Is Dar Hilzernod a Dragon?

• For the purposes of Avatar Upgrades, i.e. The Great Wyrm's upgrade The Elder Race?

"All of your Dragons gain the Unstoppable ability."

Dar Hilzernod's flavor text states,

"Dragons fight for territory and treasure, but the creature known as Dar Hilzernod fought against the Great Wyrm and lost. Now, its spectral corpse flies abroad, spreading death and decay wherever it goes."

Logic =/= Descent be damned. I know no RAW interpretation will get you there, but c'mon, just look at him!

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Kar-Amag-Atoth: "The demon sorcerer Kar-Amag-Atoth was once three separate mortal men, each of whom sold his soul to the Demon Prince. Now, Kar-Amag-Atoth is the Demon Prince’s most powerful agent in this world, sacrificing all those who oppose him on his black altar."

Should he be getting Demon´s and Sorcerer´s upgrades? I don´t think so, nor do I for Dar Hilzernod receiving Dragon´s upgrades.

Not that anyone would/should ever buy that upgrade IMO... And for Dar Hilzernod only the immunity against Web and Daze would even matter...

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Yes, Dal Hilzernod (sp, whatever...) is a dragon. Most likely a Dragonlord, since regular dragons in Terrinoth are not sentient and one assumes that a trusted LT in service of the Overlord would at least have a rudimentary level of intelligence. That also explains the horn on his head, since Dragonlords in general seem to vary widely in physical appearance for some unexplained reason. But he would still share a common ancestry with dragons, so technically and genetically he probably would count as one. The Great Wyrm too, since he's apparently the one causing all this mayhem (if you pick him anyway.)

That said, I wouldn't consider him one for rule purposes, especially if the best evidence you can find is flavour text. As Parathion points out, he doesn't even get all that much benefit from this upgrade anyway, so I don't see much point in pushing it.

Thanks for the input.

Although I don't think The Elder Race is entirely (or even half-way) useless. It is, however, largely situational. Should the heroes discover the irritating utility of Web early on, having Unstoppable Dragons can be quite useful. There's the Caverns of Thuul, a few dungeons, (potentially) a Lt., and the Great Wyrm's beastly (pun!) keep.

I guess I agree Dar Hilzernod is not really a Dragon. I appreciate the reference to Kar-Amag-Atoth. That makes it a little clearer that despite appearances and history, Lts. are a league unto their own.

Too bad, I was hoping to avoid always having to pick Crushing Blow when fighting with Dar.

Well, a Dragon in an Advanced Campaign rolls 1 black die per web token + a whopping 5 extra black dice, giving him a chance of 91.2% of getting rid of a single web token in the first attempt.

Dar Hilzernod only occupies four spaces (if I recall that correctly), so he would benefit a bit more from the Elder Race, since his chance of escaping a single web is "only" 80.2%.

I would rather take these chances and spend 10 XP on a point of green treachery which gives a huge flexibility to the OL (not only Crushing Blow) in using it instead of spending 15 XP for a highly situational upgrade. In addition, my heros tend to avoid the copper legendary because the reward / risk ratio is not very good in this one.

I hadn't thought about it that way, and I am a very big fan of the maths! Thanks for the perspective.