[RPG] Mating behaviours of dragons

dragonsgolarionpathfinder-1e

My question is about the social behaviour of dragons in regards to the opposite gender.
I've read a few small pieces about breeding and territorial behavior of dragons, but nothing substantial that I have come across, so my question is if there are any sources for their behavior or what the behavior is.

In essence my question regards the following things:

  • Territorial behavior
  • Breeding behavior

Territorial

Dragons are or can be, from what I read, quite territorial. Originally, I had assumed that they don't tolerate other dragons living in their territory; but the info about the Red Dragon Ruler of the Five Kings Mountains vanquished that thought, as he tolerates not only wyverns but even other dragons inside his territory.

For this section, the question is: Do dragons who are mates end up sharing lairs or not? (I read one instance in the newer dragon books where a dragon was killed while he tried to visit the female dragon who laid their eggs… so the two dragons had lairs quite far from each other)

Breeding

Here the question is if dragons mate for life, if they are only together for laying one hatch of eggs and then go separate ways, or if it's more a mix of those two depending on the dragons in question. And also related to this is who decides that two dragons are going to lay eggs. As an example, in Shadowrun, with very rare circumstances (which brings a mortal enemy to the other dragon) the female dragons decide from whom they lay eggs.

Also related here is: Do both dragons care for the eggs or only the females?

Like I said I'm interested if this info is standing somewhere such as books, or if there is a general consensus on these things.

Best Answer

So

  1. All dragons aren't the same, so you'll see variation - especially with creatures as powerful and already-unique as dragons.

  2. You should be comfortable making this up yourself. Information on stuff like that tends to be spread across many books and is often done by example (oh look, a mated dragon lair) as opposed to a diatribe on dragon mating.

Having said that, apparently you have Dragons Revisited but haven't read it and want us to for you? It has such information, varying by breed. For example, black dragons:

Territoriality

Through careless pogroms and occasional genocides, black dragons drive off or slaughter all living things surrounding their lairs, creating wide swaths of barren swamplands. (among other details)

Mating

The slinking “loser” is the female, who slips away to return to her own domain and begin the process of readying for her eggs, letting the male attract attention to himself while she nests in safety. After mating, the male has no more connection with the female or her eggs, and if ever again the two meet, they treat one another as bitter and hated enemies. Females can lay eggs roughly a dozen times in their lives, and every time they do so it is with a different male partner.

Whereas e.g. brass dragons tend to be nomadic. They go into pretty specific lair detail on all of them, but not dragon-sex-and-mating detail, you may need to DIY until the Book of Dragon Erotica comes out next year. Just by plain example, most dragons they depict are solo, but in e.g. Dragons Unleashed they refer to the white dragon Sjohvor saying, "Nearly 900 years ago, Sjohvor had a mate with whom he shared his lair." So it's not unheard of, but seems to be rare.

Related Topic