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ANSWERED:Encyclopedia Page For Defining Body Types

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The thing is that we have quite a few breeds that might be a mix of two body types. Let's take red-finned Tidals as an example. Officially, they're lindwyrms although they have no front legs, but only one set of fins (see description!) that look like wings. According to their description, they're purely aquatic - or so it seems from the description. According to the definition of "if it's aquatic, it's a sea serpent" (like with shallow waters...), it should be classified as a sea serpent. If you compare the Tidal to a Skywing, which has pretty much the same kind of body (wing arms, wing legs, tail), it should definitely be classed as an amphiptere. For some inconceivable reason, though, the Tidal is supposed to be a Lindwyrm. Someone please explain this to me. I could understand the Tidal being classified as sea serpent, I could understand it being classified as an amphiptere or even both. But its actual classification makes no sense whatsoever.

 

Other breeds where I see a combination of two body types are gilded Bloodscales and radiant Angels. Because they combine the typical Eastern body type (long, serpentine body; whiskers; mane) with Western characteristics (four legs + wings) - which is even more pronounced in the Bloodscale due to the facts that it has no mane, and only the males have whiskers. For the very same reasons, I'd put the Antareans in both categories, too. Their bodies are longer than normal for Western dragons, they have a mane...

 

And whoever would dare call a male Terrae "wingless"?

 

Of course, the breeding group a dragon belongs to (drake/pygmy/two-headed/standard dragon/hybrid) should be added, too. And maybe, just maybe, we need some more in-depth body type classification? Like for dragons with multiple sets of wings (Snow Angels, Lacula, Nhiostrife, Lumina...) or for feathered wings. Or sea wyrms and leviathans. 

 

All of this leads to only one conclusion: The body types need to be re-assessed in some cases. And, yes, an official list of dragons by body type would be nice.

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41 minutes ago, olympe said:

The thing is that we have quite a few breeds that might be a mix of two body types. Let's take red-finned Tidals as an example. Officially, they're lindwyrms although they have no front legs, but only one set of fins (see description!) that look like wings. According to their description, they're purely aquatic - or so it seems from the description. According to the definition of "if it's aquatic, it's a sea serpent" (like with shallow waters...), it should be classified as a sea serpent. If you compare the Tidal to a Skywing, which has pretty much the same kind of body (wing arms, wing legs, tail), it should definitely be classed as an amphiptere. For some inconceivable reason, though, the Tidal is supposed to be a Lindwyrm. Someone please explain this to me. I could understand the Tidal being classified as sea serpent, I could understand it being classified as an amphiptere or even both. But its actual classification makes no sense whatsoever.

This actually brings up an interesting point that's only tangentially related to the OP: should dragons be able to have two or more body types? Not sure if I'm confident enough to make a whole suggestion topic dedicated to this yet, but like mana, perhaps dragons should have both a primary body type (for zombies and other reasons? I'm not 100% sure where else body types are used like this in the cave), and a secondary body type, for raffle purposes, and just to satisfy arguments like "are gilded bloodscales western or eastern?" or "how the heck are we supposed to address terraes?" I'm also going to throw in support for displaying breeding groups, both for newbies and the completionist in me who likes seeing all information cataloged, no matter how small.

Even if this doesn't come to be though, I definitely agree there are some dragons that make 0 sense and can't even really be stretched to fit their "official" body types.

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I think the possibility of dragons having more then one body type is both a good idea and already true to a certain extent (see stuff like Two-headed Dragon (Sea serpent)). I'd love to see secondary classifications for ones that may have characteristics of multiple types. Although there would definitely have to be a 'primary' type for zombie-making purposes. And I'm not sure about body types that specifically go against each other.... Like the Terrae, those are just a nightmare in my mind. Classified as 'wingless' but one of them very obviously has wings, can/should a dragon be classified as both wingless *and* something that has wings?? 

Edited by HeatherMarie

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I'm personally of the opinion that if a dragon has conflicting body types, they should just both be listed, for simplicity's sake. There are some exceptions that are just too major or complex to fit under the umbrella of our current classification system and it's, imo, better to have a few wonky entries than complicate stuff and make it less likely to be considered for implementation.

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Adding my agreement here.  Now that body type is a raffle criterion, there needs to be an official decree as to which dragons count as what type. 

 

(For the record, I think Terrae dragons should be counted as winged, for the same reason that snakes are tetrapods.  Snakes evolved from four-legged ancestors, and  Male Terrae having wings makes it clear that genetically the breed must have had a winged ancestor, since they do have the genetic code to produce wings.  Those genes aren't expressed in female Terrae, but they still exist and point to the ancestry of the breed.  However, I wouldn't really care if the body type was strictly physically determined, either, and one could raise male Terrae for a 'winged' raffle and female Terrae for a 'wingless' raffle!)

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