[Joypaw]

Different horn and tail-types affect the offspring just as much as patterns do. Here's a guide (mostly so I'll remember later) to the breeding of my unnamed species.

Females will always have the heaviest influence on the offspring, period. This doesn't necessarily mean the little ones will look similar to her, but the mother's genes will be stronger than the male's. For example, say your breeding a blue male with a docked tail and stub horns and an orange female with ram horns and a fluff tail. Most likely, your litter will contain more of the female's ram horns and fluff tail than the male's docked tail and stub horns. However, coloring is slightly different. By mixing orange and blue, you can either get certain markings orange/blue, or actually merge the two colors and create markings with a lighter or darker version of the main body color. Does that make any sense..?

So, before you start breeding, you'll probably want to know your chances of offspring inheriting any rare traits(or you just think your dragon belongs with the other one.. That's fine, too.) With one parent having a rare trait, the chances of it being inherited are probably 1/4. If both have, say, caribou horns, then the chance is about 2/4. Now your chances are half-and half, so probably at least one will get the desired trait.

But, why would anyone want such rare traits in the first place? Well, other than looks, nothing, really. Though maybe you could write a sort of 'documentary' about how your trying to get a bloodline of full-blooded rare-tailed dragons. That'd be pretty neat. :3 You also get to either gift your offspring or pick the winner of the contest if you put it up for adoption. Oh- one last thing. Only 1-5 hatchlings can be had at a time. Generally rare-horned/tailed dragons produce less offspring than average dragons.

When first emerging into the world, hatchlings can't open their eyes and have floppy ears. They are quite small, about the size of a young rabbit. At adult size they can be as tall as 8ft. Hatchlings grow very slowly. This allows them to live longer lives in the safety of a floating island called Black River Haven, where the first wild dragons were found. Although every dragon eventually grows up, you still have plenty of time to enjoy it as a baby. :3