#pernese

[dksartz]

Painted some Pernese dragons with my new gouache paints 😊

#pernese dragons #dragonriders of pern #dragons #dragon #paintings #doodles #not a doodle #pern #dragon art #dragonriders #pernese #dksartz #all 4 original colors ye #i suppose i could add Ruth #yes the blue looks larger and also has a slightly diff face shape/design. i drew it first and then decided on some changes for the rest #but also of course dragons would have differences between individuals ^^

[sundogsfundogs]

a commission of a pernese wher from last year!

Posted using PostyBirb

#illustration #artists on tumblr #my art #pern #dragonriders of pern #pernese #digital art #artoftheday #artistsontwitter #commissionsopen #clip studio paint

[ranticore]

I wanted to keep drawing some pern dragon stuff because I'm now writing a full AU set in weyr but I didn't want to put this stuff on my main blog or patreon due to it being basically for my own reference, though i felt others would like it too! so here is My Take On Dragon Wings By Type...

It's no secret I love drawing bird wings and prefer them a lot over traditional dragon wings. Growing up, I read the pern books featuring cover art of dragonfly-like wings with lots of little translucent panels, which I always loved. So I thought I'd try to nail down some wing shapes & structures by blending those two things i like together. I am aware dragons fly by telekinesis but I prefer a more realistic type of creature design so I will be choosing to ignore that fact. I do not care about strict canon compliance but I do like to keep some of that framework there as well, for fun.

The wing is made up of three main sails, as well as a propatagium sail (in front of the elbow). They are relatively polymorphic and can expand or contract to an extent to change the shape of the wing in response to flight demands, like the wing of an airliner. The trailing edge can expand and the slots between the spars of the 1st wingsail can deepen or become shallower (where those are a feature). The main structural matrix is opaque, while the membranous 'sails' are translucent and let light through like stained glass. These are a bilayer of membrane with air sandwiched between, which forms part of the air sac & respiratory system.

It makes sense for the original engineers of dragons to diversify dragon wing types by colour so that when fighting Thread, there's a dragon for every conceivable aerial job.

[individual descriptions under the cut]

Queens have the longest wings, though the largest bronzes can rival them for surface area. Gold wings are high endurance - a queen can fly further than any other dragon in active level flight, leaving even the swiftest bronzes behind if they can't muster up the energy reserves to catch her. She is an effective flier at all elevations and can pass very low over terrain without issue as well; she is an expert at taking advantage of the ground effect, where extra lift is generated within one half of a wingspan above land. This way, she can pass low below the main wings fighting Thread to catch any stragglers without expending too much energy. However, she is not very agile and may need a bit of a run-up or cliff-edge to get airborne.

Bronzes are suited for command positions during Threadfall, rising highest and maintaining that altitude effortlessly by soaring on thermals. From this vantage point they can easily survey the wings of riders below and make tactical decisions to direct the tide of battle. They have the size and stamina to chase queens, but might find it difficult to keep up on the flat, so they continually select for fitter hatchlings as only the best manage to mate. It takes a very clever and agile bronze to catch a green, if they are so inclined.

Browns are swift, highly agile, and the fastest vertical fliers, ideal for diving through the Thread mass from top to bottom while the other types pass horizontally. During earlier Passes, browns were capable of using their speed to catch queens, but as queen & bronze endurance gradually increased, browns struggle to keep up if they haven't managed to immediately catch their mate in the starting scrum, which is unlikely due to the bulkier bronze dragons being able to shove the browns aside.

Blues are fast on the flat and nicely manoeuvrable, with enough endurance to last a full Threadfall. Good all-rounders with a characteristic vertical take-off, they work best in the horizontal plane in battle but really they can do a little bit of everything. They often beat browns to catch greens, being very precise in flight and almost as manoeuvrable as their green mates.

Greens make up for their low stamina with their extreme manoeuvrability. Their short and elliptical wings let them turn on a dime, hover, and even fly backwards if they are sufficiently skilled. They have the fastest wingbeats, flying with a distinct thrumming sound. Of all the types they are least likely to be hit by a stray Thread, but they tire easily on the flat and have no soaring ability at all, often tapping out midway through battle in favour of replacements. In battle, greens excel at catching odd and skewed clumps of Thread that don't fall as predicted, or ones that are missed by the other riders. Green mating flights are a whole different beast to gold mating flights, where extreme aerial acrobatics are favoured instead of endurance and altitude, and these flights may be over within seconds. You need to be able to withstand a Lot of G-force to be a green rider.

#dragonriders of pern #hi it's me again. this is my sketch dump blog (very new) #pernese dragon #pern

[peregyr]

Patreon commission for Kestrel!

#dragonriders of pern #oc #dragon #dragonrider #pern dragon #pernese dragon

[artofgeist]

Finally finished her! Get a copy here !

#dragons #pern #pernese dragon #queen dragon #gold dragon #brooding queen #pern dragon #dragonriders of pern #color your own #template #base #dragon base #adoptable base #kofi

[wyrmoftheweb]

dragonriders of pern creatures. hehehehe. based mostly on what i thought of them in reading the guide rather than the official art.

#pernese dragons #dragons #dragonriders of pern #my art

[ciameth]

A few Pernese dragon head concepts, based on different animal skulls, the author's descriptions, and Michael Whelan's art. To meet the book descriptions, Pernese dragon must have eye ridges, head knobs instead of ears, a wide field of vision through multifaceted eyes, smooth suede-like skin, and jaws capable of both grinding stone and predating large animals. I also decided to play around with the spectrum of Bronze while coloring the designs. I decided the Bronze palette should be a blend of Gold, Green, and Brown.

Equine: Classic horse headed Pernese dragon. Anne McCaffery described her dragons as having 'horse-like' heads, which could mean anything from wedge-shaped with large cheeks to recognizably equine.

Giraffine: This is how I pictured the dragons while reading the books as a kid. Giraffe and Okapi skulls look very draconic, have both knobs and ridges, and big globular eyes.

Ursine: Leaning more into the predatory nature of fire lizards and dragons, here is a design with bite power. Based on a Giant Panda skull with the snout elongated. This design has a bulky skull with massive jaws. A well-developed cranium, zygomatic arch and sagittal crest.

Varan: As much as Anne McCaffery insists her dragons are not reptilian, a monitor lizard skull makes a great design base. They have wedge-shaped heads with incredible bite force, perfect for crushing firestone. The fire lizard progenitor to the Pernese dragon is a coast scavenger and piscivore; a monitor head shape is perfect for both tasks. Perhaps fire lizards would look more delicate, like a tree monitor, while dragons would look more like a rock monitor.

Whelan-like: Michael Whelan's amazing cover art was what drew me to pick up Pern books in the first place. But his designs do not have head knobs and the anatomy is very 'shrink-wrapped' so I've tried to address those issues while keeping it recognizably "Whelan."

Alien: Not based on any earth skull. Bulbous eyes oriented high on the head to see Threadfall. Large surface area for nasal turbinates to warm/humidify the vast quantities of air required by a flying creature, and to filter out Thread char. Head knobs less bony, more fleshy and flexible. Still vaguely "horse-like" shape to the head.

#dragonriders of pern #pern #pernese dragon #creature design #dragon design #speculative anatomy #bronze dragon #anne mccaffrey #ciameth art

[erganyfoxart]

A bronze Pern dragon commission TrashCat14!

#my art #Bronze Dragon #dragonridersofpern #dragonriders of pern #dragon #art commisions #pern #pernese dragons

[kariachi]

Thoughts as I look at Pern stuff...

Somehow in all my bitching it has only just hit me that there are no native terrestrial herbivores really shown in the Pern series. The tunnelsnakes are constantly shown as carnivorous, the wherries are constantly shown as carnivorous though there might have been a time they were mentioned eating plant matter, the firelizards are introduced as omnivores but treated like carnivores... Pern just, doesn't do herbivore's apparently.

And before anybody starts on 'well Thread' as a general rule what people tend to use- to my memory- as the basis for how long Thread has been a thing is the age of the fossils of large herbivores found during the initial survey. Well, I'm looking at the page and those were described as being 50 thousand years old. Of course this doesn't give us a proper description of how long Pern has been dealing with Thread- after all, it's entirely possible that some herbivores (they're described as grazers but that's it) survived the early rounds of Thread, as well as possible that they were dead and gone long before Thread showed up- but it's what we have.

Now, 50k years is generally not long enough to have what's considered 'lasting' evolutionary change- that is change that's not going to, well, change- and also isn't very long after an initial Mass Extinction Event to recover, but while Pern wouldn't be near on level with Earth it has two major things going for it on this front-

1) We know for certain the initial extinction event took place over a short period- the effects of the Red Star's passing last about 50 years, with about 200 years of leeway before the next blow. This was a quick hit, with recovery time following, followed by another hit, in a consistent pattern.

2) The species least capable of adapting to Fall would have died out in that first Pass, and it would have continued like that for each Pass that followed, until all that was left was fuckers that could get through. You hear a lot about Thread destroying everything, the McCaffreys like to throw it out there that Pern would be stripped of all life during a Pass if it weren't for human and dragon intervention, but if that was the case Pern would not have had terrestrial life when the humans got there. And I'm sure there's people out there who use that fact to claim that the Red Star has only been around for like two Passes prior to this or something, but the facts as we're given point to Pern having had strong pressure to produce species on terrestrial plant and animal that could survive and even thrive during a Pass, and having been managing it.

Follow along. The first ever Pass hits Pern, the first fuckers that are going to go are the largest terrestrial herbivores and the slowest growing plants. These will both be the ones least likely to be able to evade Fall, least likely to be able to find enough food to survive after Fall, and least likely to be able to make up for the initial loss in numbers. You'll get outliers though- Skybroom trees, for instance, who likely originally evolved to fend off native herbivores, fires, potentially rockslides or some such- mostly those whose preexisting adaptations give them an advantage in dealing with Thread. For example if a species of plodding herbivore used various secretions to build itself thin stone armor, that would grant it greater protection against Thread, while if it also reproduced in large numbers due to young not being as well defended by their armors that would allow more opportunities to make up numbers.

Next to go will the species that rely on those species, select predators, plants, smaller critters, who relied on those species for food, shelter, to disperse seeds, etc.

You'll also see a loss in smaller non-aquatic species who don't have evolutionary traits that help against Thread. Precognition, teleportation, burrowing, cave-dwelling, fire-breathing, shells that were Thread resistant, body oils that that Thread slipped right off (like Thread off a duck's back~), these and more are the traits you're liable to see in a majority of Pernese species by the time of colonization, which by the way by these estimates would be the 201st Pass.

Seriously 50,000 years ago our ancestors probably hadn't run into neanderthals yet, we were over 30,000 years from going "hey, what if we kept some of these wolves around", it's been a while

There's a critter mentioned that has a sticky back that things land on and it digests them right there, I promise you that fucker found success by having just enough bastards that could eat Thread faster than Thread ate them and adapting there let them become absolute menaces to anything that landed or stepped on them. The ones described aren't big, only about 2-by-3 inches, but the survey was brief and I wouldn't be surprised if Pern's flatlands had much larger examples of the fuckers, evolved for a role as stealth predators rather than animalistic sundews.

By the end of that first 50 year Pass Pern's landmasses would have been wiped mostly clear of most of it's species. A serious mass extinction event. But, this would be coupled with a serious uptick regarding aquatic and semi-aquatic species. Pern's oceans and waterways must be astounding, and any species who evolved to turn to the water for protection would have found themselves suddenly among the most successful on the planet.

Everything that survived would have been those species most capable of surviving or recovering from Fall, and the representatives of those species that most strongly presented those successful traits. These would have been the species- plant, animal, bug, whatever- that reproduced. Over the next 200 years there would have been some diversifying, some adapting genetically, and then the next Pass would have hit. Anything that moved away from those survival traits would get fucked, those that doubled down would survive, wash, rinse, repeat 200 times.

Would we be looking at new species? Yeah probably. If nothing else we'd have a lot of subspecies taking advantage of niches that opened up. Skybrooms probably had a smaller range before Thread started up, for instance, but once they turned out be The Most Threadproof Tree competition took a steep downturn.

By the time the colonists showed up Pernese plants would probably fall into three categories- 1) Threadproof- due to thick bark, Threadproof secretions, being dense as hell, etc; 2) Eternal- either the seeds are Threadproof and germinate under specific conditions leaving there always a new generation, or they're capable of springing back from sever die-back; 3) "Hold my beer"- make kudzu look like redwoods, probably adopted the mint when it came over

Pernese animals likely lean heavily towards semi-aquatics, amphibians, and cave-dwelling species most definitely, plus burrowing species, shelled species. You'd have more species than expected with secretions (again, if you can make Thread slide off or something, you'd be the hottest thing in town), and so much fucking psychic capability. Any species that had an inkling of psychic powers before? Is going to have spent 50 thousand years being harshly forced to select for it. Most non-aquatic species are also probably going to focus on making a lot of babies. Focusing on one or two at a time is probably going to be the domain of amphibians, cave-dwellers, and aquatics. Species that don't have to worry about "I put three years into that kid and the sky noodles ate them".

And as far as herbivores go? If you've got plantlife you're going to have something dedicated to eating it. They may not be big, they may not be grazers, but they will fucking be there.

#so i may have started poking at worlbuilding again #pern is prime for some interesting shit but it's never utilized #i kinda want big sundew fuckers now #give me the giant deathmat #a flat fuck the size of a dinner plate that'll make threadscore look like a papercut if you make the mistake of touching it's back #it camouflages in the foliage waiting for critters to walk over or land on it #it's lost the sticky secretions of it's smaller kin for it does not need them #it digests you quick enough it doesn't matter if you get away #it got plenty enough of you #''thread is the greatest threat to the pernese' false #thread is the *most blatant* threat to the pernese #the giant deathmat- which just sits there in wait- actually responsible for more deaths a year per cycle #pern analysis

[2lim3rz]

Dragonriders of Pern

I love

#dragonriders of pern #pernese dragon #green dragon #blue dragon #brown dragon

[dksartz]

Waiting room doodles pages, Pernese dragons (and a Rider).

#dragon #dragons #pernese dragon #pernese dragons #sketches #sketchbook #not a doodle #doodles #fanart #dragonriders of pern #pern #dksartz

[sundogsfundogs]

another DRoP themed commission. i really loved painting this big guy.

Posted using PostyBirb

#art #artists on tumblr #my art #illustration #digital art #artoftheday #clip studio paint #csp #pern #dragonriders of pern #pernese

[jack-of-all-daws]

I have this one fic idea rattling in my brain and the fact that there's nothing similar to it on ao3 means that I should take the plunge and write it myself 😔 pray for me dear followers

#i am really here thinking of writing a swanqueen dragonriders of pern au in the year of 2023 #BUT IT FITS SO WELL #regina is of course a rider of a gold queen and emma should be a bronze rider #pern is really a great setting for family drama with some dragons thrown in #one big hinderance might be that i only read some of the pern books and in polish so i don't have all of my pernese lingo figured out #also that i despise writing but oh well #caws

[cgan]

favorite pern characters:

masterweaver...zurg

#pern #pernese naming conventions are so very

[artofgeist]

Vyliath portrait comm for Abyss

#dragon #pernese dragon #vermilion dragon #vyliath #abyss #commission #dragonriders of pern #valynor weyr #anne mccaffrey #pern

[vianthegryphonart]

Here's some simple sketches of how I imagine some Pernese critters, the Firelizard, Wher, Dragon, and Tunnelsnake.

I do plan on using these to learn how to make digital art, cleaning them up and maybe colouring them, it would be very good practice.

#Dragonriders of Pern #pernese dragon #watchwher #firelizard #tunnelsnake #fanart