Drockh-Tallahn Updates (Still Up and Kicking)

[weyrwomanrhiannon]

Olnari is all updated. Cartoan is with Larkin, and Orphanto will soon have her own page.

[Yulara]

I'm going to try to get you an aspirant together before Saturday, but RL is kind of hectic right now. So, I may not get a chance. If I don't, I'll be happy to sponsor one of the draks though.

[Kitsuneko]

No problem. I kinda forgot this was coming up; I'm thinking I may extend the deadline a week or two.

[Dray]

I'm updating information for Taeshdhu (she bonded in Clutch 11 but I haven't put her lovely Drak up, yet!) and I needed to ask a couple of questions! What does the Castle look like? Are there older and younger people occupying it, or only two wings of late teens-mid twenties Knights? How many villages are nearby, and what are the largest sources of intrigue/gossip in the area? What kind of duties are Aspirants most often put to when not training to become a Knight?

What sorts of amenities are available to Drak-riders who arrive so their dragons can participate in flights? Can they stick around after one flight, or are they asked to return again when another flight is available?

And... on a less IC note, for the most recent flight, are part-Drak dragons allowed, or only purebred Draks?

[Kitsuneko]

Oh my, details. Please keep in mind most of this was pretty much made up on the spot with limited resources, so it could be subject to change. The official website says that castles are more like caves and tunnel systems, but considering Drockh-Tallahn was built by humans, I'm gonna say it's more like a traditional castle, but with some very large underground tunnelsystems beside the main building for the deep caverns and draks.

(Ohgod, ages). I have yet to figure out a really good way to handle knights aging, and the ones listed on their pages are probably really out-of-date now. The knights that are listed are probably a good decade or so older than what's listed on the armada page, and there's definitely more than just those two armadas in order to have a healthy fighting force. I would say, as a rule of thumb, assume there's another one to two armadas for each one listed. I'm not going to make up names and stats for a bunch of NPCs though (I'm already doing that with Sedona). There's also a sizeable population of non-Knights within the castle to cover Knights' family members, spouses, and servants, pretty much like Pern's Lower Caverns workers in the Weyrs.

As a rough estimate, there's probably about two or three large, city-sized settlements in the area Drockh-Tallahn protects (which I consider to be the peninsula where the castle sits up to around where the mountain range and desert start north of it), and another three or four towns, with the rest of the people in small villages. Within a day's easy walking/flying distance of the Castle, I'd say there's maybe ten to twelve villages, with most of them concentrated in the forested and grassland area northeast of the Castle, which is otherwise surrounded by thicker jungle.

(EDIT)After comparing Icarus's size to Earth and redoing my calculations, it turns out I was way off. So either Drock-Tallahn protects a MUCH smaller range of land than I originally thought, or the number of cities and towns doubles or even triples (or quadruples...). I favor the first option.

Intrigue/gossip: Anything goes, pretty much? There's usually a bit of mob activity for the Knights to deal with, and much more rarely, Nex Necium attacks. I'm sure there's probably a ninja group as well that helps the Knights. Nieranta's clutch and mating will probably be a topic of conversation as well, as she'll be the first non-drak parent for several years now at the Castle. Anything else you can come up with would probably work too.

Aspirants may not necessarily be at the Castle all that long before the clutch hatches, but if they are, they will probably be expected to do chores and help out. If they have any particular marketable or useful talents, they'll be encouraged to use those for the good of the castlefolk. I imagine there will also be some basic lessons on how to act in the Deep Caverns and the basics of caring for a drakling, and I would venture to guess that the people doing the lessons and keeping an eye on the aspirants would be the Knights who have agreed to take on squires in the next clutch, so they can get an idea of who to assign to who when the clutch hatches.

Flights: Visiting males and their knights would be offered a guest...room? Den? I'm honestly not sure what their personal dwellings are called, actually. XD Anyway, they'd be given a place to stay as long as they need, assuming they have no responsibilities to be taken care of wherever they came from. If they stick around long enough, though, they will be expected to help defend the castle or villages from whatever threat is attacking, though. And for the last question, I'd prefer not to have part-dragon males, because Nieranta doesn't actually have any drak blood of her own; I try to make sure all the clutches are at least half-drak to justify using the drak images and colors.

[Dray]

This is wonderfully detailed. Thank you so much, Kitsuneko!