Uhh, Damien Knight, Nadja Davier, or any of the other CEOs of AAA megacorps? Art Dankwalther before he got a Thor Shot to the face? You're blowing things out of proportion to try to prove your point.


Just as ordinary people might! Crazy that dragons of the Sixth World don't just sit in their stony caves waiting for enterprising runners to show up looking for some karma!


I wanted to make this point last night but I forgot.

In the grand scheme of every time a dragon has swooped in and taken a bunch of land, there were a few factors working in their favor:

1. It was early into the Awakening and no one had the magical mastery that a multiple millenial dragon had at the time (Aden and Tehran, Amazonia)
2. They were celebrated cultural heroes (Ryumyo, Lung, Masaru [arguable])
3. No one wanted the damn land (Hestaby & Mt. Shasta)
4. They operated under guerilla tactics, striking out against a foe distracted by a decade long armstice between three nations.
5. They paid people for the destruction they caused and to encourage them to leave (Elioahn)

Now I realize that number 4 is a sticking point in a lot of people's craws. I accept it, but I can see where it would enrage other people.

Contrast this with all of the other times dragons have said "screw this" and gone apeshit - the dragon that downed that airline flight was held off by a magician for a good ten minutes (I'm pulling this out of memory, bear with me) and the other one got an orbital laser to the face (which grieviously hurt it). I'm at a loss to think of where direct dragon action has occurred that has required a military response - care to enlighten me?


They had to drop a Thor Shot on Art Dankwalther to get him to go away. This was a mortal man with money and vengeance on his mind. Saito required a heavy guerilla resistance co-ordinated through the Matrix and it didn't take til Crash 2.0 that SanFran was free of him. Deus got cacked from a combination of emp bombs, Maegera, and the machinations of Pax, Ronin, and Winternight.

The big players can be tackled, it just has to be relevant to the plot. Are we overdue for a big dragon death? I'd argue that Dunk was it, but I also realize that people didn't find that satisfying enough (heck, I ignore the Dragonheart Trilogy [lucious brown nipples]). Heck, you could even say that the Rite of Succession came close. If some author decided to bend to apparent "fan" pressure and popped a dragon off randomly, I'd be upset because it ruins what makes them cool - they are big damn reptiles with brains and smarts.


Seriously, you're going to have to explain this to me.

Honestly, if it weren't for the Dragonheart Trilogy, no one would be up in arms about this topic. Portfolio of a Dragon was great because it put fear into the Powers That Be, because someone took out Dunk and no one knew who. Then they had to go and ruin it with those damned novels.

Alledgedly built his fortune with the help of Big D.

Inherited her fortune from Big D.

Inherited his fortune from Big D.

What was your point again?

And anyway, it's a fact that Lofwyr is far richer than any of them: Saeder-Krupp is the largest AAA corp and he owns 100% of it. Comparatively Knight "only" owns a mere quarter of Ares.

Why should your sacred cow butcher my sacred cow?

What makes your fictional version of the shadowverse more right then the one I have?

Dire's got a point.

Traul: I was pulling names from memory, since I'm away from books. I'm sure I could name a whole bunch of people that earned their own fortunes. Heck, Damien's famous for the Nanosecond Buyout with Dunk, but he was a pretty shrewd businessman pre and post Dunk, so the point is moot and was part of Echo Mirage...

Off topic, but something that I think needs to be brought up is that there has been enough Mana Spikes and other Astral Dicking in the Sixth World, starting with The Great Ghost Dance (Which by-the-way, was designed by a half-Horror.) that not even the IEs and GDs know when the Horrors are coming to eat all of our souls, remember people the Bug Spirits showing up was one of the last signs that metahumanity had before the Scrouge in the Fourth World and they are already here in the Sixth.

Right however my original point is completely untouched by your incorrect assertion. You stated that dragons are only dominant in the field of magic which is completely false in thatthe richest being in the world is in fact Lowfyr. CEO of Sader-Krepp and Dragon. It's not just that the dragons are powerfull magic wise, but most of them also just happen to be superb physical combat machines, super mages, who also seem to secretly hold major stakes in the mega corps.

Even that however isn't my original point. In this game where since start we've seen change over among nations, megacorps, even immortal elves have we seen no deaths among dragon kind that wern't the direct result of another dragon's involvement. I don't want to see them all go away, hell I think their an important part of the setting and a very usefull convention. given the back drop of all the other big changes in the sixth world they are an aberration thei affect the modern world but are not affected by it. That strikes me as odd.

Ravenmuse:What's there to explain?

This is exactly the root of my "LALALA" sound.

It's true of course that Lofwyr is the most powerful and rich being in the world - both magically and materially, through S-K and being a giant damn lizard-with-wings. It's also true that aside from the brown nipples, the Dragonheart trilogy is a load of bunk that damned the one interesting twist they had that could have made the big damn lizards quail in fear (though I wonder, just how many people in-canon know about the events of that by now? That was thirteen years ago - what's happened since then, and who does the general populace blame for Dunk's death).
I think the kind of problems you're talking about are like Alamis surviving an orbital laser (pissed me off too), Ghostwalker invading Denver (Year of the Comet makes me want to punch something), and so on - it's perfectly viable in-game for a GM to kill off a great dragon offscreen or even ON-screen, and see what resutls - but in the canon world, the writers use the dragons as important plot devices - they weren't about to kill off Dumbledore, right (wait...)?
I figure that if we wait a few more years in-canon, perhaps an IE or another great may get blasted - Shadowrun tends to run in a vaguely cyclical fashion...

It isn't surprising that a dragon can become the CEO of a corporation in less then 30 years (it only took Bill Gates 10 years to gain the same level of control of a "megacorp".


It is hinted at in Dot6W that some Dragons were killed during the down time (granted none of them were Greats) and there are cases of some non-greats (sorry I don't have the reference) being killed by non-dragons as well. I think your wrong to think that dragon's are not effected by the modern world as much as the modern world was effected by them. The fact that there are dragons with datajacks, that some run corporations, and that one ran (and won) for president is evidence of a change in draco culture. For further evidence you should run Survival of the Fittest where the Greats get together to fight over Big D's hoard but they change the rules (something they never would have thought of doing in the old days) so that the most manipulative (rather then the strongest) would win the rights to what would happen to Big D's hoard. I won't spoil the ending but this campaign shows the effect the modern world has on the dragons, including GW who, at the time, had only just re-emerged.

For the record, Perianwyr's not a Great Dragon. He's a regular old adult dragon. And he had a really annoying habit of dying every time I ran or played through Mercurial

Peri is smart, Peri has a lot of resources, but there's also a reason Peri ended up in Denver, and there's a reason he stayed in Denver, and the Nightclub is only a small part of that. Kyle Morgan and Perianwyr did a lot of very bad things for Aztechnology over the years, and there are probably still people who wouldn't mind seeing him taken down for revenge. He serves Ghostwalker in exchange for protection

Now, seriously, everyone's bitching... But the fact is, Dragons are plot devices and story devices. As Dire points out a lot of fans like them as such, so they're not going away any time soon. But, since there's so much complaining about how powerful and badass and involved they are...

Seriously. Whens the last time a Dragon was a part of the metaplot? In 15 years, I can only think of maybe a half dozen times, and half of those were either mild or pretty self contained. And in the last 6 or 7 years? I don't think there's been much of anything since the Ghostwalker plotline. The damned IE's are getting more play than the dragons these days.

(Now there's something I'd like to see erased from the game. Damned IE's )

Bull

Right, it's one thing to build a company and get lucky, it's another that every dragon happens to secretly turn up as having bought into this or that AAA megacorp.

Also so what if Dragons were killed while they were sleeping, maybe some folks from Earthdawn care but all it means that some dragons who wern't part of the Shadowrun story never actually became part of it. The simple point I'm trying to make is in the Shadowrun story no dragon has ever been killed by a non-dragon. The closest I was able to find through some actualyl pretty exhausting research is one dragon who happened to be hot simed in to the east coast stock exchange may have bit it during the second crash. But even that they've obfuscated to a ridiculous level.

Again I will have to dive into my books when I have them in hand but I do recall that there was at least one dragon (if not more) where killed by a non-dragon (IIRC it was a dragon that went against either Azland or a Middle East country but my memory is really foggy on the specifics at the moment). No Great Dragon has been killed by a non-dragon (unless you consider that technically the bomb that killed Big D was planted by a non-dragon).

Dzitbalchen was a dragon killed by a non-dragon (Aztechnology/Aztlan).

But no, no Greats have been killed by a non-dragon, aside from ones killed during the down cycle. But not many Greats have been killed, period.

Actually, my statement should read as entirely neutral vis a vis Dragons. No dragons of any kind were mentioned. Only Sacred Cows. My Dragons could be Sacred Cows, or Immortal Elves, or both, or neither. Nevertheless, I am protective of my Sacred Cow. I want my Sacred Cow, not yours or anyone else's. You are perfectly free to have your own Sacred Cow, but please leave mine alone, whatever my Sacred Cow happens to be..

So how exactly do we know that no Great Dragon has been killed by anything other then other Great Dragons? Do we know them all personally? Are they so few we can account for and track and know every single one of them? Have there been examples of dragons we knew nothing about? Are we correct in our clinical assessment of the number of Great Dragons available? Back in the bad old days of 2010, the number of known Great Dragons was 0? Do the Great Dragons show up and check in with everyone so they can be counted? Do Great Dragons hold Open House so everyone can come in and check out there new neighbor? Is it in the interest of Great Dragons to have everyone know their exact numbers and where they can be found? Do the Great Dragons have a hidden and mysterious past they have kept secret? Do Great Dragons keep secrets? Does a Great Dragon even tell you their name?

You can only count what you know.

There's a whole universe out there you don't know and cannot count.

When the next Great Dragon reveals itself to you, are you just going to disbelieve?

So the Shadowruniverse story wasn't the one you would write, and there are elements of it you think are not what you think is reasonable. You know what? You are right! Now what? Do we go round up all those books and rewrite them? Really not much we can do about it. It's printed. I'm just going to have to console myself by writing my own story in my own shadowruniverse for my own fun and entertainment. Which is what it's all about anyway. My story. My story in the shadowruniverse is what's important. Not some stupid giant wyrm.

I'm not really sure I understand the point of those paragraphs, but we don't know that for certain. Not even the Great Dragons do. We do know that there are Fourth World Great Dragons that are unaccounted for and from a few obscure references, it seems that not even the other Greats are sure what became of them. Which means they may have been killed in down cycle hunting or they have not yet woken up or they are very good at hiding. Or a number of other possibilities.

I don't really want to know what happened to all the Great Dragons. I need some mystery. It's sexier that way.

Saying nothing kills Great Dragons except Great Dragons is one of those statements like saying the Sky is Blue. On the surface reasonable enough given the available information, but subject to some distinct problems when examined in depth. It's especially amusing when used as an absolute assumption about which you form your world view.

The fact that there is a person in the Shadowrun Universe called Dragonslayer, makes me believe that there is at least one (if not an organization based on his/her postings in the books) of people that are actively hunting dragons and that they are somewhat successful (as noted by some of the Great's comments to Dragonslayer). Weather this group has only killed non-greats and bellow, or if they were responsible for the death of some dragons (greats and non-greats) during the down cycle is yet to be seen.

It's unlikely, really. Look at the real world today. If the USA suddenly fell apart and there was no government of any kind, who would take over? Every other country gets a piece? No. Canada would take over, with some portions of the south going over to Mexico, and Hawaii would likely end up in Japanese (or other Pacific island nation) hands.

It'd work the same way with the greats: whoever has territory bordering the missing dragon gets a piece of the pie. How soon they find out about the death, their relative strength of their neighbors, and how fast they can "move in" starts to determine who gets the best deal.

If the largest, strongest, most powerful dragon around happens to be in a business meeting on the other side of the world at the time of death and doesn't hear about it until the next morning he can't do much. Oh sure, he'll trounce all over when he gets home, but in the end he'll end up with less than if he was home and heard about the death in minutes.

Likewise, if the weakest is at the scene when the one dies (i.e. foreknowledge of some kind) then he's already set up to move in, is already on the scene, and heard about the death first. They'd gain probably double or triple what they would have otherwise. Set up right, they could actually move from the bottom rung up to the top and start trouncing a neighbor who is still alive.

It doesn't just "settle down," you end up with a whole new power structure that will cause infighting for decades.



One, and he died in Crash 2.0, and he was also crazy.

Actually, Fluff once or twice mentions Dragons having been killed in the Downtime by obviously not magical beings. Read Baseline Humans without Cyber or Bio.

To DireRadiant: Honestly I don't know where to start with your while they border with lucidity their so unfocused and undirected I'm not sure who your addressing or what your point is. Are you high?

My points in easily addressable faction.
1. In the modern age no great dragon has died by means other then another great dragons involvement. Few Adult dragons have done so as well.
2. My desire is not that the GD's cease to exist. Nor is it that even a significant number of them be killed.
3. Great Dragons and ghost walker is likely the most recent and egregious example operate so more unilaterally they they should be able to given the conventions of the setting. This is supposedly a setting where the powers that be drop bombs on people from space who mess with them in public and open ways. Why that doesn't work on dragons is beyond me.
4. I also do not believe there's some magic dragon power equilibrium that needs to be maintained. Most of the GD's supposedly do not overtly control the world. Lowfyr and Big D. were huge exceptions on that score in that their movements were very much in the public eye. I will always believe that shadowrun's story is at it's best when it's the corps calling the shots, now dragons can sit on the boards of those corpse and so cann immortal evels, vampires and anyone else, but it's not like GD plots are essential to the setting.
5. If a GD had been killed in the modern age by another power we would have been told about it in an out of character scope. It would have been the subject of a book or adventure splat or something. But guess what not even a mention of that has come up. The only notation of unaccounted for GD's has been in the context of the down cycle deaths.
6. Last but not least, and this seems to be a running theme with me. This is a shadowrun themed message board, why are people always so mystified when people want to discuss disagrements with the canon material? Why is the comment always. "Well it's int he books what are you going to do about it" it's the most tired and pedantic argument of all as it doesn't actually say anything.


My ideal scenario for the resolution of this concern: Previously undiscussed GD wakes up, goes on a rampage as they are sometimes prone to do upon waking up. Nearby nation or corporate power brings weapons to bear and kills it. Mad scramble and adventure hooks to claim it's hoard and the fallout from killing suhc a creature. GM's rejoice as they now have hooks that they can either use or not use. Could certainly be the subject of a ghost cartels or dusk style splat.

You mean, like, what happened with Fire Wing?

Okay, let's try and see if we can do this a little more peacefully.

Imagine that Great Dragons are basically megacelebrities, the scope of say, Bono, Madonna, Bill Gates, Al Gore, Oprah, or Johnny Carson. People who aren't just famous celebrities, but icons; serious movers and shakers on the world stage.

They've become famous through all sorts of deeds. Two are famous musicians. One's a entrepeneur. One's a comedian. One invented the internet. One rose through the ranks of reporting to become a definitive voice in female empowerment. But they're not just that - they've got their hands in all sorts of pies. Many of them are activists. Many of them dip their toes into the business, fashion, or entertainment industries. They're not just known for one thing.

But they're also constantly watched. Bono makes a trip home to see the folks, bam, front page news. Madonna almost passes out on stage, there's several articles written about stage fatigue, what her doctor said, what she was drinking, and whether or not she did Kaballah the hour before the show.

So what does this all have to do with Great Dragons? Well, let me ask you something: have any of these people personally touched your life? And not just in the "I agree with Al Gore about global warming!" or "Oprah taught me to love myself!"; I'm saying, have any of these people directly caused you benefit or harm? Directly? No?

So why would a citizen of the Sixth World even care what this Great or that Great is doing? They're too busy making sure that they have soybeef on the table for the kids to eat. Sure, they'll read the articles and kvetch about them, but only someone crazy is going to say, "hey, that dragon sure is fsking things up! Time to gather up some missles and tanks and guns and take him out!" People like that? They're rare and few between. We're talking like, Mark David Chapman level of crazy.

Would the government, megacorps, random hate groups, et al like to get rid of them? More so than most celebrities nowadays (har har) but at this point, there's no real reason to. Everyone's entered a sort of cold war peace between each other - if any of them, government, megacorp, dragon, immortal elf - made a move, everyone would swoop down on top of one another in the desperate hope to take them out.

I think I had a point in here.

You answer first.

I disagree with your basic assumptions, and therefore arrive at different conclusions.
You cannot change what has already been written about Shadowrun.
You make the conclusion that what's written is the entirety of the cases.
While there is not a single written case of a GD being killed by a non GD, this does not fact mean that it hasn't happened.
Why do you need an explicit case to be written into Canon? What will this accomplish for you? What is so compelling about your vision of Canon that your must be included? How does it rate next to Bull's desire to get rid of Immortal Elves?

It is in extremely within the paranoid shadow genre that PCs could and may in fact encounter and even kill a GD. It's also within the Genre that no one may ever find out or know about it. It happened in the Shadows. Given the nature of the game, it would be in fact a perfectly desirable outcome for the PC's to kill a GD and get away with it. It naturally follows that one scenario is for no one to find out about it. I don't expect that my groups SR Team adventure killing a GD needs to get into Canon.

What will including a case of a GD being killed by mortals in the Canon of the game accomplish for me? Frankly nothing. It is perfectly within the realm of the shadowrun genre and canon universe that a shadowrun team might kill a GD and it wouldn't even get on the news. The dragon carcass might not be found till the next awakening.

And yet some people, myself included, have no problems with how the GDs are at present. So why should the canon change? I already keep what I want and discard what I don't when I GM. If you don't like the way the GDs are currently presented, then change it for your campaign.

Stone sober, mores the pity


1. Are you using you as to refer to me personally or you to refer to everyone? In either case this is essentially false as it can be accomplished via several means A) future actions (new events changing the context of what was previously expected) B) Retcon past events or statements are re-interpreted throught he lense of history or "clarified". Many events in shadowrun are delivered through a first person past imperfect lense. C) Any GM has the right to change events to better suit the story they are telling can do as they see fit. Rule zero and all that, having said that rule zero doesn't excuse or make better a somewhat glaring inconsistency in my eyes.
2. Past experience, we as the consumer see a lot of events from a third person narrative, if such an event were to be revealed to have happened tommorow there would have been no forewarning or foreshadowing of such an event occuring. It would be simply put bad writing. Our third person perspective hasn't even had ripples that a GD has been killed in the modern age aside from those mentioned. Given the level of import given to these chaacters in the third person visible narrative that seems unrealistic.
3. Because the whole premise of shadowrun is that overt direct single entity actions get you killed. This rule does not seem to apply to great dragons which skews the basic premise of the setting. Ghost walker waltzing into Denver and laying down terms to the other powers isn't very well in keeping with previous material.
4. How does my personal annoyance rate next to Bull's desire for wholesale immortal elf extinction? Rather low impact actually. IE"s don't dictate terms to military powers on the battlefield. IE's have been killed in the past and are in fact quite kill-able based on prior setting materials. I don't think there's a good analogy between the two quests to be honest.


Again you confuse a desire for PC equality with my desire for world uniformity. I want the setting to be internally consistant. In my opinion GD's right now are not


So if a tree falls in the woods and no one hears does anyone care? No certainly not, but if no trees are able to be felled in the forest someone will certainly care. I find myself in this situation.

Back when I was a writer, killing a Great Dragon was never off the table. But we weren't going to do it just for the sake of doing it, there had to be a really good story for it. Same with killing Immortal Elves. Hell, there were/are authors who would love to kill one off, but until they have a good reason to do that in the storyline, it won't happen.

Sure, you could do a "someone kills a Great Dragon and lots of adventure hooks ensue" storyline, but that sounds pretty much like Portfolio of a Dragon, the Sequel. I don't think that pitch would get any traction among the devs because it's not original enough at this point.

The Great Dragons are plot devices, their survival or demise in the canon happens to suit the storyline. Unfortunately, sometimes those stories aren't very well handled.

You exaggerate. Ghostwalker fits your description but I don't see how dragons as a whole do. Not many of them go around overtly challenging national powers. In fact, most Great Dragons are quite subtle and utilize deniable assets as well as the corporations do. Ghostwalker seemed to be an exception to this idea and that's why I don't like that storyline, but I think you're taking an example of a misused plot device and stretching it to make your point.

I personally think Big D was just as bad as Ghostwalker, hell, for that matter the fluff surrounding Lowfer strikes me as being over the top as well, not that I have a problem with a wyrm controling a mega, but you seldom hear as much bad-ass fluff about the mere humans that control various corps...

Perhaps I am, however Ghostwalker draws a lot of flak from me for being A) Recent B) Denver? Seirously Denver? C) The second (or maybe third?) of this sort of event happening the previous iteration being Tehran

It's great when Dragons move in machivelian circles through intermediaries utilizing their wealth, long world view, and intellect to get things done. It's not so great when they go toe to toe unilaterally with world powers. Hell at least when Aden razed Tehran they didn't stick around to leer over the conference table afterwords. That might be surmised as a bad idea.

The Great Dragons are pretty over-the-top. They are Great Dragons, after all. Unlike your average human, most of them have been alive for thousands of years and the most important event in remembered human history, the Awakening, is a rerun to them.

I agree with you there. I have never liked how Ghostwalker's reappearance was handled, I just don't think it reflects a huge issue with Great Dragons as plot devices. I don't really have a problem with Aden razing Tehran because it's a wholly different situation: it was much earlier in the Sixth World, against a power that wasn't heavily using magic because it was against their fundamentalist view, and Aden didn't stick around to draw counter-fire.

To be fair Damian Knight and Hitomi Shiwase approach, it's actually a shame more isn't done with the latter.

Sure, but you could say the same thing about the various Free Spirits, and they aren't so overplayed that people become hateful towards them.

I concur with your take as well. As long as most Dragon appearances going forward arn't in the style of Tehran or Denver I'll be much happier. I still beleive that given that backdrop the pendulum could stand to go the other way hence this thread.

I'll admit I wouldn't mind seeing DIVE and the dragon hunters behind them (from Loose Alliances) get a bit more prominent.

Buttercup the free Spirit?
Hitomi, wasn't she bit by a vampire, but got saved by the ell by something the corporation cooked up and got changed into an otaku?

Sure powerful Free Spirits are out there, but they don't strike up the same fever pitch that Dragons and IEs do, despite having the same theorical power levels. Personally I think this is because the devs have overdone the former two to the point where you almost expect to see one everytime you kick over a rock. Plot Devices get old fast when they are overdone.

<grin>

For the record, I have a lot more fun talking about wanting to kill of Harley and bitching about the IE's than I ever would actually getting to kill one off. Hell, I've never actually even attempted to come up with a storyline that involves killing Harley (or any other). It's just fun to grump about 'em.

Afterall, this is ZEE INTERNET, the place where you can bitch and whine about anything and there will always be someone that will agre with all yout bitching and whining.

And 10 people who will jump in to disagree with you.

For my part, I'd kill off half the great dragons and immortal elves and refocus the game more on megacorporations and weird-o nation-states like Amazonia and Aztlan. And bugs, definitely BUGS, but that ship has probably sailed...

I never understood why people are so caught up in a metaplot. It is your world and do with it what you will. Dragons are best used as a shadowy background figure everyone knows about, but no one ever sees. The stats make them tough to kill, but when you put a full burst of 20mm cannon into one it is going down. That is part of the reason I like shadowrun. No one is invincible. The trick is getting to them more than actually killing them once you get there.

How do dragons do well? Well they usually have spells and spirits. Combine that with the ability to shapechange and usually a host of intermediaries and you have a formidable opponent. You don't live thousands of years without being a bit paranoid. As for great dragons we don't hear about one that appears and is promptly killed. The news might report a large dragon was killed by a wing of interceptors. "Major Janovich describes the beast as huge, but after several missiles were launched in its direction it was taken down with few issues. And on sports news..." This probably happened a lot and only the known ones learned quickly enough what modern weaponry could do.

Ok I don't have the time to read the whole thread, so I'll just give my opinion on the point raised so far (that i've actualy read of):

Dragons can be killed, great dragons can be killed too but they are much harder to kill.

Dragons are NOT stupid, they employ any means at their disposal to ensure their own survival (they use metahuman own society as a shield).

Dragons have lost much of their kind due to some people hunting them while the were hybernated; they are keenly aware of the risk that this implies and try to avoid useless dangers (conflicting egos not withstanding).

In the previous age of magic dragons ruled (where they could) thanks to the fact that they were the toughtest motherf.... hmm badasses on the planet (they were dragons and metahumans had swords and bows), in the sixth world the dragons rule throught politics as they still are the thoughtest things that breathes on the planet, but metahumans have tanks, assault cannons, gantling guns (some of which shoot assult cannon rounds), lasers, gauss cannons, nukes, advanced comunication system, orbital shit, weaponized nanites, biological and chemical weapons, etc.; metahumans have the meaning to get rid of any one dragons if their realy are willing to do so, and are perfectly able to go on by their own buisness ignoring them if the dragons's activities don't interfere with them, the only way for dragons to stay at the top of the hip is to play by metahuman rules, because they can rule metahumanity only if metahumanity let them (metahumanity is a divided thing but it can get over its division if pissed off enough).

Dragon have at least as much to gain by playing at our rules as they have to lose trying to bully us in submission, maybe even more.

As for Aden flattening Tehran, I don't think that the defenders had more than obsolete ordenance and fighter jet, with the small army of spirit that Aden had with him/her/whatever it's no wonder that the result was the hanilation of the defenders; and for Ghostwalker taking over Denver as it has been pointed out the Azzies were caught flat footed, than he did some hit and run tactic to show the muscles and the real work have been the deal cut with the other members of the council (Ghostwalker hit the Azzies but it has been the action of the CAS forces that kicked them out) and that was brockered by the Draco Foundation.

For the point that Damien Knight couldn't spare the resources for taking down Perrianwyr, he controls a AAA corp, do you know how many pies he has his fingers in? And Perry was under the shield of the Azzies (at least before defecting in favor of uncle Ghosty).

My take is that dragons should be much more about intrigue and Xanatos Gambits, and if the runners ever come to see the snouts something have gone realy wrong.

Because nothing is more dangerous than being hit in the head by a space poop.
Sorry, I couldn't let this one miss.

I do recall a dragon being killed in a module from SR2. I don't remember which one but I think it was Bottled Demon.

I do remember each time I ran this module for people, they opted to kill the dragon in it because the amount of firepower required to kill it was only slightly more than what was required to drive it off.

Free spirits seem to be coming back in a big way in flavor. Last Gen Con I think my lowly 40 karma character ran into at least a half a dozen...things keep going like this they will BECOME the new dragons.

Also, my view on Dragons is much like my view on the rest of the Shadowrun universe. It is in there to show how mundane and magic accomplish the same goals through different means. If you want to kill someone, use a gun or a stun bolt. If you want to be pretty be a pronomancer or get cosmetic surgery. If you want to be a furry, take some SURGE or get those terrifying enhancement in Augmentation.

And if you want to rule the world, be a Mega or a Great Dragon. Very few megas are taken down in the fluff too...and when they are, its usually by other megas.

Good point, yet people seem more wiling to accept HUGE multinational corporations (with the power to BUY nations (and don't)), but they can't accept a dragon that can't take over the world with a twitch of his/her finger.

Reason for this: People in realiity already have a conspiracy theorist-style outlook towards companies of any significant size and power. The expansion of such power would lead to only more suspicion, therefore immense companies ACTUALLY buying nations (why the fuck would a company want a nation? It's against the profit motive. By sheer economics, Aztechnology + Aztlan doesn't work...) is just a normal transition into a future universe. The dragon is just kind of a break-point where they go "No, no more..."

I do so enjoy when folks state they havn't had time to read and then presume to come in and set us all straight. All your point is completely invalidated by Denver and Tehran anyone who makes noise about "outdated military hardware" really doesn't understand how significant military hardware, even "outdated" stuff would be. It wasn't just that Ghostwalker kicked the Azzies, one of the most siginifigant corps from a magical standpoint, it's that he was able to dictate terms to the other treaty powers essentially having them set up to defend his fiefdom.

As to why people have a problem with Dragons as opposed to Megas, it's because dragons are singular entities and Corp are million strong organizations engaging a wide variety of people of varying talents and levels of expertise. But historically even in our own world corporations have and do wield enormous amounts of power. Shadowrun is corporate powers (mostly) without the fetters of regulation.