Editing Age Of Dragons: Biology (section)

===Pneuma, Life and Aging===
<br>Dragons believe that the key element to animation and life is their ''breath''. A dragon feels quite physically nauseous if forced to hold his breath for any length of time, and is most comfortable when taking slow and deep breaths. Dragons perceive breath (or ''pneuma'') as being synonymous with life and with magic and regard that which does not breathe as being without soul. Dragons note that as they are able to breathe deeper than lesser creatures, they have greater command of the magic of the world. Without the animating ''pneuma'' their bodies are little more than dead stone and clay.

This belief is not entirely unfounded - as a dragon ages, his internal magic stagnates somewhat, and his body begins to calcify. In the last century of his lifespan (which tends to be just over a thousand years in all) his scales will slowly transmute to stone, and his breathing will grow shallower and more quiet. Eventually, when he takes his last breath, his flesh will into grey unmoving stone, and he will cease to move altogether. Dragons call this the ''"Sleep of Stone"'', regarding it as terrifying as true death. 

In the ''Sleep of Stone'' a dragon will not rot: instead its physical form will become still and hard as a stone statue. Their petrified flesh will not weather easily, and only the most determined assault will have any chance of shattering them. Their mass seems to gain density and weight also - as much as if they had been transformed into solid marble. Dragons who die before old age of other causes (such as violence, starvation or disease) do not attain the ''sleep of stone'', but instead rot away like other mortal creatures, though the older they are at time of death, the longer they take to decompose. However, regardless of decomposition and manner of death, a dragon's bones will almost always remain, being made of the same hard substance as a stone-sleeping elder.
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