Age Of Dragons: Biology

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Anatomy of a Dragon

An adult dragon is quadripedal, with long neck and tail, and reptillian heads. They have two leathery wings together equal in span to their full nose-tail length when fully spread. These wings emerge from the dragon's back, near the shoulders. On the ground, an adult dragon stands at around four and a half metres tall at the shoulder, with three metres of neck length, four of tail, and three of torso.

Dragon skin is scaled, with huge overlapping armour plates over the chest, the back of the body, dorsal limb surfaces and upper head, and leathery skin with fine scales over the abdomen, ventral limb surfaces, face and wing edges. The wing membranes themselves are not scaled, but are smooth and lightly translucent. Dragons do not have hair, though some sport manes of fine leathery spines that might be mistaken from a distance as such.

Dragon forelimbs end in clawed hands, which have thumb-claws opposed to three jointed foreclaws, and one unjointed vestigial foreclaw. Fore-talons are typically around a third of the length of the foreclaws, and might be compared in size and sharpness to military shortswords. Foreclaws are slightly curved. A dragon has a surprising amount of dexterity for their foreclaws - greater than that of a human hand when taken in size proportion, but limited in fine control by sheer size. Regardless, a dragon is still capable of gentle and controlled touch, able to pick an ant of a leaf without harming it should he wish to do so.

Dragon rearlimbs are more muscular, and though less dextrous have a great deal more power. So long as they can push off with their rear limbs from solid ground, dragons can easily launch themselves into flight with a standing jump. Rear-talons are slightly longer than fore-talons, but have no opposed thumb so cannot manipulate so well. A dragon will typically bring in its rear talons to fight only when airborne, though of course it will readily use tooth and foreclaw whether airborne or grounded.

Male dragons have paired horns. The appearance of these horns varies according to breed, but they are always male-specific. There are numerous other "tells" as to the gender of a dragon - males tend to have more elongated facial features and their central chest plates are single-file, whereas females have dual-file chest plates, more angled dorsal spines, and a generally less-shoulder heavy build, but stronger rear limb muscles. Both genders are similarly coloured and sized, with notable exceptions for only a couple of breeds.

For dragons, of course, the difference in gender is intuitive and obvious, and there are many other physical features that might be considered feminine or masculine, though these vary with breed and culture. For both genders, depth and homogeneity of colour, and strong features distinctive to particular breeds are considered to be very attractive.

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