Black Dragons

No one but the Black Dragons themselves are sure where they hail from. One thing is for certain though, they seem most at ease in the shadows, or under the dark of night. Their inky black scales seem to soak up any surrounding light, making their surroundings just a little bit darker.

Compared to other types of Dragons, Black Dragons are slender and slinky. This makes them surprisingly stealthy hunters for their size. But because Black Dragons are less bulky, their blows do not land as heavily as those from other Dragon breeds.

As a result of their time spent in the shadows, Black Dragons have developed the ability to see in complete darkness. After the sun goes down, Black Dragons are known to engage in a murderous hunt for their foes. Black Dragons also possess the latent psionic ability to inspire sheer terror in their enemies.

When utilizing his acid breath to its fullest potential, a Black Dragon can melt away his foe's defenses and prevent their body from regenerating properly.

• Abbreviation: Bkd.

• Language(s): Common, Draconian.

• Racial(s): Armorancient, Breath, Claw, Fly, Darkvision, Tail, Corpse Eating, Prowl, Terror, Imbue.

• Characteristics: Quadruped, Wings, Horns, Claws, Scaled Race, Draconic

• Racial Size: very large.

• Racial TNL: 10000 XP.

• Well-Suited to Be: berserkers, bodyguards, black circle initiates, clerics, mages, mindbenders, monks, paladins, priests, psionicists, rangers, shadowfists, sorcerers, stormlords, warriors, wizards.

• Ill-Suited to Be: archers, assassins, druids, fusiliers, rogues.

Comments

I have not adjusted the Well-Suited or Ill-Suited lists from regular (Red) Dragons, but presumably Black Dragons have better stealth and would therefore make better Shadowfists, Black Circle Initiates, Rogues and Assassins.

Black Dragons retain the same racial size of "Very Large".

The stealth changes for Black Dragon from normal (Red) dragon seems to be +1 stealth level to -1 from -2, making Black Dragon's similar to trolls. This means that if you are a Black Dragon Rogue or Bladedancer you can still fail stealth checks. If you are a BCI, the stealth bonus from Nightcloak (+10% stealth) is big enough when combined with changing to Black Dragon that you will never fail stealth checks. This has been tested by playing a Black Dragon BCI for approximately 15 hero levels with zero stealth fails while Nightcloak was up.

Black Dragons gain several new racials, including "Prowl" and "Terror".

Terror works like the mob_spec that can make you flee. You cause all mobs engaged in direct combat with you attempt to flee and they will either flee completely, have fear cast on them or trip and fall down. It is exhausted for eight ticks when used.

Prowl is a self-buffing racial that provides +2% stealth for 8 ticks on a 12 tick cooldown. It also provides your hits with a damage boost of approximately 1 star. ie: *MULTILATING vs MULTILATING. The major drawback to this racial is that it can only be used during nighttime (check "time" in game) which lasts from 7pm until 5am game time.

Spell: 'midnight prowl' modifies stealth by + 2% for 0 hours.