What mental trait or combination of traits could make a race well suited to warfare?

For my space-fantasy setting I created that I will refer to as Dragon-Folk here.

The Dragon-Folk look more like humans with reptilian features than humanoind dragons. The Dragon-Folk like the other races on their world were uplifted from animals, the Old-Gods granted them "clever mind and noble form". The Dragon-folk were uplifted from Land-Dragons and like their ancestors are ill-humored creatures, prideful, wrathful, avaristic, vindictive, territorial and clannish. The Dragon-Folk developed a society with a very strict code of conduct and holds discipline/self-control as high ideals as a way to compensate for their temperamental nature.

The Dragon-Folk are also my setting's proud warrior race; every race has its proud warriors but the Dragon-Folk are the ones who set the standard for martial excellence.

While the trope of the proud warrior was a part of their creation, I knew that the Dragon-Folk had to be more than the stereotype. So how to make them a non-stereotypical warrior culture?

Not being quasi vikings, samurai, some indeterminate amalgamation of tribal warriors, that's a start. Not treating everyone who isn't a warrior with disdain is another.

All of that was a good start but I still needed something more. Then it hit me, what if the Dragon-Folk had some psychological traits that made them well suited to warfare? Thinking about that one mental trait I realized that it should be something that is really off putting to everyone else if not frightening.

For example, the Atevi from the Foreigner series do not possess the capacity for love or friendship, however they have an emotion/instinct best approximated by the term clique-loyalty.

I have to ask what mental traits or combination of traits could make a race well suited to warfare and more than a little disturbing to their neighbors?

posted about 8 years ago

Trismegistus‭

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