Death Song

"Yeah, I'm thinking Death Song might be more appropriate. You know, 'cause you hear the song, you're dead."

- Tuffnut, naming the Death Song

The Death Song is a large Mystery Class dragon that first appeared in Dragons: Race to the Edge.

Official Description
"Although deceptively beautiful in appearance and melody, the Death Song has a lethal quality that is reminiscent of the Black Widow. Inhabiting a lush island beyond the Archipelago, the dragon vocalizes its beautiful and hypnotic siren call in order to lure other dragons, which it then targets as prey. Rather than using fire to attack, the Death Song spits out a liquid substance that traps and preserves victims as it hardens into a stiff amber cocoon that is penetrable only by flame. Typically, the Death Song chooses to entrap dragons only, but it also preys upon any human unfortunate enough to make its way to its island. Its key weaknesses are Thunderdrums, which find themselves mostly immune to the Death Song's lethal lullaby due to their poor hearing, and small enclosed spaces which can render it vulnerable to its own song."

- Dragonpedia

"This Dragon uses his melodic call to lure his targets into the dense jungles of Melody Island. There, he can watch as they search for the source of the song."

- Dragons: Rise of Berk

"Beautiful as a sunrise and as brutal as a Berserker, the Death Song is a notoriously hypnotic species of dragons. It does not breathe fire, but spits a sticky amber-like substance to trap its victims. We encourage any student confronting this Mystery Class dragon to tread lightly, for the Death Song is as wild as a typhoon! With their vibrant scales, frills, and enchanting call, it’s easy to become entranced by Death Songs, but beware! Beneath this resplendent exterior lies an invasive and cannibalistic species. They use their song to lure dragons to them, only to trap them in an amber cocoon. There are only a few creatures with the ability to face a Death Song unscathed. Thunderdrums are immune to the Death Song's call because they have poor hearing!"

- School of Dragons Website

Development
The Death Song was first depicted in a sketch, where it released a straight and concentrated stream of what seems to be an orange substance. The substance appears to harden into a ball eventually, and the stream is encircled by three rings with particles suspended in them. This firepower was eventually scrapped and made way for the current amber blasts.

Egg
The eggs of Death Songs in Dragons: Rise of Berk are flamboyant oval-shaped eggs. They have a colorful purple core and a translucent white covering over it. They appear to have wavy, curved stripes on it and some spots, similar to some butterfly wings on the outer covering.

Those in School of Dragons, however, are big and oval and are grey in color with wavy yellow stripes and spots.

In "Tone Death", the Death Song egg the Riders find looks like none of these, instead it resembles a Whispering Death egg. It is big and oval. It is light grey with dark grey spots all over it.

Hatchling to Adult
The Death Song has a long, slender body. Its wings resemble that of a Thunderdrum. It has a tail that is very reminiscent of a Monstrous Nightmare. Its body resembles that of a Timberjack, as it is very thin. The Death Song has the striking and bright colors of blue, yellow, and orange on both its wings and its tail. It has spikes that run along its back.

Titan Wing
The Titan Wing Death Song in School of Dragons has two pairs of long, twisted horns on its head and a much larger nasal horn. The spikes on its back and tail and longer and sharper and it has grown a long circular spine on its tail. Its head frills are also considerably larger, being almost as long as its horns.

Singing and Mimicking
The Death Song uses a siren-like song to lure its prey to a remote island. The secret behind this amazing feature is the Death Song's extra cervical vertebrate. When the Death Song calls, its extra vertebrae expands into its frills, and it is able to project its song towards specific targets up to a mile away. Babies also have the ability to mimic sounds and songs, even those of humans.

Hunting
The Death Song is one of the most adept hunters among dragons, for it uses its siren-like song to lure its prey close, then spits amber to trap its prey easily, as the prey is unable to break free. A Death Song was even able to trap a Night Fury in its amber, one of the most powerful dragon species in the world. The tactic most used by the Death Song in hunting is the ambush, pefering to sutprise their prey rather than confront it.

Firepower
After striking its prey, the Death Song covers it in an amber-like substance which traps and preserves victims as it hardens into a stiff amber cocoon. This cocoon is remarkably strong, and it is only penetrable by flames. Afterward, the Death Song returns to finish its prey off. It does this by breaking the prey out of the amber and then eating them. The Death Song also uses its amber to construct its nest, forming a large spherical structure for the dragon to live in.

To escape the cocoon, find the weak spot and crack it open. It should then be easier to get out of. Fire has proven to weaken the amber quickly.

Consuming
Death Songs are able to consume medium sized dragons very fast, as shown when it supposedly devoured an entire Gronckle in under a few minutes. But it is quite possible that they have fast digestive systems, as they constantly eat a lot of prey that they have trapped in their amber and one was seen to have dozens of dragons captured and ready to be eaten. After finishing their meal, Death Songs have a tendency to stock up the remaining bones in a pile.

Strength and Combat
Considering their size, Death Songs have strong jaw muscles, as they have been shown to lift up medium-sized dragons such as the Gronckle, which weighs over a few tons along with the extra weight of the hardened amber.

They are also very powerful, as it was shown to be able to defeat a smaller Thunderdrum by swinging its tail to the mountain and was able to hold it down with no difficulties despite its heavy weight.

Endurance and Stamina
The endurance of Death Song is good enough to endure a Thunderdrum's powerful roar for shorter periods of time, and able to endure a boulder at a high speed and crash into a terrain wall and still able to fly at high speeds without any difficulties to chase its enemies such as the Thunderdrum or Toothless for long periods of time. Garff, as a baby, has shown that he is able to sustain strong injuries as he was still able to try to sing to the adult Death Song after he was whipped really hard by the Death Song's strong tail and smacked on the side of a small cliff.

Speed and Agility
The Death Song was shown to be an extremely fast dragon, although it wasn't able to catch an average sized Thunderdrum, though it's possible that average sized Thunderdrums that are the size of Thornado are much faster than those of a larger size. It has been shown to be able to swing its tail around against its enemies but has a lack of making quick turns when chasing at full speed.

Immunity to Eels
In School of Dragons, it is revealed that the Death Song can eat eels without getting sick, like the Typhoomerang.

Weaknesses
The best chance to defeat this dragon is to ride a Thunderdrum, which is mostly immune to the Death Song's song. This is because a Thunderdrum's hearing is so poor that they are unable to hear their lullaby. Death Songs also struggle with small spaces, as they can be affected by the echo of their own song.

Behavior and Personality
Death Songs are extremely solitary. This is most likely because of the fact that they will eat any dragon who gets too close to them, including their own kind. Their preferred prey is other dragons, but they aren't averse to eating any unwary human who strays too close to their nests they also aren't adverse to gobbling up a chicken or an eel.

Unlike most dragons, the Death Song will abandon its young not long after hatching. They are often hostile to young of their kind. But some Death Songs are willing to adopt and care for young Death Songs, provided they can sing a song they like.

Baby Death Songs are noisy, putting up a screaming fit unless someone or something sings to it or it gets fed.

Training
It is unknown if adult Death Songs can be trained but it proved to be possible with a baby Death Song, Garff, as he was mimicking the trainers, as songs are the main medium this species uses to communicate within its kind. As a baby, Garff was able to be calm from listening to the songs of the trainers as he can sing those songs by screeching. Garff has shown that singing can cause a bond with humans like he did with Heather.

Season 1
In "Imperfect Harmony", the gang stumbles upon an island and stay the night, only to wake up and find all their dragons missing. Only Toothless, due to his inability to fly, remains. He quickly leads the gang to a cove, where they find a lot of dragons, including their own, trapped in amber. Soon they hear the Death Song's call and the Death Song emerges. It carefully picks up a dragon, devours it in seconds and returns, spitting amber at all of them. Only Hiccup gets away after Astrid saved him. He quickly finds help and trains a Thunderdrum, which is immune to its call. Together, they lure the Death Song away from the cove and promptly set fire to the amber with high friction and Monstrous Nightmare gel. The amber melts and the dragons are free. While the rest of the team help free the other dragons, Hiccup lures the Death Song into a cramp cavern and traps it there.

Season 3
In "Tone Death", the Dragon Riders rescue an egg from the Dragon Hunters. The egg hatches, and out emerges a baby Death Song, Garffiljorg. Though adorable, this dragon can't stop crying and spat amber on Chicken. Heather decides to sing to him, finally putting him at ease. Throughout the next day, the Riders take turn to sing to him. However, their effort proved to be futile and they decide to bring it to Melody Island to be taken care of by other Death Songs. However, the moment they reach the cove, the adult Death Song ambushes and traps the Riders. Garff and the adult start bonding, but when they start roaring, the adult quickly hits the baby away. The Riders realize that Garff has been singing all their songs, instead of the Death Song call. The Death Song attacks the Riders, who start singing, and Garff imitates them. The adult looks at Garff and finally takes off with him right behind.

Dragons: Rise of Berk
Death Songs appear in Dragons: Rise of Berk, but was dubbed as an Exclusive subspecies of the Slithersong. Garff and Sirenade also appeared in the game as Unique dragons.

Later individual dragon releases and Death Song-related info imply that Dragons: Rise of Berk consider the Death Song a species.

School of Dragons
Death Songs were released as an exclusive dragon with the "Call of the Deathsong" game expansion pack in August 2015. Later, the Slithersong was released as a related, but separate species.

Trivia

 * The Death Song is the fourth franchise dragon to have "death" in its name, and the first dragon to have the word "death" at the beginning of its name.
 * Other dragons with "death" in their names are Red Death, Whispering Death, Screaming Death, Sweet Death, and Deathgripper.
 * The Death Song is the fourth dragon that appears to eat other dragons, with the first being the Red Death, the second being the Scauldron, the third being the Changewing, the fifth being the Slitherwing, the sixth being the Deathgripper, the seventh being the Grim Gnasher, and the eighth being male Razorwhips.
 * The Death Song was named by Tuffnut. However, Fishlegs wanted to call it the Songwing.
 * As it was later revealed, the Songwing was a dragon that already existed, and the Death Song was based on it, though slightly reworked and with its name changed.
 * The Death Song is the second dragon named by Tuffnut. The first was the Screaming Death. Coincidentally enough, both species have the word "death" somewhere in their names.
 * The Death Song tends to aim at its victim's body, but spares the head. It is possible that the Death Song likes to eat its prey alive.
 * It seems very unlikely that a Death Song can eat a full grown Gronckle in minutes. It is possible that it heard the gang talking to each other and came back before it could eat it.
 * The amber of the Death Song was described as "golden liquid" in School of Dragons.
 * In School of Dragons, the Death Song is considered an invasive species in Berk.
 * A legend of the Death Song's origins is told by the Vikings of Berk. It is called The Dragon Valkyrie.
 * The Death Song is currently the only dragon that shoots amber.
 * It is strange how easily the Death Song defeated a Thunderdrum, since they were stated to be its main weaknesses.
 * The Thunderdrum was also called the Death Song's natural enemy in School of Dragons.
 * The Death Song is one of the eight dragons that doesn't have a forked tongue.
 * The others are the Flightmare, the Triple Stryke, the Woolly Howl, the Razorwhip, the Snow Wraith, the Dramillion, and the Snaptrapper.
 * In the Death Song's description on Dragonpedia, the dragon is described as having a "distant Jurassic ancestor," possibly referring to the Dilophosaurus from the Jurassic Park franchise, which also had similar frills to the dragon and lived in the described time period. However, ironically, the real animal didn't possess these frills.
 * This makes the Death Song the second dragon that is confirmed to be related to an animal that isn't a dragon, with the first being the Seashocker (related to the electric eel).

Site Navigation
Chant Funeste