate/teleport, featherfall, glide? That would be an easy way for anything to "fly". Dragon's could have been using such methods for so long that evolution has made it an innate ability for them and doesn't require separate spells (or casting) for them anymore.

Or dragon blood is not as dense as human blood. Or dragon's blood has a magical anti-gravity effect, or...

I just don't see any reason to try and figure out a non-magical way for dragons to fly.