Post by ShadowReine on Sept 28, 2008 17:12:36 GMT -5
Dragons range in length from twenty meters for the smallest green to fifty for the largest gold. This length includes neck and tail.
Dragons have hide, not scales. Their hide is thick with a layer of fat underneath, which provides natural protection from extreme cold. They have large hindquarters and shorter forelimbs, and move awkwardly on the ground. The wings are set back from the forelimbs and are membranous, like those of a bat.
Dragon genitals are at the base of the tail, and the male apparatus is retracted into a pouch for aerodynamics...color is used to determine gender. The anus is in the fork of the tail, not under it. Also, a dragon's nostrils and lungs are located on its back, the nostrils being a little bit behind the wing joints. Dragons do not and cannot breathe through their mouths or pant, and although they do sneeze and cough, this does not affect their heads and necks.
Dragons are carnivores and prefer to hunt their own meat. They can and will sample other foodstuffs, however. Dragons generally consume the entire animal, including the bones. They have incredibly powerful jaws and strong teeth, that are constantly replaced.
Dragon eyes are faceted like insect eyes and stand out from their heads. The color of the facets shows their mood - yellow is fear, blue or green contentment, red hunger, purple lust, grey great pain. A dragon can raise his or her head and see directly behind him. They have a small blind spot right in front of their noses.
Dragons are stated to breathe fire. Naturally, this is incorrect. Dragons chew firestone, a phosphorus bearing rock and swallow it. It ends up in a pouch in front of their actual stomach, where it is mixed with an enzyme and then forced back out through the mouth as a kind of paste that ignites on contact with air. Technically...dragons puke fire. 'Breathe fire' does sound better. Because of certain traditionalist attitudes held by the biogeneticist who did most of the work, queen dragons cannot chew firestone. They do not produce the required enzyme, and thus if they attempt to do so, they just throw up a pasty substance. Most Pernese believe that if a queen was given firestone, it would destroy her fertility.
The natural telepathic abilities of firelizards were enhanced in the dragons, but in a specific direction. A dragon, on hatching, permanently bonds, telepathically and empathically, to one particular human. Because of the potential danger presented by feral dragons, a dragon will commit suicide by teleporting to nowhere if it does not find a rider or if its rider dies. The one exception to this rule is that a gold who is egg heavy or has a clutch on the Sands will remain until the eggs have Hatched and Impressed.
The bond goes both ways. A dragon rider feels his dragon's pain and other emotions. If a dragon dies, then the effect on the human partner is devastating. It is common for a dragonless man to suicide, and while it is not exactly expected, nobody is likely to stand in their way...healers have even been known to slip them fellis. Those who survive have a high chance of ending up catatonic or psychotic.
Some dragonless do have the strength to continue with their lives. The majority leave the Weyr, not wanting the reminder of what they lost. A few may decide to devote their lives to preventing it from happening to others and are welcomed into the ranks of the dragonhealers.
There is no record of a dragonless re-Impressing, although it has been tried.
Dragons are intelligent and sentient, but not as intelligent as humans. In particular, dragon memory has been deliberately engineered to have a faulty mechanism for transferring short term memories into long term storage. Dragons remember only things that are repeated over and over again. They have a strong sense of self, but are unlikely to remember what happened yesterday. They remember their mates and their friends, but not what their rider said even an hour ago. The endless drilling the wings perform is designed to ensure that things remain in dragon memory. However, dragons have been thus rendered immune to PTSD and other trauma (their riders may not be so fortunate).
Dragons are capable of teleportation. They pass through interdimensional space to do so, colloquially called 'Between'. Humans in Between suffer from sensory deprivation. A between teleport of any length takes eight seconds. Dragons can also 'time it', that is to say, travel through time. This ability is taught only to gold and bronze weyrlings, who are cautioned to use it only in an emergency.
Dragons mate on the wing. The female flies as high and fast as she can, challenging the males to chase her. She chooses her mate from those who can keep up, the point being to select the strongest male. The rule is 'the longer the flight, the larger the clutch'. The truth is that it is the height at which the mating takes place that determines clutch size...the higher the two dragons are at the time of contact, the longer they remain entwined, the more of the eggs carried by the female have a chance to be fertilized.
The dragon female reabsorbs eggs that are not fertilized. Despite that, it is not uncommon for an egg or two not to hatch...dragons can be stillborn too.
Dragons seem to have some control over their reproduction. If a Weyr has too many dragons, then a breeding female may not come into heat, or if she does may deliberately allow herself to be caught early. To produce a gold egg requires a certain combination of hormones that is under the female's subconscious control. Golds are only laid when they are needed, and almost never more than one in a clutch. Although there are records of 'several' golds in very early dragon clutches, there is no recent record of more than two.
Dragon eggs are laid soft, to ease the strain on the female reproductive canal. They harden, and slightly increase in size, with time on the Sands.
Dragons take about fourteen to sixteen months to reach full growth. Greens generally reach sexual maturity at about a turn. Golds seldom fly before eighteen months, two turns is common and three is not unheard of. Males begin to chase at ten months, but for such a young male to win a flight is highly unusual.
Dragons defer to golds. The gold's word is law. No dragon can defy a gold if she puts all of her will on him or her.
Dragons have hide, not scales. Their hide is thick with a layer of fat underneath, which provides natural protection from extreme cold. They have large hindquarters and shorter forelimbs, and move awkwardly on the ground. The wings are set back from the forelimbs and are membranous, like those of a bat.
Dragon genitals are at the base of the tail, and the male apparatus is retracted into a pouch for aerodynamics...color is used to determine gender. The anus is in the fork of the tail, not under it. Also, a dragon's nostrils and lungs are located on its back, the nostrils being a little bit behind the wing joints. Dragons do not and cannot breathe through their mouths or pant, and although they do sneeze and cough, this does not affect their heads and necks.
Dragons are carnivores and prefer to hunt their own meat. They can and will sample other foodstuffs, however. Dragons generally consume the entire animal, including the bones. They have incredibly powerful jaws and strong teeth, that are constantly replaced.
Dragon eyes are faceted like insect eyes and stand out from their heads. The color of the facets shows their mood - yellow is fear, blue or green contentment, red hunger, purple lust, grey great pain. A dragon can raise his or her head and see directly behind him. They have a small blind spot right in front of their noses.
Dragons are stated to breathe fire. Naturally, this is incorrect. Dragons chew firestone, a phosphorus bearing rock and swallow it. It ends up in a pouch in front of their actual stomach, where it is mixed with an enzyme and then forced back out through the mouth as a kind of paste that ignites on contact with air. Technically...dragons puke fire. 'Breathe fire' does sound better. Because of certain traditionalist attitudes held by the biogeneticist who did most of the work, queen dragons cannot chew firestone. They do not produce the required enzyme, and thus if they attempt to do so, they just throw up a pasty substance. Most Pernese believe that if a queen was given firestone, it would destroy her fertility.
The natural telepathic abilities of firelizards were enhanced in the dragons, but in a specific direction. A dragon, on hatching, permanently bonds, telepathically and empathically, to one particular human. Because of the potential danger presented by feral dragons, a dragon will commit suicide by teleporting to nowhere if it does not find a rider or if its rider dies. The one exception to this rule is that a gold who is egg heavy or has a clutch on the Sands will remain until the eggs have Hatched and Impressed.
The bond goes both ways. A dragon rider feels his dragon's pain and other emotions. If a dragon dies, then the effect on the human partner is devastating. It is common for a dragonless man to suicide, and while it is not exactly expected, nobody is likely to stand in their way...healers have even been known to slip them fellis. Those who survive have a high chance of ending up catatonic or psychotic.
Some dragonless do have the strength to continue with their lives. The majority leave the Weyr, not wanting the reminder of what they lost. A few may decide to devote their lives to preventing it from happening to others and are welcomed into the ranks of the dragonhealers.
There is no record of a dragonless re-Impressing, although it has been tried.
Dragons are intelligent and sentient, but not as intelligent as humans. In particular, dragon memory has been deliberately engineered to have a faulty mechanism for transferring short term memories into long term storage. Dragons remember only things that are repeated over and over again. They have a strong sense of self, but are unlikely to remember what happened yesterday. They remember their mates and their friends, but not what their rider said even an hour ago. The endless drilling the wings perform is designed to ensure that things remain in dragon memory. However, dragons have been thus rendered immune to PTSD and other trauma (their riders may not be so fortunate).
Dragons are capable of teleportation. They pass through interdimensional space to do so, colloquially called 'Between'. Humans in Between suffer from sensory deprivation. A between teleport of any length takes eight seconds. Dragons can also 'time it', that is to say, travel through time. This ability is taught only to gold and bronze weyrlings, who are cautioned to use it only in an emergency.
Dragons mate on the wing. The female flies as high and fast as she can, challenging the males to chase her. She chooses her mate from those who can keep up, the point being to select the strongest male. The rule is 'the longer the flight, the larger the clutch'. The truth is that it is the height at which the mating takes place that determines clutch size...the higher the two dragons are at the time of contact, the longer they remain entwined, the more of the eggs carried by the female have a chance to be fertilized.
The dragon female reabsorbs eggs that are not fertilized. Despite that, it is not uncommon for an egg or two not to hatch...dragons can be stillborn too.
Dragons seem to have some control over their reproduction. If a Weyr has too many dragons, then a breeding female may not come into heat, or if she does may deliberately allow herself to be caught early. To produce a gold egg requires a certain combination of hormones that is under the female's subconscious control. Golds are only laid when they are needed, and almost never more than one in a clutch. Although there are records of 'several' golds in very early dragon clutches, there is no recent record of more than two.
Dragon eggs are laid soft, to ease the strain on the female reproductive canal. They harden, and slightly increase in size, with time on the Sands.
Dragons take about fourteen to sixteen months to reach full growth. Greens generally reach sexual maturity at about a turn. Golds seldom fly before eighteen months, two turns is common and three is not unheard of. Males begin to chase at ten months, but for such a young male to win a flight is highly unusual.
Dragons defer to golds. The gold's word is law. No dragon can defy a gold if she puts all of her will on him or her.