It probably said "Death to Gnome Paladins!"
D&D General Are dragons wings too small/little?
Bill Zebub
“It’s probably Matt Mercer’s fault.”
Man, you guys must be fun to watch a movie with! Sometimes, and it's pretty often, you should just set aside concerns over realism and have fun. Just immerse yourself and have fun.
“Stop the movie! Stop the movie! Explosions don’t go BOOM! in a vacuum!”
(That was the caption of a one-frame comic I loved.)
That is a fair point. Flying is much more energy-intensive than walking.It would take an awful lot of both energy (which is where the circulation etc. questions come in) and wingspan to get that off the ground.
However, I don't think it calls for any additional magic to address it. If we are already invoking unobtainium to make the dragon's body lighter and stronger by a (combined) factor of 10 or more, those same properties will make it much, much easier to meet its circulatory needs. 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.
That's what we're doing right here in this thread. If you don't like it, no one's forcing you to participate.
LordEntrails
Hero
You forgot to include my smiley face. It means I am having fun with you. You, and others in this thread, are not being attacked or put down because of this discussion. It was an attempt at a bit of humor, i.e. just immerse yourself in this thread and have fun.
Oofta
Legend
That depends, doesn't it? Flying is much more energy-intensive for certain things, but many birds simply soar which requires little or no energy.
Isn't unobtanium just another word for supernatural? It comes back to supernatural being the easiest explanation.
You could, in theory, have something similar to dragons without unobtanium if they not only had hollow bones but bones and air sacs filled with hydrogen to give them buoyancy. They can bleed off some of that hydrogen which, along with some other substance, ignites in order to create fire. You'd probably also have to get rid of the front legs though, because the muscles and anchor points needed for the wings would interfere with the front legs.
However, that dragon would likely be quite fragile. Assuming they could get to be the size of the quetzalcoatlus (the pterosaur as tall as a small airplane and as tall as a giraffe) they could still be plenty terrifying though.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Once they get up there, sure.That depends, doesn't it? Flying is much more energy-intensive for certain things, but many birds simply soar which requires little or no energy.
But they have to get some air under them first...
Or could the front legs almost be retractable, such that when it's flying they look like little Tyrannosaur arms* but when on the ground they extend into something more sizeable/useful/menacing?
* - or, if some of the anchoring musculature is shared with the wings, they fold up against the wings when in flight then come out almost as "landing gear" when approaching the ground?
Yes - great big glass cannons, which (maybe or maybe not coincidentally) is kind of how Gygax designed them right from the start. Very interesting take.
Yes. This being a fantasy setting, I'm assuming that the unobtainium is a magical substance rather than the product of fictional technology.
Yes, this is the Peter Dickinson/"Flight of Dragons" model discussed upthread. It has interesting ramifications, but the resulting dragon is very different from what we're familiar with.
Air is roughly 0.1% the density of flesh. That means, for every cubic centimeter of flesh you want to lift, you need 1,000 cubic centimeters* of hydrogen. A few sacs here and there won't cut it; the dragon's entire body must be a blimp, with a hydrogen cavity enclosed by the thinnest possible layer of flesh. Interestingly, this means the square-cube law is now working in reverse. The dragon's flight now becomes more efficient as the dragon gets bigger (the hydrogen cavity's lift grows as the cube of the dragon's length, but the weight of the fleshy shell around it grows as the square). The only limit on the dragon's size is when its heart can no longer keep that huge shell of tissue supplied with blood.
This means a dragon which is absolutely gigantic, but also very fragile. Any wound means air gets into the cavity and mixes with the hydrogen, which a) reduces the dragon's ability to fly and b) means it now contains an explosive mix of hydrogen and oxygen. In a battle, it could very easily ignite itself with its own breath weapon. Flaming arrows would be utterly lethal, both to the dragon and to anyone nearby.
It also means the dragon would fly like a fish rather than a bird, literally swimming through the air. It would probably dispense with limbs altogether, except maybe some vestigial fins to help it steer. It would not move quickly, and it would be largely at the mercy of wind and weather. Watching its approach would be eerie; a gargantuan levitating serpent coiling lazily through the sky, very like the Chinese portrayal and not at all like Western dragons.
*Actually slightly more, since hydrogen is 7% the density of air rather than 0%.
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Vaalingrade
Legend
As a creature whose primary habitat is sweet T-shirts and the sides of vans, the real advantage is having wings of an aesthetically pleasing size.
dave2008
Legend
Well sure, but in your example unobtainium = magical IMO. There is not relevant difference between impossible/unknown materials and magical materials.
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.
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