Nesting is the reproduction feature in Day of Dragons that allows players to invite other players of the same species into their nests to be their hatchlings. In order to nest two fertile adult dragons of the same species; a male and a female are required. You cannot nest if both dragons are the same gender, you or your partner are not a fully grown adults and are still actively growing, or you play as a Hybrid Dragon or Elemental which are infertile species. You can use your character panel in-game to see if you are ready to nest under the biology category on the left; there is a place where it says "nesting" and it should be either immature, mature or infertile. Immature means that you are too young to breed, mature means that you are ready to breed, and infertile means that you cannot breed at all regardless of your dragon's age.
When two dragons of the opposite species are mature and ready to breed they must be in the same pack together. The game does not consider a clan to be a same form of a group like pack does, so both parties must make sure to be in the same pack or create a new one before they attempt to breed. Dragons can be in a clan and in a pack at the same time so this does not interfere with the two forms of grouping. If you attempt to breed with another player who is not in the same group as you, they will not receive your request to breed so they cannot accept it.
Once everything is laid out and set and the two dragons are ready to breed, the male must look at the female and cour her by performing a mating display by pressing a key. To accept the female must look back at the male and perform the mating display back to the male. After the two have accepted and become mates, the female can create a nest with the male close by onto a flat surface onto the ground or rock as long as there are no nearby slopes. The female will be able to lay an egg after which the male can imprint on it to start the incubation process. When the egg is being incubated it must be sprayed with the element of the parents in order to properly grow. A healthy egg will grow brightly and if its neglected by its parents the egg's glow will begin to fade and it starts loosing health. Once the incubation process finishes, the parents can invite a player from their pack via social panel into the egg become their hatchling. A female can produce up to five eggs for a single nest before she must break her nest and wait a short period of time before the male can court her again.
The hatchling's stats will be randomly generated from between the two parents, along with its skin and gender. Parents will be able to see their egg's stats after impringing on it. These stats can be affected by the Nurse Dragon who can slightly increase a single stat by up to 2%, within certain boundaries, as well as choose a skin and gender of the offspring. The nearby presence of the Micro Feathered Dragons can also speed up the incubation process, but be careful and guard your eggs as they are Micros' favourite food.
Inbreeding
The game has an inheritage feature that will track the player's lineage. In order to prevent easy access of gaining good stats and constant breeding with closely knitted groups of players, there has been set penalties to discourage breeding with characters that are related each other. This mostly includes a fatal strike into egg's stats that will lower features and aspects within your character. It means that a hatchling produced by inbreeding may have less health, stamina and shorter lifespan. As well as have less or if any resistance to physical or elemental damage, making them extremely vulnerable towards other players of any class and life stage.
You can undo some if not most of the damages created by inbreeding by introducing new pure blood into your lineage. This means you must breed with other players who are unrelated to your inheritage to outbreed the negative stats. However, this will take a long time and countless generations before the negatives caused by the inbreeding will begin to disappear. At the current early stages of breeding and testing it does not appear that even a hundred hours is capable of undoing all of the negative stats done by one-time inreeding in the lineage. So its heavily encouraged to keep track of your character's lineage and possible mate's lineages to avoid accidental inbreeding.
Exclusive Skins
There are a small number of skins that players can be obtained by supporting the game development. Currently there are six known exclusive skins which four of them have been given out during the Day of Dragons Kickstarter campaign, one from a preorder bonus that was avaibable from Day of Dragons website and one that can be received via supporting the game on Day of Dragons Patreon. These skins are unique in their own right and they can also be received by other players via breeding, exception to the Elementals who cannot reproduce. The most important thing about these fancy skins is that they can be used to create some of the more recodnized "exotic skins" which are explained in better detail in the next category. Below are all currently known exclusive skins, their names and where they originate from:
| Appearance: | Skin Name: | Obtained from: |
|---|---|---|
| Gray Skin | Kickstarter campaign; this skin was reward to all backers who paid additional $10 for their selected tier. | |
| Black Melanistic Skin | Kickstarter campaign; this skin reward to all Kickstarter backers who pledged for the "Hatchling Tier" $18 or higher. | |
| White Leucistic Skin | Kickstarter campaign; this skin was reward to 1,000 Kickstarter backers who pledged for the "White Dragon" tier or $100 or higher. | |
| - not revealed yet- | Dark Elemental Skin | Kickstarter campaign; this skin was reward to 1,000 Kickstarter backers who pledged for the "White Dragon" tier or $100 or higher. |
| - not revealed yet- | Light Elemental Skin | Limited preorder bonus that could have been purchased from the official Day of Dragons website during the Kickstarter campaign. |
|
Red Patreon Skin | This skin is strictly limited to Day of Dragons patreons who pledge the "Dragon" tier and pay $15 or more per month. |
Exotic Skins
While the offspring normally inherit the skin from one of their parents, there are rare cases during breeding where a skin mutation may occur. This is a skin that is a combination of the two parents' skins, which the game refers to them as Exotic Skins. These skins cannot be created with just any skin avaibable and they require certain skin combinations to create a specific circustance to bring the best outcome. Below we have listed all currently known excotic skin combinations and how to make them:
| Appearance: | Skin Name: | Required Combination: |
|---|---|---|
|
Oreo Dragon Skin | Black Melanistic + White Leucistic |
Trivia
- Hybrid Dragon is the only dragon to not be able to nest, due to it being an infertile hybrid between a wyvern and a dragon.
- Elementals cannot reproduce because of their more complex biology and due to their altered genetics after arriving to Jrakhon.
- With exception to the two races and species above, you can be nested in as any dragon species and with any skin.