Communication

[talllankywhiteboy]

I was thinking about this a lot today. I'm starting from the idea that straight-up talking dragons is a bad idea. I don't see a human-language speaking dragon fitting in well with the rest of the world. So what else? At first I was thinking that we could just default back to them being telepathic. It works fairly well in the stories I've seen it in. Still, it's a bit cliche for our world.

So first off, I would like to propose that while dragons may be able to have limited telepathic communication, it's pretty much limited to just dragons. This makes communication with other races prohibitively difficult, and would explain some of the outsider nature of dragons. That being said, I do like the idea of a certain race being able to receive certain conversations from dragons, just not be able to talk back telepathically. If they wanted to converse back, they would have to do so within the bounds of spoken language, which the dragons would have had to learn first. I think it would create an interesting dynamic, especially when you consider how communication could ever begin between the two races.

The second part of my proposal is a bit more drastic of a change. I think it would be cool if the dragons had the ability to create certain... projections. These projections would be very similar to the nature of the faeries. The ability would manifest itself in dragons that have matured to a significant degree. The primary use of this would be in hunting. These dragons could lay in wait while they use their projections to lure prey closer. It would make hunting for these larger, less stealthy dragons much more feasible. The dragons could later on learn to use this skill for rudimentary communication with other races. Say a dragon wishes to convey the idea of friendship to a human, it could project an image of two people shaking hands in front of the person. It's a clunky form of communication, but I think it has it's merits. What's more, the images could be refined enough that dragons could convey very specific ideas. Also, it could lead to a form of pictography to be developed.

What say you?

[B_Rad]

Eh... I don't really like the idea. It seems to sci-fi-y for Emathar. I don't know.

I think it would be cool (and different) if the Wyrms couldn't communicate with other races at all. They could be just like the animals of our world, where they can converse among themselves a bit, and maybe even understand a bit of civilized language. They would just have no way of speaking it.

[Terry]

I agree with BJ. telepathy is a little too sci-fy'ee (french version) for my tastes in Emathar.

What about most of their communication relying on body language? not all, but most. I see the Wyrms as having good eyesight and lots of dexterity, which would make slight differences in composure both possible and easily seen by other dragons. and with the body language there would be some vocal means of communication as well. maybe they'd even be able to learn a phrase or two of another races language? they live for a long time, so i don't see why its not possible.

[B_Rad]

How about they're like normal animals. Maybe not even sentient. Why would they need to be sentient?

[Terry]

How about they're like normal animals.

well, that would make things simpler, wouldn't it.



I'm starting another thread on Sentience, pertaining to the Wyrms.

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