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Description
Gronckle
Attribute: Earth
Size: 15 ft
Weight: 800 pounds
Speed: 15 mph (land), 20 mph (air)
Shot Limit: 6 shots (Lava Blast)
Class: Strike class, Neodraconid
Danger Level: Medium to High - Proceed with Caution

Colors: Green, beige, brown
Armed with: All the best in dragon weaponry: dagger-like fangs, bone-studded skin, spiky ball on end of tail, and balls of lava fired from mouth - 16
Defences: Thick, flame and scratch-proof skin, covered in bony nodules for extra protection - 18
Radar: None - 0
Poison: None - 0
Hunting ability: Slow to move in the air - 4
Flight: Slow but extremely agile - 7
Speed: See above - 5
Fear and Fight Factor: Terrifying in action - 9

One of the toughest dragons known, the Gronckle's comical and grotesque appearance belies its great power. Its ponderous appearance stands in stark contrast to its surprising agility, brute strength, and devestating single-minded ferocity that only rarely lets it down in battle. It is probably the closest relative to the infamous Seadragonus, due to the physical, elemental, and evolutionary similarities.

This dragon's compact appearance reduces body weight and surface area, making it more suited to tougher conditions and enviroments than most dragons. Its skin is covered in disc-shaped bony scales that act as a built-in suit of chain mail, resisting all kinds of attacks from flames to claws and teeth - crucial for a "sitting duck" that is slower than other dragons in the air and more likely to be picked off by a faster predator. The Gronckle is additionally covered in bony scutes, or modified scales covered in horn, so much so in fact that the bony club on the end of its tail can be mistaken for its head from a distance. However, the skin itself is very elastic, as are its spinal discs, and a special sheath of muscle around the backbone enables the dragon to stretch itself up to twice its own body length, allowing either the rock-hard skull or the tail club to serve as a battering ram in physical combat.

Although slower than other dragons, the Gronckle is nevertheless a serious matter on the wing, since it is the most agile flier of all dragons. Its wings are extremely small for its body size, which led to much speculation on the first reports of this dragon flying through the air. However, being an archetype dragon that used to be killed for sport befor the Battle of the Green Death, the Gronckle's secret was spilled relatively quickly. Although its wings are small, they are also heavily muscled. Not only does the flight mechanism have the conventional flapping muscles attached to the sternum (Fig. A, dark red), but it also has a special muscle running between its wings and stretching over its back (Fig. A, bright red), which it uses as a springload in flight. Both sets of muscles are designed for high-speed contraction, and work in a drive cycle to keep it airborne. In the downstroke, the Gronckle contracts its ventral flapping muscles, stretching the dorsal collar muscle for energy storage; in the upstroke, now the collar muscle contracts, producing a powered upward flap as well. All of this can happen up to 175 times a second, enabling the dragon to fly in almost any direction - vertically, horizontally, sideways, and even backward and upside down.

Gronckles are not just good at close-range combat; they can also shoot balls of lava from their mouths with deadly accuracy. Ever since this attack was seen for the first time, it was speculated that this dragon melted the rocks in its belly using extreme heat; however, this would be impossible because the rocks would need to be melted under temperatures that can be fatal to the dragon if produced inside the stomach. Modern research, however, has revealed that the melting is in the other sense. The dragon has two stomachs (Fig. B): the first (white), the crop, stores special rocks, or gastroliths, ingested by the dragon that are primarily used to grind up the Gronckle's food, while the second (red), the gizzard, produces a powerful acid that dissolves the food (and the rocks) into a viscous sludge. When using the Lava Blast attack, the dragon secretes the acid from the second stomach into the first, melting the rocks into fuel of the proper consistency. A gland at the base of the jaw (blue) then secretes a second chemical into the crop which primes the fuel. All the dragon needs to do now is to regurgitate a given amount of the fuel, which ignites when exposed to oxygen in the air. The resultant balls of fire are highly explosive, capable of devastating entire structures or battlements at once and knocking even larger dragons from the sky.

With a large selection of weapons for both ranges of combat, the Gronckle is favored by trainers who do not discriminate between short and long range battle, and its strong attack and defense, along with its generally docile demeanor, make it popular among beginning trainers. About its only weakness is its low speed, but given the immense physical power of this dragon, that drawback isn't much of a problem, at least from the standpoint of its trainer.

-The Dragon Manual, Volume I: Strike Class

Since I covered dragons not seen in the movie, I will cover the ones seen in the movie now, which I call the "Archetype Dragons." These are the most common dragons, and the basic starting choices for dragon training.

If I had to place the Archetype Dragons in order of my favorite choices, the Gronckle would, sorry to say, be last on the list, right down there with the Terrible Terror (which will be coming up tomorrow). However, it does have its merits in terms of design, with a unique body shape and helicopter flight most unlike other dragons. It was REALLY hard trying to speculate the anatomy behind the Lava Blast attack, but in the end I think I pulled it off rather nicely.

So many scales! >.<'''

The Dragon Manual and How to Train Your Dragon are copyright to Dreamworks and Cressida Crowell. But the Gronckle concept art is mine.

-Fawkes

Description
Gronckle
Attribute: Earth
Size: 15 ft
Weight: 800 pounds
Speed: 15 mph (land), 20 mph (air)
Shot Limit: 6 shots (Lava Blast)
Class: Strike class, Neodraconid
Danger Level: Medium to High - Proceed with Caution

Colors: Green, beige, brown
Armed with: All the best in dragon weaponry: dagger-like fangs, bone-studded skin, spiky ball on end of tail, and balls of lava fired from mouth - 16
Defences: Thick, flame and scratch-proof skin, covered in bony nodules for extra protection - 18
Radar: None - 0
Poison: None - 0
Hunting ability: Slow to move in the air - 4
Flight: Slow but extremely agile - 7
Speed: See above - 5
Fear and Fight Factor: Terrifying in action - 9

One of the toughest dragons known, the Gronckle's comical and grotesque appearance belies its great power. Its ponderous appearance stands in stark contrast to its surprising agility, brute strength, and devestating single-minded ferocity that only rarely lets it down in battle. It is probably the closest relative to the infamous Seadragonus, due to the physical, elemental, and evolutionary similarities.

This dragon's compact appearance reduces body weight and surface area, making it more suited to tougher conditions and enviroments than most dragons. Its skin is covered in disc-shaped bony scales that act as a built-in suit of chain mail, resisting all kinds of attacks from flames to claws and teeth - crucial for a "sitting duck" that is slower than other dragons in the air and more likely to be picked off by a faster predator. The Gronckle is additionally covered in bony scutes, or modified scales covered in horn, so much so in fact that the bony club on the end of its tail can be mistaken for its head from a distance. However, the skin itself is very elastic, as are its spinal discs, and a special sheath of muscle around the backbone enables the dragon to stretch itself up to twice its own body length, allowing either the rock-hard skull or the tail club to serve as a battering ram in physical combat.

Although slower than other dragons, the Gronckle is nevertheless a serious matter on the wing, since it is the most agile flier of all dragons. Its wings are extremely small for its body size, which led to much speculation on the first reports of this dragon flying through the air. However, being an archetype dragon that used to be killed for sport befor the Battle of the Green Death, the Gronckle's secret was spilled relatively quickly. Although its wings are small, they are also heavily muscled. Not only does the flight mechanism have the conventional flapping muscles attached to the sternum (Fig. A, dark red), but it also has a special muscle running between its wings and stretching over its back (Fig. A, bright red), which it uses as a springload in flight. Both sets of muscles are designed for high-speed contraction, and work in a drive cycle to keep it airborne. In the downstroke, the Gronckle contracts its ventral flapping muscles, stretching the dorsal collar muscle for energy storage; in the upstroke, now the collar muscle contracts, producing a powered upward flap as well. All of this can happen up to 175 times a second, enabling the dragon to fly in almost any direction - vertically, horizontally, sideways, and even backward and upside down.

Gronckles are not just good at close-range combat; they can also shoot balls of lava from their mouths with deadly accuracy. Ever since this attack was seen for the first time, it was speculated that this dragon melted the rocks in its belly using extreme heat; however, this would be impossible because the rocks would need to be melted under temperatures that can be fatal to the dragon if produced inside the stomach. Modern research, however, has revealed that the melting is in the other sense. The dragon has two stomachs (Fig. B): the first (white), the crop, stores special rocks, or gastroliths, ingested by the dragon that are primarily used to grind up the Gronckle's food, while the second (red), the gizzard, produces a powerful acid that dissolves the food (and the rocks) into a viscous sludge. When using the Lava Blast attack, the dragon secretes the acid from the second stomach into the first, melting the rocks into fuel of the proper consistency. A gland at the base of the jaw (blue) then secretes a second chemical into the crop which primes the fuel. All the dragon needs to do now is to regurgitate a given amount of the fuel, which ignites when exposed to oxygen in the air. The resultant balls of fire are highly explosive, capable of devastating entire structures or battlements at once and knocking even larger dragons from the sky.

With a large selection of weapons for both ranges of combat, the Gronckle is favored by trainers who do not discriminate between short and long range battle, and its strong attack and defense, along with its generally docile demeanor, make it popular among beginning trainers. About its only weakness is its low speed, but given the immense physical power of this dragon, that drawback isn't much of a problem, at least from the standpoint of its trainer.

-The Dragon Manual, Volume I: Strike Class

Since I covered dragons not seen in the movie, I will cover the ones seen in the movie now, which I call the "Archetype Dragons." These are the most common dragons, and the basic starting choices for dragon training.

If I had to place the Archetype Dragons in order of my favorite choices, the Gronckle would, sorry to say, be last on the list, right down there with the Terrible Terror (which will be coming up tomorrow). However, it does have its merits in terms of design, with a unique body shape and helicopter flight most unlike other dragons. It was REALLY hard trying to speculate the anatomy behind the Lava Blast attack, but in the end I think I pulled it off rather nicely.

So many scales! >.<'''

The Dragon Manual and How to Train Your Dragon are copyright to Dreamworks and Cressida Crowell. But the Gronckle concept art is mine.

-Fawkes