Anyway, I was talking to my gaming group about it, and thinking about this thread, and this is what I came to;
Dragon PCs: You are one of the relatively rare dragons that can take humanoid shape for an extended period of time. You can make an effort to fully blend in with another ancestry, such as humans, but your normal humanoid form is similar to that of some Draconids (half-dragons or descendants of half-dragons), with draconic features like horns, clawed fingers, inhuman eyes, and digitigrade legs. Unlike your draconic form, if you have wings in humanoid form they are part of the same shoulder structure as your arms, but you do still have humanoid arms. You cannot use these arms for anything but holding small objects or signaling with your hands while in flight. Staying in fully false form takes noticeable effort, and thus expenditure of the games primary limited resource.
In your natural draconic form is roughly the size of a quetzalcoatlus, and body plan, coloration, and general aesthetic varies wildly depending on environment and lineage, with everything from metallic scaled European dragons to Mezoamerican winged serpents, but very few dragons deviate from two legs and two wings and a tail. The Eastern wingless dragons are rarer, and closer in nature to the deific Great Dragons, but the younger of them can be playable.
Mechanically, most of your stats are the same in dragonoid or humanoid form, other than those related to size. In dragonoid form, you can leap into the air with the help of an updraft that is summoned without your needing to think about it, and in any form you can carry more than your size suggests without encumbrance. Nearly all dragons also possess the ability to move other creatures with their voice, either in the form of a terrifying roar, a rousing shout of inspiration, or a more subtle ability to push the emotional state of other creatures with your voice.
Half-Dragons/Draconids: One or more of your parents or ancestors were dragons. Draconids are humanoids with draconic features related to their draconic ancestry. Draconids are quite rare, since dragons that can take humanoid shape are, themselves, fairly rare. Most Draconids are difficult to distinguish at a glance from a Parthian, while other have trouble disguising thier ancestry due to great horns or wings. Basically they’re like D&D draconic tieflings.
Parthians: These folk are descended from humanoids of various ancestries, gathered in the nation of Parth and it’s surroundings, who have spent centuries bonded to dragons, and have become something altogether new. Draconic eyes are the only easy hint at a glance to their connection to dragons. Most Parthians are a bit shorter than the average modern American human, tending to range from 4-5 1/2 feet tall, but much stronger than they look, with think hair ranging from black to red or orange with some rare individuals having hair in the blue-green range.
Mechanics: Parthians are compact but fast and strong, and naturally empathetic. They have emotional empathy and limited telepathy, and the ability to leap into the air as if using air magic even if they don’t possess any such skill, like the dragons that are part of their society, and are the most common folk to become dragon riders. They also have many martial and athletic traditions based on pushing this draconic connection further and perfecting styles that push the boundaries of movement, agility, aerobatics, and elemental attunement.
Dragonriders: This is an archetype, rather than an ancestry, though Parthians and Draconids especially excel at this archetype. You have bonded with a dragon, and formed a symbiotic empathic relationship. This most often occurs during childhood so that you and your draconic partner can grow up together. You share the empathic telepathy with your dragon, and to a lesser extent with other dragons and riders that you know.
All dragons have a somewhat malleable form, as they are beings of magic that understand the true nature of all sentient beings more naturally than other corporeal mortals. For most, this is a slow process of physically changing to better suit your environment, but dragons can also usually make themselves slightly smaller or larger, though it takes effort.
