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 Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2012 5:47 pm
At A Glance
Pern is the third planet orbiting the star Rukbat, and so its scientific name according to the Terrans who colonized it is Rukbat 3. The name Pern came from the acronym PERN: Parallel Earth, Resources Negligible. This designation means that while it is inhabitable by Terran species, it lacks the resources to support interstellar commercial investment. In other words, there are not a lot of resources to be had. Pern has two moons, Belior and Timor, and shares its star system with two asteroid belts and an Oort Cloud through which the system's sixth planet, known to the Pernese as the Red Star, passes on a 250-year orbit. Fifty of those years the Red Star passes close enough to Pern to be visible and, more importantly to the Pernese, to bring the planetary scourge: Thread.
Thread are thin silver filaments of a space-borne mycorrhizoid spore that devours all organic matter that it touches. In other words, it will consume any carbon-based substance through direct physical contact. The size of a single strand is initially comparable to a long, silver strand of yarn. However, while feeding, Thread grows visibly, and what it touches is scored in a manner similar to a chemical burn. Thread's wriggling mobility allows it to spread to burrow into the earth enough to damage plants' roots, and will multiply and spread rapidly if it is allowed to do so. A small clump of Thread can devour a fully-grown cow in moments, but it cannot penetrate stone or metal, and it will "drown" a few feet into water.
Clearly this phenomenon was a problem for the original settlers, who were taken by surprise during the first fall and found much of their hard labor destroyed, and so a brilliant geneticist named Kitti Ping set out to work with an indigenous species now known as firelizards to engineer a means of combating the deadly threat. Thence came dragons, which were initially much smaller. Her granddaughter is responsible for whers, which were intended to be used in nocturnal Thread fighting.
Because firelizards are capable of forming empathic bonds with human beings, Kitti Ping's modifications also improved the level of their bond, taking it beyond mere empathy to the realm of sentience and telepathy and causing in them an innate need to Impress (or imprint) on a human being. The dragons' colors, like firelizards' colors, are green, blue, brown, bronze, and gold, from smallest to largest. Only greens and golds are female, and of them, greens have been genetically sterilized, so only gold dragons can lay eggs and perpetuate the species. Typically golds mate with bronzes.
A volcanic eruption caused the original settlers to abandon their settlement on the Southern Continent and relocate to the north. On the Northern Continent settlements called Holds developed, many of them cut into stone that is safe from the ravages of Thread. Dragons and the people they bonded to took to living separately in places called Weyrs, which were more conducive to housing the large beasts.
Centuries passed and a semi-feudal system developed with four general classes of people, Weyrfolk, Holders, Crafters, and the Holdless, the last of which can also encompass traders. Crafters frequently live in crafthalls which are similar to medieval trade guilds.There are few holdless people because it truly is not safe or easy to survive without the protection and providence of a Hold. Even Weyrs are beholden to Holds for supplies and food through a system of tithes. They can also get candidates for Impression from Holds, and to be Searched (chosen to try to Impress at a hatching) is considered an honor.
In Summation:
+ Thread will burn the living daylights out of you.
+ Dragons exist to protect everyone else from Thread during the fifty turns (years) it falls out of every two hundred fifty.
+ They are telepathic and can also teleport.
+ To bond with a dragon it must be Impressed when it hatches at a Weyr.
+ Society is kind of feudal.
+ Technology is at a pre-industrial level and likely to remain so due to a distinct lack of usable resources.
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Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2012 10:27 am
Weyr Life
The Weyrs of Pern are home to the world's dragons, their riders, those hopefuls wishing to become dragonriders, their families, and all the various "support staff" required to keep what is basically a fully operational military base. Considering dragonriders exist to combat the omnipresent threat of Thread, this is an apt enough description.
Fighting Thread
During the Passes when Thread falls from the Red Star, the seven Weyrs of Pern (Fort, High Reaches, Telgar, Benden, Igen, Ista, and Southern) fly during Threadfall, scorching as much airborne Thread as possible before it can reach the ground and inflict its horrific damage on those unfortunate creatures below. In order to do this, dragons consume firestone, which is processed by their second stomach, and belch forth flame afterward.
As Threadfall occurs approximately every three days and lasts for about six hours, it is necessary for all dragons to assist in fighting Thread, even non-flaming queens. Goldriders wield flamethrowers and fly below the fighting dragons' to catch any Thread that may have been missed by the riders above. A unit of Thread-fighting dragons is called a wing and is led by a wingleader and their wingsecond, typically a bronze or brownrider, and often have their own names. Queens fighting Thread fly in a queens' wing.
(Click for map of Weyr responsibilities).
Weyr Hierarchy
Weyrs are led by the most senior goldrider, who remains the ultimate authority until her dragon is too old to clutch, at which point the position passes to the goldrider whose dragon is next to rise in a mating flight. The dragon who catches the senior weyrwoman's dragon in flight earns his rider a promotion to the position of weyrleader, which he will hold until or unless his dragon is outflown the next time the gold rises. Typically senior weyrwomen organize the running of the weyr and the lower caverns and weyrleaders oversee dragon training and fighting. They both deal with Holds and other Weyrs.
Beneath the senior weyrwoman ...
(Click for a general hierarchy display).
Physical Structure
Weyr structure varies throughout the world, but most of Pern's Weyrs are carved out of the bowls of inactive volcanoes and sport a large open area in the center creatively called the weyrbowl. Along the sides of the bowl are any number of openings carved or bored into the rock of a size to house dragons and their riders. Deeper into the rock are a labyrinthine network of tunnels and caverns that go both horizontally and vertically, as is necessary to house the myriad people described above.
Other than the dragonriders' living quarters surrounding the weyrbowl, known as weyrs, there are the queens' quarters which house goldriders and their dragons of any age, weyrling barracks which house junior weyrlings, candidate dormitories to house candidates, and the lower caverns which house everyone else. The lower caverns also encompass the dining hall and the kitchens, as well as infirmaries, store rooms, and virtually everything else.
The largest indoor cavern, usually the lowest level of the Weyr, or wherever it is warmest, is home to the hatching ground where golden dragons lay their eggs and brood over them for eight weeks until they hatch. Hatching grounds consist at the most basic level of very hot sand for the eggs and elevated tiers of seats for spectators. There is always a way in and out that is large enough to allow adult dragons to come in so that the queen can lay and then guard her eggs.
Finally, most Weyrs have an outdoor area for keeping beasts to feed the dragons. Sometimes these are part of the bowl, other times it is a separate area completely, depending on how the Weyr itself is constructed.
(Click for basic Weyr set-up).
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Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2012 10:28 am
Hold Life
Almost everyone on Pern who doesn't live in a Weyr or a Crafthall lives in a Hold. A Hold is basically a fortress built of stone or carved into stone with few windows that can be shuttered with steel to keep out Thread when it falls.
Types of Holds
There are three types of Holds: Major, Minor, and cotholds.
A Major Hold is comparable to a feudal city-state in that it is a self-governing urban center with a sprawling surrounding rural area from which food is produced. The Hold itself can house approximately a thousand residents, but there are bound to be thousands more who do not live within the Hold proper. Major Holds are ruled by Lord Holders whose titles are hereditary.
Subject to Major Holds and tithing to them are Minor Holds, which are led by men (and occasionally women) called Holders. These Minor Holds, also referred to simply as holds, can actually rival Major Holds in size, although they can also be quite small.
Cotholds are the smallest settlements, sometimes only a single extended family or a few smaller, more nuclear families comprising their population. They are most often located in agricultural areas where it is necessary to be closer to fields and pastures. These, too, owe their tithes to the holds and Holds above them, but are generally more independent and may be structured in different ways, perhaps even as communes or miniature republics.
Occupancy
In addition to Holders and their families, most holds have a variety of crafters and regular folk. It takes a great many people to run a hold, and most of the economic dealings and matters of trade, tithing, and vassalage are handled by a Steward in a Major Hold or by the Holder in a Minor Hold. The Holder's wife or, in a Major Hold, a Headwoman under the direction of the Lady Holder is usually in charge of food, clothing, healing, and general hold maintenance.
Another very important figure in any hold is their harper, since it is the duty of the harper to educate the hold's children in law and lore. Larger holds may have multiple harpers. Children learn with the harpers until they are at least twelve turns old, at which point their parents may elect to pull them from classes to have them help at home or business. Healers are of similarly high importance since illness can quickly become epidemic in a closed community like a hold. Typically a bad cold season will be even worse for people living in the hold proper since they all live together in the same caverns.
Living in a hold proper one can also find merchants, crafters, and workers of all sorts. No society is made up completely of leaders, teachers, and doctors, after all. There are servants and servitors of various ranks from lady's maids down to drudges, who are typically the lowest of the low. There are also just ordinary people, some there to represent the interests of their family farm or cothold, others to seek apprenticeships, and many employed beneath crafters as "unskilled" laborers.
Lots of Pernese are farmers though, and live outside of holds. Farmers are more important on Pern than one might think since the non-agrarian population tends to live in stone structures that burn away any sign of vegetation to prevent Thread from devouring it and finding a way inside the hold through its roots, which means farmers are the sole producers of food for everybody on Pern, and what they tithe must feed everyone in the urban centers and the Weyr.
Holdlessness
The threat of Threadfall is an effective deterrent, especially during a Pass, to itinerant folk and vagrancy, and so it is very, very rare. Some Holds, rather than having a death penalty, will instead declare the worst criminals holdless in a punishment wherein the criminal is stripped of all rank and status and thrown out of the hold. Typically this punishment will be accompanied by a Shunning, which causes the Shunned to be completely ignored by all humans. A Shunned person has a tattoo on their forehead indicating that they are such.
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Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2012 10:29 am
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