1. INTRODUCTION

The DragonLands are a very dangerous part of New Brittany. The wilderness is filled with monsters, and deadly wraiths plague the settlements. The dominant race is nothing Humanoid, but huge firebreathing dragons which are found everywhere within its borders. However, while these dragons are the greatest danger to the Humans of the DragonLands, they are also the greatest ally. For within the civilized portions of the DragonLands, dragons and Humans have formed a unique bond, and together they have vowed to protect their people.

RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE

1.1 Geography and Political Structure

The DragonLands are located in a Northern Continent of the world of New Brittany. It is bounded on all sides by dangerous, rocky wastes filled with predatory unjoined dragons and other monsters. Landbound travelers may venture into the wastes for various reasons and return, but this is an extremely hazardous undertaking. Very few people have ever made it beyond the wastes to the other lands of New Brittany and come back to tell the tale. Within the DragonLands, there are two very separate cultures: the Dragonfolk and the Landbound.

The Landbound Nation reports to the King in the capital city of Ralengarde, and the Dragonfolk answer to the Dragonlady in the great warren Keldarra. There is a certain amount of power struggle between the two ruling structures, but mostly they stay within their own kind. Because of the necessary service the dragonriders provide to the Landbound (and the difficulty they have providing themselves with food and supplies), the landbound nation tithes a certain percentage of its harvest and supplies to the Dragon Warrens each year.

The power structure of the landbound nation is typical of most monarchies: there is a smattering of cities, towns, and farms following no particular rhyme or reason. Each town offers its allegiance to the local noble, who in turn (officially) offers allegiance to the king. Due to the constant threat of wraiths (described in Section 8.1), all buildings are built of stone, and many cities are carved into cliffs. The cities are also the homes to the Guilds, which have a certain disorganized power of their own.

The Warren Nation consists of a limited number of Warrens, which are the homes of dragons, riders, and associated unjoined dragonfolk. These warrens take orders from the Dragonlady of Keldarra Warren in times of crisis (or the Dragonlady of Ismene Warren in the Lost DragonLands), but are otherwise largely autonomous.

RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE

1.2 Races

There are only two sentient races native to the DragonLands: Humans and Dragons. There are no other races native to this area, and it is very difficult to play a dragon without a human dragonrider.

RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE

1.3 Technology Level of the DragonLands

The DragonLands is not your run-of-the-mill, swords-and-sorcery world. Though DL's tech level is far from modern, we are not playing in the Dark Ages.

What we don't have:

Transportation: Hot air balloons, steamships.

Weapons and Armor: Firearms (guns).

Power: Electricity, combustion engines.

Medicine: Vaccines, organ transplants.

What we do have:

Transportation: Horseback with saddle and stirrups, horse-drawn carriages, rigged sailing ships.

Weapons and Armor: Steel weapons, plate and chainmail, crossbows, castles, gunpowder (used in fireworks, dynamite, and the occasional crude cannon).

Power: Wind- and water-powered mills, gas heat and cooking (where it can be piped locally, otherwise wood or coal fires are used), horse collar. Warrens are generally placed near a water source that can be piped such that residences have running water. Most also have hot water due to gas heat or some other source, though usually it must be heated up rather than running hot.

Medicine: Good knowledge of anatomy, germ theory of medicine (herbal and chemical antibiotics and such), amputations, anesthetics, birth control preparation (much like the Pill) and barrier methods, some surgeries (Caesarean sections, cancer removal)-- most surgeries are still risky, but knowledge is progressing with more and more successes. The warrens are especially knowledgeable in sexually-transmitted diseases, birth control techniques, pregnancy and childbirth, due to the nature of warren society and the risk of losing a queen dragon if a queenrider died in childbirth. Glassware such as syringes are manufactured, but are very expensive.

Within this framework, technology is free to the development of the players. Try not to go too high-tech or absurdly low-tech. This not a Medieval "swords-and-sorcery" world, nor is it in any respect "modern" by present-day standards. Also, it should be noted that the technology level of the DragonLands does not precisely correspond to any particular period in Earth-history.

1.4 Time in the DragonLands

Time is fluid in DragonLands. No matter how many game-days have passed in different gaming units, it is always considered the "present" for all units. This facilitates inter-unit roleplaying. For example, if your character is a dragonrider whose father resides at another Warren, you do not have to calculate what the date is at the other Warren to synchronize the visit. This is necessitated by the fact that the rate of time-passage at a warren (as compared to real- time) may fluctuate at different times based on what is transpiring in the game and how frequently players are writing.

Fluid time also facilitates roleplaying of events that would occur over a long time outside of the game, such as pregnancy or recovery from a serious injury. These types of events can happen as rapidly or as slowly as the player wishes to play them.

The passage of seasons is determined by time in the Northern Hemisphere in the real world: if it is Spring when you are writing, it is Spring in DragonLands (if you are living in the Southern Hemisphere, of course, it would be necessary to reverse the seasons). To age your character normally, you may want to give him or her a birthday in one season, and age that character when the season comes around.

There is a dating system in DL based on the seasons. The current year in the DragonLands is computed as the current RL year + 1003. Thus, when DragonLands opened in 1996, the DL year (calculated from the legendary date that the Contract Between Warren and Landbound originated) was 2999. The New Year is between Winter and Spring (around our month of February), and is often symbolized as the birth of the new year from the cold dying old year. For RP purposes, the DL New Year is considered as beginning on February 1 of each real-time year; thus, the DL year 3003 would begin on February 1, 2000. However, with the fluid time in DL, aging appears to move at 1 DL year per every 2 of our years.

1.5 DragonLands and Pern

Those of you who are familiar with Anne McCaffery's "Dragonriders of Pern" will notice some definite similarities between it and this world. However, DragonLands is an original world and does not follow the same rules. Thus, riders and dragons do not "impress" at hatching; dragons are a separate, sentient race (not genetically-engineered), can be of any color, and have no color- based hierarchy; there are no weyrs or weyrleaders, and we have towns and cities rather than holds and crafthalls. There are no threads, and we have standard Earth-type fauna rather than Pern-type beasts such as runners or wherries. Thus, those who are familiar with Pern will not necessarily have an advantage in roleplay (and could be at a disadvantage if they make assumptions based on Anne McCaffery's work, since these would very frequently be incorrect).