[quote=@shylarah]
[@AtomicNut] I'm sorry.  I use trope to mean trends in stories.  They evolve even as stories do, with deconstructions and reconstructions, and even new ideas emerging.  In my opinion there's nothing wrong with fitting into an established theme -- nor with defying it.  It's more a tool that some people use, and a way of comparing and contrasting commonalities in different works.  Yeah, a shortcoming of them is that they simplify things a great deal, in many instances.  But the idea is that there are many variations on a basic theme, and as with so much else when it comes to writing and rp, it's all in the execution.  Drawing on previous works or charting new territory, it comes down to how well the person handles their ideas, not whether the ideas are new.

I didn't say your idea was a trope, I simply indicated that it falls under the umbrella of one.  You yourself said you wanted the "greedy jerk attitude that comes with [dragons]".  You could call it a standard characteristic, but the idea there is the same.  There's a theme that occurs often enough to be called a trend.  I'll try to avoid the word if you dislike the implications, though.

I'm not sure what you mean by the site proper, nor about outside of it.  Could you clarify?
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Oh, I see. I should be the one apologizing, my bad. I'm used to the whole word trope as the ones used on the [url=http://tvtropes.org/]Tvtropes[/url] website. Which in fact is a big compilation of such apparent trends. And also something i've witnessed being abused on websites other than the proper website. Which has annoyed me to no end.

As a side comment, the Ring of the Nibelungs, also the Nibelunglied tells the exploits of a certain Siegfred who forged a sword out of a meteorite and went to kill a dragon named Fafnir (which in turn, was a dwarf who had been cursed by his own greed upon killing his kin over a treasure of certain folks called the Nibelungs). Of course Siegfred keeps the eponymous ring and is in turn cursed to misfortune after a series of events.

You might want to read the story, it's kinda entertaining. Also one of the sources for Tolkien's writings.