Glossary
So you see a fancy table with dragons and whatever we consider important about them. Let's see what we actually mean when we say:
Lineaged
Any dragon which has a Lineage link on its view page.
Caveborn
Any dragon which has no parents. They have usually been found in the cave, hence caveborn.
Gen
short for "Generation", basically the number of columns in a given lineage. Lineaged dragons have a minimum of 2 generations, caveborn dragons are always 1st gen. (Don't bother with real-life breeding terminology, we're just spawning pixel sprites here ;))
Gender
Breedable dragons always have a gender, either male (m) or female (f). However, many holiday dragons are single-gender breeds, as in, all dragons of a given breed (e.g. Yulebuck) have the same gender (male for Yulebucks) without exception. Pink dragons cannot influence those eggs.
Mate Breed
Lineaged holiday dragons usually have a holiday and a non-holiday parent. This non-holiday parent often defines what the lineage will look like, and what breed the lineaged dragon's mate should be to create a lineage with a certain type.
Lineage Type
When clicking the Lineage link of a dragon, it usually reveals a certain pattern.
On this site, we mostly distinguish the following lineage types (click the links for samples):
2nd gen
Sample With a proper mate (Sample), a checker lineage can be formed (see below).
2nd gen (proper gender)
Sample 2nd gen with the proper gender for a checker or stair.
2nd gen (wrong gender)
Sample 2nd gen with the wrong gender for a checker or stair, but can be used for a spiral or alternating checker.
even-gen
Sample More than 2 generations, with all caveborn dragons in one line to the right side, forming a straight line. All ancestor generations feature an even number of dragons.
checker
Sample More than 2 generations, 2 breeds only, 1 of which is always male and the other always female.
checker (alternating)
Sample Like a checker, but with genders swapped for each generation.
stair
Sample Except the first generation, 1 breed is always a bred one and always one gender, the other breed is always caveborn and of the other gender.
stair (broken)
Sample Usually occurs when the bred egg has not been influenced properly or has been teleported after influencing (at which point it loses influence.)
spiral
Sample The "center" breed is usually the special one, with alternating genders every generation.
spiral (broken)
Sample Like a spiral, but the number of generations before a gender swap varies, making it difficult or even impossible to recognize a regular pattern.
wave
Sample Like a spiral with gender swaps not every generation, but every nth generation (3 in this sample).
arrow
Sample Usually, 2 stair descendents of the same generation bred together. Often, such a lineage is being continued with another arrow, like in this sample.
other
Well, anything that cannot be described with the terms above.
There are also some special quirks with some breeds involved:
Sample This dragon is a descendent of a specific dragon, in this case two of TJ09's own dragons.
Sample This dragon is a descendent of a Spriter's alternately colored version owned by a spriter of the breed.
alt base, pink base, mixed
Sample This refers to Sweetlings which can be regularly pink or alternately black colored, depending on the scroll on which they reside. Like in this sample, the scroll-coded color alteration can be used with other breeds which have alternate versions to make rather vivid lineages.
proper color, white/gold/tri-color base, mixed colors
Sample for tri-color Snow Angel with gold based lineage and sample for proper colors in the whole lineage
This refers to the Snow Angel's wing color (white-winged, gold-winged and tri-color) which depends on the scroll on which the dragon in question resides. Proper color would mean, the lineage can be continued with a recognizable wing pattern, e.g. all Snow Angels in the lineage being of the same color.