So. I may have written a set of rules designed for a lore-based Nuzlocke that I'm participating in (more like invented and am currently the only one doing). A couple of people have expressed interest in the rules I'm using, so here there are for people who are interested, and also for the general populace! (Be warned, they're long.)
Your clan, through no real fault of their own (or perhaps some fault of one of their own), is living in close quarters with an eldritch abomination. It’s probably part of the shade. We’re not really certain though. The abomination is shadowed at first, and its effects are small, but it will continue to plague the clan throughout their residency in the area, and will not suffer them to leave easily.
Important Note: This Nuzlocke challenge was written with a focus on lore-building. Therefore, a lot of my rules are different from ‘standard’ Nuzlockes, and many of them reference actions that are depicted as necessary to increase lore-building potential. In some areas it is much easier than a normal Nuzlocke -- in others it’s much more difficult, and certainly I have created some elements that I haven’t seen in any Nuzlockes before now. I have added some lore-oriented interpretations of the site that may not fit the perceptions of other users, particularly regarding the AH. Others can feel free to alter such rules to their liking if they find my headcanons about the AH disagreeable.
If you want to get started on the challenge immediately, you can just exalt or partition your dragons and get right along to the section on beginning your new clan. Summoning your own abomination is kind of fun, though, and will give you some interesting background, as well as the added challenge of needing some kind of sacrifice for the abomination to ‘power-up’. It may also help you decide which is the best method with which to start your new clan, and if you’re going into this with the intent to write lore, I highly suggest going through the summoning stage for more depth. I personally have already summoned my abomination, but here are some pointers for how to do the deed.
There are a couple of different methods one can use to begin their Lovecraftian Nuzlocke.
After you have your clan starters, your general clan life begins. This part is the most similar to other Nuzlocke challenges that I’ve seen, but because I’ve designed the challenge with lore writing in mind I’ve modified, altered, or altogether done away with some of the common rules.
Traveling to other flight areas involves travel times. One or more dragons may be selected to travel, and they will be ‘unusable’ for anything else for the duration of that travel -- you cannot take them into the coli, and cannot use them to gather food or other items (unless they were sent away to gather specifically in another flight’s territory). Travel time is 2 days (real time) for adjacent territories, 4 days for territories one farther, and 6 days for territories one farther -- half to reach the location and half to return. If desired, dragons may stay in the destination for more time, but this will also be measured in real days and will delay their return to the clan.
Example: My dragons can travel to Earth, Plague, Water, or Light and back in 2 days. They can travel to Arcane, Wind, Fire, Lightning, or Nature and back in 4 days. They can travel to Ice and back in 6 days.
This version of the Nuzlocke does not have as much of a moratorium on obtaining dragons that many Nuzlockes do, because the eldritch abomination is what is making your life difficult, not arbitrary rules about when you can get dragons.
The AH
The basic form of this challenge interprets the AH as a black market. It follows that the ‘Dragons’ section of the AH is a dragon trafficking hub, and the following rules reflect this headcanon of mine. Users who find this distasteful may wish to ignore the AH in their Nuzlocke, or if you’re feeling creative, come up with some other way to use the AH. (If you do come up with another idea, please ping me so I can add it to the masterpost and give people more options!)
The AH must be ‘discovered’ before it can be accessed. Simple discovery means only that the clan becomes aware of the existence of the black market, not that they know where it is or how to access it. Access means that your clan can buy things from the AH. There are a couple of possibilities for discovery/access.
AH trips are very stressful and there is a limit to purchases. While multiple dragons can be designated to travel to an AH, each dragon can only carry back 100 units of purchases.
Because AH trips can be so stressful, dragons who have been to the AH require a calming period of at least one week after a trip. Purchasing a dragon from the AH increases the recovery time of all involved to two weeks. These recovery times can be lengthened or shortened depending of the mental state of the dragons who visited (see the CP Rules below).
Relevant Statistics
Every dragon has a certain CP, or a number of Coping Points. These can be considered similar to the SAN stat in Call of Cthulhu, if you’re familiar with that game. As a dragon spends more time in the proximity of the abomination, their CP can and will drop, and as it drops, two and perhaps three other stats are affected: Possession and Volatile first, and Avatar second.
Example: A dragon has a Possession stat of 20/100. I roll a d100, or somehow otherwise randomly generate a number between 1 and 100. My result is 67, so the roll is not successful. However, I roll a 10 for the Volatile roll, which is currently at 27/100. Therefore, the dragon begins to show one of the traits listed under the Volatile roll above. I also add one point to Avatar, which is currently at 12/100, making the Avatar roll 13/100.
How to Determine Number of Points Lost
Foci Rules
To make your abomination more interesting, you can choose to give it certain characteristics. One facet of this is giving it focus points. My abomination, for example, has a huge focus on the color obsidian. This informs a lot of my visual choices. Remember that, in many ways, you are the abomination. What’s your favorite FR color? What’s your favorite gene or gene combo? Your favorite breed? All these things can inform your abomination and give you a way to direct your abomination’s actions. (Coincidentally, my favorite FR color also happens to be obsidian.)
Types of Corruptions
A dragon that has been the victim of a successful Avatar roll is a corruption. Corrupted dragons are part dragon-part abomination, with the abomination taking more or less percentage of their being depending on which corruption they become. Corruptions are bad news for the non-corrupted dragons of the clan, as they will work to bring more power to the abomination -- whether or not their remaining draconic consciousness realizes what they are doing.
It should be noted that the physical descriptions below are specific to my own Nuzlocke. If you design your own abomination, you can certainly give it other design tendencies and adjust the appearances of the different corruptions to suit your abomination and your liking. Two of the corruptions below, specifically the Thorn and the Garden, are named specific to my abomination’s manifestations. If you design your own abomination you can feel free to alter these as well.
My abomination, for context, is based on darkness and shadow. To date the most physical manifestation we’ve witnessed that hasn’t been a corrupted dragon has been a shadow cast by something that both is and is not there, and which looks something like a dragon, or at least clearly had a jaw because it was eating dead dragons, too many limbs, and thorns writhing from its body. My focus is obsidian and I have a secondary complex focus on trip-obs trip-basic. To get a better idea of my abomination’s other manifestations, I’d direct you to this thread, where some friends and I roleplayed my last clan’s final moments. The first post and the very last page especially have some very long narrative posts I made that perfectly showcase what my abomination does to the landscape. My corruptions also tend to do something I like to call sublimation when they are killed -- they dissolve into a puddle of liquid darkness. The thread above has some examples of that scattered throughout it as well.
The Face: The Face is the rarest and most dangerous type of corruption. Essentially a miniature version of the greater abomination, the Face is hard to obtain, but if a dragon is corrupted into the Face the clan is very likely to be doomed. Faces are not really dragons anymore, and are mentally very changed from whoever they once were. They are silent, and never speak, nor make any sounds. They do not have pupils and their irises expand to fill most of their eye, leaving barely a sliver of sclera left. Faces will not accept scatterscrolling or gene or breed modifications after they become the Face. It is very common for the Face to be a dragon with multiple Foci points. Even other corruptions will tend to find Faces difficult, unsettling, or impossible to be around. Faces do not sublimate, unlike other corruptions.
How to Obtain: Faces will be near-perfect manifestations of whatever foci you choose, but can only appear after you have also had a Voice, a Mouth, an Eye, and supporting Thorns show up. Bonus points if you have a Garden but no Face.
The Voice: The Voice is a very common corruption, and is often the first one to show up. The Voice doesn’t actively do much, but will seek out dragons with high levels of avatar potential and speak to them at length, which increases CP loss. If a dragon is highly in the Volatile stage, the Voice will insinuate themself with the volatile dragon and begin to direct their efforts. A dragon corrupted as the Voice will no longer be actively corrupted once other corruptions appear and are in control of the clan, but the dragon who was corrupted will no longer be able to speak after being the Voice. Voices lose their tongues during their corruption and unlike most corruptions, their skin remains intact when they sublimate.
How to Obtain: Your first dragon to be corrupted is probably going to be a Voice, unless you have a very good reason why they should be a Mouth or Eye instead. A Child can show up before a Voice, but since Children are rare this is unusual. Voices also tend to be made by dragons with a higher Possession quotient than Volatile quotient.
The Mouth: The Mouth is a corruption focused on expanding the ranks of the clan, and is usually the result of a Volatile reaching avatar state. Mouths do not Speak as Voices do, nor do they find their normal voices inhibited. Mouths are highly variable in their characteristics, but tend to gain slightly sadistic tendencies. Mouths will seek to place themselves in positions of political power within the clan, from whence they will input their(/the abomination’s) policies. They also tend to eventually keep track of the clan’s funds. Mouths are unusually tolerant of the presence of Faces.
How to Obtain: Mouths are the corrupted dragons who jump out of the woodwork suddenly with little warning. They tend to be dragons who somehow lost CP at a very fast rate prior to their corruption, and they may have a greater tendency to arise from outsiders, dragons who were neither born nor raised in the area.
The Eye: Tending to arise from a Volatile dragon, Eyes are heavily focused on beauty, and will do most anything to obtain ‘perfection’ of color, gene, and breed for a dragon. Dragons who become Eyes lose their empathy to a much more noticeable extent than the other corruptions and tend to become very narcissistic and self-centered. Eyes are almost always formed from dragons who are desirable in appearance. Eyes are very similar to Mouths in that they are slightly more tolerant of Faces than other corruptions, and may even go so far as to try scrolling Faces if they feel the urge.
How to Obtain: Eyes are created by corrupted dragons who were very aesthetically pleasing when they were first obtained, but are not exactly the near-perfect foci example of the Face. If you have a Mouth who has managed to manipulate things enough to have a breeding-for-colors program, a child from one of those programs has a higher chance of becoming an Eye if corrupted.
The Thorn: Thorns are the most common kind of corruption, and are the corruption most likely to occur in multiples. Thorn corruptions are formed from the most varied of corrupted dragons, and are the most versatile corruption, taking many possible roles. Unlike most other corruptions, Thorns don’t usually develop tendencies that are identifiable within the group, and are quite variable.
How to Obtain: If you have no really compelling corruption morph to follow for a dragon that succeeds at its avatar roll, the dragon becomes a Thorn.
The Child: The Child is the most unusual corruption, and relatively rare. Unlike other corruptions, the Child does nothing that might indicate they are a corruption, behaving like a normal dragon. However, in the late stages of an infected clan, Children may be identified by their comparative normalcy. Children actively seek to avoid the Face and the other corruptions, interacting with the non-corrupted dragons as much as possible. They may become a sort of figurehead leader to these dragons. Children act at almost all times as though they are unaware of their status as a corruption. When Children sublimate, they leave untarnished bones behind.
How to Obtain: Children are rare and it’s quite possible your run won’t have any. Children come from unhatched eggs, but not necessarily -- each such egg has only a 10/100 chance of being a Child, and only if the egg is from the region your clan is native to.
The Garden: Gardens are only barely less dangerous than Faces, and are the second rarest kind of corruption. Unlike all other corruptions, Gardens are not initially created from a normal dragon, but evolve from any of the other corruptions (with the exception of Faces). The Garden is less of a specific role and more of a secondary characteristic of whatever corruption evolves to encompass them. Gardens gain extra traits depending on the local abomination’s Foci and manifestation tendencies, and are very dangerous. The appearance of a Garden, similar to the appearance of a Face, shows that a clan is likely doomed. Gardens, like Faces, do not sublimate.
How to Obtain: A Garden is a dragon that you love and that has already been corrupted for a very long time.
If anyone actually winds up reading this and wants to try it, ping me and let me know! I want to follow the tales my fellow horror enthusiasts come up with. And feel free to modify the rules if you like! Shadowmum knows I did.
My own thread for tracking my Nuzlocke is here.
Your clan, through no real fault of their own (or perhaps some fault of one of their own), is living in close quarters with an eldritch abomination. It’s probably part of the shade. We’re not really certain though. The abomination is shadowed at first, and its effects are small, but it will continue to plague the clan throughout their residency in the area, and will not suffer them to leave easily.
Important Note: This Nuzlocke challenge was written with a focus on lore-building. Therefore, a lot of my rules are different from ‘standard’ Nuzlockes, and many of them reference actions that are depicted as necessary to increase lore-building potential. In some areas it is much easier than a normal Nuzlocke -- in others it’s much more difficult, and certainly I have created some elements that I haven’t seen in any Nuzlockes before now. I have added some lore-oriented interpretations of the site that may not fit the perceptions of other users, particularly regarding the AH. Others can feel free to alter such rules to their liking if they find my headcanons about the AH disagreeable.
Summoning an Abomination
If you want to get started on the challenge immediately, you can just exalt or partition your dragons and get right along to the section on beginning your new clan. Summoning your own abomination is kind of fun, though, and will give you some interesting background, as well as the added challenge of needing some kind of sacrifice for the abomination to ‘power-up’. It may also help you decide which is the best method with which to start your new clan, and if you’re going into this with the intent to write lore, I highly suggest going through the summoning stage for more depth. I personally have already summoned my abomination, but here are some pointers for how to do the deed.
- Decide how many dragons you will need to exalt before your abomination is fully summoned. This number could be anything you wish, though I suggest making it at least slightly challenging. (Double or triple your current lair capacity is a good baseline.) If you’re feeling really up to a challenge, you could make it 1000, but be aware you’ll be summoning for a long time if you pick that option.
- Get to work! I highly suggest using some method of tracking your exaltees. There are a lot of good spreadsheet templates around the site, and I may be making one specifically tailored for this challenge as well.
- When you reach your goal, the abomination has been summoned. This is not going to be a calm moment -- the summoning will have a disastrous effect upon your clan and upon any other dragons who may be in the area. Basically, this refers to every dragon in your clan. At the end of the summoning, there are only two options for each dragon that was in the area: possessed or dead. You can select your favorites as the ones who survive to be possessed, and therefore will stick around. The number of dragons that can be possessed, and therefore ‘saved’, should be roughly the number of your sacrifices divided by 30, rounded to the nearest whole number. For example, my goal was 381 dragons. Divided by 30, that comes out to 12.7, which means I can possess up to 13 dragons.
Beginning the New Clan
There are a couple of different methods one can use to begin their Lovecraftian Nuzlocke.
- If any of your dragons happen to be sitting on a nest when the summoning occurs, the eggs could survive unscatched and hatch into orphaned children. Remember that the hatchling survival rules will apply here (see below).
- If you are planning to let one or two dragons survive without being possessed, they can be the founders of the new clan. Remember that they’ll already have their psyches compromised! (See the CP Rules below.)
- You could hatch a couple of gen1 eggs, claiming that they were abandoned in the area. If you’re playing the harder version, these should only be eggs from your flight. For example, I would only be able to hatch shadow eggs for the hard version of this start.
- Finally, you can simulate a new clan moving into the area by selecting some entirely new dragons from the AH. If you’re willing to start from hatchlings, then just buy the cheapest dragon (of any age) you can find, and then buy the cheapest dragon (of any age) you can find who is of the opposite sex. Remember that, if you’re using this challenge to write lore, the fact that they’re hatchlings will affect this. If you want adults, then you’re going to need to go through and find the two cheapest adults (one male, one female). Don’t be picky or search for specific color combinations or genes or breeds, just BUY THE CHEAPEST DRAGONS. The only caveat here is that you’re allowed to skip dragons who are related, as they won’t be able to breed.
General Life
After you have your clan starters, your general clan life begins. This part is the most similar to other Nuzlocke challenges that I’ve seen, but because I’ve designed the challenge with lore writing in mind I’ve modified, altered, or altogether done away with some of the common rules.
- You can both gather food and grind for food in the coli.
- If a dragon faints in the coli, it is dead and will be exalted.
- Each hatchling in a nest will have a coin flipped for it. If the flip is tails, the hatchling is dead and will be exalted. If the flip is heads, the hatchling survives to adulthood.
- You are at first limited to your flight’s area for everything you do. This does not apply to the location of coli venues or to the marketplace -- every flight area is assumed to have the equivalents of each venue in them, and to have its own marketplace. At level 7, a dragon can access the territories of adjacent flights. At level 15, a dragon can access territories adjacent to those territories. At level 20, the reach expands again, and at level 25 everywhere is available if it was not already so. It should be noted that Ice flight and Nature flight territory are not considered to be adjacent to any other flights, but to be one removed, considering the oceans in between. These rules limit where you can gather items, what clans you can interact with lore-wise, and who you can get new dragons from.
Traveling to other flight areas involves travel times. One or more dragons may be selected to travel, and they will be ‘unusable’ for anything else for the duration of that travel -- you cannot take them into the coli, and cannot use them to gather food or other items (unless they were sent away to gather specifically in another flight’s territory). Travel time is 2 days (real time) for adjacent territories, 4 days for territories one farther, and 6 days for territories one farther -- half to reach the location and half to return. If desired, dragons may stay in the destination for more time, but this will also be measured in real days and will delay their return to the clan.
Example: My dragons can travel to Earth, Plague, Water, or Light and back in 2 days. They can travel to Arcane, Wind, Fire, Lightning, or Nature and back in 4 days. They can travel to Ice and back in 6 days.
Getting New Dragons
This version of the Nuzlocke does not have as much of a moratorium on obtaining dragons that many Nuzlockes do, because the eldritch abomination is what is making your life difficult, not arbitrary rules about when you can get dragons.
- You may hatch dragons laid by your current clan members, or from unhatched eggs you find through scavenging or the coli.
- You can use the crossroads to obtain dragons from other users. This is dependant upon the above rules regarding which territories your clan can access. If I only have level 1-6 dragons, I can only receive crossroads from other Shadow members, and so on and so forth. Furthermore, a crossroads trade can only occur between you and clans that you are friends with, as these people are considered to be your clan’s ‘diplomatic contacts’. Crossroads from friends not in your flight are affected by your clan’s current reach and by the travel times of the last section.
The AH
The basic form of this challenge interprets the AH as a black market. It follows that the ‘Dragons’ section of the AH is a dragon trafficking hub, and the following rules reflect this headcanon of mine. Users who find this distasteful may wish to ignore the AH in their Nuzlocke, or if you’re feeling creative, come up with some other way to use the AH. (If you do come up with another idea, please ping me so I can add it to the masterpost and give people more options!)
The AH must be ‘discovered’ before it can be accessed. Simple discovery means only that the clan becomes aware of the existence of the black market, not that they know where it is or how to access it. Access means that your clan can buy things from the AH. There are a couple of possibilities for discovery/access.
- If you receive a dragon from a friend through crossroads that was previously on the AH, whatever the reason, that dragon will be aware of the existence of this black market, and will be able to alert the rest of your clan if they are so inclined. This method usually requires asking a friend the deeper history of the dragon they are sending you, but can be well worth it. It is probably the most common method of discovery, but counts only as discovery. If they further go looking for this black market, they have a 30% chance of successful access.
- If you are directed by an outside party (most likely a friend) to the AH to purchase a specific dragon (say they were advertising the dragon on the sales forums and had it on the AH as well, making a crossroads possible but more complicated), then the dragons of your clan will both be led directly to the site and experience the market first hand. This option counts as both discovery and access.
- If a member of your clan becomes compromised enough and volatile enough (see rules for CP below) to gain one of the obsessive behaviors listed in the mentioned section, they have a 10% chance of discovering what they seek from the black market every day they go out searching. If the clan is aware of the existence of the market already from option 1 above, this chance increases to 50%. This option counts as both discovery and access.
- Each flight area is considered to have its own version of the AH. AH purchases are similar to gathering and crossroads in that you can only make deals with members of flights that you can conceivably travel to, since these clans are putting their wares for sale in their native territories. If you somehow access the AH with only level 1-6 dragons, you will only be able to access your native flight’s black market.
AH trips are very stressful and there is a limit to purchases. While multiple dragons can be designated to travel to an AH, each dragon can only carry back 100 units of purchases.
- Food and materials count as 1 unit per item.
- Apparel items count as 20 units per item, unless they can be worn by the dragon as soon as purchase occurs. In this case they do not take up any space.
- Adult dragons count as 200 units. Two dragons will be required to purchase an adult dragon and they cannot carry anything else. Hatchlings count as 100 units.
- Familiars count as 100 units.
- Battle items count as 20 units per item.
- Skins and accents count as 25 units per item, unless the skin can be equipped by the dragon as soon as purchase occurs. In this case they do not take up any space.
- Trinkets vary in unit size. Average, common trinkets take up 1 unit per item similarly to foods and materials. Chests and eggs count as 50 units per item, except for broken bottle chests (penny jar and bone jar), which count as 10 units per item. Speciality scrolls (gene, breed, rename) count as 25 units per item, unless they can be applied to the dragon as soon as purchase occurs. In this case they do not take up any space.
Because AH trips can be so stressful, dragons who have been to the AH require a calming period of at least one week after a trip. Purchasing a dragon from the AH increases the recovery time of all involved to two weeks. These recovery times can be lengthened or shortened depending of the mental state of the dragons who visited (see the CP Rules below).
Living With an Eldritch Abomination
Relevant Statistics
Every dragon has a certain CP, or a number of Coping Points. These can be considered similar to the SAN stat in Call of Cthulhu, if you’re familiar with that game. As a dragon spends more time in the proximity of the abomination, their CP can and will drop, and as it drops, two and perhaps three other stats are affected: Possession and Volatile first, and Avatar second.
- Every dragon starts out with 200/200 CP, 0/100 Possession, 0/100 Volatile, and 0/100 Avatar.
- Each real-time day of play that a dragon spends in proximity to the abomination, they lose points to CP. The actual amount lost varies depending on circumstances. Traveling to other lands or areas will temporarily halt the loss of CP points.
- The points lost to CP in step 2 are then added to either the Possession or Volatile stats, again depending on circumstances.
- Every real-time day of play, each dragon is given a d100 roll for both the Possession and Volatile stats. If the roll ‘succeeds’, the dragon’s behavior is affected depending on which stat won its roll. A successful Possession roll indicates an increase in depressive behavior, an increased sensitivity to sources of light, especially the sun, and potential cessation of speech. A successful Volatile roll indicates an increase in manic behavior and increased obsessions with one or multiple of: death, hypothetical gene plans for ‘perfection’, expanding the ranks of the clan at any cost, creating or training ‘perfect’ warriors, and/or a zealous interest in exaltation.
- Each time a Possession or Volatile roll is successful, the dragon loses a point from the Avatar stat. The Avatar stat is not rolled for until it reaches 50/100, at which point a ‘successful’ roll indicates that the dragon is fully compromised by the abomination.
Example: A dragon has a Possession stat of 20/100. I roll a d100, or somehow otherwise randomly generate a number between 1 and 100. My result is 67, so the roll is not successful. However, I roll a 10 for the Volatile roll, which is currently at 27/100. Therefore, the dragon begins to show one of the traits listed under the Volatile roll above. I also add one point to Avatar, which is currently at 12/100, making the Avatar roll 13/100.
How to Determine Number of Points Lost
- A dragon born outside the reach of the abomination who moved there as an adult loses 1 CP per day. A dragon born outside the reach of the abomination who moved there as a hatchling loses 2 CP per day. A dragon born inside the reach of the abomination loses 3 CP per day.
- A dragon with any of the Foci (see the Foci Rules below) loses 1 point per day for each incident of Focus.
- If the dragon was first exposed to the abomination early in life (a hatchling at first exposure or born in the clan), the points are applied to Possession. If the dragon was first exposed to the abomination as an adult, the points are applied to Volatile.
- However, if the dragon has any Foci, the points are applied to Possession instead.
- However, if any dragons died on the real-time day when the point(s) are lost, or if the dragon is under a large amount of stress at the time of point loss, the points are applied to Volatile instead.
Foci Rules
To make your abomination more interesting, you can choose to give it certain characteristics. One facet of this is giving it focus points. My abomination, for example, has a huge focus on the color obsidian. This informs a lot of my visual choices. Remember that, in many ways, you are the abomination. What’s your favorite FR color? What’s your favorite gene or gene combo? Your favorite breed? All these things can inform your abomination and give you a way to direct your abomination’s actions. (Coincidentally, my favorite FR color also happens to be obsidian.)
- A dragon with any of the foci will lose an extra CP per focus incident.
- If your focus is colors, this means one point per instance of color. An xxx obs dragon, in my lair, would lose 3 CP per day, plus the other daily point and any other points outlined above.
- If the focus is on genes, any dragon with the gene will lose an extra point a day. You could easily make this more like the color lossage I have by designating a foci ‘gene combo’ of primary/secondary/tert, and having the dragon lose 1 point per adherence to the formula, with a dragon of the correct gene combo losing 3 points a day.
- If the focus is on breed, then each member of the breed in the lair will lose 2 points extra a day.
You could easily combine these into more complex gene-breed, gene-color, or even gene-breed-color focu. For example, I have made the executive decision in my clan that trip-obs trip-basic dragons are at heavy risk for becoming Faces (see Corruptions immediately below) and so these dragons lose double points every day.
Types of Corruptions
A dragon that has been the victim of a successful Avatar roll is a corruption. Corrupted dragons are part dragon-part abomination, with the abomination taking more or less percentage of their being depending on which corruption they become. Corruptions are bad news for the non-corrupted dragons of the clan, as they will work to bring more power to the abomination -- whether or not their remaining draconic consciousness realizes what they are doing.
It should be noted that the physical descriptions below are specific to my own Nuzlocke. If you design your own abomination, you can certainly give it other design tendencies and adjust the appearances of the different corruptions to suit your abomination and your liking. Two of the corruptions below, specifically the Thorn and the Garden, are named specific to my abomination’s manifestations. If you design your own abomination you can feel free to alter these as well.
My abomination, for context, is based on darkness and shadow. To date the most physical manifestation we’ve witnessed that hasn’t been a corrupted dragon has been a shadow cast by something that both is and is not there, and which looks something like a dragon, or at least clearly had a jaw because it was eating dead dragons, too many limbs, and thorns writhing from its body. My focus is obsidian and I have a secondary complex focus on trip-obs trip-basic. To get a better idea of my abomination’s other manifestations, I’d direct you to this thread, where some friends and I roleplayed my last clan’s final moments. The first post and the very last page especially have some very long narrative posts I made that perfectly showcase what my abomination does to the landscape. My corruptions also tend to do something I like to call sublimation when they are killed -- they dissolve into a puddle of liquid darkness. The thread above has some examples of that scattered throughout it as well.
The Face: The Face is the rarest and most dangerous type of corruption. Essentially a miniature version of the greater abomination, the Face is hard to obtain, but if a dragon is corrupted into the Face the clan is very likely to be doomed. Faces are not really dragons anymore, and are mentally very changed from whoever they once were. They are silent, and never speak, nor make any sounds. They do not have pupils and their irises expand to fill most of their eye, leaving barely a sliver of sclera left. Faces will not accept scatterscrolling or gene or breed modifications after they become the Face. It is very common for the Face to be a dragon with multiple Foci points. Even other corruptions will tend to find Faces difficult, unsettling, or impossible to be around. Faces do not sublimate, unlike other corruptions.
How to Obtain: Faces will be near-perfect manifestations of whatever foci you choose, but can only appear after you have also had a Voice, a Mouth, an Eye, and supporting Thorns show up. Bonus points if you have a Garden but no Face.
The Voice: The Voice is a very common corruption, and is often the first one to show up. The Voice doesn’t actively do much, but will seek out dragons with high levels of avatar potential and speak to them at length, which increases CP loss. If a dragon is highly in the Volatile stage, the Voice will insinuate themself with the volatile dragon and begin to direct their efforts. A dragon corrupted as the Voice will no longer be actively corrupted once other corruptions appear and are in control of the clan, but the dragon who was corrupted will no longer be able to speak after being the Voice. Voices lose their tongues during their corruption and unlike most corruptions, their skin remains intact when they sublimate.
How to Obtain: Your first dragon to be corrupted is probably going to be a Voice, unless you have a very good reason why they should be a Mouth or Eye instead. A Child can show up before a Voice, but since Children are rare this is unusual. Voices also tend to be made by dragons with a higher Possession quotient than Volatile quotient.
The Mouth: The Mouth is a corruption focused on expanding the ranks of the clan, and is usually the result of a Volatile reaching avatar state. Mouths do not Speak as Voices do, nor do they find their normal voices inhibited. Mouths are highly variable in their characteristics, but tend to gain slightly sadistic tendencies. Mouths will seek to place themselves in positions of political power within the clan, from whence they will input their(/the abomination’s) policies. They also tend to eventually keep track of the clan’s funds. Mouths are unusually tolerant of the presence of Faces.
How to Obtain: Mouths are the corrupted dragons who jump out of the woodwork suddenly with little warning. They tend to be dragons who somehow lost CP at a very fast rate prior to their corruption, and they may have a greater tendency to arise from outsiders, dragons who were neither born nor raised in the area.
The Eye: Tending to arise from a Volatile dragon, Eyes are heavily focused on beauty, and will do most anything to obtain ‘perfection’ of color, gene, and breed for a dragon. Dragons who become Eyes lose their empathy to a much more noticeable extent than the other corruptions and tend to become very narcissistic and self-centered. Eyes are almost always formed from dragons who are desirable in appearance. Eyes are very similar to Mouths in that they are slightly more tolerant of Faces than other corruptions, and may even go so far as to try scrolling Faces if they feel the urge.
How to Obtain: Eyes are created by corrupted dragons who were very aesthetically pleasing when they were first obtained, but are not exactly the near-perfect foci example of the Face. If you have a Mouth who has managed to manipulate things enough to have a breeding-for-colors program, a child from one of those programs has a higher chance of becoming an Eye if corrupted.
The Thorn: Thorns are the most common kind of corruption, and are the corruption most likely to occur in multiples. Thorn corruptions are formed from the most varied of corrupted dragons, and are the most versatile corruption, taking many possible roles. Unlike most other corruptions, Thorns don’t usually develop tendencies that are identifiable within the group, and are quite variable.
How to Obtain: If you have no really compelling corruption morph to follow for a dragon that succeeds at its avatar roll, the dragon becomes a Thorn.
The Child: The Child is the most unusual corruption, and relatively rare. Unlike other corruptions, the Child does nothing that might indicate they are a corruption, behaving like a normal dragon. However, in the late stages of an infected clan, Children may be identified by their comparative normalcy. Children actively seek to avoid the Face and the other corruptions, interacting with the non-corrupted dragons as much as possible. They may become a sort of figurehead leader to these dragons. Children act at almost all times as though they are unaware of their status as a corruption. When Children sublimate, they leave untarnished bones behind.
How to Obtain: Children are rare and it’s quite possible your run won’t have any. Children come from unhatched eggs, but not necessarily -- each such egg has only a 10/100 chance of being a Child, and only if the egg is from the region your clan is native to.
The Garden: Gardens are only barely less dangerous than Faces, and are the second rarest kind of corruption. Unlike all other corruptions, Gardens are not initially created from a normal dragon, but evolve from any of the other corruptions (with the exception of Faces). The Garden is less of a specific role and more of a secondary characteristic of whatever corruption evolves to encompass them. Gardens gain extra traits depending on the local abomination’s Foci and manifestation tendencies, and are very dangerous. The appearance of a Garden, similar to the appearance of a Face, shows that a clan is likely doomed. Gardens, like Faces, do not sublimate.
How to Obtain: A Garden is a dragon that you love and that has already been corrupted for a very long time.
If anyone actually winds up reading this and wants to try it, ping me and let me know! I want to follow the tales my fellow horror enthusiasts come up with. And feel free to modify the rules if you like! Shadowmum knows I did.
My own thread for tracking my Nuzlocke is here.
