Change Leviathan definition

[Murkydepths]

This is the current leviathan definition via the encyclopedia:

 

'Leviathans are waterfaring dragons; they lack wings and often (but not always) have fins in place of legs or claws. They are usually distinguished from Eastern dragons by their ability to breathe underwater, and do not typically posess the ability to fly'

 

The issue with this is that this is a body morph based not on physical characteristics, like every other body morph, but on lore. The main impact a body morph has is on what zombie you get, so it makes sense that it's based on how the dragons looks - not it's environment or abilities.

 

The 'typically' means that the strict definition is: Aquatic dragon with no wings. And might imply they have to have some sort of limb.

 

According to the current definition, Stratos dragons are not leviathans. They are not aquatic, they fly, they breath air.

 

According to the current definition, many dragons currently listed as a different body morph SHOULD be leviathans, or could conceiving been listed as one, such as:

• Thalassa xenos (classified: Wyrm) - Aquatic, no wings and cannot fly. Unknown if they can breath air, but they cannot survive on land. However, they do lack limbs.
• Aqualis (classified: Eastern) - Aquatic, no wings and no mention of flight. Breath air, but not known if can survive on land. These guys have the exact same body as Shallow Waters, which are listed as leviathans. 
• Aso xenos (classified: Wyrm) - Aquatic, no wings and cannot fly. Likely breath air, and can go on land. Do lack limbs.
• Waterhorse dragons (classfied: Wingless) - Aquatic, no wings and cannot fly.
• Tideweaver (classified: Lindwyrm) - Aquatic, wing-fins, cannot fly
• Hydrophidius (classified: Amphiptere) - Semi-aquatic, wing-fins, description makes note they are mistaken for sea serpents often. 
• Painted rays (classified: Amphiptere) - Aquatic, wing-fins
• Aranoa (classified: Wingless) - Aquatic, no wings and cannot fly. 
• Two-Finned Bluna (classified: Amphiptere) - Aquatic, does have wings but no mention of flight
• Tercorns (classified: Wingless) - Aquatic, does have wings but no mention of flight, likely not able to

 

This is the confusion made when basing a body type on environment. And I suspect it will only get more confusing as more dragons are added.

 

I propose just to change it to a strictly physical definition. Either:

 

''Leviathans are typically waterfaring dragons; they lack wings and have fins or webbed feet in place of legs or claws. They often have the ability to breathe underwater, and do not typically possess the ability to fly'

 

Strict definition: Dragon with fins or webbed feet

 

This definition applies to all current leviathan dragons - sapos, shallow waters, and ceriuth(I think) have webbed feet. Aqualis should be reclassified as leviathan as they have the exact same body type as shallow waters. 

 

SEE UPDATE

 

Or do not include webbed feet, and re-classify sapos, ceriuth, and possibly shallow water. Making the strict definition: 'Dragons with fins instead of feet' which fits the zombie more. 

 

EDIT: As TJ has pointed out, Sapos do not have webbed feet:

 

6 hours ago, TJ09 said:

Sapos do not have webbed feet. The sprite visibly shows a gap between claws, something even more evident in the concept art posted alongside the release. Ceriuth appears to be similar in this regard (especially given their heritage breeds).

 

So Leviathan would change to dragons with fins instead of feet in order to keep it consistent. It'd be the same amount of change as including webbed feet, only Sapos and Ceriuth become easterns instead of Xols and Aqualis becoming leviathans. (Possibly shallow waters would have to change too)

Edited November 16, 2022 by Murkydepths

[Rhahatl]

Strongly agree! It's a small change, but is much more consistent and makes a lot more sense.  I also feel like it would allow for much more creativity when designing future leviathans, as they wouldn't be so strictly locked to bodies of water.  (If we have a sky leviathan, why not a magma leviathan?)

Including webbed feet feels like the easiest approach to this. I can see zombie sprites suddenly changing being a bit of an issue, but if only Aqualis have their category changed it wouldn't cause nearly as many problems. Outside of this, I guess it's just up to convincing TJ and the creator of the Aqualis.

[KageSora]

Neutral on the idea myself, but just to point out Xols look to have webbing on part of their feet so that would possibly require a reclassification as well as they're currently "wingless".

[MissK.]

Yeah this has been an issue for a while, since Leviathans were still called Sea Serpents. 

 

Some of the classifications still make no sense and I agree that some further clarification may be necessary. Lots of breeds in OP should just be Leviathans. Only issue I see is, some people who collect zombie sprites might suddenly "lose" some if they switch to a different type, and they are hard to get. But perhaps it would be possible to only retroactively reclassify living dragons and not zombies, so only newly-made zombies would be affected...?

Edited November 14, 2022 by MissK.

[Murkydepths]

2 hours ago, MissK. said:

Yeah this has been an issue for a while, since Leviathans were still called Sea Serpents. 

 

Some of the classifications still make no sense and I agree that some further clarification may be necessary. Lots of breeds in OP should just be Leviathans. Only issue I see is, some people who collect zombie sprites might suddenly "lose" some if they switch to a different type, and they are hard to get. But perhaps it would be possible to only retroactively reclassify living dragons and not zombies, so only newly-made zombies would be affected...?

 

In regards to zombies. I'm not entirely sure if this is mechanically possible, but maybe the current zombies could stay as they are? I don't believe the zombie itself has any link to it's original breed except in lineages. So you might get some quirky lineages but for zombies which don't reproduce, I think that'd be less of a issue than retroactively changing zombies on people's scrolls. 

[Shadowdrake]

28 minutes ago, Murkydepths said:

I don't believe the zombie itself has any link to it's original breed except in lineages.

I'd say otherwise; zombies still sort with their old breed and GoNs and holiday zombies used to count against their species limit. There's also been at least one case of TJ changing a dragon's body type (crimson flare wyvern -> western) and, iirc, it swapped their old zombies as well. So there's precedent for changing them all retroactively rather than a grandfathered-in cutoff.

[Murkydepths]

1 hour ago, Shadowdrake said:

I'd say otherwise; zombies still sort with their old breed and GoNs and holiday zombies used to count against their species limit. There's also been at least one case of TJ changing a dragon's body type (crimson flare wyvern -> western) and, iirc, it swapped their old zombies as well. So there's precedent for changing them all retroactively rather than a grandfathered-in cutoff.

 

Well good to have more information, thank you! This should be taken into account with the suggestion. Personally I'd still think it worth it, especially if the only change was Aqualis and Xols to leviathan. 

[SkyWolf25]

I'd like leviathans to be strictly fins only! However, no need to be aquatic, e.g. Stratos. Maaaybe include webbed feet, though wingless westerns with webbed feet don't really say 'leviathan' to me.

[Moriaty]

If it changes the zombie sprites I'm going to say a firm no to any sort of re-classification. I don't care how confusing it is I don't want to suddenly lose my zombie sprites

 

If it doesn't then sure I do think the classifications are confusing and should probably be cleared out more/be less vague

[Murkydepths]

17 minutes ago, Moriaty said:

If it changes the zombie sprites I'm going to say a firm no to any sort of re-classification. I don't care how confusing it is I don't want to suddenly lose my zombie sprites

 

If it doesn't then sure I do think the classifications are confusing and should probably be cleared out more/be less vague

 

You wouldn't lose any zombie sprites, they'd just switch to the leviathan one. And only if they'd originally been an Xol or Aqualis. It's a pretty minimal change that's been done before with crimson pygmies. 

[deleted_account]

My wife collects zombies in 5, she finished her collection, except the 2 headed drake and the unreleased. If she accidentally makes a 6th for a subtype, she Expunges it. She says she'd rather see consistency in the game and redo the affected sets, because we both also never know when e.g. a DR or NR is leviathan or not because it's often suddenly an amphitpere or eastern most of the time. It makes it a pain for the raffles and for her during NRs with potentially leviathan pygmies.

Those subtypes should be visually clear like the zombies are. 

 

I'd prefer fins and finlike limbs as a requirement, it's easiest to tell and most matching: fish, whale, seaturtle, seal, ray, penguin. Could also expand to octopus and medusa and other swim oriented builds. 1 pair of fins as requirement, other limbs could be something other than fins, if present. No proper wings, just finwings like the Ray pygmies have.

 

But if fins must make a leviathan because of past breeds then just include them in a way that covers current finless leviathans but allows small webbings on other bodytypes that sprites don't really show. But then, Mutamore would become a winged leviathan... And Sapos would be easterns, I always thought they were. Including webbing without fins required will keep things confusing to an extend, though less than currently as long as all dragons are consistently classified in the end. 

Edited November 15, 2022 by Biel

[KageSora]

1 hour ago, Murkydepths said:

 

You wouldn't lose any zombie sprites, they'd just switch to the leviathan one. And only if they'd originally been an Xol or Aqualis. It's a pretty minimal change that's been done before with crimson pygmies. 

 

That is, in fact, losing a zombie sprite.

 

If you have a western and suddenly now it's a leviathan then you have, in fact, lost a western zombie sprite.

 

Not saying it's a reason specifically to deny the reclassification because I don't think that alone would be a huge thing (as so few breeds would be changed)--but for those who collect specific individual sprites they are very much losing the specific sprites they obtained and being given a completely different one instead. 

[ACDragonMaster]

I think there's actually two issues here: the current definition of leviathan is both vague and overlaps heavily with multiple other types.  The overlap with Eastern is acknowledged in the definition already, but there's still no clear divide between where some types end and leviathan begins, which results in new dragons being classified as something other than leviathan for arbitrary reasons.

 

The second issue is that we have existing breeds that probably were created before the body plan split(s) happened and got assigned other types.  And we continue to have new breeds not taking advantage of the fact that leviathan exists.  I think this is related to the first issue in that clearly when dragons are being designed people aren't generally thinking "oh this could/should be a leviathan" in part because of the vague, ambiguous description.  Some of these probably should be reclassified, but others (like the xenowyrms) are more fringe cases for various reasons.  But basically the issue of the definition itself aside, it means nothing if it's not APPLIED to new dragons as they're created.

[TJ09]

On 11/14/2022 at 8:42 AM, Murkydepths said:

This definition applies to all current leviathan dragons - sapos, shallow waters, and ceriuth(I think) have webbed feet. Aqualis should be reclassified as leviathan as they have the exact same body type as shallow waters. 

 

Or do not include webbed feet, and re-classify sapos, shallow water and ceriuth. Making the strict definition: 'Dragons with fins instead of feet' which fits the zombie more. 

Sapos do not have webbed feet. The sprite visibly shows a gap between claws, something even more evident in the concept art posted alongside the release. Ceriuth appears to be similar in this regard (especially given their heritage breeds).

[Murkydepths]

7 hours ago, TJ09 said:

Sapos do not have webbed feet. The sprite visibly shows a gap between claws, something even more evident in the concept art posted alongside the release. Ceriuth appears to be similar in this regard (especially given their heritage breeds).

 

Thanks for showing me that, I couldn't tell from sprite size.

 

Well then that changes the suggestion so the only way to have a consistent leviathan definition would be to have it be fins only, and change the Sapo and Ceriuth to be easterns instead. Shallow waters...I could see arguments either way, but I think you could get away with classifying them as finned. Being that including webbed feet added Xols and Aqualis, it's the same amount of change just in a different direction. I still think this is worth doing while the change is minimal.

 

I'll update the main post. 

Edited November 16, 2022 by Murkydepths

[MissK.]

16 hours ago, TJ09 said:

Sapos do not have webbed feet. The sprite visibly shows a gap between claws, something even more evident in the concept art posted alongside the release. Ceriuth appears to be similar in this regard (especially given their heritage breeds).

 

It would be helpful if we could get some more info on the reasons behind the inconsistent classifications. A lot of the dragons mentioned in the OP can't actually breathe underwater, but there are still some where it's not clearly stated, and some even odder cases (e.g. Stratos being air-breathing, flying, non-aquatic leviathans). Is there something missing from the definition that is enforced behind the scenes? Are there just a few weird ones that fit more with other body types zombie-wise? 

[Hawaiianbabidoll]

I agree a bit of rewording and more clearly defined body features that are specific to leviathans would be nice, and making it exclusively body stuff and not environment opens the door to more creative leviathans in the future, like the stratos. When deciding what body type to put painted rays in, I did debate between amphiptere and leviathan but went with amphiptere strictly because the zombie form matched it better as it does in fact have wings, not fins (that it cannot fly in the air for longer than a glide is irrelevant).

Fins or fully webbed feet (as opposed to partially webbed feet) typically on a long body (which eliminates waterhorse and water walker from being leviathans) feels like a good 'leviathan' that doesn't restrict it to the water but is still uniquely different from other classifications. Possibly even add that it needs to have at least 2 limbs and no wings (which eliminates crossover between amphiptere and wyrms).

Here is a potential dichotomous key to use for classification

Q1 Does it have limbs?
Yes  - Q2
No - wyrm

Q2 Do those limbs include wings?
Yes - Q3
No - Q6

 

Q3  Does it have arms?
Yes -Q4
No -Q5

Q4 Does it have legs?
Yes - western
No - lindwyrm

Q5 Does it have legs?
Yes - wyvern
No - amphiptere

Q6 Does it have a long body?
Yes - Q7
No - wingless

Q7 Does it have fins/flippers/fully webbed feet?
Yes - leviathan
No - eastern

Using this key, dragons that would need to be reclassified are: Sapo, Ceriuth

Right now the hardest thing to do mentally is separating the concept of 'leviathan' with 'aquatic dragon'. Sapo and Ceriuth feel like leviathans mainly because they're aquatic. That said, another way to differentiate could be if its primary source of locomotion is its fins. Sapo and Ceriuth both have notable tail fins, which are presumably their primary way of moving, thus putting them back into leviathan territory.

Alternative Q7 Does it move primarily through the use of fins/flippers/fully webbed feet?
Yes - leviathan
No - eastern

Using this alternative Q7, all current leviathans can theoretically stay leviathans, Aqualis remains eastern because it would not move primarily through the use of a tail fin nor does it have fully webbed feet. Shallow water is the only one that really doesn't perfectly fit into this key, because one can argue if it counts as 'long'.

TLDR: Leviathan - wingless, long, 2+ limbs, primary source of locomotion is its fins/flippers/fully webbed feet

[Murkydepths]

13 hours ago, Hawaiianbabidoll said:

I agree a bit of rewording and more clearly defined body features that are specific to leviathans would be nice, and making it exclusively body stuff and not environment opens the door to more creative leviathans in the future, like the stratos. When deciding what body type to put painted rays in, I did debate between amphiptere and leviathan but went with amphiptere strictly because the zombie form matched it better as it does in fact have wings, not fins (that it cannot fly in the air for longer than a glide is irrelevant).

Fins or fully webbed feet (as opposed to partially webbed feet) typically on a long body (which eliminates waterhorse and water walker from being leviathans) feels like a good 'leviathan' that doesn't restrict it to the water but is still uniquely different from other classifications. Possibly even add that it needs to have at least 2 limbs and no wings (which eliminates crossover between amphiptere and wyrms).

Here is a potential dichotomous key to use for classification

Q1 Does it have limbs?
Yes  - Q2
No - wyrm

Q2 Do those limbs include wings?
Yes - Q3
No - Q6

 

Q3  Does it have arms?
Yes -Q4
No -Q5

Q4 Does it have legs?
Yes - western
No - lindwyrm

Q5 Does it have legs?
Yes - wyvern
No - amphiptere

Q6 Does it have a long body?
Yes - Q7
No - wingless

Q7 Does it have fins/flippers/fully webbed feet?
Yes - leviathan
No - eastern

Using this key, dragons that would need to be reclassified are: Sapo, Ceriuth

Right now the hardest thing to do mentally is separating the concept of 'leviathan' with 'aquatic dragon'. Sapo and Ceriuth feel like leviathans mainly because they're aquatic. That said, another way to differentiate could be if its primary source of locomotion is its fins. Sapo and Ceriuth both have notable tail fins, which are presumably their primary way of moving, thus putting them back into leviathan territory.

Alternative Q7 Does it move primarily through the use of fins/flippers/fully webbed feet?
Yes - leviathan
No - eastern

Using this alternative Q7, all current leviathans can theoretically stay leviathans, Aqualis remains eastern because it would not move primarily through the use of a tail fin nor does it have fully webbed feet. Shallow water is the only one that really doesn't perfectly fit into this key, because one can argue if it counts as 'long'.

TLDR: Leviathan - wingless, long, 2+ limbs, primary source of locomotion is its fins/flippers/fully webbed feet

 

Thanks for the info, and the suggestion! Locomotion is technically a behaviour, but I think it could fit here because it still relates to limbs and physical features.

 

I'm less sure about leviathans HAVING to be long though, especially as that might limit people to eastern body types. That addition seems to mostly be there to stop us having to add additional leviathans but it'd restrict the definition.  

 

Hmm...if we changed the suggested definition to include locomotion but not webbed feet...would any breeds need reclassifying?

 

Leviathans are typically waterfaring dragons, they lack wings and their primary source of locomotion are fins, rather than legs. They often have the ability to breath underwater and do not typically possess the ability to fly'

 

Though I'd still prefer just changing sapos and ceriuth. 

 

Edited November 17, 2022 by Murkydepths

[Hawaiianbabidoll]

If we want to eliminate 'long' as part of leviathan definition, then can swap Q6 with Q7 in the key to
Q6 Does it move primarily through the use of fins/flippers/fully webbed feet?
Yes - leviathan
No - Q7

Q7 Does it have a long body?
Yes - eastern
No - wingless

That fixes the Shallow Water dragon not fitting into the key and allows for stocky leviathans, but would mean waterhorse and Xol would count as leviathans since they have flippers and fins respectively. Water walker is debatable but personally I feel their feet fit into 'partial webbed' territory, not fully webbed.

[TCA]

The intent with Stratos Dragons, btw, is that they directly descended from aquatic dragons without ever returning to land, which is why they retain a leviathan body type, in case that helps clarify.

 

I'm fine with slight adjustments to make the definition make more sense!

[Murkydepths]

Regarding Stratos dragons, I do actually really like them as leviathans. I don't think leviathan should have to mean aquatic. 

[Whirlaway]

I do not believe leviathan should classify strictly to "this creature is primarily aquatic" either, as that would limit the choice of design for any leviathans. Allowing leviathans to live anywhere with the specific standard of "no wings and fins" provides much more variety to them. Allow us to see a holiday leviathan or volcano based lava leviathans, so many options if leviathans are more than simply "aquatic dragon (or distant relative of aquatic dragons) with fins".  All I want is more leniency on what allows for leviathans, as there have been many dragons released that seemed they would become a leviathan, but then aren't.

[ACDragonMaster]

18 hours ago, Hawaiianbabidoll said:

Using this key, dragons that would need to be reclassified are: Sapo, Ceriuth

Wouldn't this also reclassify Aqualis from eastern to leviathan?  Not only are they aquatic, and explicitly have long bodies (eastern type!) but they very clearly DO have webbed feet.

 

I do agree though that "has limbs" should be a part of the equation, to differentiate leviathans from wyrms.  The inclusion of fins and/or other adaptations originally intended for aquatic movement (even if, such as in the case of stratos, it changed later) would be a good way of ruling out the borderline cases.  Actually now that I say that, in general we seem to be looking at leviathan as meaning "long-bodied dragon with adaptations specific to aquatic environments" that doesn't fit clearly into another category such as amphitere.  Since these categories are intended to be specific to body type, not behavior or habitat, and you can argue that "adapted for primarily/exclusively aquatic locomotion" contains particular differences from terrestrial or (most) airborne features, that might be a good thing to include in the definition.

 

Regarding shallow waters, I think an argument could be made that they do have a long body type.  Take a look at the male sprite especially and note how it appears its back is kind of hunched up, while the hips are clearly further back than one might assume at a glance.  which means they'd still fit the leviathan classification regardless.

[Hawaiianbabidoll]

21 minutes ago, ACDragonMaster said:

Wouldn't this also reclassify Aqualis from eastern to leviathan?  Not only are they aquatic, and explicitly have long bodies (eastern type!) but they very clearly DO have webbed feet.

 

I'm defining 'fully webbed' as 'the webbing reaches the ends of the toes', sort of like palmate vs semi-palmate in a bird's foot. With the Aqualis and the Waterwalker, they don't appear to. Shallow water and Xol have a better idea of what I'd count as 'fully webbed' since the membrane goes all the way up to the tips of the claws and the limbs look more evolved to be paddle like than just claw with some skin between the fingers. Also I'm on team 'leviathan shouldn't have to mean aquatic' so I don't think it should matter if they're water dragons or not (water dragons being more likely to be leviathans makes sense simply because fins work well in the water, but shouldn't be a requirement imo).

If you wanted to count dragons with 'any amount of webbing' under leviathan, then yes, Aqualis and Waterwalker (if long body is not a requirement) both would count as leviathans. I did not include partial webbing though for the sake of creativity in future dragon concepts, so that people didn't feel pressured to define their concept as 'leviathan' just because of a small amount of webbing between their dragon's toes (like a cat's webbed feet help them not sink in the mud and aid in swimming, but I wouldn't count a cat as 'designed specifically to swim').

Of course, just going with 'wingless dragon with fins, flippers, or webbed feet' is a very simple and straightforward way to go too and is certainly an option, but also the option that would require the most shuffling of on-site breed classification. (Aqualis, Waterwalker, Xol, Waterhorse to leviathans, Sapo and Ceriuth to easterns) I don't think changing that many classifications would go over well with people who have zombies already. That said, I'd personally be fine with it since its very simple and clear-cut.

Another proposal is 'Wingless dragons with fins, flippers, or fin-like feet' which leaves Aqualis and Waterwalkers as they are, but still moves Xol and Waterhorse to leviathans and Sapo and Ceriuth to easterns. This feels setup feels the most matched to what kind of zombie they would make to me.

[StarlightLion]

I'd love to have Xol become leviathans, but that's super biased on account of me loving both Xol and leviathan classifications in fiction

 

But in general, super support! Having one classification be so vague and not strictly bound to physical features like every over body type is odd and dissonant and I don't like it, even if it didn't have mechanics impact lmao