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[DG]

I've gen'ed a small custom world for 1050 years and when viewing legends I noticed that one of the living (well, you know what I mean) megabeasts is a zombie dragon "animated by forces unknown". I wasn't sure if it had started life as a normal dragon and had then been zombified somewhere in the 1050 year history or if it just started as a zombie. Reading legends mode can be taxing at the best of times so I just regen'ed the world and stopped it at 2 years. The dragon is a zombie from the start. Dragons take a long time to grow so would a zombie dragon from year dot be stuck at a relatively small size? Does anyone know for sure?

I suppose I could start an adventurer and kill the zombie dragon at year 1050 and then the normal dragon and compare their weights in my backpack, for science.

[Stormrage]

Go on, then. For Science!

[kulik]

Is there a way to check a size of living creatures? I think you could do it with runesmith but that's currently not updated.

[GreatWyrmGold]

What causes zombie megabeasts to appear?

[Pokon]

What causes zombie megabeasts to appear?

It (presuambly) means that they started out in Evil biomes.

[jaxy15]

Zombies have NO_AGING, which means they don't grow up.

[DG]

Science setback. I've been hacking at the zombie dragon with a steel battle axe for ages to no effect.

[jaxy15]

Science setback. I've been hacking at the zombie dragon with a steel battle axe for ages to no effect.

Decapitate or bisect him. Zombies don't bleed, they don't need to think and they sure as hell don't need nerves.

[DG]

Good advice. I concentrated solely on his head for a time and he eventually collapsed. Tomorrow I'll seek out the living dragon and compare weights.

[Greiger]

Ah but zombie collapsing is inherent only to zombies, and in my own experience it is far easier to collapse a zombie then kill a living counterpart.

Judging from how long it took to get it to collapse however, and your apparent inability to sever it's head, I'm leaning toward it being adult size.  But I'm not 100% sure by any means, so continue the science!

[DG]

Ok, the results are quite surprising.
 
I collapsed the worldgen zombie dragon (henceforth referred to as zomgon) first and he weighed in at a hefty 27805 uristgrams. No body parts missing. Described as "gigantic with incredible muscles".

I then struck down the living dragon without separating any body parts. He was described in life as "gigantic". He weighed in at the comparatively puny weight of 8002 uristgrams in my backpack. That's roughly 3 and a half times less than the zomgon. Remember that this is the guy who was alive from creation to exactly the 12th of Galena, 1050.

What does this mean? I don't know, but it gets better.

I then raised the dragon (read a slab while dragon hunting, naturally) into a zombie described as "gigantic with incredible muscles". Zombification evidently changes muscle build. I then hacked him to collapse and stuffed him in my backpack again. The new weight is 28770 uristgrams, higher than the zomgon but only by a negligible amount.

This raises questions and I have some theories but I'm going to bed.

[Old Greg]

Zombification does a lot to musculature, and musculature does a lot for weight, I guess.

To answer a previous question, dragons (or any megabeasts) that are spawned at year 1 start out at full size. It's only if dragons mate during worldgen that you see smaller dragons (often a lot smaller). Otherwise, forts and adventurers that embark in the early years would only find dragon & roc hatchlings.

[NTJedi]

I then struck down the living dragon without separating any body parts. He was described in life as "gigantic". He weighed in at the comparatively puny weight of 8002 uristgrams in my backpack. That's roughly 3 and a half times less than the zomgon. Remember that this is the guy who was alive from creation to exactly the 12th of Galena, 1050.

What does this mean? I don't know, but it gets better.

I then raised the dragon (read a slab while dragon hunting, naturally) into a zombie described as "gigantic with incredible muscles". Zombification evidently changes muscle build. I then hacked him to collapse and stuffed him in my backpack again. The new weight is 28770 uristgrams, higher than the zomgon but only by a negligible amount.

This raises questions and I have some theories but I'm going to bed.

Basically if you're a zombie you're strong and very very fat.