My oldest dragon

Shiolar · Post by **Shiolar** » Tue May 30, 2006 3:36 pm

So, I was digging through all my old characters today, and I stumbled across the first dragon I ever received. I don't have the original anymore, but I do have the image and a flight page...

His name is Horuth, and he bonded Sarian at the first clutch ever hatched at Dark Moon Weyr. I think this template only ever got used once...

I'm gonna have to do up a new page for Horuth, just coz he's soooooo old.

Post by **Dray** » Tue May 30, 2006 3:44 pm

He's so cute! XD He needs to make behbehs!

(Or maybe he's just too old. *cackles*)

Starburst · Post by **Starburst** » Tue May 30, 2006 3:48 pm

*points at Horuth and waves her arm around insanely*

YOU'RE OOOOOOLLLLLDDDDDD!

*runs away for fear of being roasted to a crispy piece of hybrid bacon*

Yakima · Post by **Yakima** » Tue May 30, 2006 3:50 pm

Heh, I don't remember that image. Of course, I showed up after Dark Moon - Azala did get me in the Weyr stuff in 1999 so it's all her fault.

Wish I could find complete records for Dark Moon, though...

Shiolar · Post by **Shiolar** » Tue May 30, 2006 3:51 pm

Not sure he'd be too old or not. According to my mental timeline, which is a bit convoluted at the best of times, he's not much older than sixty or seventy. I can't recall how long Pernese dragons actually live...

Horuth: *lets out a feeble puff of flame at Starburst*

I was trying to figure out how long I've had dear old Horuth. If Azala brought you into dragoning in 1999, and that was after Dark Moon and after I'd been around a while... Maybe... 1997 or 1998 for when I got him?

Yakima · Post by **Yakima** » Tue May 30, 2006 3:52 pm

As long as there riders, is my guess.

Shiolar · Post by **Shiolar** » Tue May 30, 2006 3:57 pm

Well yeah... but the riders live longer because of their dragons, I think. Wasn't there like this really aaaaaaaaancient bluerider in the books?

Poor Horuth and S'rian, though... they lived at White River Weyr, then got moved to Cathair Fionabhainn (and according to the flight page I did, they didn't think too highly about that), and now they're gonna get bumped over to Mirus...

Horuth can just lie in the sun and shout at the hatchlings or something...

Myrror · Post by **Myrror** » Tue May 30, 2006 4:05 pm

Well, according to my timeline, Lazulith is over a thousand.... ^.^;; Now that may be pushing it.

And...I think I may have seen that dragon before...or the template, at least. Loong ago.

Graeth · Post by **Graeth** » Tue May 30, 2006 4:26 pm

Wow, still a lot better than I can ever manage.

Meh, 1k is still pretty young...

Shard · Post by **Shard** » Tue May 30, 2006 5:04 pm

He's so cute! I remember seeing the occasional page with that image type on them when I used to drift around clicking links and checking guestbook entries. (Yes, that's a pasttime for me, looking at old mostly broken link lists.)

OOOOKay someone's now gotta do a "really freaking old dragon flight". Perhaps, with all of our 'firsts'? (female and male, obviously, so they didn't get all imbalanced...)
why oh why do I think of these things when I've got so much else to do already??

OOoh and I ... no! must! Not!

DNS · Post by **DNS** » Tue May 30, 2006 5:52 pm

I read somewhere that pernese peeps lived to be over 110 cuz of how pern is. and the dragons live as long as the riders? But there was never actual info on the lifespan because they die with their riders.

Firelizards, i think, potentially live forever. Said so.. somewhere. dun remember where. They evovled that trait to help them cope with thread and wahtever, and such unstable things. ._.
But the dragons age, i know that much. Renegades of pern has an old green in it, and the goldrider in Moreta's story had an old dragon. so evidently it doesn't apply?

I guess it was never specified. :/ Watchwhers live to sixty, though, i think. but that could be falsely remembered~

Graeth · Post by **Graeth** » Tue May 30, 2006 6:00 pm

There are a few inconsistencies in the storyline about age. It was said that it was impossible to tell how old a fire lizard is because they transfer down memories to one another, so it's impossible to tell if a fire lizard was actually in the place when a memory was made or if it was just passed on.
I've never read anyhthing about a dragon dieing of natural circumstances.

DNS · Post by **DNS** » Tue May 30, 2006 6:05 pm

>.> Evidently because dragons are slightly more longlived then their riders.
and true. but then, mccaffery has tons of inconsistancies. which is one of the many reasons i give canon a certain rude hand gesture.
In the first chapter of the first book, mnementh had scales.
watchwhers could never fly. or talk. or do anything. EXCEPT until dragonskin. when they could do everything, but only a little. but i liked that change.
so many dragons change name and colour.
Sometimes dragons eyes are purple when mating, sometimes they're red. I've actually seen fights about this on websites. it's kind of sad. Who bloody cares what purple means, honestly?
and then the whole thing with the dragon age and stuff.
I get most of my information from the dragonlover's guide to pern, because that was compiled with a lot of info from mccaffery herself. Granted, she's always changing things, but it's kind of the only definiative source. Canonly, it changes all the bloody time.
X.x
It's all faulty pseudoscience anyways~

Though she did do one thing i respect. In her [allowed] roleplays, she finally relented and let women impress browns, instead of just greens and blues. This was after much fighting, but she did it eventually.

/criticisms. >.> It just gets annoying with all the bloody differences everywhere. XP

Post by **Dray** » Tue May 30, 2006 6:26 pm

Ah, all the little details. XD I thought the eye-thing was cool, though.

Then again, I'm also the one who wishes that the dragons looked more like those lobster-things that somebody posted images of, once; those really rare and unusual book-cover illustrations that I don't think were ever used...

Astra · Post by **Astra** » Tue May 30, 2006 6:27 pm

One thing I never understood. When two dragons mate, the riders 'mate' too. Okay good. Female greens usually mate with male blues or browns, golds mate with bronzes. Until Mirrim(sp?) bonded Path, there were no female greenriders, so all greenriders were gay, and so were all blueriders. Okay spiffy. Although that always bothered me about the blueriders because I happen to like blueriders and as a female want in on the hot bluerider action (lol). But WHY, then, were all brownriders MAGICALLY straight, even though their dragons mated with greens too? And if all brownriders were in fact gay, then that would mean that more than half of the weyr was homosexual which, while interesting, is rather unlikely statistics-wise. [ / rant off]

Post by **Dray** » Tue May 30, 2006 6:31 pm

I'm assuming that blue and brown-riders were bisexual, if anything.

Perhaps McCaffery was secretly one of those yaoi-loving fangirls? XDD I know there are plenty out there today, perhaps back then it was just more closeted!

DNS · Post by **DNS** » Tue May 30, 2006 6:31 pm

ACtually, she changed it. :/ Brown and blueriders are bisexual, canonly. Greenriders are gay. Bronze and golds are strait.
Because in the beginnings, greens went to gayboys and girls. and then there were plagues, and womens needed to have babies, and there weren't any more female greenriders. there's a few passages i like to quote in dragonseye to canon elitists who have their facts wrong. editedaddition: and the blues and browns mate with the greens, so their riders do too. And evidently are cool with it.
With bronzeriders and such, they subbed in people. :/ cuz bronzes flew greens too. Bronzeriders just went with someone else, as did the rider of the green.
which means that 100-6% of the weyr was atleast bisexual, and over half of it was gay.
THAT i liked. mccaffery has balls, to give gay people such high prestige on pern, since dragonriders were teh superawesomes there.

Post by **Dray** » Tue May 30, 2006 6:34 pm

Indeed, considering the times the stories were written, too. ^^; I just wish that there had been more representation of lesbian/bisexual women instead of just gay/bisexual men. XD But that's just me and I /know/ that's a touchy topic, so I'll step back from it for now.

DNS · Post by **DNS** » Tue May 30, 2006 6:35 pm

oh HELL yes. >.> I've always thought that, but then. who wasn't expecting that.
>.> ^^;

There's actually some pretty nifty articles on all of it. I read them.. gods. ages ago? I think they're available on sabriel's/sabrina's/s-something's online guide to pern.

Post by **Dray** » Tue May 30, 2006 6:49 pm

Where's that at? XD I haven't heard of it before.

DNS · Post by **DNS** » Tue May 30, 2006 6:52 pm

somewhere you get at a random google search, if i remember correctly. i'll look it up again later.

Samber · Post by **Samber** » Tue May 30, 2006 7:08 pm

Sabria's. Here: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/2726/index.html

A few of the pages are broken, but it's a good read.

Graeth · Post by **Graeth** » Tue May 30, 2006 7:17 pm

interesting...

Shard · Post by **Shard** » Tue May 30, 2006 7:21 pm

It always galled me that a character like, say, XENA from the hercules tv universe, would have been considered 'not gold material' because she was essentially bisexual. o.0 i mean... hello? Strongest woman character - smart, clever, witty, physically strong and adept, capable of leadership, literate... and gay. So. No gold for YOU oh leader of many!

Myself I've actually forced the issue of blue and brown riding females at more than one (now inactive) weyr. I think in fact Dawn Sisters might have been among them, because one of my blue-riders is one of her first female blues. (Of course I can't prove that either way, since the site's down now, but I may have some old records squirreled away to check it out.) I've always been more the 'personality driven' than 'gender' driven, so I'm not afraid to stick a woman on a brown or a guy on a green. I only break the 'no women riding bronzes' with Churana and she's not even human anyway. (and Arumdaoth doesn't count as a gold with a male rider, because he's a *male gold* anyway lol)

Post by **Dray** » Tue May 30, 2006 7:29 pm

*Takes one look at Sabria's site* Oh my god, I /do/ remember this! XD Back before I joined the nexus and was doing the story-writing thing at Igen Weyr 14th pass stuff! *cackles* Oh man, back in the day, so much! XDD

Astra · Post by **Astra** » Tue May 30, 2006 7:32 pm

Yeah I remember one of my first dragons -- maybe THE first dragon -- in my post-Evala Weyr phase was a brown from you

. I really wanted the queen but the girl who got the queen ended up becoming Weyrwoman of Ryslen so I think she deserved it more than I do. Ha. I didn't mind the brown so much it shocked my n00b self that a girl could ride a brown but I still thought it was cool. I did feel bad for another girl in the clutch though, the one who I thought was more likely to beat my girl out for the gold than Jeyann even, who Impressed a blue, when her entire story was about her romance with a bronzerider. Well, maybe their dragons could be gay

I mean seriously if there were so many gay people on Pern why were there not ANY gay dragons? You'd think that there'd at least be one or two.

Post by **Dray** » Tue May 30, 2006 7:35 pm

XD I've wondered that, too.

A first-dragon frenzy would be fricking awesome. I'd send mine in to that, for sure! Now, would it be first dragon recieved, or first candidate sent out? Because my first candidate impressed after my second one did!

>.> It'd be neat if it could be something like the Victory Dance in that those who participate each draw some babies--and since everyone's only sending in two, perhaps they could each draw two templates (half of each clutch would be drawn by owners of one of the parents)? I dunno, it'd make things easier, for sure!

Astra · Post by **Astra** » Tue May 30, 2006 7:45 pm

I lost the image for my first dragon AGES ago unfortunately. And I did a quick google search and can't seem to find the image though I can picture it clear as day. It was really quite an impressive image for being so old. My second dragon was non-Pernese, she was an orange from some generic world, and her name was Jennelyn. After those two I kind of forgot about dragoning for awhile and came back to it a few years later. I'm not sure, but I THINK my first dragon during that foray into dragoning was ... a green, I think. Or maybe a brown. I sent a bunch of candidates places around the same time and I can't remember much about them or who Impressed what first unfortunately. And then I forgot about THOSE dragons and lost all THEIR images after the first copyright scare that resulted in the creation of Everond. I sort of stayed away from dragoning for, like, a yearish, and then returned to it with Silvermoon Weyr in 2001. I remember VERY clearly that my first dragon from that was Husamawazith, the aforementioned brown from Shard. Except I might have sent a candidate to Dawn Sisters who Impressed a green first, even though 'Ronia was my first candidate. And thennnnnn I went on hiatus for like a year and lost track of most of THOSE dragons until in late 2003 I felt the urge to write again and then I wrote a bunch of Cyrnan characters. My first ever Cyrnan character was Thielle who bonded purple Galanielth at the 2002 flurry but that was before my megahiatus. Then I came back to writing Cyrnan characters a year later and my first post-hiatus dragon was Naviantan who bonded at the 2003 flurry. So after quitting and coming back so many times, I have a lot of technical first dragons

Samber · Post by **Samber** » Tue May 30, 2006 7:45 pm

I mean seriously if there were so many gay people on Pern why were there not ANY gay dragons? You'd think that there'd at least be one or two.

Well, I once saw a colored version of the mating image in the DLG, with the person displaying it claiming it was a picture of 'two gold dragons mating'... 0.0 Zat vas odde.

Shard · Post by **Shard** » Tue May 30, 2006 8:08 pm

Dray wrote:XD I've wondered that, too.

A first-dragon frenzy would be fricking awesome. I'd send mine in to that, for sure! Now, would it be first dragon recieved, or first candidate sent out? Because my first candidate impressed after my second one did!

>.> It'd be neat if it could be something like the Victory Dance in that those who participate each draw some babies--and since everyone's only sending in two, perhaps they could each draw two templates (half of each clutch would be drawn by owners of one of the parents)? I dunno, it'd make things easier, for sure!

Yeah yah!

See, my first two would be Shard's blue Jeremoth from Seascape, and of all things, Tanis and her gold Zanilanth from Gallimim. I've got the Seascape images (sorta - I have permission to use in the Victory dance, and unless Hydee complains bitterly I'd love to use my recolored versions for something like this). But hey, a gold right off the bat, how's that?

And Astra, any idea whose dragonry it was you got your image that you can't find, from? I have a weird habit of collecting images - not using them, just saving them since way too many weyrs and dragon sites have gone belly up over the years. I probably don't have one you're seeking but I might.

And lol - I have a lot of what were supposed to be 'last' dragons from weyrs (namely Falas). I've made a point to send Baeris' kids to those infamous 'it's the last one I'll do' clutches.

Some day she might even run out of kids....