The Dragons' Culture(s)

[Drakel]

Originally I was going to create a small thread about Dragons and how their fashion would be, but then I got to thinking in the midst or my writing that there are a lot of bigger questions that would've been avoided from it.

To start, for the sake of this thread I am going to state that dragons are sentient and have created their own civilizations. As for a basis lets Utilize three basic body forms, The anthro-dragons and Feral Dragons, both including Eastern, Western, Wyverns, Sea-Serpents (Water-dragons) and the like. Earth, or per-say another planet that is at minimum 90% similar to Earth on NASA's ESI. Another important detail is that I'm excluding all magic and the like since it's not able to be explained by part through at minimum psudo-science and instead would highly advise we stick with theories and the dragons relying on their own physical traits, abilities and creativity. Technology will definitely play a small part in this as well but for the most part ingenuity is key since these questions would mostly be summed up as 'if you, and all people in the world were suddenly dragons in this modern day and age, what'll change?'

Now that, that is said time for the real questions.

1. The BIGGEST, and probably most controversial of all of these questions is that there could possibly be in this thread, and one that might deserve it's own thread in its nature is... What would Dragon's culture be? there may be several different dragon cultures, depending on where they live, though putting focus on 'american', Western and eastern dragons, how would their cultures be in contrast to the cultures that we have now? How drastic are these culture changes? How would their religions be and what similarities could be kept in this hypothetical situation? Would their morals be similar or different to those that we currently have? why?
2. As above stated, the world is now filled with dragons in a modern setting, what are the main changes in fashion that would be made for all forms and body structures of dragons? How different or similar would their clothing be? What materials would be most common for them? Would they even wear clothes? What would be Casual, Formal, business, beach and the like look like for dragons?
3. Jewelry is probably going to be a very BIG thing with dragons if we count their affinity to precious metals and shiny gems. Some dragons have ears, others don't so how would they put some glimmer on their bodies? How common would this be? What would/wouldn't be similar and/or different between their shiny rocks and ours? What of their tails, wings horns and claws? How would these best be utilized? How will each of the three types of dragons differentiate with their shines?
4. Architecture is also going to be a major thing for dragons of sentience and of all types. How would buildings be designed and cities look? Would they live in caves or homes designed for their needs? They can travel very far with ease and quickly by nature so how much land would dragons have? What Rooms would be included in a dragon's home and what would their out-door property most likely look like?
5. FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD!!! DRAGONS ARE ALL CARNIVORES! Seriously though, in truth we can't say what dragons do/don't like besides 'meat' so the question may be to poke fun a bit, but what dragon recipes would there be? What would each dragon type and culture most likely eat and what would they refuse out-right? What can we eat that dragons eat recipe wise? What spices, herbs and the like would/wouldn't a dragon put on it's food to improve flavor? What other things would dragons eat besides meat, if any at all?

Note that all of these questions are VERY large in nature and thus will put up quite the discussion on how our world today would be if it was filled with dragons. I am hoping that a debate of sorts may be formed from this so feel free to challenge one another's ideals freely but respectfully and lets see if a world dictated by dragons would be successful or crumble.

That said, I'll post my personal answers on a later date, after seeing what you all have to say on the subject.

[alondor]

I will need some time to think about the majority of this topic, but one thing that came to mind immediately for me was painting the body, or what we call make up. I think dragons would decorate their scales and talons as nonchalantly as some people paint their nails, it might even be more common and accepted for both genders.

[Falconer]

As far as cultures, they usually boil down to a handful of overarching types: Competitive, Solitary, and Cooperative. Or some mix of those. I would say it depends on dragon nature, but TBH human nature is pretty universal, yet we came up with countless individual cultures and patterns of behavior, which indicate that predicting the culture of a species based solely on stories and genetic profiling wouldn't be very accurate.

That being said, as dragons are (in this example) relatively predatory, we can expect some measure of hierarchical nature. I reference most apex predators on Earth that form social groups, such as wolves. While humans have displayed the capability to engage in non-hierarchical communist (purest sense of the word) organization, by and large we generally follow a leadership body and form rough, improvised ranks based on perceived power of various types.

So, a leadership structure of some kind. Given that most stories of dragons depict them as being solitary by nature, at least on Earth, I postulate that on Planet Dragon they live in a spread out fashion, with clearly marked individual territories. Overarching authority will be wielded from a distance, with ruling bodies acting in a more judicial role. Wars would be difficult to wage due to dragons prioritizing defense of their territories over defense of seemingly arbitrary geopolitical boundaries. Such a culture, ironically enough, would most easily lend itself to a one-world government due to a focus on the individual over the state or sub-government organization.

Based on previous discussions, I will assume that dragons are warm-blooded and scaly. Ergo, clothing would be entirely superfluous in all but the coldest extremes. Fashion would likely be purely ornamental, in the form of jewelry. This jewelry will likely be primitive in design, as a race that has no need of armor, abodes, or weapons will not be likely to develop smithing skills to any great degree. While gold and silver will form the bulk of decorative wear, ordinary adornments will likely be of more fire-resistant metals such as steel, iron, etc. I don't see piercings on a predatory race; rather, most jewelry will be held in place by metal bands.

Architecture for a race that is naturally resistant to inclement weather with no ambitions towards developing siege weaponry will also be primarily decorative in design. Specific designs will vary based on the local weather patterns.

[Sivert3]

In one book I've read, the dragons were bright pink when naked and wore tight scale cladded coats that covered their body. At least, that's how I would like to interpret it, the alternative would be that they turned bright pink when they flew through the portal out of the magic world.

Magic aside, I don't see any species of dragons developing any crafting skills any time soon (except for possibly what I would call humanoids with wings on the shoulder, which I have a hard time imaging being able to fly anyhow). They don't have limbs with the right shape in the right place to be able to do basic crafts.

Take the classical western dragon for example. It has a head, a tail, 4 feet, and a pair of wings (I assume quadruped is what you mean with "feral", as that word means wild, or behaving wild). For crafts we can rule out the head, wings and tail doing anything more useful that keeping an object in place. Which leaves the feet for crafting. And that's when you start to realize how convoluted everything becomes. Can't walk with an object in the hand, er, feet, without either dragging it through the dirt or limping along. Can't use both feet to work on something without laying down on the ground. Can't even see where the feet are without contorting and twisting the neck in unnatural ways (for some variants of western dragons).

It only gets worse with wyverns and sea-serpents.

[Falconer]

In one book I've read, the dragons were bright pink when naked and wore tight scale cladded coats that covered their body. At least, that's how I would like to interpret it, the alternative would be that they turned bright pink when they flew through the portal out of the magic world.

Hands down this is going on my list of the top most bizarre sentences I have ever read. I literally had to stop and say "WTF" out loud before reading through it again.