Trying to think too realisticly about fantasy gets really strange.
-An example is the dragon size to wing ratio is so so so wrong. The heaviest flying birds are the condor and abatros and pelican. the Andean condor has a 300cm wingspan and a weight of 11.25 kg, we get a ratio of 26 cm of wing per kg of body weight. The slightly heavier trumpeter swan has a ratio of only 17.4 cm per kg. Now..Swans fly by flapping, unlike the gliding used by condors, so for dragon wing to weight ratio we use the average...21.5cm of wing to kg.
-This means a 1,000kg dragon needs 21,500 cm of wing. or 215m! Ok let's go into flying reptiles. The Quetzalcoatlus had a wingpsan of 10m and a body weight of 200kg. That gives us a ratio of 50cm to kg, meaning a dragon of 1,000kg would need a wingspan of 500m.
-Let's make a medium dragon with the condor rules. It weighs 100kg and so has a 2600cm wingspan. This is still 26m across!
-Either dragons have undersized wings for artistic purposes, their flight is magical, or they utilize some 'third' way of flying like insects and hummingbirds. But insects and hummingbirds have very very little weight and insects are cold blooded, while hummingbirds eat a high high high energy diet. Dragons are meat eating reptiles which usually have sluggish digestion.
-Am I thinking too hard? What's the answer?
I make most fly by magic in my worlds. It also means that many of the Dragons are land bound in areas of anti-magic. >:3 It's a good thing the PCs don't know.
According to what I remember from Flight of Dragons it has something more to do with a kind of gas they build up inside of them more then their actual wingspan for some of them.
I believe I read about a sort of 'fly bladder' a sort of sac of lighter than air gas they use. Now if it's H2 that would make dragons and fire a really bad mix...
|
According to what I remember from Flight of Dragons it has something more to do with a kind of gas they build up inside of them more then their actual wingspan for some of them.I believe I read about a sort of 'fly bladder' a sort of sac of lighter than air gas they use. Now if it's H2 that would make dragons and fire a really bad mix...
Yes, but that was also where the fire breathing ability would come from. :)
So do Dragons lose altitude when they breath fire?
dragon size to wing ratio is so so so wrongBumble bees and helicopters!
But yeah, really, this is fantasy. Dragons can fly and giants can walk upright...
There is nowhere a description of dragon wings beating faster than the human eye can see...or is there?...in fact people say dragons soar.
Dragons, shcmagons. I can find my mind-bending physics nightmares before even breaking from things that can be found in real life.
According to the weapon sizes rules, a pixie can take what essentially amounts to a large gauge ball bearing mounted on a pencil, call it a mace, and hit me with it...and it will actually do lethal damage to me!
I just ignore dragon art for the most part. A way to make it work physiologically would be something like this-
Take a look at the displacer beast. Looks something like an emaciated cat. There's the beginning of the dragon's chassis. Now mix it with a snake, long neck and tail, both with flaring "rudders"
Make dragon bones extremely light, strong and flexible, like organic titanium. (awesome stuff for making things out of, of course)
Now make the wingspan roughly three times the body length.
The important things to remember are that dragons can't have much muscle mass. They can be incredibly strong still, but not heavy. They would also have insane metabolisms, eating constantly while awake, which is a good reason for dragons to sleep for extended periods of time. (Hibernating, going into a very low rate of energy consumption, waiting for food supplies to replenish.)
Over the years fantasy art has made dragons more and more bulky, which I think is a mistake. To me, a whip-thin dragon that moves like a cross between a leopard, a hawk and a viper is way scarier.
In real life, the top predators in the world aren't the best because they are big. They're the best because they are fast, and just big enough.
Dragons, shcmagons. I can find my mind-bending physics nightmares before even breaking from things that can be found in real life.
According to the weapon sizes rules, a pixie can take what essentially amounts to a large gauge ball bearing mounted on a pencil, call it a mace, and hit me with it...and it will actually do lethal damage to me!
Hey, if that were a high level Rogue pixie, it could do 10d6 of lethal damage to you by turning invisible...
I just ignore dragon art for the most part. A way to make it work physiologically would be something like this-
Take a look at the displacer beast. Looks something like an emaciated cat. There's the beginning of the dragon's chassis. Now mix it with a snake, long neck and tail, both with flaring "rudders"
Make dragon bones extremely light, strong and flexible, like organic titanium. (awesome stuff for making things out of, of course)
Now make the wingspan roughly three times the body length.
The important things to remember are that dragons can't have much muscle mass. They can be incredibly strong still, but not heavy. They would also have insane metabolisms, eating constantly while awake, which is a good reason for dragons to sleep for extended periods of time. (Hibernating, going into a very low rate of energy consumption, waiting for food supplies to replenish.)
Over the years fantasy art has made dragons more and more bulky, which I think is a mistake. To me, a whip-thin dragon that moves like a cross between a leopard, a hawk and a viper is way scarier.
In real life, the top predators in the world aren't the best because they are big. They're the best because they are fast, and just big enough.
That's why, I'd never ever want to be chased by a grizzly bear... Those things run fast...
The way I play it out is that anything with a vertebrae and more than six limbs was created by magic (or went through some horrible mutation). My true dragons only have 4 limbs and look more like dinosaurs; The dragons with 6 limbs were created by the gods to mimic the stories and misinterpretations of the humans.
I play griffins the same way. Basically there are true griffins which are actually more like giant, feathery, winged but flightless raptors which instigated a story where they were misrepresented as being half lion / half eagle and so through magical experiments, a half lion / half eagle was created. >:3
-Still when you consider there are animals that have natural sonar like bats, shoot lightning like eels, and turn color like lizards, not to mention animals that make tools and bacteria that can survive sulfuric acid pools, it's pretty hard to make any rules about nature...that don't have an exception somewhere.
-As for giants walking on two legs, wouldn't we assume they'd have to have a fused spine or something?
|
There is nowhere a description of dragon wings beating faster than the human eye can see...
My point was, is that neither bees nor helicopters should theoretically be able to fly, and yet they do. So if one extrapolates this real would concept, one could, along with the addition of magic, have no problem with soaring dragons...
|
|
One needs simple look to our own world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pterosaur
The Pterosur species flew and had many sub species. Some of the species could glide over 10000 miles.
Some of these had wingspans of over 30 feet. Granted they did have small thin bodies with weights up to 550 pounds
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pterosaur_size
it is believed they had hallow bones like birds and air sacks in their wings. Some say it was the temperature and oxygen levels in their time but it is believed if they where in today's world they could possibly fly.
If dinosaurs flew, then why not dragons
OH and as a personal belief I think this is where the belief in dragons came from. Either someone found bones or possible there may be been a few survivors that people saw. Possible? Who knows.
Weren't some pterodactyls big enough to carry an adult human, had any been around at the same time?
My point was, is that neither bees nor helicopters should theoretically be able to fly, and yet they do.
Rubbish. People have been repeating that canard as truth for years but there is not a shred of truth to it. We've had a working model, or theory, to explain all kinds of flight for years. This includes bees, helicopters, and hummingbirds.
Most like this started as an urban legend from 1930s misunderstanding between a biologist and a physicist.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1076/is-it-aerodynamically-impossi ble-for-bumblebees-to-fly
Actually, by biggest beef against fantasy dragon is that they have 6 appendages instead of 4.
When "realism" is at sake, I much prefer the 2-winged 2-legged dragons myself...
'findel
It's all about the The Rule of Cool. They can fly because it looks cool, man!
Personally, I've always preferred the 6 appendage dragons(4 legs, 2 wings), since that just sort of what I grew up with(80's cartoons, etc) and am used to. I just compare it to things like Angels, Devils, etc that all have 2 arms, 2 legs, and a set of wings. Really, a LOT of fantasy fauna technically fall under the "6 appendage" category.
I reserve the 2 legged, 2 winged dragons for primitive, dire, more bestial dragon types, like Wyverns.
Some Fantasy sources explain this with dragons having lighter than air gas pockets somewhere in thier body. sort of like float tanks in submarines.
This has been covered.
A friend is borrowing my Rise of the Runelords 4 right now, so I can't double-check this, but I believe the Ecology of Dragons chapter actually addresses this point in specific. From what I can remember, dragons are actually partially composed of pure arcane magic. This is what lets them fly, and also provides a significant portion of their dietary needs.
Helicopters and bumblebee flight is not due to wing to weight ratio as a means of generating lift, but rather the ability of a surface rotated at high speed to create multiple small uplifts.This is known as a vortex. The next person who mentions helicopters or bees will be shot. thank you.
|
Helicopters and Bees. :D
Yeah personally I would chock this up to Magic. Anything larger than say a Large Dragon has to have magic to help support its weight. The Large sized dragons would be mostly wings and have to live in a region with heavy updrafts possibly on a coast line with cliffs and feed off of dolphins sharks and other large sea dwellers.
Ohh dragons that hunt sea folk and fishermen.
Okay, physics and science be damned... the visuals i'm getting based off the ideas you guys are throwing out is awesome.
|
|
Most movies portray dragons when they fly as rising 2 feet with every down push of their wings, and dropping 1 with every raising of the wings to create lift.
Other images show dragons as pulling their wings slightly in to help reduce drag when the raise the wings up before extending and pushing down to once again create lift.
Dragons are NOT the most graceful flier in the air.
And to look at modern aircraft, If you took the Fly-By-Wire power away from say an F-16, this plane will drop like a rock. It is not a glider, nor are most any other fighter. Older planes even from WWII did not glide all that great and needed to maintain a certain airspeed to not nose dive. A pilot had to know how to keep the proper angle of decent to keep his airspeed up. If he did not do that he would stall and go into a deadly spin.
We could also say Dragons are like Bats. Bats do not have hallow bones and they are by far one of the best fliers in the sky being able to turn rather quickly. They tend to hang for a reason as on the ground it is not as easy for them to get the wings flapping to gain height. Bids in comparison "JUMP" when they take flight and they also have more clearance than a bat for take off.
Now take mammals such as the flying squirrels do not actually fly and glide. They leap from a tree and spread the limbs with a membrane and thus allowing the air to allow them to descend much like a parachute would on a human
One reason bats are more nimble in flight is the surface area on a bad is mush smaller (Thinner) than on birds. But they have tiny bumps on the membrane that has a tiny hair in it thus giving information to the bat on the air around it and giving it a very precise "Fly-by-Wire" ability not seen in most birds. But the membrane is very thin and easily damaged but quick to heal.
**EDIT to add**
Birds and insects can fold and rotate their wings during flight, but bats have many more options. Their flexible skin can catch the air and generate lift or reduce drag in many different ways. During straightforward flight, the wing is mostly extended for the down stroke, but the wing surface curves much more than a bird's does – giving bats greater lift for less energy. During the up stroke, the bats fold the wings much closer to their bodies than other flying animals, potentially reducing the drag they experience. The wing's extraordinary flexibility also allows the animals to make 180-degree turns in a distance of less than half a wingspan.
It's been alluded to a lot already but if dragonflight is the only physics problem you can come up with in a game that has human beings able to shoot fire out of their hands then you're already ahead of the game. Good luck.
The biggest problem with the whole idea is we have no clear definition of "dragon".
Could a dragon be a pterodactyl?
Would a lizard count? Some lizards glide through folds of skin, does that count?
Once you define dragon, they you can answer the question if it can fly.