Dragons
Quick answers
- How do you get a dragon in Iron Realms?
- Dragons hatch from eggs found through play. A hatchling grows through combat stages that unlock new abilities, can be fitted with dedicated dragon gear, and can duel other players' dragons.
- Is Iron Realms free to play?
- Yes. Iron Realms is free to play in any browser with no download. Play offline with no account, or sign in to join the live realm. Nothing is for sale during the Alpha; when purchases open they will buy speed and cosmetics, never a higher ceiling.
- Does spending money make you stronger in Iron Realms?
- No. Nothing purchasable raises your power ceiling. A charter audit runs on every build and fails it if any offer would sell power. During the Alpha nothing is for sale at all — better than that, the store gives its goods away: everything in it is free to take, once a day per item, while the realm is being built. When payments do open, spending will compress time only: it clears timers, it never raises the summit.
- How long does it take to max a keep in Iron Realms?
- Keeps cap at level 45 and troops at tier 13 — the same summit for everyone, and it is a campaign: about seven months of steady play at half an hour a day, counting keep 45 and the nineteen plots that gate it. The Fair Play ledger inside the game reads that figure straight out of the shipped constants, so it is never a month behind the build.
Dragons are the realm's rarest power — a living weapon that grows with you. Everyone can raise one; nobody can buy one that a patient lord cannot match.
Eggs & hatching
You may hold three eggs at a time, drawn from eight aspects: emerald-veined, bronze-banded, midnight-black, frost-pale, ember-flecked, storm-grey, copper-swirled and sea-green.
An egg needs sixteen hours of warmth — forty-eight at the realm's base speed, divided by the three it actually runs at — and it is half a clock and half a campaign — and this is the part that surprises people, because warmth is not a timer you wait out. It is earned by fighting:
- +4 warmth per capture
- +1 warmth per hunt
A dragon is not found by logging in. It is hatched by campaigning, which is precisely why a dragon in the sky tells every passing lord something true about the house beneath it.
Growth stages
A dragon matures through stages, and each stage unlocks new abilities — a hatchling is a curiosity, a grown dragon is a battle-winner. Growth is gated by care and time, not by a credit card. The Sky Trial is the fastest honest way to bank dragon experience toward the next stage.
Dragon gear
Three dedicated slots — collar, barding and saddle — separate from your own gear ring. Pieces run to level 10, and filling all three grants a +5% armory set bonus on top of the individual pieces. As with your own ring, completing the set beats over-investing in one slot.
Dragons at war
- In your assaults — a grown dragon rides with the host, adding growth-gated abilities including a devastating breath strafe.
- Against guardian wyrms — great castles and the Iron Throne keep their own. Your dragon duels theirs in the sky before the siege begins: duel power 180 at a great castle, 340 at the Throne. Winning folds a +6% attack edge into the assault; losing simply withholds it. It is never a penalty, so bring the dragon regardless. See Seats of Power.
- Dragon duels — lord against lord, beast against beast, as its own sub-system.