(UPDATE 2023: Gonna fix this one this time, he said ambitiously.)
Some things are obviously dragons, some things are obviously not dragons. Some things are kinda-maybe-sorta related to dragons, like
- Darkroot amphibians
- Flame Salamanders
- Primordial serpents (yes, I understand the 'never was a dragon' thing, but they certainly aren't fucking primates or mosquitos are they)
- The two Undead Dragons in DS1 (Are they animated as themselves or are they like a hollow/zombie?)
- The Iron King, Mytha (THEY. HAS. HORNS.)
- Basilisks
- The projected Drakes of Lothric
- Gargoyles. They almost seem like a cross between a drake and a batwing demon, but they're clearly creatures of stone.
- Dragon apostles w/o torso/headstone effect (Hawkwood, Magerold)
- Cats, potentially (Alvina, Shalquior, Aava etc)
- Prince Lothric
- Pus of Man
- Kreimheld, the Crystal Sages, and objects fully possessed by Ruin (naked Logan, Channelers, Entity Navlaan).
- Sulyvahn's Beasts/Outrider Knights
- Cursed books
DS1
Hellkite, Undead Parish:
I think this might actually be a human warrior that ascended to drakehood by some means. She's positioned in a place that could indicate either a Seathe-based path (Boar and Channeler are nearby) or a Nameless-based path of ascension (obviously).
I think Hellkites might be artificially created to some extent. Like the end of the line for a Sunbro is becoming either Solaire or the Iron King or advancing and becoming a Dragonbro and, at the end of that journey, a bro dragon.
Dragon King, Blighttown
Starting from the head, the creature is is quite similar to Seathe's sword & board snakemen. Gaping may have been the progenitor of the species, and therefore their 'king.' I don't think he's a 'real' dragon, although he may have been around since the Age of Ancients or very shortly thereafter. Like if you made a serpentman eat a bone from a King Dragon like, it wouldn't digest, right? Like you can't digest immortal, I'm pretty sure that's what the whole Godskin Apostles job was about, getting rid of all the mud-packed skin zombies running around. So hypothetically the bone would just slowly adapt to it's new environment and the host would slowly be warped by the bone. I'm not saying that's what happened, but just judging from the Channeler watching/defending it it reeks of mad science.
The Paledrake, Anor Londo Archives
Seathe, obviously, is a dragon, but he's also very obviously not a normal dragon.
Seathe is immortal, but his body isn't. He had been using a link to the primordial crystal to keep his original body alive, but following DS1 his consciousness seems to have turned into a kind of miasma or ghost that seeks out suitable hosts to infect/possess. I'm calling this 'ghost Seathe' Ruin or the Ruin. I'm not at all sure about this, because the Ruin, as in the Writhing Ruin may be something Moonlight-centric and independent of Seathe, and Seathe may actually have been this Moonlight Ruin's victim.
The Paledrake, Anor Londo Archives
Seathe, obviously, is a dragon, but he's also very obviously not a normal dragon.
Seathe is immortal, but his body isn't. He had been using a link to the primordial crystal to keep his original body alive, but following DS1 his consciousness seems to have turned into a kind of miasma or ghost that seeks out suitable hosts to infect/possess. I'm calling this 'ghost Seathe' Ruin or the Ruin. I'm not at all sure about this, because the Ruin, as in the Writhing Ruin may be something Moonlight-centric and independent of Seathe, and Seathe may actually have been this Moonlight Ruin's victim.
See and here there's this big long side discussion about brightstone vs crystal I need to focus on dragons.
I feel fairly comfortable saying that Logan, Straid, Aldia, Navlaan, Oceiros, and Freja all encountered the Ruin/Seathe, with varying results.
Aldia took an 'I can handle it' approach towards inquiries into the Paledrake, and I assume became infected but managed to outrun it for longer than any other character in the series, save Straid, from what I can tell.
Current theory:
Aldia was Lord Tseldora. He had a partner/mentor that was a Chaos Witch, possibly from the Leydia sect. Her name was Najka. Maybe.
On the back of Vendrick's success Aldia drove the Gyrm out of Tseldora and sent the settlers and cultists in. Whatever else he found down there he found brightstone, which brought wealth to the settlement but also obsession. Eventually they plumbed the depths of the ruins and found both a dragon corpse and Ruin, which was attempting to graft itself onto the corpse, for lack of a better explanation for how Ruin came to be there to begin with.
Aldia, and let's not forget that Aldia is really fucking smart, seems to have done one of two things. First explanation: he tricked or brute-force magicked the Ruin into a royal apprentice sorcerer, who calls himself Navlaan now. Having successfully captured a 'copy' of Seathe/Ruin, he sets Freja loose.
Freja was Tark and Najka's sister, for anyone following along at home.
Now, obviousest question: who's the guy matching Lord Tseldora's description in Aldia's study?
Fiorenza.
Serpentmen, Sen's Fortress
These are the sword & board warriors and the hooded, flamberge-wielding sorcerer variants guarding Sen's. I'm tempted to include Channelers here, but won't. The soldier variant is pretty straightforward, intelligent enough to oversee the prison section of the Archives, but dumb enough to let prisoners escape. The sorcerer variants are smaller, have six limbs, and seem to be more associated with Sen's.
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These are the sword & board warriors and the hooded, flamberge-wielding sorcerer variants guarding Sen's. I'm tempted to include Channelers here, but won't. The soldier variant is pretty straightforward, intelligent enough to oversee the prison section of the Archives, but dumb enough to let prisoners escape. The sorcerer variants are smaller, have six limbs, and seem to be more associated with Sen's.
Waitaminute six limbs how many arms Gaping King
Primordial Serpents, various
These guys have been discussed extensively elsewhere. But since I'm here to hopefully blow minds.
Twin Lizard, Darkroot Garden
These are the two-headed lizards we find in upper Darkroot. They drop egg vermifuge (vermin killer). We find what could be one of them as part of the design on the Curved Dragon Greatsword from the second game. The only thing I can kind of relate them to are the Flexile Sentries.
Crystal Lizard (common), various
I think these are whelps. They have the ability to, I assume, slip through one of Saulden's fissures into another world. This feat is signaled by the lizard performing a cute little prayer/dance/burrowing motion. Given their shape, and assuming they are dragon whelps, they look like they might grow up to be Sihn/Undead Dragon-type dragons. I sure am typing the word dragons a lot today.
Hydra, Darkroot Basin, Ash Lake
Maybe these things pre-dated fire and they spit water but it's magic water and maybe they work for Seathe unless Seathe's there studying them idkwtf
Stone Dragon, Ash Lake
This seems like a young ancient dragon, in that it's younger than fire but has been left undisturbed long enough to develop. Watch Hawkshaw's thing if you haven't.
Kalameet the Black, Royal Wood
I don't know Kalameet's origins, but it could be that she... I don't even want to speculate. She's associated with the Abyss, and plays a role in both the second and third games. In the second, the arms of the dragon knights we find in the Dragon Shrine - the Villard and Edde guys - are forged from Kalameet's tail, and their armor is made from her scales. In the third game, after being summoned inside, there's a shrine to Kalameet just inside. Kalameet is portrayed as being a breed similar to the nearby archdrakes, rather than how K actually looked, which was similar to Sihn.
Priscilla, Ariamis
I've written so much about the painting that I haven't published that I can't even remember if I've actually written anything about the paintings yet. I know I meant to at one point. I think she's part rat. She can turn fully invisible. She's the first frost sorcerer we encounter. I don't understand what Lifehunt's meant to be. Her and ole King Bughead of Carcosa are gonna be interesting af if anyone ever figures them out.
Iron Golem Core, Sen's Fortress
It's a soul - probably of someone like Knight King Rendall or something - grafted onto a dragon bone that functions as a kind of motor for the golem. I suppose at some point we need to consider if dragon weapons are literally and legitimately dragons, as dragons are immortal. Let's say you're out adventuring and you come across a dormant dragon and decide 'I need dragon weapons' and cut a couple pieces of the dragon off of the dragon. Now, if each piece of the dragon is alive and a dragon in the same way the dragon as a whole is alive and a dragon then: dragon weapons are generally 'alive' in some sense, but are they also dragons?
Stormdrake colony, Valley of the Drakes
I think by the time Nameless took over as King of the Gods dragons, and even drakes, were basically extinct in Lordran. I've talked about it elsewhere, but I suspect the blue, lightning-breathing drakes were bred and hunted in the dragon-slaying equivalent of canned hare hunts. King of Storms from the third game might be a mature one.
Undead Dragon, various
I think these are self-explanatory. That they breath poison was the basis for my theory of Sihn being septic due to her flame going out. The Spitfire Spear from DS2, I think, is literally the mechanism a drake/dragon uses to ignite their waste. Additionally, the Undead Dragons seems to be of a breed similar to the Ancient Dragon from DS2, rather than the sleeker Sihn/Kalameet variety. These, or at least their lower halves (and again: if each part of a dragon is a dragon: is each dragon part the same dragon?) might be animated by chaos.
So to recap, we have hares (Hellkites,) foxes (Kalameet,) bulls (Ancient) and longhorn (Stone).
Dragonman type A
This is the Path of the Dragon transformation. It looks very birdlike.
Ancient Dragon, Dragon Shrine
This is the corpse of a dragon animated by the soul of a giant and is the result, we assume, of one of Aldia's experiments. Odds are that the entity we interact with, despite its appearance, has the giant's personality. We get this dragon's soul from the memory of the corpse we find at the bottom of Tseldora. When traveling the memory we find ourselves atop a forest of broken archtrees. The general vibe seems to be that this was a recent battlefield during the Dragon War, and that the Ancient Dragon died in this war and eventually ended up buried under the eastern Drang mountains, where it would later be discovered by the Ruin and Aldia.
Nesting and Patrol Drakes, Dragon Aerie
The Aerie deserves its own post, but the Nesting Drakes, we can assume, are female. The Patrol Drakes (the ones in the sky box,) would probably be males. If dragons even work that way. The Nesting Drakes drop Flameplate Rings and pyromancies. Explain that, Bill Nye.
Curious Drake, Heide
I think the one lance-wielding knight at the top of the stares was the drake's mount.
I'm not at all sure about this, but.
Maybe everyone here, except possibly the Dragonrider, is loyal to the Sentinels, and the Heide Knight's attitude indicates that they literally have nothing to do but wait, provided the path to the port remains in check. Maybe this represents some kind of agreement between Heide and Vendrick that the territory - excluding the Bastille and Wharf - could remain as a kind of Olaph-Venn embassy awaiting word from Mirrah or Elana or Anor Londo or whoever.
Guardian Dragon, Aldia's Keep
It seems older and more battle-hardened than the other drakes, and may have served as Aldia's personal mount at some point.
Crystal Lizard (turret), Shulva
These lizards, which seem to be regular lizards, just older and bigger, have had their crystals replaced with statue clusters. The statues represent Elena, obviously. It's unclear if the statues are grown or grafted on somehow.
Crystal Lizard (red), various
These explode. I think Aldia made them.
The Imperfect, Shulva
Here we find what looks like the mouth of a primordial serpent attached to the lower half of an undead dragon, all of which is covered in the pus of man. It has a Dark Lightning breath attack. Thomas doesn't want us dicking around with them. It does seem like a lot of the 'clandestine rituals' developed in Shulva figured heavily into DS3, so I'm sure in another two years I'll have something more crazy sounding to say about them.
Flexile Sentries, various
Oh hey another two headed lizard. Descriptions of their weapons use the words 'vile' and 'warped' and 'merciless' and 'unsettling,' and describe them packing Olaphis' sorcerers and pyromancers onto ships and casting them out to sea, where the few survivors imparted their knowledge to the people of what would become Melfia. This is strange because we find a Sentry in Eleum Loyce, and we also find a sorcerer's twinblade under guard next to a Divine Blessing in Eleum Loyce and plus the whole area's riddled with magic. The EL Sentry is guarding the Garrison Ward key, the only way to leave the citadel to the south save for the shrine. The Dragon Bone Fist is also in the room but, well, I've already made a bad Dragon Ball reference and what else is there to say?
Dragonmen type B, Dragon Shrine
These are the Dragon Knight guys. They're based off of Kalameet and look the best of the three variants. The Kalameet stuff feels dissonant with the Shrine itself. It's possible the High City we see in the intro movie is the Dragon Shrine during the time of Olaphis, and we find it after it's been partially restored.
Mytha Queen of Alken, Earthen Peak
Her transformation was brought about by Sihn's poison, and is clearly turning her into a serpent. So it's not 100% yes that she's a dragon, but if you buy that the poison from the mines is seeping up from Shulva, and that serpents can be counted as a type of dragon (the silver and gold rings dispute this,) then she's a dragon. If not, then she's not.
I just occurred to me that Shulva's location would have a large effect on how extensively it floods. I've always kind of assumed it was under Heide, but if it's Sihn's poison that ruined Alken - which would explain the uprising - then it's possible that the Harvest Valley area was once a land of lakes and meadows. This would also maybe inform Mytha's depictions as some kind of water-bearer.
Shanalotte/Emerald Herald/Muse, Dragon Shrine
Like I figure if I allowed comments or posted updates to reddit or anything like that I'd just get endless lines of assholes trying to argue the 'Mytha is a dragon' thing until the sun goes out and not one of them would have a problem with Shanallote the Clearly Not a Dragon being a dragon, even though for all we know her 'child of dragons' moniker might just refer to her having been raised by the Ancient Dragon and the drakes of the Aerie. The 'older' versions of her we find in the world are projections of the Muse at the Shrine. According to [lokey and JSF] this is the same thing Pinwheel does.
She's probably going to get something like her own post eventually, but I feel like I'm still a looooong way from understanding her.
'Writhing Ruin,' Tseldora
I've discussed this extensively, how Seathe continues to exist as a kind of incorporeal essense that, while not Seathe himself, does have all of the properties of Seathe. By that I mean the Ruin, Seathe's 'ghost' or 'spirit' or whatever, doesn't have any of Seathe's memories and isn't sentient from what I can tell, so in that sense the Ruin is not Seathe; the Ruin, however, /does/ have, or at least causes, creatures exposed to it to eventually take on aspects of Seathe's personality, such as obsessive madness and a severely warped sense of ethics.
The important thing about the Ruin, what sets it apart from other such curses, is that it seems to act most virulently on characters who would otherwise be naturally resistant to curses: mighty warriors and great scholars. It's almost as if the Ruin, rather than striking where the victim is weakest, perverts the victims' strengths towards its own ends. Which the Ruin doesn't have ends, it's just an obsession with attaining the one thing one can't have.
So, is the Ruin a dragon?
It's of Seathe, who definitely is a dragon, but it's not necessarily of dragons. Whatever it is, it might be the thing that isn't dragon that caused Seathe to radicalize. The Ruin could be Moonlight - a kind of anti-light - that causes souls to spontaneously develop will, which normally only Dark ever seems to do. Dark follows Light in the cycle, and Humanity pursues the Soul as a general principle, but when Moonlight is involved the Soul seems to pursue Humanity. As Firekeepers and at least some WoW maidens are, or can, function as a kind of bottomless well of Humanity, this might explain why Seathe's perversion found its way out the way it did.
Sihn
Discussed extensively elsewhere. Seems to be of the same 'fox' breed as Kalameet. If crystal lizards grow up to be Ancient and Undead Dragons, maybe cats or wolves grow up to be Sihns. I suppose we could think of the more muscular breed as 'bulls,' hellkites as 'hares,' and DS3 wyverns as, I don't know, ostriches?
One point that almost never gets made is that, when we arrive in Shulva, we find Sihn perched up towards the top of the cavern, about as far away as she can possibly get from Elana and the Shulvettes. When she sees us she retreats to her 'shrine,' where she's 'supposed' to have been the whole time, according to the official narrative. One of the item descriptions for the area questions whether the dragon even heard the lullaby. I initially took this to mean that the singing was being done primarily to keep anyone remaining in Shulva compliant, a la Amana and Castle Drangleic. It never really occurred to me that Sihn may have been actively trying to escape.
Zandroe and Zinder, mentioned characters
iirc, this was actually just one name that was translated differently in one item description. It's possible the mistake was left intentionally, as it seems to represent a Frampt or Kaathe-like character. Serpents aren't really dragons, of course, but nothing's really a dragon, not even Hawkwood.
Lothian's Quarry, implied character
Lothian quitting the field may have caused the downfall of Forossa. We don't know exactly what happened to him, but he left Forossa to hunt a dragon, passed through Drangleic, maybe more than once, and is probably the first mentioned character in an item description in-game. It seems like he backed himself into a corner and got eaten by the ogre, but there's no way to tell if this was in the beginning, middle, or end of Lothian's journey. If you light all the torches in Betwixt you get invaded by a character dressed as a traveler that doesn't use a shield. Maaaaaybe?
Wyvern, Lothric
I'm not gonna say much about the DS3 stuff because I feel like I understand it slightly less well than I did when I started Prisoner of Ash[]. Plus also if I did this post would take four years to write. I think they might be some kind of bunshin-no-jutsu/projected entity like Dreg Heap angels, Pinwheel, or Darklurker.
Serpentmen, Archdragon Peak
They seem to be straight-line descendants of the Serpentmen of Lordran. Some of them have the ability to breathe fire or use advanced weaponry like big fuggoff meteor axes they can throw from half a goddamn mile away.
Dragonmen type C, ADP
These are not only the least impressive-looking Dragonman, they're also the least impressive-looking thing. They're weak to everything, but you gain the kind of abilities that seem designed to never work. Hypothetically they're baby 4-limbed Archdrakes, the way you had 'baby' Stone Dragons in the first game and 'baby' Kalameets in the second. This weakness could be indicative of how long it takes a baby dragon to become big enough to really be impressive. Like, yeah, I might die to a strong breeze now, but just you come back in 18,000 years and see if you don't mistake me for a mountain.
Channelers, ADP
These are why I think the DS1 Channelers were maybe serpentmen as well. They, the DS3 channelers, have abilities that seem to be based off of Kalameet's yellow-on-black type of Dark. They can summon Maybe Havel, Prince Ricard, or a Drakeblood Knight. With the Drakeblood it's unclear if it's the same Drakeblood over and over or if there's like a contingent of them, because Havel and Ricard stop showing up if we beat them. If it's the same Drakeblood, then it might be the guy just past Oceiros, being summoned from the same fissure or whatever.
'Havel' seems to exist in as many as three locations, one on the Great Bridge, one on the roof past the entrance to the Gauntlet, and one summoned by the Channeler. They all seem to be connected, as spawns and item drops and so on interact with each other. Bridge Havel's armor shows up if we kill Roof Havel, for example.
We don't know where Ricard comes from, but he's wearing Wolnir's crown for some reason, maybe to symbolize the prince mastering everything that had been set before him, maybe to indicate that he, like Wolnir, was a type of Abysswalker.
Ancient Wyvern, ADP
These are maybe real versions of the ones on the High Wall of Lothric, who I suspect are being projected by the pus of man in a way similar to Gertrude's Angels and the Pilgrim Butterfly. The real ones look almost like they're constructed from ash. If we revisit the 'is a part of a dragon the whole dragon?' question, it could be that these are something like a dragon golem created from the atomized parts of dragons that had gone before. Since dragons can be used to create golems this is entirely feasible. The vessel dragon could then theoretically use souls to build its 'core,' and speed its development.
The spines could have a few different explanations. It could relate to the Ravenous Crystal Lizards, who seem to excrete a kind of brittle, low-density brightstone due to being kind of in the middle of the evolutionary process of learning how to digest souls. In other words, when dragons try to 'eat' souls, their natural Immortality Scales/Soul/Flame resistance means that they can't really digest Light souls and crap them out in crystalized form. Dragons, however, are able to 'injest' Dark/Humanity, as evidenced numerous times throughout the series.
Actually, now that I think about it, if brightstone is dragon waste, Seathe might actually technically be a shit dragon. mechanically, this would make him the dragon equivalent of a pyromancer.
Anyway, with the ostrich/wyvern Archdrakes, the spines could be a result of the dragon expelling soul waste by kind of compacting it and forcing it outwards into a spike.
Alternately, since there is a feathered dragon nearby and their faces look the way they do, they might be related to the down-covered Stone Dragon of the first game, and the quills are actually vestigial feathers. It seems like if that were the case they'd have the two longhorn-type horns, though.
King Oceiros, Lothric
This is a pretty good case for 'Moonlight/The Ruin is a dragon, specifically Seathe,' because Oceiros came out looking like a dragon. Because our master never dies, only changes form.
Prince Ocelotte, Lothric
Well, I mean, thanks to Sanadsk we know he's real now. Or was.
King of Storms, ADP
There's a couple of interesting theories about this one. It could be that it's an ascended Ornstein, it could be a child of the nearby actual Dragon cunningly disguised as a mountain, it could be one of the baby stormdrakes from Lordran.
The Wretched, Irithyll Dungeon
Clearly failed attempts to create a hybrid. They have dragon weapons. According to Sinclair and them they probably started out as failed attempts to create either Prince Lothric or Ocelotte, but were moved around and ended up in Sulyvahn's territory for reasons hopefully.
Crystal Lizard, large
Clearly this is what happens when they aren't murdered on sight as infants by anyone with a weapon and functioning arm.
Crystal Lizard, Ravenous
As I explained above, I think these things, along with everything else that survived the First Flame, are adapting to existence during the Age of Fire by evolving the ability to eat souls and, rather than being possessed by them, use them to speed their natural development-through-slow-environmental-accrual growth process.
Hawkwood
Hawkwood is Dragon.
Hawkwood, and Ashen One, doesn't take enlightenment well. Or rather, he takes enlightenment pretty well in the sense that after he loses everything, especially his ideals, and becomes forlorn, he ends up on a path as 'noble' and 'righteous' and 'good' as any.
He, a noble himself, sets out to kill the king, himself a dragon. You, an Ashen One, can ignore Oceiros and ADP altogether. But if you don't, and team up with HW against O, then you can meet again at the Gauntlet of ADP. The Gauntlet, especially the first playthrough, is one of the most difficult sections in the entire series. If you try to speed through w/o Spook and Hidden Body, or if one of them wears off before you're through the gatehouse, you're gonna get surrounded and die. If you try to fight it out you're probably gonna get caught up trying to break the greatshield-wielders' guard, get surrounded, and die. If you try to lure them out one at a time you're probably gonna run out of arrows, get frustrated, assume you've killed enough serpentmen to finish the rest off in melee, get hit with a meteor axe through a wall, panic, get surrounded, run around a corner, get headbutted off a cliff by a crystal lizard, and die.
Unless you summon Hawkwood.
Hawkwood has his own agenda. He's there for the Gauntlet.
Hawkwood gives us two more options, lorewise (three once you've mastered the area). The first: he runs up and draws all the aggro and dies bravely and honorably while you sneak past, steal the treasure, and bone out. Or, you can help him by casting Atonement, rushing past the mooks while yelling 'hey look I'm a meat shield!' and taking on the big guys in the gatehouse so Hawkwood can make it through and take the next step along the Path in as fair & square a manner as can be expected in Souls.
In Hawkwood's world, he survives and is Dragon. In your world, you survive and are Dragon. From here you have to fall in love with a mortal and then meet the Kurgan in an old church and become Goku but not in the second movie where you're an alien suddenly and not Scottish and Clancy Brown's all like 'what in the name of hell are you doing Lambert? This is a no. A no. Many no's. All of the no's there are, as many as you need. I'm not doing this movie for less than a lot of a lot of money.' But then you're like, well, no, Goku was an alien in the much more inferior sequel as well and everyone likes that so that's fine.
Painter of Ash, Ariandel
She has reptilian eyes, may be related to Priscilla, and has some unique property (her 'those ken to fire must not use 'ken' and 'kin' interchangeably in the same script if you're also going to use archaic and regional word variations intentionally a lot' line,) that allows her to paint.
Duchess Shira, Ringed City
I mean, she's called daughter of the Duke, has a maneater pearl crown, and is a hell of a fighter. Even if she doesn't know it, Seathe is dead so she is technically the Duchess and rightful heir of Anor Londo, at least if we wake Filianore.
Darkeater Midir, Ringed City
Midir seems unable to digest Dark and excretes it as obsidian, which seems to be the Dark counterpart to brightstone. We found obsidian in the Royal Woods around Oolacile, but it was of the brittle variety, rather than something more like a Dark version of Twinkling Titanite. Midir himself is covered in it, and Shira - who shares some kind of telepathic connection with Midir - worries that he's finally succumbing to Dark. Presumably, Midir was charged with, first, preventing anyone without the banner from entering or leaving the city and, second, making sure no one approaches the Shared Grave/backdoor to Filianore's Church.
Midir, the name, has Celtic roots, but I can't figure out how or if it connects to the in-game dragon. He's mostly known from the "Old Irish Saga Tochmarc Etaine ("The Wooing of Etain")". From what I can tell Midir was married to a lady call Fuamnach, who's described as something like Zullie or Velka; a kind of vengeful, upper-class witch. Etain is a 'passion and jealousy' Sun Goddess, and Fuamnach lays a series of curses on her after the two elope, including turning her into water, and then a worm. The worm eventually becomes a butterfly that becomes Midir's companions, although Midir doesn't realize it's Etain. More of Fuamnach's curses include summoning storms that blow Etain around for seven years at a time, and she, Etain, is eventually swallowed and somehow reborn as baby Etain a thousand years after her origin.
baby Etain grows up and marries the king. When Midir realizes what's happened, he wins a kiss from baby Etain from the king in a board game. The two embrace, turn into swans, and fly off to Midir's fairy mound home.
Both Midir and Fuamnach were royalty and equals, described as a lesser king and queen of the Tuatha de Danann. Midir is associated with birds, often adopts the appearance of a bird, crafts rivers & lakes, and is pretty shrewd. His name probably means 'judge'. If all of this somehow relates to Darkeater Midir then you'd need to understand the mythology a lot better than I do to parse it.
As for the Darkeater: it could be that Midir can't digest Dark, and excretes it as obsidian, and a much denser variety than we find around Kalameet. Shira worries that he's finally succumbing to Dark, and small wonder. I'm sure I'll be discussing him more later.
Archdragon Peak, the real one
According to Lance, JSF, et al, that's an actual rigged character model, not just terrain made to look like a dragon. There isn't a whole lot to say about it beyond 'it's a really big dragon,' but it happens to be the dragon at the end of the Path of the Dragon, and we interact with it by making a gesture almost universally associated with seeking some kind of peace. It's possible she's sleeping, rather than dead, as we initially find Sihn in a similar pose.
Anyway, we kinda trod deep waters lightly with this one, and someday there's probably gonna be more Path of the Dragon stuff either in one of these or in Prisoner if I ever get to where I feel like I'm ready to try to tackle it again.
Next is...I don't know what next is. Archtrees, maybe.
Primordial Serpents, various
These guys have been discussed extensively elsewhere. But since I'm here to hopefully blow minds.
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| See? It's him, see? |
Twin Lizard, Darkroot Garden
These are the two-headed lizards we find in upper Darkroot. They drop egg vermifuge (vermin killer). We find what could be one of them as part of the design on the Curved Dragon Greatsword from the second game. The only thing I can kind of relate them to are the Flexile Sentries.
Crystal Lizard (common), various
I think these are whelps. They have the ability to, I assume, slip through one of Saulden's fissures into another world. This feat is signaled by the lizard performing a cute little prayer/dance/burrowing motion. Given their shape, and assuming they are dragon whelps, they look like they might grow up to be Sihn/Undead Dragon-type dragons. I sure am typing the word dragons a lot today.
Hydra, Darkroot Basin, Ash Lake
Maybe these things pre-dated fire and they spit water but it's magic water and maybe they work for Seathe unless Seathe's there studying them idkwtf
Stone Dragon, Ash Lake
This seems like a young ancient dragon, in that it's younger than fire but has been left undisturbed long enough to develop. Watch Hawkshaw's thing if you haven't.
Kalameet the Black, Royal Wood
I don't know Kalameet's origins, but it could be that she... I don't even want to speculate. She's associated with the Abyss, and plays a role in both the second and third games. In the second, the arms of the dragon knights we find in the Dragon Shrine - the Villard and Edde guys - are forged from Kalameet's tail, and their armor is made from her scales. In the third game, after being summoned inside, there's a shrine to Kalameet just inside. Kalameet is portrayed as being a breed similar to the nearby archdrakes, rather than how K actually looked, which was similar to Sihn.
Priscilla, Ariamis
I've written so much about the painting that I haven't published that I can't even remember if I've actually written anything about the paintings yet. I know I meant to at one point. I think she's part rat. She can turn fully invisible. She's the first frost sorcerer we encounter. I don't understand what Lifehunt's meant to be. Her and ole King Bughead of Carcosa are gonna be interesting af if anyone ever figures them out.
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| Calamity buff |
Iron Golem Core, Sen's Fortress
It's a soul - probably of someone like Knight King Rendall or something - grafted onto a dragon bone that functions as a kind of motor for the golem. I suppose at some point we need to consider if dragon weapons are literally and legitimately dragons, as dragons are immortal. Let's say you're out adventuring and you come across a dormant dragon and decide 'I need dragon weapons' and cut a couple pieces of the dragon off of the dragon. Now, if each piece of the dragon is alive and a dragon in the same way the dragon as a whole is alive and a dragon then: dragon weapons are generally 'alive' in some sense, but are they also dragons?
Stormdrake colony, Valley of the Drakes
I think by the time Nameless took over as King of the Gods dragons, and even drakes, were basically extinct in Lordran. I've talked about it elsewhere, but I suspect the blue, lightning-breathing drakes were bred and hunted in the dragon-slaying equivalent of canned hare hunts. King of Storms from the third game might be a mature one.
Undead Dragon, various
I think these are self-explanatory. That they breath poison was the basis for my theory of Sihn being septic due to her flame going out. The Spitfire Spear from DS2, I think, is literally the mechanism a drake/dragon uses to ignite their waste. Additionally, the Undead Dragons seems to be of a breed similar to the Ancient Dragon from DS2, rather than the sleeker Sihn/Kalameet variety. These, or at least their lower halves (and again: if each part of a dragon is a dragon: is each dragon part the same dragon?) might be animated by chaos.
So to recap, we have hares (Hellkites,) foxes (Kalameet,) bulls (Ancient) and longhorn (Stone).
Dragonman type A
This is the Path of the Dragon transformation. It looks very birdlike.
DS2
Ancient Dragon, Dragon Shrine
This is the corpse of a dragon animated by the soul of a giant and is the result, we assume, of one of Aldia's experiments. Odds are that the entity we interact with, despite its appearance, has the giant's personality. We get this dragon's soul from the memory of the corpse we find at the bottom of Tseldora. When traveling the memory we find ourselves atop a forest of broken archtrees. The general vibe seems to be that this was a recent battlefield during the Dragon War, and that the Ancient Dragon died in this war and eventually ended up buried under the eastern Drang mountains, where it would later be discovered by the Ruin and Aldia.
Nesting and Patrol Drakes, Dragon Aerie
The Aerie deserves its own post, but the Nesting Drakes, we can assume, are female. The Patrol Drakes (the ones in the sky box,) would probably be males. If dragons even work that way. The Nesting Drakes drop Flameplate Rings and pyromancies. Explain that, Bill Nye.
Curious Drake, Heide
I think the one lance-wielding knight at the top of the stares was the drake's mount.
I'm not at all sure about this, but.
Maybe everyone here, except possibly the Dragonrider, is loyal to the Sentinels, and the Heide Knight's attitude indicates that they literally have nothing to do but wait, provided the path to the port remains in check. Maybe this represents some kind of agreement between Heide and Vendrick that the territory - excluding the Bastille and Wharf - could remain as a kind of Olaph-Venn embassy awaiting word from Mirrah or Elana or Anor Londo or whoever.
Guardian Dragon, Aldia's Keep
It seems older and more battle-hardened than the other drakes, and may have served as Aldia's personal mount at some point.
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| For the first time since I started I didn't have enough DS2 pictures. |
Crystal Lizard (turret), Shulva
These lizards, which seem to be regular lizards, just older and bigger, have had their crystals replaced with statue clusters. The statues represent Elena, obviously. It's unclear if the statues are grown or grafted on somehow.
Crystal Lizard (red), various
These explode. I think Aldia made them.
The Imperfect, Shulva
Here we find what looks like the mouth of a primordial serpent attached to the lower half of an undead dragon, all of which is covered in the pus of man. It has a Dark Lightning breath attack. Thomas doesn't want us dicking around with them. It does seem like a lot of the 'clandestine rituals' developed in Shulva figured heavily into DS3, so I'm sure in another two years I'll have something more crazy sounding to say about them.
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| C'mon man, please, all of my stuff's about to break |
Flexile Sentries, various
Oh hey another two headed lizard. Descriptions of their weapons use the words 'vile' and 'warped' and 'merciless' and 'unsettling,' and describe them packing Olaphis' sorcerers and pyromancers onto ships and casting them out to sea, where the few survivors imparted their knowledge to the people of what would become Melfia. This is strange because we find a Sentry in Eleum Loyce, and we also find a sorcerer's twinblade under guard next to a Divine Blessing in Eleum Loyce and plus the whole area's riddled with magic. The EL Sentry is guarding the Garrison Ward key, the only way to leave the citadel to the south save for the shrine. The Dragon Bone Fist is also in the room but, well, I've already made a bad Dragon Ball reference and what else is there to say?
Dragonmen type B, Dragon Shrine
These are the Dragon Knight guys. They're based off of Kalameet and look the best of the three variants. The Kalameet stuff feels dissonant with the Shrine itself. It's possible the High City we see in the intro movie is the Dragon Shrine during the time of Olaphis, and we find it after it's been partially restored.
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| Someone pointed out the Black Dragon Weapons kinda look like Quelaag's Furysword. |
Mytha Queen of Alken, Earthen Peak
Her transformation was brought about by Sihn's poison, and is clearly turning her into a serpent. So it's not 100% yes that she's a dragon, but if you buy that the poison from the mines is seeping up from Shulva, and that serpents can be counted as a type of dragon (the silver and gold rings dispute this,) then she's a dragon. If not, then she's not.
I just occurred to me that Shulva's location would have a large effect on how extensively it floods. I've always kind of assumed it was under Heide, but if it's Sihn's poison that ruined Alken - which would explain the uprising - then it's possible that the Harvest Valley area was once a land of lakes and meadows. This would also maybe inform Mytha's depictions as some kind of water-bearer.
Shanalotte/Emerald Herald/Muse, Dragon Shrine
Like I figure if I allowed comments or posted updates to reddit or anything like that I'd just get endless lines of assholes trying to argue the 'Mytha is a dragon' thing until the sun goes out and not one of them would have a problem with Shanallote the Clearly Not a Dragon being a dragon, even though for all we know her 'child of dragons' moniker might just refer to her having been raised by the Ancient Dragon and the drakes of the Aerie. The 'older' versions of her we find in the world are projections of the Muse at the Shrine. According to [lokey and JSF] this is the same thing Pinwheel does.
She's probably going to get something like her own post eventually, but I feel like I'm still a looooong way from understanding her.
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| I GAVE ME THIS NAME FROM THE FIREKEEPER YOU'RE PRETENDING YOU'RE NOT IMPERSONATING WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR WRIST SHANALOTTE |
'Writhing Ruin,' Tseldora
I've discussed this extensively, how Seathe continues to exist as a kind of incorporeal essense that, while not Seathe himself, does have all of the properties of Seathe. By that I mean the Ruin, Seathe's 'ghost' or 'spirit' or whatever, doesn't have any of Seathe's memories and isn't sentient from what I can tell, so in that sense the Ruin is not Seathe; the Ruin, however, /does/ have, or at least causes, creatures exposed to it to eventually take on aspects of Seathe's personality, such as obsessive madness and a severely warped sense of ethics.
The important thing about the Ruin, what sets it apart from other such curses, is that it seems to act most virulently on characters who would otherwise be naturally resistant to curses: mighty warriors and great scholars. It's almost as if the Ruin, rather than striking where the victim is weakest, perverts the victims' strengths towards its own ends. Which the Ruin doesn't have ends, it's just an obsession with attaining the one thing one can't have.
So, is the Ruin a dragon?
It's of Seathe, who definitely is a dragon, but it's not necessarily of dragons. Whatever it is, it might be the thing that isn't dragon that caused Seathe to radicalize. The Ruin could be Moonlight - a kind of anti-light - that causes souls to spontaneously develop will, which normally only Dark ever seems to do. Dark follows Light in the cycle, and Humanity pursues the Soul as a general principle, but when Moonlight is involved the Soul seems to pursue Humanity. As Firekeepers and at least some WoW maidens are, or can, function as a kind of bottomless well of Humanity, this might explain why Seathe's perversion found its way out the way it did.
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| CAW CAW |
Sihn
Discussed extensively elsewhere. Seems to be of the same 'fox' breed as Kalameet. If crystal lizards grow up to be Ancient and Undead Dragons, maybe cats or wolves grow up to be Sihns. I suppose we could think of the more muscular breed as 'bulls,' hellkites as 'hares,' and DS3 wyverns as, I don't know, ostriches?
One point that almost never gets made is that, when we arrive in Shulva, we find Sihn perched up towards the top of the cavern, about as far away as she can possibly get from Elana and the Shulvettes. When she sees us she retreats to her 'shrine,' where she's 'supposed' to have been the whole time, according to the official narrative. One of the item descriptions for the area questions whether the dragon even heard the lullaby. I initially took this to mean that the singing was being done primarily to keep anyone remaining in Shulva compliant, a la Amana and Castle Drangleic. It never really occurred to me that Sihn may have been actively trying to escape.
Zandroe and Zinder, mentioned characters
iirc, this was actually just one name that was translated differently in one item description. It's possible the mistake was left intentionally, as it seems to represent a Frampt or Kaathe-like character. Serpents aren't really dragons, of course, but nothing's really a dragon, not even Hawkwood.
Lothian's Quarry, implied character
Lothian quitting the field may have caused the downfall of Forossa. We don't know exactly what happened to him, but he left Forossa to hunt a dragon, passed through Drangleic, maybe more than once, and is probably the first mentioned character in an item description in-game. It seems like he backed himself into a corner and got eaten by the ogre, but there's no way to tell if this was in the beginning, middle, or end of Lothian's journey. If you light all the torches in Betwixt you get invaded by a character dressed as a traveler that doesn't use a shield. Maaaaaybe?
DS3
Wyvern, Lothric
I'm not gonna say much about the DS3 stuff because I feel like I understand it slightly less well than I did when I started Prisoner of Ash[]. Plus also if I did this post would take four years to write. I think they might be some kind of bunshin-no-jutsu/projected entity like Dreg Heap angels, Pinwheel, or Darklurker.
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| I think the gold/bronze is meant to represent the Knight, and the White the Scholar. |
Serpentmen, Archdragon Peak
They seem to be straight-line descendants of the Serpentmen of Lordran. Some of them have the ability to breathe fire or use advanced weaponry like big fuggoff meteor axes they can throw from half a goddamn mile away.
Dragonmen type C, ADP
These are not only the least impressive-looking Dragonman, they're also the least impressive-looking thing. They're weak to everything, but you gain the kind of abilities that seem designed to never work. Hypothetically they're baby 4-limbed Archdrakes, the way you had 'baby' Stone Dragons in the first game and 'baby' Kalameets in the second. This weakness could be indicative of how long it takes a baby dragon to become big enough to really be impressive. Like, yeah, I might die to a strong breeze now, but just you come back in 18,000 years and see if you don't mistake me for a mountain.
Channelers, ADP
These are why I think the DS1 Channelers were maybe serpentmen as well. They, the DS3 channelers, have abilities that seem to be based off of Kalameet's yellow-on-black type of Dark. They can summon Maybe Havel, Prince Ricard, or a Drakeblood Knight. With the Drakeblood it's unclear if it's the same Drakeblood over and over or if there's like a contingent of them, because Havel and Ricard stop showing up if we beat them. If it's the same Drakeblood, then it might be the guy just past Oceiros, being summoned from the same fissure or whatever.
'Havel' seems to exist in as many as three locations, one on the Great Bridge, one on the roof past the entrance to the Gauntlet, and one summoned by the Channeler. They all seem to be connected, as spawns and item drops and so on interact with each other. Bridge Havel's armor shows up if we kill Roof Havel, for example.
We don't know where Ricard comes from, but he's wearing Wolnir's crown for some reason, maybe to symbolize the prince mastering everything that had been set before him, maybe to indicate that he, like Wolnir, was a type of Abysswalker.
Ancient Wyvern, ADP
These are maybe real versions of the ones on the High Wall of Lothric, who I suspect are being projected by the pus of man in a way similar to Gertrude's Angels and the Pilgrim Butterfly. The real ones look almost like they're constructed from ash. If we revisit the 'is a part of a dragon the whole dragon?' question, it could be that these are something like a dragon golem created from the atomized parts of dragons that had gone before. Since dragons can be used to create golems this is entirely feasible. The vessel dragon could then theoretically use souls to build its 'core,' and speed its development.
The spines could have a few different explanations. It could relate to the Ravenous Crystal Lizards, who seem to excrete a kind of brittle, low-density brightstone due to being kind of in the middle of the evolutionary process of learning how to digest souls. In other words, when dragons try to 'eat' souls, their natural Immortality Scales/Soul/Flame resistance means that they can't really digest Light souls and crap them out in crystalized form. Dragons, however, are able to 'injest' Dark/Humanity, as evidenced numerous times throughout the series.
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| They're quadrapeds, right? I swear they just RNG limb numbers with anything non-human. Personally, I think anything 4-limbed probably used to be human. |
Actually, now that I think about it, if brightstone is dragon waste, Seathe might actually technically be a shit dragon. mechanically, this would make him the dragon equivalent of a pyromancer.
Anyway, with the ostrich/wyvern Archdrakes, the spines could be a result of the dragon expelling soul waste by kind of compacting it and forcing it outwards into a spike.
Alternately, since there is a feathered dragon nearby and their faces look the way they do, they might be related to the down-covered Stone Dragon of the first game, and the quills are actually vestigial feathers. It seems like if that were the case they'd have the two longhorn-type horns, though.
King Oceiros, Lothric
This is a pretty good case for 'Moonlight/The Ruin is a dragon, specifically Seathe,' because Oceiros came out looking like a dragon. Because our master never dies, only changes form.
Prince Ocelotte, Lothric
Well, I mean, thanks to Sanadsk we know he's real now. Or was.
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| The sad thing isn't that Hawkwood deserted in shame over wanting to not constantly die in battle, but that he chose that shield over almost any other one. The king ain't been making real good decisions lately either. |
King of Storms, ADP
There's a couple of interesting theories about this one. It could be that it's an ascended Ornstein, it could be a child of the nearby actual Dragon cunningly disguised as a mountain, it could be one of the baby stormdrakes from Lordran.
The Wretched, Irithyll Dungeon
Clearly failed attempts to create a hybrid. They have dragon weapons. According to Sinclair and them they probably started out as failed attempts to create either Prince Lothric or Ocelotte, but were moved around and ended up in Sulyvahn's territory for reasons hopefully.
Crystal Lizard, large
Clearly this is what happens when they aren't murdered on sight as infants by anyone with a weapon and functioning arm.
Crystal Lizard, Ravenous
As I explained above, I think these things, along with everything else that survived the First Flame, are adapting to existence during the Age of Fire by evolving the ability to eat souls and, rather than being possessed by them, use them to speed their natural development-through-slow-environmental-accrual growth process.
Hawkwood
Hawkwood is Dragon.
Hawkwood, and Ashen One, doesn't take enlightenment well. Or rather, he takes enlightenment pretty well in the sense that after he loses everything, especially his ideals, and becomes forlorn, he ends up on a path as 'noble' and 'righteous' and 'good' as any.
He, a noble himself, sets out to kill the king, himself a dragon. You, an Ashen One, can ignore Oceiros and ADP altogether. But if you don't, and team up with HW against O, then you can meet again at the Gauntlet of ADP. The Gauntlet, especially the first playthrough, is one of the most difficult sections in the entire series. If you try to speed through w/o Spook and Hidden Body, or if one of them wears off before you're through the gatehouse, you're gonna get surrounded and die. If you try to fight it out you're probably gonna get caught up trying to break the greatshield-wielders' guard, get surrounded, and die. If you try to lure them out one at a time you're probably gonna run out of arrows, get frustrated, assume you've killed enough serpentmen to finish the rest off in melee, get hit with a meteor axe through a wall, panic, get surrounded, run around a corner, get headbutted off a cliff by a crystal lizard, and die.
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| ...yeah, and you'll have your wrist instantly broken for you, you try holding a sword like that all edgelordy. I mean it would look better held properly, from a toxic masculinity perspective. |
Unless you summon Hawkwood.
Hawkwood has his own agenda. He's there for the Gauntlet.
Hawkwood gives us two more options, lorewise (three once you've mastered the area). The first: he runs up and draws all the aggro and dies bravely and honorably while you sneak past, steal the treasure, and bone out. Or, you can help him by casting Atonement, rushing past the mooks while yelling 'hey look I'm a meat shield!' and taking on the big guys in the gatehouse so Hawkwood can make it through and take the next step along the Path in as fair & square a manner as can be expected in Souls.
In Hawkwood's world, he survives and is Dragon. In your world, you survive and are Dragon. From here you have to fall in love with a mortal and then meet the Kurgan in an old church and become Goku but not in the second movie where you're an alien suddenly and not Scottish and Clancy Brown's all like 'what in the name of hell are you doing Lambert? This is a no. A no. Many no's. All of the no's there are, as many as you need. I'm not doing this movie for less than a lot of a lot of money.' But then you're like, well, no, Goku was an alien in the much more inferior sequel as well and everyone likes that so that's fine.
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| That's basically a poop-powered atomic fusion laser of Soul and Humanity that then cools off to something you might could think of as 'fire.' |
Painter of Ash, Ariandel
She has reptilian eyes, may be related to Priscilla, and has some unique property (her 'those ken to fire must not use 'ken' and 'kin' interchangeably in the same script if you're also going to use archaic and regional word variations intentionally a lot' line,) that allows her to paint.
Duchess Shira, Ringed City
I mean, she's called daughter of the Duke, has a maneater pearl crown, and is a hell of a fighter. Even if she doesn't know it, Seathe is dead so she is technically the Duchess and rightful heir of Anor Londo, at least if we wake Filianore.
Darkeater Midir, Ringed City
Midir seems unable to digest Dark and excretes it as obsidian, which seems to be the Dark counterpart to brightstone. We found obsidian in the Royal Woods around Oolacile, but it was of the brittle variety, rather than something more like a Dark version of Twinkling Titanite. Midir himself is covered in it, and Shira - who shares some kind of telepathic connection with Midir - worries that he's finally succumbing to Dark. Presumably, Midir was charged with, first, preventing anyone without the banner from entering or leaving the city and, second, making sure no one approaches the Shared Grave/backdoor to Filianore's Church.
Midir, the name, has Celtic roots, but I can't figure out how or if it connects to the in-game dragon. He's mostly known from the "Old Irish Saga Tochmarc Etaine ("The Wooing of Etain")". From what I can tell Midir was married to a lady call Fuamnach, who's described as something like Zullie or Velka; a kind of vengeful, upper-class witch. Etain is a 'passion and jealousy' Sun Goddess, and Fuamnach lays a series of curses on her after the two elope, including turning her into water, and then a worm. The worm eventually becomes a butterfly that becomes Midir's companions, although Midir doesn't realize it's Etain. More of Fuamnach's curses include summoning storms that blow Etain around for seven years at a time, and she, Etain, is eventually swallowed and somehow reborn as baby Etain a thousand years after her origin.
baby Etain grows up and marries the king. When Midir realizes what's happened, he wins a kiss from baby Etain from the king in a board game. The two embrace, turn into swans, and fly off to Midir's fairy mound home.
Both Midir and Fuamnach were royalty and equals, described as a lesser king and queen of the Tuatha de Danann. Midir is associated with birds, often adopts the appearance of a bird, crafts rivers & lakes, and is pretty shrewd. His name probably means 'judge'. If all of this somehow relates to Darkeater Midir then you'd need to understand the mythology a lot better than I do to parse it.
As for the Darkeater: it could be that Midir can't digest Dark, and excretes it as obsidian, and a much denser variety than we find around Kalameet. Shira worries that he's finally succumbing to Dark, and small wonder. I'm sure I'll be discussing him more later.
Archdragon Peak, the real one
According to Lance, JSF, et al, that's an actual rigged character model, not just terrain made to look like a dragon. There isn't a whole lot to say about it beyond 'it's a really big dragon,' but it happens to be the dragon at the end of the Path of the Dragon, and we interact with it by making a gesture almost universally associated with seeking some kind of peace. It's possible she's sleeping, rather than dead, as we initially find Sihn in a similar pose.
Anyway, we kinda trod deep waters lightly with this one, and someday there's probably gonna be more Path of the Dragon stuff either in one of these or in Prisoner if I ever get to where I feel like I'm ready to try to tackle it again.
Next is...I don't know what next is. Archtrees, maybe.
