Basic Trope: Dragons that, for one reason or another, wear non-integrated armor.
- Straight: Dracones wears a suit of chainmail armor.
- Exaggerated: Dracones' apparent size is almost entirely armor.
- Downplayed: Dracones wears a few pieces of armor, such as a helmet and leggings.
- Justified:
- Dracones' body isn't naturally durable enough, thus he seeks out armor.
- Dracones' enemies have developed weapons specifically designed to pierce dragon scales, thus he requires the additional protection his armour provides to defend himself against them.
- Inverted: Sentient suit of armor worms its way into a dragon's body, puppeteering the corpse.
- Subverted:
- Dracones appears to wear armor, but he's actually a Metal Dragon.
- There's nothing under the armour.
- Double Subverted:
- Dracone may be made of metal, but the outer layers are armor and not part of his body.
- There's nothing under the armour except a really, really tiny dragon puppeteering it with magic.
- Parodied: Dracones wears a ridiculously gaudy, gem encrusted, golden armor; forged out of a fraction of all the treasures he has accumulated in his Dragon Hoard.
- Zig Zagged:
- Dracones appears to wear armor, but he's actually a Metal Dragon. He does however possess armor when things get tough, yet he's never seen wearing it. Dracones finally dons his armor to fight an Elder Thing, and yet...
- Dracones has a full-body suit of armor, but hasn't worn it in over 150 years, ever since the invention of the bolt-action rifle and then the machine gun and the flak cannon rendered it obsolete... until an enterprising inventor introduces him to the idea of a modular flak jacket made with steel, ceramics, and kevlar.
- Averted: Dragons do not wear armor, their scales being good enough.
- Enforced: "We need to show that Dracones is indeed a true warrior. What if we give him armor?"
- Lampshaded: "Why do you even wear armor? Your underbelly too soft or something?"
- Invoked: Dracones, wanting to establish himself as a warrior, wears a suit of armor.
- Exploited: The Dragonslayers incorporate magnetic tools and/or spells to their arsenal, so they can impair Dracones' movements.
- Defied:Dracones: Feeble blacksmith... You dare question my strength!? I need no armor as long as I have my everlasting scales!"
- Discussed:Alice: Why does Dracones need armor? He's a very strong dragon, so I don't get it! It seems really redundant.
Bob: Well, dragons do have some weaknesses. Most likely, he's just covering them up. - Conversed: "Dragons are these giant, powerful creatures. Wearing armor just undercuts that fact." "Actually I think it shows the true intelligence of dragons, as there'll always be something that could kill you."
- Implied: The wounds in Dracones' body resemble more the fragmenting of armor than the puncture of flesh, though he's never seen putting on or taking off armor.
- Deconstructed: Dracones isn't able to fly as effectively when armored, and is rather slow with it on. Thus its easy to get away from and trap him.
- Reconstructed:
- Though Dracones isn't as mobile when armored, he is still terrifyingly strong and only dons armor when flight isn't needed for his battles.
- Dracones has Powered Armor with a propulsion system that more than compensates for any natural mobility he loses and/or enough extra firepower to make it hard to get close even if he's standing still.
- Played For Laughs: Dracones, a massive and terrifying male dragon, goes around wearing an overtly garish and extremely feminine armor which no one (yes, buddies and foes alike) ever takes seriously; no matter how useful/powerful the darned thing might be.
- Played For Drama: Dracones, a ruthless engine of destruction, wears a variety of armor which results in innocent dragons being attacked due to misunderstandings.
- Played For Horror: Dracones would gladly go without armor, but he needs it just to survive in the blasted trench-war hellscape of a Fantasy Counterpart World War One, with a gas mask, a military chem-suit, and a magically-reinforced steel helmet plus body armor being the baseline requirement to live for more than one day - even for a dragon.
Back to Armored Dragons.
