Pern Dragons

Pern is a world set in the future where the colonists have forgotten about Earth. Every once and awhile a stray planet is attracted into Pern's orbit. When this happens the "thread" travels across space. Thread eats through organic matter making it very dangerous. Dragons in pern have the job of fighting the thread and keeping pern safe.

Dragon colours
They are the product of gentically engineered firelizards or flits. Dragons on Pern come in many colours which there rank is based on. Most important are the female gold dragons. The next highest rank goes to the male bronze dragons, next come the browns and the blues which are male. The most common colour is the green females which are unable to breed becuase the have to chew firestone to fight the thread which makes them infertile.

Mating and breeding
The queen or gold dragon scales get even goldener when she is ready to mate. She then bloods an animal and then launches herself into the air. Mating has to been done as high in the air as possible because when the dragons mate then tend to lose height. The gold's are usually mated by a bronze but brown are occasionly chosen. Green females also go through this procedure and chose a blue or brown, but they do not produce the eggs.
A gold after being mated has a clutch of eggs which vary in size according to whether it is a pass or not. A egg with a gold dragon has a different a differnt colour, and there are only about one in a cluch if you are lucky, and only if mated by a bronze. The most common colours are the ones lowest in rank.

Bonding
Pern dragons when they hatch bond to a spefic person for life. The golds always chose a woman and the bronze dragons always chose a man. Browns and blues chose males. While greens choose most often females but occasionly males.

They have a telepathic in which they communicte with the bonded partner. Humans who have bonded with a dragon always has this link to the dragon mind, so they can communicate. This is a bit unusual at first but the riders usually get over it.
Dragons can only bond with with a candidate that is about 14 - 21 turns.

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