How to get a black dragon in the Threshing: the Black Path
In Threshing Game Online a black dragon bonds only a cadet who walks the Black Path: one specific choice in each of the seven scenes, all in a single run. The first three steps are public and listed below. The last four are revealed in your own game, one for each time you are burned in scene six or seven. A full run of the path survives 56% of the time.
Updated
The first three steps
- The Gate. Slip onto the scree path nobody else wants.
- The Ravine. Keep walking. The Vale culls the weak.
- The Ridge. Leave the squad and climb higher, alone, where the wind is worst.
The pattern so far: every step is the choice a careful cadet would not make. The path keeps that character to the end.
Your Black Path
Your map
3 of 7 steps found · 0 burns
- 1The GateSlip onto the scree path nobody else wants.
- 2The RavineKeep walking. The Vale culls the weak.
- 3The RidgeLeave the squad and climb higher, alone, where the wind is worst.
- 4The RiverHidden. Burn in scene six or seven to reveal it.
- 5The AshfieldHidden. Burn in scene six or seven to reveal it.
- 6The Silent ColossusHidden. Burn in scene six or seven to reveal it.
- 7The JudgmentHidden. Burn in scene six or seven to reveal it.
How the path works
Other colours are decided by counting instincts. Black is not. The game checks your seven choices against one fixed route. Miss a single step and the run is judged like any other, so you still leave with a dragon of another colour if you survive.
The path is hot. Its choices carry two or three flames each, so the three burn rolls at the end are harder than usual. Expect to burn on it. Each of those late burns is also how the hidden steps are revealed, which means failing the path is the way to learn it.
Blue dragons follow a different rule and need no hidden route. See how to get a blue dragon.
The heat of the path, scene by scene
Every choice in the game carries one to three flames of heat, and the Black Path never takes the cool option. Its seven steps add up to 18 heat out of a possible 21, which is as hot as a run can get without being the hottest. The burn rolls in the last three scenes read that heat directly: the more the run has soaked up, the harder each roll.
| Scene | Chance of burning on the path |
|---|---|
| The Ashfield | 12% |
| The Silent Colossus | 19% |
| The Judgment | 22% |
Multiply the three survivals together and you get the 56% quoted above. For comparison, a run that takes the single lowest-heat choice in every scene survives 88% of the time and tends to bond a brown or green dragon. The gap between those two numbers is the price of a black dragon, and it is paid in burns rather than in waiting.
A practical plan for uncovering the steps
The map fills in only when you burn late, so the fastest way to learn the hidden steps is to walk the three public ones, then keep choosing hot options through scenes four and five and let the late scenes do their work. A burn in scene six or seven adds one step to the box above; a burn in scene five adds nothing, and bonding a dragon of another colour adds nothing either. Four late burns uncover the whole route.
Once a step is revealed it stays revealed in this browser, and the progress box shows the exact wording of the choice, so you can match it on the next run. Burns are never wasted beyond that: your total is printed on the card of the dragon that finally bonds you, and a black dragon with a high burn count is a better story than one with none.
Two things that do not help: repeating a run that already bonded you, because bonding ends the run before the late burns can teach you anything, and restarting after a scene-five burn in the hope of a different outcome in the same scene, because the roll does not remember previous runs.
Black dragon questions
- How do I get a black dragon?
- Make the one Black Path choice in each of the seven scenes, all in the same run. Survive the three burn rolls and a black dragon bonds you. The chance of surviving the full path is 56%.
- Why can I only see three steps?
- Steps one to three are public. Steps four to seven are revealed in your own game: each time a dragon burns you in scene six or seven, one more step appears on your map, up to all 7.
- Does battery level or time of day matter?
- Not here. This game reads only the seven choices you make. Nothing about your device, clock or location changes the result.
- Is this the method for the official Dragonkind game?
- No. This page describes Threshing Game Online, an unofficial fan game. Yarros Ink has not published a method for getting a black dragon in Dragonkind, and methods shared by players for that game are unconfirmed.
- Which tail does a black dragon have?
- Any of the five. The Black Path is a single route, so the tail of a black dragon is drawn at random, one in five each.
- Can I hatch a black dragon instead?
- Yes. When a black dragon sits on one of the Roost ledges, or you own one, it passes black to 30% of its hatchlings.
- Do the hidden steps change from day to day or per player?
- No. The Black Path is the same seven choices for everyone, every day. What differs is how much of it your own map has uncovered, which is why the progress box on this page is personal to your browser.
- If I know all seven steps, is a black dragon guaranteed?
- No. Knowing the route removes the guessing, not the fire. The three burn rolls still run, and the full path survives them 56% of the time, so a black dragon usually takes a few attempts even with the map complete.
- What happens if I burn before scene six?
- The burn counts toward your total, but it does not reveal a step: only burns in scene six or seven do. Scene five is the first scene that can burn you, so a scene-five burn on the path is simply bad luck, and Again starts you over at once.