PortalIdea: The Dragon's Roost

[BountyHunterSAx]

It's a mini-portal with "the Dragon's Roost" theme. I anticipate a basic greeting group, maybe 2 iron dragons or 3-4 ordinary storm/fire dragons in the first area which is a nicely wooded glade and an early guaranteed exit near the door if you're overmatched. If you win, The loot after clearing these is pretty generic stuff (gold, ident scrolls, basic jewelery/pots) maybe 8 items or so? Then, if you press on comes the tougher part. 2-3 groups of four dragons for a total of almost 10 either in gold/shadow/storm variety. in a fanned out formation patrolling the area of their roost.
The catch?
It's a dragon's roost! These suckers are FLYING at all times and you need to be able to levitate/fly to reach their roost. The entirety of the battle should be fought in an open space over deep water/lava. If you clear/kite past them, there's a guaranteed book of the Dragon, dragon-slayer spear/artifact, or artifact gold dragon armour waiting for you.

-AHMAD

[byrel]

It would be tough, but could work for the last for dungeon floors. Might also simply be a vault at those levels.

[Davion Fuxa]

I don't think it could work as a Mini-Vault, to be flying constantly would require that the Mini-Vault would have Pressure Plates that force you into an Enclosed area, and even then you could Teleport out and Shatter your way back in. As a Portal idea it sounds sort of Bland to just have Dragons, but a good idea might be to throw some Draconians in - much like when you enter the Realm of Zot and find all 3 Downstairs located next to each other, and about 8 Draconians boxed off in Iron Gates that Smite, Summon Drakes, Hellfire, and otherwise make your life miserable.

[BountyHunterSAx]

The reason I like it specifically as a portal rather than just a minivault is that the idea of this being a dragons' home seems really cool to me. You'd need a good 15x15 tiles worth of space to make the sensation of "massive aerial battle with an ocean beneath you" feel really palpable. If it's really too difficult as written then simply tone it down. 4 storm dragons with one gold/quicksilver dragon, for example would work quite nicely as you could potentially invis+haste+levitation potion your way around all but one of them. The greeting party, if you play your cards right, could be faced one at a time thanks to the wooded glade you're fighting them in. The downside being they may end up burning up the forest too as a side-effect.

-AHMAD

[byrel]

I was actually thinking of expanding it for a full-level themed vault in D22-27 or so. But it works as a portal too. Quicksilver would indeed be the nastiest. I wonder if they could one-shot you, or if you'd have a guaranteed turn to cast flight again.

[BountyHunterSAx]

Draconians would make it feel too much like a retread of Zot all over again. What about baby-dragons? Could we throw in baby-dragons? God I'd love to kill some baby-dragons . The key to making it wokr will be making the nests really feel like dragon-nests, IMO.

Think a layout something like this (sorry - i don't play ascii so i dont know what the correct symbols are)

  Code:

#=wall
~=deep water
. = grassy tile (floor)
% = tree
d = fire/'basic' dragon
s = storm dragon
D = Very Dangerous dragon (gold/shadow/quicksilver/something)
$ = loot,  L= Awesome loot

> = entrance,  < = exit.

~~#,..L....~#~~~
s~#.....<..~#~~s
~~#,..L....~#~~~
~~~~D~s~s~D~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
#%%%%%%%%%..####
#%..%%%%%%..%%%%
#%.%d%...,..$$$%
#%.%...%d%..%$$%
#%<%%%%%%%%.%$$%
##>...d%%d..%<$%
#####%%%%%%%%%%%


Except where this is something i threw together in three minutes, and really is about 3/4 as wide as it needs to be. Ideally there would be two or three dragon-islands. 2x potion of levitation, 1x potion of invisbility, and 2-3x scrolls of fog could make ninja-ing a vague possibility.

-AHMAD

[BountyHunterSAx]

@byrel:

That acutally makes a lot of sense, but if I was playing an MiBe and was suddenly forced to fly I'd be *pissed*. If there was a guranateed exit (or set of exits) after the wooded glade/bank area on the ground -- evne if i had to fight a few dragons to reach it - then i'd be game.



@minmay:

You started out by saying "Portal" twice then promptly went on to describe a single ordinary vault...do you understand what a portal vault is? Even though we call it "portal vault" it's not actually a single vault, it's either a collection of vaults or a ziggurat/labyrinth (which aren't relevant here). Even the one with the fewest different destination vaults (volcano) has 9. Why should it be a portal if it's the same every time? Just use a door!

The catch?
It's a dragon's roost! These suckers are FLYING at all times and you need to be able to levitate/fly to reach their roost. The entirety of the battle should be fought in an open space over deep water/lava.

I don't see how this is a catch at all, except for making it impossible for summoners.

It's a testament to the way I run summoners that I didn't understand what you were talking about at all, since haunt, and summon dragon were the summons that most readily came to mind. Yes, I recognize that a portal would require multiple variations on this theme. But much the same way taht I could describe the old spider-portal vault as: "A sequence of tightly claustrohpobic 2x2 tochambers with webs to hinder movement and very dangerous spider-type monsters with red-poison and paralytic effects including the jumping spider, the red wasp, and the trapdoor spider. End-loot may include ambrosia." I have here laid out what in my mind would be the key thing that makes the dragon roost special: An aerial battle against a set of dragons to claim dragon-specific loot. (The book of the dragon, the spear of dragon slaying (or if ou're lucky that wyrmbane dealie) etc.

-AHMAD

[byrel]

@byrel:

That acutally makes a lot of sense, but if I was playing an MiBe and was suddenly forced to fly I'd be *pissed*. If there was a guranateed exit (or set of exits) after the wooded glade/bank area on the ground -- evne if i had to fight a few dragons to reach it - then i'd be game.

Have you encountered the full-level lava vault in late game yet? (I think it's in 0.11- but I've been playing a lot of trunk so not sure.) All three stairs come down in separate islands, and after you defeat a passle of fire themed monsters you can snag a escape hatch at a couple of them. (There's also reverse escape hatches on the downstairs islands, so you don't need lev on the orb run either.) Something like that is what I was thinking. The good loot all requires flying to get to, along with the boss (XuaXua of course!) but it's possible to skip the level (minus the entry vault(s)).

[mumra]

Not really a new idea, see wiki proposal and another thread but I always thought it sounded like a cool theme, would need multiple map ideas though. It does seem harsh to have a map that could only be reached by flying, but then there are (or at least used to be) volcanoes that were pretty much impossible without dig and/or flight and/or fire resistance.

[KoboldLord]

I'd rather have a Dragon's Roost come in early, perhaps Volcano depth or so. You wouldn't be able to use the top-end dragons, of course, but the chance of getting a dragon hide would be a whole lot more relevant to the characters exploring the vault. By the time it's fair to use iron, quicksilver, shadow, or gold dragons, most characters are presumably going to be committed to their partially-enchanted mid-game armor.

Another idea I've toyed with would be to use wildly out-of-depth dragons, and make the portal a stealth challenge rather than a fight. The dragon guards its hoard, and if it finds you it's going to win that fight even if you've got consumables to burn. Plenty of alarm traps and noisy popcorn monsters are around, none of which are a direct threat but all of which give the dragon a lead on your current location. There would be lots of pillars and outcroppings to hide behind, and several twisty routes in toward the loot. Then you have to make your way back to the entrance to get out.

[Galefury]

I don't think just putting a bunch of dragons close together would make an interesting portal vault. All dragons are melee threats with a powerful but resistible ranged attack. So that's all you're going to get by putting a bunch of dragons close together. There is no real variety in threats, and I think it would be hard to make such a vault tactically interesting.

Also there are serious theme issues: dragons in Crawl usually only appear alone. Having many dragons in the same place doesn't fit their current behavior of lone predators stalking the dungeon. There even is a dragon cave vault, with a single dragon guarding a little treasure, so they don't just hunt alone but also live alone. Of course the theme can be changed, but it would be much nicer if there was a reason for all these dragons to be in the same place, especially different kinds of dragons. They could be bound by magic to guard a wizard's treasure. Or it could be some kind of dragon graveyard where old dragons come to die.

Also KoboldLord's suggestions sound much better than the original proposal.

[BountyHunterSAx]

It's telling that reading KoboldLord's idea actually seems cooler to me too . As for lore-wise, I guess I've never thought of it that way since the most common place I've seen dragons are:

1.) large groups of enemies in Vault:8
2.) swarms of draconians mixed with 2-3 dragons in/around Zot:1-4
3.) My summoned swarms.

And so I guess that's what biases my opinion. But it's true - if youhave to fight 4-5 dragons at once you're already talking endgame-potential character; and at that point it's gonna be a straightforward fight. But having to run loops around a dangerous monster in his own lair/dungoen (doesn't have to be a dragon even) to try and ninja some treasure and bail? That sounds like a lot of fun.

-AHMAD

[mumra]

There was a suggestion in the other thread for baby dragons ... Something quite thematic could be a mother dragon guarding a brood of babies. The babies would be weak enough to be a more appropriate challenge for earlier dungeon levels; and the mother would be more like a standard dragon and be the boss monster. The babies can have intermittent flight and a weaker breath attack which frequently fails to work (use cantrips, i.e. "The baby dragon sneezes!", fog, magical condensation, etc.).

[dpeg]

I love to hear new ideas for portal vaults. In my opinion, going with dragons is good, but it'd suggest to make it a single dragon (perhaps assorted smaller monsters, but only one dragon) and to put the vaults as early as possible. One idea with portal vaults is that they can ask the player to exert herself, and to use tools and thoughts to overcome an otherwise OOD obstacle (think of the Sewer with the troll).
Why to use a portal vault instead of an ordinary vault: (a) it is safer for those for prefer not to tackle the challenge (i.e. we don't have to worry about autoexplore ruining someone's day), (b) it would be a limited offer (cannot go back in four experience levels), which generally makes portal vaults more interesting in my opinion, (c) we can modify the rules if we want, for example to guarantee the dragon to leave corpse and hide.

[BountyHunterSAx]

I can't think of another point in the game I regularly encounter which forces me to try and run circles around a monster, so having that as a unique possibility for early floors would be fun. Would also be great for a variety of items/race-classes (ie: Strong berserkers with a lucky early weapon drop and might potion, spriggans/centaurs, high-stealth folks that can "shake-pursuit" more easily, anyone with cTele + scroll of fogs, etc...). Consider me sold on the idea of skirting a dragon in his hoard/lair. I'm thinking loot should just be gold and maybe some jewelery (thematically-appropriate, no?). The outside possibility of being able to kill the dragon for its hide should be just that - an outside possibility.

As for specific vaults, I'd say we'd have to abandon the idea of a massive aerial-combat [though I will think of another way to make that happen, eventually]. If anything, I'd rather have the presence of lava/water as yet another thing the player can use to try and aid in his attempt to out-fox the dragon. But that'll be tough since fire/ice/mottled dragons all fly.

Actually - why not make it a swamp dragon?! It's still very lethal, but less likely to simply 1-shot with a breath attack. If the portal is early enough there's no guarantee at all of rPois. We can use an appropriate mix of shallow/deep water and normal tiles (marshland) to provide the player yet another way to increase their maneuverability (mermaid, octopode, potion-of-flight). The downside is that at this point I'd be concerned about it feeling like a retread of the swamp. Anyway.



I'd also be in support of it being entirely possible for everything to dig your way into the treasure room since this vault is designed to be ninja-able, but also early enough that not everyone will have the tools to dig with. Ideally there'd be enough variations that magic mapping would be necessary to make good use of the limited 4-5 dig charges you've got. One possibility (for example) would be to have two of the three walls of the treasure room be stone and one be diggable-rock.

As for small-monsters (if included), I vote for Kobolds. After all, kobolds (at least in D&D) are supposed to be retainers for dragons, no? Sycophantic creatures that keep lesser creatures from disturbing the dragon that guards their lair and such.

-AHMAD

[TwilightPhoenix]

Why only one type of dragon boss? Get a swamp dragon, it's a marshy dragon portal vault. Get a fire dragon? Fire and lava. Ice dragon? More icy themed. And so forth.

[nicolae]

I love to hear new ideas for portal vaults. In my opinion, going with dragons is good, but it'd suggest to make it a single dragon (perhaps assorted smaller monsters, but only one dragon) and to put the vaults as early as possible. One idea with portal vaults is that they can ask the player to exert herself, and to use tools and thoughts to overcome an otherwise OOD obstacle (think of the Sewer with the troll).
Why to use a portal vault instead of an ordinary vault: (a) it is safer for those for prefer not to tackle the challenge (i.e. we don't have to worry about autoexplore ruining someone's day), (b) it would be a limited offer (cannot go back in four experience levels), which generally makes portal vaults more interesting in my opinion, (c) we can modify the rules if we want, for example to guarantee the dragon to leave corpse and hide.

I'd be willing to give it a shot if there's enough support and input into it. For one thing, sneaking past an OOD dragon to get to its loot is a considerably more compelling idea than the demon pit.

[galehar]

A dragon's den portal vault, each with a unique dragon. Sounds promising

[XuaXua]

Unique food item Dragon Dung : feeds like a half ration, but always gives nauseous and sick.

[Galefury]

In the SNES game Bahamut Lagoon you actually eat dragon dung at one point.

Slightly off topic, I know. Sorry.

[dpeg]

In my opinion, going with dragons is good, but it'd suggest to make it a single dragon (perhaps assorted smaller monsters, but only one dragon) and to put the vaults as early as possible.

I'd be willing to give it a shot if there's enough support and input into it. For one thing, sneaking past an OOD dragon to get to its loot is a considerably more compelling idea than the demon pit.

If by support you mean that your work will not go to waste, I am certain that's a given. I can also offer to bounce maps by email (or any other way).

We don't need the whole monty for a start, would suffice to have versions for swamp, fire, ice dragons, say. Custom-made dragons are fun but I'd definitely start with the staples.

Some interesting things we can do (or not, per map): show loot right away (so that you know if it's worth sneaking). Make hide guaranteed (pearl dragon vault? and what depth?). Give a potion of resistance after the first wave. We might put a map so early that fighting the dragon is very rarely realistic; then success (getting loot) depends on Stealth, invisibility, blinking, speed. Sneaking becomes easier if there's an exit near the loot. Can also use fog clouds to good effect.

[nicolae]

Some interesting things we can do (or not, per map): show loot right away (so that you know if it's worth sneaking). Make hide guaranteed (pearl dragon vault? and what depth?). Give a potion of resistance after the first wave. We might put a map so early that fighting the dragon is very rarely realistic; then success (getting loot) depends on Stealth, invisibility, blinking, speed. Sneaking becomes easier if there's an exit near the loot. Can also use fog clouds to good effect.

Some design thoughts:
1) Is there any easy way to guarantee a hide? I know there's the always_corpse MONS: tag but butchering a corpse doesn't always give a hide.
2) What kind of loot would be appropriate, especially considering not everybody's always going to be able to kill the dragon successfully?

[dpeg]

nicolae: No, currently that is not possible but it could surely be added.

minmay: Because then we could have versions of the vault where only the dragon (i.e. its hide) is the loot. To diversify from other maps where you can try to ignore the dragon.

[Galefury]

Seems very spoilery.

[Steel Neuron]

An idea for one of the possible vaults:

A new tile, "open air", that behaves similarly to Deep Water, except that swimming species can't go through it (flying is obviously fine). Clouds spawn and move randomly, which have no effect but to impede line of sight. There are a series of square "islands" that actually represent tower rooftops, as well as a central, bigger one. Some rooftops may be connected with bridges, others are isolated. The player enters the vault in either the central one or any which is connected to at least a few. There are dragon roosts at some of the rooftops, and they will fight either on their own rooftop or attack from the air, but never walk on a different rooftop so the player must either invade it (luring the dragon to protect the eggs) or fight in the air.

This way characters who fight from land may get at least part of the loot.

[BlackSheep]

If you want to guarantee a hide, create a hide as loot. Drop a non-decaying dragon skeleton on top of it to hide it. It could either be the dragon's dead mate or the previous resident of the roost or whatever your imagination comes up with to fill in the blanks.

A new tile, "open air", that behaves similarly to Deep Water, except that swimming species can't go through it (flying is obviously fine)

I think that's in the game already, but it's called lava.

[Steel Neuron]

A new tile, "open air", that behaves similarly to Deep Water, except that swimming species can't go through it (flying is obviously fine)

I think that's in the game already, but it's called lava.

True dat =P

If Lava Orcs make it in though...

[njvack]

Probably, the dragon is a serial killer dragon, getting other dragons' hides to make itself a sweet suit.

Um.

Anyhow: the reason to make the dragon itself drop the hide would be to make you kill the dragon instead of ninjaing its hide. That seems like a reasonable thing to expect in a portal vault -- the tools to kill a lone fire dragon are often available pretty early.

[mumra]

I find the concept of keeping the dragon as a singular boss monster, and making the portals interesting in other ways, very compelling.

For instance the 'roost' idea could feature a long windy path through 'open air' (well, lava then) which leads to the mountaintop roost of a single dragon. On the way you are getting attacked from all sides by ordinary flying creatures - griffons, ravens, bats, harpies, whatever is vaguely appropriate for the depth on which the portal generated.

Another idea would be "dragon + foo race" ... There are really two ways this could be played. One is a "dragon king" scenario where the dragon is keeping captive slaves to do its bidding, bring sacrificial virgins, collect treasure for it, etc. The slaves can turn friendly (and immediately head for the exit) if you manage to kill the dragon and end its reign of terror. The alternate take on this is "captive dragon" when a group of humanoids have actually enslaved a dragon to fly around on its back and use it to terrorise other groups. In this case it would be thematically reasonable to have multiple dragons, and they would be held in cells. There is also Galefury's version of this where we have a wizard keeping the dragon captive.

I also liked Galefury's "dragon graveyard" concept where we encounter an ancient, dying dragon who has come to its final resting place. The area would be littered with dragon bones and gold and perhaps some undead dragons (which maybe should only trigger when you take certain piles of gold).

I'm quite keen to design a layout or two for this when I'm done with V stuff...

[BlackSheep]

I also liked Galefury's "dragon graveyard" concept where we encounter an ancient, dying dragon who has come to its final resting place. The area would be littered with dragon bones and gold and perhaps some undead dragons (which maybe should only trigger when you take certain piles of gold).

Ooooh, or to combine this with the wizard idea you could have a variant with a necromancer.

[mumra]

Of course, once there is a wizard involved it raises the question "why not just make this a wizlab..."

[BlackSheep]

That which we call a wizlab by any other name...

[dpeg]

Wizlabs are deeper than what I'd like for dragon vaults.

[BountyHunterSAx]

I'm *definitely* against the idea of including actual wizards/ necromancers. IMHO, a dragon is happy to have a den and guard its treasure in its own home. Maybe other lesser creatures congregate nearby/ in the periphery but they're no big deal to a dragon. I *do* think putting a few skeletons around of animals the dragon has presumably eaten would be a very fun bit of flavor though. And this is a dragon's den; he's the one in charge, no? I do think the idea of captive dragons held in cages by powerful masters/wizards could make for a cool WizLab, but I also think that it's not a fitting use for the running theme in the Dragon Den idea: an OOD dragon or two that need to be stealthed/dodged around to ninja some treasure or taken on headlong with appropriate consumables to secure exp+hide.

As much as I love the idea of a full-out aerial battle, even I'll admit it's not as cool as being obligated to play cat and mouse in an optional portal-vault.


-AHMAD

[mumra]

There's no reason why every map has to be the exact same idea or challenge, and having a number of different "stories" to me seems more varied and interesting. Look at how diverse wizlabs are ...

[nicolae]

Seems very spoilery.

Yeah, this is one problem I'm thinking about, especially in regards to the "sneaky thief"-styled dragon portals. One thought would be to design levels in such a way that there are multiple ways to solve them (i.e. get the loot and possibly a hide without getting obliterated) -- blinking, cTele (if that's still around by then), flight, digging, speed, invisibility, luring the dragon over lava and zapping it with paralyze, etc. That way, a player would have more options, and it would be more likely that the things they've found in the Dungeon already would be useable in some fashion to get through. (Though I suppose this leaves the question of making sure the player knows they'll need that sort of option in the first place before stepping into the portal.)

[dpeg]

I don't think that spoilerness is an issue. Of course, the dragon would get an adjective (so that players look up its description) and its description would say that it is somehow obliged to leave a hide.

[BountyHunterSAx]

Random Ideas: Can we add dragon-eggs? I'm thinking they're very functionally similar to alarm traps (albeit MUCH more thematically appropriate). They're too small/buried to be noticed by casual observation, but if you step on it it cracks, and instantly turns all dragons within a large radius berserk and lets them know your location. If they're located towards the end then triggering one of these would cause a (in my mind) Metroid-like "Time Bomb has been set, escape immediately!" alarm to go off in my head . Also, it's another reason to favor Apportation over walking past the dragon's nest area or standing still for several turns detecting traps.

Random idea: Bones of previous victims/adventurers has already been discussed. For one of the mini-vault portal entrances (or loot areas), I think it'd be very cool to have the bones of a previous explorer clutching an anti-dragon weapon (or even a wyrmbane!!). Obviously, make this a much lower-weight entrance.



A few thoughts I had for non-spoilage to a player:

First, it should be quite obvious to the player that entering a dragon's den may put them into an encounter with a dragon. It's a timed portal, right? So for its messages:
"The dragon slumbers in its den, the door open.",
"The dragon begins to wake in its den.",
"The dragon awakens to protect its den.",
"The dragon beigns sealing its den furiously.")

disappear = "The acrid scent of a dragon's breath fills the air " ..
"as it seals it's Den against the possible intruder."

In short - it's extremely clear to a player that there's a dragon protecting its den inside there, so if merely being in LOS of a dragon will mean you're dead then maybe you should be cautious.

Second, is it possible to reveal map-tiles upon entry (even if only for a few turns)? I think revealing the location [JUST those tiles, mind you] of the loot and the dragon would actually be quite a nice twist for a few reasons.
* It gives the player a sense of where they're trying to sneak around to.
* The obvious entrance may not be the most direct one.
* It tells the player what some of the loot is (but unable to examine under the piles!!) which may tempt them to try harder to earn it or not, depending how risk-averse they are.
* In my first efforts at portal design I couldnt' find a way to vary the wall/floor tile colors on an instance-by-instance basis. That is to say, all ice caves must have the same tileset. In the case of having a variety of elemental dragons as is planned here, that could be trouble. If a player can better assess their readiness to play tag with the dragon, I'd think that's a plus.

-AHMAD

[mumra]

Random Ideas: Can we add dragon-eggs? I'm thinking they're very functionally similar to alarm traps (albeit MUCH more thematically appropriate). They're too small/buried to be noticed by casual observation, but if you step on it it cracks, and instantly turns all dragons within a large radius berserk and lets them know your location. If they're located towards the end then triggering one of these would cause a (in my mind) Metroid-like "Time Bomb has been set, escape immediately!" alarm to go off in my head . Also, it's another reason to favor Apportation over walking past the dragon's nest area or standing still for several turns detecting traps.

I like having dragon eggs but I'm not sure why they would be hidden - presumably they're quite large. Simply having eggs that might hatch open in your vicinity revealing noisy/hungry baby dragons should already be pretty scary.

I think that naming the portal "A Dragon's Den" is an obvious enough hint that there's a dragon in there. Those portal timer messages would convey the wrong impression because if the dragon is already awake then a low-level character might think it's now impossible to stealth in there and back out again. The player can also read description of the portal for more information which should eliminate any spoilers and perhaps read something like this:

"A mighty dragon slumbers here. Novice adventurers should beware, for a dragon is not an easy foe to defeat, although its hide can make a much-sought-after armour. If you wish to loot its hoard of treasure, you may instead wish to tread quietly..."

Second, is it possible to reveal map-tiles upon entry (even if only for a few turns)? I think revealing the location [JUST those tiles, mind you] of the loot and the dragon would actually be quite a nice twist for a few reasons.

I'm not keen on this. For one there is no explanation for why the map would be revealed like this. It also means Magic Mapping wouldn't be so useful; it seems more interesting to me that if the player has found Magic Mapping by this point then here is a good place to use it (or if they are lucky enough to have some other form of mapping, e.g. Ash / mutation). On the other hand this idea would remove the problem (as with most portal vaults) that savvy players might look up the .des file as soon as they arrive and find out the layout/location by cheating. That particular problem can be solved in a much more interesting way: by heavily randomising the layout (quite difficult for a large portal map, but still possible with Lua). And in general it takes away some of the fun and excitement of exploring a dangerous map and not knowing exactly what's around the next corner!

* In my first efforts at portal design I couldnt' find a way to vary the wall/floor tile colors on an instance-by-instance basis. That is to say, all ice caves must have the same tileset. In the case of having a variety of elemental dragons as is planned here, that could be trouble. If a player can better assess their readiness to play tag with the dragon, I'd think that's a plus.

This isn't a problem. For instance In icecave.des you'll see an Lua function called ice_cave_appearance and this is where the standard tiles and feature descriptions are set. This function is simply called from every Ice Cave map, you could easily call a different function. As a counterpoint, in wizlab.des you'll see that each layout has a different set of tiles, these are set using LFLOORCOL, LFLOORTILE, TILE, COLOUR, and various other map headers. See: https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php?id=dcss:help:maps:syntax:headers#visual_properties

[njvack]

I don't think that spoilerness is an issue. Of course, the dragon would get an adjective (so that players look up its description) and its description would say that it is somehow obliged to leave a hide.

  Code:

Wrinkly Dragon

This dragon looks like a regular dragon, except more wrinkly. I'm pretty sure that if you chopped it up, there'd be plenty of extra skin to wear as a suit. I mean, if you wanted to wear an icky dead dragon's skin on your body. Which maybe you do.


[ebarrett]

Wrinkly dragon armour, gives you resistance to wrinkly fingers?

[Jabberwocky]

Is the Glaive of Prune often guarded by the wrinkly dragon?

[Grimm]

rYouth+

[PostmodernBrony]

rYouth+

Finally, mummies will be good for something.