Candidates and Weyrlings, Weyrbrats and HoldBrats
The young of Pern.... sweet
little creatures....
So - who are they and what are they?
Candidates
Candidates are people who hope to become dragon riders. Aged
between 13 and 22 (they can be older if they want to be
goldriders) they come to live in the Weyr after being Searched.
Search is generally done by blues - they seem to be best at it
for some reason. All it consists of is the dragon telling it`s
rider which young people are suitable to Impress. Dragons know
these things... although it has never yet been discovered HOW a
dragon hoses who it wishes it Impress. It is a mystery to us -
maybe it is affected by if you`ve been near the egg beforehand...
maybe it is not. Maybe some people are just born in order to
Impress a dragonet (this would explain those poor little
Hatchlings who never Impress and die on the Hatching Grounds...
their riders were not there for whatever reason... maybe they
died young in some accident or other and will meet with their
dragon *between*... no one knows...)
A fair few Candidates come from Weyrs, the ability to Impress
seems to some extent to be hereditary and run down bloodlines.
However, Crafters, drudges, and Holders children do Impress too.
They live in the Candidate Barracks and every Hatching have to go
onto the Hatching Grounds in their white Candidate robes in the
hopes a dragon will pick them. Some never do get picked by
dragons, and go on to take some other job around the Weyr. Some
get picked on their first Hatching, and some not `til their
seventh or eighth. Again - no one knows why this is.
If and when they do Impress they become Weyrlings, and go to live
in the Weyrling Barracks.
Weyrlings
Weyrlings are young dragonriders, dragonriders in training. They
come under the authority of the WeyrlingMaster and the Assistant
WeyrlingMasters who train them and make sure they don`t get in
trouble if they can help it (or at least that`s the idea!)
They have to learn many things in traing, how to work together as
a team, to be trained up to be totally fit, to read and write if
they don`t already know (dragonriders MUST be literate), to fly
and to go *between*
Weyrling training takes about 18 months, and then they are full
dragonriders, although Weyrlings under 16 may have to fly in a
Weyrlings wing or the Queens Wing until they reach that age.
WeyrBrats and HoldBrats
The real babies of the lot. These are the children of Pern - a
HoldBrat is a child of the Hold, and a WeyrBrat is... you guessed
it, a child of the Weyr.
WeyrBrats, more than HoldBrats tend to stick together and learn
to cope on their own. Dragonriders have a tendency not to make
good parents, they`re so busy fighting Thread that them giving a
commitment to anything else is dodgy. Sure, there are good
dragonrider parents, who mother there kids and keep an eye on
them every hour of the day, but there are also parents who
consider that once a kids old enough it can be given mealtimes
and bedtimes and where to find them if you need them and pretty
much left to get on with it.
Because of that friendships grow, older kids "mother"
younger kids and pecking orders are established. If they get in
major trouble - and every so often they do - then parents are
called on by whoever catches them at it.
Teaching is given by Harpers, the teachers of Pern.
Of course some dragonrider parents realise they will never make
good parents and send their kids to be fostered elsewhere. This
is common practice on Pern, it means the gene pool doesn`t get
too small in Weyrs, Holds and Halls and that most children (never
say all, there will always be exceptions ESPIECIALLY in an rpg
where we all love the melodrama) are wanted children.
HoldBrats have pretty much the same deal, except of course they
live in a Hold not a Weyr, so they aren`t side by side with
dragons all the time and less of them grow up certain they`re
going to be a dragonrider when they`re old enough. (Not that they
don`t WANT to, they`re just not so certain of it)
A fair few HoldBrats also grow up knowing that they`re going to
inherit their parents Hold when they`re old enough and so they
learn about land, economics and the rest of it. Again, they are
taught by Harpers.
A favourite sport with both HoldBrats and WeyrBrats is hookball,
which I figure is pretty much like football - of course I could
be wrong ;-)It`s meant to be a game, but it can get pretty
competitive... and well, rpg-wise you can see the possibilities
just looming can`t you?
To go back to the basics click here
To learn about dragon stereotypes go here
To learn about Holders and Crafters take this link
If you want the meanings of some of these words, try this one
And if you`ve heard enough and now want to join a Weyr... that would be this link.