Dragon from Record of Lodoss War

One question that comes up a lot for fantasy in general is what dragons eat.  You would think meat and you’d be right.  The question really stems from wondering how a creature so massive can exist without wiping out an ecosystem.  I’ve seen responses about very slow metabolisms to make meals last longer, eating lava, and other interesting concepts.  Now it’s my turn to explain the diets of the Windemere dragons and I’ll be starting off with the easy ones.

Weapon Dragons

These are the evil beasts that mysteriously appeared in Windemere and decompose or explode if their corpses are disturbed.  They are occasionally called ‘Fake Dragons’ because they’re constructs.  The Fortune family builds them from cultivated or stolen dragon parts and machines.  So they ‘eat’ oil and consume victims that are not digested so much as left to rot in their non-functional stomachs.  Now there have been one or two that were more creature than machine and they fed off corpses.  Not that I have a future story where this comes into play or anything.  🙂

Drite

Everyone’s favorite tiny dragon makes this answer obvious.  Fizzle eats fruit and cookies, but he can eat bugs if he feels like it.  Drites are omnivores in harsh times even though they prefer fruit.

Natural Dragons

Here is the one where a true explanation is needed.  These creatures will eat meat, fruit, vegetables, and whatever else they have a hankering for.  Yet, this nourishment is supplemental and more common when they have babies to feed.  The real meal comes from Windemere itself.  Dragons are magical creatures that constantly absorb the ambient aura of the world.  There is no risk of them having too much, but if there is ever a time where magic is lost then they could die out.

Now, each dragon does have a method of getting extra aura by eating something from their environment.  This happens when they are sick, need more magic for breeding, or the area is having an aura drought:

• Sirynian Dragons- Glacial dragons eat pure ice found on the underside of floes.
• Aquestar Dragons- Desert dragons that eat wet sand and they’ll do this as a snack too.
• Verenstone Dragons- Volcanic dragons that eat lava and heat.
• Darkvawn Dragons- Jungle dragons that eat leaves and certain jungle vines.
• Kelynmire Dragons- Swamp dragons that drink clean water.

That’s the diet of Windemere dragons.  Not as complicated as one would think, but it does show how potent the magic of the world is.  After all, it can sustain such large and powerful beasts without weakening.