Part Alternate History scenario and part The Legend of Spyro fanfiction, Dragons Unite
is the name for a saga of fanworks written by various authors and all taking place in an alternate version of Earth where sapient dragons live alongside humans, and where the events of the 20th Century took a very different path as a result.
The main arc of the series takes place shortly after the events of The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon, focusing on Spyro and Cynder joining the household of the draconic ruler of Avalar — Ddraigtanto, a former military dragon Offered the Crown after the death of the original ruling family — and learning that Malefor's influence still lingers in a rival kingdom to the north named Sekeolath, which Cynder discovers she has family ties to...
In addition to this, there many side stories and shorts that focus on different time periods or countries and the characters who inhabit them — most prominently, Danthe Jarnhud, a famous warrior queen from Sekeolath — leading to there being lots of characters alongside more familiar canonical dragons from the games.
Much lore and many of the works are currently being rewritten in order to bring them up to the standard of the present stories, so some of the below tropes may no longer apply at the time of writing.
This saga as a whole provides examples of:
- All Genes Are Codominant: Dragon scale colours and horn shapes seem to blend together pretty well.
- All There in the Manual: Or rather, the extensive collection of facts and concepts, stored away in various notes and comments between the main producers, which still need a proper manual to go to
- Alternate History: The point of deviation is, depending on how you see it, in the Mesozoic era (draconic species first evolved), around 4000 BC (modern western dragons were created in a magical experiment), 400 AD (nation of Avalar founded), or the 1910s (World War I ends in a stalemate, reshaping national borders beyond recognition).
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Given that a form of Heaven exists in canon, dead people do this in general, and High Spirits in particular.
- Author Avatar: Ddraig originated as this, but her character was revamped with time to make her an Original Character. Despite this,
the main author still uses Ddraig's name as his alias. - Big Fancy House:
- Many of the characters are nobles, and therefore live in palaces. A number of them have been remade in digital lego.
- The Groenvlerck estate started as an aversion, being very small and humble for a family of dragons, but later generations expanded it significantly.
- Clingy MacGuffin: There are several examples, as this is a common trait of cursed items in the world:
- Ddraig falls foul of this when he puts on a golden choker, it spawns more jewellery and turns Ddraig female, each piece fuses into solid rings around the body, and won't budge.
- The same technically goes for Mari, though the technicalities of her curse are different.
- Ixen is given a cursed torc which is stuck to his neck and drains him of his strength and elements. Attempting to remove it causes every single nerve in his body to flare up as if they're in terrible agony.
- Selena in her Oz Crack Fic is 'given' the ruby slippers, much to her mortification. The shoes are magically stuck to her hind paws no matter what she tries to get them off. She briefly attempts to get others to help her, but this leads to some painful results to those who try.
- Nexus' collar in Lost Memories. The buckles which hold it on are magically fastened too tight to undo, and the collar tightens even more every time he does something his master (nightshade) doesn't like. Eventually, his master uses the collar to directly take control of Nexus' body, much to his fright.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Dragons Unite and Love and Life contain a number of plot points or character traits that don't appear in future stories, some of which even create Plot Holes. They're scheduled for a rewrite as a result.
- Elemental Powers: There's eight general elements a Western dragon may be born with (and two special ones). The Asian variety has only their own magic most similar to the Water element in the West, but much more powerful.
- Fantastic Racism: Historically, Eastern vs Western dragons, but a bit underlighted in the story.
- Fat and Proud: Historically a general dragon trait, derived from when a size authenticated a powerful ruler. Also a trait that the three fattest characters in the series all share, although in different ways: Murchad, Ilse, Nicola (in the former two in a prestige way, in the latter one in a sexual way).
- Gender Bender: A few examples.
- In the main story, Ddraig ends up being turned female via a cursed bit of jewelry, and many years later, her own son Alexander Jr. comes out as transgender and becomes "Alexandria".
- In one of the prequel stories, Roman dragon Marianus is turned female by his family after being caught in a homosexual relationship with another dragon.
- In a side story, the evil dragon witch Hiska's psychological issues started when she was turned from male to female while still in the egg.
- Hereditary Curse: Ixen, the founder of Clan Ixeniejir, was captured by human mercenaries who had a wizard place him under a spell that would make him stronger and more aggressive, and he ended up passed this on to all his male descendants and their offspring. As of Unus Ad Alterum, however, the curse appears to have been inadvertently halted, as all of Ixen's living descendants are either female or infertile.
- Massive Numbered Siblings: When you've got a fertile period lasting hundreds of years, and can have hatchlings every two (with twins being relatively common), it is no surprise some mothers go on this path.
- Nicola boasts eight hatchlings, and would have had more had her husband cooperated.
- Ten or more kids is the norm in the Hagizussa witch clan.
- Matriarchy: A form. Traditional gender roles exist for both genders, and may be used to suppress either one. The females are traditionally the rulers, and inheritance is matrilineal, but participation in military combat is out of the question for them.
- Men Are the Expendable Gender: The males fight, the females govern.
- Our Dragons Are Different: There's a couple hundred million of the beasts, who are as intelligent as people, have opposable thumbs, stand about 2.3 metres tall and 4 metres long, live for hundreds of years, have wings (except for the Asian variety) and magical elements (except for the Asian variety) and a varying amount of non-elemental magic, and make up 99.99% of the character count in the average story.
- Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Female dragons are taller than males, with longer limbs, necks and tails. The males however are built more bulky.
- United Europe: As a result of King Gether's unscrupulous diplomacy during the Cold War, followed by some lucky strokes for his successor Ddraigtanto, most of Western Europe is united under the Avalarian banners.
