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A lot of the art in books depict dragons in the sky or following trains. How common are dragons in Shadowrun? Would people freak out seeing a dragon flying between buildings in Seattle? I've seen official art with dragons in the sky of Neo-Tokyo and Berlin and I'm just curious to know if this is typical thing to describe to my players.

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Not very common, according to the Shadowrun wiki (emphasis mine):

Dracoforms are the various forms of large saurian creatures of tremendous intellect and magical power. What little we know of these great mythical beasts comes from the great dragon Dunkelzahn, whose famous 12-hour interview on January 27th, 2012 answered most of the world’s questions about dragons, the Awakening and magic in general. Dunkelzahn, however, was an enigma among dragons. Whereas most dragons are solitary creatures, more apt to see people and companies as ways to increase their wealth and/or power, the Big D was always in the public spotlight and led metahumanity through the dark years when magic first returned.

Also in the Runners' Companion it says:

Dragons are an influential and undeniable—if rare—part of the fabric of life in the Sixth World

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    \$\begingroup\$ "AMA: I am Dunkelzahn." \$\endgroup\$
    – starwed
    Commented Apr 25, 2014 at 21:52
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There are around 25 named dragons in Shadowrun, some of them dead. The important thing to remember about dragons is that many of them are corporate CEOs, for example

Lofwyr is the CEO of Saeder-Krupp.

Would people freak out if they saw a dragon flying around their city? Most likely yes. Dragons spend much of their time in human form and generally only appear in their normal guise when resting or dealing with issues. For general Shadowrun descriptions, I'd suggest pushing the cyberpunk angle hard and only bring in the supernatural creatures when it's needed.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ That's not much of a spoiler but thanks for the answer XD. I can see why seeing a dragon fly would be bad news since people know they exist but they also expect them to be rare and hiding most of the time. \$\endgroup\$
    – user4000
    Commented Jul 11, 2013 at 14:30
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    \$\begingroup\$ I agree with everything except the last sentence. Many of my games tend to hammer on the "Magic is back and changing the world" and bringing in the cyberpunk angle when needed. But then I like magic and that is just a matter of style. Dragons in particular are canonically rare, and great dragons are very rare. \$\endgroup\$
    – TimothyAWiseman
    Commented Jul 11, 2013 at 15:55
  • \$\begingroup\$ How is that a spoiler? It is common knowledge among children 6 years old the identity and species of SK's CEO. L is on Trideo every other day; given, not in his original form, but still.... \$\endgroup\$
    – Mindwin Remember Monica
    Commented Aug 5, 2017 at 22:37
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The 25 named dragons are most "Great Dragons". Figure about 10-40 "normal" dragons for each great dragon gives 250-1000 regular dragon so 275 to 1025 dragons total. I'd say closer to 300 than 1,000 though, since even regular dragons are going to be dying in the Shadowrun world.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Any source to support your estimations? \$\endgroup\$
    – user4000
    Commented Apr 25, 2014 at 12:13
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    \$\begingroup\$ Not really. I thought that the numbers sounded about right. \$\endgroup\$
    – Livemike
    Commented May 9, 2014 at 12:07
  • \$\begingroup\$ Not that the "lesser" dragons don't have names and enough mojo to burn your chromeheads to cinders. \$\endgroup\$
    – Mindwin Remember Monica
    Commented Aug 5, 2017 at 22:39

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