Creatures

Those that are magic, within whom magic pulses like a twin of the heart.

A note on Dragon Physiology: Dragons consume thaum. They need nothing else. To one using flow-senses, dragons look like black holes in the ocean of thaum. Dragons, even removed pieces of dragons, are powerfully immune to magic because they just eat it on approach. The only sure defenses are to either overwhelm a dragon's drain-field, or to be a dragon yourself, and let your drain-field counter theirs. Dragons are born from eggs (1 or 2 to a clutch, once every 10-50 years) - these are magically inert, and can stay static almost indefinitely until sufficient thaum is availble to grow the dragon inside, assuming nothing predetates the egg. Most whelps - as baby dragons are called - are quite happy to sit out and just take in the afternoon. Literally. A baby's requirements are very small, and so simply sitting is more than enough to feed them. As a dragon grows, their requirements increase, as does the strength and range of their drain-field. After 200-300 years, dragons start to breathe regularly - not because they require air, but because this suction allows them to draw additional magic in. After 450-500, they must start eating, for the same reason. Intelligent beings, especially mages or other magical creatures, provide more thaum per ounce than anything else (except another dragon). Dragons become fiercely territorial and sexually active somewhere between 250 to 350 years of age, and actively seek to breed into their 600s. Many dragons die during this period, and few come through without at least some scarring. After this, the female dragon's drain-field is too powerful, compared to that of the unborn whelp, and the lady dragon will canabalize the new life, will she or no. A dragoness at the cusp of this limit may lay her eggs and then flee rather than risk destroying her babies. Both male and female dragons take an active role in a whelp's life, if possible, though each dragon is their own person and there are plenty of stories about one partner or the other leaving a child on their own. From an evolutionary perspective, the child doesn't need a parent to survive, but does benefit from from an elder's instruction. After 600 years, a dragon is considered a "high dragon" - they stand above most of the minor quarrels for things like territory and nesting rights. This is both a time of celebration and concern in a dragon's life. Many dragons choose sites and sleep (occassionally for the first time), sometimes for decades, their resting bodies requiring fewer resources, allowing the surrounding areas to recover before the dragon awakens to strip them bare again. Other dragons attempt to find higher and higher concentrations of thaum to consume. Of course, the biggest concentration of thaum...is another dragon. This leads to the next major die-off of a dragon's age cohort. Any dragon who has reach 1,000 years has almost certainly consumed another dragon, and probably several. A dragon more than 1,000 years is called an "ancient dragon" - and is considered with great reverence and fear. Reverence, because they are the most learned, intelligent, and powerful. Feared, for their hunger is a torment almost unquenchable.  This is where the Dragon King comes into play. The Dragon King is a High Dragon responsible for...many things, but their first duty is to assist in the suicide of an ancient dragon before their hunger grows too great, or to put down an ancient dragon who has lost themsleves to hunger. There is a final step in a dragon's age - "disaster." A disaster dragon is one who has permanently lost themselves to their hunger, and no amount of consumption can return them. In this state, a dragon will attempt to seek out, and consume, all other dragons, and then all other life, until it dies of starvation on a barren rock, having consumed almost all the thaum on the planet. Upon death, a disaster dragon's body ruptures like a supernova of magic, inundating the world in a torrent of wild and storming power - killing most everything that the dragon itself had missed (barring any succesfully hidden dragon eggs), though leaving little physical destruction. No sane dragon desires to live this long, to suffer torment and die the murderer of the world - and this is why the Dragon King holds respect, and why ancient dragons submit to them.