D&D (2024) This Dragon Art Is From The 2024 Player's Handbook

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I think it's neat. Dragons should be destroying cities.

I'd take the softer stance that, for those who want dragons to be very special, having them destroy cities is one of the good ways to do that.

For my Jewel of the Desert game, set in an Arabian Nights setting, I did want dragons to be special--but covert. The two dragons that are known to be persistently involved (an as-yet-unknown black dragon, and Tenryu Shen, a gold dragon secretly hunting said black dragon) are playing a game of cat and mouse, using proxies and such. I've taken some cues from the way Tolkien described Gandalf (or Galadriel) fighting against Sauron if they'd chosen to take the One Ring. That is, Sauron is a very powerful being even without the Ring, and has sunk a lot of his power into the mortal world, which amplifies his influence but diminishes his self (and makes that influence perishable, whereas an un-divided self is not perishable.) In order to take on Sauron, they'd have to build up infrastructure and armies and such--essentially, they'd be playing Rise of Nations or Civilization against Sauron, except with real actual people, and they both know that that path leads only to corruption and evil.

These two dragons are the only ones that exist to any meaningful degree anywhere the player characters have been. They've heard about dragons elsewhere. But not much more than that.

More or less, by presenting it as a game of chess where real actual people and places they care about are merely pieces on the board (albeit ones Shen wants to protect--that's precisely why he's playing, rather than just raising hell), it actually emphasizes how dangerous these beings are.

They both know they could fight--and either one could potentially win, with greater preparation than the other--but doing so would be way too costly for both of them. So they ploy, and scheme, and use proxies, and the cat-and-mouse game continues while the lives of hundreds of thousands of people act as mere set dressing.

I like this much more than the silver dragon. FWIW, I don't think AI has anything to do with it. I reckon some of the figures in the foreground of the dragon pic just aren't very well done. Anyone remember the 5e halfling?

I, personally, think the issue is one of rather severely varying style. The figures closest to the viewer are crisp, perhaps even excessively "realistic," with fairly fine detail put into them. The middle-distance figures are all very impressionistic, and the far-distance figures are like a realistic image was put through some Gaussian blur. In particular, the dragon has details fuzzed--except at the edges of the image, where "dragon" vs "not dragon" is quite sharp.

I think this is where the "uncanny" feeling comes from for folks--the image doesn't really stick to a single way of doing things, but blends together three or even four different ways of presenting depth and detail.

I genuinely have no idea if this was the work of a single person or many people cooperating, but it kinda comes across as collaborative art where the collaborators didn't start talking until each person's piece was nearly finished. So the dragon and the crowd are semi-impressionist, blobs of color vaguely shaped like people, the middle-distance figures are low-detail as though out of focus (as one might expect), and the foreground characters are rendered in almost excessive detail--but every figure (except the crowd) has sharp, well-defined edges, rather than blurring with their surroundings.

It's just a really odd composition choice. It doesn't harm my enjoyment of the dragon at the center, personally, but I can totally see how it would have some uncanny feels for others.

 

[Superchunk77]

 

[Stormonu]

What are you talking about? IIRC it wasn't even a "stat" for Dragons, dump or otherwise...

Maybe something came out in a Dragon Magazine about it?

Campaign Option - Council of Wyrms. p 12. Silver dragons have a Charisma of 6 to 20.

 

[Azzy]

For context of Campbell White's styles and capabilities, here is a piece from 6 years ago which cannot have any AI component, as the tech didn'texiat at the time:

View attachment 353609

What the naughty word is that monstrosity?

 

[Tonguez]

its got a really short nose and a huge neck
thats not to say I dont like it, just those are the two features that are most noticeable for me

 

[Parmandur]

What the naughty word is that monstrosity?

Honest to God, no idea: but it was drawn by a human, not an AI

 

[EzekielRaiden]

its got a really short nose and a huge neck
thats not to say I dont like it, just those are the two features that are most noticeable for me

Yeah. I generally prefer a slightly longer snout, and a more evenly-proportioned neck. More or less, something in a space between "lupine" and "pantherine," with the overall body plan a reasonably stout quadrupedal form. Golds can lean a bit thinner, closer to Chinese/Japanese dragons aka "noodles", but they still gotta look like they've got muscle if they need it.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Why would dragon scales tarnish?

Because it might look cool. It was a joke.

They aren't literal metal. We already know that much.

We don't "know" anything. Dragons are made-up. They can be anything you want them to be.

That's why they make good armor.

And they wouldn't make good armor if they were metal? That makes little sense.

And before you say "then they shouldn't be that shiny,"

I wouldn't say that, because they can be whatever shiny an artist wants them to be.

there are plenty of organic scales IRL that exploit structural color in order to be that shiny. Even some spiders have genuinely near-mirror-reflective scales.

I'm well aware.

In a fantastical setting where a being has some of the universe's most powerful magic literally coursing through its veins, woven into its flesh and bone, and layered into its scales, well, I see no issues with them being shiny most of the time.

Sure, why not?

Now, perhaps they might get less "tarnished" and more dulled because of skin buildup or not washing thoroughly or the like. But there's ways to deal with that.

Whatever you like. I was just making a joke about buffing the tarnish out of a silver dragon. It didn't need to be taken this seriously.

...now I'm wondering if prestidigitation would work if a dragon cast it on itself...

It'll work if your DM wants it to work. And why wouldn't they?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

And they wouldn't make good armor if they were metal? That makes little sense.

Silver makes terrible armor because it is malleable. That's part of why Tolkien's phrasing with mithril was so important: "All folk desired it. It could be beaten like copper, and polished like glass; and the Dwarves could make of it a metal, light and yet harder than tempered steel. Its beauty was like to that of common silver, but the beauty of mithril did not tarnish or grow dim."

In its natural state, mithril is malleable, but when it is "made" into a metal, it is lighter and harder than tempered steel. (This is why intermetallic yttrium silver, molecular formula YAg, could theoretically correspond to IRL mithril: it IS malleable, and can be polished, but if you harden it, it becomes harder than tempered steel--and is already naturally lighter.)

 

[FitzTheRuke]

View attachment 353626

Hey look: The herengon was once a human!