Inheritance Dragon revisions

[DontTalkDT]

So the audit group said to improve the dragon files, so let's improve the dragon files.

Telepathy
The dragons currently have just telepathy listed. This should be changed to full on mind manipulation, as dragons can fight with their mind just like magicians can.

Magic AP
While it rarely happens dragons should still get an AP value for when they are using magic. In that regards dragons should be superior to any normal elf, meaning they scale to Arya.

Shruikan feat
The Inheritance wiki mentions on Shruikan: "He was larger than Glaedr and told to have spikes as thick as tree trunks and made the ground shake for more than a mile around him with every step he took."

Does anybody know where the "shaking the ground for a mile around him" thing comes from? If I have the quote, and the description is reliable, that would make for a decent earthquake calc, I guess.

Speed
They should scale to Elves, so that justification seems self-evident.

General AP
Finally there is the question what we do regarding their physical AP.

Shruikan's page has a size comparison that seems to more or less make sense. Does anybody have some more specific quotes, though?

I could probably make some estimation of AP by size, if I could figure out the size in clearer terms (Considering for example, that Saphira demonstrated in a practice flight easily catching her own weight after a long freefall IIRC).

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

I mentioned the Dragon sizes a long time ago here, no idea where the earthquake statement came from, but looks like a good thing to look for. The rest also looks good.

 

[DontTalkDT]

You don't by any chance know where in the books the scene, in which Eragon and Saphira are flying (I think at the Varden camp) and Saphira does a nosedive after which she catches her weight and says that her wings hurt from doing that, appears?

That's the big problem with physical books, you can't ctrl+f things :/

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Yeah, it's been years since I read the books; but maybe there's a read online out there. But I might look into it later.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Eureka!, I have found it.

A shiver of horror ran down Eragon's spine. The sound was unmistakably that of a dragon walking on stone. But what a dragon, to hear its steps from over a mile away!

Doesn't sound like a mile radius earthquake more like that the sound of him stepping on stone was loud about to be heard from a mile away. But not sure if sounds like that can be calculated or scaled to AP.

 

[DontTalkDT]

It can probably be calculated. However, I'm fairly certain the results would be underwhelming. And I mean not even superhuman underwhelming.


The searchable version of the book will help, though.

 

[DontTalkDT]

Yep, found the passage I was looking for. Page 182 of Brisingr has Saphira dive towards the ground "faster than a speeding arrow" from cloud height to less than a thousand feet above the ground. It is even noted how it would take just a few seconds to cover the remaining distance.

She then abruptly stops in the air, noting how her wings get sore from doing so.


If I can figure out how to estimate the weight of a giant flying lizard that should do for a good KE calc.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Saphira is the size of a small house stated in her profile, and I suppose using inverse square law to compare to a body of a similar shaped animal would work for determining its mass.

 

[DontTalkDT]

I did the calc. Instead of upscaling a lizard, I thought it would be easier to just take a dinosaur.

The rating stays the same, but if this is accepted we have a solid justification for it.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

It looks good, and DMUA accepted it.

 

[DontTalkDT]

That takes care of the stat justification for Saphira.

What remains is the question what we do with the other two dragons...

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

I'll probably pixel scale using this image, it would solve mass and the larger dragons shouldn't be any slower. Prefer to avoid calc stacking territory, but we could either assume the same speed. Or simply calc height compared to a bird. Though, I think the former is safer.

Thorn doesn't currently have a profile, but I might as well do him too.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Width of Saphira's neck is 9 px, the mass of each could be (x/9)^3 * Saphira's weight of 8400 kg to 14000 kg.

• Thorn = 25315.23 kg to 42192.04 kg
• Glaedr = 122693 kg to 204488.34 kg
• Shruikan = 12961395.88 kg to 21602326.47 kg

Think this is a good start.

For Kinetic Energy it's

	Low end Thorn	High end Thorn
128.74 m/s	2.09787154056e8 J	3.49645173889e8 J
283.4 m/s	1.01660343699e9 J	1.69433866007e9 J

9-A to 8-C

	Low end Glaedr	High end Glaedr
128.74 m/s	1.0167561303e9 J	1.69459360575e9 J
283.4 m/s	4.92707850154e9 J	8.21179777029e9 J

9-A+ to 8-C+

	Low end Shruikan	High end Shruikan
128.74 m/s	1.07411007297e11 J	1.79018345522e11 J
283.4 m/s	5.20500884242e11 J	8.67501473870e11 J

Wow, that's 8-B to 8-A

 

[DontTalkDT]

Is that picture official? I kinda assumed it's fanart.

In any case, I think quantifying their AP like that is calc stacking. Or at least it's assuming that the bigger dragons can perform dives as fast as Saphira, which isn't necessarily the case.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

This site appears to say it's officially approved, and that it was outright confirmed by the author. I know Twitter statements are unreliable, but it's something.

I agree that using the speed ratings was calc stacking though.

 

[DontTalkDT]

Ok, that's good enough I guess.

I mean, we basically already allow to use animation choices without author approval, so nothing wrong with using this.


So, let's assume Saphiras leg is about 1 meter wide, seeing as Orik had trouble climbing it up when it was lying flat and him being 4 feet tall.
In that case Saphira would have a shoulder height of 14m, Thorn of about 16m, Glaeder should be 3 times larger than Saphira by the book so 42m, and Shruiken has a shoulder height of 107m.

I think with this clearer size quantification we can probably say that Glaedr Building level by size and Shruikan is Large Building level by size.

At least that's the best that comes to mind.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

I agree, 8-C and High 8-C both sound far more appropriate. Though, I did here they were higher with magic? Given that all Dragon Riders get their powers from Dragons?

 

[DontTalkDT]

Dragon magic in general is far above Human and Elf magic and of course their physical pool of power is also vastly higher.

That's why I added 8-B with magic to their profile, scaling from Arya.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

So the changes can be applied; for physical stats to be 8-C to High 8-C respectively?

 

[DontTalkDT]

I think so.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Okay, I have done so. Though, it appears their lifting strength might be a bit low given. I did the rough mass calculations which got Glaedr and Shruikan Class K and Class M respectively.

 

[DontTalkDT]

Updating those should be fine as well.

We should just maybe link that calc and the size scaling into a blog to link them on the profiles.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

I have moved it to a blog