[HoneyBadger]

Kristoffer: that's your problem right there!

Dragons aren't meant to be "proud and noble", atleast in human terms. They aren't human! Dragons are like an earthquake, a forest fire, or a hurricane. They're a natural disaster, an elemental force of nature that's become A: intelligent (and vengeful), B: greedy (and ambitious), and C: very, very patient. They aren't necessarily evil-but that's like saying the 'Walking Dude' from Stephen King's 'The Stand' wasn't necessarily evil.

Dragons should be terrible, awesome, beautiful, and deadly. Some-Chinese dragons for instance-can be wise and kindly, but that makes them no less fierce-infact, they're about as close to the gods themselves as you can get.

They also should be protean. As in, they shouldn't be confined to any one shape. Dragons are winged, or have no wings, they can have horns and scales, and sometimes beards. Some of them have many limbs-and opposable thumbs, and many heads, while others are just serpents. Their very blood can be anathema to everything it touches, or the very key to immortality.

Dragons should be as varied as the clouds in the sky, and as unpredictable as the ocean.

To the medieval mind, a dragon was just the absolute worst thing that could possibly happen-and the medieval mind had a lot of bad to dwell on.
Dragons were worse than the plague, worse than the inquisition, worse than the king, worse than getting drafted, worse than the Devil himself. Yes, they had plenty of tales about knights slaying dragons, but that was because they were afraid, and the knights were all they had. Knights usually didn't fare too well, anyhow, unless they had God in their corner.

Even Beowulf-all around mightiest of men, who'd already proven his worth against Grendel and his mother-met his end at the hands of a dragon.

Down with the Disney version! Down with Anne McCaffrey!! Down with Dragontales!!!

Bring back real dragons! Bring them to Dominions! I'm sorry but, as nice as the dragons we have are, in the game, they don't quite terrify me. And Dominions is the one game where they absolutely should.