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Post by summerrain on Oct 20, 2012 16:04:32 GMT -5
I had a sudden idea. Gemstone dragons.
Queens would be Garnets or Quartz, and can only be Clutched by a Gold.
The following can only be Clutched by a Garnet/Quartz.
The Prince would be a Bloodstone dragon, or maybe Peridot, and they'd be the Bronze gemstone mutation.
Next would be Carnelian, and they'd be a brownish-red color.
Fourth would be Sapphire, a Blue mutation.
Last would be Emerald, the mutation of Green.
They'd be more vibrant than the Originals that they were mutated from.
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Coal
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Post by Coal on Oct 20, 2012 16:39:31 GMT -5
I love the sound of gemstone dragons. With the emeralds and sapphires they could be born looking no different from regular greens and blues, and maybe their sparkly scales grow in when theey're a few months of age? It would take everyone by surprise at least!
The only thing is, we already have a lot of ranks; another five might be a little much. Maybe it would be good a fair while into the future once everyone's had time to get used to the current ranks as well as the new physical mutations/gender swapping, etc.?
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Post by summerrain on Oct 20, 2012 16:53:32 GMT -5
Actually, that sounds really cool! I totally didn't think about it like that. That brings the scales mutation to a whole new level!
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Post by Whim on Oct 20, 2012 17:33:53 GMT -5
Alright, so. I can certainly delay the new colors, and have them grow in a bit late like Coal suggested, but here's the other thing: what does the 'gemstone' coloration mean? Are they simply shiny versions of other dragons, or are they something else as well (like the nocturnal dragons being nocturnal, and the paddle-tail dragons, theoretically, having better steering ability)?
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Post by summerrain on Oct 20, 2012 23:27:07 GMT -5
The dragons would call themselves the color they are, then the scales would grow... And they would appear shinier than the Original they mutated from.
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Coal
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Post by Coal on Oct 21, 2012 8:10:31 GMT -5
I guess their scales could make them more resistant to Threadscoring, though their wing membranes would still be vulnerable. Like I said though, I'd still prefer to see the other mutations and plots come about first.
Hmm, random idea, perhaps two plots could be combined in one here and at some point in the future, a lieutenant male could catch a queen instead of a prince. This might lead to genetic instability due to Kitti Ping and co not intending that to happen and then these gemstone dragons appear as a result.
EDIT: Another thought; what if the gemstones didn't appear in dragons at all, but in firelizards? A brown flit could perhaps catch a gold and the result could be a clutch containing emeralds, sapphires and all the rest. This way we would not have too many dragon colours, but we would expand the currently rather limited pool of flit colours. Just a thought, anyway :3
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Post by summerrain on Oct 21, 2012 12:16:37 GMT -5
The only problem is that if a Brown catches a Queen, it is almost guaranteed to NOT produce a Queen, and I was kind of hoping that the other Gemstones would be Clutched from the Gemstone Queen... Though... Hm...
If it happened like that, and the only Queen from the Clutch was a Quartz, then it could work. As long as the others aren't Gemstones.
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redwerecat
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Post by redwerecat on Oct 21, 2012 15:35:49 GMT -5
Okay. A few opinions here, and sorry if I come off rude- my last long-term stint with Pern was pretty hardcore canon to the books. Anyway.
Mental abilities: I like the idea, and actually with the tailed and genetic manipulation we have suggested in the history it almost makes sense. I also recommend the 'Heralds of Valdemar' series as a base. Talents by mcafferey too, but Valdemar did a good job of making 'talents' without crossing into magic or bending type things. They had fetching, which was moving items and objects, mindspeech recivers and transmitters seperately, teleporters, firecallers (which was oddly the only elemental one) and some few others... something to look into anyway.
New mutations/sport colors: all for it, but the new colors are confusing given the extreme variety we already have. I'm all for natural biological mutation (even if anne says her dragons have triple-helix unmutateable dna, which is BS) like albinism, melanism, etc. Even opposi8te gender or chimeric color dragons... however the gemstones... here's the ting.
Pernese dragons don't have scales. They have leathery hide... more like snakeskin or reptile skin- but not actual scaling like fish. Which brings me back to the gemstones. What if they DID have scales? That would solve the problems right there. Scales would denote them as different from the canon colors right off anfd would suggest a bit of shine or sparkle to the scales naturally. I also do realize we don't use Pernese canon to begin with even in our canon so this is just a thought over anything else.
I like the sort of cross-steryotype plots: men on queens, girls on princes- I also love the drama that comes with it as a result. I am a fan of human conflict on Pern- violence, racism, war, bigotry- I do not belive pern cpould escape these things forver. So arguments, politics, especially Hold-vs-Weyr conflicts, I like them.
Chimeras: I've actually played a few chimeras elsewhere and it has worked both way I had a blue-green chimera who was a neuter and basically genderless, but we had another player with a blue-green hermaphroditic chimera. Both flew and chased. Mal?ale-male chmeras and female-female chieras obviously don't have this problem unless you have gold-green (or equivalent) combos...then the question is eggs or infertile? Though my sciency side argues that a mutation or hermaphrodite would likely be sterile.
I think that's all so far... also apologies for typos. I'm on my phone.
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Post by Whim on Oct 21, 2012 20:24:17 GMT -5
I am familiar with Valdemar; I've actually probably read more of that series than of Pern, since I've avoided Todd's books. I believe that firestarting was described as being, essentially, very focused telekinesis--vibrating the molecules to generate heat until whatever it was caught fire. (I'd think, then, it could also be used for the opposite; stilling the molecules until the object freezes, but as far as I'm aware that's never thought of or explored by any of the characters.) Essentially a telekinetic variant, specializing in very, very small scale things. And fetching also had teleporting as a kind of advanced ability. I can look through the books a bit later and see if I can get a complete(r) list of what abilities are used in it; I know there are a few odd ones.
As for chimeras, my first thought is that biology would say hermaphrodites would be sterile, but my second thought is that that's human biology; there are plenty of naturally hermaphroditic species, including at least a few vertebrates, that are definitely not infertile (and a few one-sex-only species, which is irrelevant but interesting), so it's not really hermaphroditism that's the problem; it's specifically the way that humans become hermaphrodites, due to the way that our organs develop. If we simply assume that dragon organs develop differently (two organs/proto-organs, of which one develops and one, normally, withers, instead of humans' method of one proto-organ that develops into either set), there's no reason hermaphroditic dragons should be infertile. So, I'm prettymuch willing to go with whatever seems to be most popular regarding that. (I will add that I've also seen chimeras with one 'base' color that determines their rank and gender, with the second 'chimeric' color being mostly or entirely aesthetic. That option would simplify things, but may be less interesting as well.)
And, relatedly: if we have opposite sex dragons, are they fertile? Can a female prince lay eggs, or a male queen catch a female queen and have a clutch result?
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redwerecat
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Post by redwerecat on Oct 21, 2012 20:37:24 GMT -5
True regarding the hermaphrodites. I suppose I was more concerned at the development of such, but I guess it does in fact make enough sense. After all we have leeway with science. So I could easily see how that works. In fact I like the idea of a "base" color determining stuff in that regard too. I suppose with same gender chimeras the gender would still be the same and we could simply base size off the "base" color... or simply make it an average of the two colors.
I can't see why opposite genders would be infertile. As far as I can tell all males are fertile even if browns and blues don't generally catch queens, though a green would still be infertile? Maybe 'no matter what only queens are fertile' as a rule unless we globally change the female fertility rate. As for male colored females why not have them chase? The one other place I saw this particular mutation applied it worked as a normal gender would- females rose and males chased. Say...blues. no reason a female blue could not be caught by a male blue. Though I argue for only a queen fertility rate still. (However a female prince would essentially be a fertile female possibility.)
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Coal
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Post by Coal on Oct 22, 2012 3:36:29 GMT -5
Regarding opposite gender dragons, what seems to make the most sense to me is that all males (including male greens and golds, etc.) chase and are fertile, while all females (including female blues and browns, etc.) rise. Regarding fertility, I would say that perhaps all of these male coloured females ought to be infertile with the possible exception of female 'princes', which might be fertile but produce say half the number of eggs a queen might and what comes out of those eggs be limited to no higher than a lieutenant.
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Post by moonchilde on Oct 24, 2012 18:41:30 GMT -5
Love the idea of people impressing dragons they generally wouldn’t. Not letting women hold any rank except Queenrider or the lowest ranks has always seemed sexist and weird to me. It also means the vast majority of dragons women can impress are ones who rise instead of chase, which sort of sticks characters in traditional gender roles, and I’d like to be able to play a woman whose dragon catches someone in a flight instead of always being the chased/caught.
I won’t say I don’t have preferences on the others, but the only other one I feel /really/ strongly about is gender of the dragons matching their color. I definitely do not like the idea of male golds or greens or female bronzes or blues or whatever. I like the dragons kept relatively unaltered in that respect. Otherwise why have any system at all, why not just say dragons come in all colors and leave it at that?
Love the idea of browns/etc catching queens.
Fertile nonqueens- can they still chew firestone? (because if a dragon can chew firestone /and/ lay, then queens, who can’t chew firestone, go from top rank to pretty much useless/outmatched by the others… interesting, but is that the intention of where to go with that?)
I believe the Lessa thing was before Mccaffrey really started the Talent series and ended up keeping them separate. Frankly, dragons with psychic powers combined seems… like a lot/weird, I dunno. Much as I adored lessa, considering she was a HAD /and/ had those weird psychic powers /and/ had the last queen, who was also the biggest queen, etc etc… I felt like she was an enormous canon sue, and didn’t like where the psychic powers thing went in Pern.
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Post by ASTROLOGICAL!! on Oct 24, 2012 19:28:41 GMT -5
I think psychic powers should be handled carefully. As in, we only give them to the people who don't infomod already. And as for reading human minds, it can't just be read like a book. That's mostly my concern: someone using their psychic powers to automatically dig up my character's secrets and personal desires.
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redwerecat
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Post by redwerecat on Oct 27, 2012 21:38:16 GMT -5
Lessa is the Sue-iest of Sues. But She's Lessa, and is thusfore super speshul and can get away with it. (Hell, Brekke, and ESPECIALLY that girl from Todd's series are Suey. But let's forget Todd- plague = fun and actually pretty interesting considering the ramifications it began to have BEFORE he magic-fixed it with time travel, rest of his plots... make me want to punch his puppy. )
Where was I going with this...?
OH. Gender roles. Right- are we going off the fact that Brown-level dragons don't impress girls? Because I've found that with that particular caveat, things balance out pretty nicely. Non-metallics (Non queens/Princes anyway) can impress either gender while those two colors impress ONLY that particular gender. It makes one 'Special' dragon per gender, but it's nice and even (ish) while that way there's a good variety of impression within the other ranks.
I am kinda partial to keeping at least Queens Female-only impression, but wouldn't mind either way. I like mixing up the gender roles, actually, but I've become a little stuck in my ways. So either way works. (And I've occasionally found that hugely breaking gender norms is fun, provided that in itself does not become the new normal. Ie- if all the queen start picking dudes, it becomes...meh.)
Uh. I think I meant like... keep the special things special? I don;t know. My brain went out somewhere in the middle here.
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Post by Whim on Oct 27, 2012 22:07:50 GMT -5
The brown-level dragons pick riders that match their own gender, so they mostly pick males, but the nocturnal ones can be female and thus can choose women. So roughly a sixth of brown-level riders will be female.
As to having one special per gender: I like the theory, but in practice it doesn't work so well due to the number of bronzes vs the number of golds. Queens are 1 in 100; princes are about 1 in 10, so a male character, at this point, has a far greater chance of Impressing a metallic than a female character does. Combined with the brown-levels being 5/6 male, that's fairly restricting for female characters, which is why I personally lean toward having either opposite gender dragons, cross impression, or both. Though, as you said, making them the new normal wouldn't be much more interesting; if either/both occur, I think they'd be mutations, so the majority of dragons would follow the traditional standard, and only in a minority would cross impression/opposite sex be possible.
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