D&D General Companion Thread to D&D Survivor: Dragons, Metallic

[Seramus]

so the silver dragon's burden so to speak with all the horror that would mean.

Silver dragons fall in love with humanoids at a pretty hilarious rate. It's possibly their most common literary trope. Most of them seem to treat the humanoids as equals, but an outside observer might be hard pressed to not see it as a Pet Owner situation. Like any elf that falls in love with a human, what could they possibly see in such an immature creature?

An example of silvers looking down on people would probably be... the Talons of Justice. Primarily a bunch of silver dragon paladins (who served a gold dragon of course), they were a pretty imperious bunch.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Honestly, did you expect anything else? This sort of thing happens all the time in this kind of thread. Anything even vaguely nontraditional gets destroyed; even if it's one of the good, well-made ones, it'll get bombed to oblivion in the proverbial semifinals. When people dogpiled the Stars Druid simply because it was nontraditional, that pretty much broke my will to ever really see anything fun or interesting come out of these threads.

honestly same, I wish for more down votes so I can take down more tradition options.

Silver dragons fall in love with humanoids at a pretty hilarious rate. It's possibly their most common literary trope. Most of them seem to treat the humanoids as equals, but an outside observer might be hard pressed to not see it as a Pet Owner situation. Like any elf that falls in love with a human, what could they possibly see in such an immature creature?

An example of silvers looking down on people would probably be... the Talons of Justice. Primarily a bunch of silver dragon paladins (who served a gold dragon of course), they were a pretty imperious bunch.

yeah, the first half can get super dark really fast, my knowledge on the subject is limited but I know the level of unfortunate implications of it or how dark it can go.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Wow, only the garbage dragons are left. Oh well, it's a race to the bottom of the barrel!

I mean it was so from the get go. All the good dragons already were in the chromatic thread.

 

[Tonguez]

I mean it was so from the get go. All the good dragons already were in the chromatic thread.

yeah pretty much

though my favourites are still Tien lung and Song

 

[EzekielRaiden]

yeah pretty much

though my favourites are still Tien lung and Song

Conversely, I don't understand why metallics get so much hate, while chromatics are 99.9% dull Saturday morning cartoon villains in my experience. They don't even reach "magnificent bastard" status.

 

[Maxperson]

Conversely, I don't understand why metallics get so much hate, while chromatics are 99.9% dull Saturday morning cartoon villains in my experience. They don't even reach "magnificent bastard" status.

Is it really fair to say that metallics are getting a lot of hate when the top 5 dragons in the survivor thread are all metallic dragons?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Is it really fair to say that metallics are getting a lot of hate when the top 5 dragons in the survivor thread are all metallic dragons?

Outside of this thread? Yes, entirely fair.

Also, inside this thread? It would be shocking to see anything else, considering all of the options were metallic!

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Conversely, I don't understand why metallics get so much hate, while chromatics are 99.9% dull Saturday morning cartoon villains in my experience. They don't even reach "magnificent bastard" status.

To me the metallics are just unnecessary and aesthetically unappealing duplication of chromatics. They are borne out of the silly alignment system as you needed good and evil version of each dragon, and once you get rid of that, you can also get rid of the metallics as the better looking chromatics can now have any morality. Though one setting I had metallics and chromatics with matching breath weapons to to actually be two genders of the same dragon species.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

To me the metallics are just unnecessary and aesthetically unappealing duplication of chromatics. They are borne out of the silly alignment system as you needed good and evil version of each dragon, and once you get rid of that, you can also get rid of the metallics as the better looking chromatics can now have any morality. Though one setting I had metallics and chromatics with matching breath weapons to to actually be two genders of the same dragon species.

Whereas I find metallic dragons far more aesthetically appealing (especially if you change "brass" and "bronze" dragons to something like cobalt and iron, so that there's far more color variety). White (beaky and brutish) and black (literally skeleton faces) dragons both look quite ugly to me, and blue and green are sorely dependent on artist (sometimes they look fine, and sometimes they look butt-ugly). Only reds are consistently impressive. Conversely, I don't think any of the metallic dragons looks ugly.

I also don't--at all--see metallic dragons as "borne out of the silly alignment system." Even if there weren't chromatic dragons at all, metallic dragons still have value as Big Good types, something that is sorely lacking in nice, ready-to-hand archetypes for people to draw on. (Literally the only other classic Big Goods are God Himself, Santa Claus, the Good General, and the Good King/Judge/Officer/[insert official authority figure here].) The personalities of the chromatics, even in the absence of alignment, wouldn't ever be able to mesh with that role. All chromatics are cruel. They are literally an embodiment of the worst excesses of the rich and powerful, capricious, rapacious, often brutish, always haughty. Metallic dragons are an embodiment of the rich and powerful at their best, sharing, building others up, hoarding knowledge and beauty rather than crass wealth (hence my special love of gold dragons), dedicating themselves to tackling the worst of life's problems.

Trying to have both of these things embodied in the exact same dragons just makes the whole thing a muddy, incoherent mess. Which, yes, is much more like real life, but we don't generally tell fantastical stories of heroism and bravery and desperate last stands that are set in the real world. We set them in fantasy for a reason: to inspire. We set them there in the hope that the child who has absorbed these sentiments throughout their life becomes the adult who tries to make the real world just a little bit more like the fantasy in the few moments where they have such a choice.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Whereas I find metallic dragons far more aesthetically appealing (especially if you change "brass" and "bronze" dragons to something like cobalt and iron, so that there's far more color variety). White (beaky and brutish) and black (literally skeleton faces) dragons both look quite ugly to me, and blue and green are sorely dependent on artist (sometimes they look fine, and sometimes they look butt-ugly). Only reds are consistently impressive. Conversely, I don't think any of the metallic dragons looks ugly.

I think metallic colouring just looks unnatural and weird on animal, and I don't like it. Sure, I can imagine a bit of beetle-like sheen, but full metal just is garish and cartoony to me. I like my weird fantasy creatures to feel grounded. I also am not married to the exact artistic depictions from the books, those have varied over the years anyway. In my current setting I've taken dragons aesthetically a step towards dinosaurs to make them feel more like real animals that just happen to be fantastic.

I also don't--at all--see metallic dragons as "borne out of the silly alignment system." Even if there weren't chromatic dragons at all, metallic dragons still have value as Big Good types, something that is sorely lacking in nice, ready-to-hand archetypes for people to draw on.

Isn't that literally about the alignment?

(Literally the only other classic Big Goods are God Himself, Santa Claus, the Good General, and the Good King/Judge/Officer/[insert official authority figure here].) The personalities of the chromatics, even in the absence of alignment, wouldn't ever be able to mesh with that role.

Super powerful "good guys" generally is not a thing I much want to have in my settings. I want the PCs to be the ones who have to sort things out, and I don't want the value of that to be lessened by there being mighty forces of good that could have done the same with ease and definitely would should the PCs fail.

All chromatics are cruel. They are literally an embodiment of the worst excesses of the rich and powerful, capricious, rapacious, often brutish, always haughty. Metallic dragons are an embodiment of the rich and powerful at their best, sharing, building others up, hoarding knowledge and beauty rather than crass wealth (hence my special love of gold dragons), dedicating themselves to tackling the worst of life's problems.

Trying to have both of these things embodied in the exact same dragons just makes the whole thing a muddy, incoherent mess. Which, yes, is much more like real life, but we don't generally tell fantastical stories of heroism and bravery and desperate last stands that are set in the real world. We set them in fantasy for a reason: to inspire. We set them there in the hope that the child who has absorbed these sentiments throughout their life becomes the adult who tries to make the real world just a little bit more like the fantasy in the few moments where they have such a choice.

Nah. I really dislike this sort of simplistic binary. People (and dragons) can have their negative traits and their positive traits, they're complex. and sure, some might have way more toxic traits than benign ones or vice versa. But I definitely don't want that to be determinable by the colour of one's skin!

I stand by my assertion that metallics just exist due slot filling for alignment system, and nothing you said has dissuaded me from that. You seemed just repeat the simplistic good vs evil binary that alignment system fosters. If you like that, good for you, but it is not for me.