From the article archive
Walking With Dragons (Part Two)
Interlude Two
She is a black dragon, a young adult. She measures about 12 feet long and weighs about a ton. Her chin is starting to show through the hide there. When it is covered with horn she will be sexually mature. She swims slowly through the swamp, her legs and wings held tight against her body, using her great tail to scull her through the murky water. Only her eyes and nostril show above the surface.
Ahead, in a small cove, is a herd of swamp buffalo. The females each a ton of mean, intelligent bovine. Standing watch over the cows and their calves is a bull who masses over two tons, possessing a pair of horns that would make an auroch envious. Closest to the dragon is a female. This is the one she will take.
She knows these animals are extremely wary, so she lets herself drift, moving closer only when she's sure their attentions are elsewhere. Her rear legs drop, to touch the bottom. She coughs up a wad of acidic phlegm, and spits.
It lands square on the cows face. Bellowing in pain and shock the beast quivers in place, the rest of the herd panics. Except for the bull.
The dragon rears up out of the water and clamps her jaws on the cow's neck. With her prey secured she drags it down and away. The bull is too late.
He stops at the edge of the deep water bellowing his rage. But his enemy is gone. He will return to his herd, but he will be more cautious than before. It will be weeks before he allows any of his cows to wander so close to danger.
The dragon takes her prey to the bottom of her home lagoon. There she tears the throat out. In its confusion and pain the beast tries to breath, and so drowns. The hunter now takes the corpse to a place, a tangle of roots, where she can cache it. Much of it will be lost to scavenging fish, but the rest will sustain her for many days. Besides, she can always eat the fish it attracts.
Well satisfied with her efforts, the black dragon swims off to her lair. She will sleep there upon her mound of gold and gems, and plan for tomorrow.
Evolution
For centuries the origin of the dragon was problematical. Professor Jonathan Bakker around 1895 once opined that the dragon was not a real beast, but the actualization of Man's hidden fears and desires. Even the gnome naturalist, Charles Darwin, confessed he was quite at sea regarding how such a beast could evolve.
Then came the discoveries of 1906.
In a series of expeditions to the western slopes of the Urals Russian scientists came across a bone bed that dated back to the mid Jurassic. And not just any bone bed. For mixed in with a thick layer of fish bones were the bones of a winged lizard. Many winged lizards. After years of study the Russians published their findings.
It was a time of drought. As bodies of water dried up the fish were forced into smaller and smaller areas. A flock of these winged lizards found one such trap, inhabited now by the dead and dying. Normally insectivorious, the reptiles took advantage of the opportunity to feast.
Up in the mountains it rained. Rained hard. A wall of water came roaring down from the heights. A great, jumbled mass of mud, rock, and water struck the roiling melee of reptile and fish, killing all but a lucky few and sweeping it down stream. The dead and dying would come to rest in a backwater. Covered in mud and debris they would remain undisturbed until discovered millions of years later.
They were not dragons. At least, not yet. Their wings were small, from all appearances unable to carry the animal for more than a hundred yards or so. They got around mostly by clambering through the trees, arboreal animals who dined on insects and small reptiles.
Their direct ancestors are unknown. But it possible they were descended from relatives of a group of arboreal crocodiles from the Permian. Wingless and four limbed, they climbed among the branches and fronds of the primitive trees of the time. The term, "arboreal crocodiles" is a misnomer, for while related to the thecodonts and early crocodilians of the period, they belonged to a different group altogether.
When the wings appeared is not known. Especially troubling is the fact that a third set of limbs appeared in an animal that previously had been a quadraped. For a time in the 17th century it was popular to classify dragons as great, monstrous insects, an hypotheses contradicted by evidence readily available even then. The small winged reptiles of the mid-Jurassic are of no help in this regard, for even their wings are too advanced to give paleontologists any idea of how they evolved.
Recent genetic studies have provided some information regarding the origin of dragon wings. Some time in the distant past, between the end of the Permian and the middle of the Jurassic, a mistake was made. The genes that code for forelimb development were duplicated, and expressed. This is not an unusual thing, it happened with the eight legged anapsid basilisk, and the six limbed griffon and centaur. In the case of the early proto-dragons it gave them a second pair of forelimbs behind the first. Over the course of time these extra limbs moved up and further back, by the mid-Jurrasic to take their current position, and current role as wings. The details of how this occurred is a matter of much speculation and vitriolic debate.
The early winged proto-dragons are believed to have been natural fliers. Creatures that fly entirely without the aid of magic. Birds, bats, and even wyverns are natural fliers. When proto-dragons became magically aided fliers (those too heavy to fly naturally) is not known, but by the middle of the cretaceous proto-dragons had achieved a size too great to be borne up by wings alone.
So far we have been talking about the western dragon. The so called chromatic and metallic dragons. The eastern or oriental dragon arose from a different source. While both are descended from tiny, arboleal archosaurs, the oriental dragon's ancestors split off from the western prior to the appearance of wings. In addition, one line went back to the sea, in a way made possible only by magic.
In the late Triassic an early proto-oriental dragon appeared where the young had gills. Other than that it appeared to be a fairly typical proto oriental dragon of the time. As time passed that changed.
By the early Cretaceous its descendents had evolved to greatly resemble a bony fish, specifically a carp. But a carp with arms. Thus the common name of carp dragon. It had also evolved a form of metamorphosis, where the young would gradually change into its adult form. The sudden, magical transformation would not appear until late in the Miocene.
Early in the Tertiary is when the li lung (earth dragon) and lung wang (sea dragon) first appear. In the case of the li lung the forelimbs were again duplicated, and those new limbs evolved into wing. But unlike the wings of western dragons these grew feathers. In addition, the body of the li lung became covered with fur like scales, so unlike the scales of other species of dragon. In all by the Pleistocene the li lung had taken on the appearance of a great lion, with gorgeously feathered wings.
The lung wang took an entirely different course, returning to the sea entirely. At first the transformation from yu lung (carp dragon) to lung wang was slow, but about the same time the other lung (oriental dragons) started to change almost instantaneously, so did they. Just when they started taking on the appearance of a great, predatory turtle complete with shell and most unturtle-like dentition is not known, but by the middle of the Tertiary they looked much as they do now.
The rest of the oriental dragons, the lung, did not follow the course set by their relatives. Instead they developed fully magical flying (a form of flying where it is magic that bears the subject through the air) and a serpentine appearance. While evidence is lacking, there are some who speculate that the oriental dragon was starting to evolve into a sort of archosaurian snake when they were forced on a different path.
Some six million years ago the dragon appeared as much as he does today. But there was one important difference. While possessed of an intellect comparable to mammals of the time, the dragon was not yet the mental giant it is today. By the time the first elves appeared on the scene some 80,000 years ago the dragon had advanced to the level of a gorilla mentally. It would appear that interacting with full sapients such as Man, the dwarf, the elf, and the goblin and his kin was the goad needed for the dragon to achieve his daunting intellect. At the dawn of civilization some 7,000 years ago the dragon was much as he is today, a great, intelligent, dangerous animal.
Interlude Three
Michael is now sixteen years old, a young dragon. He is about five feet in length and weighs around 80 pounds. He has "darkened" to full white, with a set of scales able to turn many weapons, natural or artificial. Not yet the accomplished flier his mother is, he is still able to carry himself over his homeland's glaciers, icefields, tundra, and mountains. He now flies besides one such mountain, spotting a small herd of mountain goats. He's hungry, and overconfident.
Though they weigh some two hundred pounds each, and bear an impressive pair of sharp horns, the heedless young white dragon dives upon them. As he swoops over one male he breathes out a burning cold blast that freezes the mountain goat's skin and chills the flesh beneath.
He comes about and lands before what he thinks is helpless prey. The goat has different ideas. The goat is hurt. The goat is angry. Seeing its tormentor before it, the goat charges. A very surprised white dragon is tossed about 50 yards away, with two ragged wholes in his body. Fortunately for Michael, he is able to recover enough to get airborne before the maddened goat reaches him.
A chastised, wiser white dragon flies home. There to seek and gain his mother's aid and sympathy. From now on he'll seek smaller prey, prey he can handle.
The K/T Boundary
How the dragon survived the Cretaceous extinction remains a mystery. While not the great beast it is today, the dragons of the time were still large animals. It would appear that the western dragon's ability to fly in some manner aided it in finding food during the great asteroidal winter. The oriental dragon probably took refuge in its yu lung form. Indeed, there appears to be a period of time when the yu lung apparently never grew up, remaining in a neotenic state for a number of generations until conditions improved enough for the adult forms to reappear. In either case the ability to eat almost everything a crocodile can, plus a brain more like that of a mammal than a reptile probably helped.
With the passing of the world shrouding clouds things would improve, and the dragon's chances at survival with them.
Interlude Four
He has flown over this desert for close to 900 years now. He is a brass dragon, twenty feet in length and weighing eight tons. His eyes have the appearance of molten metal, and his scales gleam bright in the sun. Though he soars some 20,000 feet above the desert floor nothing escapes his gaze. Especially not the caravan struggling through the arid land.
An hour before they appeared to be heading for an oasis, a sanctuary rich with water that sustains bushes and trees heavy with fruit. Now they are heading away, having come within a hundred yards of the oasis. Having ignored the actions of their horses and camels.
Were he not here they would likely die of thirst. But he is here, and he knows of their plight and its remedy. Besides, it's a golden opportunity to hear some delicious gossip.
They'll pay for his assistance, but while they'll beg for death to release them from the great dragon yenta and his interminable stories and blatant hints, at least they won't die of thirst.
Divination Magic and Dragon Evolution
Many have asked why we know so little of dragon evolution with divination magic available. Divination is limited in what it can do. In addition, without a specimen of some sort even the best divination magic can only reach back a few thousand years. With a specimen from the time divination magic can see back as far as 500,000 years ago, but any further back the impressions gained stay irritatingly vague.
Even so a specimen from an organism that lived back then gives a clearer picture than would be possible from a rock from the same time period. A specimen that still contains organic material from the beast gives a clearer picture yet. But, impressions from the mid Jurassic remain very blurred, and besides, finding actual organic material from that time is extremely rare.
In addition, the picture the diviner gains with such an aid is of what the animal itself would've seen while alive, and the animals of the mid-Jurassic did not exactly perceive the world the way we do.
A blurry world with washed out colors, information processed through a brain with the computing power of an early model Univac, and you've pretty much gotten the picture a divination spell can give you even with the best specimen dating from a time back in the age of the dinosaurs.
All told, one is better off studying the clues present here and now from those times.
Still, there are reports of highly specialized divination magic incorporating the knowledge discovered by the new school of temporal (time) magic. While reliable, long "distance" time travel is not yet available, the information gained in the latest series of experiments may give us the ability to see clearly as far back as 20 million years ago. If the Hawkings/Brin experiments bear fruit we could be able to send a man back as far as 10 million years ago, and perhaps a hundred million years. With that capability we might be able to "see" as far back as one billion years.
This all assumes the Benford contradiction is not the stumbling block some in the arcane community think it to be.
In Closing
I now take this time to apolgize for not covering dragon physiology. This section turned out to be longer and more involved then I had thought it would be. When I return to this series I shall deal with dragon physiology at the very least. Plus more of the adventures of Michael, the white dragon. Till then.
Alan Kellogg
She is a black dragon, a young adult. She measures about 12 feet long and weighs about a ton. Her chin is starting to show through the hide there. When it is covered with horn she will be sexually mature. She swims slowly through the swamp, her legs and wings held tight against her body, using her great tail to scull her through the murky water. Only her eyes and nostril show above the surface.
Ahead, in a small cove, is a herd of swamp buffalo. The females each a ton of mean, intelligent bovine. Standing watch over the cows and their calves is a bull who masses over two tons, possessing a pair of horns that would make an auroch envious. Closest to the dragon is a female. This is the one she will take.
She knows these animals are extremely wary, so she lets herself drift, moving closer only when she's sure their attentions are elsewhere. Her rear legs drop, to touch the bottom. She coughs up a wad of acidic phlegm, and spits.
It lands square on the cows face. Bellowing in pain and shock the beast quivers in place, the rest of the herd panics. Except for the bull.
The dragon rears up out of the water and clamps her jaws on the cow's neck. With her prey secured she drags it down and away. The bull is too late.
He stops at the edge of the deep water bellowing his rage. But his enemy is gone. He will return to his herd, but he will be more cautious than before. It will be weeks before he allows any of his cows to wander so close to danger.
The dragon takes her prey to the bottom of her home lagoon. There she tears the throat out. In its confusion and pain the beast tries to breath, and so drowns. The hunter now takes the corpse to a place, a tangle of roots, where she can cache it. Much of it will be lost to scavenging fish, but the rest will sustain her for many days. Besides, she can always eat the fish it attracts.
Well satisfied with her efforts, the black dragon swims off to her lair. She will sleep there upon her mound of gold and gems, and plan for tomorrow.
Evolution
For centuries the origin of the dragon was problematical. Professor Jonathan Bakker around 1895 once opined that the dragon was not a real beast, but the actualization of Man's hidden fears and desires. Even the gnome naturalist, Charles Darwin, confessed he was quite at sea regarding how such a beast could evolve.
Then came the discoveries of 1906.
In a series of expeditions to the western slopes of the Urals Russian scientists came across a bone bed that dated back to the mid Jurassic. And not just any bone bed. For mixed in with a thick layer of fish bones were the bones of a winged lizard. Many winged lizards. After years of study the Russians published their findings.
It was a time of drought. As bodies of water dried up the fish were forced into smaller and smaller areas. A flock of these winged lizards found one such trap, inhabited now by the dead and dying. Normally insectivorious, the reptiles took advantage of the opportunity to feast.
Up in the mountains it rained. Rained hard. A wall of water came roaring down from the heights. A great, jumbled mass of mud, rock, and water struck the roiling melee of reptile and fish, killing all but a lucky few and sweeping it down stream. The dead and dying would come to rest in a backwater. Covered in mud and debris they would remain undisturbed until discovered millions of years later.
They were not dragons. At least, not yet. Their wings were small, from all appearances unable to carry the animal for more than a hundred yards or so. They got around mostly by clambering through the trees, arboreal animals who dined on insects and small reptiles.
Their direct ancestors are unknown. But it possible they were descended from relatives of a group of arboreal crocodiles from the Permian. Wingless and four limbed, they climbed among the branches and fronds of the primitive trees of the time. The term, "arboreal crocodiles" is a misnomer, for while related to the thecodonts and early crocodilians of the period, they belonged to a different group altogether.
When the wings appeared is not known. Especially troubling is the fact that a third set of limbs appeared in an animal that previously had been a quadraped. For a time in the 17th century it was popular to classify dragons as great, monstrous insects, an hypotheses contradicted by evidence readily available even then. The small winged reptiles of the mid-Jurassic are of no help in this regard, for even their wings are too advanced to give paleontologists any idea of how they evolved.
Recent genetic studies have provided some information regarding the origin of dragon wings. Some time in the distant past, between the end of the Permian and the middle of the Jurassic, a mistake was made. The genes that code for forelimb development were duplicated, and expressed. This is not an unusual thing, it happened with the eight legged anapsid basilisk, and the six limbed griffon and centaur. In the case of the early proto-dragons it gave them a second pair of forelimbs behind the first. Over the course of time these extra limbs moved up and further back, by the mid-Jurrasic to take their current position, and current role as wings. The details of how this occurred is a matter of much speculation and vitriolic debate.
The early winged proto-dragons are believed to have been natural fliers. Creatures that fly entirely without the aid of magic. Birds, bats, and even wyverns are natural fliers. When proto-dragons became magically aided fliers (those too heavy to fly naturally) is not known, but by the middle of the cretaceous proto-dragons had achieved a size too great to be borne up by wings alone.
So far we have been talking about the western dragon. The so called chromatic and metallic dragons. The eastern or oriental dragon arose from a different source. While both are descended from tiny, arboleal archosaurs, the oriental dragon's ancestors split off from the western prior to the appearance of wings. In addition, one line went back to the sea, in a way made possible only by magic.
In the late Triassic an early proto-oriental dragon appeared where the young had gills. Other than that it appeared to be a fairly typical proto oriental dragon of the time. As time passed that changed.
By the early Cretaceous its descendents had evolved to greatly resemble a bony fish, specifically a carp. But a carp with arms. Thus the common name of carp dragon. It had also evolved a form of metamorphosis, where the young would gradually change into its adult form. The sudden, magical transformation would not appear until late in the Miocene.
Early in the Tertiary is when the li lung (earth dragon) and lung wang (sea dragon) first appear. In the case of the li lung the forelimbs were again duplicated, and those new limbs evolved into wing. But unlike the wings of western dragons these grew feathers. In addition, the body of the li lung became covered with fur like scales, so unlike the scales of other species of dragon. In all by the Pleistocene the li lung had taken on the appearance of a great lion, with gorgeously feathered wings.
The lung wang took an entirely different course, returning to the sea entirely. At first the transformation from yu lung (carp dragon) to lung wang was slow, but about the same time the other lung (oriental dragons) started to change almost instantaneously, so did they. Just when they started taking on the appearance of a great, predatory turtle complete with shell and most unturtle-like dentition is not known, but by the middle of the Tertiary they looked much as they do now.
The rest of the oriental dragons, the lung, did not follow the course set by their relatives. Instead they developed fully magical flying (a form of flying where it is magic that bears the subject through the air) and a serpentine appearance. While evidence is lacking, there are some who speculate that the oriental dragon was starting to evolve into a sort of archosaurian snake when they were forced on a different path.
Some six million years ago the dragon appeared as much as he does today. But there was one important difference. While possessed of an intellect comparable to mammals of the time, the dragon was not yet the mental giant it is today. By the time the first elves appeared on the scene some 80,000 years ago the dragon had advanced to the level of a gorilla mentally. It would appear that interacting with full sapients such as Man, the dwarf, the elf, and the goblin and his kin was the goad needed for the dragon to achieve his daunting intellect. At the dawn of civilization some 7,000 years ago the dragon was much as he is today, a great, intelligent, dangerous animal.
Interlude Three
Michael is now sixteen years old, a young dragon. He is about five feet in length and weighs around 80 pounds. He has "darkened" to full white, with a set of scales able to turn many weapons, natural or artificial. Not yet the accomplished flier his mother is, he is still able to carry himself over his homeland's glaciers, icefields, tundra, and mountains. He now flies besides one such mountain, spotting a small herd of mountain goats. He's hungry, and overconfident.
Though they weigh some two hundred pounds each, and bear an impressive pair of sharp horns, the heedless young white dragon dives upon them. As he swoops over one male he breathes out a burning cold blast that freezes the mountain goat's skin and chills the flesh beneath.
He comes about and lands before what he thinks is helpless prey. The goat has different ideas. The goat is hurt. The goat is angry. Seeing its tormentor before it, the goat charges. A very surprised white dragon is tossed about 50 yards away, with two ragged wholes in his body. Fortunately for Michael, he is able to recover enough to get airborne before the maddened goat reaches him.
A chastised, wiser white dragon flies home. There to seek and gain his mother's aid and sympathy. From now on he'll seek smaller prey, prey he can handle.
The K/T Boundary
How the dragon survived the Cretaceous extinction remains a mystery. While not the great beast it is today, the dragons of the time were still large animals. It would appear that the western dragon's ability to fly in some manner aided it in finding food during the great asteroidal winter. The oriental dragon probably took refuge in its yu lung form. Indeed, there appears to be a period of time when the yu lung apparently never grew up, remaining in a neotenic state for a number of generations until conditions improved enough for the adult forms to reappear. In either case the ability to eat almost everything a crocodile can, plus a brain more like that of a mammal than a reptile probably helped.
With the passing of the world shrouding clouds things would improve, and the dragon's chances at survival with them.
Interlude Four
He has flown over this desert for close to 900 years now. He is a brass dragon, twenty feet in length and weighing eight tons. His eyes have the appearance of molten metal, and his scales gleam bright in the sun. Though he soars some 20,000 feet above the desert floor nothing escapes his gaze. Especially not the caravan struggling through the arid land.
An hour before they appeared to be heading for an oasis, a sanctuary rich with water that sustains bushes and trees heavy with fruit. Now they are heading away, having come within a hundred yards of the oasis. Having ignored the actions of their horses and camels.
Were he not here they would likely die of thirst. But he is here, and he knows of their plight and its remedy. Besides, it's a golden opportunity to hear some delicious gossip.
They'll pay for his assistance, but while they'll beg for death to release them from the great dragon yenta and his interminable stories and blatant hints, at least they won't die of thirst.
Divination Magic and Dragon Evolution
Many have asked why we know so little of dragon evolution with divination magic available. Divination is limited in what it can do. In addition, without a specimen of some sort even the best divination magic can only reach back a few thousand years. With a specimen from the time divination magic can see back as far as 500,000 years ago, but any further back the impressions gained stay irritatingly vague.
Even so a specimen from an organism that lived back then gives a clearer picture than would be possible from a rock from the same time period. A specimen that still contains organic material from the beast gives a clearer picture yet. But, impressions from the mid Jurassic remain very blurred, and besides, finding actual organic material from that time is extremely rare.
In addition, the picture the diviner gains with such an aid is of what the animal itself would've seen while alive, and the animals of the mid-Jurassic did not exactly perceive the world the way we do.
A blurry world with washed out colors, information processed through a brain with the computing power of an early model Univac, and you've pretty much gotten the picture a divination spell can give you even with the best specimen dating from a time back in the age of the dinosaurs.
All told, one is better off studying the clues present here and now from those times.
Still, there are reports of highly specialized divination magic incorporating the knowledge discovered by the new school of temporal (time) magic. While reliable, long "distance" time travel is not yet available, the information gained in the latest series of experiments may give us the ability to see clearly as far back as 20 million years ago. If the Hawkings/Brin experiments bear fruit we could be able to send a man back as far as 10 million years ago, and perhaps a hundred million years. With that capability we might be able to "see" as far back as one billion years.
This all assumes the Benford contradiction is not the stumbling block some in the arcane community think it to be.
In Closing
I now take this time to apolgize for not covering dragon physiology. This section turned out to be longer and more involved then I had thought it would be. When I return to this series I shall deal with dragon physiology at the very least. Plus more of the adventures of Michael, the white dragon. Till then.
Alan Kellogg
Recovered from the Gaming Outpost database backup. Original wording is preserved; damaged punctuation and presentation markup have been repaired. Historical links without a local match point to the Internet Archive.