D&D 5E (2024) Opinions on the Topaz Dragon Reverse Wings?

[dave2008]

Because:

• These wings are the wrong shape. Notice how hummingbird wings are shaped. They are smooth and continuous on both edges, leading and trailing, so that they can slice through the air either way. The topaz wings are not, and would cause enormous turbulence if you tried to use them that way. That is what I am suggesting. A change in design and also a magical assist.
• These wings are not (comparatively) rigid. Hummingbird and insect wings are rigid airfoils. These are membranes. The membranes would curl and twist, and the "fingers" would whip through the air, amplifying the turbulence. They could be rigid though (if it is needed), either by mechanical design or magic, that is not an issue IMO.
• The articulation and musculature is incorrect for this kind of flight. We would change the musculature obviously. I have never been talking about taking the design as is. The interesting thing is to take the idea and modify the design mechanically, magically, or culturally as needed.
• Hummingbird wings still point forward. They're just aerodynamic in more than one direction. These wings are only aerodynamic in one direction...the wrong one. But we would change that - that is the point and always has been!
• Hummingbirds achieve their VTOL style flight by flapping their wings incredibly fast. This is why they're so small and light relative even to other birds. Now, that doesn't mean a dragon couldn't also do that, but you'd have wings that look like a blur, not obvious flapping. They'd also need an extremely high-energy diet, waaaay more than what hummingbirds need. Yes - now your getting the idea, How crazy would the be to see a gargantuan dragon hovering around with a blur of wings. I find the energy argument and odd one as I would imagine it would be a slightly modified version of a haste spell and there is not to no energy requirements for that.

You could dramatically alter their design, so that the backward facing no longer really matters, but you'd have changed them so drastically they wouldn't look anything like what they are now. They'd look more like...well, insect wings or hummingbird wings.

That is pretty much what I am talking about doing. How does everyone keep missing that point?! I am not talking about keep the design as is, but taking the concept and running with it. I guess it might be that I say "tweaks" and perhaps my perspective on tweaks is more generous than others?

What has got me interested is how we do it, not how it can't be down. In fact, all the reasons it "can't be done" are more inspiration for how to do it. Don't shackle yourself to what isn't possible. Let's expand our thinking and make the ludicrous possible. At least that is what I find interesting.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That you think it is an issue shows that you're not actually understanding why it is not an issue.

I am pretty sure your I understand your point, what you seem to missing is that I am not talking about trying to explain why the dragon is designed the way it is, but how we can change it to make the idea "work." There are mechanical and logical issues with your argument, but that is not really the point. This, to me, is supposed to be a fun exercise in how do you do this, not a search for how not to do it.

The two latter concepts are fundamentally interlinked in such a way as to be inseparable, I would suggest.

If you want a hummingbird dragon, this lumpen backwards-winged monstrosity is the worst possible starting point.

You should start with a smaller dragon, and look at dragonflies (which are similar to hummingbirds in their mode of flight, and also ultra-manueverable), I'd suggest. And anything using rigid aerofoils to fly, that's even say, helicopter-sized is going to generate incredible amounts of downthrust/air movement/noise (including ornithopters that mimic insects not birds).

Basically you're looking at a dragon-sized helicopter, only the mechanism is what, using magic to make hummingbird or dragonfly-style wings beat incredibly fast even though they're huge (phasing through the air on an upbeat maybe? god knows what that would do to the vortices but w/e).

What would be striking about such a being wouldn't be it's manoeuvrability - its mass would mean it wasn't that manoeuvrable if it was "adult dragon"-sized (unless it was using magic to reduce that too, but that'd be such a weird way to go about it when you can just use magic to make things fly without wings like Eastern dragons do), but rather the absolutely staggering amount of noise it would make and the insane amounts of downforce knocking people around who were under it. It would, I think, be so much louder than any helicopter. You'd probably hear it ten or more miles away. If they were giant magic hummingbird wings instead of dragonfly they might be less devastatingly loud because they're not as hard but hummingbirds are called that for a reason, now imagine that noise scaled up by 1.5 MILLION times. That's how much heavier an adult dragon in D&D is than the largest hummingbird in the word! (80,000lbs vs 24g) They'd make a hum so loud it'd make the world shake. It'd probably shake everything around them to pieces for a considerable distance. I heard a Harrier VTOL take off once in person - that was by far the loudest noise I'd ever heard, deafening at 1000ft away. This would be so much louder. They wouldn't need a breath weapon or w/e, they'd just fly close to people and watch them die!

 

[dave2008]

You'd probably hear it tens or more miles away. If they were giant hummingbird wings they might be less devastatingly loud because they're not as hard but hummingbirds are called that for a reason, now imagine that noise scaled up a 1.5 MILLION times. That's how much heavier an adult dragon in D&D is than the largest hummingbird in the word. They'd make a hum so loud it'd make the world shake. It'd probably shake everything around them to pieces for a considerable distance. I heard a Harrier VTOL take off once in person - that was by far the loudest noise I'd ever heard, deafening at 1000ft away. This would be so much louder.

Now your getting it! That is exactly the type of inspired idea I am talking about. Now we have yet another reason to have this type of design. A massive sonic attack - great thinking!

 

[dave2008]

I see. While their pitch leans forward, the wings of a x-29 aren’t backward. They are thicker in the front than in the back, like any regular wing. So keeping with the x-29 analogy, to make some sense of reverse wings, the dragon’s musculature should face the « right » direction, compensating for more powerful backstrokes. The dragon probably flies in short, powerful bursts, crawling in air like a swimmer doing reverse butterfly strokes, but does not glide. Perhaps it doesn’t need to and tucks its wings when coasting (but still, why use wings at all?).

What this specific configuration allows however, is for the dragon’s fingers to face forward. So if I was looking for a way to explain flight with reverse wings, I would look for a magic-y reason where the dragon’s wings are not used for flight but its fingers are doing something that absolutely needs to face forward.

The analogy with the X-29 is that he plane cannot fly without its computer making constant adjustments. It is a design that can't fly that we make fly through technology. The analogy is we replace technology with magic.

Yes, the whole point is to make some changes to the design to make it work.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The analogy with the X-29 is that he plane cannot fly without its computer making constant adjustments. It is a design that can't fly that we make fly through technology. The analogy is we replace technology with magic.

Yes, the whole point is to make some changes to the design to make it work.

You don't even need magic to make a "living X-29" work - a lot of birds and bats have inherently unstable flight configurations in the same way an X-29 does - the brain is doing exactly what "fly by wire" did.

That's what makes modern hypermanueverable fighters work (which the X-29 was prototyping, even though we didn't generally go with wings like that in the end) - they essentially have a "brain" which translates the pilot's control inputs into much more complicated reconfigurations of the flight surfaces, any vectoring thrust nozzles they have, and so on. A human manipulating controls couldn't actuate them fast enough to do that and not crash (we basically proved this in the 1950s and 1960s), but with a computer "brain" it's doable, and with an animal (including sentients/sapients) that's just how they work, their brain is controlling all the flight surfaces at once.

You still need flight surfaces that function as flight surfaces though i.e. they need to be the right shape. Otherwise you might as well forget flying with flight surfaces at all and just go with pure magical flight like Eastern dragons.

Minor note but you may want to change you response colour to blue - red is reserved for mods, even if red is what we'd use in a work email!

Also you're totally wrong re: Haste - Haste spells have a massive energy requirement - they're a 3rd level spell - continuously maintaining the equivalent of a much bigger version of a 3rd-level spell is serious business magic-wise. Further, Haste very rapidly ages the people using it (in lore at least) so you might want to work some concept of that into it (like maybe the wings have to be shed and regenerated every day whilst landed? Giving a period of vulnerability!). If had "no energy requirement" it'd be less than a cantrip.

 

[Cergorach]

I really like the design and illustration.

That said, I do NOT like it as a Topaz dragon in D&D:
#1 The floating spine crystals, while cool make the dragon look too fantastical for it's 'family'. And I say this fully realizing that the Topaz dragon concept is already pretty fantastical...
#2 Backward wings, they don't look like they are made for flying for this kind of dragon family.

I certainly would use this dragon in D&D either as a unique being or a small subsect of (Topaz) dragons. Where the wings are not actually used for flying, they would essentially fly like a permanent upgraded fly spell. No, those wings would be used for some sort of energy attack, maybe in place of a breath weapon. So instead of so a cone, it would be a beam as wide as that wingspan or even multiple beam attacks, one of each tip/finger.

Having a little bit of a background in aeronautical engineering, but no real complete understanding of animal flight beyond the basics. I was wondering if any of our animals actually fly that way...

Enantiornithes are extinct bird-like avialans distinctive for having 'backward wings', so maybe the Topaz dragon followed that similar 'opposite' wing articulation, not quite what the image depicts, but not impossible given that dragons are significantly larger than the enantiornithes fossil we know

So... You're saying this is the dragon equivalent of the Dodo? Yes, sorry, there are no Topaz dragons anymore, they went extinct a LONG time ago! They were survivaly challenged...

we do have RL animals that have some odd wing motions. I actually find the idea of the Topaz dragon flies like a giant hummingbird a bit interesting.

<snip>

That's actually very interesting. I knew the hummingbird was pretty insane about it's flying, but imagining a dragon doing the same is mindblowing!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

• These wings are the wrong shape. Notice how hummingbird wings are shaped. They are smooth and continuous on both edges, leading and trailing, so that they can slice through the air either way. The topaz wings are not, and would cause enormous turbulence if you tried to use them that way. That is what I am suggesting. A change in design and also a magical assist.
• These wings are not (comparatively) rigid. Hummingbird and insect wings are rigid airfoils. These are membranes. The membranes would curl and twist, and the "fingers" would whip through the air, amplifying the turbulence. They could be rigid though (if it is needed), either by mechanical design or magic, that is not an issue IMO.
• The articulation and musculature is incorrect for this kind of flight. We would change the musculature obviously. I have never been talking about taking the design as is. The interesting thing is to take the idea and modify the design mechanically, magically, or culturally as needed.
• Hummingbird wings still point forward. They're just aerodynamic in more than one direction. These wings are only aerodynamic in one direction...the wrong one. But we would change that - that is the point and always has been!
• Hummingbirds achieve their VTOL style flight by flapping their wings incredibly fast. This is why they're so small and light relative even to other birds. Now, that doesn't mean a dragon couldn't also do that, but you'd have wings that look like a blur, not obvious flapping. They'd also need an extremely high-energy diet, waaaay more than what hummingbirds need. Yes - now your getting the idea, How crazy would the be to see a gargantuan dragon hovering around with a blur of wings. I find the energy argument and odd one as I would imagine it would be a slightly modified version of a haste spell and there is not to no energy requirements for that.

That is pretty much what I am talking about doing. How does everyone keep missing that point?! I am not talking about keep the design as is, but taking the concept and running with it. I guess it might be that I say "tweaks" and perhaps my perspective on tweaks is more generous than others?

What has got me interested is how we do it, not how it can't be down. In fact, all the reasons it "can't be done" are more inspiration for how to do it. Don't shackle yourself to what isn't possible. Let's expand our thinking and make the ludicrous possible. At least that is what I find interesting.

If you are changing the wings to be aerodynamic in the forward direction, they aren't backwards anymore.

So I'm not really sure what you're preserving here.

 

[dave2008]

You don't even need magic to make a "living X-29" work - a lot of birds and bats have inherently unstable flight configurations in the same way an X-29 does - the brain is doing exactly what "fly by wire" did.

Agreed, but the analogy I was trying to make was between technology and magic

You still need flight surfaces that function as flight surfaces though i.e. they need to be the right shape. Otherwise you might as well forget flying with flight surfaces at all and just go with pure magical flight like Eastern dragons.

I think there are degrees here, not a hard edge. Insects, birds, and bats all have functional wings that get to flight in different ways. None of those methods really works for any full grown D&D dragon we just accept it because it seems close enough. They are not, but they feel close enough. I am looking for an, immediately ludicrous, method to get the backward wings "close enough." Through design, ecological niche, and magic.

Minor note but you may want to change you response colour to blue - red is reserved for mods, even if red is what we'd use in a work email!

Good point - thank you! I changed it to blue.

Also you're totally wrong re: Haste - Haste spells have a massive energy requirement - they're a 3rd level spell - continuously maintaining the equivalent of a much bigger version of a 3rd-level spell is serious business magic-wise. Further, Haste very rapidly ages the people using it (in lore at least) so you might want to work some concept of that into it (like maybe the wings have to be shed and regenerated every day whilst landed? Giving a period of vulnerability!). If had "no energy requirement" it'd be less than a cantrip.

IDK, there doesn't seem to be any equivalent exchange between magic and energy IMO. I mean we do have cantrips that create something from nothing - what is the energy cost of that! And things like beholders can fly magically indefinitely. I don't think there is a good method to quantify the energy cost of magic in D&D if there even is one.

 

[dave2008]

If you are changing the wings to be aerodynamic in the forward direction, they aren't backwards anymore.

So I'm not really sure what you're preserving here.

No, I still want them to be backward, that is the whole fun of this exercise. My current concept is a version of a h. bird wing but in reverse. You of course need more than that, but that is the concept. The point is the h. bird can move backward with wings aerodynamic in the forward direction. Our theoretical t. dragon would be able to move forward with the wings aerodynamic in the backward direction. Now you need to make changes to the wing design and structure to do this, but heck we have to do that to make regular dragons fly without magic too. Some things will inevitably be covered up by "magic" just like all dragons. The design goal is to limit the need for magic, but not to eradicate it.