From: hsu_wh@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (William H Hsu)
Newsgroups: rec.games.hack
Subject: Suggestions IV: No Flames, Please :-) :-)
Date: 22 Jan 1993 22:01:53 -0500
Organization: Homewood Academic Computing, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md, USA
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu

	
	I suspect the following may be a rather controversial suggestion, so
please -- no flames if this has already been brought up and rejected.
	How about Pernese dragons?  Hackers (myself included) have a tendency
to attack any dragon with the color of a possessed intrinsic ("An orange? I
ate a Green-Elf five levels ago -- CHARGE!"). Come to think of it, even if you
don't... ("Lemme get a taste of that black dragon meat before I get breathed
on!") Now, suppose you have the following:

	Queen Pernese Dragon	(gold => yellow, not purple)
	Bronze Pernese Dragon	(orange?)
	Brown Pernese Dragon
	Blue Pernese Dragon
	Green Pernese Dragon
	White Pernese Dragon	(singular, of course)

	This will make players think twice about zapping the blue `D' before he
can breathe lightning. What's the point of having them? Well, let's see. A
scroll of taming should provide you with a companion that grants blindfold-less
telepathy as per the helm over the entire screen. Controlled level teleport
sound good? (Of course, this could be open to massive abuse.) Attacking/killing
one of them should have the same effect as killing a like-aligned unicorn,
regardless of alignment. Having a tame one (only one should be allowed per
character) killed should knock the "rider" unconscious, subject him/her to
a system shock check, and cause the loss of stats as per cursed gain ability.
Presence of other Pernese Dragons when you have a tame one will cause them to
attack enemies as per the ring of conflict. A PD will never attack another PD,
regardless of hunger or rings of conflict. PD's will remind you of their hunger
continuously starting about 50 rounds before you get that "You feel worried 
about <name>". PD's get PERMANENT random names ending in `th' as per the
tradition. Also following the Pern mythos, baby PD's should be trainable by food
items if the character is stridently aligned and already has telepathy. PD's
will follow (by level teleport if necessary) you to the next level. IMPORTANT:
PD's are not intrinsically fire resistant! (See _Dragonquest_.) You need some
way of fire-proofing them before entering hell, or they will take x amount of
fire damage and teleport back (carrying you if you are mounted).  "Mounted?!",
you say?  I have no idea. Ask the Dev team or some worthy patch writer if they
are even interested :-)  Golds are tamable only by female characters.  Now, I
will leave it to more devoted Pern fans to work out the details of firestone
and PD breath. I do suggest, however, that fire lizards (much more common)
and wherries be added for the sake of ambience.  The whole thing can be
surrounded by an "#ifdef PERN". Other details?  Only golds and greens lay eggs,
of course.  Something funny should happen if a hungry, tame PD is present when
a character is seduced by a nymph or succubus/incubus.  PD's are intrinsically
neutral -- they switch alignment to that of the character (and change with
them if the player changes alignment by altar or helm). Eating a PD corpse
automatically causes sickness as per tainted meat (boron, remember?) and should
confer the aggravate monster intrinsic.  Tame PD's should be controllable to
a certain extent -- namely, that the character should be able to move the PD
(to the exclusion of being able to move him or herself) as if he or she were
polymorphed into that PD.  What are PD's doing in the Mazes of Menace if there
is no Thread here?  Hmm... it seems that the middle levels of the dungeon
(where unbonded PD's are occasionally found) resembles a group of passages on
the inside of Benden Weyr. ;-)  (Alternatively, you could have a Weyr level.)