Difference between revisions of "Dragon"

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|White||[[cold]]||[[cold resistance]] || same
 
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|Yellow||[[acid]]||[[acid resistance]] and [[petrification resistance]]|| nothing (neither resistance can be gained intrinsically)
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|Yellow||[[acid]]||[[acid resistance]] and [[petrification resistance]]|| unknown
 
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Revision as of 20:17, 20 January 2007

The dragons, represented by the overall glyph D, are a class of very powerful mid-game monster in NetHack and coveted for the scales they sometimes drop. With some superficial differences, they are nearly identical. Each of them has a nasty breath associated with their resistance. There are also baby dragons, which hatch from eggs.

Each dragon has a specific resistance associated with it. Eating some dragon corpses can give you the associated intrinsics; others can give you the extrinsic ability by enchanting their scales to make dragon scale mail. (Note that dragon corpses are very filling so using a tinning kit is often a good idea.) Baby dragons do not grant intrinsics.

The Chromatic Dragon, the Caveman quest nemesis, is a special sort of dragon. Eating its corpse conveys a random resistance.

A shimmering dragon, whose scales grant displacement, appears in the code, but is commented out by default, because monster displacement has not yet been implemented .

Breath weapons and resistances

Dragon Breath (4d6 unless otherwise noted) Resists Conveys
Blue lightning shock resistance same
Black disintegration disintegration resistance same
Gray magic missile magic resistance nothing (absolute magic resistance cannot be gained intrinsically)
Green poison poison resistance same
Orange sleep, 4d25 turns sleep resistance same
Red fire 6d6 fire resistance same
Silver cold reflection cold resistance (reflection cannot be gained intrinsically)
White cold cold resistance same
Yellow acid acid resistance and petrification resistance unknown

Black dragon

A black dragon is the only source of disintegration resistance in the game; this might make acquiring disintegration resistance tricky were it not for the fact that reflection is a reliable defence against the black dragon's disintegration blasts.

Gray dragon

A gray dragon (or baby gray dragon) is often the eventual result of repeatedly displacing your pet onto a polymorph trap, because it is magic resistant, and hence will polymorph no further.

Red dragon

There is a guaranteed red dragon on the Plane of Fire - the only place in the game where a specific color dragon is generated.

History

Hack 1.0 has a dragon that does not have an explicit color. This early dragon breathes fire and its corpse confers fire resistance, making it equivalent to the modern red dragon.

NetHack 2.3e introduces all of the modern dragon types except silver. The corpse is still just a "dead dragon", without reference to the color, and eating it confers fire resistance, regardless of the type of dragon. Black dragon breath causes instadeath, and there is no reflection, disintegration resistance, or amulet of life saving, making genocide tempting; but fire resistance is necessary to enter Hell, and there's no way to genocide only black dragons.

NetHack 3.0.0 introduces baby dragons, makes the corpses separate, and also introduces dragon scale mail. Dragon scale mail is obtained by polymorphing a dragon corpse. Reflection is now available and black dragon breath is toned down a bit. It also becomes possible to genocide only black dragons.

NetHack 3.1.0 introduces dragon scales, and with them the modern method of obtaining dragon scale mail. This version also adds the Quests, and with them the Chromatic Dragon and Ixoth. Fire resistance is not necessary to enter Gehennom.

NetHack 3.3.0 adds the silver dragon and corresponding scales.