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♡ Your first dragon
You will probably obtain your first dragon from the Cave or the Abandoned Page.
Stealing from the cave
Every 5 minutes, eggs will appear on the main page of the Dragon Cave site (http://dragcave.net).
You can steal one by clicking on it. Click fast; you'll often be competing with hundreds of other players!
If you're fast enough, you'll receive a brand-new "cave-born" egg, with 7 days to live and no parents listed.
Stealing from the cave is the only way to obtain the unbreedable dragons such as the papers, dinos, and chickens, aside from gifting/trading.
Snagging from the Abandoned Page
While only three eggs appear at a time on the main page, the Abandoned Page (often abbreviated "AP") is usually full of eggs during peak hours.
Many of these are leftover eggs from breedings.
Some of them were genuinely abandoned, for whatever reason.
Others are gifts or trades, and so you could end up grabbing a dragon meant for someone else!
It would be very sweet of you to post in the "LOST IN TRADES?" thread on the DragCave forums after grabbing an abandoned egg, to make sure that you didn't steal someone's trade.
... But you don't have to! After you grab it, the egg or hatchling is legally yours.
Babies from the AP get 1 day added to their counters, though counters never go above 7 days.
Now the AP shows the correct amount of time your new egg will have. ^_^
Abandoned eggs may already have parents, views and clicks, or sicknesses. You never know!
♡ Raising your dragon
Dragons need views, unique views, and time to grow.
It seems that clicks help but aren't necessary. I'd like to investigate this in a future project.
To get views and clicks, you need to post your dragon somewhere.
Posting on Gaia
There are a lot of dragon lovers on Gaia! Consequently, there are many threads for posting your dragons.
There are also a lot of dragon haters on Gaia who hate seeing dragons in their threads. :(
So make sure you read the rules of the thread before posting!!
Some threads are for dragon spam; you can post your dragons however you want, whenever you want.
Some allow dragons but have restrictions on the number of dragons you can post per post or per page.
Some only allow dragons in signatures.
In general, your signature is a safe place to put your dragons.
Use the tinyurl that dragcave provides, to save space.
Posting on fansites
But my favorite way of raising dragons is posting on self-serve dragon fansites.
Designed by skilled coders, these sites allow you to add and remove your own dragons.
They often feature Emergency Rooms, "ERs," where you can post dragons that have only a little bit longer to live.
They are usually very good at saving dragons!
My favorite sites will be listed below, in a "links" post.
!!! Precautions !!!
Though you will usually be trying to get as many views as you can, your dragon can get sick from being posted incorrectly or too much!!
exclaim Do not post your dragon's link without its image!
From this, your dragon can get more clicks than views, causing Sickness Type 2.
exclaim Don't post your dragon on extremely high traffic sites on the first day!
Too many views too fast can result in Sickness Type 4.
... This sickness is actually not common. I've never had it, nor have I ever seen it. I HAVE seen it on fresh eggs that were overposted.
However, some people's dragons have been killed by malicious people posting them all over the internet or using auto-refresh bots.
exclaim Your dragon can also get sick from having more unique views than regular views, which is Sickness Type 3.
I think this sickness is very rare, though.
Your dragon's progress
Your dragon's graphic will update as it grows.
Your egg will slowly develop cracks, evolving from being uncracked to having a large black hole in the center.
Then, once your egg has hatched, the hatchling will develop from being wingless to (usually) having wings.
When your hatchling grows wings, you will finally know its gender.
Therefore, this final stage is usually called "gendering."
Then, your hatchling will finally grow into an adult!
♡ Breeding dragons
Dragons can be bred once a week.
At the time of this writing, the way to breed is to go to the female's Actions page and then select a male.
If the dragons breed, you can get 0-4 eggs, some of the mother's type, some of the father's type.
If you have room, you can keep one egg, and the rest will be abandoned; if you don't have room, they will all be abandoned.
The dragons might also refuse to breed.
As far as I know, rare (silver and gold) dragons only breed with commons.
Paper dragons, dinos, and chickens do not breed.
♡ Trading and gifting dragons
You can also obtain dragons through trading or gifting.
However, there is no official trading system on the DragCave site.
Trading is actually a coordinating dance of abandoning.
Engage in it at your own risk!
(On the other hand, it's a nice way to get rares, especially if you're a slow clicker.)
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