@Kenaron Late Medieval/Early modern/Renaissance period would be comparable. The sciences are evolving, but people still haven't figured out everything.
@Oak7ree I had an idea for a less typical use for dragons in the setting, but don't know if that's what you were going for with this setting.
And concerning the living god, as you mentioned a monster, Frankenstein's monster came to my mind. A man or woman who came back to life thanks to some "unholy" magic or experiment.
@Oak7ree man, I've missed stuff. I like the idea of the dragons not actually influencing change, but making people belive it so that the people themselves enact the change short after the sighting of dragons.
The monster/machine frankenstain could even be an instrument as to oppose said "faith" in dragons, making a godly figure to stand up to them, at least ideologically.
For the world we shluld divide it into stuff, like how much land/water there is? How much continets there are? How did different societies develop and came to understant the world at large compared to one another? We could even have them look up to diferent kinds of dragons, and with the typical division of faithful and scientific sprinkled throughout the continent/s
Also, @ClocktowerEchos, @JaceBeleren neat ideas.
The dragons, while often distant and seemingly uncaring, know when they are threaten and will act quickly to dispose of those who threaten them. Such was the case with an ancient king who wanted to become the strongest man to have ever lived and then going beyond it. He invested countless hours and his entire kingdom's wealth into research and study, bankrupting his people. But as his subjects laid starving and dying, their cries deft to his ears, he orders his host of mages to begin the rituals that would transform him into a god.
Sensing this, the dragons intervened and wove their own magic into the ritual, cursing it and the king. With an explosion followed by a brilliant black light, the king's castle was shattered and the streets where now empty of all life; no more guards, no more beggars, no more people. What had happened was due to the dragon's interference, the king had merged with all the citizens who he had tortured and oppressed to get the resources for this project, turned into a grotesque being instead of the magnificent god he had hope.
Driven mad by the souls of those he had under him, the kingdom quickly collapsed and all those left fled out of fear of the creature that now rule the broken lands from atop a ruined castle, howling and crying at its own misfortune. Now, no one knows the king's name nor the realm he once ruled, referred to as only the Forlorn King Reborn. Legends state that to this day anyone who nears the castle grounds will hear an unsettling eldritch howl that can break the will of even the bravest of men.
Deep within the ice-swept forests of Hyloth is a clearing with snow that never stops and suits of armor frozen in time. Once a regal army of knights on an impossible mission, their armor now faded and aged, joints rusting with a coating a snow, swords still clutched firmly in long dead hands.
When the crown prince of Walynr went missing, the Knights of the Velvet Flame immediately took a penitence quest to find the young prince. Overcome with grief and self loathing, the traditional guards of the royal family set out to find the prince, no matter how far they would have to go. With their banners raised high and mounted upon noble steeds, it would be the last time these brave knights would be seen.
In a tale now often sung of by bards and myth weavers, tragedy struck the Knights of the Velvet Flame who were hit with one unfortuante event after another. The wagons containing their rations where lost when they tumble over a cliff, bandits and monsters beset upon them at every turn and storms followed them wherever they went. The Frozen Forest of Hyloth would become their graves as what was once a proud order of over a thousand knights became less than one hundred ragged corpses walking towards death.
Yet, the persisted and marched into the forest, no longer on horses having eaten them long ago. They called for the prince with their fading voices and dying breaths. One by one the knights began to fall, consumed by starvation, too weak to move in their heavy armor until at last their Grandmaster, clutching their tattered standard, fell to the ground, the name of the prince on his frostbitten lips.
Declared lost by the kingdom, these knights were never found and their withered bodies and travelled armor became covered with snow, their souls locked within their armor. But so honorable where they that even in death they have not forgotten their knightly vows and legend says that should anyone within the glade call for aid, the suits of battered armor will rise up and defend those who cannot. Having failed to protect their prince, they swore to never again let someone be harmed in their presence, even in death.