Kill

Killing is an action that may kill any living creature on a player's scroll. While only growing eggs and hatchlings may die of sickness or neglect, the kill action can be used on almost all creatures, including frozen hatchlings and adults. A successful kill will replace an egg's sprite with a broken eggshell, and hatchling and adult sprites with tombstones. These sprites will remain on the player's scroll for two weeks before disappearing.

All creatures except Leetle Trees and Undead Dragons can be killed. To attempt to kill a dragon or other creature, the player must select the "Kill" option on its action page.

A player can only kill five creatures before they must wait two weeks to kill more. Eggs killed by Earthquake and Bite actions also count toward this five-death limit, though those actions are not disabled when the limit is reached.

Killing an egg
A killed egg appears as the jagged bottom half of an egg. Dead eggs remain on the scroll on which they died for two weeks. Killed eggs count as "growing" eggs for 24 hours after the kill action is performed, so typically it is preferable to abandon an egg rather than kill it.

Eggs appear to have a higher kill success rate than hatchlings or adults, as eggs cannot evade hostile action. The message that one sees when successfully killing an egg is as follows: "You take the egg and smash it on the ground, killing whatever was forming inside."

Forced hatching
Killing an egg may result in "forced hatching" or "forcing". When the player attempts to smash an egg that was close to hatching (usually evidenced by a large hole in the egg shell), the hatchling may survive the action. The hatchling will attempt to escape, and may be caught by the player or run away to the Abandoned Page.

Hatchlings that are forced to hatch early will display the text "This hatchling was forced out of its egg prematurely" on their page. Eggs may also be forced to hatch using the Earthquake BSA.

Killing a hatchling
Hatchlings are somewhat harder to kill as they will occasionally evade your knife. If this happens, a player will not be able to kill that hatchling until at least the following day, by the Cave's clock (12:00 AM Eastern time).

A killed hatchling appears as a tombstone, and if it was killed as a "growing" creature it will take up a hatchling slot for 24 hours. The player may attempt to revive a dead hatchling once, which may restore the hatchling to life or create an Undead Dragon instead. Eggs and hatchlings that have recently died or were killed can be found in the Graveyard.

Successfully killing a hatchling results in the following message: "You take your blade and stab the hatchling, watching the life slowly leave its eyes as it stares at you, wondering why you betrayed it."

Killing an adult dragon
Adult dragons appear to be even more difficult to kill, as they can be very prone to dodging your blade. Like with hatchlings, an adult that escapes your kill action cannot be successfully killed until at least the next day. Additionally, like all other stages of growth, the tombstone resulting from a dragon's death remains on the scroll for two weeks.

A dead adult may be revived, with a small chance to either restore it to life, or create an Undead Dragon. A creature with a user-created description will lose the description when it's killed, although if the creature is revived or turned into an Undead Dragon, the description will return.

Successfully killing an adult results in the following message: "You take your blade and stab the dragon, watching the life slowly leave its eyes as it stares at you, wondering why you betrayed it."

Leetle Trees
It is impossible to kill a Leetle Tree, though the action is available. Attempting to kill a Leetle Tree will always fail with the following message: "The leetle tree is too cute to kill."

Chickens
Apart from the Leetle Tree, the Chicken is the only known creature to have a unique Kill message.

The message that one sees when successfully killing a chicken is as follows: "You stab the chicken and roast it over a fire."

Undead Dragons
Undead Dragons cannot be killed via the kill action as they are already dead. An Undead Dragon will remain as a tombstone beyond the two weeks a normal dead creature remains on a player's scroll. The only way to "kill" an Undead Dragon is via the Expunge BSA.