Quill and Compass, Entry 11: Red Dragons

There’s a kind of heat that doesn’t just burn the skin, it permeates your entire being; it fills your lungs, slows your thoughts, makes your blood feel heavy. That’s what it’s like standing in the shadow of a Red Dragon. The air itself becomes a living thing, thick with smoke, ash, and pride.

Reds are everything their legend promises: compact, sleek, and unreasonably fast. They’re all sharp edges and coiled muscle, built for the kind of speed that makes other dragons look clumsy. Bright crimson scales shimmer like cooling metal, their bellies black and ridged like a scorched mountainside, and their horns sweep back like wicked blades. Their eyes resemble an inferno burning in a tar pit, with a gaze that feels ready to add you to the molten bath. Their wings and tails are built to give control to their unreasonable speed; slender, pointed and rounded in all the right places to minimize drag, long and finned to provide perfect counterbalance.
They’ve got the looks of something born to cut and burn through the Realm and expect it to apologize for getting in their way.

They thrive where nothing else dares to live: volcanoes, molten plains, and rivers of lava that twist and meander across the land. The heat doesn’t bother them; it defines them. It seeps from their bones, hums beneath their scales, and fuels every beat of their molten hearts. To a Red Dragon, warmth isn’t comfort, it’s life itself. A sudden chill can slow them to a crawl, and a true frost can kill younger Reds outright. In their element, they are unstoppable; the hotter the air, the faster they move, the thicker the smoke, the clearer they see. They bask on fields of magma as others might on sunlit shores.

Red Dragon society runs on dominance and display. As opposed to Blues, Reds are patriarchal in nature, though not nearly as fanatically. Each male carves a lair into the volcanic rock, decorating it with gold, jewels, and every shiny bauble and doodad they can claim. Opulence is the name of their game; the richer the hoard, the more desirable the male appears. Females come and go as they please, choosing whichever lair dazzles them most; or whichever male can hold it longest. A single patriarch might host three or four Dragonesses if he’s cunning enough to keep them fed, flattered, and off of each other’s throats. Few manage it gracefully.

When two males want the same volcano, the mountain becomes a battlefield. Their clashes shake the region; stone melts, sky darkens, and the scent of scorched earth lingers for years. The victor claims the land, the harem, and the reputation. The loser usually becomes a story about arrogance told in a tone somewhere between warning and admiration.
Every bard dreams of such things; to live opulent as a king, then become immortalized in the hearts and minds of others through their tales. Though I do have objections about the "burning to a crisp" part.

Red nests cluster close to the lava, their eggs buried in heat so intense it would kill anything else. The mothers and father guard and care for their eggs together, strange allies in a system built on rivalry and competition. When the eggs finally hatch, it's an explosive affair… literally. Shells burst open in showers of sparks and shrapnel, the tiniest (and dare I add, cutest) roar accompanies the birth of a very angry and hungry Dragonling, as if the Realm owes them something from the start.

They eat meat, of course. Big meat. Wyverns, entire herds of wildlife, giants if they’re feeling boastful. The females are the main hunters while the males guard their molten keeps like jealous kings. Watching a Red hunt is a lesson in both terror and elegance, to witness violence masquerading as beauty. One moment the sky is clear, the next it’s filled with fire and fury. I once watched a hunt from a nearby ridge, where a female tore through a plume of smoke and seized a roc mid-flight. There was a flash of orange, a sound like the Realm cracking in half, and then only a hole in the smoke and drifting feathers… burned to ash before they hit the ground.

Mortals, to them, are ornaments at best and rations at worst. They speak to us the way we might speak to a dog that’s learned a clever trick: with mild amusement and no real sense of equality. Reds will trade, on occasion, but only if you have something they want and the spine to stand near them long enough to offer it… and luck enough to avoid becoming a light snack.

To a Red Dragon, a hoard isn’t a comfort or even an indulgence. It’s a necessary monument. When they rest atop their riches, they’re not reclining, they’re reigning. The clink of coins beneath their claws is applause, the shimmer of heat through piles of gold and gems is a reminder that the Realm itself pays tribute. Some travel great distances to claim what they desire; others demand offerings from the terrified kingdoms within their territory.
I once witnessed a Red appear above a coastal city at dusk, circling slow as the sunset, until the lord below ordered his soldiers to empty the royal vault into the streets. The dragon descended, plucked the gilded tribute from the cobblestones, and left without a single word… or a single survivor who failed to kneel quickly enough.
That may very well have been the fastest I've ever moved in all my years.

Reds see themselves as equals to Golds, and at least in confidence, they’re probably right. In actual duels, Blues tend to humble them through sheer force alone; but I wouldn’t recommend saying so aloud. Pride keeps a Red alive as much as fire does. Wound one, especially one's pride, and you'll discover just how long a Red can hold a grudge, and how intensely their fires can burn.

They are arrogance made flesh, a wildfire given form. And yet, for all their vanity and violence, I can’t bring myself to hate them… I find myself even admiring them in a way. They burn simply because they must. Fire doesn’t ask permission to exist; it simply consumes until the Realm makes room for it. Reds are no different. I’ve come to believe the Realm needs its fires as much as its rains. Without them, there’d be no balance, no reminder that beauty is fleeting and every inferno leaves behind fertile ash. The Reds carry that truth in every breath, every heartbeat, and every gleam of their molten pride. They live as if eternity owes them tribute, and perhaps, in some cruel way, it does. 

May your inner fire burn as bright as theirs,
Yours, ever truly,
— Tobias Elanor, Bard, Scholar, Explorer Extraordinaire

© DracTheDrake

Hello hello!

We wanted to have at least one of the dragons be the classic, evil, greedy, fire-breathing dragon, so we thought “Why not Reds?” That keeps up with our goal of making Gaiaxia feel familiar enough that newcomers don’t feel lost and out of their depth, while still discovering something new or a fun take on something.

We also thought it would be kinda fun to make them opposites of Blues, ya know, that whole Red vs Blue thing that’s in basically every video game and story ever? Yeah, we’re those kinda nerds. When we were developing the culture of Reds, we took a good amount of inspiration from lions, since that naturally built into the Red vs Blue concept.

Thanks again for reading through Entry 11! I hope you’re enjoying the series thus far and keep coming back for future entries!