Scout Dragon

*For many many years Camp Dragonvale has been a place that all young dragons and wizards can go to test themselves and more importantly - form friendships. Under the watchful eye of the **scout dragon**, the counselor of the camp, they learn and grow together. The scout, once a young volunteer, has been a part of the camp for so long, that they are now almost as one. The fire head keeps the camp fires going for the young adventurers, and the ice head keeps all the beverages cool and refreshing so that its campers never need anything. Pretty cool, right?*
    —Nogard's description of the **Scout Dragon** in The Book of Dragons

The **Scout** **Dragon** is an Epic dragon of the Hidden element.

## Abilities

### Weapons

It is generally agreed upon that it is a good thing that scout dragons are, with few exceptions, docile unless provoked, for they are one of the most dangerous species of dragon around. For one thing, the scout dragon is one of the few species of dragon that are skilled with their inherit magic, and will often actively utilize their magic in a fight. Alongside that, they have sharp and powerful talons, sharp teeth, sharp tail blades, sharp horns, and just a lot of sharp things in general.

### Defenses

Like all hidden dragons, the scout dragon can camouflaged itself; in it's case, as a tent. The underbelly of the scout dragon is also thickly armored, making striking attacks on the dragon difficult. Alongside this, if you make contact with one of the scout dragon's heads without either the proper protection or the proper magical enchantments, you'll either get horribly burnt or suffer from contact hypothermia, depending on which head you touched.

### Other Abilities

While not the smartest dragon species around- that honor goes to the wyrmwood dragon- the scout dragon is definitely up there in the top five most intelligent dragons.

### Weaknesses

Despite having many more strengths then weaknesses, the scout dragon's weaknesses are so disadvantaging that the species is dying out. Scout dragons are extremely dependent on magic to live; in order to survive, they have to live in an environment containing a lot of native magic and eat their own weight in mana two times a day. If a scout dragon doesn't manage to meet all these requirements, even if they just barely get the requirements off, they'll quickly become sickly and will most likely die.

## Habitat

### Regions

Scout dragons are extremely hard to find, as very few environments contain enough magic to support them. Scout dragons are usually found in the The Wizarding Woods, in particular around the although they can be rarely sited in The Great Forest, in particular The Moon Forest and, more rarely, the Thousand Acre Woods.

### Preferred Home

While it's less their preferred home and more their *required* home, scout dragons can only live in environments containing both extremely high amounts of magic and various native magical fauna and flora. In particular, scout dragons like to gather around wizard campsites, partially since they can blend in with the tents, partially since they like the company, and partially since wizard campsites tend to be very rich in magic.

### Sheltering/Nesting

Scout dragons are, for the most part, very unparticular about where they rest, almost to hilarious extents. A scout dragon could comfortably sleep on a boulder, a running river, or even in a pit full of spikes and would be barely phased. That being said, when caring for young, scout dragons do build tests to the youngling's protection. They build their tests out of magical plants, magical items, and even bones of magical creatures. Typically they build in their nests in caves, however as of recently they've starting building nests in the homes and tents of humans they are particularly fond of.

## Diet

Scout dragons are one of the few dragons that are considered magivores, meaning that they eat magic, but also do not generate their own magic to eat. Unusually, scout dragons are one of the few magivorous creature that are not also parasitic; instead of stealing magic to eat, scout dragons gain magic to eat through more... physical methods. Scout dragons will prey on magical non-dragon creatures, consume magical flora and Magical Substances, eat the wands and magic gems of wizards they don't like, and, when particularly desperate, will chug entire potions in order to absorb some magic.

A few scout dragons also scavenge the corpses of deceased dragons and wizards for magic, although this is not universal and most scout dragons refuse to do this, either because they consider it barbaric and disgusting or just because the concept of it makes them queasy.

## Magic

Despite only possessing the Hidden element in their elemental make-up, scout dragons only have rudimentary control over Cryptomancy. Instead, their main styles of magic are Pyromancy, Cryomancy, and Adversamancy. They also possess limited Theomancy.