Cataclysmic Dragons

[HoneyBadger]

To the midieval mind-or atleast to a poor dirt farmer in the dark ages-a dragon was a catastrophy. They could burn your village, poison your wells, do hideous things to your womenfolk-without even marrying them! No virgin ever got a dragon's dowry, and having a dragon in the area was all around bad news. The devil was a dragon, and before the devil even existed, they fought the gods of the ancient world-and come judgement day, dragons would eat the world and everyone in it. Dragons also guarded treasure, magical power, and the secret of immortality.

In recent years, in part due to a shortness of real dragons in the news, and in part because of Disney's softening influence on all things fantastical, dragons have been remade into shadows of their former selves. Even Tolkien-who tried hard to make dragons terrifying-had a hand in this, when he made his dragons talk. Suddenly, the notion of having a conversation with a dragon became popular-and that was only one step away from inviting one over for tea.

Dragons have devolved become cartoon characters, faithful steeds, noble heroes. In short, they're safe for children. No more are they the devil in disguise, or avatars of apocalypse. Dragons have become our imaginary pets.

Well, when it comes to fantasy, there's a popular view-complete with snooty elves, grumpy dwarves, and friendly dragons that's safe to read your kiddies at night-or atleast to giggle about in your college dorm room--and then there's the bad old dirty myths that had the muscle and the grit to drag the human race up through the ages, and it's those nasty, gruesome, adult-rated myths us folks in the Dominions forums are interested in. We want the real story-with teeth and claws intact!

Dragons always held pride of place in those R rated myths, and they should have that same place in Dominions 3. So that's the purpose of this thread.

Starting tonight, I'm aiming to list descriptions, graphics, and stats for a total of nine different types of dragons, which are meant to replace the ones in the game. They eventually will be balanced for CBM mod, but balance for now isn't my biggest concern-my biggest concern is to evoke an element of terror, and even dismay, to go along with the sense of wonder that dragons imbue.

These are the 13 types of dragons that I'm creating, with their stats (eventually):

Earthquake dragons: XX
Wildfire dragons: X
Flood dragons: X
Typhoon dragons:
Lightning dragons: X
Volcanic dragons: XX
Sirocco dragons: X
Plague dragons:
Avalanche dragons: X
Blight dragons:
Dust dragons: X
Tsunami dragons:
Creep dragons:

As should be clear in most cases, each type of dragon embodies a cataclysmic natural disaster-and my dragons are meant to represent the spiritual embodiment of those elemental forces. In that, they are meant to bring together somewhat Eastern and Western traditions, in that on one hand they are horrifying monsters, but on the other hand, they're regulators of their respective, destructive aspects of the natural world.

My dragons are neither purely good nor purely evil. They have the same range of intelligence, character, ambition, morality, and personality as a human being, just written large in the way myths always are.

They will still retain the ability to shapechange into a human-or near human-form, and will be available as Pretenders, but otherwise, each will be built from the ground up, to fit into the game in a slightly different way than dragons currently do.

I'm eventually planning on putting all the dragons into this post-provided they'll fit-but for now, due to the current restrictions of my computer, and my inability to add images into a post (hopefully corrected soon), I'll just add them in separate posts, starting with tonight's dragon, the Volcanic Dragon.

My dragons have the following abilities, unless otherwise noted:

Darkvision (100%), Fear (5), all melee attacks are magical (bite, claws), self-healing, no need to eat, 50% weakness to all elemental attacks except poison, which they are 50% resistant to, they can live for 15,000 years (so no aging concerns), and they are considered demons for purposes of banishment, etc. They Cause Unrest and have Patrol Bonus (+5), Pillage Bonus (+20), and Gluttony (30). They also have Upkeep as 500 gold creatures.

[HoneyBadger]

One of the rarest, and most terrible of all dragons is the volcanic dragon. Born in the heart of a caldera, these dragons regulate some of the most purely destructive forces in nature. They do not possess wings, having instead four powerfully developed claws, and dozens of almost insect-like legs. They also lack a normal breath weapon, instead spreading noxious vapors over a short distance. Surrounded by clouds of poison and waves of incredible heat, volcanic dragons are difficult to approach, let alone to destroy.

Weaknesses: slowness, lack of flight, lack of natural ranged weapons, difficulty grouping with other alied units, weakness to cold attacks and in cold weather, weak waterform, expensive.

Strengths: Great chaff-killer, good natural protection, Pretenders have access to both Earth and Fire paths, and better than average starting Dominion.

[HoneyBadger]

Volcanic Dragon attack.

[sector24]

Are you basing them off any real world mythology? It would be cool to see the Yamato-no-Orochi (Eight Branched Serpent), or a Tiamat/Marduk sirrush-type dragon.

Edit: Whoa, is that a third arm? Or perhaps the dragon has its own hornito?

[HoneyBadger]

He's actually got four arms, only 3 of which (2 at rest) I was able to fit into the picture. I decided that adding the fourth arm would have made the picture more visually-as opposed to descriptively-confusing. They replace his wings, and the two you can see on the first pic are actually meant to both be on the side closest. These dragons are based somewhat on real mythology, although not specific dragons as such, since these aren't meant to be unique critters.

Just for kicks, here's an attack sprite with 4 arms intact. I guess it doesn't look too bad...

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by HoneyBadger

He's actually got four arms, only 3 of which (2 at rest) I was able to fit into the picture. I decided that adding the fourth arm would have made the picture more visually-as opposed to descriptively-confusing. They replace his wings, and the two you can see on the first pic are actually meant to both be on the side closest. These dragons are based somewhat on real mythology, although not specific dragons as such, since these aren't meant to be unique critters.

Just for kicks, here's an attack sprite with 4 arms intact. I guess it doesn't look too bad...

That one is GREAT! It would be very cool if the dragons collectively encompassed all magic paths. Like Blight would get Death + Nature, and Plague would be Death + Blood.

It would be so awesome if there were pretender specific spells, so each of these dragons could have a large scale Global or BE related to their sphere of influence, that would be unlocked for any nation with that specific pretender. Ahhhh, Dominions 12, you will be incomprehensibly awesome.

Will that particular dragon have 4 hand slots? I don't think there's a 4 hand critter in the game that lacks other major slots (like this one would lack feet, and probably torso).

[Endoperez]

Originally Posted by HoneyBadger

Even Tolkien-who tried hard to make dragons terrifying-had a hand in this, when he made his dragons talk. Suddenly, the notion of having a conversation with a dragon became popular-and that was only one step away from inviting one over for tea.

[Arralen]

No. no.
You're all wrong.
Must I eat you?

And no tea with blacks. They're insidious.

[Mordici]

Well I don't think I would have believed it without the picture from Endoperez. I'am with HoneyBadger. We need some old school dragons in Dominions 3 to counteract this blasphemy!

[Sombre]

Originally Posted by Arralen

No. no.
You're all wrong.
Must I eat you?

And no tea with blacks. They're insidious.

Racist.