Jen (airgiodslv) wrote in top_shelf, @ 2014-07-27 12:18:00 |
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Entry tags: | cheat sheets |
His Majesty's Dragon: Cheat Sheet
The Aerial Corps
The Aerial Corps are England’s force of dragons and aviators, run by Aerial Command, which is “situated in the countryside just south-east of Catham, close enough to London to permit daily consultation with the Admiralty and the War Office.” It’s an hour’s flight from Dover to Aerial Command.
Dueling is not permitted in the Corps, although it is in other branches of His Majesty’s armed forces. “An aviator’s life is not only his own; he may not be allowed to risk it so pointlessly.”
Many British dragons in the Aerial Corps are given extravagant Roman names.
Crew: Ensigns are under twelve years old, and serve as lookouts; midwingmen range more widely in age, and are ‘topmen’ and ‘bellmen’ who hurl bombs; signal-midwingmen use flags to relay orders to formations; riflemen man the guns; ground crew maintain the harness and rigging, divided into lead, leatherworker, armorer, harness-master, and gunner; runners are cadets.
“All lies well” is how a dragon informs their crew the harness and any additional load is secure, after rearing and flapping their wings to test the straps. Smallest dragons go aloft first in formations.
Loch Laggan is in Inverness-shire, Scotland, and one of the largest coverts.
“There are no real pirates anymore[…]The Spanish burned the last pirate band out of Tortuga last century; now there are only a few independent ships or dragon-crews, at most, and those always in danger of being brought down.”
The captain-dragon bond is so strong that captains can be taken hostage and held against the good behaviour of their dragon, and vice versa. “A threat to the handler was the one thing which could hold an unwilling dragon.” ‘Continentals’ occasionally execute dragons for treason.
Dragons
As a sweeping generalization, dragons are curious about the world around them, fond of fighting, and jealous of treasure. They can both fly and swim thanks to air sacs that keep them aloft/afloat.
British heavyweight dragons have resulted from interbreeding with continental breeds; heavyweights are not native to Britain, as they generally prefer warmer climates. Dragon breeds were once believed to be coloured by ‘some elemental influence’, and so interbreeding was encouraged between breeds of similar colours, who were believed to share an ‘underlying congruence’.
English Breeds: Yellow Reapers are common and mottled yellow, sometimes with white tiger striping along their sides, middleweights weighing 10-17 tons, with an 80-foot wingspan and 50 feet long; Malachite Reapers look similar to Yellow Reapers save for colouring, being muted yellow-brown with pale green markings, and prefer cooler climates in north-eastern Scotland; Winchesters weigh 2-3 tons; Regal Coppers range from red to yellow, have horns and a column of spines along their backs, weigh 30-50 tons, and have larger females than males; Longwings will only take women for captains, are rarely longer than 60 feet but have 120-foot wingspans, have blue-to-orange wings “with vivid black-and-white dtriations at the rims,” have good eyesight, and spit acid; Grey Coppers; Anglewings are agile; Parnassians are mid-weights; Pascal’s Blues; Chequered Nettles are heavyweights; Greylings are light-flyers; Grey Widowmakers were once common but are now rare, and live mostly in the wild in Scotland, weighing 8 tons at most; Bright Coppers are ancestors of Regal Coppers; Sharpspitters produce deadly venom, have good eyesight, and are the ancestors of Longwings.
French Breeds: Chanson-de-Guerres; Fleur-de-Nuits are nocturnal with sensitive eyes; Grand Chevaliers; Pêcheur-Couronnés are middleweights; Pêcheur-Rayés are middleweights; Poux-de-Ciels are smaller; Petit Chevaliers are not petit; Honneur d’Ors; Flamme-de-Gloires breathe fire.
Other breeds: Imperials are identical to Celestials except for lacking the Celestial ruff and tendrils, have five talons instead of the common four, and have six spines on their wings instead of five (Chinese); Celestials breathe divine wind (Chinese); Flecha del Fuegos are quick and breathe fire (Spanish); Cauchador Reals are ancestors to Regal Coppers (Spanish); Lindorms (Scandinavian); Ironwings produce venom (Russian); Copacati produce venom (Incan); Ka-Riu produce venom (Japanese).
“The Chinese had been breeding dragons for thousands of years before the Romans had ever domesticated the wild breeds of Europe; they were violently jealous of their work, and rarely permitted even grown specimens of minor breeds to leave the country. / The Chinese breed first for intelligence and grace[…]Japanese dragons are far more likely among the Oriental breeds to have any special offensive capabilities.” / “Chinese beasts often have an affinity for water.”
The larger breeds live longest, and are often ‘inherited’ by their captain’s offspring after that captain’s passing; thus Longwings can be passed down from mother to daughter, or Regal Coppers from father to son. Aviators are permitted to marry, but are not considered desirable matches by society; some aviators have ‘natural-born’ children instead and are not looked down on for it by their colleagues.
Dragon eggs harden just before hatching. “Badke’s Bestiary states with authority that when the shell has fully hardened, hatching will occur within a week.” Once hatched, dragons must be harnessed before their first feeding, or they turn ‘feral’.
Dragons learn languages in the egg, and can speak immediately upon hatching. “There are some subspecies which mature in the shell for upwards of ten years, and twenty months is a common average.”
Other Resources
TemeraireWiki (may contain spoilers for entire series)