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<blockquote data-quote="Merkuri" data-source="post: 2978420" data-attributes="member: 41321">I'd probably include Tolkien when talking about &quot;modern&quot; dragons.&nbsp; While he's an important reference for D&amp;D players and other people interested in &quot;modern&quot; mythology, what he wrote was based on myth and not actually myth itself (because no one ever thought it was real, they knew it was just a story).&nbsp; I think the OP was talking about ancient dragons.Thanks for pointing out my mistake, though.&nbsp; It's easy to get Tolkien-esque mythology mixed up with real-world mythology because most of what we see today is based on his works, rather than based on what his works were based on.To answer the OP's question, I think really all that is similar to dragons is their &quot;aura&quot;.&nbsp; They were generally powerful creatures that embodied something humankind had no control over.&nbsp; Fighting a dragon was akin to fighting a tornado or a mountain.&nbsp; Certain heroes could do it, but it was far beyond the reach of normal men.&nbsp; Dragons were forces of nature, to be revered, respected, worshipped, feared, and sometimes fought.Remember that we in modern times have named all of these things &quot;dragon&quot;.&nbsp; How they're actually connected to our concept of &quot;dragon&quot; may vary.&nbsp; Here is Webster.com's definition of &quot;dragon&quot;:Basically, I think the only thing we can agree on is that dragons are creatures that aren't real and something that, were it real, you wouldn't want to walk up to and punch in the nose unless you had a WIS score of 6 or less. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="Merkuri, post: 2978420, member: 41321"] I'd probably include Tolkien when talking about "modern" dragons. While he's an important reference for D&D players and other people interested in "modern" mythology, what he wrote was based on myth and not actually myth itself (because no one ever thought it was real, they knew it was just a story). I think the OP was talking about ancient dragons. Thanks for pointing out my mistake, though. It's easy to get Tolkien-esque mythology mixed up with real-world mythology because most of what we see today is based on his works, rather than based on what his works were based on. To answer the OP's question, I think really all that is similar to dragons is their "aura". They were generally powerful creatures that embodied something humankind had no control over. Fighting a dragon was akin to fighting a tornado or a mountain. Certain heroes could do it, but it was far beyond the reach of normal men. Dragons were forces of nature, to be revered, respected, worshipped, feared, and sometimes fought. Remember that we in modern times have named all of these things "dragon". How they're actually connected to our concept of "dragon" may vary. Here is Webster.com's definition of "dragon": Basically, I think the only thing we can agree on is that dragons are creatures that aren't real and something that, were it real, you wouldn't want to walk up to and punch in the nose unless you had a WIS score of 6 or less. ;) [/QUOTE]

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