Source
r/DnD•
lessetti

How many Dragons are there supposed to be in the world?

DMing

Dragons are said to be exceedingly rare and powerful, however, if they were too rare it would become a problem for breeding. So is there an estimate? Is it just hundreds or thousands? Also with how they mess up so much of their environment and live in specific types of places, surely some dragons are more common than others by simple fact of they have more space they can go. How often should my players realistically see signs of dragons outside of quests where they are looking for one?

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TL;DR is there a lore mention of how numerous dragons are?

(I used DMing as a tag because I'm not sure which tag I should use)

Posted Mar 20, 2020, 4:12 AM UTC

427
OnslaughtSix•

It depends on what world it is. Dragonlance for example had a shitload, you fought one in like every module. Meanwhile Dark Sun literally only had one dragon.

In my game I don't worry about the larger population of them. That's beyond my purview. But I am trying to limit it to only one dragon of every type and age, just for variety.

6
lessettiOPDM•

I have a homebrewed dragon that stays in packs

1
OnslaughtSix•

Then have as many as you want. It's your game!

5
CeramicFerret•

Just consider how much they need to eat, what they are going to eat, and where that lives and what it eats. Working that out should occupy an afternoon.

1
JakeEkissDM•

There's no real official consensus I'm aware of. They are as rare or plentiful as a typical DM decides.

2
SlayerJesseDM•

While it's up to you, if you base it on food needs and territorial power struggles probably not more than a few thousand worldwide. More of you allow them to reside in other planes.

2
vinyl8e8op•

I heard something like 1 per 100 miles. But that might be for the home brew I’ve been playing. We started playing last August and have seen one over head and just encountered one recently.

1
CeramicFerret•

100 square miles? Or 100 miles radius? Because the larger tigers have a range of about 400 square miles, and dragons are much bigger. 100 mile radius is probably off by a factor of 10, but it's at least on a similar scale.

Yes, I have too much time on my hands that I made an effort to figure that out.

1
GeekSumsMe•

Yes, but tigers are endotherms and therefore require constant energy to maintain their body temperature.

Dragons, I assume, are ectotherms and may be much more efficient with respect to metabolic regulation. The reason I make this assumption is that they are always depicted as spending much time sleeping in their lairs. This is typical behavior for ectotherms, which are often sit and wait predators.

This is why snakes, for instance, can go weeks between meals.

This is fantasy, but if you are looking toward real world analogs for a sense of realism, it is important to consider differences in the underlying physiology involved in the comparisons.

2
CeramicFerret•

If you stop discussing this with me, I'll hunt you down when this quarantine is over. :) That was the most intelligent response I have heard to any of this, ever.

Endotherm as a basis, ok. So they only get out and maraud through the countryside when the good doesn't come to them. And now I have a twist for why dragons are rumored to have these huge hoardes of coins when there is no possible way a creature like that could have any interest in something it can't even pick up.

Go on, I'm intrigued.

1
C4st1gator•

Dragons are endotherms, as stated in the 3.5e Draconomicon:

All true dragons are endothermic. Given their elemental nature, they could hardly be otherwise. A dragon’s body temperature depends on its kind and sometimes on its age. Dragons that use fire have the highest body temperatures, and dragons that use cold have the lowest. Acid- and electricity-using dragons have body temperatures that fall between the two extremes, with acid-users tending to have cooler bodies than electricity-users. -Draconomicon (2003), P 9

Dragons have elemental energy, however, so while they eat a lot, they are omnivores and can sustain themselves on almost everything.

Dragons are carnivores and top predators, though in practice they are omnivorous and eat almost anything if necessary. A dragon can literally eat rock or dirt and survive. -Draconomicon, P 10

There are other cheats employed by dragons as well: A hoard of gold can provide ambient elemental energy, which allows them to replenish by sitting on a pile of metal. Another neat little trick is used by brass dragons:

Brass dragons can and will eat almost anything if the need arises, but they normally consume very little. They seem to understand that the desert is a fragile environment, and they live lightly upon the land. They are able to get nourishment from the morning dew, a rare commodity in the desert, and they go forth at dawn to gently lift minute beads of dew off plants with their long tongues. -Draconomicon, P 40

These brassy chatterboxes come with built in Goodberry, so a desert can sustain a good number of brass dragons. The other desert dweller, the blue dragon, can and will divert the production of humanoid societies to feed itself.

Another thing: Square/Cube Law may be in their favour, when it comes to food consumption, so they will still consume more than a smaller creature, but with some considerable time between meals.

1
GeekSumsMe•

Well, I'll be damned. Thank you for sharing, I learned something new today.

I just always assumed that the reason they spend so much time in their lairs was their elemental nature controlling the surrounding climate, so their energetic requirements would be drastically reduced.

I stand corrected.

That's still how it is going to work in my world though, because I can. ;)

Again, thanks!

1
vinyl8e8op•

Honestly I don’t remember... maybe it was 1000

1
AlienScrotum•

I like to think of dragons as inherently magical. Once they reach a certain age they can no longer realistically sustain themselves without being attacked every 5 minutes. So they use their magic to travel to a preferred elemental plane.

1
Orange3121DM•

In my world, almost all the dragons are extinct, or in the "Elder Trance". The only dragons not in hiding that civilization knows of are the two dragon monarchs of Geth, ( a monster kingdom ) and an ancient golden dragon that helps the dragon council in the Sorcerer's Confederacy

1
spidersgeorgVEVO•

In official lore, it varies by setting, and I'm reasonably certain none of them have stated a specific number.

For my games my rule is "there are as many dragons as I need there to be to make cool stuff happen," which has worked pretty well so far.

1
[deleted]•

I usually do 1 dragon per element (cold, poison, fire, thunder, radiant, necrotic, psychic)

1
GeekSumsMe•

How do they reproduce?

1
[deleted]•

Asexually?

And you realize its fantasy right? It doesnt have to go by real world logic, or have to even reproduce at all, dragons by myth can survive a very, very long time thus the fact that "Ancient Dragons" are a thing?

1
GeekSumsMe•

Okay, it was kind of a tongue in cheek comment. I thought I was being funny, no offence intended.

If course high fantasy doesn't have to follow real world logic. You are 100% correct about that.

Personally, I find it fun to think about a world that does operate similarly to our own, with the exception of magic and all of the ramifications that this would have. However, this is my choice.

Pathenogenesis is a totally reasonable explanation though. ;)

1
[deleted]•

I see dragons as these legendary, ancient creatures with loooooooooong lifespans, and once their lifespan starts coming to an end, they just idk birth? Lay? An egg, that eventually hatches into a youngling of said dragons type, color, etc..

And in my campaigns atleast they are usually the Rulers of an Elemental plane, but they are able to travel to and from the elemental plane to the "real world" so to speak.

Some prefer attacking adventurers that get too close to there area of living, and some just watch in curiosity or even gift them treasures.

1
DelNeigumDM•

So i made a homebrew world map, and then designated large areas for Ancient dragons to declare as their territory. Smaller dragons can, and do, live within these territories, with their own spheres of influence to bar out other Dragons of thier age. It ends up looking like 1 Ancient/1000 miles (33 day travel). 1 Adult/300 miles (10 days) and 3 adults fit in 1 Ancient Territory, and 1 young/90 miles (3day). Which means there are 3-4 young in an Adult territory, and 10 young in an Ancient territory. With ~14 dragons within 1000 miles, due to my world size, this ended up with there being about 85 dragons total. Enough to cover all types and ages twice over.

1
Weelobeae•

A lot of these comments are giving wide ranges or straight up telling OP to make it up, but if he wants a number that's reasonable then I suggest having 3 to 5 in an area the size of Germany, the whole of the US would have 12-20 and the global population would rarely exceed 250, for distribution of dragon types it's up to you as the DM to make choices based on the land of your world, if you have very few icy areas then you wouldn't see as many dragons who prefer icy terrain, same goes for all other dragon types.

1
lionessthedruid•

I'm my Homebrew world we solved this question with-dragons are multi dimensional beings. They learn planeshift at a fairly young age. Why are there so many on this particular world? This is one of their egg laying worlds. That does mean there tends to be more female dragons or younger ones growing, learning, and amassing hordes before heading out to carve out their territories.

1
GeekSumsMe•

Well, I guess I was wrong according to formal lore.

However, that is exactly what I'd always used to explain their hoarding nature. In my mind, and this is not formal lore, but rather the twisted thoughts of an ecologist who also happens to love D&D, I always thought that the desire to hoard wealth started as a way to lure their favorite meal: sweet human flesh. As they evolved into the legendary creatures that became known as dragons, this evolved into extreme greed.

As you say, it is kind of hard to explain the hoards otherwise

Perhaps it comes from my profession, but evolution always exists in my world. After all, if creatures reproduce, and have traits that are inherited, and have variation in these traits (this has to be true if they reproduce sexually), then evolution is the inevitable outcome.

At least this is what I tell my players when they notice that a beast doesn't work exactly as described in the MM.

Incidentally, this is why I almost always run demons as written, because I don't think natural selection is applicable to creatures that are spawned. I never tell the players this though, best to keep them guessing. ;)

I guess the great part about this game is the ability to change whatever we want to fit the worlds we create in our imaginations.

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