Undead Dragon

Undead Dragons, also known as Zombies, are a special breed of dragon only obtainable on Halloween (October 31st). Attempting to revive a deceased dragon or hatchling on this date (either killed or purposely allowed to die) has a slim chance of resulting in an Undead dragon- they can no longer be obtained on any other day of the year. This breed has been subject to controversy due to the death of dragons required to create them.

In the past, Undead Dragons could be made during any time of the year, with a rumoured 1 in 100 chance of success. A few examples include two owned by TJ09 (Qemrao Thuwed and 0eidw Qemrao Thuwed), and one hatchling created in 2007 on a hidden scroll with an inappropriate code (F-word in all capital letters).You can find it here. There have also been reports of others, but the forum topic once used to discuss them has since been deleted. It is unknown when the circumstances of being able to create Undeads on Halloween only began, but rumours still continued that creation all-year long was possible. These subsequent rumours were proven false in the IRC on the 22nd of December, 2012.

The chances of successfully creating an Undead on October 31st is somewhere between 1 in 2 to 1 in 6. The dragon is not required to die on the 31st of October to become Undead: they can die or be killed within 14 days before Halloween, but they must be revived on the 31st. There are three potential outcomes of the revive action: reviving a normal dragon, reviving an Undead dragon, or permanent death.

Undead dragons used to only be visible on scrolls between 12AM and 6AM DC time (EST), but now are always visible in the form of a tombstone. Undeads cannot breed and will not appear on an Incubator. There used to be a glitch that caused Undead Dragons to "roam" on scrolls, despite being repositioned or re-sorted; this has since been fixed after the addition of new tombstone sprites. Undead dragons are now visible on sorting pages as well as scrolls.

All dragon breeds can be zombified, even DC drakes, Vampires, pygmies and two-headed dragons (despite unique sizes or features of these breeds, all Zombies look the same). Unbreedables such as Papers and Cheeses can become Undead Dragons, albeit ungendered. Dinos can't be zombified due to the lack of a revive option for them. It has not yet been discovered if Holiday Dragons, Guardians of Nature or Neglected Dragons can be zombified. However, zombified Limited Breed Dragons still count as their original breed, preventing players from reclaiming replacements.

At one point, Undead Dragons could not be removed from scrolls. This has changed with the Soulpeace Dragon and its Expunge BSA. Undead hatchlings do not grow; they are auto-frozen upon death. In the Dragon Cave community, dragons raised solely for the purpose of being killed in attempts to create Undeads on Halloween are called "zombie fodder." Common and inbred dragons are generally used for this because they are easy to replace.

Undeads used to permanently take up the kill slots used to create them. This was an unintended occurrence, and since October 2011, zombie-held kill slots have been released. Currently, any kill slot used to create an Undead will return after 2 weeks, exactly the same as a kill slot used for any other purpose.

These dragons are often confused with Neglected Dragons and Vampire Dragons.

Egg
None

Hatchling
"It's an undead baby dragon, produced by a failed magical spell. It probably would be cute if it weren't partially decayed."

Mature Hatchling
"It's an undead baby dragon, produced by a failed magical spell. It probably would be cute if it weren't partially decayed. And look! It somehow managed to grow wings despite being dead."

Adult
"Failed attempts to experiment with magic often result in transforming dragons into these hellish creatures. They are extremely dangerous, and will mindlessly kill any living creature without regard to friend or foe."

Sprite Artist(s)

 * Shikaru (All)
 * TJ09 (Tombstones)
 * TheCompleteAnimorph (Tombstones)

Tombstone
As of November 18, 2014, caveborn Zombies received a special tombstone specific to their biome. Bred Zombies and Zombies from the time where only one cave existed also received a new special tombstone.

Trivia

 * The original undead adult sprite uses the Necromancer boss from Breath of Fire II.