How to Plan a Breeding Project From Founders to Visuals

A good breeding project starts at the end: pick the look you want, work out which genes it needs, then trace back to the dragons in your pen that carry them. From there you map each generation, keep related dragons apart, and prove hets as you go. Most two-gene projects in Dragonbred take two or three generations from your starting stock.

Below is the method, followed by a full worked example using stock any keeper can get from crates and the market.

Start with one target look

Vague goals waste clutches. "Something rare" could mean anything; "an Albino Golden" tells you exactly which pairings matter.

Choose a target you can describe in gene terms. Albino is recessive, so it needs two copies. Golden is incomplete dominant, so one copy shows and two copies make the super form, Pale Gold. Once you know the inheritance, you know what each parent has to bring. If those terms are new, read dragon genetics 101 first.

A few guidelines for picking:

• Start with two genes, not three. A two-gene project finishes in days; a three-gene one can take weeks.
• Prefer targets where one gene is already visual in your pen. Visuals pass a copy to every baby.
• Check the grade you'd get. Two simple looks together grade one step above the better one, capped at Epic, so an Albino Golden is Epic.
• Lava and the coming-soon morphs don't belong in a first project. Lava only comes from the Lava Crate, and the coming-soon morphs aren't obtainable yet.

Take stock of what you already own

New keepers start with an empty pen. The tutorial's clutch gives you a Striped and its 67% het brothers and sisters; everything else comes from crates and the market. Sort what you have by how much you know about it:

Dragons whose genes are known, visuals and proven hets, are the backbone of an early project. Crate dragons, labeled "Wild import," come with percentages instead, so a "50% het" from a crate is a gamble until it's proven.

Map the generations on paper

Write the project as a chain of pairings, with the odds for each step. You're answering one question per generation: what does this clutch need to produce for the next pairing to work?

Our worked target is an Albino Golden.

Generation 1: get Albino and Golden into one dragon

Pair an Albino with a Golden, say one from a crate and one from the market. Albino is recessive and the Golden doesn't show it, so every baby gets one Albino copy: they're all 100% het Albino. Golden has one copy in its parent, so each egg has a 50% chance of being Golden.

From a clutch of four, expect about two Golden het Albinos. You need one, of the right sex for the next step.

Generation 2: make the first visual

Pair a Golden het Albino from Generation 1 with an unrelated proven het Albino.

Twelve and a half percent is one egg in eight. With clutches of around four, expect your first Albino Golden somewhere in your first two or three clutches, though luck can run either way and there's no pity timer.

Generation 3: the super form

Two Albino Goldens paired together give 25% Pale Gold, and every baby is Albino. An Albino Pale Gold still grades Epic, but it's a sharper, rarer-looking dragon. This step is where relatedness starts to matter.

Keep your lines unrelated

Inbreeding in Dragonbred is measured as Wright's F across six generations, and it costs you eggs. A full-sibling pair loses about one egg per clutch before anything else goes wrong, and inbred eggs are also more likely to fail to develop or come out infertile. The Breed tab names the relation when you pick a related pair ("brother and sister") and labels the pairing Inbred or Heavily inbred.

Notice that the Generation 2 pairing above uses a het from a different line on purpose. That's the habit to build.

Ways to keep blood fresh:

• Run two parallel lines from the start. In the example, a second unrelated het Albino can start a second Generation 2 line with another Golden het Albino.
• Bring in outside dragons from crates or the market. A Golden from an Iron Crate is unrelated to anything you own.
• Pair out to an unrelated dragon rather than to a sibling whenever the odds allow.

Inbreeding explained shows exactly how F turns into lost eggs.

Prove hets as you go

Possible hets are where projects stall. A normal-looking baby from Generation 2 is "67% het Albino," which means it might not carry Albino at all.

The game proves a het the only reliable way: when a dragon throws a visual baby, its het is stamped PROVEN. After each hatch, "What the clutch taught you" shows how every percentage moved. A clutch can also push a percentage down, all the way to "<1%," though the game never says a dragon is definitely not het.

Two rules that save time:

1. 1Breed a possible het to a visual when you can. If it's het, about half the babies show the gene, so one clutch usually settles the question.
2. 2Don't build the next generation on an unproven 67% het if a proven one is available.

See hets and possible hets for the full math, and how to read breeding odds for what the odds cards are and aren't telling you.

Budget your time and space

A project runs on three clocks, and every dragon has a fourth: its breeding life.

• Breeding life: each dragon breeds between 4 and 10 clutches, as dam or sire, and dies laying its last. Any clutch can kill it sooner: rarely on its first two, more often with each clutch after, and more often if it's inbred. Its page and the pairing boxes show how many it has left and the risk of the next, so plan your keepers' clutches around the pairings that matter most.
• Breeding rest: the dam rests after laying by her own grade, from six hours for a Common to a day for a Legendary; the sire doesn't rest.
• Warm and grow time: a bred clutch warms for 3 minutes to 4 hours by the rarest egg its odds show, an hour for a Rare such as Albino; its brood then grows up in the nursery for 23 to 44 hours before it can breed, half that for members. A generation takes about a day.
• Trays and nursery places: you start with three of each. Each clutch needs a whole tray, and each brood a nursery place.

At one clutch per pair per day, the example project above reaches its first Albino Golden in roughly three to five days. Space matters too: everything shares one 500-item cap, and breeding needs room for six. Release or sell the dragons that won't move the project forward.

Pin the dragons you're building around. Kept dragons can't be released or listed by accident, and labels (up to 30) help you tag each line.

What to do with the extras

Every project throws dragons you don't need: Goldens without Albino, normal-looking 67% hets, a spare of the wrong sex. They still have value.

• Breed spare pairs for your Orders. An order takes the whole clutch unhatched and pays one and a half times what releasing it would.
• List them on the market. Proven hets and project visuals sell to keepers starting the same project. Selling dragons on the market covers pricing.
• Release the rest. Release pays by grade, plus 8 Scales per proven het.

Pick a target, write the chain, and start Generation 1 in Dragonbred today.

Frequently asked questions

How many generations does a two-gene project take?

Usually two from dragons with known genes for the first visual, and a third for a super form. Recessive genes that start as hets can add a generation.

Should I use crate dragons in a breeding project?

Yes, as unrelated outcross partners. Treat their het percentages as unproven until they throw a visual baby.

What does the Planner do?

It ranks every pairing in your pen by the chance of making a target look you choose, based on what you know about each dragon's genes.

Is breeding siblings ever worth it?

Sometimes, for one step, when no other partner carries the gene. A full-sibling pair loses about one egg per clutch, so get outside blood back in as soon as you can.