Blue dragon

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A blue dragon, D, is a monster that appears in NetHack. It has a younger form in the baby blue dragon, D. Both blue dragons have shock resistance both intrinsically and from its scales, and its breath weapon fires rays of lightning. Its corpse provides shock resistance.

Generation

Main article: Dragon#Generation

Players will not see baby blue dragons through normal random monster creation outside of the Oracle and Sokoban levels, and they can also be hatched from dragon eggs; adult blue dragons start appearing around the midway depths of the dungeon. Blue dragons can be generated in throne rooms as early as dungeon level 15, and may appear when a throne at this depth or lower is looted.[1] Blue dragons can be generated if a chaotic spellcaster casts the summon nasties monster spell.

Blue dragons have a 13 of dropping a set of +0 uncursed blue dragon scales along with their corpse (120 if the dragon was revived).

Strategy

See also: Dragon#Strategy

As with all breath attacks, reflection can protect you, your rings and your wands against shock damage - but even a reflected ray of lightning will still leave you blind, so take care to cure it as soon as possible, e.g. with a unicorn horn. Shock resistance will blunt the damage, but will not fully protect your open inventory or prevent blindness, either. Eating a blue dragon after you kill it is worthwhile for guaranteed shock resistance if you lack any.

History

NetHack 2.3e introduces the blue dragon along with all of the other modern dragon types and their breath weapons, except for silver.

NetHack 3.0.0 introduces baby blue dragons alongside the other baby dragons. This version also distinguishes all color dragons, their younger stages and their corpses, and introduces dragon scale mail.

NetHack 3.1.0 introduces blue dragon scales along with the other colors, as well as the current method of obtaining dragon scale mail.

Variants

Variants of NetHack often subject dragons to extensive changes, including the blue dragon.

Biodiversity patch

In the biodiversity patch, the blue dragon is renamed to the leviathan.

SLASH'EM

Main article: Dragon (SLASH'EM)

As with all other dragons in SLASH'EM, baby blue dragons have a base level of 4 instead of 12, and can be encountered via random generation in ordinary levels with a frequency of 2; they are also eligible for creation on many levels that generate random D on level creation. Adult blue dragons have a base level of 18 instead of 15.

Baby blue dragons hit as a +1 weapon, and adult blue dragons hit as a +3 weapon. Tamed adult blue dragons have a chance of turning traitor.

UnNetHack

In UnNetHack, all dragons have their breaths, resistances, and colors randomized, allowing any non-chromatic dragon to appear as blue.

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.

[ Mythical Beasts by Deirdre Headon (The Leprechaun Library) ]


"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."

[ The Tombs of Atuan, by Ursula K. Le Guin ]

References