How many dragons are there in the world of Rigal has not been clarified until now.

However, based on what we know, we can conclude the following points.

First of all, dragons are all warm-blooded animals, except for dragon lizards, which have little to do with the blood except for a dragon character. We only have some inferences about how it originated.

One theory, which is widely accepted among scholars and the Druid Church, is based on the results of archaeological fossil excavations: that in the early days of time, dragons lived on a continent with a gentle terrain and a temperate climate that we now simply call the "ancient continent". According to the fossil research excavated, the original primitive dragon was a warm-blooded creature that was not much different from modern pangolins and other scaly mammals, and was about the same size as dwarf.

They have evolved over millions of years and have some differences, which are simply like modern cows, horses, and lions, which are divided into vigorous carnivores and tame herbivores.

It should have been developed in this way, but tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of years ago, a series of geological changes took place in the ancient continent.

Icebergs melt, sea levels rise, continents split, volcanoes erupt.

The once vast continent has become an island, and these phenomena are getting worse step by step.

In order to survive, a large proportion of primitive dragons evolved wings and the ability to fly across the oceans.

There are also some who simply go into the sea to live and become the water dragons that sailors talk about today.

We don't know what happened to the rest of the piece, and history leaves us with very few clues in this regard. All we know is that it took a long, long time for the continents to merge again. At this time, flying dragons no longer need the ability to cross the strait.

There is some controversy about this concept, but overall, it is a relatively reliable statement.

Because of the competition between the apex predators, following the law that one mountain does not tolerate two tigers, some of the pterosaurs reverted back into more robust pterosaurs - some say they were just descendants of the surviving pterosaurs - and over a long period of time in millions, they developed a multitude of other dragons.

Time flies, and in a moment that no one is aware of, we have come to the modern age.

Nowadays, mankind and many other civilizations have established their own cities and kingdoms, and our traces are all over the continent, but in the vast wilderness where humans have not yet set foot, these ancient creatures that have existed hundreds of millions of years ago are still living undisturbed.

Their numbers are quite large, and there has never been a creature that can have so many morphological and ecological and even volume differences between the same species, and it is probably impossible for any race to summarize and record all dragons.

But the dragons we know so far are enough to be roughly classified into the following categories.

First of all, there are the lowest dragon lizards.

The average dragon lizard is about the size of an adult crocodile, but taller than that. Like other reptiles, they are cold-blooded, hibernating, fierce, and have a ferocious appetite because they only eat once every few days.

A small number of dragon lizards have been classified as magical beasts by the academic community, they are larger, at least the size of a war horse, and can breathe fire or spew highly poisonous liquids. These dragon lizards are also usually the target of slaughter by famous mercenaries and knights, because they basically have everything a dragon should have in the eyes of ordinary people - as for the real dragons, they can't spit fire.

For one thing, dragon lizards are generally not considered true dragon creatures, so they are the lowest in the taxonomy.

Slightly better than the dragon lizard, it is a dragon creature of the genus Hybrids.

The classification of the genus Hydanosaurus is quite broad, and almost as long as it does not meet the characteristics of the dragon lizard and the other two dragon creatures, the academic association will throw it into the genus Hygrosaurus.

This genus is quite complicated to talk about in detail, so here we will only pick out some key points.

First of all, as mentioned earlier, it has a very broad classification.

From the humanoid sapient wurmians found in swamps, deserts, grasslands, and some mountain forests, to the rat-like rats that like to live in the sewers of castles, to the amphibious herbivorous dragons with large bodies and smooth skin that are often seen near large lakes and rivers.

These are more gentle than the others, and are generally relatively weak, mostly herbivorous, carrivorous, or omnivorous dragons, and can be found in almost every inch of the continent of Rigal, both explored and unexplored.

They weren't much different from other creatures, at most they had a dragon in their name, and they were the same ancestor as those fierce wyverns many years ago.

Unless you're a mage or an adventurer trying to make a fortune out of it, you rarely remember the scientific names of these creatures.

Because they are too ordinary compared to the next two genera.

Wurm.

This genus has two branches, and as we mentioned earlier, it is divided into two types: winged wurms and pteros. Generally speaking, pterosaurs (hereafter referred to as wyverns) are more slender and weigh less because of the need to fly, while wingless wurms (hereafter referred to as earth dragons) are large and large.

But even the smallest wyvern can stand on the ground with its wings folded and a height of more than two and a half meters - this is calculated based on shoulder height.

This height is already on par with that of most giant warhorses, and it is only shoulder height, and the full name of the smallest wyvern we mentioned is the Alfred Snake Wyvern, and as the name suggests, this wyvern is slender with a long neck and tail like a snake.

So in fact, even the smallest wyvern is far larger than an ordinary horse, let alone a human.

Most wyverns are normally two stories tall and the size of a barn when you include their wings, and with their powerful wings and claws, and the fire-breathing abilities that most of them possess, most wyverns are no match for a duke's army.

The sturdy dragon scales allow all but heavy bed crossbows to bounce off, and the poor accuracy of these large fortifiers makes them only suitable for attacking slow-moving siege engines or counterattacking archers' positions.

Humans, or other civilized races, really don't have much to do with an attack on a wyvern other than hiding in the basement and shivering.

But even so, being attacked by a wyvern is still considered lucky, as they know that they are vulnerable on the ground, and that wyverns will usually only plunder food and then quickly leave.

What really made the people talk about the "dragon" color change, and made many "great achievements" in the destruction of the city-state, was another branch of the genus Wurm, the Earth Dragon.

Born with sharp teeth and claws, and a huge body, even the mammoth giant elephant could only flee in panic in front of it.

Many of them don't use spitting attacks, but they don't bother to use them either. Standing on all fours above most of the city walls, these four-legged towers can leap over a house with just a flick of their tails, and with a flick of their tails, they can make the dominant tigers and brown bears in the forest roll over several heels and fall into a dizzy wrestling.

Dragons are separated from the Monster Category in large part because of their superior prowess, as most dragons do not use magic, even if they breathe fire or spew toxins.

However, dragon creatures are naturally extremely resistant to magic, and their simple domineering regardless of it makes an earth dragon who can only use claws and teeth dare to take the initiative to attack when encountering rare high-level magical beasts.

And it is precisely this top strength that makes these extremely aggressive earth dragons often attack the settlements of civilized races, and once attacked, they will inevitably stir up the entire city-state or village into a river of blood.

They take pleasure in killing.

But even so.

Earth dragons are still not the most powerful of the dragons.

Standing at the top of the pyramid of dragon creatures is an ancient and powerful and beautiful species, if you feel the ferocity of a beast when you look at a dragon lizard, and feel the domineering spirit of a king when you look at an earth dragon or a flying dragon.

Then when you are lucky enough to meet these behemoths that just fly through the sky, and the whole land, the whole city, is shrouded in the shadow of its wings.

What you will feel is a strange emotion with a sense of shock and tranquility.

It's like standing at the foot of a high mountain and looking up at its peak, hidden in the clouds and unable to see clearly, like standing in the endless blue ocean, letting the tide rise and fall over your instep and watching it disappear into the distance - all you can feel is your own smallness and the vastness of this vast world.

It was an absolute top-notch existence that no one could afford to fight against.

Even the largest Earth Dragon, standing next to it, would be as small as a child next to an adult.

The origin of the noun dragon creatures, the only creature standing on the top of the pyramid that can overlook the entire continent.

The druids call it the True Dragon, the Elves call the ancient being the Protosaurus, and we call it the Dragon.

There have been records of a rampaging earth dragon fighting the armies of a certain kingdom - or unilaterally slaughtering it, when a giant dragon flew through the sky, and it immediately left its soldiers and fled.

Based on years of sightings, it is believed that even the smallest of these large and ancient creatures were nearly 60 meters long, and the Lamanites, who had been extinct for six centuries, recorded that there was once a giant dragon called "Meteorite" with a wingspan of 127 meters.

We still don't know what specific characteristics these giant creatures are that are often seen, just as we still don't know how many species of dragons there are.

These magnificent and powerful creatures are part of the diverse nature of this continent, and we pray that they will continue to be as diverse as this world forever.

......

......

Postscript: This information suddenly came to mind and I want to write about it. When I wrote my first book before, I wrote a similar thing, which roughly described the worldview in the book, and this book actually follows the same world.

It's just that after all, it was the first time I tried it back then, and there were many mistakes and omissions. There are many inappropriate expressions, some obscurity, or redundant redundancy. In writing this book, some of the previous settings have been overturned and reset, so if you are an old reader of mine, you may find that there are some places that have a sense of immediacy and familiarity, but there is also a sense of plausibility.

Let's just take the worldview that this book reformulates.

This short piece of information was written when I wrote the section 16 of the main text: The owner of the castle, and in addition to a general introduction to the classification of dragons in the worldview of the book, I also talked about some customs and customs.

In the future, similar short stories should be written in succession to supplement the main text. If you want to know more about the setting of this book, you may also wish to read it, these will be explained.

Postscript: The content of this article is only for the purpose of supplementing the worldview of this book, even if there are the same terms, please do not apply them to the works of other authors. Or conversely, using other authors' settings to refute me, which is just fiction after all, and even if I pursue authenticity to a certain extent, it is only to tell the story better. If you want to pursue absolute rigor and authenticity as a paper, and because of this person who came to quarrel with me, please go up on your own.

ROY is 20151225