Elcenia Spoilers

[cbhacking]

Regarding dragon SIDS, the impression I've been getting is that the infants have their dragon powers in full measure - that is, they can fly, understand languages including Draconic, I think do firebreathing, and probably *could* be named if anybody wanted to risk it - but they are sort of "casting from HP". Their magic supply, though full at birth, drains continuously until exhausted (at which point they lose *all* dragon abilities, including living). It's not like shrens, where the magic is at a stable but less-than-full-power level. Doomed babies are full-powered (but never unusual or unique, I'd guess?) and indistinguishable from healthy ones without some way to measure dragon magic levels. However, they're not sustainable; they either consume magic faster than it can be replaced or simply drain from 100% to 0% over the course of a few weeks (not sure which description is more accurate). Is this all generally correct?

Purple-groups having such a dramatic physiological difference as waterbreathing is interesting! Do any of the other color groups have anything like that, where it's something other than their magic and their skin material which sets them apart from other dragon groups? Like, good senses could be something a black-group could have non-magically, or maybe a higher-than-usual resilience to the harm that can come from loud noises / bright lights / etc. as an adaptation to their magically-enhanced senses.

Could other dragons take the form of a purple-group, even a purple-group thudia (guess it might need to be a blue, possibly even an unusual blue, to become a mixed specie like that)? Obviously they wouldn't have the swimming power (although now I wonder if a unique blue could get that too...) - they'd be no better at it than their physical strength and skill grant, possibly not even as good as a natural purple thudia, but swimming, unlike flying, is something nearly anything with muscles and a skeleton can learn to do unless they're so dense even walking on land would be nigh-impossible.

[Kappa]

Little baby dragons who are doomed to die of dragon SIDS do not "cast from HP". They just hatch without any dragon magic, and linger for a while with no magical properties until their congenital lack of dragon magic finally kills them.

[DanielH]

Now that we know how doomed babies work, I think I have the vocabulary to ask about something that’s been confusing me. Alicorn said that doomed babies who are shrenned will stop being able to fly, and then die on schedule. In canon, it’s said that the current theory is that the wings work mechanically by just overcoming the down the same way a bat would; this is also seen by doomed babies being able to fly and by Matilda’s transplant list not including flight. I always imagined that shrens stole strength from the wings which wasn’t exactly magic but it could use to them alive (if that’s not the case, what exactly are they stealing from their wings and how does that make them unable to fly?); it seems like this could be done for doomed dragons too. They wouldn’t have any other dragon magic, like with Virac and Mirra, but I imagine that Virac, Mirra, and the hypothetical doomed-baby-shrens who follow my model instead of the actual path would just be able to learn languages normally (but would get ever-increasing esu).

EDIT:
TL;DR: What’s wrong with the following model?

• Shrenhood takes something that isn’t magic from your wings and uses it as though it were magic to let you live. I think this because magic isn’t needed for flight.
• Since this is not magic, you still have it even if you’re a doomed baby. I think this because doomed babies can fly.
• Therefore, doomed babies who become shrens could be living but otherwise-dragon-magic-less.
• These “doomed shren” would be able to learn languages at a rate appropriate to their development, but would not be able to have magic names, breath fire, control when they have kids or the genders thereof, do color-group magic, or—critically—shapeshift into a flying form.
• Thus, they would experience ever-increasing esu with no hope of relief except suicide or starving to death (they wouldn’t get to old age; at some point the pain would be too strong to allow movement).

[Kappa]

There is nowhere near enough strength in a dragon(ish)'s wings to keep them alive if they are missing any more than a tiny fraction of their magic. Shrens are only missing a little bit, enough that the wings can cover it. Doomed babies are missing all of it. And life support is the last function of dragon magic, or the first if you prefer; anything you put in the life support section of a dragon's magic 'falls out' of it unless every single other section is also full. Have you ever played Liquid Measure? Imagine a very tall, skinny tank marked -7-. Pour in any less than seven units (language, name, kids thing, firebreathing, shapeshifting, colour-group magic (which for blues is another unit of shapeshifting), life support) and you fail the level, i.e. your dragon dies. (This is obviously very simplified because I have no idea what proportion of dragon magic is required for each of the different things.)

Also, dragon brains have no native capacity to learn language, because normally that function is taken care of automatically by magic. Either the magic works or it doesn't; you can't go around.

[DanielH]

That’s a fun game. I don’t think the levels were in a sensible order; some of the later ones were much easier than some of the earlier ones, for example, but I still enjoyed it.

I was imagining the magic was being put directly in the keep-them-alive compartment, but of course it would “fall down”.

No capacity to learn languages? I can see it not being as easy as for a human, but it seems like it should be possible to learn a vocabulary and a grammar and conjugations and exceptions. It would take a while without neurological shortcuts, but those could all be memorized if nothing else. I’d think a sufficiently-motivated Virac, if Matilda hadn’t been able to give him a magic transplant, would have managed to learn whatever language is common where he lives.

[Kappa]

I'm pretty sure they just don't have that facility, sort of the way humans don't have the facility to learn to intentionally operate our heart muscles. Or at least most of us don't.

[Alicorn]

Confirming all of kappa's utterances with one caveated exception. I think I would allow that a de-languaged dragon could (excruciatingly) re-learn the concept and contents of a language with absolutely no help from their mental architecture. It would be much easier to learn to communicate through nonlinguistic mime and drawings, but they could still do it. However, usually the language thing is also covering their ability to pronounce stuff. Humans can't pronounce or hear vampire words; dragons in human form can. Sparrows cannot speak; dragons in sparrow form can. (Forms incapable of any vocalizations at all still can't talk when they're dragons, though.) A de-languaged dragon would not have that property.

[DanielH]

Ok. Now I need to revise my predictions for Mirra in canon, unless something already happened that I missed.

[Alicorn]

I can't actually remember if I've addressed in the reboot yet what winds up happening with Mirra, but if people want to know I can just tell you.

[DanielH]

Sure, why not? Since this is Spoilerland: What happens to Mirra? The last I remember seeing is Mirra being alive and flying, but not having name awareness or fire. Mirra was one of the subjects for the analysis spell, before the cure for shrenhood.