An arcade game released by Capcom in Japan in 1987, and later in the US as "Black Tiger".

The gameplay is side-scrolling fighter style. You play a barbarian who proceeds through a series of seven dungeon levels with the ulitimate purpose of defeating a tyrant dragon. Collecting various power-ups and items allows you to gain weapons, armour, health, and so forth. You can also collect gold and purchase items at shops.

The release of the game in the US under the title "Black Tiger" is considered somewhat ironic by some aficionados, since in Japanese tradition the tiger and dragon are natural enemies.

The black dragon is a traditional monster in both fantasy fiction and role-playing games.

Black dragons are one of the smaller species of dragons, and they are usually no more cunning or intelligent than the average man on the street. They tend to speak the common tongues of the land with much fluency. Black dragons value evil above all things, often going out of their way to create mayhem even when there is no direct benefit to the dragon. Some black dragons seem to take a peculiar sort of pleasure at plucking creatures out of dangerous situations such as quicksand, setting them free, and then tracking them down and eating them a few minutes later.

Black dragons are hatched from eggs and they come out glossy with thin scales, these scales become thick and dull as the dragon ages. They have the ability to spit large amounts of acid from birth. This ability becomes more and more powerful as the dragon ages. Some older dragons gain the ability to stagnate water, grow plants and summon insects. Essentially they can create their own swamps given enough time.

Black dragons almost always make their homes in very damp areas such as swamps and rainforests. They truly enjoy the hot insect infested areas that most humans despise. These dragons swim and breathe underwater naturally, and take great joy at rising from the depths of the swamp to attack.

These dragons raise their young in pairs, but are otherwise solitary. They incubate the eggs and raise them to adulthood, but they are not very thorough or enthusiastic about it. They will fight to protect their own young, but they will flee and leave them to be slaughtered if it appears that the adults are in any actual danger.

If at all possible black dragons will make their lairs in damp insect filled caverns. These chambers will often have large numbers of coins, and the entrances will be well hidden, and will often be underwater.


My monster nodes are usually based upon material in the various AD&D rulebooks. But they are my own work, as I often expand the information. In some cases I will blatantly disagree with the source material. None of these nodes are cut and paste. You are free to use my descriptions in any material of your own (even commercial material), as long as I am credited as the source.

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