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LyRein -> RE: =AQ3D= Design Notes October 15th, 2015 - Dragons (10/18/2015 8:19:19)
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WALL OF TEXT:
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A being with the size and mass of a dragon wouldn't be able to fly. Increasing the wing area doesn't help, because that also increases the mass. We'd have to turn their bones hollow, like a bird's, and eliminate most of their muscles to make a dragon capable of flying, but this clashes with the idea that dragons are strong and resistant physically.
That's why I said in a world with less limits, which is possible in reality since the universe is infinite.
Cutting up paper into pieces and dropping it would not land in perfect shape, however with infinite time it will eventually.
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Inhaling gas and exhaling gas wouldn't make it flammable. The most "likely" way an animal could spit fire would be if they had a poison gland filled with a liquid that bursts into flame in contact with air, but that would damage the internal organs of the animal any time it's used.
That's what I meant really.
So it's possible but not worth it.
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Tolkien cared deeply about myths.
That's what I said...
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Nowhere in your previous posts have you mentioned elves.
No, but I used it as an example.
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Dragons speaking is unbelievable, but Tolkien is believable
Yep! You answered it yourself (and repeated what I said). Tolkien loved mythology.
He felt people were forgetting english mythology as time went on, so that's one of the reasons he worldbuilt middle-earth.
Like I said before
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He had an excuse though, in his time no-one really knew all too much about myths or bothered.
On to your next point
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If you want to portray dragons as intelligent, they have to communicate
Why does communicate automatically mean human language?
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define "dragons speaking" an "unbelievable concept"
No no you're getting me wrong.
I said Dragons speaking human tongue is unbelievable, not speaking in general.
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Fantasy, as a genre, always stretched the concept of "realistic", because it's not a genre that wants to portray a scientifically accurate world. If you try to make fantasy scientifically realistic, you destroy the whole concept of fantasy. Even Martin, who has been labelled as realistic, has used scientifically impossible concepts: people not being burnt by flames, dragons, the undead, a race of humanoid made of ice, resurrection, shadow-beings, magic...
Right on, because then it would be sci-fi!
But your Martin knowledge is pretty nice.
Except...
Only once has someone survived burning,
Due to being the Mother of Dragons and those eggs being real ones.
Plus she's a targ, only targs can tame Dragons, and Dragons stick with one master till it dies then move on (balerion good example).
Martin's Dragons are realistic in the fact that: if they could exist what would they ACTUALLY be like?
Undead, you mean wights?
Yeah, I'm guessing along the lines of "Valar morghulis" and "Valar dohaeris"
Martin said we humans can't tell if there is a supernatural force like a god, so he includes them in his works but makes sure not to make them appear or be directly involved.
So all men must die, then serve.
Of course the whole idea of that is fantastical because we couldn't understand supernatural, but at least it's more immersive and believable.
As for the white walkers or others,
We have no idea what they really are, only what they aren't.
For all we know they could be children greenseers who wanted to become immortal or fight off the humans, so preformed ice magic because ice preserves.
Or just representations of what bad can happen when two completely different races meet for the first time.
Resseruction
Doesn't have a good explanation but still pretty believable.
Ties in with "unknown force of a god or something" I mentioned earlier.
This is basically wights but not so zombie like.
Shadow beings
No explanation but if fantasy doesn't have some stuff that are unrealistic then it's not fantasy.
Unless being a shadowmage is a good explanation.
Still more believable than talking dragons.
Magic
Which is uncommon in Planetos, which is realistic, because science and tech dominate when it comes to everyday life.
But there are a lot of unknown things in our world, that can be seen as magic.
Example...
The phantom pic in the church that was revealed to be by experts unedited or messed with.
Lourdes water.
Voodoo.
Crying Boy Photograph.
If you don't like me being paranoid then science is magic.
Things we don't understand about the universe will be magic till defined or reasoned.
Example...
fist of god in space
fox face in space
raspberry wine flow in space
dark flow at edge of solar system.
Basically loads of scary stuff.
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In Tolkien's works, elves and humans do not share the same ancestors. Elves are the first Children of Ilúvatar, awoken thousands of years before the second Children, humans.
That's ancestor to me.
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I agree with David on that point. In fact, we could even interpret the "English-speaking Dragons" the following way: not many humans are wise enough to learn the mighty Draconic language, while all dragons easily speak our puny mortal common tongue.
When does wisdom come into play...
First it was as smart as humans then it became smarter than humans, just to fit your post?
Anyone can learn any language.
If majority of people can't speak African Click languages then that means they're less wise?
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Besides, looks at some fish species: the female lays thousands of eggs, and probably less than 0.1% of these eggs ever hatch.
True, but me and David already agreed that birth chance plays a factor..
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Dragonplane? Have the existence of this been confirmed into AQ3D? If not, well, I hardly see how that applies to this universe...
Has the existence of elves been confirmed in AQ3D?
I hardly see how this applies to this universe.
Just kidding, but me and David were talking about Dragons in general and why they exist in AE universe if they don't interact.
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Who said humans were the dominant species in the AQ3D version of Lore? We've only seen humans because our characters ARE humans.
Predictable.
In DF, where dragons are a heavy focus, humans dominate.
In AQW, where DF, AQ, MQ mashed together, humans dominate.
AQ3D will take inspiration by previous games and since it shares the same battleon as AQW we can assume other big cities exist and are populated with no attacks by monsters or dragons.
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So AQ3D dragons might end up being very different from what we can expect from the classical fantasy conception of dragons.
It's not that I hate dragons speaking
I hate it when dragons speak without a good explanation to why, because it ruins immersion, which is the point of fantasy, escaping into another world.
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Since dragons are able to live for so long, and are probably more advanced,
Hah no
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they would easily be able to learn such language.
I'm sure every advanced empire was able to learn tribal languages because more advanced amirite.
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And if you think about it, they were there the whole time!
But they didn't eat us in-case we started murdering them all as we got more advanced?
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They could even have influenced the language itself too, if they desired.
Even though you just said they'd want to communicate with humans, implying humans already established language.
What would dragons gain by teaming with a weaker, lesser species that they could've ended in a week if they wanted to?
No-one could've matched them till humans advanced, then that's their fault for letting us advance, now we have a Dragonslayer team dedicated to killing dragons.
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To replicate the sounds of words in those languages, dragons could do it like some birds do. They have mouth parts that can regulate the air with precision, allowing them to pronounce exact sounds, despite not even moving their beak at all.
Some birds are intelligent enough to learn what some words/expressions mean due to context, and use them at appropriate times. While they don't grasp the language, they also do not simply repeat random words. Learning a different species' language is incredibly difficult (humans haven't), but dragons would probably be able to do that.
Makes sense I guess
but if you teach bird words of our language(s) they still wouldn't be able to talk normally with another human or bird that can also speak human.
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Or, you could have dragons simply speak to other races telepathically. The voice would appear in your mind in a way you would understand. This could be by the use of magic, maybe.
Another good explanation.
I like this idea.
Then they can get into your head and mess you up without having to fight.
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