Lone Star Dragon

Academia Drakonnica: Scales, Crests, and Crowns

-Scales, Crests, and Crowns

If I am to start anywhere, I feel it critical that I should first dispel all rumors concerning the size of the North American Dragon. For many wrongly imagine them equal to those of the European breeds, the largest of the winged dragons and commonly surpassing twenty feet, or six meters, some even creeping past thirty feet (or ten meters)

However, the average length of a North American Drake (male) is about nine feet, or three meters and hardly heavier than a large man. While your average American Draka (female) approaches thirteen feet or 4 meters. While the drake's smaller size is, at least in some part, the result of rationing, since the females are often the last to starve, while the lowest ranking males are the first to see reductions in their meals. The highest ranking males are still not as heavy or long as a female of the same age.

The only valid defense for the belief that the American and Europeans breeds are equal in size is the creation of what has been named the "New American Dragon". A cross between the European and American breeds, but their European lineage came from dragons who were young or of the smallest breeds.

-Scales, Crests, and Crowns

The scales are not only a dragon's armor, but they are also a focus point for what could be considered dragon fashion. Like knights of old, it is not enough for a dragon to be protected in battle, they must look as gallant as possible in unison.

Dragon scales are formed after digesting softer metals like: gold, silver, copper, and calcium. It is for this reason that they gather and hoard such metals or minerals. They retain the reflective sheen of these metals, improving and suffering with the metal's quantity and quality. The metals have no influence on the color of the scales, which are coated with the full spectrum of hues.

The female draka are almost fully outfitted in scales, bare only in areas that would hamper their ability to move. While males are, at youth, only offered such protection around and beneath their heads, an adornment we call a drake's helm, and upon their feet and claws.

However, drakes do accumulate more scales over time, a sign of age in males. A well armored drake with large horns is generally considered ideal by older queens, but younger Royals are more focused on scale quality, a sign of youth, good health, and a prosperous colony, and color. Ironically, you could say young draka are looking for a knight in shining armor.

To continue my tasteless humor, the scales and horns about the dragon's head are undoubtedly the crowning piece in a dragon's armory and wardrobe. A drake's crest scales will duplicate the color pattern of his mother's crown, becoming an actual crest of his lineage, a natural coat of arms. While the colors of a draka's crown will be a unique pattern that she will then pass onto her male offspring.

Drakes who become Scions or Consorts will, in time, shed their mother's colors and mirror the crown of their queen. The cause of this is not certain, even among dragons, but seems to reflect a long term proximity to a draka, for the crests of Fathers, respected males who remain at their familial colony and live among the other males and are often subservient to one female, but do not shed their mother's colors.

Though the task of identifying a dragon by its crest or crown is beyond the hope of most men without the aid of illustrations or notes. Dragons can identify such patterns quickly and even at distance. By the same means humans match facial features of a child to its parents, dragons attach meaning to patterns of color, cross referencing them to determine their ancestry.

Lastly, there are the smaller scales around a drake's legs, what we would consider his forearms, wrists, forelegs, and ankles which extend to his first joint. They resemble gloves and boots and give their limbs and claws extra protection when fighting or digging.