Naming of Humanoid Dragons

[Eponymous-Archon]

nah turin, the deal is that those creatures all already excist

Actually none of them already exists.

I'm with Turin: give it an existing name. Dragon would be a good one to start with. Like Dwarf, Thief, Mage, Horseman, etc etc, it's a perfectly understandable existing word that everyone will get right away.

As for the rest:

wyvern= armless dragon creature
drake- smaller dragon-esque type creature
wurm= a snake-like dragon
serpent= the one above but for water

Serpent doesn't necessarily have anything to do with water. Think Adam and Eve. Drake is dragon in my dictionary (Webster's, as Darth below). Wyvern is some kind of two-legged dragon thing, with bird's feet, so that may not fit so well.

however Drakonian sounds good if it makes the lot of you happy, since the blunt k looks good to me, if everyone thinks this name is ok please tell me ^^

I remain opposed (surprise ) Just changing a letter doesn't do much for me. Let's keep the existing pattern of using real words as names for units.

Why not

Dragonlet > Drake > Dragon

or throw Saurian in there somewhere, maybe for the ones that look like humans a bit?

(I also wanted to second Dave's compliment on the artwork here. These are cool-looking new units.)

[Sangel]

None of these creatures are "Dragons" or "Drakes". Everyone knows what a Dragon is: It's a great big fire-breathing, well... Dragon. Dragonmen might work, or something along that theme, but just calling them Dragons (Dragon Warrior, Dragon Soldier, etc) does not work.

[Eponymous-Archon]

None of these creatures are "Dragons" or "Drakes". Everyone knows what a Dragon is: It's a great big fire-breathing, well... Dragon. Dragonmen might work, or something along that theme, but just calling them Dragons (Dragon Warrior, Dragon Soldier, etc) does not work.

Are we talking about the same units? The ones that were introduced here under the title "Dragon"?

What is it about them that is not dragon-like?

(BTW, the Beak unit, with the bat-like wing-arms, might well qualify as a Wyvern.)

[Sangel]

Dragons are massive monsters which fly in the skies or stalk about on four legs. These creatures are dragon-men - they walk on two legs and carry weapons and armour. Unless I'm mistaken, most of them can't fly either.

This is a dragon.

[Eponymous-Archon]

Dragons are massive monsters which fly in the skies or stalk about on four legs. These creatures are dragon-men - they walk on two legs and carry weapons and armour. Unless I'm mistaken, most of them can't fly either.

1. Well, "Dragon" is how they were introduced.
2. They have wings (or some do).
3. They seem to me to be sitting on their haunches as they attack in most of the frames, or else they are flying, aren't they?
4. Some have weapons (which was commented on in the thread I cited above) and none has armor, that I can see.

This is a dragon.

I'm not sure that'll fix in a hex. More seriously, not all myth systems make dragons extremely large. Consider the dragon of Beowulf, for example.

If these aren't Dragons, that they probably shouldn't be distinguished from the Lizardmen, no? I believe that they are intended to be different, though it really doesn't matter to me. If they shouldn't be Dragons, then how about:

Saurian (Dragonman?) > Drake > Dragonlet

?

Drake is unclear enough to allow us some leeway (maybe?), and Dragonlet indicates their diminutive size (relative to other kinds of dragons, though not to most of the units in Wesnoth)

[Sangel]

Saurian's fine. Anything rather than Dragon is the point I'm trying to get across, because these are NOT Dragons.

[Kamahawk]

Saurian refers to dinosaurs

[Eponymous-Archon]

Saurian refers to dinosaurs

Technically "related to the suborder Sauria", which Webster's defines as

"A division of Reptilia formerly established to include the Lacertilia, Crocodilia, Dinosauria, and other groups. By some writers the name is restricted to the Lacertilia"

and also called "true lizards".

I was using it more broadly to mean "related to saurai" (saura = Greek for lizard). A well-formed word, even if only created (I believe) by cladists.

[Neoriceisgood]

don't bring up that I called the topic "Dragon?" I've called topics furry bunny while it was about aliens on other forums; and I added the questionmark for; "Is that a dragon" not "That is a dragon" but above all none of the names other than Drakonian that were introduced realy appeal to me.
If you realy want me to be as specific as some of you; a drake is a male duck. And if you go a bit down on the topics in the art forum; you might see that I already made a real dragon before this, if we call this thing a dragon we have to rename dragons to something totaly different wich would make less sence. "dragonman" altought the best indication is way to generic, and I'm already planning on using "sauriers" for the lizardmen race when I enlarge that one. if you would simply Look at eachothers post; it seems that everyone opposes eachothers choise of names, do you all realise that this will go nowhere this way?

[Sithrandel]

I wouldn't get too worked up any how:

-saur is just lizard and these look lizard like so saurian is fine.

dragon is a loose term. Of course there are some real dragons, e.g. komodo dragon Therefore dragons are good too.

draconian just means strict / harsh so as long as they don't have liberal political views that seems fine too

[Neoriceisgood]

Heh, well they're a high intellectual race who refuse to side with others in wars so in that part they are strickt. I'll see until all units for the race are done.

[turin]

use drake... it is rally only from other fantasy writers that you got the idea drakes were smaller than dragons. personally, i have never thought that, although it is in MtG, so it must be true, right?

if dragon is offlimits because its used for another race, drake seems like the most logical choice. and drakonian is nonsensical, but thats OK as long as these aren't going to be included in the game itself.

[Eponymous-Archon]

"dragonman" altought the best indication is way to[o] generic

You may notice that many unit names are completely generic (archer, bowman, horseman), often with a prefixed racial adjective (elvish, human).

and I'm already planning on using "sauriers" for the lizardmen race when I enlarge that one.

Oh boy.

if you would simply Look at eachothers post; it seems that everyone opposes eachothers choise of names, do you all realise that this will go nowhere this way?

Well, it might get somewhere. I'm just pointing out that (1) the game usually uses fairly generic names for units, names that are in common usage and widely understood; (2) words shouldn't be re-defined, because they appear to have the correct stem in them; if they mean something else already, let's leave them that way.

All that said, I like the series images very much (though frankly they all pretty much look like dragons to me, not giant, eat-a-man-at-a-gulp-sized ones, but dragons nonetheless).

Enough on this for me.

[Darth Fool]

I think the generic problem here is that when it comes to language, despite a common belief to the contrary, words never have a single meaning, but rather the meaning evolves with time. Trying to find a "generic" word for something out of pure fantasy is therefore quite hard especially since the source for words ranges across millenia. Add to that the multitude of authors that have sprung up since Tolkien with pulp-fantasy books and the language of fantasy has become a real mess. In my opinion Wesnoth has not stuck either to just names derived from common words, names derived from a single fantasy or mythical source, or purely invented names, but rather has done all of the above and is better for it. If it is decided that Drakonian means winged drake-men like things in Wesnoth, then fine, as long as we don't start calling orcish units drakonians...The key is to have well defined meanings in Wesnoth. Where possible it is good to use terms that match more common words (don't call an archer a swordsmen), but this should not be taken to the point where we reject a name just because the name is not intuitively obvious to the casual observer. As long as it is not a confusing name, go for it.

"pointy-eared-forest-folk-warrior-of-the-wood-and-string-launcher-of-pointy-wooden-things-with -feathers!"

[KK_r]

how about mandrake