Dragons

Alpha-2 Firebrand dragon raid encounter.^[1]

Dragons (sometimes referred to as Wyrms or Wyrmlings) are able to be used as mounts, others will serve as NPCs: Some will be bosses or monsters that players can fight.^[3]

Dragon mounts are classed as royal mounts (tier 3) that are capable of true flight when utilized by Mayors of Metropolis (stage 6) nodes or Kings and Queens of Guild castles.^[4]^[5]
- For the purposes of Alpha-2, dragon mounts will be provided to Mayors of Village (stage 3) nodes and higher.^[6]
- Royal mounts are 3 or 4 times larger than gliding mounts (tier 2 mounts).^[7]
- Certain tier 2 mount skins can be upgraded to tier 3 skins to accommodate the size difference.^[7]

Dragon eggs can also drop from legendary world bosses.^[8]^[4] These will be temporary mounts that exist for a limited duration.^[9]^[10]^[11]

Utilizing a royal mount during an event, such as a siege or war, will incur an upfront cost. If the mount dies during that event there will be a cooldown period before the mount can be used. The cost to use the mount must also be paid again.^[6]

We reserved it to very very few people per server, which is also going to make it a lot more meaningful when those flying dragons come into play for certain events.^[5] – Steven Sharif

There are different types and age groups of dragons in Ashes of Creation.^[12]

List of dragon bosses

Dragon mounts

Emberstorm Dragon

Abilities

Dragons are royal flying mounts with strong abilities that can be used during Wars and Sieges.^[6]^[13]^[4]

Skill	Icon	Description
Battle Roar		The mount rears up in a stance of dominance, emitting a thunderous roar whilst flapping its wings forward twice. The first wing flap applies a 25% mitigation buff on allies, and the second applies a 25% power buff on allies, each buff lasting for 15 seconds.^[14]
Divebomb		Launch into the air and then dive toward target location, dealing (100%ﾒ) physical damage and applying Tripped to enemies around you upon landing.^[15]

Mounted combat

Mount combat abilities are unlocked through breeding via the animal husbandry profession.^[16]^[17]^[18]^[19]^[20]^[21]

Players can't use their class skills while mounted.^[21]

Mounts will have a variety of effective pvp abilities, some viable in larger scale encounters when organized correctly.^[22] – Steven Sharif

Mounts will have combat skills based on the breed and rarity. There will also be some RNG to the mount skills.^[23]
- Charging through opponents (to knock them down).^[23]
- Abilities to create a lance while mounted have been discussed as a potential design idea.^[23]
- Specific weapons systems may exist on different riding points on group mounts.^[24]

Some crowd-control abilities can dismount a mounted player.^[25] In that case the mount would persist with its own health pool and other stats.^[26]

There is danger to traversing areas with enemies nearby; and there are specific abilities that knock a rider off of their mount should they venture too close to enemies.^[25] – Steven Sharif

The intention is for players to gain knowledge about mount abilities through observation rather than having that information provided to them in advance.^[27]

Q: How will it be evident to players in a PVP scenario what types of abilities they might anticipate from an enemy's mount if its owner has a skin of another breed applied to it?

A: Mount abilities are really meant to be a learned information source. This is not meant to be something that I can look at a mount and know without interacting with that individual- that player what that mount is capable of doing; and as such, when they have skins applied, whether it be through in-game earned or through cosmetic purchase, you will get a learning for what that mount does by observing its use-case and taking that knowledge that you have learned forward with you.^[27] – Steven Sharif

Mounts can be killed by players, but can be resurrected after a certain cooldown period.^[28]^[29]^[30]^[31]

Potions obtained from the Alchemy profession can be used to reduce the cooldown.^[29]^[32]^[30]
Mounts that die a certain number of times within a set period might gain a debuff that requires a different material component to assist with their resurrection.^[32]
Fall damage that occurs while mounted will be first applied to the mount; and if the mount dies as a result, then the remaining damage may overflow onto the player, but this will be determined based on testing.^[33]
Flying mounts that are killed during an event, such as a siege or war, will incur an additional cost to use the mount when the cooldown period has expired.^[6]

Mounts can be targeted separately from the player while mounted.^[30]

If a player dies there will be a period of time before their mule despawns. Other players must kill that player's mule to be able to loot it.^[34]
If a player's mule dies its corpse will contain the same percentage of lootable items as the player.^[34]^[35]

List of dragon mobs

This section contains potentially outdated information from Alpha-1 testing.

List of dragon bosses

Appearance

Dragon appearances are based on the region of their origin.^[36]

Elder dragons

Forest elder dragon 3D render. 3D model by Chris Myers.^[37]

Elder dragon 3D render. 3D model by Keith Kovach.^[38]

Elder dragons are more traditional looking dragons: They are much larger, heavier, and slower than other dragons.^[37]

Flying mounts

Nighthunter Gryphon royal mount.^[39]

Flying mounts (also referred to as Royal mounts) are a tier 3^[7] class of mount that are capable of true flight when utilized by Mayors of metropolis nodes or Kings and Queens of Guild castles.^[40]^[4]^[5]
- Each server realm may have between 10 to 20 royal mounts based on the legendary world boss timers.^[41]^[42]
- For the purposes of Alpha-2 testing, flying mounts will be provided to Mayors of Village (stage 3) nodes and higher.^[6]

Q: Will there be flying mounts for everyone?

A: No. There will not be flying mounts for everyone. However, everyone will be capable of getting a flying mount potentially through either the hard work of becoming a Mayor or the hard work of capturing a Castle, if you're a guild leader; or through a drop chance by certain world bosses, or through successful economic endeavors by purchasing those said drops from the people who do achieve them.^[40] – Steven Sharif

Flight capable royal mounts are also dropped from legendary world bosses as eggs.^[40]^[8]^[4] These mounts will have a life-span likely between 15 to 30 days (online and offline time)^[8] after which the mounts will pass away.^[4]^[43]
- Royal mounts are dropped as eggs that can be cultivated through the Animal Husbandry profession for artisans with a high enough stable upgrade on their freehold.^[8] The eggs themselves also have a lifetime.^[41]
- Royal mount eggs are able to be sold to other players.^[40]^[44]

Flying mounts are intended to be force multipliers. This is the reason they are limited to a small number of players at one time. The developers will consider other potential ways to limit flying mounts based on testing data.^[45]^[6]^[41]^[42]

Royal mounts are 3 or 4 times larger than gliding mounts (tier 2 mounts).^[7]
- Certain tier 2 mount skins can be upgraded to tier 3 skins to accommodate the size difference.^[7]

At any given point in time you're gonna see anywhere from 10 to maybe at max I would say around 20 based off of the legendary world boss timers. Probably 20 people who have flying abilities.^[41] – Steven Sharif

Utilizing a royal mount during an event, such as a siege or war, will incur an upfront cost. If the mount dies during that event there will be a cooldown period before the mount can be used. The cost to use the mount must also be paid again.^[6]

There are different types of royal mounts.^[4]
- Dragons.^[4]
- Royal horses will be able to fly.^[46]
- Other types of legendary, mythical creatures.^[4]

Dragons are a class of these royal mounts. You can get different types of royal mounts. They don't have to be dragons. They could be some other type of legendary mythical creature... It will be an epic looking large-scale creature and people will notice you and it while you are approaching.^[4] – Steven Sharif

Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

Royal mounts are not breedable.^[47]

Limitations

Flying mounts are intended to be force multipliers. This is the reason they are limited to a small number of players at one time. The developers will consider other potential ways to limit flying mounts based on testing data.^[45]^[6]^[41]^[42]

Flying mounts may be limited in speed and/or range from a node's vassal network.^[45]
Potentially longer death timers that can stack.^[45]
A previous statement was that flying mounts could only be mounted at a royal stables in order to fly.^[4]
It was also stated previously that a maximum flight time of 20 and 30 minutes might be enforced to limit range of effectiveness.^[4]

Q: Opponents can't effectively stop flying mounts from scouting targets in the world (in Alpha-2 phase-2 testing). Will there be any counter-play to this?

A: To a degree the purpose is to be a vertical power multiplier... The reason why it's so restrictive is because that can really only be a modifier up to at least, at the moment, eight people on the map, which means the other thing is that it's exacerbated in the power it's providing, given that the map is the size it is and not what it's intended to be. So, the more playable space there is the less of an area of effect you have available to you. There's also some tuning perhaps in the speed of the mount that I think needs to be done. If we really want to get a little bit more heavy-handed with us observing the effect of these force multipliers and trying to infringe, or bring that down a bit, we could start talking about area-of-effect where the flight is capable being within zones of influence of vassal structures essentially. So, you can fly around your area but you're not able to fly around others. There's ways that we can play with that.^[45] – Steven Sharif

Royal stables

Some of the following information has not been recently confirmed by the developers and may not be on the current development roadmap.

Royal stables are a type of building in Ashes of Creation.^[4]

Castles come with a royal stables.^[4]
Mayors can choose to build royal stables within their node. Once chosen, the community will need to build the stables through quests.^[4]
Flying mounts must be mounted in a royal stables in order to fly.^[4]

The royal mounts will be the only class of mounts that can fully fly in the world; and they are will be needed to be mounted while in a royal stables. Royal stables are a building that can be built in a node if elected to be built by the mayor and supported by the community building it up through the quests to do so; and castles come with a royal stable as well. So once you have a royal stable and you become that Mayor or King or Queen, you may then mount the creature there and then take it wherever you wish.^[4] – Steven Sharif

Undermounts

This section contains potentially outdated information from Alpha-1 testing.

Wyrmling 3D render. Concepted by Ryan Richmond. 3D model by Jessica Jennings.^[48]

The guild leader of a castle can grant the use of flying undermounts (such as wyrmlings) to guild officers during a castle siege.^[30]^[49]^[50]^[51]

These may only be granted if the castle nodes are successfully established prior to the siege.^[51]
- Node A grants 1 undermount, Node B grants 2 undermounts, and Node C grants 2 undermounts.^[52]
This system is subject to change during testing.^[52]