A Return to the Stars
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After a veeeeerrrryyyy long, and mostly unplanned, hiatus, Stuart and I got
together to play more Stargrave in recent days. It was good! It was also a
bit ...
Sunday, May 16, 2010
a simple pleasure
Sometimes I just dig a picture of someone giving the business to a dragon. This one is the official coat of arms for an administrative district in Poland, found via Wikipedia's "Random article" button.
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That's just a good Samaritan rendering assistance to a choking dragon with the long-handled plunger that Poles traditionally carry for just that purpose.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the origin of the homonym poll/pole...
ReplyDeleteObviously he's engaging in the Polish equestrian sport of lizard-vaulting?
ReplyDeleteIIRC the sport originated as an outgrowth of the cult of Sarmatism in the 17th c. and rapidly became emblematic of machismo among young men of the szlachta class.
wv: letshat - No Bill! You're too old and portly to vault the wild and vicious lizards of Poland!
Nono, that's the rare "Broom-handle-breathing Dragon". It released it's breath weapon on the guy, but missed.
ReplyDeleteThat reminds me of something that's always bugged me: the wimpiness of your typical dragon as portrayed by medieval artists. Honestly, that one isn't as bad as a lot of them, and it's still smaller than the knight's horse. I picture dragons torching villages or at least capturing princesses, but dragons like this seem capable, at best, of ruining picnics and picking off stragglers from flocks of sheep.
ReplyDelete@Joseph
ReplyDeletePolish "Pole" term means in English: "Field", in agricultural sense. Name was taken from one of the mightiest tribes of Western Slavs: "Polanie" who build in X c. Poland. Simple as that.
I liked the concept of the state government having a division charged specifically with killing dragons. Nothing else, only dragons.
ReplyDeleteI was actually thinking about the whole "absurdly small dragon" thing. If Gygax intended for dragons to be rather small, they would actually fit in reasonably large dungeon spaces wouldn't they? They wouldn't need enormous caves to live in.
ReplyDeleteThere's sort of a precedent for HD not equating strictly with size. And the lower HD of dragons in OD&D may show that.
It certainly puts a damper on the Dragonlance fan though.
Now for a bit of boring old history, mythology, and iconography... Any time that you see a knight stabbing a dragon in the mouth you can pretty much be assured that you are looking at a representation of Saint George slaying the dragon. Apparently, the image has deeper roots, originally representing a historical figure, but I forget exactly who.
ReplyDeleteHmm, an idea for fun encounter...
ReplyDeleteLarge dragon comes swooping into city, lands on town hall building, presses the above pictured shield through front doors and roars:
"Exxxplain Thissssss!!!"
St George and the Dragon indeed
ReplyDeleteMoscow's coat of arms is even cooler
http://tinyurl.com/38kjuox