Dragons

Dragon depicted on Ashes of Creation MMORPG official Gamescom 2019 teaser trailer.^[2]^[3]^[4]

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.^[5]

Dragon mounts are classed as royal mounts (tier 3) that are capable of true flight when utilized by Mayors of metropolis nodes or Kings and Queens of Guild castles.^[6]^[7]
- Royal mounts are 3 or 4 times larger than gliding mounts (tier 2 mounts).^[8]
- Certain tier 2 mount skins can be upgraded to tier 3 skins to accommodate the size difference.^[8]

Dragon eggs can also drop from legendary world bosses.^[9]^[6] These will be temporary mounts that exist for a limited duration.^[10]^[11]^[12]

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.^[7] – Steven Sharif

List of dragon bosses

Dragon mounts

Emberstorm Dragon

Abilities

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

Dragons are flying mounts with strong battle abilities, such as AoE breath attacks, swooping flyby attacks, and others.^[13]^[6]

Dragons have PvP capabilities relating to Castle sieges and Node sieges.^[6]

The dragon will have a lot of capability in PvP. It's primarily its purpose, because as it relates to Castles and the sieges they're in, or Nodes and the sieges they're in. We want dragons to have large scale ramifications against player raids.^[6] – Steven Sharif

Mounted combat

Certain mounts will have combat abilities.^[14]^[15]^[16]

Players can't use their class skills while mounted.^[15]

Mounts will have a variety of effective pvp abilities, some viable in larger scale encounters when organized correctly.^[17] – Steven Sharif

Mounts will have combat skills based on the breed and rarity. There will also be some RNG to the mount skills.^[18]
- Charging through opponents (to knock them down).^[18]
- Abilities to create a lance while mounted have been discussed as a potential design idea.^[18]
- Specific weapons systems may exist on different riding points on group mounts.^[19]

Some crowd-control abilities can dismount a mounted player.^[20] In that case the mount would persist with its own health pool and other stats.^[21]

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.^[20] – 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.^[22]

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.^[22] – Steven Sharif

Mounts can be killed by players, but can be resurrected after a certain cooldown period.^[23]^[24]^[25]

Potions obtained from the Alchemy profession can be used to reduce the cooldown.^[23]^[26]^[24]
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.^[26]
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.^[27]

Mounts can be targeted separately from the player while mounted.^[24]

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.^[28]
If a player's mule dies its corpse will contain the same percentage of lootable items as the player.^[28]^[29]

List of dragon mobs

This section contains information from Alpha-1 testing. It will be updated when new information is made available.

List of dragon bosses

Appearance

Dragon appearances are based on the region of their origin.^[30]

Elder dragons

Forest elder dragon 3D render. 3D model by Chris Myers.^[31]

Elder dragon 3D render. 3D model by Keith Kovach.^[32]

Elder dragons are more traditional looking dragons: They are much larger, heavier, and slower than other dragons.^[31]

Royal mounts

Nighthunter Gryphon royal mount.^[33]

Royal mounts are a tier 3^[8] class of flying mounts available to Mayors of metropolis nodes and Kings and Queens of Guild castles. Royal mounts can also be dropped from legendary world bosses.^[9]^[6]

Royal mounts are capable of true flight when utilized by Mayors of metropolis nodes or Kings and Queens of Guild castles.^[6]^[7]
Flight capable royal mounts are also dropped from World bosses as eggs. These mounts will have a life-span likely between 15 to 30 days (online and offline time)^[9] after which the mounts will pass away.^[6]^[34]
- 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.^[9] The eggs themselves also have a lifetime.^[35]
- Royal mount eggs are able to be sold to other players.^[36]
- Royal mounts are not breedable.^[37]
Each server may have between 10 to 20 royal mounts based on the legendary world boss timers.^[35]^[38]

Royal mounts are 3 or 4 times larger than gliding mounts (tier 2 mounts).^[8]
- Certain tier 2 mount skins can be upgraded to tier 3 skins to accommodate the size difference.^[8]

Generally flying is not something that we're going to be doing in this game and there's a lot of reasons for that: Some of it is economic, some of it is ... you create this really great looking world and we don't want you flying over all the time.^[7] – Jeffrey Bard

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.^[35] – Steven Sharif

There are different types of royal mounts.^[6]

Dragons.^[6]
Royal horses will be able to fly.^[39]
Other types of legendary, mythical creatures.^[6]

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.^[6] – Steven Sharif

Limitations

The maximum flight time on a royal mount is probably limited between 20 and 30 minutes. This will limit the range of effectiveness for these mounts.^[6]

There will be a flight time associated with it, but the flight time will be considerable. We're thinking probably between 20 and 30 minutes. So will that limit the range of effectiveness? Yes it will limit the range of effectiveness for that particular mount. ^[6] – 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.^[6]

Castles come with a royal stables.^[6]
Mayors can choose to build royal stables within their node. Once chosen, the community will need to build the stables through quests.^[6]
Royal mounts must be mounted in a royal stables in order to fly.^[6]

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.^[6] – Steven Sharif

Undermounts

Wyrmling 3D render. Concepted by Ryan Richmond. 3D model by Jessica Jennings.^[40]

The guild leader of a castle can grant the use of flying undermounts (such as wyrmlings) to guild officers during a castle siege.^[24]^[41]^[42]^[43]

These may only be granted if the castle nodes are successfully established prior to the siege.^[43]
- Node A grants 1 undermount, Node B grants 2 undermounts, and Node C grants 2 undermounts.^[44]
This system is subject to change during testing.^[44]