Dragons are arguably the most influential creatures in the history of the Emergent Plane. With the exception of Primordials, which arguably are more of a foundational aspect of the world, Dragons are the first living things to populate the world: No other creature in the Emergent Plane is as revered, and feared, as Dragons. Before even the Gods themselves entered the world, there were Dragons, and every culture and nation across the world both knows of their existence and tells stories of these almost mythical beings.
Historical Overview
Thanks to Dracologists who had dedicated their lives to the research of these creatures, and the rare instances of recorded direct interaction with Dragons that survive to the present, there is a surprisingly great deal that we know about them. For starters, Dragons were not created with intent like the mortal races the Gods moulded into being. The prevailing theory regarding their origin is that the first Dragons, classified as "True Dragons", are actually magic itself made flesh. It is believed that the Emergent Plane is the result of an overlap of the realms of the Gods, an amalgamation of the aspects of different divine planes of existence that is formed from the overlap of each realm. In a similar vein, Dragons can be considered to be the manifestated overlap of the unconscious will of the Gods who govern each of these divine realms: Dragons were not sculpted into being, but rather came into existence naturally as a result of the blending of godlike subconscious and will. If the Demigods are the result of the collective unconscious of Mortal beings, Dragons could be considered to be the result of the collective unconscious of the Major Gods and the magic that is inherent to those Gods. In this regard, one might consider dragons to be even more "natural" than Mortals: Dragons were not created by design or with purpose, they simply arose from the unconscious of the deities which have the power to shape creation.
It is for these reasons that the first age of the world is referred to as the Age of Dragons. Before the calamitous ritual performed by a conclave of Dragons invited the Gods into the world, Dragons ruled with absolute power. It would be impossible to know exactly how long the Age of Dragons actually was, because time was an irrelevant concept: The world was without change, and the Dragons themselves were timeless. The only way it would be possible to make any determinations about it would be to ask a truly ancient Dragon from the era, and even then, it would be all but impossible for them to provide an accurate answer. It is generally assumed that it must have been a span of countless millenia, though that is purely speculation, as the only events that could serve as a point of reference would be conflicts between Dragons and Primordials and even those are ambiguous at best.
When The Lord of Games was summoned into the Emergent Plane by a conclave of Dragons, the ancient species got exactly what they asked for, but you would be hard-pressed to find a Dragon that doesn't consider this to be the greatest tragedy of their species. The conclave beseeched the trickster god to bring change to their unchanging world, and that's exactly what the deity did: The Lord of Games siphoned away an enormous amount of magic from all of Dragon-kind. This magic was then used to bring the other Gods into the world, and together, they created the Mortal races. To Mortals, this was the dawn of their existence, but to Dragons, this event was the start of their extinction. Dragons are made of pure magic, given physical form, and the trick performed by the God of Lies not only weakened Dragons, but cursed them with a lifespan. No longer were Dragons timeless beings, and this realization rippled through their entire species in an overwhelming wave of nihilistic rage. That rage resulted in
The First Dragon War, and set the course for an entire age of conflict.
Biology
To discuss the biology of Dragons is an exercise in futility in some regards. While not as unknowable as Aberrations, which seem to defy rational thought by design, Dragons are certainly on the far end of "unfamiliar" when compared to most creatures that can be found in the Emergent Plane. Dragons
possess a knowable physiology that can can be studied, but the degree to which that physiology actually, for lack of a better description, "matters" is a subject of much debate among dracologists. Draconic biology seems, at first, sensible enough: They fly using their wings, they have digestive systems, respiratory systems, and so on. However, the degree to which any of their biology is actually
necessary remains a mystery and as such, remains a highly contested topic. For example, Red Dragons possess a kind of flint-like stone structure on the roof of their mouth, as well as similar structures along their tonge not unlike the bristles on the tongue of the cat. In order to breathe fire, they strike their tongue across the structure on the roof of their mouth while expelling a gaseous substance from a special organ similar to a lung located near their stomach. All of which seems understandable enough from a biology standpoint, but where the confusion comes from is that despite there being a clear
physical process to how a Red Dragon breathes fire, a true Red Dragon could still do so even if you sever its tounge or manage to (somehow) slash open its throat. When necessary, it seems that true Dragons are capable to bypass their own biology and in fact function almost independent of it.
The prevailing theory as to why Dragons' biology is so seemingly paradoxical is that, put simply, they're a perfect binding of the magical and physical planes. Given that they manifested from raw magic at the dawn of the Emergent Plane's creation, it seems that magic is as much a part of their "biology" as their actual physical biology is. Mortals were created by the Gods and magic, true, but the ability to manipulate The Script, as well as The Script istelf, were a result of the Gods active participation. Dragons, however, emerged with magic entwined with their biology, and it's as integral to existence as any integral organ. In this way they are closer to extraplanar beings such as Fairies or Devils than they are to Humans or Elves, but are a creature which exists outside of any such classsification. This is one of the biggest reasons why Dragons have been such an intense subject of study throughout the ages of Mortals, for even considering their historical significance they remain some of the most fascinating organisms to study.
Their biology also presents one of the arguably most tragic aspects of Dragons: Their almost certain eventual extinction
The Future of Dragonkind
Dragons were once the dominant species on the Emergent Plane, with the arguable exception of Primordials. When their magic was siphoned away, they were robbed of their immortality. While True Dragons still live for an amount of time that seems unfathomable to many mortal species, to Dragons, going from being essentially timeless to having an eventual death is nothing short of terrifying. Dragons only grow more powerful with age, and only see a decline in their physicality at the very end of their life, much like Elves. Despite this unrivaled lifespan and growth in power however, Dragons as a species are, ultimately, doomed.
Reproduction among Dragons is difficult: Prior to the Lord of Games interference, new Dragons were not born necessarily. A new Dragon could be created should one fall, but it would largely be an act of manifestation by the energies of the Emergent Plane rather than a biological occurence. In the timeless Age of Dragons, when a Dragon fell its life force would be reabsorbed into the Emergent Plane, and some unknowable time later a new Dragon would rise. The total number of Dragons in the Emergent Plane remained more or less constant, possibly for eons. However, after their species had much of their magical nature stolen from them, it seems that ceased to be the case. Dragons became much more tied to the physical world, rather than being inherently a merging between the Emergent Plane and the Ethereal Plane. As a result, the biology of reproduction suddenly became relevant, and Dragons began to mate and lay clutches of eggs, similar to reptiles. Unfortunately for Dragons however, this is a less than ideal solution for the propogation of their species: Dragons quickly discovered that their offspring were not only prone to failure, but also not nearly as powerful as their previous generations. Being intelligent as they are, this was intensely alarming to the species as a whole despite their differences. While any number of factors might be to blame, the end fact is that the offspring of True Dragons are not, in the strictest sense, always "True Dragons" themselves. Opportunities to discuss the topic with True Dragons are, as one might expect, incredibly rare and it is an incredibly touchy subject, more likely to result in the researcher being eaten for the insult. However, mortals do have some degree of understanding about the subject, thanks to some brave biologists and a few rare cases of Dragons being willing to discuss the matter.
Creating a new generation of Dragons is, in a sense, as much a "spell" as it is an act of procreation. Dragons born purely from a biological coupling result in bestial, feral, nonmagical beasts of a number of varieties, but most prominently result in the creatures mortals refer to as "Wyverns": Smaller, nonmagical, and bestial, they are nothing like their ancestors in terms of commanding the raw power, intellect, and magical intellect of their parents. Similarly, couplings between Wyverns or other "Lesser Dragons" results in more of that species, and no pairing of "Dragon-kin" beneath True Dragons results in a True Dragon. There is, however, one workaround: In a fiercely guarded ritual, which no Dragon will reveal to mortals, two Dragons can work a spell in which they sacrfice half of their remaining life-force and magical potency in order to produce a single True Dragon from a clutch of eggs. This poses an obvious problem: Dragons, as a species, are in a state of decline that cannot be stopped.
Imagine two True Dragons that each have, on a 10-point scale, a magical potency of "10/10". Additionally, both Dragons have approximately 5,000 years remaining in their lifespans (although there's no practical way to know this exact number). By all possible assessment, during this secret ritual of procreation, both Dragons sacrifice half of their remaining lifespans and half of their magical potency to create
one True Dragon that inherits both contributions, with the amount of efficiency being unclear. So, in the provided example, the
single Dragon produced would inherit somewhere around 2,500 years of life from each parent and a 5/10 level of magical potency from each parent, resulting in a True Dragon with a 5,000 year lifespan and a 10/10 level of magical potency. That is, as far as can be seen, a
best case scenario, there is clearly some level of deviation involved. Furthermore, both parents would lose the amount of magic and lifespan that was contributed to their child. The only way to potentially exceed that outcome would be for the male Dragon to sacrifice their life-force and magical potency
entirely, making the act of procreation effectively suicide for the sake of creating an offspring that can potentially exceed what would otherwise be possible. Even in that extreme case, you'd still only have an offspring with a maximum of around 75% efficiency as far as inheriting their parent's potential,
and the lifespan of the offspring would still be unavoidably less than the parents who created it.
It does not take a lot of theorizing to reach the obvious conclusion: True Dragons, as a species, are going extinct. Dragons have been attempting to solve this problem ever since Mortals were first created in the Emergent Plane with no known success. Every generation of Dragons is either shorter-lived, weaker, more bestial, or all of the above, and there is no clear way to bypass this issue. This, in turn, is a large reason for the divide between Chromatic and Metallic Dragons: As a whole, Chromatics believe magic can be "taken back" from Mortals to stop (or at least delay) the eventual extinction of their species, and Metallics believe that such a thing isn't actually possible. From this perspective, the question of whether Chromatics and Metallics are actually separate "species" of Dragons is open to debate, and furthermore, it calls into question whether Chromatics are actually as "inherently evil" as Mortals generally believe, despite their obvious hatred of Mortals.
This also explains why Dragons have, by-and-large, disappeared in the Emergent Plane: Their species is finite in number, and each death of a Dragon represents an irrevocable loss to their species that cannot be overcome. True Dragons simply
cannot make more "True Dragons" without some loss to their species. As a result, the most ancient and powerful dragons have chosen to, as a whole, opt to avoid interaction with Mortals entirely. It is a fact that there
are indeed True Dragons in the Emergent Plane, but as a general rule they do what they can to avoid Mortal affairs, lest they risk death. That is not to say Dragons as a species are "afraid" of Mortals, for they most certainly are not, but rather that Dragons are staring oblivion in the face and simply do not consider mortal affairs to be worthy of their consideration most of the time. They are a doomed species, and the most wise and powerful of them would rather turn their focus to the preservation of their species than whatever short-lived (from their perspective) squabbles occur amongst the Mortals who were created from magic stolen from Dragons. Ultimately, given enough time, "True Dragons" will cease to exist entirely unless this fundamental "curse" upon their species is solved. If the trend progresses, the only remnants of the ancient, powerful Dragons will be the Wyverns and other such "Lesser Dragons", and despite their many differences, all Dragons fear that this decline is an unavoidable outcome. Dragons, as a species, are doomed, and despite what must be thousands of years of study and experimentation, have not found a way to avoid this seemingly inevitable doom.
