Caislean Weyr Dragon Colors, Sizes, and Ranks
Greens (female with male or female riders): The fifth largest of the dragons of Pern, Greens vary from dark emerald green (green/black) to a very light grass green. Even more agile than blues, Greens also fly as Wingriders in Fighting Wings. Some Greens may fly Search. Since they are so agile, most greens are reckless, able to perform feats larger dragons would not. Green dragons are valued as wingriders for their speed and ability to reach patches of thread that other dragons aren’t agile enough to get at. However, they have much less stamina than their larger relatives. Chewing stone renders Greens infertile, but they still rise to mate three to five times per Turn. In their first two turns of life, greens can be fertile. This means that after their first eighteen months when they have reached sexual maturity, they may clutch. The resulting hatchlings are sickly and smaller than those of a normal clutch. Mutations of green and blue are more common in green clutches than in gold. There is also a 30% chance that the eggs won’t hatch at all. A fully mature and ready to mate Green is one Turn old. From nose tip to tail tip, Greens measure from twenty to twenty-five feet long.
Mutation Green mutations are grayish green in coloration, some almost white with a distinct green tinge. They still rise to mate but never produce eggs. From nose tip to tail tip a green mutation can grow up to twenty feet long.
Colors that appear in green clutches:
Brown (very rare)
Blue (uncommon)
Green (common)
Blues (male with male riders or the occasional female rider): The fourth largest of the dragons of Pern. Blues are faster and more agile than their larger brothers and usually fly as Wingriders in Fighting Wings. Blues are especially sensitive to potential Candidates and usually fly Search. Blues are fully mature and ready to mate at earliest age of one Turn. Blues usually fly greens but the occasional bold male will rise after a queen simply for sport. Due to their sensitivity, blues and their riders make excellent weyrlingmasters. From nose tip to tail tip a male Blue can measure up to twenty-five to thirty feet long.
Mutation Blue Mutations are dark in coloration and can be almost black in some cases. They are infertile and, though they can still rise and catch female dragons, they will produce no eggs. From nose tip to tail tip a blue mutation can measure up to twenty-five feet long.
Browns (male with male or very rarely female riders): The third largest of the dragons of Pern, Browns vary from dark chocolate (brown/black) to light milk chocolate brown. Browns can fly the queens but the clutches are smaller and there is never a Golden egg in the clutch. Most Browns become Wingseconds in a Fighting Wings. Browns are fully mature and ready to mate at earliest age of one Turn. They may rise after golds but will produce no golden egg. From nose tip to tail tip a Browns can measure from thirty-five to forty feet long.
Mutation Brown mutations are distinctly brighter than their normal cousins. They are a metallic coppery brown color. Brown Mutations are infertile and, though they can still rise and catch female dragons, they will produce no eggs. From nose tip to tail tip a brown mutation can measure up to thirty-five feet long.
Bronzes (male with male riders): The second largest of the dragons of Pern, their skin can vary from true bronze to brown-bronze. Most Bronzes become either Weyrleaders or Wingleaders for the Weyr or Fighting Wings. They are the leaders of the other fighting dragons and help keep order within a Weyr both in times of Thread or in times of peace. Bronze dragons are usually the dragons to fly the Golds, producing large clutches along with the rare Golden egg. A fully mature and ready to mate Bronze at the earliest age is at one Turn of age. From nose tip to tail tip a Bronze can measure from forty-five to fifty feet long.
Mutation Bronze mutations are dramatically paler than their normal siblings. They are generally a white color with a distinct bronze sheen that is visible when they move. Bronze mutations are infertile and, though they can still rise and catch female dragons, they will produce no eggs. From nose tip to tail tip a bronze mutation can measure up to forty-five feet long.
Gold Queens (female with female riders): The first in the dragon hierarchy and largest of the dragons of Pern. Golds vary from yellow-green to the color of polished gold metal. Gold Queens control all the other colors not only for their size but because of how strong minded a Queen is. They help with keeping order within the Weyr whether there is Thread or not. They check up on all dragons and check up with all the humans that live within the Weyr. They do not produce flame like the other colors for chewing firestone will make a Queen infertile to produce any clutches. Golds will rise to mate two to three times a year, and produce a clutch of fifteen to fifty eggs at a time. A fully mature Gold is around three Turns of age and a ready to mate Queen is around one to two Turns of age. From nose tip to tail tip a Gold can measure from fifty to sixty-five feet long.
Mutation These dragons are a coppery, reddish gold that can be an almost metallic crimson in color. Mutated queens can still rise to mate but produce no eggs. From nose tip to tail tip a mutated gold can measure up to fifty feet long.
Colors that appear in gold clutches:
Gold (rare)
Bronze (infrequent)
Brown (infrequent)
Blue (common)
Green (common)
ABOUT MUTATIONSThe pollution of the atmosphere and water of Pern has lead to mutations of the normal colors. These dragons are still very obviously Gold, Bronze, Brown, Blue, or Green but they are smaller and sicklier than their cousins. Mutated dragons are very frail as hatchlings and more likely to die during their first year of life then normal dragons. They have all shown themselves to be infertile, though they have the same sexual cycles as normal dragons. Most mutations die before hatching and this could be the reason that most clutches only hatch a handful of eggs out of up to fifty. Of those mutations that actually do hatch and impress, it can be assumed that they are stronger then their dead siblings and stand a chance at living and prospering. After their first year of life, these dragons seem to balance out, becoming just a smaller, differently colored version of their dragon color.
PhysiologyDragons are described as carnivorous, oviparous, warm-blooded creatures. Like all of Pern's native large fauna, they have six limbs - four feet and two wings. Their blood, referred to as ichor, is copper-based and green in color, they have multifaceted eyes that change color depending on the dragon's mood. Their head and general body type is described by McCaffrey as being similar in shape to those of horses. On their heads they have small headknobs, similar to those of giraffes, and no visible ears. Unlike the dragons of Terran legend, they have a smooth hide rather than scales; the texture of their skin is described as being reminiscent of suede with a spicy, sweet scent when clean. They are described as having forked tail ends with a defecation opening between the forks; however, most artistic renderings depict their tails as having spade-shaped tips. The dragons usually get from one place to another by going through a teleportation process known as 'going between'.
Kitti Ping designed the dragons to gradually increase in size with each generation until they reached pre-programmed final dimensions. The dragons of the first Hatchings were not much bigger than horses. By the Sixth Pass (1500 years later) they had reached their programmed size and remained at that size until a single isolated dragon population suffered severe inbreeding, resulting in much larger beasts. In the 9th Pass, when the most of the novels have so far been set, the largest Pernese dragon on record, Ramoth, hatched. According to the novel All the Weyrs of Pern these dragons were roughly three times the size of the largest first-generation dragons.
Ramoth's great size is often attributed to mutation and the genetic isolation of Benden Weyr for over 400 years (or Turns). Ramoth, at full length, was forty-five feet (Although The Dragonlover's Guide to Pern, written by Jody Lynn Nye with input from Anne McCaffrey listed it incorrectly as forty-five metres). In All the Weyrs of Pern, AIVAS, an artificial intelligence still in operation after all this time, notes that all of the primary Benden dragons, Ramoth, Mnementh and Canth, are notably larger than Kitti Ping's specified end-size of the dragon species. Newly hatched dragons are the size of very large dogs or small ponies, and reach their full size after eighteen months. Because young dragons grow so fast, their riders must regularly apply oil to their hides to prevent the skin from cracking or drying out.
Dragons, like their fire-lizard ancestors, can breathe fire by chewing a phosphine-bearing rock, called "firestone" in the novels, which reacts with an acid in a special "second stomach" organ. This forms a volatile gas that can be exhaled at will and ignites upon contact with air. The flame is used to burn Thread from the sky before it reaches the ground. However, the chewed firestone must be expelled from the body after it is used up, for the dragons cannot digest it.
Psychic abilitiesDespite their relatively low intelligence, fire-lizards communicate through a form of weak telepathy. They also imprint on the first individual who feeds them after they hatch, creating a telepathic bond with them; the Pernese call this phenomenon "Impression". In creating dragons, Kitti Ping intensified the creatures' telepathy, greatly increased their intelligence, and gave them a strong instinctive drive to Impress to a human. Upon hatching, each dragonet chooses one of the humans present (usually) and Impresses to that person; from that moment on, the pair are in a constant state of telepathic contact for as long as they both live. Dragons also use telepathy to communicate with each other and with fire-lizards. They are capable of speaking telepathically to humans besides their own riders, but not all of them will do so except under unusual circumstances.
Dragons and fire-lizards can also teleport. They do this by briefly entering a hyperspace dimension known as between. Both humans and dragons experience between as an extremely cold, sensory-deprived, black void. After spending no more than eight seconds in between, the dragon or fire-lizard can re-emerge anywhere on Pern, along with any passengers or cargo they carried. This ability is explained as having evolved in fire-lizards as a defense against Thread; not only does it allow them to quickly escape from Threadfall, but the intense cold of between kills any Thread that has already burrowed into them. If a dragon attempts to teleport without a clear mental image of the place where they intend to reappear, they may simply fail to emerge from between and thus, be gone forever.
Going between allows dragons to travel through time as well as space, as long as they have a clear picture of what a particular place looked like (or will look like) at the desired time. However, the practice is highly dangerous to both dragon and rider and is severely restricted. Existing in two places at once for extended periods of time, or in close proximity, causes severe weakness and psychological disturbance for humans but not for dragons, the effects of which are discussed in several novels. In addition, while teleporting through space always takes the same amount of time, when a dragon travels through time, the amount of time they spend in between increases depending on how long ago or how far in time the destination is. Thus, traveling to remote times poses severe dangers from hypothermia and oxygen deprivation. In the first Pern novel, Dragonflight, Lessa passes out after having travelled back over 400 turns.
The Dragonlover's Guide to Pern states that dragons defecate while between. This idea originated with a statement by Anne McCaffrey herself, in answer to a fan's question about the subject at a con. However, McCaffrey may have been joking when she first said this. As the idea has never been referenced in any of the Pern novels, (in fact, defecation was probably only mentioned a scant few times in all of the books ever written in the Pern series.) it cannot be considered definitively canonical. If true, it would eventually cause serious ecological problems for the planet, as large amounts of Pern's organic matter would be regularly disappearing into an alternate dimension, although when dragons and riders die, they go between, and organic matter is also lost.
It should be noted that The Skies of Pern references the use of dragon dung as a repellent against the large felines inhabiting the southern continent.
Dragons are also capable of telekenesis, though this ability is unknown and used in an unconscious manner (to augment flight) until it is discovered as a conscious ability by the green dragon Zaranth and her rider Tai in the 31st turn of the 9th Pass. It is speculated that the undersized wings were intentionally created in the dragons by Kitti Ping to reduce the surface area of a dragon that is exposed to possible Thread injury, and that the telekenisis was intended to make up for the loss of wingsail. It is said in many books that a dragon can carry whatever it thinks it can carry. This is likely an extension of the telekenesis, mentally "lifting" the extra load. This is the most likely explanation as to the great loads that dragons sometimes carry during emergencies.
PsychologyUnlike their fire-lizard ancestors, dragons are fully sapient. They communicate fluently in human language (although only telepathically), and have personalities and opinions distinct from those of their riders. However, their intelligence does seem to be somewhat lower than that of the average human. In particular, their long-term memory is severely limited.
Dragons' telepathic communication is usually limited to contact with their rider and with other dragons, however a dragon sometimes communicates well with a person with whom their rider has close emotional ties. They do understand spoken human language and occasionally reply telepathically to people whom they choose to speak.
As a safeguard against the possible damage that could be caused by such powerful creatures, Ping engineered dragons to be profoundly psychologically dependent on their riders. Any dragonet that fails to Impress to a human shortly after hatching will die. If a dragon's rider dies, the dragon immediately suicides by going between without a destination. The only exception is when the rider of a queen dragon dies while the queen is gravid; the dragon waits just long enough to lay her eggs and see them hatch before disappearing between. (Humans who lose their dragons typically commit suicide as well. However, some do survive, although the experience leaves profound psychological trauma.)
Ping also designed the dragons to be fairly calm in temperament. They never fight one another, unless two queens come into estrus at the same time. They are also not dangerous to humans except shortly after hatching, when it is common for confused and frightened dragonets to maul or even kill humans hoping to Impress.
When a dragon hatches, they announce their names to their new riders upon Impression. Pernese dragons' names always end in -th. A watch-wher's name will end in "sk".
Dragon ColorsDragons come in five traditional colors: Gold, Bronze, Brown, Blue and Green.
The larger a color is, the less common it is. For instance, there are more Blues than Browns, and there are more Browns than Bronzes. Half the dragon population is female, with Green dragons being roughly fifty percent of the population and Golds being one percent or slightly less.
Riding a larger color of dragon confers higher social status in Pern's extremely hierarchical society, color rankings following the dragons own strict instinctual hierarchical organization based on fire-lizard structures. Perhaps as a result of this, it is commonly believed that the larger colors are more intelligent, although recent novels imply that this may not be true.
The Pernese believe that chewing firestone makes female dragons sterile; they therefore refuse to allow queens to use it. Greens, on the other hand, are so common that if they produced offspring it would quickly lead to overpopulation. They always chew firestone, and because of their numbers and agility they are vital to any Thread-fighting force.
Dragon Colors and Mutations
