Dragon magic

(copy-pasting conversation for now)

ANZ: Dragon magic seemed to be executed through speech. Would that be accurate?

ME: Indeed it is. and while it is *magic* in the sense that it allows you to persuade stuff like rocks that wouldn't ordinarily understand speech, and that you can persuade things to do things that would ordinarily be impossible for them, it still requires the speaker to speak compellingly.

One uses the dragon tongue directly for inanimate objects or for beings who don't understand other languages you speak, but if (say) I was trying to use dragon-magic on someone in the party, it's more like... they'd hear me speaking the language we share but with an undercurrent of dragon tongue; the language they understand is partly an illusion. In general, it's really easy to persuade a sapient being to do something they're already able to do: "go open that door" takes barely a drop of magic if we speak the same tongue, but "go open that door" with no shared tongue, in dragon-speak directly, is more like a level 2 spell than level 0.

ANZ: I would think it would get harder to convince the more intelligent or willful something is. Maybe?

ME: Definitely, if what you want them to do conflicts with their will. If opening the door would somehow lead to the death of the character's beloved father, that gets way harder! Meanwhile, telling someone to sprout wings is way easier if they really really want it.