Dragons

Hatchings
Impressions
Growth and Maturity
Dragonkin Names

Disclaimer: Please note that all information present here is not necessarily canon, but is Cibryen's particular interpretation of books and events in roleplay.

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This is an accurate size comparison, as done by Ssthisto of Dragons in the Attic. The gold is 45 feet, and it staggers down from there.

This first is a general description, written by Anne herself, in response to an inquiry from a member of the Dragonriders Mailing List (DRML). The letter, among with lots of other helpful information, is posted here -- for convenience's sake, I'm sticking it here as well. (Thanks to the DRML Webstaff for making this letter available!)

"Well, none of the illustrators have got my Pern dragon down right and it's very hard to explain what the differences are, except the dragon is NOT as reptilian as Whelan draws him -- though his depiction is certainly eye-catching. They certainly don't have all those bits and bobs on them as the English version shows. They have heavier haunches, since they have to spring from the ground and put all that weight into the air and their wings are best as the umbrella type which Whelan does do very well indeed. Their heads are more horse-like...much broader through the occipital lobes since dragons are very intelligent. Their eyes are bigger and set forward in their heads -- since their eyes are faceted they do have lenses on a fairly wide arc to see Thread falling out of the corners of their eyes, as it were. They have horse-like cheek bones, and their muzzle is well-shaped with wide, but not too wide, nostrils. Their chests are very broad with musculature for both front legs, which are shorter, and the wings. They do have ridges along the spine which stop at the withers, and start again below the wings. They have headknobs rather than ears. They have fangs but certainly not the raptor-type lotsa teeth as in dragonhead or even Dragonseye where the dragons were really rather clunky. Strong teeth but not sharklike rows of them as the D'EYE would suggest. Their skins tend to look slightly mottled, as if someone had cleaned a paint brush in whatever and the various colors have allowable shades...as in red hair or even brunette. Or the various shades a bay horse can be. I know when I've seen a drawing if that IS my dragon but it's very difficult to describe accurately because the same words have different connotations to different people - as witness the variety of shapes dragons have taken for different artists...."

Dragon depictions that seem to best fit this description (images courtesy of Meus' site):

John Howe's Ramoth on the cover of A Diversity of Dragons (as well as his illustration of Lessa's Impression in the book itself -- a scene that he did so well it just melts my block of ice heart *G*)
Gerald Brom's Tagath on the cover of The Masterharper of Pern
Todd Cameron Hamilton's blue firelizard on the cover of The Dragonlover's Guide to Pern
Rowena's dragons and firelizards on the cover of Todd McCaffrey's Dragonholder

Each artist has minor variations, obviously, but the basic features are pretty much the same. I'm also including Michael Whelan's website simply because he's a master of understanding draconic anatomy. His omissions of headknobs and equine features make pretty much no difference if you want a fabulous reference for... uh, everything else. ;>

Similarly, check out Robin Wood's website -- look at her prints of Menolly, Sebell, and especially Robinton to find beautiful firelizard depictions. Her book, The People of Pern (out of print, but check eBay and your local library for copies) also includes Groghe and Merga (in what has to be one of the cutest portraits in the book), Mirrim and Path, Piemur and Farli, Brekke and Berd, F'nor and Grall, and N'ton and Tris.
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This next information comes off of my own website, and is a summary of all the more anatomical stuff that I've collected. Much of it comes from the Dragonlover's Guide to Pern, and the rest comes from my own experience with the series and online community. If you absolutely must have sources, you'll have to give me a while to do some digging. ;>

Some basic physical Pernese dragon features:

1. Smooth, suede-like skin that comes in five colors (these never change, with the sole exception of Ruth, the only white dragon ever successfully Hatched and Impressed): gold, bronze, brown, blue, and green, where golds and greens are female and bronzes, browns, and blues are male (think "g" for girl and "b" for boy)
2. Multi-facted eyes that change color according to mood -- these are as follows:
   • Content/Neutral: Blue/Green
   • Love: Purple
   • Anger/Battle: Orange
   • Lust/Hunger: Red
   • Alarm: Yellow
   • Fear: White
   • Sadness/Mourning: Gray
3. Three pairs of eyelids: one transparent pair, one translucent pair, and one opaque pair
4. Pentadactyl (five-toed) forepaws that can act as hands
5. Three-toed hindpaws
6. Two stomaches
7. Headknobs instead of ears
8. Sizes that range as follows (and dragons are measured in feet, not meters, as per the DLG -- this is a correction Anne has specifically made, so I'm not going loony here), with wingspans equal to one and two thirds the total length of the dragon:
• Gold: 38-42 feet in length with a wingspan of 63-70 feet
• Bronze: 35-38 feet in length with a wingspan of 58-63 feet
• Brown: 30-35 feet in length with a wingspan of 50-58 feet
• Blue: 25-30 feet in length with a wingspan of 42-50 feet
• Green: 20-25 feet in length with a wingspan of 33-42 feet
9. Green, copper-based blood known as ichor
10. Silver muscle
11. Six limbs: two short, arm-like forelegs, two hind legs, and two wings (which makes for an awkward stance on the ground)

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Another letter from Anne, this one at my own request (due to a debate here in the KT), addresses the issue of green infertility:

"I have always said that chewing firestone inhibits ferility. Which is why the queens do not chew firestone. In fact, in the first attempts to teach them how, in the first novel, Dragonsdawn, it makes the queens nauseous and they barf back up what they tried to swallow. The greens had no such problem... nor did they ever become pregnant. It was probable that Kitti Ping had observed the delinquent behavior of green fire-lizards and engineered their subsequent infertility.

Just as well, or, since the greens tend to throw only green and blue dragons, or they'd be up to their eyes in green dragons."

What this means: Greens are programmed to be rendered infertile by firestone -- so their infertility is a mix of genetics and external conditions. That means that if they never chewed it, then yes, they'd probably be able to clutch, but Anne addresses why this is impractical.

Similarly, some people have speculated that the queens' regurgitation of firestone in Dragonsdawn is a failsafe programmed into the queens to prevent their infertility -- that, or there's simply no chance that firestone can render them infertile, and their bodies simply reject it as useless. In either case, it's programming, not accident, that makes queens the egg-layers and greens the fighters.

-Charlotte, aka "Catalina", on the KT on 02.17.2003

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Hatchings

Count three months and more,
And five heated weeks,
A day of glory and
In a month, who seeks?

A strand of silver
In the sky...
With heat, all quickens
And all times fly.

-Dragonflight

Hatchings are always a joyous occasion at a weyr. When a golden queen rises to mate, Searchriders are dispatched to scour the weyr's territories for suitable Candidates for Impression. When a person is Searched, they return to live at the weyr, usually. In some cases, they may stay at their home until the Hatching itself, but this is very rare.

After three months of gestation, the queen lays her eggs on the sands, and for five weeks, they harden. The Hatching date is never set in stone, and is usually the subject of quite a lot of betting, as is the color distribution in the clutch itself. When the time has come, the dragons themselves are the alarm clock...a great humming goes up in the weyr, Although it is unsure exactly how dragons know the eggs are Hatching (When asked, they sagely reply, "I just do"), they most assuredly DO. When the humming begins, there is still a little time before the actual Hatching, though not much. A great frantic activity ensues, no matter the time of day or night. Any visitors that aren't present are fetched, the kitchens are roused to a frenzy of preparations that couldn't be delayed until the last moment, and the Candidates are gathered from whereever they might be.

Candidates shed the clothes of their old life, and don the pure white robes of candidacy. They are led out barefoot to stand in a rough semi-circle around the eggs, the other side of the circle completed by the dragon queen and her mate. The sands are hot, and burn tender, un-protected feet. Dragons and firelizards fill the air, as both adore births of any kind. Dragons perch in the high ledges of the Hatching Grounds cavern, and the gawking spectators are relegated to the Galleries that line the outside of the grounds.

Hatchings are always different. In most, the first egg cracking triggers a rush of activity, and the hatching is over in mere minutes. In others, the Hatching may stretch several hours. It as always an exciting affair, especially if that all-important gold egg is present.

After Impression, dragons and their lifemates are led from the chaos to where experience Weyrlingmasters have provided meat for the ravenous young dragons. After that, the new weyrlings are led to the Weyrling Barracks, where their new lives as dragonriders begin. Usually, the dragons fall asleep, and so do the weyrlings, but some weyrlings are able to stay awake and join the festivities.

A Hatching Feast is a much anticipated event, sometimes almost as much as the Hatching itself. The Headwoman and her crew pull out all the stops for the guests of the weyr, and a great part is held to honor the newly hatching Weyrlings. Any and all come, including weyrlings who can manage and candidates who did not impress. Here, holder families of candidates can rub shoulders with the elite of the weyr, the Weyrleaders and Masters. The party usually lasts well into the night.

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Impression

When a firelizard hatches, it will Impress to the first thing that feeds it, be it man or woman, adult or child. If it doesn't like said person, it will leave them, and return to the wild.

Dragons were designed very differently. Kitti Ping didn't want house-sized animals roaming around free, decimating Pern's landscape and causing general havoc. She enhanced their empathy to the point that dragons are incapable of surviving without a human partner. If that partner dies, they will suicide by going between instantly. There is no waiting around to say goodbye to friends, nothing. They simply go.

A dragon hatches from an egg, just like their tiny counterparts. When a dragon hatches, there is only one thing on its mind. It must find a lifemate. It will seek this goal, regardless of obstacles, because its very life depends on it. If no suitable lifemate is found, it will die. In fact, here at Cibryen, we once had a gold dragonet die when it was not presented with enough choices for a lifemate.

When a dragon has found its choice, it Impresses then. No one knows the exact mechanism of Impression, but the bond formed lasts a lifetime. The dragon always knows their own name, and they tell this to their newly Impressed lifemate. Dragons will never Impress someone unsuitable for them, and will never Impress the imbalanced or mentally ill. By tradition, no one with a physical disability will be presented to Dragons at a hatching, but theoretically, this would be no barrier to Impression.

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Growth and Maturity

At birth, most dragons are approximately the same size. There's no way to tell what dragon is in what shell simply by looking at the size of the eggs, although gold eggs are usually larger and more, well, golden than the others. When they first hatch, they can be picked up, but only awkwardly. This state doesn't last long, and pretty soon they must move under their own power, because they grown too large for their lifemates to carry them. They grow quickly in their first two months, tripling or even quadrupling their size. They must be kept well oiled, or their delicate hides will crack and become damaged.

Dragon take anywhere from around one and a half to two turns to reach their full, adult size. They grow quickly, and are able to start learning to fly around six months, when they've reached about half their adult size. The greens reach sexual maturity before they reach their full adult growth, and rise to mate for the first time around 1 turn of age. Golds mature much later, at two turns of age. The browns fall right in the middle, at 1 1/2 turn. Blues mature before browns, but after greens, while bronzes mature after browns, but before golds.

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Dragonkin Names

Dragons are not just pets, and in fact are sentient creatures in their own right. When a rider Impresses a dragon, that dragon will tell his or her rider their name. This name will always end in -th. Out of respect, no firelizard or wher will ever have a name ending in -th.

Watchwhers names are derived from their handlers, and always end in -sk.

For Cibryen's purposes, no two dragon names will be alike. For those who are having trouble creating a name for their dragon, or those who just like to click buttons, we have a handy random dragon name generator that spouts of fun bits of gibberish that can be used to create a dragon name.

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