Easter eggs

Easter eggs are details or features that are included in games a joke or bonus for players. On Dragon Cave, several "easter egg" creatures exist which would otherwise be incongruous with the game's lore.

Joke creatures

Leetle stack of pancakes

The leetle stack of pancakes is a unique creature given to the roleplay forum moderator Lord Dracogangake in 2009. Many forum users misread Dracogangake's username as Dracopancake. TJ09 commemorated the nickname with the leetle stack of pancakes.

The creature depicts a small stack of pancakes with draconic wings, and was given the code IHOP after the International House of Pancakes. It is categorized as a frozen hatchling and bears the description "Aww...it’s a cute leetle...stack of pancakes?"

The leetle stack of pancakes sprite was designed by TJ09 and Silvanon, and was originally featured on http://leetles.com/, another sprite adoptables site run by TJ09.

Lagmonster

The Lagmonster appeared following server issues in March 2009

The Lagmonster is a forum-created creature that is blamed for slow responsiveness and service outages on Dragon Cave. The first notable "attack" of the Lagmonster was around March 17, 2009, when server issues caused high load times and network timeouts. After resolving the issue, TJ09 decorated the main page with an image of the Lagmonster, drawn by user Ahkalia.

Another notable Lagmonster "attack" occurred during the Halloween 2010 release of Black Marrows. In response to the high load times making it difficult for users to collect the limited-release dragons, TJ09 added a second row of eggs to the cave to help facilitate hunting.

St. Patricks Day '09 attack

Halloween 2010 attack

Datamonster

The Datamonster is a forum-created creature that is blamed for the disappearance of dragons from users' scrolls. Similar to the Lagmonster, the Datamonster is a personification of database errors on Dragon Cave. Dragons that go missing due to a database error are said to be "eaten" by the Datamonster.

The most notable "attack" of the Datamonster occurred on July 20, 2009, when many users found dragons had disappeared from their scrolls. Most were fortunately recovered, and those that were restored were considered "survivors" of the Datamonster attack.

More on the Datamonster and its origins can be found on the forums.

Glitch dragon

The glitch dragon is a permanently fogged creature that exists on Dragon Cave. It was the result of a database error when user pokemonfan13 attempted to breed a Holly Dragon and a Bright Pink Dragon. When the egg was created, no breed ID was assigned to the creature, resulting in the "fog-ball" appearance.

The glitch dragon grew up like a normal dragon, though it has kept the fogged sprite throughout its lifespan. pokemonfan13 named the creature "Missingno" after the glitch Pokémon.

Sprite	Stage	Description
	Egg	This "egg" is special. You win the game.
	Hatchling	You think the egg hatched, but you can't really see anything, so who knows?
	Adult	You still can't see it. Maybe it's not even a dragon, just a huge cloud of fog.

Fake eggs

There are two fake eggs that can be seen on Dragon Cave: XD and <3. They are growing eggs, which can gain views and may go through the hatching sequence. However, if a fake egg gains enough views to hatch before its timer runs out, it will produce a new version of itself, with its timer and views reset. When one of the fake eggs does not receive enough views to hatch before its timer runs out, it will die. Within a few days, the egg will be regenerated and its timer and views will be reset.

	Egg	Stage 1	Stage 2	Stage 3	Stage 4	Stage 5	Dead
XD egg
<3 egg

Each fake egg was introduced during regular dragon releases. The XD egg appeared in the Egg Flood release in April of 2009, and can even be seen illustrated on the release banner. <3 appeared alongside the eggs of the Midwinter Madness release in 2010. It was added to the release thread as a joke in response to a comment from forum user Dr. Paine that the release was missing an "element of heart".

The XD egg was designed by TJ09 and displays a colorful egg covered in white swirls. The color of this egg may change when it "hatches" or dies. The <3 egg was designed by Marrionetta and appears as a pink egg with a red heart on it. Both eggs share the description "This egg does not actually exist."

Egg Flood release banner, which includes the XD egg.

Screenshot showing the <3 egg alongside the Mid-Winter Madness release eggs.

References

Splash BSA and Magikarp Badge

Shallow Water Dragons have a Breed Specific Action called "Splash", which is a reference to a Pokémon move by the same name. Using the action causes the text "DRAGON used Splash! But nothing happened!" to appear in a text box matching those of classic Pokémon games.

Using Splash 100 times will earn a user the Magikarp badge, a tribute to the Pokémon infamous for only knowing this useless move when caught.

Pokémon Night

Screenshot of the wilderness from Pokémon Night

Pokémon Night was an impromptu event that occurred on December 27, 2008. Users in the Dragon Cave IRC were comparing various dragons to similar Pokémon. Forum moderator and dragon artist Kila started sending sprites of the mentioned Pokémon to TJ09. TJ then temporarily replaced the adult dragons sprites with their matched Pokémon sprite.

Dragon		Pokémon
Chicken	→	Arceus
Guardian Dragon	→	Wobbuffet
Gray Dragon	→	Castform
Red Dragon	→	Charizard
Skywing Dragon	→	Rayquaza
Split Dragon	→	Doduo
Stone Dragon	→	Onix
Vampire Dragon	→	Crobat
Dark Green Dragon	→	Venasaur
Water Dragon	→	Gyarados
Undead Dragon	→	Gastly
Glitch Dragon	→	MissingNo
Glitch Dragon	→	Spliced sprite by PF13

Legendary Trio

The Legendary Trio is used on Dragon Cave to refer to the Ice, Thunder, and Magma Dragons. This is a parallel to a similar "legendary trio" in Pokemon's Legendary Birds, ice-type Articuno, electric-type Zapdos, and fire-type Moltres. The Ice, Thunder, and Magma dragons can even combine their powers to summon a Guardian of Nature dragon, similar to the way Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres awaken Lugia, the "Guardian of the Seas".

In the legacy alphabetical sorting system, Guardians of Nature sorted as "Lugia Dragons".

Zyumorphs and Sinomorphs

Zyumorphs and Sinomorphs appear to be a reference to Zords and Megazords from the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers series. Zyumorphs' variations depict colors used by the Power Rangers (red, blue, yellow, pink, black, and white), and the dragons have large, armored plates similar to the mechanical bodies of the Zords. When the Power Rangers' Zords are unable to defeat an enemy, they can combine into a single Megazord. Similarly, when a user collects one of each Zyumorph variation, they can combine their power to summon a Sinomorph.

Hidden Pages

There are several hidden pages that can be found on Dragon Cave.

Page	Description	Link
"Make all my eggs gold" page	Joke page. Visiting the link simply displays the text "Yeah right."	https://dragcave.net/makeallmyeggsgold
Face page	Generates random emoticon faces, such as "ಠ▂ಠ", "(☞°∀°)☞", and "¯\_(ツ)_/¯"	https://dragcave.net/ಠ_ಠ
Random egg	Redirects users to a random egg on their scroll.	https://dragcave.net/random/egg
Random dragon	Redirects users to a random dragon on their scroll.	https://dragcave.net/random/dragon
Random pair	Displays a randomly selected male and female dragon from the user's scroll, and if they are of compatible types, includes a button to breed the pair.	https://dragcave.net/random/pair
Graveyard	Sometimes displays the "dragon graveyard", a collection of recently deceased eggs, hatchlings, and dragons from the site. The graveyard is not always visible, and may return only the text "You traverse the forest in search of the rumored dragon graveyard, but despite your best efforts, you are unable to find anything."	https://dragcave.net/graveyard