Dragons, drakes, and draconians

[dolphin]

Should each dragon have a mini-me drake, like shadow dragons have death drakes? I don't see a reason why it shouldn't be consistent, but I know I tend to overlook things all the time It just bothers me a little that steam 'dragons' and mottled 'dragons' share tiles with the drakes, and are considerably weaker than the real dragons, but still drop skins like the big boys. Personally, I think a big steam dragon that flooded the floor beneath you when it hit you with steamballs would be kinda scary and fun, or a golden drake that did fire, ice, and poison damage in melee. So is there a reason or reasons why dragons and drakes aren't all lined up in neat little rows? Would it be boring?

Should the draconians and the dragons be similarly consistent? (i.e. should we have an acid dragon and an iron draconian?)

[jackalKnight]

I like the acid dragon idea, but iron draconian (if its anything like most of the "iron" monsters) would be insanely overpowered compared to other draconians.

[dolphin]

Well, I guess I wasn't thinking of bone dragons as real dragons, they have seemed to be in a class by themselves, a bit like skeleton warriors aren't just unead versions of some monster. I don't think shadow draconians would be undoable, though they certainly couldn't have a draining or miasma breath. Something like a vampiric breath that functioned like the mottled draconian sticky flame or a pain brand Unarmed, rN, and a Nec apt doesn't seem to me like it would be overpowered or unthematic. The iron draconian could have a bit more AC or GDR, and be either unable to wear armor or be restricted to dragon armors only, have slow movement, and possibly have an Unarmed apt and a Dodging negative apt.

I guess what I'm trying to communicate is that a straight up, 1-1 correlation isn't necessary to maintain a theme across the dragonoids.

[dolphin]

Point taken concerning inherently evil draconians.

Dragons can give armours, drakes cannot. In general, I would like dragons to be more dangerous, since dragons have always seemed to me to be the pinnacle of mythological badassery, apart from the Gods, of course. See Midgard Serpent, Glaurung, Apep, Delphic Python etc. While I realize that consistency isn't desired for it's own sake, I think having it would easily and thematically add interesting monsters to the early and late games without needing new tiles or new glyphs.

I would also like to see more player made armours, so the choice is between a good base armour with one resist that the player has invested in, or an artefact armour. But, I think that is probably for another post.

Steam Dragon - Enveloped in a cloud of steam (you cannot easily target it), Powerful steam balls that flood the floor beneath (reminiscent of an aquamancer)
. Drake = What is currently the Steam Dragon
Mottled Dragon - Sticky fireball, Ring of Flames
. Drake = What is now the Mottle Dragon
Swamp Dragon - Melee attack has some chance of irrestibly Confusing, Slowing, or Poisoning
. Drake - As is
Fire Dragon - As is
. Drake - As is
Ice Dragon - As is
. Drake - Complement of Fire Drake
Storm Dragon - Rain Clouds, as if wearing the Robe of Clouds, Spawn with Steam Dragon. (should rElec be ignored if you are in water?)
. Drake - Kudos to the person who made the Sky Beast. If this proposal or something like it goes through, then Sky Beast would fit well Storm Drake, at the loss of flavour, but gain of Transmuters no longer having easy early game potion of Mutation ID
Golden Dragon - As is
. Drake - Fire, Ice, and Poison damage in melee, Mid depth D10-D18
Iron Dragon - As is, Armour gives unusually high AC OR higher than normal GDR OR nerfed DD damage reduction, Ponderous
. Drake - High AC, Ponderous - How to distinguish from a Snail or Elephant Slug?
Shadow Dragon - As is, Armour is Stealthy relatively high AC (rRot?)
. Shadow Drake - As is
Quicksilver Dragon - When Abjuration-> Abj. Fireball, then Breath should be Disenchant+Abjuration. Alternatively, it could have an Abjuration probability radius (summons in the radius have a chance of being Abjured), Armour gives MR, probably a mid-weight armour
. Drake - Magic-Damping Radius smaller than players sight radius that gives -MR, lower spell power but same spell success (is this possible or feasible?) Probably mid-depth
Pearl (Holy) Dragon - Dunno yet, haven't seen one, Armour gives rN
. Drake - an early holy monster to scare the undead and unholy players would be fun

I'm not so sure of Acid Dragons, it doesn't seem to me to be very dragony, even if they are consistent with draconians.
Acid Dragon - How to distinguish from Acid Blob?
. Acid Drake - How to distinguish from Brown Blob?

[Grimm]

I'm not so sure of Acid Dragons, it doesn't seem to me to be very dragony, even if they are consistent with draconians.

An acid-spitting dragon actually accords best out of all of them with the theory of the origin of the dragon myth put forth in Dickinson's book The Flight of Dragons. He suggests that there may once have existed a reptilian creature that flew not by wing power but by lighter-than-air capability which was based on a strong chemical reaction in the animal's body. This would explain a lot of the characteristics that are reported of dragons, most importantly for our purposes the "fire breath", which Dickinson suggests was vented acid byproducts of the flight ability.