Drake Hollow: How Many Drakes Can You Have – Growth Stage Ages Explained

Looking after Drakes is the whole loop in Drake Hollow. They can die to Feral raids, hunger, thirst, boredom, or exhaustion, and your camp only works if you build enough food, water, beds, and entertainment to keep them alive.

That job changes as the seasons change. Summer leans on drinking water. Fall and winter lean on entertainment. Winter also freezes Drakes and adds heat, so you’ll want Hot Torches ready before you walk into that chapter. A busy Drake Hollow camp once you’ve started aging Drakes and filling out production.

How Many Drakes Can You Have?

You can keep 40 non-retired Drakes in camp at once. If you’re already at that cap, you can’t wake another one until you retire a living Drake (or one dies, which you shouldn’t plan around).

Finding them is straightforward. Wake hibernating Drakes out in the biome and they’ll walk back to camp. Most biomes hide four of them. Your two starters are already home.

Living Drakes are the camp’s engine. They:

• Generate charms for Improvements and Curios (you have to interact with them to collect)
• Heal you in camp
• Offer a player buff that gets stronger as they age
• Feed camp XP when you wake them, age them, and retire them

Camp level comes from Drakes, not from slapping down extra walls. Buildings still matter, because an underfed Elder will die just as fast as an Infant if the production numbers don’t keep up.

You’ll also need Glowstone Shards for Aether Wards and early crafting while you’re out hunting more Drakes.

Drake Hollow Growth Stages

Drakes don’t age on a timer. You choose when they grow by feeding them crystals.

Two rules sit on top of every stage:

• Crystal family has to match that Drake (inspect them to see the gem they want).
• Crystal cut has to match the stage you’re leaving.

Give crystals by talking to the Drake, or check the camp menu / inspect panel to see if you’ve already got enough. Elders are the exception: they take 10 Runic Crystals, not 5.

Only age them when food, drinking water, entertainment, and beds can take the jump. Infant to Adolescent is cheap. Adult to Mature is where camps start collapsing.

The Retired 170 figure is the Drake’s total camp XP contribution after the full ladder, not a fresh 170 dumped on top of Elder.

Charms scale the same way: 15, then 30, 50, 100, then 200 at Elder. Statues make zero charms, so don’t retire your whole roster if you’re still dumping charms into late Improvements. Hibernating Drakes sit in the ground until you wake them. Each biome usually hides four.

Infant

Waking a Drake drops them into Infant. Cheap to keep, weak charms, tiny XP. Fine for early camp level quests. Don’t hoard Infants forever if you need camp XP, but don’t mass-age them before you’ve got a well and real beds either.

Adolescent

Five shards of the right family gets you here. Needs double. Still easy to feed. This is a comfortable holding stage while you sort production.

Adult

This is the first ugly jump: needs go from 2 to 5. Age a few Adults only after the camp status screen is green.

Mature

Needs hit 8 across the board. Charm income gets good (100). This is usually where you start picking favorites for buffs instead of aging everyone.

Elder

Twelve food, twelve water, twelve entertainment, plus a bed. Highest living charm income (200) and a strong buff. It’s also the most expensive stage in the game. Don’t leave a crowd of Elders parked here unless the camp can print resources.

Retired

Ten matching Runic Crystals ends the living ladder. The Drake turns into a stone statue, usually on the small island tied to your camp.

Retirement is the good version of “getting rid of a Drake”:

• Needs drop to zero
• No bed required
• Doesn’t count toward the 40 cap
• Keeps the buff at max strength; visit the statue to reclaim it
• You can move the statue
• Statues can’t be destroyed, so they make decent raid blockers
• Two new hibernating Drakes spawn nearby

The tradeoff is charm income. If a big build still needs charms, keep enough living Drakes in camp. Crystals from the Hollow are what push Drakes up the growth ladder.

What Happens When You Hit 40 Drakes?

Retire one. That’s the intended valve.

Pick an Elder whose buff you still want, spend the 10 Runic Crystals, park the statue somewhere useful, and go wake the Drake you actually wanted. You keep the max buff and you free the slot.

Waiting for a Drake to die also frees a slot. It’s a bad plan. You lose that Drake’s XP contribution, charm income, healing, and buff, usually in the middle of a raid or a needs crash.

What Happens if a Drake Dies?

They’re gone. There’s no knockout timer.

Most deaths come from boredom, missed beds, or Feral hitting the camp during a raid. Once it happens, two replacement Drakes spawn somewhere on the map. Go find them and wake them if you want the roster back.

Treat death as a mistake to recover from, not a farm.

What Happens When a Drake Retires?

The Drake runs off, turns to stone, and leaves two sprouts. Anyone who had that buff equipped loses it for a moment. Walk up to the statue and take it again at full strength. That still works in co-op.

An empty starter camp feels quiet. A camp pushing toward 40 living Drakes, with a row of statues on the retirement island, is when Drake Hollow starts looking like the village the game promised.