Elder Dragon "Mutations"--why?

Based off of Glint and her kids, the standard dragon anatomy seems to be about what you'd expect--four legs, two batlike wings, ect. However, all the elder dragons we have seen so far do not look like typical dragons--some less so than others.Kralkatorric seems to be the most classical "dragonlike" dragon. His skin and his purple glowing throat are unique, but the shape of his body is that of a typical dragon. Zhaitan and Mordremoth, on the other hand, were extremely "mutated" and looked nothing like typical dragons at all. Zhaitan with all his extra body parts and Moredremoth--a snakelike being whose body is a literal root system stretching across the continent. It's hard to say where Primordus stands because we've only seen the top of his head.If dragons are born more like Aurene or Glint, then I think it must be the massive amount of magic they absorb over time that "mutates" their bodies. My question, then, is as follows. What determines the level of mutation a dragon undergoes? Why is Kralkatorric more traditionally "dragon like," whereas Mordremoth is a giant root system? And to what extent can dragons control their physical form as they grow into Elder Dragons?

Mordremoth had Jungle Plant Magic so most of his body besides his neck and most of his head(there is bark on his face) becoming roots is unsurprising(I have no doubt there are wings somewhere in the jungle since his roots take the form of feet in the Heart of Thorns Trailer). Zhaitan is a mass of Death Magic and thus would absorb as many corpses to accommodate his decaying body. Kralkatorrik has no reason to gain or lose wings so he remains with two despite them and the rest of his body being a massive crystal storm.

I think it's more down to artists interpretation than anything else. I don't think the Elder Dragons were meant to be organic beings that we can understand - they're primordial forces of nature. Glint and her Scions wanted to be understood, and therefore took on a more acceptable appearance.

At least, that's how I like to think of it.

You're assuming that there is a species-level relationship between Dragons and Elder Dragons. AFAIK there is no confirmation of such a thing, especially not regular dragons "growing" into Elder Dragons?

For all we know, Elder Dragons are dragons in name only (they seem to be more akin to magical elementals than dragons).

We know that dragons in Tyria can come in many different shapes. The fact that the Elder Dragons also have different shapes doesn't automatically mean that they've been transformed... although that does seem a good bet in Zhaitan's case. The Mouth of Mordremoth and Kralkatorrik, though, could be relatively the same shape they had as junior dragons.

Mordremoth has control over the shape of his body. He is most likely a wingless serpent because the jungle has incredibly dense foliage. We don't know if the other ED have similar control.

We actually know very little about the Elder Dragons. We know their names and that there's 6 of them. We know they periodically wake up, absorb huge amounts of magic and then go back to sleep, and then the magic leaks out of them starting the cycle over again. We know that they create armies of minions to help them collect magic and that they and their minions 'corrupt' the land around them, making it more hospitable for them and less so for everything else.

But we don't know how many times they've been through this cycle (at least once before), how old they are, how long they can live, where they came from, if there used to be more of them and if so what happened to the others, or pretty much anything about their life cycle.

We don't even know for sure where Aurene and Vlast came from. When we first see Glint in GW1 she has a clutch of crystal eggs, but we don't know if she mated with another dragon and then laid them or if she created them in the same sort of way as Primordus creates the destroyers - using magic to shape them out of inanimate material. If there was a father we don't know if that was Kralkatorrik or someone else.

In a lot of ways the 'true dragons' (aka not things like saltspray dragons and drakes) seem more like elementals than organic living things. Asking why they don't look like each other could be like asking why an ice elemental doesn't look like an air elemental - they're created from different magic and it takes different shapes. (Actually I have no idea what the reason is, but that seems likely.)

Alternatively its possible they all used to look much the same but their magic corrupted them in the same way it does everything else - Kralkatorrik got turned into crystal, Primordus turned into rock, Jormag into ice, Mordremoth into vines and...well, we don't know what the Deep Sea Dragon looks like.

With Zhaitan it's even more complicated because he's undead. We know a fair bit about necromancy in Tyria and one thing we know is the end result does not have to look anything like the it did when it was alive. The Risen Abominations for example, which we know are created by sewing together multiple corpses (not even necessarily the same species) and then giving life to the whole mess.

If you look carefully Zhaitan appears to be made of lots of dragons, or parts of dragons, stuck together. The whole of his neck is made of heads, and he's got all those smaller heads coming out of his mouth, and of course several tails and pairs of wings. It's entirely possible that he's a construct created out of many different corpses of "normal" dragons, and maybe even some other creatures too.

Alternatively it could be that there's 6 different species of Elder Dragons and they've evolved to suit different environments. In real life the hippopotamuses closest living relatives (besides the pygmy hippo) are the whales and dolphins, so closely related species looking different isn't a big stretch.

Or they could all be constructs created by some higher power, who was experimenting with different themes each time. Or they could be using illusion magic to make themselves look like whatever they think looks cool and scary and actually they all look like basking sharks. Or...well, anyway, my point is we don't know why they look the way they do any more than we know why they're driven to absorb all the magic and kill almost everything in the process.

I hope we get to find out one day though.

Danikat summarized it pretty well: we just don't know much about the Elder Dragons. Most of what we have learned about them, aside from their name and original location, has been through study, experimentation and a bit of luck on our side. Professor Gorr figured out they were eating magic, and we used that to starve Zhaitan of magic. We needed sylvari help to realize Mordremoth's strengths and weaknesses, and we paid a terrible price in our attempt to assault the jungle. Almorra was lucky when the Brand passed over her warband and she somehow survived; if pressed, I bet she couldn't even tell you how it happened. All we really know of Jormag is that he has a massive tooth in Hoelbrak, one that is probably 10 norn tall (which is pretty big, considering they're about 9 feet tall each). As we start to deal with the dragons, and the imbalance that we started to notice now that a couple of them have been killed, perhaps we will learn more about how they got to be as they are. Perhaps they originally volunteered to keep the balance of magic, but something went wrong, the magic got corrupted, and they each decided they wanted to Conquer The World! (Of course!) Only time will tell what exactly the EDs are, and why they look so different from standard dragon appearances.

@Oglaf.1074 said:You're assuming that there is a species-level relationship between Dragons and Elder Dragons. AFAIK there is no confirmation of such a thing, especially not regular dragons "growing" into Elder Dragons?

For all we know, Elder Dragons are dragons in name only (they seem to be more akin to magical elementals than dragons).

Well, Glint is called the scion of Kralkatorrik. So there's a relationship right there. And it's heavily hinted that lesser dragons can become Elder Dragons.