38 rambly lore questions

Are certain things more valuable than currency that would be used as such?

Some dragons follow economics; by default, most don’t. Good ol’-fashioned bartering, whether for labor or food or supplies, is just as if not more common than currency, and plenty of dragons just use what the environment gives them.

That said, there is a mild instinctual draw to shinies (treasure/gems). Like, who made these? They are cool. Primal instinct to lie on a pile. Most dragons find this easy to ignore, if it’s detectable at all, but it is possible.

Does your clan get along [with] Beastclans or are they all enemies?

Frankly I ignore the Beastclan side of the site more often than not; no offense to them or Beastclan enjoyers, but I’m here for the dragons, dangit >:V

Recent retcons have sort of validated my approach to Beastclans in that, in my lore, they’re not in some constant eternal conflict with dragonkind. But since I’m not fussed about incorporating them more than that, I kinda just assume they’re off in their own societal pockets, doing their own things. Sometimes one or a few will team up with dragons but it’s an exception, not the norm.

Also, far as the Coliseum is concerned, I take a similar approach as I did with Pokémon (in worlds where the pokémon are essentially sapient but trainers are also a thing): there are designated zones where dragons (trainers & teams) and other flora/fauna/beings (wild ’mon) frequently meet up to “spar,” a global norm (sport) that, on paper, benefits both parties. Yes, the win ratio is skewed heavily in favor of the dragons, but not all dragons battle (in fact most don’t), so those who do become a self-selected population of weirdly-jacked fighting enjoyers.

It’s controversial in-universe, yes.

Does your clan celebrate the Elemental Holidays? Why or why not?

I’ve always liked the idea (seen ages ago, possibly on tumblr, but not sure of the specific source) that dragons have a form of astrology based on the seasons, though I’ve never developed my own version much. Maybe worth doing, while I revisit my lair? 🤔

Anyway, the Holidays are very much a thing, and also known globally; to what extent dragons celebrate is, as with many things, up to specific cultures. But even the most wild-living dragon will have some passing awareness of these seasons; that element’s magic can feel stronger (though it’s typically placebo), and sometimes dragons are afflicted with new visual conditions (skins & accents, babey) around this time of year. And Night of the Nocturne, of course, brings with it beasts and chests and random eggs aplenty seriously where do all these eggs come from are exalted nocturnes just getting together for Sornieth’s biggest Easter hunt what gives.

Can all forms of elemental magic heal?

This one’s interesting! I don’t see why not, tbh? Nature’s a go-to, but let’s see….

• Earth healers who have mineral-based cures and ointments that sound like New Age-y nonsense but, because this is fantasy dragon magic, they actually work
• Fire healers whose warmth can act as an instant fever, saving the ill days of stuffy-nosed agony in favor of a quick burst of germ-be-gone
• Wind healers who can move pains and ailments through the body like leaves in the air; objectively, it might not be a cure, but it certainly makes the healing period more bearable
• Water healers with soothing abilities akin to Wind’s, but throw in some good ocean-based remedies, and maybe some mystic promises for good measure
• Shadow healers who… uh, take the issue and move it somewhere else? Okay NGL I’m drawing a blank here but surely those shrooms can do something :B
• Ice healers specialize in the opposite of Wind and Water’s calm: look no further than the Tundra for instant, frigid numbness, and bonus points if it works well with Fire for magic-based frostbite+cauterization combos that will only sting a little
• Lightning healers, naturally, believe there’s nothing technology can’t fix, whether it’s imported chemicals from other lands being synthesized into pebble-looking medications to the best artificial limbs Sornieth has to offer
• Light healers who… ok for some reason my first thought was x-ray vision, they can ~shine a light~ on physical ailments and such. Probably they have better documentation of medical knowledge than actual cures; all the paper, see other flights for practice.
• Nature healers are the classic flower-toting hippies who slather some mystical plants on a wound and bam you’re cured
• Plague healers have an unfortunate reputation for hurting more than they help, but a willingness to experiment with substances no other flight would dream of touching can prove quite bountiful
• Arcane healers, meanwhile, are the real wild cards, drawing on occult powers that not even they understand—for remedies that might work, but have just as high a chance of unexpected, erm, side effects

…Yeah!! Also, should be noted here and elsewhere: I assume generalizations like this are just that, generalizations, and have about as much accuracy as (for instance) “Americans are loud.” There might be some truth to it rooted in cultural norm, but it’s a mistake to think it’s universally-applicable; misinformed at best, willfully ignorant at worst.

Be nice to your local Plague Doctor.

Is all magic absolutely elemental (strictly to the in-game lore magics) or are there general forms of magic any dragon can use? If so, how do they work?

I feel like the existence of non-elemental battlestones suggests that, yes, some generic form of magic exists. Not particularly interested in worldbuilding it right now, but it’s probably safe to assume that, as with many things in life, the boundaries between “elemental” magic and “regular” magic (and between those elemental types) are less clear than everyone likes to assume.

Do dragon[s] have to be in certain conditions to be able to perform their magic? (Ex. An Ice or Nature dragon would not be able to perform their abilities in the Ashfall Wastes.)

I have not considered this before but it’s an interesting thought! I want to say it’s not impossible but it’s going to be difficult, with a rough correlation to the elemental dis/advantages. A weak or beginning magic-user might be totally incapacitated in a foreign land, whereas one with more experience could conjure flowers in the Scarred Wasteland. (Not that said flowers would live long, if not tended to, but it’s possible.)

Can a dragons magic become naturally more powerful over time or would they need any form of training to help them become more powerful?

Hm, I want to say it’s a mix of inborn and how any skill is learned. With no training, a dragon might get gradually better over time from sheer exposure, but the hypothetical graph is flat and can even dip if they’re not honing it. But training is a pretty clear upwards curve. That’s how learning works!

In-game lore says only water can be seers, but can any dragon be able to do the same regardless of element? How do they receive future prophecies without the influence of a Deity?

I don’t feel like going flight-by-flight but, in case it’s not already clear, I barely use in-game lore. Some things stick out to me that might not be intuitive otherwise (Lightning and work, Water and prophecies) but otherwise it’s ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. The caveat above wrt generalizations applies, too; Water might be known for oracular inclinations, but it’d be silly to think they all are or even want to pursue the omens.

Also, just in general, I roll with the idea that deities are schrödinger’s reality; for lack of other evidence it can be assumed they created the world and all, but no one’s ever seen them except the exalted and exalted dragons almost never return. I’ve rambled a bit about this and dragon longevity on my loredump thread, so I won’t get into it again here, but suffice it to say: If the deities were real, why don’t they talk to us (anymore)?!

Seers in any flight receive prophecies like they might read tea leaves: with a hefty dose of confirmation bias. But to their credit, because this is also magical fantasy world, maybe it’s not all woo.

Can dragons use magic to shape or create things?

Hypothetically, yes. But for ease of worldbuilding (“why not just magic everything????”) the longevity of magically-created items may be limited. A magic-made statue, say, may be more susceptible to wear and tear than something forged from stone and flame. Reverse plastic antics.

Also, you cannot magic into existence a fully-fledged sapient being. Nests are one thing (which I will not be getting into), recurring ephemeral companions can exist (think apparel like the Vials), but you can’t just spawn a dragon or cerdae or what have you. That’s a hard limit. And relatedly:

Can one[’]s magic influence or read someone[’]s mind?

Influence, why not. Read might be going too far. These are both strictly within Arcane realms and extremely rare, if possible at all.

I’m thinking something like—a dragon could try to influence another by making themself more attractive or convincing, or by negatively-affecting the listener (making them tired, using a magic aphrodisiac), but there’s no “bam, you believe in aliens now” shortcut. Even then, you have to be specific, and the effects may have unintended consequences; “I make myself attractive” manifests as, say, “I make my scales shinier,” and the other dragon actually really likes matte textures & finds the new gleam blinding and leaves. Similarly, “I make myself more convincing” is translated as “I can suddenly remember all the facts” but maybe this wasn’t about logic at all, Janet, I want to hear you feel something.

Far as mind-reading goes, I want to say the best is like, Enhanced Vibe Detection, like a Perception check. It heightens your awareness of body language cues (but even those can be misread), tone and word choice (but your biases can come into play), and in general you’re just never going to get a clear stream of dialogue or motivational cues. People don’t always think in discernible, defined words or even visuals anyway….

Are there dragons dedicated to convincing others to serve their deities?

Gonna take a moment to talk about flight representatives, since they’ve come up a couple times among my lizards (Drosera is/was a Nature one, and Lux was supposed to be for Light): They’re somewhere between diplomats and missionaries. The degree to which they are obnoxious about it, and how formalized the whole arrangement is, varies by clan, but there is a generally-known idea of Dragon Who Represents X Flight and May Travel to Blab About It.

Among the missionary-types, “you should be following my deity, actually” is, well, basically in the job description. But the cultural exchange can also be for its own sake, whether akin to attending a wedding in a foreign culture (you’ve been invited! be respectful and all should be well, they want to show you what they do) or being an ambassador for that Chinese-American shop down the street (hey, it counts).

[later note] Ohh, there’s a blatant question about ambassadors/representatives way later. Clan-specific, though. Ah well ¯\_( :V )_/¯

What is exalting to your clan/dragons exactly? Is it noble? Foolish? + How does one go about exalting another? Is it a ritual? A process? Does one decide for themself and leave? Does another help[?] + Where would one go to be exalted?

Oh ok nvm there’s exalting questions in here, OK SO. Going to address all these at once, sort of, in a general infodump about the subject!

First and foremost: Dragons don’t die. Or rather, they can fall to disease, physical force (killed, drowning, buried alive, etc.), and occasionally “old age”—but it’s hypothesized that dragons could theoretically live forever. And while the population of those who’ve been around since “the beginning” is small, it does exist; it’s how dragonkind knows the deities did speak, once (even if it seems filtered through the generations to its own dubiously-true mythos), knows about them at all.

Dragons can also breed like rabbits, should they choose. There’s no age cutoff. The population could expand, and slowly is expanding, exponentially.

“Exaltation,” as it’s been known since The Old Times, is framed as a way for a dragon, any dragon (old age not required), to serve a deity—at the low and humble price of being cut off from their kin forever. No one knows exactly what happens to the exalted, and the population of those who’ve returned is too small to draw any solid conclusions. In this way it’s effectively death, philosophical arguments aside.

But the trouble is that it doesn’t necessarily involve death. Certainly, there are groups that consider exaltation but a nicer word for the matter; whether this means their exaltees are sacrificed at the altar or if they deem exaltation deeply immoral or anything in between is, of course, a matter of cultural belief. Yet many perfectly happy dragons have decided they’d like to be exalted, and off proudly they go, and they’re simply never heard from again but no one who’s seen them can confirm they died.

It’s a schrödinger’s existence—fitting enough, really. Even those who try to follow an exaltee can only go so far; at some point the dragon simply disappears, and yes, it’s disconcerting.

On a more hopeful note, some say this is where all the damn orphaned eggs come from.

Do dragons that come back from exalting seen as higher or lesser for leaving/being kicked out?

Not really answering the question (again: It Is Cultural), but a relevant thought— Some stories from those returned from exaltation include:

• I can’t tell if I was dissociating/tripping that whole time
• *has no memory of the event*
• Actually, I did see the Arcanist, and he said I was his favorite and that’s why I’m back to talk to you all and—
• That was actually the face of death incarnate and I simply said no thank you
• That was actually the face of death incarnate and I had a lovely cruise down the draconic Styx but simply decided to disboard
• I ascended to a higher plane of existence but missed you guys :(((
• But seriously, where did my whole childhood go?!

Ask a thousand ex-exaltees, get a thousand different answers.

Are any breed stronger than another in any way? Or are all breeds equal?

Different Breeds Are Good At Different Things, this goes kind of without saying. An undertide is going to have immense difficulty with things made for hands, but a skydancer will never fit as smoothly down an underwater tunnel system, and probably wouldn’t consider writing with the tail as a first instinct.

“Strength” is subjective etc etc. Starting coli stats are probably a good approximation of each breed’s respective affinitie.

Can breeds of their “origin element” use their magic better? (Ex. A spiral dragon using wind magic better because the breed originated from Wind more than say a guardian dragon using wind magic)

This might have been true at one time but all breeds and elements have been crossed to hell and back, so, no, there’s no inherent advantage. (Placebo’s a heck of a drug, though.)

Are your dragon sizes more to that of in-game canon (Fae is the smallest, Imperial the biggest, etc.) or are they closer together?

Honestly it’s whatever I feel like at the time. The cross-dilution thing applies, too; a fae with only fae in the lineage will probably (but not necessarily!) be tiny, a mixed-lineage or even breed-changed one will almost definitely be bigger, etc.

As a default I figure they’re all around, uh… horse?? Large Mammal but not necessarily megafauna. There’s a pretty wide range among breeds, though, and the bell curve has a very gentle slope.

Are all dragons similarly expressive or do they all uniquely show their emotions?

Unique, babey. Far as body language and humanesque expressions go, I defer to talking animal stories; you’ll just notice tail and wing movements more on these creatures, so they play a larger role in expressiveness, but more sociable dragons will still tend to emote like humans (baring teeth with a mouth curved up can be a smile, not a snarl) because this is human imagination for a human audience.

It’s like the currency thing; anthropomorphization may vary, but it’s almost always there. (There are probably hordes of “wild” dragons with none of these trappings. Hey, is that what happens to the exalted—?!)

Are your dragons able to fly? Or is wholly determined by their wing sizes?

A funny thing about Flight Rising is that it looks like it’s basically mandatory for a dragon to have wings (“wingspan” being one of the measurements), even if they technically function more as fins (hi, undertides). I can’t really imagine an undertide flying, but veilspun wing proportions don’t exactly scream “they can flutter like pixies” to me either, and magic is real so like what the hell. (Also, something something a realistic dragon wing size, via laws of physics and no magic, would be flipping huge, and that’s just not super feasible for either visual appeal or actual survivable realism. They’re like bees, in that way. But not yellow or black (necessarily).)

Anyway, the breeds have their own inborn affinities (spirals and fae with the air, snappers and tundras nigh-landbound, undertides in the sea), and they’re stronger among Ancients, but generalizations are generalizing and such and whatnot. Magic’s real. May snappers and undertides soar to their heart’s content (with magical help, but still).

Can your Ancient and Modern dragons breed with each other despite in-game lore?

Nah, and in general I defer to site mechanics above anything. Not to such a literal extent that the Auction House exists, because that’s an ethical can of worms that I’m not touching (also FR ToS are a thing), but I try not to flat-out contradict what the game actually says is/n’t possible.

How did you clan react to finding Ancients?

So Ancients are funny because they represent massive lore “retcons,” in a way; dragons who are Actually Old (born in 2013, when the site began) will have zero concept of their existence, but the whole conceit of the Ancients (so far, anyway, but also kind of a given right there in the name) is that they’ve been around since the beginning.

There’s also the matter of how Ancients have been released; you can absolutely hatch a G1 banescale that’s never been anything but, whereas gaolers, veilspun, and undertides have all been introduced via breed change. I’ve only really fleshed out the banescale introduction (in large part because I was actively conjuring lore at the time), and that kinda came down to “sure, broad game canon strokes of ‘lost species now rediscovered’ tracks” and rolling with it.

The others, though. Okay, I haven’t written anything about it down, but here’s a thought: ancient tomes discovered, science/magic advanced far enough to make their revival possible, but in the way that cloning a woolly mammoth is a “revival”—you gotta start somewhere, and that’s inevitably going to influence the result. The gaolers, veilspun, and undertides we know today might not be exactly like their supposed kin of yore, but they exist, and that’s as good as dragonkind can get. (Well, for now. Maybe someday we’ll get Ancient eggs for existing breeds, but I ain’t counting on it….)

What about the Obelisks?

NGL I wasn’t active for that whole event, sad face :(. They, uh, were formed of statues, I think? something something Earthshaker and everyone had to dig all archaeology-style? Man, I don’t know, but I only have one obelisk anyway and he was breed-changed.

—But oh yeah, this question follows one about Ancints and culture, and to that I say: as with all things, ~it’s variable~, but Ancients tend strongly towards not liking apparel. It’s not impossible (accents exist), that’s silly, but they do struggle to find apparel fashioned for their body types. And at any rate, homogenous clans are an exception, not the norm by a long, long shot.

Do dragons mate for life or no?

If it’s not gameplay-restricted, it’s possible in lore. That said, “progen” pairs are a weirdly frequent phenomenon, and they have a higher rate of being exclusive life partners than any given pairup.

Do dragons look down on others for not having a lineage? (G1 dragons)

Bias handwave aside, G1s in my lore are basically just orphans, and there’s nothing inherently special about them except that they couldn’t track down their parents if they tried. They also seem to have “purer” versions of their element and (starting) breed’s attributes; it’s a trend, not a rule, but a trend indeed. (For instance: I might add a feature or two from a “mixed-breed” dragon’s parents when drawing them, like stubby horns on a spiral/snapper noodle, but G1s refer solely to the site art as given.)

Progens are special, though. It’s not a formal term, but there is a disproportionate amount of orphans with dubious recollections of their past who found a clan together. Usually they’re mates; sometimes they’re siblings, and any other relationship under the sun is technically possible. But if one were to conduct a survey on every single dragon everywhere, “progens” would be an undeniable trend.

An early tidbit of my personal lore: my own progens, Maelstrom and Lapilli, recall having clans not unlike those described by the Encyclopedia (a roving swarm of mirrors for Maelstrom, a sap-cured tree for Lapilli) and the dissolution of said clans (the pack crumbled in the face of interpersonal conflict; the tree was felled and its inhabitants scattered), but if they tried to remember where they were from they’d draw complete blanks. It’s as though they one day just… spawned. And then they met, and the rest is history, but it’s strange and mildly disconcerting that everything before then is such a blur.

Lapilli tried to look into that once. She didn’t get anywhere and ultimately decided it didn’t matter, not compared to living in the moment and continuing her travels with Maelstrom (the search took her deeper into places than Maelstrom cared to follow, and they’ve always been inseparable), but it still irks her sometimes.

Are your dragons in your lore, anthro, human, or just simply dragon?

Simply dragon! Anthros are a fun thought sometimes, even the rare humansona, but only for one-off art. Their characters might be effectively humans in draconic skin (I rarely account for like, the influence of Having Wings and Real Magic on psychology), but I’m here for that draconic skin and not in-depth worldbuilding, y’feel?

How technologically advanced is your clan? Do they use magic to fuel technology? or just simply magic for all necessary things?

Adjacent questions on “human/animal” lifestyle divides have already been covered, more or less (It Depends™), but this one stuck out because like… why magic vs technology? Why not magic in technology?? Technology fueled by magic and vice versa. Lightning might be most gung-ho on magic-free tech, as a bragging right perpetual self-challenge, but there really doesn’t need to be a binary here. When does there ever lol

What does your clan do with abandoned eggs?

I imagine that abandoned eggs that aren’t “claimed” become like, those G1 hoards collecting virtual dust in people’s sales tabs and dens and such; they hatch, they grow, and then they don’t really do anything.

That wasn’t really a lore tidbit, I just thought it was a funny mental image :V They Are Just Vibing.

Are there any planets that your dragons, or others, have found?

Christ, no. Or like, maybe someone out there somewhere, but it’s not a field my dragons are into because To Be Frank, Sornieth is more than enough ground to cover as-is xux”

On which note—the World Map of Sornieth, even the updated one with zooming and animations, is still simplified. This planet’s frickin’ huge. I have no concept for how travel would take using a realistic global scale but we’re not here for that anyway. There are countless sub-regions and cities and towns and wildernesses etc. etc. etc. and it is all so I can niftily handwave the sheer scope and variety of lore across the site that somehow inexplicably rarely rubs shoulders with anyone else.

Sorneith canonically has 2 moons. What would they be named if your clan had to name them?

Sornieth canonically has two moons?!???!?

Is the Shade feared in your clan? Anyone “Shade-Touched”?

Shade stuff kind of bores me NGL. Dark edgy shadow group is Right There, it’s called Shadow, this feels redundant. (I know there’s world-founding lore here but again, not super relevant to my interests and dubiously true anyway.) That said, here’s a spontaneous thought:

I like the idea “the Shade” is something of a go-to “evil.” Want to scare hatchlings into staying out of trouble? Stay in line, or the Shaaaade will catch you. Having a bad day? Dammit, Shade. Someone acting weird and you don’t want to acknowledge their state of mind or full humanity (dragonity?) as an individual? LOL, must be Shade-touched!

(No, er, shade to Shade-enjoyers. It is just not my thing, this flat Evil Force with no apparent motivation or depth except Cause Problems On Purpose—a noble pursuit, to be sure, but is entropy alone not enough??)

What of slang? Or sayings? What about swears? Do certain dragons/ dragons of elements have certain sayings/swears? (Think when the Light Sprite yells “Baku Snout!” in G&G out of frustration)

I wish I had a better mental library of item flavor text to pull this off but alas. As-is I will sometimes scour the Game Database for a relevant reference when the need arises, but otherwise I kind of just handwave and assume this is a thing, and maybe it just doesn’t translate from draconic tongue to Enlgish. F.

Are fictional books in your lore similar to books in our real life? What about comics and toys?

Given FR’s baseline not-really-modern setting, I want to say no, but also magic’s real and dragons can be dextrous so who’s to say. Honestly, I just don’t vibe as much with, like, dragons in a modern cityscape (although it’s a fun mental image) compared to all the ~lower-tech and magic-shenanigan ambiguity canon gestures towards.

Also, my lore would change dramatically if these guys had cell phones. Magic mirror-portals, sure, but infernal beeping devices? Unheard of! Sounds arcane occult, cursed, what have you! (Good for them!)

If a dragon was to say try to invent something we have in our modern lives, like a TV or a car, How would other dragons react?

There must be a niche for this somewhere but for my own sanity I’m gonna say it’s just that, a niche. Why would you want flat screens when magic can make “holographic” meatloaf 24/7?? (True to form, any minimalist cities are probably in the Shattered Expanse, or at least the clustered/better-maintained ones are. It’s About The Challenge. (also gdi, now I want a clan/offshoot-region that’s just Lightning Does/Did A Modernism, and so it’s very much like a city but with dragons and no cars. but there are gridded roads, inexplicably. hmm.))

Do other forms of dimensions exist?

No, but also yes, because I have a bunch of OC-dragonsonas (author-sanctioned fandragons??) and have given them Sornieth-based lore for fun. I do not cross this over with the rest of the lair. Also, I have “song” dragons who don’t have lore like the main lizards either, but I don’t group them with the OC dragonsona crew. Also also, Avi and Singularity exist. And so I guess the answer is that there are other dimensions, but in the way that you can have a handful of Pokémon AUs and they rarely if ever cross over.

Does any form of heaven or limbo exist in your lore? Or any form of afterlife?

I was going to say no but I actually do have multiple accounts of ghosts in my lore, one from a fandom-knockoff plot that didn’t go anywhere and more recently from wanting to do something with Mallow and also a bunch of exalted ex-keepers who I still fondly remember. So, uh, shrug?? Ghosts confirmed??? I haven’t elaborated on where they are, though, and kind of just categorically refuse to because it raises too many questions about the deity stuff. They’re more like… disembodied consciousnesses, I guess, than anything.

[Do] spirits exist? Can they possess or move things around?

So the spirits I do have are

• this one fallen empress who, after death, briefly possessed a dude I wasn’t doing much else with, except I lost interest in that subplot and I guess she’s been exorcized by now or something. RIP
• and disembodied voices that communicate with Mallow, located in a Shadow-Nature borderland wood where, incidentally, the aforementioned empress led her troops and that’s why many of them died. (I was doing a lair purge, yes.) Er, actually, maybe the answer is that the spirit stuff has more to do with Vulcan and/or that specific area than it being a general facet of my dragon worldbuilding??

Are hatchlings assigned a job when they’re young or can be anything they please once they’re of a certain age?

Lux was a hatchling when he left his birth clan to represent Light—although jury’s still out to what degree that was intended, versus a nosy/curious hatchling going out and getting lost.

At any rate, dragons are hatched basically autonomous, and can theoretically do whatever job they want straight out the egg. It would be disorienting, though, and if they fight they don’t gain anything objective from the experience. (I say this because it doesn’t make sense for hatchlings to be entirely barred from “the Coliseum” but, well, gameplay. Compromise, then, is that if they do battle, they learn [heck]all, because they’re too physically juvenile for anything to stick.) (Psychological scars, of course, can be forever :3)

Do some dragons sometimes eat outside their food groups? Like a Tundra eating meat/fish?

In another break from gameplay, sure, why not. It’s gonna taste bad though probably, and their teeth are not made for it as if tooth types are a thing I pay close attention to in art. It is not filling, as a rule, and might actively make them sick. Why would you do this.

What does your clan do with gene scrolls/breed changes? Are they even a thing? Magic? Can they willingly change their breed at any time using one? Would they still carry characteristics of their old breed after they change? IS it instant? Gradual? Same with genes? Or do the patterns mix for a bit before changing to the new?

HUEHUEHUE ok cool, saved a fun one for last:

Yes, gene and breed changes are very much a thing! Magic-based for sure, and both duration & lingering vestiges of the previous state depend on how well-made the thing is. (Not that it’s a 1:1 correlation; sometimes a dragon might want their old looks to shine through, and use a scroll made accordingly.)

Although realistically all/most dragons might have merged into some kind of landrace by now (and further evolution would be a thing), for simplicity’s sake I figure both genes and breeds represent recurring prominent patterns; it’s like if you bred a husky and a dachshund and the puppies were 90% husky OR dachshund, with the 10% being shaggy heterochromic dachshunds and long-bodied floppy-eared huskies. Little things might pass down, but the silhouette remains recognizably One Breed.

Genes, meanwhile, are basically always the same, with variations in pattern; there’s no need for like, XYZ exact stripe at this exact place across all dragons of a certain breed, and stylization is a thing, but “what were the parents’ genes tho” is not something I take into account when drawing so. Individual variation comes down more to, say, “spots are bigger/smaller, clustered here or there” than “actually you can see a little Piebald in this Speckle because there are white patches that would look really cool but the site art won’t allow that and I don’t want to make myself sad on the What Could Have Been (or, like, drive myself nuts scouring parents for what genes might be coming through from where).”

Also, the process of changing is different for everyone, based on both the scroll’s attributes and who the individual is. One dragon’s days of agony could be another’s poof insta-fix with the same scroll—although generally, it only takes a day or two max for the transformation to complete. It is not, unfortunately, possible to undo the change, but if there are ever second thoughts, one could just find a scroll of the previous version.

(Well, except for imperials. Sorry, imps. Lightweaver has deemed you too dangerous/precious to proliferate so, and thus imposed a global ban from day one. It’s one of those weird facts of the universe, like having a leap year. Rumor has it imperial scrolls still exist, in black markets for the obscenely rich (who else), but it’s a total pipe dream for a vast majority of dragonkind nonetheless. Gosh dang “Kickstarters,” whatever that means.)