Dragons: Overview

Anything in purple is information changed to suit the timeline for The Rise

Life Span

Dragons have extremely long lifespans, inhibited by very few and far between factors. Occasionally, outbreaks of illnesses have been known to kill many dragons all at once, and there was a time at which a dragon had to watch its back around other dragons, for fear of a clan feud or a war. However, they have grown into largely peaceful race who, rather than aging and falling apart with time, grow and strengthen through magic.

For obvious reasons, a dragon ages very much more slowly than a human does, emerging from infancy at more than ten years old and remains in a growing juvenile for a period of about two hundred years. At exactly two hundred and twelve years old, a young dragon is considered an adult, though it will never cease to grow.

Shape-Shifting

The majority of dragons choose to spend most of their lives in a humanoid form, which keeps their otherwise ever growing population of ever growing individuals from crowding the Great Continents. This is only traditional choice, however, and it is not considered illegal or impolite to ignore this tradition for things like travel and celebration (as a matter of fact, once a year for two Holy Calendar weeks, dragons spend much of their time in their natural forms for the Festival of the Walking Mountains (explained later)). This human form is created subconsciously when the dragon first begins to comprehend mankind (at a young age) or consciously in the case of dragons who learn to shift much later in their lives.

Though they are capable, it is uncomfortable for a dragon to change shape to only a partial extent. When manifesting aspects of their dragon form in human form, these aspects appear smaller, stretched out and elongated to fit large amounts of body into smaller amounts of space. This often results in painful headaches and uncomfortable dizzy spells, and if done often enough can cause permanent inability to make these changes (as the body will begin to reject them to avoid the discomfort).

Most dragons are as of yet reluctant to take on a human form, as sea dragons have very high standards of beauty and honor, and consider the newly developing humans beneath them. When they do change, their bodies and faces more closely resemble that of a sylvan, whom they consider to be more elegant and worthy of their consideration. However, there have been dragons who have tried to meld the two.

Family Life

A dragon's lifespan allows for (and actually creates the need for) an interesting magical ability that they have developed over time. Female dragons can control their ovulation cycle, leading for the most part to a smaller family size overall. Many dragons do not have more than one or two offspring.

Dragons tend to be very good parents, often nurturing their young until they leave the nest with a spouse of their own (or allowing them to stay even after that, creating large family groups). Young dragons are taught song, legend, and several courses on the history of the world before they reach adulthood.

Dragons have no surnames, only given names and family crests.

Love and Separation

The dragons of Cunabula Deae pair for life, and it is even whispered that their mate may be pre-determined by the Fates.

Throughout much of a young dragon's life, up until the point that they encounter this mate, who can (seldomly, but not unusually) reside outside the range of their usual sexual preferences, they are burdened by a tugging sensation on the right side of their chest (where their heart resides). Many dragons consider this to be an obvious sign that their mate is pre-determined. Dragons are not limited to coupling with other dragons, and may be drawn to human or sylvan individuals, whom they tend to keep alive through will magic alone.

Though this changes in later years, as of our current timeline dragons who couple with humans (less common, as humans are only just beginning to develop) or sylvans are often rejected by their peers and expected to live among their newfound mates.

Upon the death of their mate, a dragon typically begins to become depressed, and the willpower that had previously sustained their great and powerful forms turns destructive. Their bodies begin to bend and break under their monstrous weights, their scales turn dull and their eyes go cloudy. Typically, a dragon will live a decade or so after the death of its mate, though dragons with drastically weak or strong wills have been known to live two or three years to a century or more, respectively. It is one of the few forms of death in a world where fragility is reserved for ancient tomes and works of art.

Though this situation is well known by sea dragons of this age, arranged marriages between the children of prominent figures is not uncommon. The majority of these marriages are purely political, and often the marriage is never consummated. Extramarital affairs from both parties are regular and have come to be accepted.

Flight

Like many aspects of their strange existence, a dragon's power of flight (while facilitated by its physical characteristics) is powered mainly by the dragon's will. Unlike most large flying creatures, the ways in which their bodies are designed function for speed and ability in the air, not necessarily reduction of weight. Therefore, most dragons who have reached adulthood rely almost completely on the strength of their will to propel their body into the air and to keep it from falling until they land. Luckily this is not hard, because most dragons are trained in flight from a young age and could not be persuaded that they could not fly, scientifically.

Dragons adapt uncommonly quickly to a change in their physical environment. Because of their longevity, they do not rely on evolution to make these adaptations for them, but create the changes themselves through painful but necessary processes, most of which initially involve magic. Young dragons that come directly from the sea take about one century to learn to fly, since their developing bodies can adapt more quickly. Adult dragons who have come directly from the oceans can take anywhere from five hundred years on, if they learn to fly at all (if they choose to learn to fly at all, even).

Genetic Compatibility

Because dragons spend so much time in human form, they are fully capable of having children with both human and sylvan partners. This is possible because dragons are born with two sets of chromosomes-one for the humanoid (human/sylvan) body, and one for the dragon body. In half-dragons, the dragon-parent's genetic information duplicates in order to form a fully functioning set of dragon chromosomes identical to the parent. The sex chromosomes, however, are not affected by this process.

In hybrids, there is an increased chance for recessive traits to show in dragon form. This is because chromosomes that dictate that form are all, as we say in biology, homozygous (both contributed traits are the same, because they're contributed by the same parent).

Other Notes On Genetics

Unlike many creatures, who retain only two of the possible contributed traits, a dragon's DNA contains an imprint of its entire family line. The genes to produce offspring of any color dragon that has existed in the family line remains throughout all generations to follow.

Much like humans and creatures of our own world, there is a tremendous amount of variation from one dragon to the next. Their abilities, their strengths, their sizes, and even their shortcomings differ greatly, creating a wide, encompassing scope of possibilities. There is also leeway for several aberrations in a dragon's genetic code, which give rise to abnormal (though for the most part harmless) traits, such as pointed ears or slitted, red eyes. In rare cases, dragons cannot properly sync their eyes with the receptors in their human forms, causing crippling migraine headaches and often requiring some kind of corrective eye wear (yes, folks, dragons with glasses).

Like animals in our world, dragons are also capable of experiencing accidental changes in the chromosome numbers, which often result in miscarriages. The only cases in which this is not true are cases where the chromosomes in question are the sex chromosomes, producing a particularly feminine (usually sterile) male individual, or a particularly masculine (always sterile) female individual.

Because dragons spend a particularly small amount of time in their humanoid forms on the present timeline, a handful of these traits have not yet been discovered.

Other Abilities and Oddities

Dragons are extremely gifted in comprehending the art of song, and a dragon singer may paint beautiful pictures with its musical gifts, using only pitch and tone to relay a story in the minds of its listeners. To truly appreciate a dragon's song, however, one must go through years of training to catch the deeper meaning of the singer's melody.

Dragons are also great record keepers, their longevity and careful attention to detail making them excellent historians. In the library of one particular dragon, who resides beneath the world's largest mountain range, there rests a complete history spanning from the dragons' first rise from the oceans to the present day.

Obviously not a very long span of time yet.

They are particularly skilled in magic, and often use it in their everyday lives.

A dragon in human form is very susceptible to the smell of sulfur, which produces a kind of sensory overload and often causes them to pass out.