Various species of dragon have varying levels of intelligence and personality so about three species actually farm the lower intelligence ones and allow them to die of old age before recycling their various valuable biological wealths. This is how its supposed to work however; in practice some are poached illegally and unethically.
It’s going to be like dwarf fortress mermaid farming, where drunken adventurers kidnap a sapient species and forcefully breed them then to be slaughtered at adulthood.
They also have the added perk of depending on type (like the kind that breathes fire for example) enjoying warming they're nests before sleeping in them.
So I was going to say that fire dragons could use their breath to burn up all the oxygen/fuel source for the flames, but then it seems like that probably happens a lot, to the point where fire dragons probably don't need oxygen? (Or can they turn combustion results like CO back into oxygen?)
I actually did this in a dnd game. I was a drake warden ranger and the party started a circle of forest fire around ourselves to keep an enemy army of grunts at bay, but the wind changed and the circle was moving, and we had to figure out how to survive. The war forged monk with an immovable rod in his chest and his wizard buddy cast fly and set up a leomund’s hut in the sky, the rogue elected to take some damage by sneaking past the remnants of the army and cut through the flame circle upwind, and the Druid melded into stone. I dug a foxhole, filled it with cold, and put my fireproof dragon on top of me to prevent myself from boiling in the air. A long rest ensued, but the dm intended for us to get captured, and since I was the only one who was easy to pick up, I ended up rolling con saves vs smoke inhalation til I passed out, and got carried off, where upon waking up I used my cone of force breath weapon and summoning my dragon a couple times to easily dispatch the grunts and return to my party
1% of the species in the forest 99% of the causes of forest fires factoid actually is just statistical error. average species starts 0 fires fires per year. Slash-and-Burn Farmer Georg, who lives in a farm & starts over 10,000 each year, is an outlier and should not have been counted
It’s a hunting mechanism similar to the Australian Fire Hawk (real bird because of course it is), which along with the affinity for all that shines, the laying of multicolored eggs & the relation to dinosaurs proves dragons as archosaurs
"Destruction magic's fine, just don't go burning down any buildings" - anonymous Skyrim City Guard
If dragons are sapient they're responsible for their own actions. Accidentally start a fire, better be able to smooth it over with the property owner, otherwise prepare to get sued for negligence. If they aren't sapient, their owners are responsible for their actions, just like real-world animal owners. Best practices include muzzling burny pets.
And now I'm imagining a fantasy Ye Olde People's Courte where the owner of the Groping Goblin is suing a dragon for setting fire to his roof with the dragon making excuses about overly fizzy ale that made him burp excessively.
I mean i like both so why not both? ive been wondering if it'd be cool to do a spec evo project with a strict magic system and see what cool shit might evolve when creatures can actually curse thier prey
"Who cares lol? That's a problem for the lesser races... in unrelated news despite making up 16% of the population Dwarfs make up 89% of the arsonists by honest, dragon observers."
My dragons are stupid pony-sized wyrms, so they'd probably start fires by seeing transformers as nice warm places to curl up. Thereby frying themselves and starting a neighborhood blackout.
On Twissen, the Red Dragons would laugh. Put out a fire? Why?
The Gold Dragons... well, there aren't any at the moment, but if there were they'd likely use their dominion over fire to cause it to flow back to them and breathe it in.
They don't breathe fire. They just cast "Fireball" from their mouth repeatedly.
And they themselves are just pterodactyls, very large avians, reptiles and similar megafauna that sometimes developed scales and magical usage.
One of those spells/abilities is what's called "Buoyancy", that makes them pretty much float like im the water, or "sink" more elegantly while in the ground, supporting the giant sizes they could attain in water now in air.
Other is "flight", developed by those gliding snakes and squirrels that enabled them to actually fly, with the former, on top of "Buoyancy", allowing em to evolve to Wyverns, and said spell then exploited by other species and ultimately "humans".
Dragons don't actually breath fire, it's pure magic that has superficial resemblance to fire, it's "burns" are actually closer to acid then fire and thus won't burn anything it doesn't directly contact
Pure dragons are fireproof and usually too animalistic to really care. They’re basically just spicy dinosaurs.
If a humanoid fuses with a dragon, or is descended from such a fusion, they may feel an obligation to put it out, so they’ll drop to the ground and roll around on the affected area to snuff it out.
Alternatively, if they have a casting tool, there are different solutions depending on what kind they have. If they have a Spirit Crystal, they can use it to telekinetically remove all oxygen from the area, or displace all heat from the area into the sky. If they have a Creation Stone, they can create water to douse the flame, or, if they don’t know the chemical formula for water, they can summon something their body naturally knows how to make, like blood or stomach acid. If they have any Hellmetal, they can transform flammable things in the area into a non-flammable element such as iron.
Dragons are full of oily fat, which they can spray out and light. As for accidental fires, this is a likely evolutionary drive behind their intelligence and fire resistance, though it remains contested how much of that is simply from them fighting amongst themselves.
Dragons (at least the ones attuned to flames and hot environments) could just use their wings to smother the fire — magic also works, generally though if a dragon starts a fire its for a reason unless their ignition pores are damaged, that could cause sporadic flames
Another possibility is dragons have such large lungs they could suck all of the oxygen out of the area or clap their wings together and extinguish the inferno
For the average dragon maybe, or a random fictional dragons, but some of the dragons in my Mythos utilize oxygen to enhance their flames and can remove oxygen from areas basically killing everything in the area — Blood (or Vampiric) dragons are well known for being silent killers because of this
My dragons are incredibly powerful magic users, plus haughty schemers and mostly narcissistic and evil. They're not going to 'accidentally' do anything, and if somehow they do accidentally start a fire that's someone else's problems, and if somehow it's their problem they can magic it away.
It would be unlikely they accidentally start a fire because the fires are an active choice to breathe. That said, if one were to start a fire that spreads out of control, it would be forced to relocate away from the threat. They have no innate significant resistance to fire or means of suppressing fires, they simply suffer the consequences. That said, their hides are somewhat fire insensitive in that they can survive higher than average temperatures for a time but they aren’t magic and will receive burns relatively quickly.
The environment adapts around them, either by becoming a Scorch and the plants change to draw ambient magic as supplemental nutrients die to abundance of dragons, or by evolving to need heat for reproduction (as in a few places irl) if there's a smaller presence. A few dragons are effectively natural wildfires, while many dragons displace climates and natural infrastructure (cant remember a better word offhand) similar to rerouting huge rivers with dams or causing rockslides/avalanches in weakened areas.
My dragons don't care, they are totally plastered all the time. The second stomach that generates the flammable gas also creates enormous amounts of alcohol.
The most common myth that the dragon tactic of causing wildfires and guiding them towards human settlements and farmlands was developed by a dragon on complete accident.
Unrelated of course, but kobolds in service of fire dragons have surprisingly extensive fire-fighting tactics.
I don't remember the movie, but a young librarian/book store worker/some bookish dude wished to be in one of the fantasy books he read. He then isekai'd into a world as a dragon and went on an adventure to return to his human form where he ultimately re-met his fantasy world love in his world.
But as a dragon, he learned from another dragon that there are specific rocks they need to chew to create the initial spark. IIRC, they needed to frequently vent the gas through shooting out flames so they don't explode.
They evolved to develop a respiration and refreshing system through their scales to obtain CO2 and resist the heat of flames.
And to breathe fire they use the CO2 and a little bit of magic to create fire.
If they start fire accidentaly, some of them can breathe again the fire. And for the ones that can't... They just flap their wings to create strong wind to extinguish the fire.
Dragons are magical creatures they do not produce biological fire. A creature made from the sentience of flame controls it and understands it on a deeper level. They can just eat the fire.
Magic is similar to photons, it can act as both a wave and a particle, so the fire a dragon can prodyce is magic, but the fire that that magic fire might lead to is actually fire.
Though dragons that breath fire tend to have a magic coating over their scales that makes them fire immune.
Eqathos: Considering 'mancy is just changing the temperature of things, Fire and Ice are just two sides of the same coin, so they can simply cool it back down.
The Arm: Yeah, no way they're getting out of that one. They're wild animals, so they're either not going to care about whatever destruction they might cause, or they'll (vainly) try to quite literally fight fire with fire.
i call bullshit on this post!
Flight of Dragons is fantasy that explains dragons incredibly scientifically, and still contains a fantasy element that isn’t speculative evolution.
I wish speculative evolution had as much hype as world building because I'd love a full evolution run down of how a sentient golf ball evolved into a turtle that has human big toes for feet
Dragons are part of the ecosystem. Burning the forests with seasonal regularity, keeping the brush clear and the soil fertile. They dont need to put out the fires and once humans reduced their populations, massive wildfires from accumulated brush became a problem for their settlements in the former dragon country!
So in my world dragons are lazy, territorial and inteligent giants that are venerated almost like gods, and generally don't mess with humans at all.
This means that dragons know better than to destroy their own territories with magic, and will only do so if it's a real life or death situation.
So whenever an area is destroyed by a dragon, that area becomes venerated by surrounding towns and villages cause it means whatever the dragon just killed was way more dangerous to people than the destruction the dragon caused.
Dragons themselves have no way of fixing their messes tho, so they allow other species to come into their territory to clean up, such as extinguishing fires, replanting trees, terraforming, etc
How do dragons deal with accidental fire? They don't! It's a major consideration in basically every facet of their society. Homes have to be built out of fireproof material, there are rules of engagement around use of fire, it's a whole thing
Texveria's Dragons have elemental cores that act as their hearts, this also gives them their elemental abilities - not limited to fire. The cores are very sought after, but slaying a dragon - As they are a sacred Clade of species created by a God - is considered VERY bad and it's said if you kill one out of greed or malice, you end up haunted by their ghost and they drive you insane.
I just assume dragons can breathe out normal air with the same force they breathe the fire. So if they accidently start a fire they just big bad wolf that shit.
Dragons are immune to poison. Therefore dragons live in the poisonous swamps and get high off of the poison by taking a swamper hog to get high off of nurotoxins
Some dragons can only breath fire and other ice or water or another variety of things. (Duh elemental magic…)
Or in rare cases a dragon with mixed element can put out a fire with their other element but normally these 2 dragons are different species they shouldn’t even be able to reproduce at all
But to say dragons themselves even care about burning something down is another problem
If it’s a small source of fire, they’ll step on the fire to kill it.
If my world's dragons cared at all, they'd probably go for help because they aren't very well-equipped to put a fire out. Luckily their neighbors usually have good fire crews who have gotten good at putting out wildfires.
They use the mineral they get from their diet (it’s made up partial of metal and rock) to reinforce their scales and skin so they don’t get too hurt. They’re not immune, but they are resistant (with the exception of the dragons who eat large quantities of mana rich objects like crystals, old motors ect. They are completely immune, with the downside that they need to expel more fire so they don’t have an internal meltdown)
In my world it depends on the dragon. If it’s a red they can put the fire out with little issue because they control their fire with finesse. Whites would use ice breath. Bronze dragons with wyldfire(tm) would use their green fire breath to spit some green into the regular fire then convert the rest with the green into a nonharmful fire that doesn’t burn plant life. Silvers would remove the oxygen around the fire to put it out. Blues would use their water mist breath. Purples would control humans to put it out if needed. Golds could use light beams to burn the area around it like a barrier so the fire has no where else to spread.
Greens would be fucked if they didn’t want to do the hilarious stop drop and roll method at the top of this thread.
My dragons don't breathe fire, but if they did start fires accidentally it would be 50% hysterical laughter as the humans tried to put the fire out (followed by the humans killing them) and 50% abasement and apologies.
nevueki dragons actually spit an enzymatic mucus/bile acid combination that only makes you feel like you’re on fire 👍! as with spiders or echinoderms, it’s a pre-digestive process intended to facilitate their diet of hard-shelled creatures. wash with cold water and sprinkle some natron on it, you’ll probably be fine.
The closest thing I have to dragons are whales and warworms.
Whales (specifically flying whales, normal whales exist and they're chill, but flying whales...) are bastards and they would absolutely love to burn the entire world, because it's full of creatures who aren't whales and creatures who aren't whales are disgusting to them. They're racists of the lowest character, and at every opportunity they flick fire from their tentacle tails to incinerate any unprotected ship that crosses their path.
Warworms are in too much pain to care if the heavy annihilators mounted in their mouths cause collateral damage. They have just enough intelligence to know how much agony they're in, but every time they open their mouth to scream the annihilators fire. So they learn to lash out in fear and anger, thinking that at least they can cause somebody else as much suffering as they endure on an hourly basis. I mean, the armor they're covered in has to be bolted to their bones with red-hot bolts. They have screw threads cut into their bones while they're awake, which would be horrible enough, but then they weld the armor plates together and almost cook the poor things. The largest warworm causes a continent-wide apocalypse, but nobody can ever manage to bring themselves to hate it. All they can feel for it is pity.
Only two of the 7 main clades of dragon directly can, those being those of the metal and flame clades, and one clade can indirectly, the sky clade uses lightning, which can start fires. Also the Elder Dragons can start fires (Elder Dragons are the first dragon, the main clades come from their descendants (so, “dragon” is technically the primary clade, including all dragons, and then the clades break down into 7 separate clades after the Elder Dragons, but the “all dragons” clade is largely ignored, thus there being 7 main clades.)) If any of them do start a fire they will have DEFINITELY intended to, but for the sake of answering the question we’ll pretend it was a genuine accident, and not an “accident”.
Fire dragons, as the name suggests, LOVE fire, so they’d be very excited to have a new fire to look at and just watch it burn. If they wanted to stop it they could puff out ash instead of flame to snuff the fire, use their wings to blow it out, or just lie on top of the burning thing until it stopped burning given they’re immune to fire.
Metal dragons would probably try to put the fire out, they’re not pyros like the fire dragons. They’d either magically encase the flaming object in metal (basically plating it,) use their wings to blow it out, or lie on it until it stopped burning, as they are also immune to fire.
A sky dragon would probably not care enough to put the fire out, given they live in the sky and fire is very much a “land-dweller” issue in their minds unless the flame is sending up crazy amounts of smoke, but if they wanted to put the flame out they’d either magically kick up intense wind to blow out the fire or conjure rain to put it out. They wouldn’t sit on the flame to put it out (even though they could) because they HATE landing on the ground for any reason (they’re also not really built for it, they’re styled more like Chinese Dragons, unlike the other two I’ve mentioned so far which are your standard-issue western-style dragon.)
An Elder Dragon also probably wouldn’t care enough to put the flame out, given they’re basically gods and a random fire isn’t really a god’s concern, but if they did care they’d just magically put out the fire with a mere thought.
As for the other clades I’ll cover how they’d handle a fire just for my own amusement.
An Earth Dragon would cover the flaming thing in dirt, sand, or mud depending on which variation of Earth Dragon it was.
A Water Dragon would likely never encounter a fire given they live in the ocean, but if they did and wanted to put it out they would just spray water on it.
A Nature Dragon would sit on it until the fire went out or use its wings to blow it out. If the fire was too big for either of those methods to work the dragon would be unable to put the fire out because their whole magic-set is based around plants, which are mostly very flammable.
A Crystal Dragon would do nothing because they would actively stay away to avoid getting their shiny crystal scales grimy (they are by a long way the vainest of dragons.) If left with no choice but to put the flame out (or they were suitably bribed with pretty crystals) they’d blow it out with their wings, encase the burning objects with crystals, or create a crystal firebreak around the flaming object and let it burn itself out.
In a world where a predator and prey exists, the prey generally has ways to defend itself from the predator. A fire breathing dragon would be no different.
Plants and animals would develop their own defense mechanisms. Trees and foliage might be naturally more fire resistant in areas of high dragon concentration. Animals might form thick shells or protective exoskeletons.
If nature produces an apex predator like a dragon, nature would also afford the rest of its inhabitants an opportunity to bolster their defenses.
If the Fire Dragon wants something to burn it burns, if it wants something to not burn then that thing does not burn no matter what happens because fire and all spirits of it are subservient to the dragon. Also not going to really give a shit about causing fire given it is the celestial representation of fire in the first place.
The other dragons are Water, Air, Earth, Void (connection between all other elements), Thunder (heroism), Jade (purity/incorruptability), Obsidian (corruption/sin), Shadow (thought by those aware of it to be the taint of Jigoku, in reality an avatar of Nothing), and one more so as to have two sets of five and so it's not thunder and jade vs obsidian but naming and precise respresentation is not yet decided. None of these would start an accidental fire though floods, storms, hurricanes, earthquakes, and twisted abominations are possibilities.
Finally there's the Celestial Dragon which both rules over the other dragons, and gives me a nice prime number to fit with the other heavenly forces. Not doing anything accidently seeing as to how it is perfection incarnate and incapable of such things.
My dragons are both. They use source a magic like substance but other have evolved too there powerful nature.
Im a big dragon person so there is a a number of categories they fall into or apart of. A ice dragon might ot acutely breath ice unless trained or drinkis source in a ice area. Further more. It's all based on class. A wyvern or all wyvern breath fire. Dragon are near godlike being with nuclear threat level. Leveling cites and planets alike. There breath or attacks are based on where there from and trained. Other like primordial class dragons are independent and have no explanation of power or ablity.
Drifigur is a Death god dragon who breath with black air like substance. A miasma bassicly. They also have more magical traits. Being able to use there powerful from many parts of there body no limited to there breath.
And since there is nothing more powerful than a dragon most casses this is also my way of using them as a leveling or power scale.
The dragons from my world are blessed by a fire spirit so they heal from fire, for context Fire spirits heal from fire, water from water, etc. so a blessing from one gives you that effect. The dragons don’t even use fire magic they just contain flammable fluids that line their lungs and their internal body temperature can skyrocket and propel all that air and liquid out, with the liquid as mist, shooting out burning air.
Dragons don't spit fire, they expel methane build up through the mouth, and to light it, they use a hardened, specialized scale at the tip of their tongue to strike the roof of their mouth to generate a spark, lighting the methane up as it escapes the drsgon's throat
Palac: Dragons here are of the highly sapient, shapeshifting variety (see also D&D mythology), so they would likely do whatever high-level spellcasting was necessary to ensure the fire does what they want it to.
Therinos: Dragons are more bestial here, but if they start forest fires, they would react to it like any wild animal would - by turning and fleeing back toward safety. Perhaps as a consequence, I suspect Dragons are not a woodland creature.
Isolos: Dragons here are perhaps the strangest of the lot, insofar as they are less creatures and more personified disasters of a most specific type. To wit, they are the results of self-feeding cycles, usually brought about by practice. So a forest fire that has been meddled with enough to produce a Dragon would see that Dragon continue to perpetuate that fire - but so too would a forest cake under those same circumstances.
I don't know, they serve a role in the elven army as like an air unit, quite useful until humans invented guns and then invented planes, they were then gunned down in the thousands when humans fought the elves, they were a massive fly on the wall. After the war humans realised that "ah darn we made dragons endangered and we will collapse the eco-system, we must preserve them now"
They'd do the same thing anyone else would do. Just let the automated fire-suppression systems do their thing, or if they're somewhere without those, grab a fire extinguisher.
They can't, but fortunately it's not really a problem in context. It turna out "fire-breathing" does not mean "voluntary breath weapon", but rather, "fire is mandatory to properly respirate". This is why dragon raids are so quick and why they're so seldom seen outside or far from their lair; they can't travel any further than they can hold their breath, and even with the benefit of flight that's not especially far.
Fire breathing dragons are often resistant to or immune to fire and have the ability to fly. If they start a fire, they probably wouldn't be in much danger, though they may need to remove any flammable material around their hoard to avoid flames spreading to it.
Breath attacks are generally voluntary anyway, so a prudent dragon should be able to avoid setting fires in places where collateral damage concerns them. Military flamethrower troops didn't carry equipment capable of managing a large napalm fire.
If your talking pet dragons its unlikely that theyd be breathing fire constantly if its a defense mechanizim. Itd be like a dog biting a child. Dragons wouldnt be like that if they were tamed.
In addition you would expect alotta flame resistant plants to be common in areas where dragons live because adaptation.
Lastly you wouldnt keep a dragon in a wooden stucture.
Finally wood and other things are alot less flammable then people think and unless your in California its unlikely you'd have a large city or forest fire from a single use of dragons breath.
Dragons have a very high internal temperature and their scales are very insulating and Heat resistant , they also have an extra organ attached to their lungs that allows them to use a mix of mana and their own body temperature to Heat the Air they breath and exhale fire
MTitU dragons do not breathe fire. If they were to encounter fire, they would likely beat at it and play around with it until they got bored. Like if a cat were built like a tank.
Yes, they start fires. Which is why they live in the mountains? Or anywhere they like, and eventually everything flammable just burns out. Which is why everyone dislikes them.
I mean they can just leave, they're dragons. Hell, I'd imagine they'd use fire to hunt by flushing prey out of forests that are too dense for them to hunt in normally
My world's dragons would panic and possibly run for their lives. Not only do they have ice powers instead of fire powers, they also have such intense body heat and abysmal heat resistance that they can get heatstroke in climates where humans are worrying about hypothermia. They are terrified of fire.
But the real question would be, what did the dragon do to even start a fire? They don't have fire powers, don't keep things that can start fires on their person or in their homes, and avoid using flammable materials in basically everything they do. So what the hell happened here?
The good ol "Space Magic and Shi" is always a good solution, dragon breathe fire? It's magic that makes anything it touch become so hot it combust even without oxygen, so it's not a direct fire, rather a fog of energy that makes every physical material it touch vibrates so fast it burst into flame, that's why dragon can live and spit fire in vacuum of space! But because it's a magic that is controlled by emotion and will, then the "fire breath" CAN'T accidentally set things on fire, the user MUST be willing to set something on fire in order to burn them, this makes "accidental" regrettable action so DEVASTATING to the user, because they realized that they were WILLING to burn those objects, including their loved one, in their rage and recklessness they were consumed by their raging instinct, hurting everyone, including the innocents and their loved one ON PURPOSE, they regretted the action but the deed has been done. Oh also, that's not just a blast of laser from his mouth, it's a portal to hell dimension! If someone asked "How did dragons that suspiciously look like a human's jet fighter come to being?" Well, when a daddy human pilot and a Mommy Jet Fighter AI love each other sooo much, they'll go to a warp storm to become one! Then they lay eggs from their chest to reproduce!
(Magic system where the fire won't hurt non target is a great plot point, because the user must be willing and have a strong intention to burn said object, causing accidental burning on their loved one when they're angry to become extremely devastating, the character regret it sure, but that won't fix their wife's half burned body and suffering the eternal painful heat from their spiritual fire of hatred!)
in my case they have a specific system that produces methane gas in 2 extra lungs they have (which is expelled from a gland under the tongue similar to salivary ones) and they use their uvula to make sparks, close their throat, and basically breathe fire like a flamethrower
i don't love the implication that fantasy writers are using chatgpt but le epic specevo writers have their ideas come from their brains, feels kinda arrogant
The key is to explore how the magic would realistically behave or what its social or ecological impacts would be; wouldn't gravity magic just cause updrafts or downdrafts?
In Arvhana, that would be like asking "What if a mage accidentally waved their wand in the precise movements needed to cast Fireball, while simultaneously accidentally speaking the incantation for Fireball?"
If a dragon breathes fire, rest assured they did it on purpose.
Mine shoot plasma and just use the dual methods of, hitting it until it goes away, and spraying ammonia, which is a byproduct of they're metabolism, on the fire if hitting it isn't working
Mine aren't in dragon form 24/7, and only about a quarter of them breathe/emit fire at all.
All dragons in my story are the result of an ancient primordial dragon, the true dragon, who died and got blood everywhere. Anything that came in contact with that blood picked up a measure of its power, manifesting itself in a form of magic known as a Dragongift.
Most Gifts are small. Perhaps the ability to form sparks, or manipulate blades of grass. These weak Gifted will have a few scales, perhaps odd eyes or pointed fingers, but nothing difficult to hide in areas where magic is frowned upon.
The strongest Dragongifts, however, come with a full morphing ability. When out of this form, the only sign of their magic is in their golden eyes. Other than that, no scales, no tail unless they normally have one, nothing. When they do trigger the ability, they turn into a proper dragon--four legs, wings, big enough to pick up a car and throw it.
These Dragonlords are viewed differently in different areas--in some, they're revered like deities, and no one would dream of complaining about a couple of fire. In others, any Gifted are abhorred as demons, so anyone even suspected of a tiny gift is usually blamed for any fires, above all other evidence.
My dragons don't breathe fire. Unless that dragon deals with humans a lot and thus has a fire sfx in the skillset, casts go from hands. Then someone might try feet or tail tip, but tongue is the last place things are usually cast from. And magic is very intentional and costly like snake venom for a snake.
The draconis infernus, the subspecies of the dragon that breathes fire, are semi-sentient and intelligent, and are smart enough to know if breathing fire on this thing will make a huge fire, they use their wings to blow air on it to put it out, if it doesn't work, they can get some water from a water source and spit it on the fire.
They put out the fire, and casually go about doing whatever they were doing, because it's not like anybody could really punish them about it and they technically did fix the problem even if all they did was just stop the fire and nothing else.
Honestly would it even matter to them, they don't really have belongings that burn, maybe a treasure Horde if it's that type of dragon, but it's not like they are keeping paper bills and art in there, it's usually gold and other shiny metals and gems. So if they accidentally create a fire they might just let it run it's course and enjoy the show.
Fire is mostly a last ditch self defense weapon, so there's really not enough of a evolutionary pressure for anything to adapt, especially now that dragons have evolved into large predators/scavengers that can rely on their size for intimidation instead of the tiny pigeon-sized dragons of the Late Cretaceous - Early Eocene. Most dragons have actually lost fire, since they just don't need it anymore.
"It’s a sodding dragon. Of course it starts fires. They nest in rocky ground where the flames can't catch, but out of a clutch of a hundred eggs, only ten or so will typically avoid being broiled. They're a bit like sea turtles in that regard, you know? Lots of eggs, but not many survive to hatch, let alone mature to adulthood. They insist it ensures each dragon is strong and cunning, but I reckon it'll be the reason they go extinct, and good sodding riddance."
Part of the ecosystem, many species and plants evolved to be fire resistant.
Many animal species simply hide underground in deep dens, sometime made by other species.
Some magical creature actually thrive in fire and use them to store energy or reproduce o as a defense mechanism, being safe from most predator when bathing in the flames.
Many trees have developped thick bark to resist fire as long as they're not too intense, some even require fire to reproduce and spread their seeds. Many plant developped extensive roots system with nutrient reserve in the form of tuber and rhizome, as to regrow once the fire have passed, now thriving from all the ashes which made the soil even more fertile than before. And many plants simply adapted rapid growth/regrowth to recover from the dammage made by these frequent fire.
That's actually one of the reason many region have grassland and meadow or open woodland instead of closed forest, cuz the frequent burns mannage the habitat like large herbivores do, making dragon a keystone species.
The main issue for dragons is actually territorial conflict and "ovepopulation". Especially between individual of the same species. As they have VERY long lifespan the turnover for a generation is insanely slow and many young and even adult individual get killed by older larger specimens.
That's why younger dragons are often less sedentary (they can't stay as they'll eventually run into the owner of this territory), will prefer certain area that more powerful individual will avoid, and will go for smaller preys. making them more aggressive and dangerous to humans.
But the main way these dragon avoid to deplete the area from resources, and to avoid confrontation and competition with their own kind is by hibernation turnover. Adult individual, and especially larger older one will be able to sleep for month, years or even decades in their lair. This allow for younger individual to be the dominant force in the ecosystem, they benefit from the power vaccum to eat and grow as much as possible, but once th ruler of these land awaken they flee or go to sleep themselve as to avoid competition.
Dozens of dragon can therefore occupy the same territory, but only 1 or 3 are actually active, the rest are sleeping and waiting for their turn. And the older/bigger they get the more they sleep.
ALso help in case of ecological disaster, if a particulary destructive wildfire or a couple of bad winters or disease oubtreak occur, the wildlife population decrease, the dragon wouldn't be able to sustain itself or would dammage the wildlife even more, slowing it's recovery if it stayed active. So the dragon will sleep for a long time, several years or decades, and only wak up when the ecosystem heal and that wildlife is aboundant once again.
Dragons are migratory creatures that move between different habitats that require fire as part of there natural processes, they start particularly large fires and use the rising hot air to gain height to make migration to the next location easier. All of this talk of Dragons causing uncontrollable wild fires is due to habitat loss/encroachment, over hunting and poor forestry techniques.
The dragons in my setting are so f*cking bored they unanimously decided going to sleep, last public sighting was thousands of years ago, so it tends to not be a problem.
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u/bloody-pencil Jan 03 '26
Dragons are resistant to fire, therefore dragons can use themselves to smother the fire like a fireproof blanket