I believe the dwarves are the ones who shit gold, they turn ore into gold. A dragon will attack a weakened dwarf nest, kill the dwarf drones and eat the dwarf larva. Only then will it start seeking out cows, once it has depleted this bounty. This is a good thing in the long run, it keeps disease from spreading rampant between the dwarf broods

Then they curl up and sleep on a pile of their own shit? Im not disagreeing, I'm just a little shocked.

This could be an interesting story where the heroes find out the dragon is imprisoned and being farmed for its gold poop and decide to rescue it.

Sooo we presume then that different food turns into jewels? What about magic items, do the items go in mundane and come out magic?

Ok there are bad news. Your theory makes a lot of sense when we just evaluate input and output of a dragons den. The problem is that gold is atomically more stable (Au: B/A=7.936 MeV) than carbon (C: B/A=7.468 MeV). That means that you have to explain a huge amount of energy this process consumes. This is alongside the energy that the dragon uses to live and even wastes in the whole fire spitting situation.

Ok, no. I'm calling bullshit on two fronts:

1. If a dragon is hungry, it's eating the cow right there. So you're not gonna see a dragon carrying a cow in the first place. If it has babies too young to hunt, it's puking it up for them.

2. How do you think a dragon would carry gold coins? Clamped in their claws as they fly?? No, dummy, they'd hold it in their gullet and spit it out in the pile. So no duh you've never seen one carrying gold. Humans don't have x-ray vision.

But also dragons are famous for knowing the exact content of their treasure down to a coin.

Does it make them psychotic coprophiliac hoarders?

Dragons acquired their hoards by threatening to terrorize local villages if they didn't pay its "Won't Burninate Your Thatched Roof Cottages" tax.

I'm not a murder hobo, I'm just the plumber

This is a lie. All the dragons I know keep geese around.

That sounds ridiculous. Do you know how complicated that would be biologically? Completely unrealistic.

This is how Old Money stays rich IRL too.

Literally their ass coins

Gold is a pure element, so that's not a sound argument.

The gold is tribute, right? Give me gold every year and I won't eat you

This is actually where the aptly-named Dragon Diamonds come from in the Lunar games. I don't think the protagonists ever figure it out.

They breathe fire from nuclear fusion. And can fly from all the helium that the nuclear processes generate.

Considering its all usually in coins you can spend in town, is the implication that a dragon's colon is a national treasury mint?

Melanie Rawn has entered the chat

Never thougth about that and yet I agree with them. I'm gonna get a dragon and solve world hunger with it 🤯

Of course you never see them bring home gold. The only thing dragons fear is the tax man. Stealing a cow just annoys the commoners, stealing gold annoys the government. Gotta hide the riches

maybe it's just regular shit but they use a lot of turmeric in their cuisine.