Are the Dragon Masters and the Black Knights the Same Faction?

[John Cromwell]

Hello, my name is John Cromwell, the former Earl of Wolf. I have finally become a member or Eurobricks, after lurking for quite a while. 

For my first topic post, I wanted to share my opinion of the long-going dispute of whether the Black Knights and the Dragon Masters are the same.  Now, as a huge Black Knights fan, I am going to be biased. There, you were warned!

Are the Black Knights and the Dragon Masters the same faction? I have to answer that question with a "No, they are not", and here is why:

The main reason (to my knowledge) why people claim the Black Knights and Dragon Masters are one and the same faction is the similarities in their shields:

Dragon Masters:  And the Black Knights: Both use the same print of a wyvren  and both use similar colors: the Masters using green, red, and yellow, and the Knights using blue, red and yellow.

However, the Dragon Masters use a red outline and the Black Knights use a blue, the same primary color of their dragon.

That's basically where the similarities end. The Black Knights have been shown to attack the Dragon Masters and vice versa in official Lego catalogs such as here:

And here:

So... I'm not sure why the Dragon Masters and the Black Knights would attack each other if they were on the same team? Also, If you take a closer look at the top of the second image, the symbols for the two factions are different not just in color but in design as well.

This also brings up something else. The Dragon Masters received 3 completely new torso designs and a new helm to boot:  and the new helmet:

I can understand the claim that both are the same faction if the Dragon Masters just re-used the chainmail, breastplate printings, and the visored helm of the Black Knights, but they didn't.

Besides, the first catalogs states: "Here ye, Here ye, The Dragon Masters have arrived! Led by Majisto the Wizard and his glow-in-the-dark wand, they control the fierce flying dragons. Can the powerful Black Knights and the cunning Wolfpack stop their reign?"

Now, I'm open to the idea that the Dragon Master's soldiers and 'generals' (the guys with the ostentatious helm and plumes) are disgruntled Black Knights who were fed up with a boring job or low wages and were found by Majisto and offered a job, but I don't like the fact that some people just combine the two and pretend they are one faction.

My conclusion: Lego was just being lazy and re-used the same shield print with different colors. But I will never equip my Black Knights with DM shields.

I'd love to see other people's opinions and why they think the factions are the same.

 

P.S. If you read that whole article, thanks for listening to the mad rant of a Lego Classic Castle fan!

[zoth33]

I don't think they are the same faction as lego has made similar looking factions that are not the same faction in the past. I think the fact that they have different helms and builds show that they are different factions.  Also the fact that the dragon masters are led by a wizard.  I don't have many of my dragon master torso's left.  I liked both factions and still have some of both.  Although they are on custom figs now.  

[Eggyslav]

In my headcanon, Dragon Masters were the successors of Black Knights, hence the similar coat of arms. And the ghost of Black Monarch Castle is Black Monarch himself, who died and left a power vacuum, which was filled by Majisto and his Dragons. As of Dragon Masters and Black Knights fighting eachother, well those are renegade Black Knights, who revolted against Majisto's rule, they kept their old faction's name and heraldry.

[John Cromwell]

10 hours ago, zoth33 said:

I don't think they are the same faction as lego has made similar looking factions that are not the same faction in the past. I think the fact that they have different helms and builds show that they are different factions.  Also the fact that the dragon masters are led by a wizard.  I don't have many of my dragon master torso's left.  I liked both factions and still have some of both.  Although they are on custom figs now.  

Yeah, that is my thinking as well. 

 

5 hours ago, Eggyslav said:

In my headcanon, Dragon Masters were the successors of Black Knights, hence the similar coat of arms. And the ghost of Black Monarch Castle is Black Monarch himself, who died and left a power vacuum, which was filled by Majisto and his Dragons. As of Dragon Masters and Black Knights fighting eachother, well those are renegade Black Knights, who revolted against Majisto's rule, they kept their old faction's name and heraldry.

Well, that's were I disagree. I say that the power vacuum was filled by the Black Monarch's son, the guy with the white plumes in 6086 Black Knight's Castle, which, one an interesting side note, is the only Black Knight with the visored helm to not have a mustache. Further evidence he is the late king's young son.  Maybe I didn't make it clear in my first post, but I think that the Dragon Master's soldiers and 'generals'  could have been disgruntled Black Knights who were fed up with a boring job or low wages and were found by Majisto and offered a job, which explains the similarities in the shields. Becoming Majisto's loyal cronies, they would have no problem attacking their former brethren. And... in the second poster it clearly shows the new young king of the Black Knights leading an army to dislodge Majisto, but they failed.

That's my opinion.

 

[jtooker]

Wonderful essay, @John Cromwell.  I appreciate your well cited arguments.  You've certainly convinced me that TLG treated them as different factions and I agree that "Lego was just being lazy and re-used the same shield print with different colors."  Dragon Masters are my favorite LEGO faction (of any theme) and I enjoyed your post.

"In my headcanon, Dragon Masters were the successors of Black Knights" - @Eggyslav  I like this idea, though @John Cromwell response is also well reasoned - they both seems like they are in the same wheelhouse.

18 hours ago, John Cromwell said:

But I will never equip my Black Knights with DM shields

This is something I've pondered in my head and have mostly settled on the idea that it is ok to equip Black Knights with Dragon Masters together if I'm not trying to represent the official LEGO factions.  If I were doing a true Dragon Masters or Black Knights build, I would keep those parts separate.  In Guilds of Historica, I'm slowly working towards a contingent of soldiers that defend a region.  They will use both DM and BK shields/flags/etc. but will also have different arm colors (no blues).  They are definitely not Dragon Master or Black Knights but rather citizens of this part of the world who fly under a dragon banner.  I'm hoping to make some good progress for the CCC XVIII and will have some MOCs posted in the next couple months.

[John Cromwell]

10 hours ago, jtooker said:

Wonderful essay, @John Cromwell.  I appreciate your well cited arguments.  You've certainly convinced me that TLG treated them as different factions and I agree that "Lego was just being lazy and re-used the same shield print with different colors."  Dragon Masters are my favorite LEGO faction (of any theme) and I enjoyed your post.

Thank you. I appreciate the feedback!

 

10 hours ago, jtooker said:

This is something I've pondered in my head and have mostly settled on the idea that it is ok to equip Black Knights with Dragon Masters together if I'm not trying to represent the official LEGO factions.  If I were doing a true Dragon Masters or Black Knights build, I would keep those parts separate.  In Guilds of Historica, I'm slowly working towards a contingent of soldiers that defend a region.  They will use both DM and BK shields/flags/etc. but will also have different arm colors (no blues).  They are definitely not Dragon Master or Black Knights but rather citizens of this part of the world who fly under a dragon banner.  I'm hoping to make some good progress for the CCC XVIII and will have some MOCs posted in the next couple months.

Yeah, I like that idea, they complement each other nicely. See, my problem is that TLG never gave the Black Knights a torso strictly their own, they instead just used the generic chainmail and breastplate printings. For my humble little collection of Black Knights, I went through all the different designs Lego gave them and picked my favorite color scheme for what I thought would fill that roll best. I'll post a picture of them once I can get a picture with a smaller file size.

 

Edited November 25, 2020 by John Cromwell

[valon]

they are definatly not the same faction

[John Cromwell]

31 minutes ago, valon said:

they are definatly not the same faction

My sentiment exactly!

[BlackGloveBricks]

Would love to read either an official, or fan-made history of all LEGO Castle factions and how they relate to each other historically, inherently, chronologically, etc...!

[Aanchir]

As a kid, while the similarity of their heraldry was immediately noticeable, I never really thought of them as the same faction. Even looking back at them today, the color schemes, types of build, and armor/helmets associated with them are different enough that even when they show up side by side like on the catalog pages in the first post, the differences stand out more to me than the similarities.

I don't have any really vivid memories of what interpretations or headcanons I might've developed to explain those similarities, since the only Black Knights figures or parts I really had to use in MOCs or play scenarios back then were ones my parents got in yard sale lots (I would've been a little too young to collect those sets when they were "brand new").

But it's not as though different factions/subthemes using the same logo or variations on the same logo was all that unusual at the time. I remember that I typically thought of Classic Space and Futuron as earlier and later versions of the same faction, sort of like the relationship between "Star Trek: The Original Series" and "Star Trek: The Next Generation". Whereas I think I always tended to envision Imperial Soldiers and Imperial Guards as separate military divisions within the same faction, though I since learned that many other builders prefer to treat the "redcoats" and "bluecoats" as the navies of two different colonial powers. The Forestmen and Dark Forest subthemes also used the same heraldry on their shields, and in that case I HAVE generally interpreted both of those subthemes as one faction, even back when the Dark Forest sets first came out.

In the case of Black Knights and Dragon Masters, I'm kind of drawn towards the idea those two factions being led by members of the same noble bloodline, and the dragon insignia representing their family's coat of arms. That not only feels plausible within the context of medieval societies, but also like the sort of story I would have enjoyed telling with my LEGO figures back then, even if I can't quite remember if I ever actually told that kind of story with these factions in particular. After all, "these two similar-looking figures are actually siblings/distant relatives/father and son!" is definitely a narrative element that I remember using more than once in my play sessions back then, such as with Majisto and a green-robed wizard I built from a Forestman minifig, a spare wizard beard, and a green wizard hat from a FreeStyle set.

 

Also, since I don't think it's been mentioned yet: there ARE instances where LEGO did used the Black Knights' blue dragon heraldry and the Dragon Masters' green dragon heraldry for Dragon Masters minifigures, such as 6079 Dark Forest Fortress. But I wouldn't necessarily take that as evidence that the designers thought of those two subthemes as one single faction. It's quite possible that it was more of a "retcon" due to wanting to use two differently-shaped shields for the Dragon Masters minifigs in that set, despite only one shape being available with green dragon heraldry.

Since that set came out in 1996, it's also possible that the designers felt the Black Knights were an old enough faction that reusing their prints on another faction would not create any confusion for the current generation of kids. Sort of like how a lot of minifig headgear or torso patterns that were originally designed for a specific character or category of sets (like the flame-patterned helmets from the Extreme Team sets) later ended up getting reused as "generic" patterns once the character or category they were originally created for was no longer current.

[John Cromwell]

On 1/1/2021 at 3:20 PM, BlackGloveBricks said:

Would love to read either an official, or fan-made history of all LEGO Castle factions and how they relate to each other historically, inherently, chronologically, etc...!

That would be cool! I have kind of done that in my own headcanon, as you can see if you read the descriptions on my various Flickr posts.

I might just have to make up my own 'story' for Classic Castle, complete with a hand-drawn map(which I have done in the past).

 

First of all, thanks @Aanchir for the lengthy post! I like reading other people's thoughts on the matter, and yours is well-written and enjoyable to read!

33 minutes ago, Aanchir said:

But it's not as though different factions/subthemes using the same logo or variations on the same logo was all that unusual at the time. I remember that I typically thought of Classic Space and Futuron as earlier and later versions of the same faction, sort of like the relationship between "Star Trek: The Original Series" and "Star Trek: The Next Generation". Whereas I think I always tended to envision Imperial Soldiers and Imperial Guards as separate military divisions within the same faction, though I since learned that many other builders prefer to treat the "redcoats" and "bluecoats" as the navies of two different colonial powers. The Forestmen and Dark Forest subthemes also used the same heraldry on their shields, and in that case I HAVE generally interpreted both of those subthemes as one faction, even back when the Dark Forest sets first came out.

Concerning Classic Space and Futuron, as well as the Forestmen and Dark Forest, I completely agree, but with the classic red and bluecoats (ignoring the 2009 and 2016 reboots, respectively) I do think they are two different colonial powers. Historically, many countries used extremely similar uniforms in that period of time, and it also helps create more enemies for the swashbuckling freebooters!  

47 minutes ago, Aanchir said:

In the case of Black Knights and Dragon Masters, I'm kind of drawn towards the idea those two factions being led by members of the same noble bloodline, and the dragon insignia representing their family's coat of arms.

That's a splendid idea! But, there must have been a feud between Majisto and the Black Monarch sometime in their past, since they battle each other in the Lego catalogs and commercials.

 

49 minutes ago, Aanchir said:

Also, since I don't think it's been mentioned yet: there ARE instances where LEGO did used the Black Knights' blue dragon heraldry and the Dragon Masters' green dragon heraldry for Dragon Masters minifigures, such as 6079 Dark Forest Fortress. But I wouldn't necessarily take that as evidence that the designers thought of those two subthemes as one single faction. It's quite possible that it was more of a "retcon" due to wanting to use two differently-shaped shields for the Dragon Masters minifigs in that set, despite only one shape being available with green dragon heraldry.

In that specific instant, I just think Lego screwed up, since there is also a Dragon Master minifigure included in 6078 Royal Drawbridge, yet he has a Black Knights shield. So, I think one of the designers at Lego just mixed up the shields and 6078 became a set before anyone noticed.

 

[GalacticTremor]

No they are not the same faction. They are definitely a rival as per the literature. I like how people have their own 'head cannon' ideas. I myself have made a conscious decision not to collect this faction because I dont like the set designs although I do like the ideas behind them. 

[John Cromwell]

3 hours ago, GalacticTremor said:

I myself have made a conscious decision not to collect this faction because I dont like the set designs although I do like the ideas behind them.

You WHAT??? What don't you like about the set designs?

[GalacticTremor]

Sorry. I've just had another look at the sets and it's just dragon heads everywhere. 

6076, 6020 and 6048 are ok but 6043 and 6082 just don't do it for me. I can't see the sense in waisting so many bricks on dragon heads. Also there are lots of colour combinations in these sets whereas sets before tended to stick to 2 colours. Plus I never liked the big flags.

Sorry again. 

[John Cromwell]

1 hour ago, GalacticTremor said:

6076, 6020 and 6048 are ok but 6043 and 6082 just don't do it for me.

Oh... I thought you meant you had made a decision to not collect the Black Knights... My bad!

[valon]

11 hours ago, John Cromwell said:

Oh... I thought you meant you had made a decision to not collect the Black Knights... My bad!

i thought that he ment that !!!! because of you only like historic castle the black knight probably would be your favorite

[John Cromwell]

2 minutes ago, valon said:

because of you only like historic castle the black knight probably would be your favorite

You mean me? Or @GalacticTremor?

[valon]

galatic tremor

[GalacticTremor]

The Black Knights are cool and tbh when I was a kid I used to call them dragon knights as dragons feature widely but the sets of the actual dragon knights are a mixed bag and for me they show a real shift in direction for Lego. Once you reach the fright knights the game is well and truly up.

[John Cromwell]

3 minutes ago, GalacticTremor said:

The Black Knights are cool and tbh when I was a kid I used to call them dragon knights as dragons feature widely but the sets of the actual dragon knights are a mixed bag and for me they show a real shift in direction for Lego. Once you reach the fright knights the game is well and truly up.

Yes, I agree, the Dragon Masters started to focus on gimmicks and dragons a little too much. But don't even get me started on the Fright Knights and 'Royal Knights'. The HORRENDOUS and disgusting builds of the Fright Knights that look like something a five-year-old would build, for one thing!

[Aanchir]

On 1/7/2021 at 12:17 PM, John Cromwell said:

Yes, I agree, the Dragon Masters started to focus on gimmicks and dragons a little too much. But don't even get me started on the Fright Knights and 'Royal Knights'. The HORRENDOUS and disgusting builds of the Fright Knights that look like something a five-year-old would build, for one thing!

A lot of those gimmick-heavy sets haven't aged well, but I do think there were some redeeming aspects of those sets, like the high columns and vaulted chambers of Night Lord's Castle, or the concave rooflines which were as much of a defining part of Fright Knights sets as convex rooflines later became for Elves sets.

Of course, this is also the era I grew up in, so I have a lot of nostalgia for those sorts of sets even if I recognize in hindsight that their quality was often… lacking. Plus, what a lot of 90s sets lacked in the quality of their builds, they often made up for in just how imaginative and adventurous they got with their subject matter. I have a lot of fond memories of sets like Majisto's Magical Workshop, Fire Breathing Fortress, Skeleton Surprise, King's Carriage, and Night Lord's Castle, even if I would be much less keen on buying sets like that today as an adult (especially given how expensive many of them were even at their original retail prices).

The introduction of so many new fantasy elements like wizards, witches, dragons, magical crystal balls, "vampires" (even if never strictly identified as such), and airships did a lot to help make the Fright Knights theme extremely exciting to me as a child, whereas Castle factions from before my childhood (which I was well aware of from posters, catalogs, and yard sale lots) never tended to light up my imagination the same way. In hindsight, it's probably no surprise that themes like Ninjago and Elves which boasted similar fantasy subject matter but far higher quality builds would eventually emerge as some of my all-time favorites!

[zoth33]

On 1/7/2021 at 12:17 PM, John Cromwell said:

Yes, I agree, the Dragon Masters started to focus on gimmicks and dragons a little too much. But don't even get me started on the Fright Knights and 'Royal Knights'. The HORRENDOUS and disgusting builds of the Fright Knights that look like something a five-year-old would build, for one thing!

That's the beauty of Lego you can tear it down and build whatever you want.  I have a lot of the 80-90's sets still have quite a few of my original forestmen.  Still have some wolfpack, and have a bunch of the red torso with the scale armor print.  Still have all my black falcons and lion knights all in good condition.  I used to just build the set and then either mod it or build something completely different after I played around with the original for a while.  Those were good times.  I can't believe  how well the old figs hold up.  I actually hope they do a new dragon faction with actual dragon men that would be awesome.  

[John Cromwell]

20 hours ago, Aanchir said:

The introduction of so many new fantasy elements like wizards, witches, dragons, magical crystal balls, "vampires" (even if never strictly identified as such), and airships did a lot to help make the Fright Knights theme extremely exciting to me as a child, whereas Castle factions from before my childhood (which I was well aware of from posters, catalogs, and yard sale lots) never tended to light up my imagination the same way. In hindsight, it's probably no surprise that themes like Ninjago and Elves which boasted similar fantasy subject matter but far higher quality builds would eventually emerge as some of my all-time favorites!

Yeah, and that's why Lego usually caters to the younger generation of builders who like playing with fire-breathing dragons and witches and elven lords, etc. instead of the AFOLS who more than often wish Lego had sets with a bunch of guys in chainmail with different banners marching to war with each other. Oh Lego...

18 hours ago, zoth33 said:

I can't believe  how well the old figs hold up.

Good ol' ABS. Too bad Lego switched to a more eco-friendly version in the past couple years, the newer figs and bricks get cracks and occasionally just break much more easily than their older counterparts.

18 hours ago, zoth33 said:

I actually hope they do a new dragon faction with actual dragon men that would be awesome.  

Like, half minifigure, half dragon??? I don't understand..

[valon]

yes i think that is what he means. I think that could be really cool !!!!

[zoth33]

4 hours ago, John Cromwell said:

Yeah, and that's why Lego usually caters to the younger generation of builders who like playing with fire-breathing dragons and witches and elven lords, etc. instead of the AFOLS who more than often wish Lego had sets with a bunch of guys in chainmail with different banners marching to war with each other. Oh Lego...

Good ol' ABS. Too bad Lego switched to a more eco-friendly version in the past couple years, the newer figs and bricks get cracks and occasionally just break much more easily than their older counterparts.

Like, half minifigure, half dragon??? I don't understand..

No like in fantasy adventure books or games like skyrim.  They would be human in form but with dragon like features like scale skin, claws, possibly a tail some have them others don't.  Facial features like a dragon.  And obviously dragon armor.  I just something castle soon the blacksmith shop with the black falcon knights that is coming soon is nice but I'm really hoping for a full theme of castle or fantasy.