What are dragons like in your world?

"Dragons" in the world of Tanesh are avian, not reptilian. I'm not an artist by any definition of the term, so there are no drawings of them; but in my mind's eye they're heavily inspired by the bearded vulture, genus Gypaetus. They never stop growing from the day they "hatch" to the day they "burn" (more on this process below), reaching sizes of several dozen metres in height and wingspan, and vary in colour from deep, rust-hued browns and reds to vibrant, oceanic blues.

Dragons are the oldest of the corporeal races of Tanesh. While being corporeal means that they are technically mortal, their innate magical power makes them extremely difficult to injure, and a single individual can live for upwards of 10,000 years.

Dragons also use a unique form of propagation that predates the sexual reproduction used by the younger races for procreation. As a dragon nears the end of its life, they enter a phase referred to as "the Burn". Over the course of a few hundred years, they begin steadily shedding their feathers, and their bodies begin to shrivel and decay — a dragon in the final days of the Burn is a terrifying sight to behold, like a moving, speaking building sized corpse. Finally the dragon's body ignites, reducing it to an incredibly fine, immensely dense ash. Over another thousand years the innate aetherial nature of that ash causes it to condens on itself, eventually forming a jewel-like stone of impossible colour and clarity. This stone will eventually "hatch" into a new dragon, which while possessing the full memory of its predecessor (and those that came before it) has a distinct personality and mind of its own — while the memories themselves are passed on, the new dragon may or may not share the same feelings and thought processes associated with them.

Any of the materials generated during or remaining from the Burn are extremely powerful alchemical reagents. A single flake of Burnash has the power to destroy a building; a feather could level a whole city; and an entire Burnstone could wipe the Continent itself from the face of the planet. This is part of the reason dragons are so radically reclusive, to the point that they have passed to the realm of myth and legend amongst the younger races.

The Burn occurs whether the dragon's death was natural or otherwise. This makes properly, outright destroying a dragon in a manner that legitimately reduces their population all but impossible. The only being capable of killing a dragon once and for all is another dragon, which is exceedingly rare — not only because most dragons go hundreds of years without meeting another of their kind, but because conflict between them simply doesn't occur.

This is due to the aetherial connection between them, an aetherial "latticework" so to speak, that binds beings like the dragons to each other and to the powers beyond them as well (the other mortal races worship these powers as gods). While it doesn't serve as a group consciousness or hive mind, it does lead to a paraconscious connection between each member of the race, allowing for a a unique level of understanding that other races simply can't achieve. It also means that two dragons who have never met before would seem to interact as though they were old friends, or could begin a conversation for the first time as though they were simply continuing after an interruption.

As I mentioned, the younger races of Tanesh now consider dragons to be the stuff of myths and legends. To believe that they really exist is considered childish and fantastical, and often met with incredulity at best and condescending derision or outright ridicule at worst.

A little late to the party but excited to have found this magazine! Wanted to answer this prompt even if I'm 6 days late haha.

There are 2 types of dragons in my world Ventreth, which I usually just refer to as northern and southern dragons based on where they live. (There are also dragon people called dorac, but I don’t quite think they fit the prompt!)

Northern Dragons:

• Your classic European style massive 4 legged lizards with wings. Their scales come in every color imaginable, although certain colors are more common than others.

• They are sapient and can live for over 1000 years, but the vast majority aren’t especially smart. Occasionally though one is born with intelligence on par with humans.

• They have massive mana reserves, but struggle with advanced magic due to their lack of intelligence. They are all taught flight magic from a young age, but it relies heavily on brute forcing them into the sky and then controlling their descent with their wings.

• All northern dragons are born with celestial magic allowing them to see mana. This can both be used to detect living creatures and for seeing someone channeling mana into a spell, making them very strong in magic battles.

Southern Dragons:

• They normally live on a separate continent near the South Pole, but can sometimes be found vacationing in the southern parts of the main continent.
• They are inspired by East Asian dragons, so they are long and slender creatures without visible wings. They also come in any color just like northern dragons.
• While they have less mana than them, southern dragons are significantly smarter than the northern dragons. This lets them make much better use of their mana overall, so they are some of the most skilled magic users on the planet.

Really late reply, but hopefully still OK?

In my world, the dragons are huge robots that are used as war weapons against whatever's left of the world. They, along with every other Machine, are controlled by the HyperMatrix, the central AI that controls the entire species.
They resemble the classic European dragons, 4 legs, lizard-like, flying flamethrowers, but mechanical.
They are feared by humanity not only because of the obvious reasons, but because they are the most advanced unit of the entire species, capable of locating human settlements and disabling their already dated technology. Their sonic weapons also prove to be a challenge, as such attacks wipe entire bunkers in seconds with few ways of defending against.
They are also used as bombers, which helped the Machines to carpet bomb entire countries, and given their high maneuverability, anti-air defense weapons had seldom any success.
Even though they are controlled by the HyperMatrix, every Machine has it's own personality and identity. Dragons are highly intelligent, being great strategists and some even capable of having some understanding of the impossibly complex structure of the human mind and emotion center. Some dragons even developed emotion-like routines, that made them take a liking to humans, some even going as far as to rebel against the HyperMatrix, disconnecting from it.
However, few dragons exist on the present day, due to The Blackout, where in a revenge-fueled rage, William Von Ferdi, one of the leaders of the Mechanicus Jihad developed a virus capable of obliterating any and all electronic technology existing on Earth, which he then used to destroy the HyperMatrix and all it's Machines. Unfortunately, many of the rebelled dragons were also destroyed by the virus, and the few ones that survived were the ones that were isolated from everything else before the virus activated, as it's prime spread vector was the Peer-to-Peer network the Machines used to communicate. The survival of those dragons did piss William off, but given their helpfulness, he did restrain himself to not release a second and final wave of the virus.

Dragons in my world(s) are creatures of Creativity and Imagination, more primordial than anything else in creation.

The scriptures from the Followers of the Blind Idiot God rarely mention Dragons, and when they do it is about their presence. Outside scholars say this is because the Followers of the Blind Idiot God doesn't understand Dragons. How much truth it is in that is debated, often with ale and fisticuffs. Yet the nature of Dragons elude the Followers.

If one would encounter the nowadays elusive Dragonewts and ask them about the origins of Dragons they would gladly tell of the Draconic Creation myth (stolen this straight off from Glorantha because it is cool). They would say that before anything else there was Chaos, and in this empty void lay the Power of Disorder. Disorder stirred and within its stirrings an egg was formed. From it the Great Ancestor Dragon hatched. It then sat and meditated on the silent world, planning its growth. The Myth then continues on telling of how the Dragon drove off Chaos and thus creating the Darkness Rune from its feet. Rest of Creation were then created from the Dragon itself, it for example cut open its loins and Water was created. From its brain, existing both inside and outside Creation, came the Ancestral Dragons. They were the teachers of Deities teaching them about the Runes and Forms. After passing on their wisdom the Ancestral Dragons met up, mated and then disappeared. Their children were the Mythic Dragons with powers rivalling Deities. If they still exist they don't exist in Creation but it is said they live in God World. From the Mythic Dragons came the True Dragons who live in Creation. They are of a statue so immense it is almost unfathomable, their size makes them more like pieces of geography than creatures. Luckily they sleep. From their dreams come the Dream Dragons and are the kind of Dragon encountered, even if seldom. These are the kind of Dragons referred to when talking about Dragons.

It is impossible to say anything in general about the appearance or behaviour of True Dragons as they wake so seldom and doesn't communicate in any recorded way. Dream Dragons on the other hand tend to be serpentine or reptilian in appearance. With anything from zero to four pairs of legs and most have wings. It has been recorded that unwinged dragons do possess the ability to fly, but no accounts come from credible sources. Their behaviour vary wildly as it depends on the Dream they were created from. While they hunt and feed it doesn't appear to be necessary for their survival. Most current (reputable) scholars instead hold the theory they are nourished by the Dream from which they came from.

If/when I do sketches that include dragons, they're mostly the western type, and are just normal animals of a given world, but with human-like intelligence, limited magic abilities and often with a small population.
I also often include a serpentine dragon, akin to (iirc) the east dragon of Chinese myths. This dragon's origin is unknown, as well as being extremely old, the last of its species (although this dragon did have a few crossbreeds with other dragons, most of which are deceased, either by age or battles) and being the only known living dragon with vast magic abilities.
But those are sketches and I dunno if/when I'd make a story with them.