[Nerfnow!!] Classic Fantasy vs Modern Fantasy
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This is why, in my adopted dragon story I'm working on, 99% of dragons are dicks. They fly around taking whatever they want, because they're big, powerful, and naturally magical. They're the definition of power corrupting. Their culture revolves around accumulating wealth and lording it over everything else. They don't HAVE to be evil and had a more noble history, but why would they be anything else if left unchecked?
The only reason the hero dragon isn't a dick, is because he was raised by humans and is still just a lovable little guy. He has to struggle with the fact everyone else justifiably hates dragons, and he has to struggle with his own greedy, wrathful tendencies bubbling under his friendly nature.
Doesn't even have to be cultural. Think about the actual chemical properties of gold from the stance of the Periodic Table and what it then gets used for in industry.
So dragons don't sleep on gold because of its monetary worth, they sleep on it because it helps them cool down, just like many animals will do when digging a shallow pit then lying on the cooler soil.
So to further consider your good natured hero dragon not only might he have to struggle with his own greed and wrath, he physically needs something like gold in order to stay comfortable.
Oh, absolutely. I have a concept going where metals, precious metals in particular, conduct and channel magic, and part of why dragons nest in them is to help recharge their "batteries," so to speak. So there's a biological reason to have a nice hoard. Of course there's "having a nice gold nest" and then there's "I turned my cave into Uncle Scrooge's money bin just because I can."