Elder Dragons – your oldest dragons awaken

An addon for Elemental Dragons. A tame dragon in its last stage of growth – the "Fire Dragon Elder" and its kin – keeps maturing. After five more days it awakens as an Elder Dragon: it rears up in the light of its element, grows by a quarter and hits harder. From then on it cannot die. When its health runs out it sinks to the ground unconscious and wakes up again. An Elder Totem calls all your Elder Dragons to you from anywhere in the world. And while you ride one, its claws take hold of what is below them – a troll, a friend, a pile of wood or a loaded cart – and carry it through the air until you let go.

What	Where	Cost
Elder Totem	Hammer, Misc, near a stonecutter	20 stone, 4 crystal, 2 dragon tear

Needs Elemental Dragons, which brings Better Riding for the flying.

Awakening

1. Raise a dragon to its last stage, as Elemental Dragons has it (the "… Dragon Elder").
2. Keep it tame. Its hover shows how far it has come:

   Matures into an Elder Dragon: 63 % · 2 days to go

3. After 5 in-game days in that stage it awakens, wherever it is. If you are near, you see it rear up in its element's light and grow over eight seconds.

• An Elder Dragon is 25 % bigger, has 1.5 times the health and hits 1.25 times as hard.
• Without a name of its own it is called Elder Fire Dragon, Elder Frost Dragon and so on. Its hover says Elder Dragon · cannot die.
• A dragon that was already in its last stage before you installed the mod has been maturing all along: it awakens as soon as its five days are over.
• Wild dragons and younger stages never awaken.

It cannot die

When an Elder Dragon's health runs out – from blows, fire, poison, drowning, whatever – it does not die:

• It falls unconscious for 2 minutes. In the air it glides down instead of falling and sets its rider down once it has landed or floats in water. It wakes rested, so in water it does not drown straight back into sleep.
• It lies asleep inside a shimmering shield. Nothing can hurt it, enemies look past it, and nobody can ride it.
• Then it wakes up with 30 % of its health.

  Unconscious · wakes in 1:24

Releasing it. If you want to part with an Elder Dragon, strike it with the butcher knife while it lies unconscious. Only its owner can do that. It dies and leaves what Elemental Dragons leaves: its egg, so you can start over. The knife does nothing to an awake Elder Dragon. (With CannotDie off an Elder Dragon is mortal, and the butcher knife works on it as on any tame animal.)

The Elder Totem

A stone pillar crowned with Moder's head. Build it near a stonecutter, point at it and press E:

• All your Elder Dragons come to the totem, from anywhere in the world, also from places nobody has visited for hours. They land round it and follow you.
• Awake or unconscious, they come. Only a dragon that someone is riding stays where it is.
• "Your" Elder Dragons are those bonded to you in Better Riding, else the ones that awoke near you.
• In a ward, only those allowed there can use the totem.

The claws

While you ride an awakened Elder Dragon, a line low on the screen shows what its claws can reach:

[B] Grab: Troll

1. Fly low over something, so that it is right below the dragon's hind feet.
2. Press B: the claws close on it.
3. Fly wherever you like. Press B again to let go.

What	Notes
Players	They hang from the claws and can jump to break free (and fall). Not while they sit, sleep, ride or step through a portal.
Creatures	Wild or tame, trolls and more: an Elder Fire, Frost or Lightning Dragon lifts 8.7 m of body, the Poison one 10.5 m, the Black one 13 m. Never bosses, never a mount with a rider.
Items on the ground	A whole pile at once, up to 8 stacks.
Carts and logs	A cart keeps its load; not while someone pulls it, sits in it or has it open.

• What falls, falls. A dropped player takes the game's fall damage, counted from where he was let go. Dropped creatures take the same: none up to 4 m, all their health from 20 m. So a troll dropped from 12 m loses half its health.
• The dragon sets its load down when it lands after a flight, and lets go when you get off or when it falls unconscious. Flying low, the load is dragged over the ground, never through it.
• A carried log or cart does no ramming damage; it is a load, not a weapon.
• Better Riding lands a dragon whose ground ray meets something; a log or cart in its own claws does not count.

The real thing

• Maturing uses the clock Elemental Dragons' growth uses: the time since the dragon reached its last stage (5 days = 9000 s, one growth stage of Elemental Dragons). The awakening is stored in the dragon and holds for good.
• Unconscious instead of dead: the mod stops the game's death check itself, before the dragon counts as dead – so it covers every kind of damage, and the dragon never ends up as a living corpse.
• Fall damage is the game's own rule for players: Clamp01((h − 4) / 16) × 100. For creatures the 100 becomes their maximum health.
• The totem's call goes to the server, which knows every dragon in the world. A dragon that a player has loaded is moved by that player's game, one that nobody has loaded is moved by the server.
• What the mod does not change: how dragons hatch, grow, eat and fly, their attacks and Better Riding's controls.

Configuration

BepInEx/config/zap.elderdragons.cfg

Elder, Protection, Totem, Claws (server-synced, admin only)

• MaturingDays (5) – days in the last stage before the awakening; 0 awakens at once.
• ElderScale (1.25), HealthFactor (1.5), DamageFactor (1.25) – how much bigger and stronger.
• CannotDie (on), KnockoutSeconds (120), WakeHealth (0.3), ButcherRelease (on).
• TotemRecipe (Stone:20,Crystal:4,DragonTear:2), TotemStation (piece_stonecutter), RecallStaying (on: also dragons told to stay).
• GrabNeedsElder (on: only awakened dragons grab), GrabPlayers, GrabPlayersNeedsPvP (off; turn it on for public servers: then only players with PvP on can be lifted), PlayersBreakFree, GrabCreatures, MaxCreatureHeight (7 m for a Fire Dragon Elder before it awakens; bigger bodies lift more), CreatureFallDamage, CreatureFallScale (1), GrabItems, GrabCarts, GrabReach (3.5 m, grows the same way).

Client

• GrabKey (B) – grab and let go while riding.
• ShowHints (on) – the line that shows what the claws can reach.

Multiplayer and compatibility

• Everyone needs the mod (and Elemental Dragons and Better Riding, as before). Settings come from the server.
• Everything is stored in the dragon itself; all players see the same awakening, sleep and load.
• A carried player hangs himself into the claws on his own game, so he sees it smoothly.
• The dragon keeps its Elemental Dragons prefab, so Better Riding's flying, attacks, bond and call keep working.

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Deutsch

Elder Dragons ist ein Addon für Elemental Dragons. Ein zahmer Drache auf seiner letzten Wachstumsstufe (der „… Dragon Elder“) reift weiter und erwacht nach 5 Spieltagen zum Elder-Drachen: Er bäumt sich im Licht seines Elements auf, wird ein Viertel größer, hat 1,5-mal so viel Leben und schlägt 1,25-mal so hart zu. Der Hovertext zeigt, wie weit er ist („Reift zum Elder-Drachen: 63 % · noch 2 Tage“).

Er kann nicht sterben. Geht ihm das Leben aus, sinkt er bewusstlos zu Boden (in der Luft gleitet er hinab und setzt seinen Reiter ab, an Land wie im Wasser), schläft zwei Minuten in einem schimmernden Schild und erwacht mit 30 % Leben. Nur sein Besitzer kann ihn mit dem Metzgermesser freigeben, solange er bewusstlos ist: Dann stirbt er und hinterlässt sein Ei.

Das Elder-Totem, eine Steinsäule mit Moders Kopf (Hammer, Verschiedenes, am Steinmetz; 20 Stein, 4 Kristall, 2 Drachenträne), ruft mit E alle deine Elder-Drachen zu dir, von überall in der Welt, wach oder bewusstlos. Nur ein gerittener Drache bleibt, wo er ist.

Die Klauen: Auf einem Elder-Drachen fliegst du tief über etwas und greifst es mit B: Spieler (sie reißen sich mit Springen los), Kreaturen bis über Trollgröße (je größer der Drache, desto mehr), ganze Haufen Gegenstände, Karren samt Ladung und Baumstämme. Noch einmal B lässt los; landet der Drache nach dem Flug, setzt er die Last ab. Was fällt, nimmt Fallschaden nach der Spielregel für Spieler, auch Kreaturen: ein Troll aus 12 m verliert die Hälfte seines Lebens. Auf öffentlichen Servern lässt GrabPlayersNeedsPvP nur Spieler mit eingeschaltetem PvP greifen.

Alle Werte stehen in BepInEx/config/zap.elderdragons.cfg. Alle Spieler brauchen den Mod.