megabloksdragons

[megabloksdragons]

Five years after its death, the Mega Bloks Dragons Archive has finally reached the stage at which a dead blog becomes host to promotions for its creator’s newer projects.  I’m sorry I never finished the Archive, but I hope those of you who followed it will consider reading the Elemental Dragons webcomic which I have been working on for the past year.  Follow it on that blog or on my DeviantArt account at https://www.deviantart.com/drakontarachne/.

Coming October 1st, 2021…

[megabloksdragons]

You all should know

that I will probably never update this blog again, as I have essentially left Tumblr.  I’m sorry.  I just couldn’t take the stress of being on this website anymore.  I happened to log in again today due to very specific circumstances, and I noticed that several of you had sent this blog enthusiastic messages, and I felt like you all at least deserved the courtesy of an upfront confirmation of the blog’s probable death.

It was my intention to move the archive to another url with a different person in control of it (see below), but they have not updated in a long time.

[megabloksdragons]

2 Draigar Castle prototypes!

Something a little obscure and interesting is this Draigar Castle prototype.

For starters, the Norvagien dragon it comes with is somewhat different, with a lighter, more earth tone shade of green and bearing the Draigar krystal from the original series. And speaking of dragons, the Vorgan dragon, (Nogard) looks more than somewhat different, completely so. It has horns sticking from its head, that almost remind me of Stendahl from Metal ages, and its fur is different, more brown than black-grey. Apart from that, its fists look uncanny and weird.The new Draigar were obviously not created yet, seeing as instead they are substituted with Warfang, Valtheran, and a classic Draigar I can see up there in the left corner. The Vorgans are the most interesting part of this prototype. Their heads look very different, and it appears their torsos weren't ready yet; as you can see, they have Warfang and Valtheran torsos. But if you looked into it, maybe you can theorize the original idea for the Vorgans were mutated Valtheran and Warfang soldiers, but I find that unlikely. In addition to different heads, they have diffewrent weapons. One seems to be an axe, which I reckon wasn't followed through on because it would infringe on the Valtherans' copyright on exclusively axe-themed weapons. (This rule would be completely undone by later series) Apart from that, there seems to be some kind of arch peice on the side, that seem to resemble what the two half-arch torch pieces would be if they were fully connected.

Onto the next prototype!

This one is obviously very much closer to the set we all know today. The first thing to note is that the Norvegian seem to be much brighter in hue. Another is the prototype Vorgans, which seem to have more effort put into them than the finalized Vorgans (although I prefer the finalized ones) On the box, you can see the Nogard's design has improved and now more closely resembles the finalized version. But another interesting thing is the blue two headed dragon tucked away in the background, which very closely resembles the dragon previously seen on this very archive at one point. Also dull things to note are that the Norvegian brandish Warfang weapons, possibly because their official weapons weren't ready, and that a giant ballista is sitting upon the left tower, which did not make its way into the final design. But on closer inspection, the most interesting thing about the model on top are the classic Draigar and Valtheran flags resting atop the structure. I would assume this means that the Draigar have not forgotten their roots, and aren't ashamed of them. But why were the Warfang left out? It would have made more sense to have a Valtheran and Warfang flag. Were the Valtherans preffered over Warfang? Is there some kind of Warfang prejudice amongst the ranks of the Draigar? Or maybe, just maybe, the wear ended with the Valtheran overpowering the Warfang, and they were pressured into becoming the Draigar, and thus is seen as predomininantly Valtheran? It is a prototype, though, but that is a very consious decision on their part to NOT include a Warfang flag. Speaking of which, the new Draigar flag on the right side has a Warfang-style pole, while the flag on the left side of the castle has a Valtheran pole. Does this defuse the idea of Warfang submission in the ranks or not? I suppose it's a mystery. 

[megabloksdragons]

The archive is moving

to themegabloksdragonsarchive.tumblr.com.  From now on it will be in the hands of the capable @thegreatgodofmineworld, whose knowledge of Mega Bloks Dragons exceeds my own.

@s-farabari @talmire @mr-meseeks-2die @egyptiandeathgod @portal-redirect @hufflpuffin @catalysticrising @wickedjo-ofthe-west @thefingerpaintingutahraptor @ask-drakos @supeyninjazora19 @theload

[megabloksdragons]

Hmmm, so they do.  But...the official name of that set is “Earth Ghost Dragon”.  The dragon is undead, and I always assumed that the warriors in the elementals sets were too, raised as servants by the dragon.  Even if they’re living Vorgans who just happen to have glowing, ghostly weapons and shields, the set can hardly be held to depict an ordinary relationship between dragon and man(-beast).

...Of course, the Plasma line would later establish that there are definitely living dragons (such as Tailtorn) who ally with the Vorgans.  So there’s that.

Still, I stand by my theory regarding the aesthetic reasons behind the nogards’ existence.

@thegreatgodofmineworld

[megabloksdragons]

9873 Vorgan Attack

This set includes two Vorgans, a Krystal for them to covet or possess, and a small wall to provide scenery (but no actual protection).  It does not include anyone for the Vorgans to attack, despite the set’s name.  However, none of that will be the focus of this review.  What you and I care about is the inclusion of the second entirely new dragon mold reviewed on this blog!  Well, sort of.  The Vorgans’ monstrous companion is not exactly a dragon…

While the Draigar and Norvagen bring actual dragons into battle alongside them (whether these are equal allies or slaves to the humans is unclear at this point in history, though later canon establishes the former as the norm), the Vorgans fight alongside creatures which, though possessed of wings and fiery breath, do not seem to be dragons at all.  Descriptions of sets refer to these animals as “beasts” or “monsters”.  The Fire and Ice movie charmingly calls them “nogards”.  I have encountered no reason to believe that this term exists outside of the movie’s canon, but it certainly seems appropriate to call the Vorgans’ monstrous companions “dragon” backwards, as they are essentially bizarre parodies of dragonkind (in the best possible way).

Much as a Vorgan resembles a nonhumanoid monster contorted into a humanoid form, a nogard looks like an utterly undraconic being contorted into the form of a modern fantasy dragon.  It has four legs, a tail, a pair of membranous wings, and lots of pointy teeth, so it should look like a dragon, right?  Yet somehow it doesn’t—not even slightly.  It is not sinuous and serpentine like a dragon, but squat and compact, even round.  Its lumpy head looks like what someone who has never seen a reptile would call “reptilian”.  It has two kinds of dentition: tusks that might be compared to an elephant’s or boar’s and blunt, almost human teeth spaced so closely together that they could almost be mistaken for a fused ridge of bone—neither remotely similar to a dragon’s lovely varanid teeth.  Its limbs are not remotely reptilian, and its feet and hands almost look simian with their swollen joints; they are tipped with rounded hooves, not draconic talons.  Its stiff, stubby tail is the precise opposite of a dragon’s ophidian one, and is tipped with a concave pincer rather than a dragon’s convex tail-spade.  Its wings, while membranous, resemble no wing that has ever existed on Earth or in draconic art—with their shrunken size and rectangular shape, it is difficult to believe they actually allow flight.  To top it off, the nogard is covered not in scales but in leathery skin, with the exception of a row of bony plates across its head—dull and rugose, unlike a classic dragon’s gleaming armor—and a mane of plainly mammalian hair.

In short, the nogard, despite being modeled after a dragon, could not possibly be less dragon-like, and I am quite convinced that this was entirely deliberate.  It is to a dragon what a Vorgan is to a human.  Whether a product of convergent evolution or magical manipulation, the nogard couldn’t fulfill its role better.  As usual, the Mega Bloks Dragons creature designers get it exactly right.

In another sense, I suppose the Vorgans sort of demand an entirely invented creature to fight by their side in place of dragons.  The Norvagen and Draigar are based, however loosely, on real-life human cultures (the Vikings and a mixture of England and the Far East, respectively).  Therefore, they ally with dragons, which are based, however loosely, on entities from those cultures’ real-life mythology.  But orcs have no place in any real-life mythology.  They originated with Tolkien and have been mutated by fantasy gaming into something entirely new and different.  Because of that, it would feel jarring somehow to have dragons be an integral part of their culture, so instead, they have the nogards, who are just as new and artificial as they are.  The Vorgan shield depicts a nogard skull rather than a dragon face as all the humans’ shields do.  Wherever the Vorgans come from, there are surely no dragons there, nor anything else that would be familiar to us.  That place operates by different rules than the lands humans inhabit.

This nogard’s name is Rot.  With his coloration, he even sort of looks like a rotting corpse.  Like all nogards, he wears leather bands around his wrists.  Are these manacles to restrain him, or jewelry as worn by many of the dragons?  My guess would be the latter, given that they are not attached to anything else.

I’ve realized that I should really be including the names of the warriors who appear in these sets.  So these guys are, from left to right, Balkhangal, Larggar, and Volumog.

[megabloksdragons]

9867 Vorgan War Chest

The Vorgans are, as you can see, orcs.  Everything else about them follows directly from that premise: they are large, green, monstrous, and prone to raiding human communities, wielding Stone Age weapons, building oddly advanced yet still somehow “primitive”-looking contraptions, and slouching.  Some sort of wall is included in the set alongside them.

Somewhat distressingly, none of them appear to be wearing any kind of lower body covering.

Their helmets are decorated with what appear to be actual horns taken from the corpses of animals, and unlike the helmets of the other peoples, these feature no face-obscuring visors.  The Vorgans are the only faction that is consistently treated as villainous, yet because they are also the only ones to reveal their faces to the audience, they come across as oddly more sympathetic.  We can see each Vorgan’s individual face (and the Mega Bloks designers, ever attentive to detail, have made sure that they are all unique) and appreciate him as an individual; we can only appreciate the humans’ uniquely designed helmets.  Admittedly, as Orc-Sympathizer-In-Chief, I am biased.

I said him just now, and I’m quite sure that the set designers intended all the Vorgans to be male, but now that I think about it, there’s no particular reason why that should have to be the case.  I doubt Vorgans have human-like sexual dimorphism or a human-like conception of gender.  These orcs could belong to any gender.  Heck, they could all be female and reproduce by parthenogenesis!  Who knows?  The reader of this blog may find that the amount of distress they experience in reaction to the Vorgans’ lack of lower body coverings either increases or decreases when they contemplate this hypothesis.

[megabloksdragons]

9865 Norvagen War Chest

Here’s the second War Chest and our first taste of the Mega Bloks Dragons designers’ really incredible ability to provide a sense of cultural difference and depth through visuals alone.  Really, looking at these characters, you could never doubt that they came from a completely different culture from the Draigar of the previous set, and that both peoples had long histories and rich traditions.

Anyway, these guys are the Norvagen (i.e. “norse vikings”), described as seafaring marauders from the north.  Their armor is a lovely blue-green color (how they get it that way is a mystery to me) and their helmets are decorated with antlers.  Their masks have rather animalistic quality, perhaps intended to frighten enemies, unlike the mostly functionalist visors of the Draigar.  Also unlike the Draigar, who wield axes and clubs primarily and seem never to have invented the sword, the Norvagen carry sabers into battle, as well as great wooden shields displaying a dragon with a closed mouth.  In addition to the warriors and their weapons, the set includes a canoe (essential equipment for seafaring raiders) and a wooden wall with a wide window.

[megabloksdragons]

9866 Draigar War Chest

Like the 2002 line, Krystal Wars included for each of its human factions a small “War Chest” set featuring three warriors, some weapons for them to wield, and a bit of architecture to set the scene.  I will begin with the Chest for the faction with which we are already familiar from the 2002 line: the Draigar.  The box art for 9866 Draigar War Chest depicts the warriors charging toward the audience, brandishing their weapons, unlike the original War Chests, which showed their minifigures lined up in a row and unarmed.

The Draigar of the Krystal Wars period resemble those of the 2002 line in most respects.  They have the same body and head molds found in the 2002 line, and their armor is still bronze.  Their helmets’ ornamentation, however, is now silver in color.  Does that have any implications about a possible dominance of Valtheran culture in the Draigar society?  Probably not.  However, there’s something else that might: the Draigar dragon insignia seems to be identical to the Valtheran dragon insignia.  I don’t think I’ve mentioned that before on this blog.

The architecture of the Draigar is unchanged from the old days in form but greatly changed in another aspect: color!  While the standard Valtheran outward-jutting parapets remain gray, the walls of the castle are bright vermillion and the omnipresent Warfang-Valtheran draconic figure is plated with bronze.  I am going to assume that Padraig, after establishing peace and unifying the two peoples, poured money into public works to make the cities of the Draigar more glorious than ever before.

[megabloksdragons]

9878 Ultimate Battle

“Hey, wait just a second there, William,” I hear you say.  “I thought you said the Krystal Wars theme didn’t have any Warfang or Valtheran in it.  But there are Warfang and Valtheran warriors right there on the box art of this set!”  Yeah, well, I don’t get it either.  For some reason, the developers decided to release a set depicting a battle between the Warfang and Valtheran as part of the Krystal Wars theme.  It included 30 minifigures of Warfang and Valtheran warriors as well as all 5 dragons of the original line:  Torchwing, Cra(i)gfire, Rockscorcher, Talonblaze, and Stoneburner.  As far as I am aware, there is nothing else (e.g. setting elements) in the set besides the minifigures and dragons.

Next time, I’ll promise we’ll have a Krystal Wars set that actually deals with the Krystal Wars storyline.

[megabloksdragons]

The official website’s page for the Krystal Wars theme.

[megabloksdragons]

In 2003, the second subtheme of Mega Bloks Dragons, entitled Krystal Wars, was released.  Its premise was that an unspecified amount of time after the unification of the Warfang and Valtheran under the Draigar banner, two new humanoid factions migrated into the Draigar realm: the viking-like Norvagen and the orc-like Vorgans.  These two groups, the Draigar, and the remaining dragons began to fight amongst each other for control of magical Krystals.  What relation these Krystals have to the “magic stones” of the 2002 line is uncertain, though I have been assuming that those are Krystals, too; in any case, I am fairly certain that this is the first time the term “Krystal” was used in the franchise.  Two new dragon models were introduced to the toyline in this theme.

[megabloksdragons]

Recently, I've been looking into mega bloks dragons to try to get back a bit of childhood nostalgia, and I stumbled upon this blog. Is it possible for me to see pictures of the website, or even play the games that were on it? It would mean a lot to me. If you can give me an answer on how, I could dig through boxes in my attic and take pictures of the sets I have, including instructions. I know I have a lot, just not what exactly I have.

I only just found out how to find the site myself!  Here are @thegreatgodofmineworld​‘s instructions for finding it on the internet wayback machine:

The way to get to the site is this; you go to the wbm and go to megabloks.com/dragons, probably around 2005. You go to “dragons toys” then look at the paragraph and click on “dragons” when it is underlined, and it takes you to this page. There are pages just like this on every series until Plasma, I think.

[megabloksdragons]

A very strange oddity from the Mega Bloks Dragons pseudo-“franchise”… an envelope? I have no idea what this is about or where you would acquire it, but I found it on Ebay, never saw it before and decided it deserved to be archived. My guess is that the enevelope was given away for free to spread awareness of the Dragons line, obviously since you were supposed to send it to your friend and it has an advertisement on the back showing every set.

The back says “contains 5 pieces; for ages 8+” There are obviously pieces in here. My guess is that it would be something like Padraig, a golden spear, and some other random piece like a stand or something. The envelope in the listing is sealed so it is a mystery. I can find nothing else about it.

This is pretty cool, honestly, but there is little to say about it. Next thing

Thanks for the submission.  It’s always interesting to see little bits of history like this.  Posts on Krystal Wars will begin sometime within the next couple weeks.

[megabloksdragons]

This is the webpage for the 2002 mega bloks dragons website. It gives a little bit of insight into the series, but not too much. The theory of the Warfang and Valtheran’s armor may have been debunked by this page, seeing as it describes their armor as “copper-hued” and “silver armor” Although it may be invalid evidence as seen later on.

It says about three times that dragons draw power from the krystals, interestingly enough. It does not explain how or what the powers are though. It also comments that dragons can only be rode by those with great courage and skill, which to me (objectively speaking) blurs if they are actually owned by them or not (which I still think they are)

What is the most interesting is the obviously not up to date descriptions of the sets.

It describes warriors fortress as the battle for control of the warriors fortress, in which the victor will gain the mask of ultimate power. The battle continues at Sorcerer’s lair. it mentions that not only does Sorcerer’s lair come with Yulmar, but it is the Valtheran stronghold, which judging by the actual set is very hard to believe. It says the set contains Cragfire instead of Stoneburner. It says sorcerer’s lair comes with hidden weapons, as opposed to a staff. It also says that battle gate contains a golden sword, which it does not, remember. (Swords were once a taboo in the dragons line, the first real sword was in fire and ice) and also it says it comes with Torchwing as opposed to Talonblaze. It says that the set dragonslayer has Stoneburner and a catapult, which is wrong because the final version comes with Torchwing and a crossbow. I am absolutely confused at how the stakes for each battle get unashamedly smaller as well as the scope and size each time, like they tried to make it that way. The very first battle is over the magical helmet of “ultimate power”, mind you, and the last is over a simple dragonstone, which is also involved with all the other battles anyway. Why did they do that? 

Of course, through all the ludicrous factual errors in this page, it can be concluded that this does not describe the final version of the sets (I actually have pictures for prototype sets from a later point that support this) and thus this page cannot be trusted fully. But it’s interesting and definitely worth archiving anyway.

I found this page using the internet wayback machine, which is a fabulous tool.

Excellent stuff!  Honestly, I think you’d do a better job of running this blog than I do.

How did you find the MBD website on the wayback machine?

[megabloksdragons]

And with that, I do believe we’re done with the original 2002 line!  Next time, we’ll be talking about Krystal Wars, the Dragons line’s second subtheme, which came out in 2003.  For now, I’ll leave you with the standard 2002 instruction booklet back cover, featuring images of all four major playsets and urging you to “Collect Them All!” and arrange them as a single scene as depicted in the center of the page.

[megabloksdragons]

9850 Dragon Battle

Oops, almost forgot this one!  9850 Dragon Battle is pretty simple: it consists of the copper-scaled dragon Darkwraith and a party of four Draigar warriors:  Ironspear, Alldread, Bitterwind, and Ravenstomb.  Hmmm, I wonder if the metallic coloration of the dragons featured in the Draigar sets of 2002 could have some in-universe significance?  Perhaps especially important dragons have metallic scales, and the Draigar, who are now making war on the dragons outright, have decided to target them specifically.