Dragons. Enemy of castles and princesses. Slayer of knights. About now, someone is most likely thinking, "Knights slay dragons, not the other way around." Well, sometimes the dragon wins.
Just about all the old myths say that the dragon had not only devastated the town or village that it happened to be living near, but also that it had vanquished several knights before the hero showed up. Besides, its only common sense that something as big as a dragon and armed with sharp claws & teeth as well as fiery breath would have an advantage over a puny human, even if the human was encased in steel. The steel armor might have been an disadvantage, considering the fact that the armor must have gotten pretty hot when the dragon used its flame!
Well, that's just the dragon of the western world. The dragon of the Far East and the Orient are far different. Those dragons have a long, thin body like a snake's, with four legs, that have four or five claws. The five-clawed type are the royal dragons. The image of the five-clawed lung are only allowed to be shown on the banner of the emperor, and they are sometimes shown wearing a crown. There are four different types of lung, one type for each element, earth, air, fire & water. The dragons take on the powers of the element that it dwells in, although sky (or air) lung are the most numerous by far, with fire dragons the least. The dragon's head is described to be like a lion's, except with scales and long, trailing whiskers. The dragons are supposed to be quite colorful, their scales all the colors of the rainbow. They sometimes will even give help to humans who seek them out. And best of all, they only eat sparrows. Better than the terror-inspiring dragon of the west, don't you think?
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