How do dragons fly- internally consistent physics enhanced by magic

[havoc xiii]

thejeff wrote:

Terquem wrote:

When I was very young, many thousands of years ago, my father used to delight in telling me that Bumblebee's cannot fly. He would explain, in great detail (he had been an aircraft mechanic in his youth) that the body weight to wing size ratio of a Bumblebee made it impossible for them to actually be able to fly.

When I would see a bumblebee flying I would point and ask "How come that bumblebee can fly?" and he would answer

"Shhhh, I don't think anyone has told that bumblebee yet."

There you go. Are you going to be the one to inform the 100' dragon swooping down on you that he can't fly?

You could...I'd advise against it but, hey it's your funeral. :)

[LazarX]

havoc xiii wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Terquem wrote:

When I was very young, many thousands of years ago, my father used to delight in telling me that Bumblebee's cannot fly. He would explain, in great detail (he had been an aircraft mechanic in his youth) that the body weight to wing size ratio of a Bumblebee made it impossible for them to actually be able to fly.

When I would see a bumblebee flying I would point and ask "How come that bumblebee can fly?" and he would answer

"Shhhh, I don't think anyone has told that bumblebee yet."

There you go. Are you going to be the one to inform the 100' dragon swooping down on you that he can't fly?

You could...I'd advise against it but, hey it's your funeral. :)

If Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett were your DM, it might just work. :)

[Terquem]

Funny thing is, in the cartoon "The flight of Dragons" (which borrowed heavily from both books, "The Flight of Dragons" by Peter Dickinson and the book "the Dragon and the George" by Gordon Dickson) that is exactly

spoiler alert:

how the protagonist defeated the villain at the end of the move

The Flight of Dragons at Wikipedia

[Damon Griffin]

Dragons, giants and other outsized creatures were able to evolve thanks to an area of their brains which psionically counters gravity to one degree or another; in most giants*, the counter effect is only sufficient to allow them to be supported by their own legs, in dragons, the counter effect is much stronger, providing a degree of lift (though not enough to become airborne without the added energy of wingbeats.) Dragon wings look too small, but the wings only need to provide some of the lift for their own body mass; past that, they're just used for steering.

*The effect is stronger in rune giants, who are able to air walk constantly.

These psionic effects are operated unconsiously, the brain controlling the body as needed to achieve the desired form of movement without a conscious effort by the creatures, who are not aware of having psionic abilities; this is just something they can naturally do.

Scientists on worlds like these would have rejected the idea of the square-cube law because it wouldn't have fit observable facts. Nor would psionics be well understood for a long time. At first, psi abilities would probably have been thought of as supernatural or spell-like abilities, grounded in magical principles. Oddly, they would not be subject to dispel magic or antimagic areas but even then it would be more natural to think of certain creatures' inherent magical abilities being resistant to suppression or dispelling, than to imagine an entirely separate category of power.

[Aelryinth]

I actually like that version, Griffin. It's like beholders...they use transmagical levitation that can't be dispelled and works even in an A-M Field. No reason dragons and giants don't functionally have the same thing going.

Your other alternate explanation is like Attack on Titans...giants don't actually weigh all that much, and their strength is mostly psionic, not mass.

==Aelryinth

[ParagonDireRaccoon]

It's worth examining some of the assumptions that tend to be included in earth-like conditions. Those assumptions to start with current real-world conditions as the normal baseline, and as an extension anything different is fantastical, improbable, or impossible. There were larger versions of current animals less than 20,000 years ago. These larger versions include buffalo and beavers (with sizes up to three or four times current sizes for beavers, of the top of my head). Different levels of carbon and other elements in the environment could lead to different bone structure, which includes the possibility of denser bones able to support greater mass without magic or psionics.

I like all the ways to use magic and psionics to create internally consistent physics for fantasy worlds. Magic, psionics, or favor of the gods are straightforward ways to explain true dragons flying. And I like Sean's blog on disregarding real-world physics to make cool fantasy elements possible. I picture the amount of real-world physics in an rpg as something a little flexible, a lot of groups I've gamed with have included rpg freelance writers and/or physics majors who can brainstorm good explanations for a phenomena using magic, psionics, or real-world physics. But this thread has better options for explaining dragons flying than a lot of what I've seen in my 25 or so years of gaming.

[UnArcaneElection]

^8 million years ago, Earth even had a giant rodent . . . .