Lightscale

[Deleted]

Species name: Lightscale
Class: Mystery

Images (if any): www.directupload.net/file/d/4031/x4r3r3jp_png.htm
(don´t steal, please, it was a lot of work even if it doesn´t look like)

Physical Description: Long and slender, horn plates as wings and on their head. They are mostly yellow, some are orange, but that´s not too common. Lightscales have no weapons they could normally fight with, but they are excellent flyers. Their size varies from a few centimetres in the far south to three meters height in the north, close to the archipegalo.

Stats: (Try not to make them too OP!)
Attack:2
Speed:10
Armour:1
Fire power:0 (no fire)
Shot limit:0
Venom:0
Jaw Strength:1 (enough to catch a fish maybe)
Stealth:2


Typical Behaviour:
- living in families with up to 20 dragons
- if threatened, hide and/or flee
(everything else is up to the personality; like with humans)

Abilities:
- Glowing and controlling how bright they are
- Telepathic communication with only one dragon for a lifetime (they are normally best friends forever ) over short distancies (when bonding with a human that way, only the dragon can "read" the thoughts)
- very fast and agile, catch the wind, naturally good flyers

Drawbacks:
- easy to spot (they can´t not glow, just dim the light)
- if they are too bright, they start to overheat
- they can´t fly without wind, only glide
- almost unable to fight

Training Methods: Well, talking would be a good start. They are social dragons and communication means much for them. You should try to give them some time to get to know you and who you are. Oh! And don´t ask for their name. They don´t have one until they meet their bond one. You shouldn´t just throw a fish at them and expect them to be your best buddy for a lifetime; they want to find a family and you. Lightscales need much attention and caring, as well as long and deep conversations.

Habitat: Common in the south, but they didn´t wander much since the great war, so they haven´t been seen in the north. But south of the Archipelago, you can find them almost everywhere in little groups. They prefer the jungle, because there they can hide at night.

Diet: Fish, even some fruits (they are naturally in jungles)

Created by: Serafina Malik (Aenne)

[Redkitebait]

Your dragon looks interesting, but there's a few things that are going to need to be tweake

I think the biggest concern for your dragon is the glowing, for multiple reasons:

-What purpose does the glowing have? If they are weak and feeble dragons, I don't think they should bring attention to themselves in such a way.
-Is the glow permanent? If so, how can they hide? Especially at night?
-In the canon, glowing dragons usually have some kind of reason behind it. Fireworms glow because their body temperature is supposedly as hot as the sun. The flightmare glows once every 10 years when it's primary food source, the algae, is lit up by a special kind of northern lights called Arvendal's Fire. Any dragon that eats this algae can glow too, so it's not just a Flightmare thing. Toothless glowed at the end of the movie because he was supercharged on plasma-fuel or something, from what I can gather. A lot of sea dragons have bio-luminescence for deep-sea hunting to attract prey.

If you want to keep the glowing, there needs to be a logic behind it. Perhaps they use the luminescence to "flash" and scare potential predators away? But in that case, they would not have to glow all the time, otherwise it would probably not be as effective. And your dragons are pretty large, so I'm not sure how many predators they're even going to have...

Speaking of threats, how do you expect your dragon to survive in this world, especially with dragons like the Monstrous Nightmare and the like flying around? They have literally no defenses or offenses, and it isn't even always windy so they can get away. They are sitting ducks in this world.

How can they be excellent fliers, if they rely soley on the presence of there being a wind to be airborne? I think excellent fliers should in theory be able to fly in any condition. If they can only glide, that means they can’t really fly anyway. Are they gliders or fliers? And with their size, where could they even glide to? The ocean is pretty vast, they wouldn’t be able to travel a long way just by gliding.

For the Training, please give us your backstory then, but maybe make it so its not specifically your character, and generalise it?

I’m afraid I can’t allow telepathy on BD. HTTYD is still pretty realistic, even with dragons, and if you want to communicate with your dragon, your human can learn dragonese and talk with them like that.

In the habitat, what do you mean by great war? Also Jungles don’t really exist in Scandinavia, nor in Europe! If they are not native to the continent, maybe they should be classed as rare? (but if you do, this means you too will have to wait for 150 to get your own dragon!)


I think that’s all I have to say for now, I will check back again when fixes have been made!

[Deleted]

Thanks for your criticism!

The glowing has a purpose, actually, there are two reasons I added it (and a geeky one, but it´s just a physics joke).

The purpose: First of all, Lightscales live in the south. There are jungle islands and it is hot there. The leafs are big and fleshy (humid temperature causes this; stomate are often filled with hairs, on the inside and so on. Big leafs, much photosynthesis.)

So we have dragons in the south. It is terribly warm if you go even farther. Dragons are reptiles, so they don´t have natural heat regulation; the more southern types of Lightscales are tiny as fireworms and live in caves. They came from the surface and had a good sense of seeing, and they needed light to see. Evolution fulfilled their wish. But Photios is a more northern Lightscale (therefore the bigger body, Bergmann´s rule), and he has to hide in leafs and in the closed forests to not be found. some of his clan live in the caves on his island; I can explain that in the backstory (dA didn´t work, so I couldn´t post it before I went to London). The glowing can be dimmed, but not turned off.

I almost forgot the second reason: Well, it´s about flowers and bees and peacock feathers. The ladies like it. Isn´t that the reason for so many extraordinary animals? I mean, let´s stay with our peacock – I´m sure way too many of them got killed because this cock is not very practicable. But they survived. Same here. (I mean, really: Nature is weird. But that´s just how it works! Do you want to question the almighty evolution? )

Okay, that duck thing was kinda offensive. Lightscales live in thick forests, in deep caves, they hide and sneak and they fly away. But most of all: We speak about islands here. Have you ever seen an island where it isn´t windy 90% of the time? There is always enough to get to those highs where the wind never stops, and they they´re away. Some have bad luck, that´s true, but again: Evolution says it´s effective, evolution says it survives.

Oh, and only the tapes in the far north are that big. Bergmann, did I mention him?

Lightscales are excellent flyers. They catch the littlest movement of the air and use it for their cause. Head wind just takes them up where it slows others down. Tail wind catches every inch of their wings, while other dragons can´t even bow theirs in the way Lightscales do. As long as the air moves, the Lightscale does, too. And there aren´t many places on the sea where we don´t have wind, seriously. Lightscales can swim, and with a little wave and a tiny push of wind, they are up and away again. No problem at all.

I thought of that Telepathy thing for a long time, too. You have to know that I´m a little science nerd, and I even detest that those dragons breathe fire; I mean, wouldn´t they burn themselves? Anyway. I´ll try to explain what I intended.

You have seen the picture of the Lightscale, haven´t you? (The wings became a bit too small, but that shouldn´t disturb us too much) You have probably seen the horn plates they have on their head. They are extremely sensitive (That´s why you probably don´t get to touch them). Lightscales hear with them. They have their own frequency (everything has. Even you. Your pencil. Your chair. Everything has it´s own frequency). So we can see these horn plates are oscillators. Alright that far? Now we have an interesting thing that I don´t remember the name of; but there is a physical law that states if two frequencies are connected and they are the same, we have even higher amplitudes. That means, if the frequency of my voice is the same as the one of the bathroom walls and I sing while I´m bathing, this single tone sounds higher than the others and seems to swing somehow. Do you know that? This one tone that is kinda different? Yeah, that´s physics.

Do you know how a brain works? (I´m sorry that I explain everything on kindergarden niveau, I always have to explain everything that slow to my classmates ) The brain cells (neurons) send signals to each other. You could simply say that a brain cell opens a channel where positive Ions can go through and transport electrical potential. And what do moving things do? They cause reaction. They cause waves. Everything that moves causes waves, except in vacuum. (I hope none of us has vacuum in their heads! )

Now, we make the jump HTTYD did with their fire breathing: We overdo it a little bit. The sensitive horn plates catch the signal from many brains, but it´s too weak to be heared by the Lightscale. Except if we have the higher amplitudes (remember your bathroom singing stage), because when the frequencies of dragon and rider (in that case; normally between dragons) is the same, we have maximal oscillation and the Lightscale can her what I think. Well, in chase our brain patterns are fairly the same, but that´s just another word for being soulmates.

You see, I don´t want to stretch it too far. The option that the dragon can answer in thoughts is really unbelievable, so I´ll put that away, as well as the thought that they could communicate over long distancies. Compromise? (Come on; look at that perfectly science-y explanation; who could resist that? )

Alright, the great war and everything at last. We are in the south of the archipegalo, and I hope I made clear that there must be jungle (it´s hot and humide, what do you want more?), and I thought it would be cool if these clans down there could have their own myths and history. It was just a funny thought and I talk a bit about that in the backstory, but not too much. It´s just because Photios is rooted in this culture and it makes out a part of his personality.

I hope I could explain everything; my thought are not very straight forward and I often fail to explain things because I overestimate my audience´s knowledge. Again, I´m just a little science nerd.

[PIME2]

I’ve written four different responses to this, all of them I talked a lot and didn’t get my point across concisely enough. We are against telepathy for many reasons; most have enough leeway inbuilt to them that we could argue for a long time over their validity. But the simplest and most definitive reason why we are against it is cause that is the kind of ability which should only be reserved for ‘Legendary’ dragons which no one, not even admins or people with over 150 posts, should be allowed to play. Doesn’t matter how logical an argument on the possibility of it is, we cannot allow it because a dragon with that ability is more unique than a Night Fury, and NFs are probably the most unique we as a site should allow members to have as playable dragons.

Sorry about this, I do appreciate the attempt to explain the reason for it and if it weren’t for the fact that there is no situation where telepathy is allowable, I would have been very happy to critique your explanation until it was a strong enough case (oh and dw you’re on a site with a bunch of nerds, your explanation was more than adequate and you did not overestimate anything ) Sorry again Red for barging in (i just realised the 'again' was redundant cause I hadn't yet apologised on this draft xD) I just wanted to give my own input on that one point

[Deleted]

Jul 3, 2015 22:20:46 GMT 1 PIME2 said:

I’ve written four different responses to this, all of them I talked a lot and didn’t get my point across concisely enough. We are against telepathy for many reasons; most have enough leeway inbuilt to them that we could argue for a long time over their validity. But the simplest and most definitive reason why we are against it is cause that is the kind of ability which should only be reserved for ‘Legendary’ dragons which no one, not even admins or people with over 150 posts, should be allowed to play. Doesn’t matter how logical an argument on the possibility of it is, we cannot allow it because a dragon with that ability is more unique than a Night Fury, and NFs are probably the most unique we as a site should allow members to have as playable dragons.

Sorry about this, I do appreciate the attempt to explain the reason for it and if it weren’t for the fact that there is no situation where telepathy is allowable, I would have been very happy to critique your explanation until it was a strong enough case (oh and dw you’re on a site with a bunch of nerds, your explanation was more than adequate and you did not overestimate anything ) Sorry again Red for barging in (i just realised the 'again' was redundant cause I hadn't yet apologised on this draft xD) I just wanted to give my own input on that one point

Thanks for your opinion!

I somehow tried to compensate this ability with a lot of flaws (you maybe see this dragon is totally unable to fight), but I understand this is somehow "legendary", how you call it.

Maybe we can alter it a bit without taking the sense? After reading your reponse, I thought a lot about how I could keep the sense without using abilities that are "too good". (And I want to keep the southern pantheons and myths as they are, because I somehow love them and they really fit into my backstory. They are a part of my dragons personality and sociologic enviroment in it´s early days, and are important for him beeing him.)

I came to the conclusion that a sixth sense is not too far away from "reality", mostly because some people seem to have it (I´m a bull in a china shop when it comes to social interaction, but a friend of mine reads people and their emotions like an open book. Well, I´m mostly her friend because she sees that I´m not angry or sad or whatever when I´m staring into nowhere, I´m just thinking. )

I believe we could keep that soulmate-thing; we could have two dragons (or dragon and rider) that are so close (in their actions, in their thoughts, in their emotions and kind of thinking etc.) that they can "read" each others thoughts through intuition. The lightscales ability would therefore just be to be a bit better in that and to learn it faster. Maybe also to fix themselves on their companion and never beeing able to read someone else like them, I don´t know. Some kind of intuition.

I just know that intuition itself definetily works, because I´m really intuitive myself when it comes to sciency stuff. I can often explain things I never learned about just by watching them; that´s why I always have good grades when it comes to records for experiments. Some people have the same intuitive feeling for people like I have it for nature, it seems. (It always sounds so irrational, but we have to accept that, hm? )

Anyway. I hope that´s okay, and if it gets approved, I could change both app and backstory that way. I just thought I could keep the myths about thought-reading, because, well, people tend to tell stories a bit cooler than they actually are, huh?

[PIME2]

Intuition has never sounded irrational to me (then again I have the same intuition for science and I understand emotion based intuition even though I don’t have it) but there is a level of redundancy to your idea of having it being hyper-empathy for a soul mate. On its face all dragons have a heightened empathy due to them being more animalistic than humans, so mere heightened empathy is not noteworthy for a species. Also, most creatures which are intuitive are better at it with friends and loved ones, cause they know them more intimately. I really wanted to avoid using this word, but the soul mate thing is a bit sue-y, as would anything beyond being able to read someone’s emotions and intuitively guess intent, but once you remove both those things, it’s not a noteworthy thing. I understand the want to compensate, but there are other, better ways of doing so.

I think my biggest problem with what I’ve read so far is that, well, you’ve over thought it. It’s a weird criticism (and rich coming from me), but I think that’s the best way of explaining it. You’re trying too hard to legitimise thoughts with science, when this is a fantasy setting, and while we do care about realism (and I am scientifically minded, hel, I HAVE done substantial work in my own personal writing trying to make stories of mine have an internal science to them), but if we were to go down that rabbit hole we'd quickly get to the square-cube law and wther dragons where hot or cold blooded (and the scientific implications of that) and that point everything just starts to fall apart. To us the important thing is that something ‘feels’ plausible in the HTTYD world and that ‘in broad strokes’ there’s nothing on the surface that glaringly shouts unrealistic.

A good thing to do when creating a dragon is to look at the other dragons in its class, what is the intent you your type. Most mystery dragons are weak and use their abilities to protect themselves. Boneknapper creates a skeletal suit of armour to protect itself; Changewing uses its camouflage to hide, and so on. Your dragon is called a Lightscale, I would surgest you keep your design surrounded around this and not deviate into things that do not thematically fit with the type of dragon you seem to be portaying (like your telepathy/empathy stuff).

So, in broad strokes, here are my suggestions. Don’t think about Bergmann’s rule, I do appreciate it but talking about two sizes of dragon overcomplicates things, and your difference in size is WAY too big to be pure Bergmann’s rule anyway (from half the size of a terrible terror to three times the size of a human), especially if the ‘northern’ Lightscale is still south enough to have jungles as its natural habitat. Also, if it is from a jungle enviroment, it would need to be smaller to be able to navigate easily.

Secondly, have the luminescence be an evolved secondary usage of fire breath. They’re dragons, while they don’t have it now their ancestors would have done, and don’t have it permanently, as you said, this is a reptile not a jellyfish. I can see it being a useful method of scaring predators away, well, any non-big dragon predator at least, in the FLASH kind of manner Red described in her post. This isn’t a dragon that can fight any and all abilities it has should have evolved out of self-preservation, and a creature like this should be able to stealth when it needs to.

Also, you mention you have myth and connections to the southern panthion which you want to keep, but you've not mentioned anything to do with that so far as far as i can see, so I dont actually know what you mean.