Ecology of the Dragonborn up

[Vendark]

Can you, with any hint of intellectual honesty, tell me that this creature is a monotreme? Dragonborn nurse offspring? If dragonborn are monotremes wouldn't that mean that dragons are monotremes as well?

You do realize that the article doesn't refer to dragonborn as monotremes, right? It describes them, it doesn't classify them. So all this "they don't look like monotremes" claptrap is completely pointless.

Dragonborn are warm-blooded, scaled, egg-laying humanoids that nurse their young. They're not reptiles. They're not monotremes. They're unique. Fantasy is filled with unique creatures, so who the hell cares?

 

[Wyrmshadows]

You do realize that the article doesn't refer to dragonborn as monotremes, right? It describes them, it doesn't classify them. So all this "they don't look like monotremes" claptrap is completely pointless.

Dragonborn are warm-blooded, scaled, egg-laying humanoids that nurse their young. They're not reptiles. They're not monotremes. They're unique. Fantasy is filled with unique creatures, so who the hell cares?

I'm not saying that they are monotremes...if you are reading what my argument is...you can see I am against the idea of them being monotremes and never said the article made any such ridiculous claims.

I am against the idea of rationalizing the breasts on dragonborn by suddenly calling them monotremes which is exactly what some posters are attemting to do.

I don't care if they are "warm-blooded, scaled, egg-laying humanoids that nurse their young." I only care if such odd creatures are supposed to be direct relations to dragons when dragons are/do none of these things. Effectively, dragonborn are, outside of a largely reptilian appearance, seemingly unrelated to the very creatures supposedly more closely related to.


Wyrmshadows

 

[Hussar]

/snip

I don't care if they are "warm-blooded, scaled, egg-laying humanoids that nurse their young." I only care if such odd creatures are supposed to be direct relations to dragons when dragons are/do none of these things. Effectively, dragonborn are, outside of a largely reptilian appearance, seemingly unrelated to the very creatures supposedly more closely related to.


Wyrmshadows

Which part don't dragons do? Warm blooded? Can't see any real problem with that. Humanoid? Well, ok, dragons aren't humanoid, so, fair enough. Nurse their young? Well, dragons might not, but, there are reptiles that do. And, we have no real way of saying whether dragons do or not.

Meh, they look dragonlike, they breathe fire (or whatever), that makes them close enough for me.

 

[Wyrmshadows]

Wyrmshadows - you yourself admit that all of the creatures you point to are not reptiles. You said it yourself - they're reptilian as in look kinda like reptiles, but they aren't reptiles. So, pretty much any amateur biology crap is pointless. I would point out that non-bipedal creatures rarely have visible mammaries (although there are some exceptions). One doesn't have breasts on a horse for example. So, no breasts on dragons makes pretty decent sense if you want to go that way.

I didn't say they aren't reptiles, I clearly said that we aren't using DNA structure and whatnot to determine the nature of fantasy creatures and fantasy tropes pretty much rely on sight identification in regards to what a race is. I never said they look kina like reptiles but aren't reptiles. They most certainly are reptiles and only 4e's ridiculous art is even bringing into question whether or not creatures that look like reptiles in D&D are actually reptiles. Up until now, prior to 4e, no one really questioned whether a wyvern, hydra, or dragon were reptiles or not...everyone knew they were.

The reason this type of discussion never came up before is because it was only recently that we have ever seen art that posited a purely reptilian (as in not part human or other mammal) species with breasts. Its not that some of us think to much, some of us would like come internal consistancy.

Now lizard folk? Why not? Why not give them breasts? Heck, SF does it all the time. In the end though, we don't because lizard folk don't feature in a whole lot of art or games. The question of gender simply doesn't come up.

So, here's what is boils down to...you don't mind breasts plastered on anything. That's cool. At least it is honest. That position is way more honest that trying to call dragonborn and breast bearing reptilian a monotreme.

Me, I'll take my lizard folk, troglodytes, serpent people, hydra, wyvern, turtle people, iguana people, chicken people, pigeon people, and dragons as breastless, scaley reptilians/sauroids.



Wyrmshadows

 

[Wyrmshadows]

Which part don't dragons do? Warm blooded? Can't see any real problem with that. Humanoid? Well, ok, dragons aren't humanoid, so, fair enough. Nurse their young? Well, dragons might not, but, there are reptiles that do. And, we have no real way of saying whether dragons do or not.

Meh, they look dragonlike, they breathe fire (or whatever), that makes them close enough for me.

Yeah, I do imagine that dragons are likely warm blooded or at least in some state between warm and cold blooded like paleantologists believe that dinosaurs may have been.

Hussar, you know damn well that D&D dragons certainly do not nurse their young. They don't have breasts and their young are able to hunt and kill from the moment of hatching. I believe the draconomicon says something to this effect. But lord do I hate having to reference RAW to point out something that is basically common sense.

No reptile nurses its young. Not nursing young is one of the signature qualities of reptiles.


Wyrmshadows

 

[Tonguez]

Monotremes apparently have a great deal of mammalian traits. In fact the egg-laying is pretty secondary in regards to the appearance of these animals that could never be misconstrued to be reptiles.

Actually besides the cloaca and egglaying Monotreme also have far more reptilian traits including a reptialian gait, primitive eye and ear structures, no true teeth, a sensitive ducklike bill and poison glands (no mammal has poison glands) they are as close to mammals as crocodiles are to birds

Personally I'd posit that Wyverns were avian...

but yeah this debate really has gone on for a while

 

[Wyrmshadows]

Personally I'd posit that Wyverns were avian...

You would

"Oh no it isn't a turkey vulture, its a wyvern...draw your steel."

But in all seriousness. This debate is one of aesthetics as well as what one will accept in regards to believable fantasy. Its a debate that neither can win. I know I'm right and you believe you are...so I think we are at an impasse.


Wyrmshadows

 

[ProfessorCirno]

So, here's what is boils down to...you don't mind breasts plastered on anything. That's cool. At least it is honest. That position is way more honest that trying to call dragonborn and breast bearing reptilian a monotreme.

I just wish people would just ADMIT to this instead of saying others have no imagination or that dragonboobs work just fine in science or that others are thinking too hard.

 

[I'm A Banana]

It's still pretty silly, though, and it saddens me how angry and hostile some people are starting to be over the topic of dragonborn breasts.

Oh heck yeah. The amount of mud being slung is perhaps the only thing more absurd than dragonbewbs in the first place.

"OH NO! He said they were absurd! He's obviously thinking too hard about fantasy! Because obviously he could rationalize them if he were to think harder about fantasy! Which obviously the designers have done because anything other than breasts would obviously have some sort of mechanical drawback in a game that is so obviously concerned with realistically simulating the effect of bright hunter orange on a creature's observational powers (taking into account, of course, the colorblindness of the viewer!"

So, here's what is boils down to...you don't mind breasts plastered on anything. That's cool. At least it is honest. That position is way more honest that trying to call dragonborn and breast bearing reptilian a monotreme.

Me, I'll take my lizard folk, troglodytes, serpent people, hydra, wyvern, turtle people, iguana people, chicken people, pigeon people, and dragons as breastless, scaley reptilians/sauroids.

Huzzah!

As the TV Tropes links I posted basically argue, male artists like to draw breasts and will do so given half an opportunity, and if this serves as fetish fuel for one of the designers then someone somewhere is going to come up with the whole "I like them and so they're a go, screw the naysayers," approach.

Which is wonderful, but at least it doesn't try to argue that it makes sense if you think about it because only those who think about it too much think it doesn't make sense.

I don't think that much about dragonbewbs. I think they're dumb, and I arrived at that conclusion after seeing the picture and going "what the hell is that thing doing with breasts, it doesn't look like it should have them there, that's weird."

Trying to rationalize them as monotremes or mammals with scales or whatever the heck else is being passed around is missing the point. To me, it's dumb. I don't care what kind of explanation you offer up, the visual image looks dumb to me.

The dragonborn don't have breasts because they nurse their young. They nurse their young as an excuse for having breasts. They have breasts because that's what the artist drew, mang, and someone in the upper register liked it, so that's what they have, deal with it.

I've now wasted far too many words on this issue, and am going to see about buying some of that time back from Satan. The End.

 

[Hambot]

I really liked the article. I was very happy that there was not a source of conflict built into the dragonborn race - I am so tired of people playing racist characters. The whole elf vs dwarf thing is just so irritating to me now. I also like that they painted the dragonborn with broad strokes, yet taking care to point out that there are exceptions to the general rule, allowing players to go ahead with an unusual concept if they are enamoured with it.

I would love more articles like this to come out, I just hope people read my feedback on the article. (This thread has so little discussion on the article and so much on whether or not a MAKE BELIEVE mammal lizard is possible/pretty/fun/realistic/artistically valid/mere statement of latent artist sexual repression etc.)