Dracolich

Two great tastes that taste great together.

Dragons are scary. The Undead are scary. Undead Dragons are super scary.

Often the most Badass type of undead, dracoliches are never to be taken lightly. They are always heavy hitting monsters, if not outright bosses. Any necromancer should do well to seek to have one. It's not a rare thing, however, for these dragons to be weaker than their regular, living counterparts as they inherit the weaknesses of The Undead like Revive Kills Zombie while Dragons rarely have such exploitable flaws.

Often the dragon's classic fire Breath Weapon will be turned into a poison breath when they become undead.

A specific type of Non-Human Undead. Not to be confused with an undead version of a certain wizard.

Examples of Dracolich include:

Anime and Manga

  • Yu-Gi-Oh! has various dragon monsters, some of which have been revived at various points into zombies or other such things (somehow).
    • This includes Dragon Zombie.
    • Also features in one of the anime's most infamous examples of Screw the Rules I Have Plot when Yugi somehow fuses his Mammoth Graveyard (a wooly mammoth skeleton) with Kaiba's Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon (a three-headed dragon created by combining three copies of the iconic Blue Eyes White Dragon card). This turns the dragon into a zombie, causing its stats to drop each turn as its body decomposes.
  • The terrifying Necromancia in Seikoku no Dragonar.
  • Naga, the Big Bad of the first season of Bakugan, resembles a skeletal Dragonoid.
  • The Skeleton Army from the third episode of Those Who Hunt Elves have a Dracolich.
  • From Digimon, we have Skull Greymon. The Greymon family somewhat blur the line between Dinosaurs and Dragons, but Skull Greymon looks pretty firmly on the dragon side. His bones are as hard as Chrome Digizoid and he has a nuclear missile launcher built into his back, as well as the ability to use cursed breath..
  • Khajit summons two Skeletal Dragons against Narberal Gamma in Overlord. Skeletal dragons are immune to magic... below seventh tier, that is.
  • Touhou Suzunaan ~ Forbidden Scrollery: The powerful demon sealed in Kosuzu's Night Parade Picture Scroll is briefly depicted as a wingless Dracolich made out of black smoke, complete with Breath Weapon.

Literature

  • The Spellbent series has Sap Daddy, an old zombie dragon that has been overgrown by plants.


Tabletop Games

  • The Trope Namer is of course the Dungeons & Dragons Dracolich, which combines the worst aspects of a Dragon and a Lich. Across the various editions, Zombie, common Skeleton (weaker and stupider then Dracoliches), Ghost, Wraith and Vampire Dragons have all been offered up as well.
    • The advantages and disadvantages of being a dragon undead are all noted. For example, a draconic vampire can't enter a home uninvited...but there's no rule saying he can't just destroy the house.
      • In 3rd edition, becoming a Dracolich was a large drawback to a Dragon as your Breath Weapon and Hit Points got neutered. The advantage of being immortal could be achieved easier by becoming a Dragon Ghost, which gets a new Breath Weapon and is even harder to kill outright.
      • Thanks to several Splat Books, it's possible to have a level 1 Kobold Dracolich (Races of the Dragon, the Draconomicon, Fiendish Codex 1 and Player's Guide to Faerun are all you need).
    • 4th edition has multiple types of Dracolich (ranging from the plain to fossilized dracoliches to dracoliches who only exist in the plane of dreams), as well as multiple types of Zombie Dragons, Skeleton Dragons (the mindless walking dead version of a Dracolich), Wraith Dragons and Vampire Dragons.
  • Zombie Dragons feature heavily in Warhammer Fantasy Battle. They tend to have vampires riding them.
  • Bone Dragons of Magic: The Gathering.
  • Likewise, Zombie Dragons are a race of creatures in the Duel Masters card game.
  • The Brazilian setting Tormenta only has one, the Dragon King Lich, who in itself isn't that much of a bad guy, which is a good thing because he is the strongest dragon in the entire setting.
  • In The Dark Eye, there was Rhazzazor, an ancient undead dragon who followed Borbarad.


Video Games

  • Artix Entertainment has some examples
    • Drakath from Adventure Quest
    • The Huge Dracolich that Sepulchure's fortress is built on and Fluffy from Dragon Fable.
    • Mechquest has 2 examples The Sepulchure Mech summons a Dracolich that is also known as Fluffy and there ia Drakrylos who is more of a Dragonoid that looks similar to Dracolich.
    • Adventure Quest Worlds has The Huge Dracolich Fortress as well, the two Dracoliches at the bottom of the Doomwood Temple, the option to turn your Baby Dragon to a Baby Dracolich, and Desolich.
  • The Frost Wyrm of the scourge in Warcraft 3 and World of Warcraft are animated dragon skeletons that exhale giant blasts of cold. Sindragosa deserves special mention, having appeared on the latter's login screen for the duration of Wrath of the Lich King and really annoying players with her loud roar.
  • A Dracolich features as a Bonus Boss in Neverwinter Nights: Hordes Of The Underdark.
  • Zombie Dragons (or Dracozombies) are recurring enemies in Final Fantasy games.
  • Spectral/Bone Dragons in Heroes of Might and Magic games.
    • Despite looking cool, these dragons are arguably the weakest creatures of their level in any game they have appeared, as they have much lower HP, attack and defense values than average. They make up for it with sheer numbers, though, as V has a building upgrade that increase the number of dragons produced.
    • They are notable in that Dragons are the only creatures not converted into skeletons when using any "skeleton transformer" type structure. Instead putting dragons through this will result in one of these (who have better interactions with your undead troops, since apparently even living dragons are fearful of the dead).
  • Bone Dragons of Guild Wars.
  • In Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, a Draco Zombie is a boss of the second-to-last map. On the penultimate map, there are two. And on the final map, the Big Bad may choose to summon these as mooks. Gets worse in the Lagdou Ruins, where the final map features no fewer than seven of them. Now you know why you've been saving up all those S-Ranked weapons.
  • Zombie Dragons appear in Ogre Battle as top tier dragon units created by using an Undead Ring on a Tiamat.
  • In MARDEK's second chapter, the dragon that was the grand hero Social Fox's last battle enjoyed the fight so much that it came back to life in hopes that he would too, so it could fight him again.
  • Ultima Online has Skeletal Dragons.
  • A few undead dragons (usually of the skeletal variety) have appeared as bosses and enemies in the Castlevania series.
  • Ninja Gaiden (the new-gen series, not the original NES trilogy) has one of these serves as the boss of Chapter 7 in the first game.
  • There are Dragon Zombies in Valkyrie Profile, but they're a slight subversion in that, being both draconic and undead, they're vulnerable to spells that specifically target both and are actually not that big of a threat. One combo by a character with a dragon slayer or undead-targeting weapon and they're done for.
  • The humorous text-based adventure game, Kingdom of Loathing, has an undead monster in the Misspelled Cemetary area called The Bonerdagon. It's an undead dragon made of bones, but it might also be an undead dagon made of boners.
  • A few have popped up in Tibia.
  • Super Mario RPG: When the Czar Dragon is defeated, it falls into a lava pit and reemerges as the skeletal Zombone.
  • The first boss in Demon's Crest.
  • The Dragon Zombie class in the Disgaea series starting with the second game. They take halved damage from physical attacks, and boast very high defense and attack stats, but do poorly against magical attacks, especially wind (Though that problem can be remedied for one on your side). Their Darkness Breath is also generally one of the strongest area attacks in the game..
  • The Queen of Blackmarch in Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening is not a zombie dragon but a ghost dragon. She is the baddest Bonus Boss in the expansion.
    • The Archdemon in the original game might also count
  • There are are several types of Dracolich in Dragon Cave, like the Vampire Dragon and Undead Dragon species.
  • Stallord in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is a ginormous dragon skeleton (later just skull) reanimated by Zant.
    • Volvagia in Ocarina of Time is stated to have been killed by an ancient Goron warrior and later revived by Ganondorf. He seems to have gotten all his flesh back, though, so it's not really apparent just from looking at him that he's undead. A fan theory is that Stallord used to be Volvagia, this time revived but not getting his flesh back.
  • Epic Battle Fantasy has zombie dragons in the second and third games.
  • Bone Dragons appear in Yoshi's Story.
  • Bonetail from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door.
  • Dry Bowser from New Super Mario Bros..
  • Giratina from Pokémon for some reason has large spikes protruding from its body that resemble ribs. It is also part Ghost-type as well.
  • One level of a Battle for Wesnoth campaign features a Scheletrical Dragon as enemy leader. Despite possessing no weapons besides its claws and jaws, it's still incredibly powerful.
  • EverQuest and EverQuest II both feature the Dracoliche in the Plane/Shard of Fear, a (at the time of their release) very tough boss monster. Strangely, thanks to its immunity to magic-type spells, it was immune to spells that worked against undead and dragons.
    • There's also Trakanon, who is more of a zombie-dragon, but follows most of the critera.
  • Bone Daddy from Solomon's Keep, who spits out poison along with maggots. If you try to be funny and stay out of his poison spit range, he stomps the ground, causing his bones to fly all over the place to damage you.
  • Skeleton Dragons in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. As expected, killing them doesn't net you a dragon soul.
  • The fourth "skin" of Raptros from War of the Monsters is a skeletal dragon.
  • This is pretty much the final boss of Dark Messiah of Might and Magic.
  • It appears that Godcat is going to have this for backup for one part in Epic Battle Fantasy 4.
  • The Undead Dragon is the final boss of Gothic II.
  • Skeletal dragon enemies feature in Drakan.
  • In Dragon Strike a fight with a dracolich takes place above Dargaard Keep.
  • Combined with Dinosaurs Are Dragons in Medi Evil 2, the result is a fire-breathing, fossilized Tyrannosaurus Wrecks.
  • In Breath of Fire III, shortly after Ryu matures into an adult, he and Garr face off against a zombie dragon. This fight is either really easy (if you have the Kyrie spell, which is a Guide Dang It to acquire through the Master system), or devastatingly tough (as your main healer in the battle, Ryu, is also your main damage dealer, and he can't do both).
  • The underworld Bonus Level inRiviera: The Promised Land has the party fight Hades, who takes the form of a dragon zombie. Disappointingly, he's a Palette Swap of an earlier, optional mini-boss, though his attacks are much, much stronger. (That said, the Fanelia item will settle his hash quite nicely.)
  • Dark Souls has undead dragons as very strong, non-respawning enemy. One perches off a ledge, seemingly dead until someone picks up items placed nearby. What is more unsettling is that a certain area is populated by nothing except the lower halves (read: only the leg part, no head, no torso, nothing) of said undead dragons. Whatever happened to the upper parts? Nobody knows.


Web Comics


Western Animation

  • One short based on How to Train Your Dragon involved the heroes being attacked by a skeletal dragon called the Bone Knapper. However it's revealed at the end of the short that the Bone Knapper is actually friendly and that it just wanted its collar bone (which allows it to roar) back.
    • The Boneknapper isn't really skeletal, however. It just wears bones that it finds along the ground as armor.
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