Blue dragon
D blue dragon 
| |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 20 |
| Attacks |
Breath 4d6 lightning, bite 3d8, claw 1d4, claw 1d4 |
| Base level | 15 |
| Base experience | 460 |
| Speed | 9 |
| Base AC | -1 |
| Base MR | 20 |
| Alignment | -7 (chaotic) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 1 (Very rare) |
| Genocidable | Yes |
| Weight | 4500 |
| Nutritional value | 1500 |
| Size | Gigantic |
| Resistances | Shock |
| Resistances conveyed |
Shock resistance (100%) |
|
A blue dragon:
| |
| Reference | monst.c#line1161 |
A blue dragon, D, is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. It is an adult dragon associated with the element of lightning. Like all dragons, blue dragons are strong, carnivorous, oviparous, thick-skinned, can see invisible, and are capable of flight - they will also seek out gold, gems and magical items to pick up.
Blue dragons have a lightning breath weapon, a strong bite attack, and two claw attacks, and possess shock resistance.
Eating a blue dragon corpse or tin always grants shock resistance.
The following information pertains to an upcoming version (3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that it is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate this information.
Blue dragons and other dragons gain the additional extrinsic effects conferred by their scales.Contents
Generation
Randomly generated blue dragons are always created hostile. A baby blue dragon can grow up into a blue dragon.
Hostile blue dragons can be generated by the summon nasties monster spell. Characters and monsters that polymorph while wearing blue dragon scales or blue dragon scale mail will turn into blue dragons.
Blue dragons may appear among the hostile D generated in throne rooms at dungeon levels 15 and below, and can also appear among the monsters randomly generated by looting a throne while confused and carrying gold (provided there is no chest on the level).[1]
Blue dragons have a 1⁄3 chance of dropping a set of uncursed +0 blue dragon scales upon death unless disintegrated, and the chance is reduced to 1⁄20 if the dragon was revived.
Strategy
The blue dragon's lightning breath makes it incredibly dangerous for characters without reflection to carry wands and rings in open inventory: even with shock resistance preventing HP damage, there is a significant risk of those items being destroyed by shock damage unless they are dropped or stashed in a handy container. Characters that reflect the rays will still be blinded as well making quickly-accessible cures such as unicorn horns ideal. Eating a blue dragon after killing it is worthwhile for guaranteed shock resistance, though the corpse will take a while to fully consume unless tinned.
The following information pertains to an upcoming version (3.7.0). If this version is now released, please verify that it is still accurate, then update the page to incorporate this information.
Blue dragons gain extrinsic speed from their scales, making them faster than other dragons - this also makes them slightly more ideal as a choice of steed among dragons. Blue dragons and other large enough monsters can also inflict knockback with their melee attacks, making them exceedingly dangerous to fight near pools or lava and capable of forcing characters back into breath weapon range.
Extrinsic shock resistance will protect inventory from shock damage 99⁄100 of the time, and blue dragon scale mail provides both this property and very fast speed, making it more desirable to seek out blue dragons for their scales.History
The blue dragon first appears in NetHack 2.3e.
From NetHack 3.0.0 to NetHack 3.0.10, including variants based on those versions, polymorphing a blue dragon corpse produces regular dragon scale mail. NetHack 3.1.0 introduces the current method of obtaining blue dragon scale mail.
Variants
Many variants alter the blue dragon and other dragons to make them more varied and/or threatening.
SLASH'EM
As with most other dragons in SLASH'EM, the blue dragon's base level is raised to 18, their difficulty is raised to 25, their AC is boosted to -4, their bite and claw attacks are stronger, and they hit as a +3 weapon. Tame blue dragons also have a chance of turning traitor.
Blue dragons can appear in dragon lairs and the Wyrm Caves.
NetHack brass
In NetHack brass, the blue dragon's speed is raised to 12, and its breath weapon deals 12d12 damage.
GruntHack
In GruntHack, the blue dragon's difficulty is slightly lowered to 19, their bite and claw attacks are stronger, and they are given an additional 2d10 engulfing attack that can digest targets.
UnNetHack
In UnNetHack and DynaHack, all dragons have their breath weapons, resistances, and names randomized each game, allowing any non-chromatic dragon to appear as blue - the default electric dragon is the leviathan.
dNetHack
In dNetHack, notdNetHack, and notnotdNetHack, blue dragons have their speed raised to 12, their difficulty is slightly raised to 21, and their effective AC is boosted to -4. The blue dragon's attacks are made stronger, with an additional 4d10 tailslap attack that they will use once every global turn, and their breath attacks also ignore reflection, unless the source is from dragon armor or an artifact that grants dragonbreath reflection.
Blue dragons may appear among the court of a throne room ruled by an orc of the ages of stars.
EvilHack
In EvilHack, blue dragons are buffed similarly to GruntHack: their attacks are made stronger as in GruntHack and reordered, including the addition of the digestion attack, and their base speed is raised to 14. Blue dragons also gain fast speed and immunity to slowing effects from their scales.
SlashTHEM
In SlashTHEM, in addition to SLASH'EM details, Electric Mages that are at experience level 14 or higher can polymorph into a blue dragon via the #youpoly extended command.
Encyclopedia entry
In the West the dragon was the natural enemy of man. Although preferring to live in bleak and desolate regions, whenever it was seen among men it left in its wake a trail of destruction and disease. Yet any attempt to slay this beast was a perilous undertaking. For the dragon's assailant had to contend not only with clouds of sulphurous fumes pouring from its fire breathing nostrils, but also with the thrashings of its tail, the most deadly part of its serpent-like body.
"One whom the dragons will speak with," he said, "that is a dragonlord, or at least that is the center of the matter. It's not a trick of mastering the dragons, as most people think. Dragons have no masters. The question is always the same, with a dragon: will he talk to you or will he eat you? If you can count upon his doing the former, and not doing the latter, why then you're a dragonlord."
