Furry Dragons

[Prak]

ok, no actual fur, this is more about changing the classification of dragons than changing their appearance.

There are mammals that fly.
There are mammals that lay eggs.
There are mammals that look scaly.

There are no warm blooded reptiles (as far as I know)
There are no reptiles that have the classic dragon body design (reptile hips generally don't work that way [dinosaurs not withstanding]) let alone the frequent almost catlike body.
There is virtually no way for a reptile to ever live in the arctic, I don't care what it's standard body temp is.

Dragons, in some ways, make more sense as inexplicably scaly and huge monotremes than reptiles.
Is it a legacy thing? Why not have dragons be mammals rather than reptiles?

Edit: for that matter they could also be avians with very tough feathers....

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Actually, what you're sounding like is dinosaurs, though there were no flying dinosaurs.

[Sinfire Titan]

...They are. They're explicitly warm-blooded (Draconomicon), despite any seemingly reptilian features.

Actually, what you're sounding like is dinosaurs, though there were no flying dinosaurs.

[Prak]

this is true.

I can't remember why pterosaurs aren't considered dinosaurs.

There's also the fact that if dragons are mammals, people can shut up about Dragonborn and half dragon anatomy.

...They are. They're explicitly warm-blooded (Draconomicon), despite any seemingly reptilian features.

did Draconomicon explicitly state that Dragons are mammals?

[Solaris]

... Yes, but there aren't any reptiles, mammals, or dinosaurs with six limbs or a breath weapon.

[Sinfire Titan]

did Draconomicon explicitly state that Dragons are mammals?

Implied, not outright stated. It did say that they are not reptilian by any definition of the word.

[nightwyrm]

Biologically speaking, reptiles are a rather poor classification since they're a paraphyletic group that basically consists of amniotes except mammals and birds. (translation: they're a catch all category for anything with a terrestially adapted egg that aren't not mammal or birds).

Of course, since dragons don't actually exist, it doesn't really matter what you classify them as.

[nightwyrm]

I can't remember why pterosaurs aren't considered dinosaurs.

They stand differently.

[Prak]

... Yes, but there aren't any reptiles, mammals, or dinosaurs with six limbs or a breath weapon.

well, no, but there isn't magic either. Note the board we're in.
Well, and I didn't mention the other possibility either, mostly because I'm not sure where I stand on it, dragons could be considered arthropods, but it would require a huge redesign, as far as I'm concerned.

Implied, not outright stated. It did say that they are not reptilian by any definition of the word.

Interesting. Wish they'd said one way or the other...

Biologically speaking, reptiles are a rather poor classification since they're a paraphyletic group that basically consists of amniotes except mammals and birds. (translation: they're a catch all category for anything with a terrestially adapted egg that aren't not mammal or birds).

I did not know that... interesting...

[Prak]

They stand differently.

interesting, I don't think I ever heard an actual expanation... and I was a dinosaur kid...

[nightwyrm]

Forcing dragons into the reptiles group would be like forcing birds into the reptiles because birds evolved from dinosaurs which evolved from reptiles.

[Prak]

Forcing dragons into the reptiles group would be like forcing birds into the reptiles because birds evolved from dinosaurs which evolved from reptiles.

it's the classic assumption, though. I sure as hell don't support it, at most I go with it out of inertia...

[hamishspence]

Pterosaurs and dinosaurs are closer related than almost anything else-

they are members of the clade Ornithodira- which basically is them, dinosaurs, and a very few "not quite dinosaurs" creatures like Lagosuchus.

Dinosaurs are monophyletic- everything that is a dinosaur, is descended from a "last common ancestor" which has all their traits- but not those of pterosaurs, Lagosuchus, etc.

Of course, any "group name" is something for the convenience of classification, but the:

"most recent common ancestor of Triceratops and the House Sparrow, and all it's descendants"

definition is at least handy.

[Zaydos]

I always define dragons as dragons. Sometimes note that like birds and mammals they evolved from reptilian creatures, have some carry over traits, but are not in fact reptiles. More often I go dragons did not evolve from anything other than the raw churning power of the cosmos and are not petty animals as you know it but beings greater than man only surpassed by gods and possibly the strongest wizards/sorcerers/outsiders/aberrations/phoenixes; or else they are magic given flesh.

[hamishspence]

The fact that they are hexapods rather than tetrapods (except for those that have secondarily lost their extra limbs) makes them a bit different.

(the Faerun Brown Dragon is an example of the wings reduced to vestigial size).

So- they are mammals, or reptiles, or even Tetrapods. They are Hexapod Vertebrates- something unique.

(alternatively, they could be altered diapsids which have sprouted extra limbs.)

[nightwyrm]

By Earth definitions, dragons wouldn't even be tetrapods at all. The most recent common ancestor between a dragon and a dog would've been somewhere near the fishes.

[Solaris]

By Earth definitions, dragons wouldn't even be tetrapods at all. The most recent common ancestor between a dragon and a dog would've been somewhere near the fishes.

That was something akin to my point. You really can't shoehorn dragons into dinosaurs, mammals, reptiles, or any of the other classifications because they don't fit.

[hamishspence]

Not without invoking magic, anyway.

If six-limbed dragons evolved from four limbed landwyrms in D&D (and I'm not sure if that is true) magic needs to have mutated them at some point.

On the other hand, if everything with the Dragon type (not just true dragons) shares a common, six-limbed ancestor (and many have lost the extra limbs- drakes, wyverns, landwyrms, linnorms),

then the MMIII Dragon Eel looks like the "basal dragon"

Since it has six limbs, which are all similar size (tiny) and no supernatural powers.

It even looks a lot like the giant placoderm Dunkleosteus.

While evolution, even at high speed with magic boosts, might not in fact take place in the D&D-verse, I like the notion anyway.

[Solaris]

Me too. Dragon Eel as the living fossil ancestor of all dragon-kind is kinda cool.

[hamishspence]

well, least derived, anyway.

Though having Dragonkind evolve from a family of Dragon Eels, and (because evolution works faster in D&D) the original family from which the line split being still there- works as well.

Hmm- Cladistic Analysis of Dragonkind- might be a fun exercise

Probably the most dramatic split within true dragons, looks like Fan-wings vs Bat-wings.

Fan-wings have reduced digits, and long spines all down the sides-
(Gold, Copper, Brass, Incarnum, Sand)

Bat-wings vary, but all have wings supported by multiple elongated digits
(Chromatics, Silver, Bronze, Fang, Deep, Shadow)

Doing this, the Silver and the Deep Dragon would actually be assumed to be close relatives- two fingers instead of one separate from the wing.

[Solaris]

... I blame you for the hours I'm about to lose to studying my books like I know what I'm doing.

Wyvern is a solid fan-wing, but it's a four-limbed critter. I imagine there'd be two major branches (four- and six-limbed) descending from the dragon eel. The six-limbs break up into the two major groups of fan-wing and bat-wing, with deep and silver dragons possibly their own sub-group within the bat-wings. The four-limbed dragons, methinks, split into wyverns, drakes, and linnorms.

[Bayar]

Lets add a bit more to the madness.

The legends say that kobolds spawned from dragon blood when the dragons did that ceremony a long time ago. They are dragonblooded. Sometimes, a dragonwrought kobold hatches and suddently the whole thing goes haywire. He is considered a dragon (arguably a true dragon), can grow his very own dragon wings with a feat...

How does evolution explain this ?

[hamishspence]

I thought Linnorms might be a third clade that lost their hindlimbs instead of their forelimbs.

the Landwyrms lost their wings, but kept their four legs.

the Sea Serpents (Dragon 345) closely resemble aquatic Landwyrms, but advance from Wyrmling to Great Wyrm.

Though I agree with putting wyverns and drakes together.

Hmm- pseudodragon- stings like a wyvern, four legs like a dragon- maybe it could be the base of the dragon/drake clade?

EDIT:
I figure a lot of magic and a little evolution are needed for any explanation.

Maybe kobolds were "genetically engineered" so to speak, by a dragon, from dragon genes.

Those for wings, breath, etc, are suppressed.

When they revert- that's a dragonblooded kobold?

[Grumman]

... Yes, but there aren't any reptiles, mammals, or dinosaurs with six limbs or a breath weapon.

Does halitosis count?

[Bayar]

Well, D&D fluff usually contains gods that do stuff, create a race here, blow up something there...unlike RL.

So you could always say that Io created the dragons (like it says in the Draconomicon).

[hamishspence]

I like the notion of it being more "altering" than creating- especially given the hints that the gods may be telling whoppers about creating a lot of things, in Lords of Madness.

And Elder Evils- where it stressed they helped shape the world, rather than created it- and life- the aboleths- existed on the Material Plane before they started fiddling around.

Having Io "supercharge" the evolution of a single race of relatively unassuming vertebrates is one way of doing it.

[Bayar]

I like the notion of it being more "altering" than creating- especially given the hints that the gods may be telling whoppers about creating a lot of things, in Lords of Madness.

And Elder Evils- where it stressed they helped shape the world, rather than created it- and life- the aboleths- existed on the Material Plane before they started fiddling around.

Having Io "supercharge" the evolution of a single race of relatively unassuming vertebrates is one way of doing it.

I am now imagining Pelor as a Goa'uld.

[hamishspence]

Besides the aforementioned Deep Dragon/Silver Dragon pairing, I'd probably split the Copper Dragon off from the rest of the Fan-wing clade.

Since (unlike the others) it has several spines projecting off its main wing-limb, whereas the Gold, Brass, Sand, and Incarnum dragons all lack these.

I am now imagining Pelor as a Goa'uld.

Interesting thought

Fiendish Codex 2 showed how the gods created life on many worlds- and on a lot of these, the life they created "opened the gates, letting the demons in to overrun the world"- very Stargate-esque.

Which is why Asmodeus wrote the Pact Primeval in the first place.

Maybe dwarves, elves, humans, halflings, orcs, goblins, etc, could all be the same species which each of the gods have customized to their own preferences?

[Moriato]

First thing I thought of:

[Kris Strife]

I think there's more to the difference between pterosaurs and dinosaurs than how they stand. I believe the number of holes in their skull is another key difference, and I think its one of the things that's used to separate things like dimetrodon and mammal-like reptiles, as well as sea goers like mosasaurs, plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs from true dinosaurs as well.

Probably something similar seperating True Dragons from creatures like dragon-turtles, wyverns and so on.