The DragonRiders of Pern: Guide to the Rp
This Guide has been set up to assist my rp thread: Annual Weyr, as well as Paramore's rp thread: The DragonRiders of Pern (links to sign up threads and the rps below). Basic information about Anne McCaffrey's wonderful planet Pern as well as the marvelous dragons that inhabit it will be posted here and all questions you may have will be answered to the best of my ability. Please note that I take no credit for any information, and that it is entirely copyrighted to Anne McCaffrey.
Annual Weyr: (Note that this is an advanced thread)
Sign-up Thread:
http://warriorcatsrpg.com/inde…2.msg12885150#msg12885150
Rp Thread:
Paramore's: (Note that this rp isn't very active)
Sign-up Thread:
http://warriorcatsrpg.com/index.php?topic=210589.0
Rp Thread:
http://warriorcatsrpg.com/index.php?topic=302476.0
Table of Contents
•Pern
•Dragons
•FireLizards
•Impression
•The Weyr & Weyr Leadership
•Thread
•The Mating Flight
•The Books
•Anne McCaffrey
•Common Pern Dictionary
•Questions?
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Pern
"Rukbat, in the Sagittarian sector, was a golden G-type star. It had five planets, two asteroid belts and a stray planet that it had attracted and held in recent millennia. [...] Men settled on Rukbat's third world and called it Pern." ~Prologue, DragonFlight
Men from earth landed on Rukbat's third planet, and finding it quite hospitable, sent colonists to settle the newly dubbed, "Pern". Two generations flourished- until Thread fell from the Red Star and changed everything. The disastrous organism fell, destroying any organic matter that it came in contact with, and demolishing what the colonists had. In order to survive, they bred creatures from an indigenous species that could, after ingesting a rock, breathe fire and char the Thread from the sky. Dismantling all their technology and ships, the colonists fled north, to hide in the rocky caves that Thread could not devour, and therefore cutting off all contact with their Terran origins. Hope was not lost, however. Kitti Ping's creations became huge dragons that were telepathically and empathically bound to their riders, and they rose to the sky to blow out gusts of flame on the falling thread, and protect the people of Pern. Society on the planet turned feudal, with the common people under the control of Lord Holders, who ruled over their own land. They in turn tithes to the DragonRiders, who set up their Weyrs in the great craters of the north, and protected everyone from the Red Star, and it's menace. And so, Pern flourished and grew.
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Pern has three continents- the northern, the southern, and western continent. The North, comprised of mountain ranges, craters, plains, and canyons, are where the people of Pern live. Southern, a incredibly hot place full of wild jungle vegetation and hidden coves and beaches, is populated in later books, however not in Paramore's rp. Annual Weyr (my rp) is located in the Southern Continent. The western continent is a horrid, dead land, that is left alone.
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Pern also has two moons- Belior, and the smaller moon Timor. The Sun is Rukbat, and it's erratic sister planet, The Red Star. Known stars are the Day/Dawn Sisters, though (spoiler!) the bright trio are actually the three spaceships that first brought colonists to Pern.
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Dragons
"These Dragons- named for the mythical Terran beast they resembled -had two valuable characteristics: they could get from one place to another instantaneously and, after chewing a phosphine-bearing rock, they would emit a flaming gas." ~Prologue, DragonFlight
Pern's Dragons are not magical at all. Instead, they are a heavily genetically modified species based on one of Pern's native life-forms, the fire-lizard. Described as carnivorous, oviparous, warm-blooded creatures, they have six limbs - four feet and two wings. Their blood, referred to as ichor, is copper-based and green in color. Their head and general body type is described as being similar in shape to those of horses, and on their heads they have small headknobs, similar to those of giraffes, and no visible ears. They have multifaceted eyes that change color depending on the dragon's mood, and, unlike the dragons of Terran legend, they have a smooth hide rather than scales; the texture of their skin is described as being reminiscent of suede with a spicy, sweet scent when clean. They have forked tail ending with a defecation opening between the forks; however, most artistic renderings depict their tails as having spade-shaped tips.
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In creating dragons, Kitti Ping intensified the creatures' telepathy, greatly increased their intelligence, and gave them a strong instinctive drive to Impress to a human. Upon hatching, each dragonet chooses one of the humans present and Impresses to that person; from that moment on, the pair are in a constant state of telepathic contact for as long as they both live. Dragons also use telepathy to communicate with each other and with fire-lizards. They are capable of speaking telepathically to humans besides their own riders, but not all of them will do so except under unusual circumstances.
Dragons and fire-lizards can also teleport. They do this by briefly entering a hyperspace dimension known as between. Both humans and dragons experience between as an extremely cold, sensory-deprived, black void. After spending no more than eight seconds in between, the dragon or fire-lizard can re-emerge anywhere on Pern, along with any passengers or cargo they carried. This ability is explained as a defense against Thread; not only does it allow them to quickly escape from Threadfall, but the intense cold of between kills any Thread that has already burrowed into them. If a dragon attempts to teleport without a clear mental image of the place where they intend to reappear, they may simply fail to emerge from between and thus, be gone forever.
Going between allows dragons to travel through time as well as space, as long as they have a clear picture of what a particular place looked like (or will look like) at the desired time. However, the practice is highly dangerous to both dragon and rider and is severely restricted. Existing in two places at once for extended periods of time, or in close proximity, causes severe weakness and psychological disturbance for humans but not for dragons. In addition, while teleporting through space always takes the same amount of time, when a dragon travels through time, the amount of time they spend in between increases depending on how long ago or how far in time the destination is. So, traveling to remote times poses severe dangers from hypothermia and oxygen deprivation. This ability of Dragons is currently not used in Paramore's rp.
Dragons are also capable of telekinesis, though this ability is unknown and used in an unconscious manner (to augment flight) until it is discovered as a conscious ability by the green dragon Zaranth and her rider Tai in the 31st turn of the 9th Pass. It is speculated that the undersized wings were intentionally created in the dragons by Kitti Ping to reduce the surface area of a dragon that is exposed to possible Thread injury, and that the telekinetic abilities were intended to make up for the loss of wingsail. It is said that a dragon can carry whatever it thinks it can carry. This is likely an extension of the telekinesis, mentally "lifting" the extra load. This is the most likely explanation for the great loads that dragons sometimes carry during emergencies. This third power is not known by the Dragons and riders in Paramore's rp as well.
Unlike their fire-lizard ancestors, dragons are fully sapient. They communicate fluently in human language (although only telepathically), and have personalities and opinions distinct from those of their riders. However, their intelligence does seem to be somewhat lower than that of the average human. In particular, their long-term memory is severely limited.
Dragons' telepathic communication is usually limited to contact with their rider and with other dragons, however a dragon sometimes communicates well with a person with whom their rider has close emotional ties. They do understand spoken human language and occasionally reply telepathically to people whom they choose to speak.
As a safeguard against the possible damage that could be caused by such powerful creatures, Ping engineered dragons to be profoundly psychologically dependent on their riders. Any dragonet that fails to Impress to a human shortly after hatching will die. If a dragon's rider dies, the dragon immediately suicides by going between without a destination. The only exception is when the rider of a queen dragon dies while the queen is gravid; the dragon waits just long enough to lay her eggs and see them hatch before disappearing between. (Humans who lose their dragons typically commit suicide as well. However, some do survive, although the experience leaves profound psychological trauma.)
Ping also designed the dragons to be fairly calm in temperament. They never fight one another, unless two queens come into estrus at the same time. They are also not dangerous to humans except shortly after hatching, when it is common for confused and frightened dragonets to maul or even kill humans hoping to Impress.
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Colors
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•Gold dragons, also called queens, are the largest dragons (40–45 feet long) and the only fertile females. Gold dragons are by far the rarest dragons on Pern. They are dominant over all other colors; any non-gold dragon will invariably obey a queen's orders, even against the wishes of its own rider. Queens are incapable of digesting firestone and producing flame, however, they do fight Thread - they fly in the lowest wing, with their riders armed with specially designed flamethrowers to flame any Thread missed by the above wings. An egg that is going to hatch a gold dragon is notable: It is gold-colored and larger than other eggs. A gold dragon will always Impress a heterosexual female and are believed by most Weyrfolk to prefer young women who were not raised in the Weyr.
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•Bronze dragons are the largest males (35–45 feet long), although they are generally significantly smaller than the queens. They are almost always the ones to mate with queens, as the smaller colors generally lack the stamina to chase and catch the gold dragons when they rise to mate. Due to the 5-1 bronze/gold ratio and the infrequency of gold mating flights, they often mate with greens (the losers of a gold flight almost always seek a green for their needs), but their size often puts them at a disadvantage in chasing the agile, smaller females. The senior bronze of a Weyr is determined through which bronze wins the mating flight of the senior gold. In canon Pern, the rider of a bronze dragon is always a heterosexual male.
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•Brown dragons are the next largest color (30–40 feet long). They may occasionally mate with queens, although this is rare, and looked down upon. All brownriders in the Pern novels are men; most are heterosexual, but bisexual or "masculine" homosexual brownriders are not rare.
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•Blue dragons are the smallest males (24–30 feet long). They are nearly as agile as greens, but unlike the greens, they often have enough stamina to last for an entire Threadfall. They mate only with greens, as they are simply too small to keep up with a massive queen over a long mating flight. Some assume the position of teaching the new riders after their Impression. Canon blueriders are typically homosexual or bisexual, though some are heterosexual. In interviews, McCaffrey stated that homosexual women may be able to Impress a Blue dragon, however it did not happen in the books.
•Green dragons are the smallest normal color (20–24 feet long), and make up about half of all dragons on Pern. They are female, but unlike the queens, they are infertile due to the chronic use of firestone and can produce flame. They are extremely valuable in Threadfall because of their agility, but they lack the stamina to last an entire Fall and generally fly in two or three shifts. Originally, greens Impressed to girls; however, after various natural disasters and plagues decimated Pern's population, women were needed to help repopulate the planet. Since going between during pregnancy can induce miscarriage and because removing pregnant riders from the Wings reduced the effectiveness of the Wings, it became impractical to present large numbers of women as candidates for Impression. Thus, green dragons began Impressing homosexual boys; by the time of the end of the 2nd Pass, female greenriders were becoming rare. By the time of Moreta in the 6th Pass, female greenriders were entirely forgotten, although greens gradually begin Impressing to women again in the 9th Pass. Females of any sexual orientation may Impress Green.
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[align=center][i]There is however, an exception to these dragon colors. There is only one white dragon mentioned anyw