Dragons, dinosaurs, and birds

[Jay R]

We don't know how the legends of dragons started, but one of the possibilities is that they were inspired by the bones of dinosaurs - which we once thought of as "terrible lizards" (δεινός σαῦρος -> deinos sauros -> dinosaur).

Well we now know that dinosaurs are really closer to birds, and in fact, they had feathers.

Should we start putting feathers on our dragons?

And what magical properties would dragon feathers have?

[CharonsHelper]

Only if they're a lady 'dragon of the evening'.

[Lord Torath]

Only if they are Feathered Serpents (speaking of Shadowrun dracoforms). Otherwise there is enough in-game lore about them (in just about any system that has dragons) that they are sufficiently different than dinosaurs as to be completely unrelated.

I'd even argue that oriental dragons are not based on dinosaurs at all (although I'd be arguing from a position of almost total ignorance - I've never looked into the origins of Chinese Dragon myths). Also, do we know if Sauropods had feathers?

[VoxRationis]

Well, dinosaurs don't have bat wings and four legs. Regardless of real-world cultural inspiration, it can be generally regarded that a fictional setting's dragons are different from dinosaurs.

[Knaight]

It's hardly a requirement, but I'm liking the mental image, particularly when they're given a more beak like mouth while retaining the teeth. Take the image below:

Spoiler: Archaeopteryx

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Then, picture it with a significantly elongated body and tail, a second set of legs in front, and shorter legs. I'm thinking it looks pretty cool, although the fire breath does seem a bit odd with it.

[Absol197]

The dragons in my setting are all Asiatic in appearance, but a few rare ones have wings. Those that do, their wings are feathered, and their crests are feathers instead of fur.

So short answer? Yes . Yes we should!

It doesn't help that the dragons in my song are essentially angels that were designed by God to be the perfect creature, given the best traits of every creature that would ever exist and then blended together into a perfect whole. So that means they do specifically have dinosaur-like traits. Also, feathers > webbed wings anyway, so .

[Mechalich]

If you have six-limbed dragons (which is the traditional D&D style) you're in 'screw evolution, this is a creationist fantasy' territory rather firmly, since there are no members of the tetrapodomorpha that have that arrangement or any conceivable way of evolving it. In fact it's not really clear how the bone and muscle structure of the average six-limbed dragon body is supposed to work in the first place (in the same way that it's not clear how angle or demon wings allow you to fly - there's a whole bunch of musculature missing).

Now, if you have four-limbed dragons, where the wings are modified forelimbs - like the dragons in Game of Thrones - then we can talk about evolutionary processes and not be being totally ridiculous. The tricky part here is that you have to pick your dragon and then try to figure out where that dragon would fit on the tree - what the ancestors would be. That's tough, mostly because we can only compare external features, and most tetrapod groups are differentiated based on bone structure - particularly bones in the skull.

Still, there are some key signifiers. Dragons do not have avian wings in pretty much any depiction - they usually have chiropteran (bats) wing structure. They also almost always have the limbs firmly placed under the body as opposed to splayed to the side - a trait common to dinosaurs and the mammalian clade. Dragons generally have peg-like teeth, as in lizards or crocodilians, possibly with some enlarged teeth in the front of the mouth serving as fangs, but lacking the full display of tooth variation found in mammals (bicuspids, molars, etc.). They do, however, have cheeks, which lizards and crocodiles lack (whether dinosaurs had extra-oral tissues is unknown and pretty much unknowable). They also appear to have, in many images, a secondary palate (the game of thrones dragons absolutely do), which is a distinctly mammalian trait. However, dragons also pretty much universally have scales.

Taking these together we would probably put the ancestor of dragons close to the ancestor of mammals, since most of their traits, excepting scales, are closer to crown group mammals than anything else. Personally I'd say dragons split from proto-mammals somewhere in the early Therapsida, possibly sister to all other therapsids, and say they evolved from there. Wings would therefore be independently developed in dragons and bats, with the similarities representing convergent evolution.

As such, dragons should absolutely not have feathers.

[Jay R]

But imagine the look on the players' faces when they are sent on a quest for a red dragon feather.

Or possibly the one great blue dragon of the wastelands in all the legends turns out to be feathered, and a dinosaur, not a dragon.

[Mechalich]

Here's the thing, D&D already has a giant, feathered, fire-blasting monster, the Phoenix. Your feathered dragon is basically a phoenix with teeth and without resurrection. You could, if you wanted to, create multiple varieties of phoenixes and have them take the place of dragons in a campaign world I suppose, but that's really just playing with terminology (which is kind of pointless anyway, 'dragons' are actually a group of real-world lizards, ex. bearded dragon).

If you want to invent giant paravian dinosaurs for a campaign you can certainly do that, and you can even give them the powers associated with D&D dragons, but a gigantic fire-breathing utahraptor isn't going to match up with anyone's mental image of a feathered dragon. The idea of a 'feathered dragon' is either a feathered serpent, or a standard D&D style six-limbed dragon that for some reason has feathers instead of scales (which is what you get if you run a google image search for feathered dragon). The latter is certainly a thing you can do, but has no connection to dinosaurs at all.

[veti]

Some dinosaurs had feathers. I haven't seen anyone claim all, or even a majority of species, did. After all, we're talking about a lot of species over a very long time.

There's still room for scaled dragons.

[hymer]

But imagine the look on the players' faces when they are sent on a quest for a red dragon feather.

You have to imagine it, since you can't see their faces any more as they walk out, never to return.

[Knaight]

Here's the thing, D&D already has a giant, feathered, fire-blasting monster, the Phoenix. Your feathered dragon is basically a phoenix with teeth and without resurrection. You could, if you wanted to, create multiple varieties of phoenixes and have them take the place of dragons in a campaign world I suppose, but that's really just playing with terminology (which is kind of pointless anyway, 'dragons' are actually a group of real-world lizards, ex. bearded dragon).

Without resurrection is kind of a big deal - that is the number one defining trait of a phoenix. On top of that, the dragon is still basically a massive winged lizard - yes, it's a massive winged lizard with feathers, but that still makes it a bit different than an actual bird. As far as dragons being an actual group of real world lizards, they're named after the mythological dragon in this case, so whatever.

[Admiral Squish]

In one of my settings, there were three varieties of dragons. Western dragons had legs and tails. Eastern dragons were more serpentine and had four small legs. Then you had new world dragons, that had lost their limbs entirely, becoming flying serpents. A subset of new world dragons had feathers instead of scales.