Bone Dragon and Ghost Dragon

Necropolis Creatures

Level

1

 Skeleton

 Skeleton Warrior

Level

2

 Walking Dead

 Zombie

Level

3

 Wight

 Wraith

Level

4

 Vampire

 Vampire Lord

Level

5

 Lich

 Power Lich

Level

6

 Black Knight

 Dread Knight

Level

7

 Bone Dragon

 Ghost Dragon

Bone Dragon

Attack Skill

17

Defense Skill

15

Damage

25–50

Health

150

Speed

9

Move

Flying

Size

2

Growth

1

AI Value

3388

Fight Value

2420

Cost Per Troop

1800

Undead. Dragon. Flies. -1 enemy Morale.

Ghost Dragon

Attack Skill

19

Defense Skill

17

Damage

25–50

Health

200

Speed

14

Move

Flying

Size

2

Growth

1

AI Value

4919 4696 

Fight Value

3228

Cost Per Troop

3000

1

Undead. Dragon. Flies. -1 enemy Morale. Aging attack.

Bone Dragons and Ghost Dragons are the level 7 creatures of Necropolis. They are recruited from the Dragon Vault.

"Bone and ghost dragons are raised from dragon corpses. Both of these creatures have a ferocious biting attack and lower the morale of enemy units by one when they appear on the battlefield. Ghost dragon attacks have a 20% chance of aging their targets. Aged troops have the hit points of all their members halved." ^{RoE manual}

Dwellings & Portraits

Heroes with a specialty

• Mutare the Overlord (fixed-stat specialty)
• Mutare Drake the Overlord (fixed-stat specialty)

Special Ability: Aging

Ghost dragons have the special ability aging, which has a 20% chance to occur after they have attacked a creature stack and before the stack has a chance to retaliate. It lowers the maximum health of every creature in the target stack down to 50% (rounded up). The effect lasts for 3 combat rounds, and can only be removed with cure or dispel. Additionally, non-living creatures are immune to aging.

When ghost dragons successfully age a stack, any health lost before being aged remains lost. However, the aging cannot reduce health to 0. For example, a ghost dragon attacks one angel and deals 60 points melee damage before the aging occurs. The angel will have 40 health left, which is the result of the calculation

200÷2-60 = 40

If the ghost dragon had dealt 130 damage, the angel would have had 1 health left, which would have been the result of two calculations:

First: 200-130 = 70

Second: Max(70- (200- 100),1) = 1

200 is the previous maximum health and 100 is the maximum health after aging. 70 health remains after the first calculation (the usual damage calculation).

If cure with a power to heal of 30 is used, the angel would have had 131 health left. The following calculation shows the ensuing result:

First: 1+30 = 31

Second: Min(200,31 + (200- 100)) = 131

200 is the previous maximum health and 100 is the maximum health after being aged. Also, 31 health remains after the first calculation (the usual damage calculation).

Aging has a multiplicative effect with the wyvern monarchs' poisonous ability. This means that a creature's health could potentially be reduced to a fourth of its maximum.

Even though Peasants are not immune to aging, it has no effect on them unless health-boosting artifact is equipped. They have 1 HP, which means that after being decreased to 0.5 and rounded up, it remains 1 HP.

Creatures immune to aging:

•  Black Dragons

Elementals:

•   Air and Storm Elementals
•   Water and Ice Elementals
•   Fire and Energy Elementals
•   Earth and Magma Elementals
•   Psychic and Magic Elementals

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Undead:

•   Skeletons and Skeleton Warriors
•   Walking Dead and Zombies
•   Wights and Wraiths
•   Vampires and Vampire Lords
•   Liches and Power Liches
•   Black and Dread Knights
•   Bone and Ghost Dragons
•  Mummies

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Gargoyles:

•   Stone and Obsidian Gargoyles

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Golems:

•   Stone and Iron Golems
•  Gold Golems
•  Diamond Golems

•  Steel Golems 

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Mechanicals:

•   Automatons and Sentinel Automatons 
•   Dreadnoughts and Juggernauts 

User Commentary

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Bone Dragons are the only type of dragon that doesn't require any magical resources to recruit.

Bone Dragons and Ghost Dragons are often considered to be among the weakest level 7 creatures. They are not as powerful as dragons of Rampart and Dungeon, and do not share their breath attack and magic immunity (on the other hand, they can be boosted by some spells, unlike e.g. Black Dragons, and cannot damage their own troops). While Aging can effectively cripple an enemy stack, it is quite unreliable and may be controversial in some cases, as a stack suffered from aging will be resurrected faster.

They are fast, but have below average attack stat and the lowest defense of any level 7 unit. Use them defensively to clean up troop stacks in the first few rounds of combat and try to keep them from being overwhelmed as they will falter when they get teamed up on. They also deal the lowest minimal damage for a tier 7 unit, sharing this stat with the Hydras and Chaos Hydras.

They are also one of the three flying Necropolis units, the others being the Vampires and Wights/Wraiths, making them good for sieges, especially since the Wights and Wraiths have low stats.

The individual weakness of Ghost Dragons is somewhat balanced by the ability to indirectly recruit them from many other town types (5 out of 11 other level 7 creatures can be transformed into Bone Dragons), potentially resulting in a very large stack. However, this requires a strong economy, as all eligible creatures cost more than Bone Dragons, and the latter must then be upgraded.

Bone and Ghost Dragons are very useful if the enemy has units from at least two factions, as they will have negative morale (unless there are things increasing it). Also they are effective against wandering monsters since the latter don't have positive morale, which often causes unexpected and unnecessary losses in the hero's army.

Unlike the majority of dragons, Bone Dragons and Ghost Dragons don't have breath attack, i.e. they damage only the troops directly attacked by them. Placing Hydras, Sea Serpents , Couatls  or any living Dragons into a Skeleton Transformer will produce Bone Dragons instead of regular Skeletons. Bone and Ghost Dragons themselves will be turned into Skeletons; in Horn of the Abyss (since 1.7.0) they are converted into Bone Dragons.

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See Also:

• Dragon
• List of creatures

• Comparison of Level 7 Creatures