Dragons. Dragons. Dragons.

[Wizards of the Coast]

Dragons! Jon starts the discussion rolling about dragons with his own insights and opinions about dragons in D&D Next. Read what he has to say, then add your own thoughts to the discussion.

Read Dragons. Dragons. Dragons. on D&D Insider here!

 

[I'm A Banana]

Lockwood. By a mile.

I think the contrast actually gets to a big, broader point for me in monster design: I want my monsters to look like they inhabit the world, not like they're just monstrous and rampaging.

This applies to all of the monsters, but that's part of what Lockwood's illustration has for me. It's not just trying to rip the face off the viewer, it's inhabiting its own concerns.

And, to me, the red dragon has always been the archetypal avaricious, powerful dragon. Supremely confident, immensely petty, and utterly ruthless.

The newer version of the Red looks like Every Other Monster, and it doesn't look like it exists except to fight and kill. The Lockwood version has got bigger concerns than the little thing fleeing from it -- plans, plots, machinations, interests beyond the adventure at hand.

That's essential for me. Vital. I want to get a sense of the world, not just RAR I'M A MONSTER GRRR.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

This article explains why so many of the creatures we've seen have had ridiculous musculature. How many creatures in nature have such hideously visible muscles? I'm all for the red dragon being pictured in a brutal moment of rage, but it doesn't have to look so steroid-induced.

 

[JeffB]

I have more facepalm moments with this guy's articles than anyone working on NEXT. I then realized he has been doing this since the beginning of 3E for WOTC, which now explains why I have hated the aesthetic of DnD for the past 12 years. He is responsible for awesome visuals like Dungeonpunk. Yay.

Generic look of previous dragons? Sutherland's dragon concepts and art was as varied as it is today. It WAS the prototype for differing dragons. He needs to go take a look at the original MM and get a clue.

 

[avin]

Such powerful muscles seem wrong for creatures who rely on fly. Let the bulkier versions of dragon for Lynnorms and wingless versions.

 

[Klaus]

I'll jsut quote myself from the article:

Love Big Red. The neck-body-tail throughline looks connected and continuous, and I like the head/neck proportions (hate big head/skinny neck dragons).

Someone mentioned the 4e Green Dragon. I think just a minor adjustment to the nose spike would be enough to "fix" it.

BTW, my favorite dragon rendition is Vermithrax Pejorative (from Dragonslayer) followed by the dragons in Reign of Fire. Let's see how The Hobbit's Smaug fares against them.

 

[gweinel]

The red dragon is more beasty than i like. It is like you face a ferocious savage monster and not a monster that once ruled the world with great amount of intelligence, wisdom and charisma. Although i am not sure if the regal look is fitting for the red dragon, i prefer lockwood version which the dragon seems intelligent and the powerfull than the dragon from the scetch.

 

[Zaukrie]

Lockwoods is too regal for me. The red is no longer a ruler, but neither is it just a brute. The biceps on the new art look stupid, super stupid. Nothing about that is something I like. Awful. And I have liked most of the articles. Really hate the biceps. I do Luke the thick neck and angry face, but remember, these are fliers.

 

[Jester David]

The muscles are too much, but Reds aren't thinkers and manipulators. They are monsters. He's at a 7 and we need him at a 5.

But the Lockwood dragon's look might be better suited to a Green or Black.
Which might be an interesting change: not just varying dragons by their head shape but by their musculature. Reds and whites are bulkier than blues and blacks who are bulkier than greens.

Picking the Red Dragon is also a bit of a dodge, as dragons varied a lot by artist in every edition, but reds are the simplest. All the other colours have much more personality to their heads and many people are waiting to see if we get the 3e green, the 4e green, or something different than both.

 

[I'm A Banana]

The muscles are too much, but Reds aren't thinkers and manipulators. They are monsters. He's at a 7 and we need him at a 5.

This might be part of the controversy going forward, but here's where I disagree.

The most horrible monsters in the game, for me, ARE thinkers and manipulators. A White Dragon might be more of a raw muscled beast of a creature, but it's also the weakest of the dragons. A red dragon is an ancient being of immense intelligence, and one of the most powerful and ancient beings on the planet.

When I think of Red Dragons in D&D, the first thing that comes to my mind is greed. Red dragons, as the classic, evil, D&D dragon, are compulsive collectors, hoarders, and acquirers. They measure each others' worth by their bank accounts -- er, hoards. They know every gold piece and every magic ring they possess, and they always want more. They are willing to do anything to get more, too. A young red dragon might loot a kingdom. A great wrym red dragon might be the cause of an empire's downfall, simply so that she can own everything it had built in its lifetime. They're slave-keepers, they're maiden-devourers (mostly just to show that they CAN and WILL take what is most valuable to you and destroy it casually), they're ruin-makers. Any encounter with a red dragon should invoke a tense negotiation and a feeling of overwhelming odds: it might have bigger fish to fry than you, and if you're lucky there's some utility in leaving you in one piece, but if it chooses to fight you, it will not be a fight, it will be a massacre.

That requires more than big scary teeth and claws. It requires a big scary brain, one that is the worst combination of a sleazy Wall Street investor and a 1850's Railroad robber-baron and Donald Trump ("You're Fired!"...get it? anyone?). A mind that looks at mortal beings in terms of their value (specifically, to the red dragon itself).

Monstrosity for the red dragon isn't really about punching you in the face seven times. It's about knowing that this creature's plans likely involve the slow destruction or enslavement of everything you know and love, that you are only around because you are an instrument of that, and that the only way to fight back is to give up. What makes you a hero, when facing a red dragon, is if you choose not to give up, and you choose to fight against its plans rather than it's teeth, and you accept that you personally will likely loose everything you love anyway -- but that future generations will not have to.

Lockwood gets closer to that with arrogance and noble bearing than the new illustration does. "Rar, I'm a tough aggressive thing!" might work for the Terrasque. Red dragons need to exhibit their monstrosity through more than just the number of spikes on their body and the thickness of their forearms, though.