Dragons

Dragons (ドラゴン, Doragon), are a living race of creatures that appears in the Tales of RWBY series created by Monty Oum and Kōsuke Fujishima. They are extremely powerful and intelligent creatures that only spiritual species would transform into if they are taken over and exposed to the overabundance of malevolence.

Regularly, they can't be purified like Daemons and Monsters so there is no other way to turn a dragon back to its original form, unless someone kills them. The Shepherds who would have a degree of experience in purifying a dragon requiring with the help of the Squires. However, the effort would almost kill them.

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 * —About Dragons.

Anatomy and Design
Dragons are creatures with reptilian appearance, thus manifesting claws, scale skin, often wings, sharp teeth and long or thick tails. Many creatures fall into the dragon category even if not directly resembling one. This accounts for many regular lizard creatures without wings, general winged-lizards and also some humanoid beings with draconic abilities or limbs. Dragons are four-legged, varying between standing or crawling positions, size, whether they can use spiritual or magic artes, and affinity. Dragons like any other members of any race, can have a good, bad or neutral alignment, as seen with all races—an example being Symonne, a malak, creatures of which are almost always aligned with goodness and grace for protecting people, especially the Lord of the Lands.

Description
When a seraph or a malak is exposed to malevolence due to the lacking of a pure vessel, they turn into a Drake (ドラゴンパピー, Doragonpapī; literally meaning "dragon puppy"}, which, if exposed constantly to malevolence, may evolve into a fully-fledged dragon. Drakes are invisible to humans lacking enough resonance, manifesting for them as a raging tornado for example, but a dragon is visible to anyone regardless of their spiritual aptitude. Drakes and dragons alike appear as four-legged, winged lizards able to use magic artes. A dragon's sighting is considered to be an ill omen. The Silver Flame is unable to purify dragons, requiring them to be killed to stop their rampage. Since malevolence can also be absorbed by the Shepherd for purification, no Shepherd is able to purify a dragon. This rule holds true until Sorey, who proves that there simply was no Shepherd capable of purifying a dragon, and he proceeds to do so with the help of his Squires, Rose and Alisha Diphda, though the effort almost kills them.

According to the malak Zui Fuu, who resides in The Heavenly Steppes, the existence of dragons is the result of a curse that was imposed upon Remnant, those who left the heavenly realm to live side by side with the living species, by the spirits and malakhim who remained in the heavenly realm to ensure that coexistence would never happen.

Allies

 * Maotelus

Past
Innominat is depicted in a children's book as an eight-headed serpent, a creature similar to a dragon. The shrine in which he lies dormant also appears to host it, both facts hinting that Innominat's true form is an eight-headed serpent.

Zaveid's lover, Theodora, turned into a dragon after they took orphans under their care and were affected by the malevolence they generated due to their horrible experiences. Hexen Isle is also the location of the Abbey's ultimate plans, where dragons are caged there to endlessly generate malevolence, thus providing Innominant with the food to remain active and continuously suppress humanity's free will.