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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mecheon" data-source="post: 9446196" data-attributes="member: 6801776">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 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat#/media/File:Big-eared-townsend-fledermaus.jpg" target="_blank">bat wings</a>.That's the long and short of it. No lizard or snake has ever evolved flying structures (I acknowledge there have been <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draco_(lizard)" target="_blank">many</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weigeltisauridae" target="_blank">many</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharovipteryx" target="_blank">many</a> gliding lizards, but none of these have structures like dragon wings), and while archosaurs have, the wings of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pterosaur#/media/File:Cast_of_Rhamphorhynchus_muensteri_02_-_Pterosaurs_Flight_in_the_Age_of_Dinosaurs.jpg" target="_blank">pterosaurs </a>and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird#/media/File:Archaeopteryx_lithographica_(Berlin_specimen).jpg" target="_blank">birds </a>are completely different to those of dragonsGiven 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 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimetrodon#/media/File:Dimetrodon_grandis_3D_Model_Reconstruction.png" target="_blank">Dimetrodon</a>, 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, mammalsThey had it coming.Dragonborn and Lizardmen have different niches though? Dragonborn are the Klingon niche, proud noble warrior folks who are recognisably such</blockquote>

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