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Pern AU Musebox: Character Origins
Mar. 3rd, 2014 11:48 amThere are 3 major places characters might live on the western continent: The Holds, the Crafthall, or the Weyr.
Holds
(The 3 Western Continent Holds are described at the end of this entry, under the map.)
Holdings are territories belonging to a Lord or Lady Holder, with Lords being more usual. The Hold itself is the home of the Lord or Lady. Holds are large, impressive, and made of stone. They're built to withstand harsh winters, hot summers, and Thread if it comes to it. All Holds have a sort of castle town surrounding them to support all the work that needs done, which is also considered part of it. There are markets and workshops and housing and pretty much what you'd expect.
Smaller settlements occur throughout holdings. These range from little fishing villages and cotholds all the way up to minor holds in their own right, but all are beholden to the Lord or Lady of the Hold. The whole Holding itself is bound to the Weyr that defends it in turn, and tithes supplies to support it.
Most people on Pern are holders. They do their day jobs, raise their families, and are the cogs that keep the world turning. In general terms the climate amongst holders is traditionalist with a list of expected gender roles, especially among the nobility. Marriage of one's children is of great concern for those with a lot to inherit off and need to establish good trade.
Growing Up Holder
If you were born a holder you were raised in the most traditional Pernese family situation. You probably had both a mother and father who were married, and likely had several siblings. (Probably fewer, if you were from the more congested area around the Hold proper.) If you were the oldest, especially if you're male, your parents probably groomed you to take over the family business. If you're approaching your twenties you might even have an eye on respectable marriage prospects, and (if so inclined) perhaps be planning to start your own family.
Even if your parents weren't trained academically in a particular craft, they had something they were good at in order to put food on the table. You probably assisted once you were old enough, or were apprenticed to someone of a different trade.
If you were searched as a dragon candidate, you probably found life in the Weyr alarmingly different from home. The commonly fractured family structures are weird. The military efficiency and urgency surrounding Falls is a bit overwhelming. The Weyr is a more liberal, pragmatic, fast-moving place with different social mores and it often leaves candidates very nervous of their future. What would it be like to remain here permanently, with a dragon or otherwise?
Crafthalls
Crafthalls are frequently built into Holds or at least very close by. Their populations are smaller than Holds generally, and their entire purpose is to further their profession and train its new members. Each craft has one hall on the mainland somewhere, but Western Hold has one shared crafthall and this is, naturally, a source of much collaboration and bickering. The person in charge is the Mastercrafter, technically, but there's usually a great deal of delegation that goes on unless the Mastercrafter has an unusual talent for management.
While there are a lot of "just folks" in crafthalls, most of the hall's support staff are family of crafters.
Growing up Crafthall
If you aren't from the crafthall itself you were most likely born a holder, as Weyrs tend to be more reluctant to let their viable youngsters go because dragons need candidates. Still, you might be weyrbred if you were especially talented.
If you were born there and not chosen as an apprentice, your life has gone a lot like it would at any Hold. Otherwise, you were singled out at a relatively young age (probably 6-8) as special by a practiced member of the craft. You had a gift, and circumstances (family, obligations, transportation to the hall, the crafters) allowed you to pursue it. You lived in a dormitory with other children your age and studied and practiced hard, growing in the academic end of your trade and developing your skills. You were much better educated than most Pernese youths.
As an adult (depending on merit and personal choice) you either rose to a well-respected place in the hall with students and projects of your own, or you took to the road to put your abilities to work in the Holds and Weyrs as a journeyman.
Sometimes crafter apprentices are Searched by dragons, but the halls are very loathe to let their gifted youth go. It's seen as a waste of talent. Candidates searched from crafthalls that were pursuing mastery of a craft are likely to be bitter about losing all they've worked for, as even if they don't Impress to a dragon and return to the hall their studies have been disrupted irreparably. They will always be behind.
Weyrs
Weyrs, capitalized, are essentially Holds for dragonriders. Weyrs, uncapitalized, are the personal quarters of a rider and their dragon. A Weyr has hundreds of weyrs.
That clarified, a Weyr defends several holdings from Threadfall by sending wings of dragonriders to burn the spores out of the sky before they touch the ground. Life in the Weyr revolves around maintaining a fighting force of dragons, and during a Pass (as now) it's a busy place. The leaders of the Weyr are its Weyrleader and Weyrkeeper, which are the riders of its current dominant dragon pair. This seems insane to holdfolk who are used to trusting authority to an established bloodline, but given how central dragons are to the Weyr it makes things easiest if both the winged and non-winged denizens agree that the same people are boss.
The Weyrleader is the Weyr's military head, and rider of the bronze dragon that last mated with the senior gold. The Weyrkeeper is that gold's rider, and is the domestic head. The Weyrleader runs drills, organizes the wings, and leads the charge in Threadfighting while the Weyrkeeper manages the Weyr's economic and political affairs. There are usually several junior keepers that ride the younger golds, acting as assistants.
The Weyrleader's is a glamorous but extremely taxing job, and its holder can change twice a year if the senior queen is particularly fickle. The Weyrkeeper, by contrast, will likely hold their rank until their dragon cedes her dominance due to old age or severe injury. The Keeper is thus a pillar of stability about which the whole Weyr turns, while the Leader is forever a product of the changing times.
Beyond this, a Weyr runs similarly to a Hold but with a much narrower purpose and a different culture. Weyrfolk value a person's accomplishments without consideration for their origin and tend toward a degree of blunt practicality that holdfolk (whose occupations are passed from parent to child, as well as social class) would find artless at best and without apparent rhyme or reason at worst. Your pedigree means nothing in the Weyr. They just want people in the job they do best, and that is your social yardstick.
Growing Up Weyrbred
You were raised underfoot in a dragon Weyr. While it's possible you know both of your parents and had a childhood similar to a holder, there's a solid chance your mother raised you alone (if she had the resources) or you were brought up communally in the Weyr's creche. This is especially likely if one or both of your parents were dragonriders, as tending a dragon and other duties leave no time to raise a child. If you were creche raised, even if you know who your parents are your relationship with them is probably distant and awkward.
The crecheworkers brought you up with other kids near your age. You were educated as part of a group and worked and played together with your classmates for as far back as you can remember. Most of you grew up fully expecting to be chosen as a dragon candidate, and few were disappointed.
If you weren't chosen or aged out of candidacy, however, it was likely easy to find work. There is always something to be done around the Weyr, and your upbringing taught you basic skills in several areas to ensure you could find it. You could also have left for life in the Holds now that your dragonless future was set, but crossing that cultural border goes better for some than it does for others. As a weyrbred person you are less traditional and have a more merit-based view of life than a holder. Questions of inheritance, descent, and purity of blood are a bit baffling and your views about women being in charge of things are quite different. Whether you like it or not, the Weyr left its mark on you and it will likely never rub off.
Living as a Dragonrider
Regardless of where you are from, if you Impressed you certainly spent time as a candidate. During your candidacy you were taught how to care for a dragon and participated in ground crew duties about the Weyr, assisting with upkeep of the dragons and learning how the system works. You were extremely busy except when you were asleep, and likely mended harnesses and hauled firestone in your dreams too. A full dragonrider, likely one with a wounded dragon keeping them out of the air for a while, served as the Candidatemaster. They were a combination of den mother and instructor for your class.
You stood on the hatching sands with the rest, possibly after several failed attempts, and that day your life changed. Your dragon was egg-sticky, wobbly, and very hungry when you first met him or her, and while the world was a bright and confusing mess they were sure of one thing: they loved you. And whatever you might have felt, whatever fears or hopes you’d had, in the end they didn’t matter. You loved them back.
You were secluded with the hatchling for a week, feeding them and ensuring their hide was kept oiled, but the most important part of this time was getting to know one another. Your dragon came to trust you, and you learned to separate your thoughts from one another's. With your bond secured and your dragon strong enough to face the world, you and the other new dragonriders from the clutch were trained together. Whether or not you wanted to be here in the first place, your dragon loved you and you worked too hard not to be proud of your accomplishments.
The odds are several of you did not make it to graduation. Learning to fly, flame, and travel between is extremely dangerous, and few clutches graduate intact. You likely knew someone who suffered an injury that prevents them from serving in a fighting wing, someone who was killed in early flight or fire drills, or someone who disappeared on their first hop between and was never seen again.
You never quite get used to loss, but as Pern's only line of defense against Thread you will know more of it and be expected to do your job just the same.
But it's not all bad. Once trained you graduated to a fighting wing, which was your new family. As a dragonrider you are well-respected by most Pernese and have an important duty you perform.
On Dragon Loss
Sometimes, dragons or riders die. Dragons were not engineered to survive on their own. When a rider dies, their dragon travels between in grief and is never seen again. Riders who lose dragons report they feel as if they've lost half of themselves, they usually plunge headlong into a deep depression. With proper support, a dragonless rider can live on and begin to rebuild their life, but it hurts.
FIGHTING WINGS
12-33 dragons, led by the Wingleader (a bronzerider, very very rarely a brown or grey) and their two wingseconds. (Bronze, brown, or grey. Blues and greens just don't have the stamina to fight a whole threadfall, and the upper wing leadership needs that.) The size of the wing determines how many wingthirds it has, if any. These officers can ride any dragon color.
Wings recruit from the ranks of newly graduated weyrlings to fill in for missing/injured members or (in more fortunate times) give overworked riders some relief.
A wing has a name chosen by its founding riders, colors, and can have an emblem if you'd like to make one up. Different wings tend to specialize in flying certain parts of a threadfall, whether it's the high clumps or catching what the first wave of dragons misses. Generally, larger wings of many smaller dragons are better above with the smaller wings of slower and heavier dragons below.
Gold dragons cannot breathe flame, but the queen's wing can participate in fighting threadfall at the lowest level by having their riders carry flamethrowers.
MORAN HOLD
Moran is the oldest of the three holds under Western Weyr's watch. It was founded by sailors from Tillek, and is named after the captain of the first ship to land on the western continent. The Moranese are best known for carrying on Tillek's tradition as fishermen, but also prove quite successful at maintaining livestock and farming. The land it sits on is fertile and mostly open, and the abundance of food means that Moran Hold sports the largest population of the three.
During the threadfree Intervals, Moran Hold does a roaring sea trade with the northern continent. For the last 240 turns, however, Thread has been falling on Pern. This limits voyages to a much smaller range to ensure that ships are within reach of Western Weyr's protection when Thread falls, so most cargo coming in is from and to Toril Hold to the west. Trips out to the smaller islands to the south also occur from time to time, but it will be a while before anything big is established there. It's not a good time to be living out on the isles, and dragonriders tend to resent these bold settlers for being so far away.
The Moranese are generally hard working people, with sons raised on the decks of ships or in the fields and sometimes the daughters too. It's more common for women to do less physical jobs (such as selling/trading goods and keeping records) if they do have work outside tending the household, but not unheard of especially if the family is large. Moranese take pride in being sturdy and steady, as well as the courage of their ancestors for first sailing west. They also have the strongest ties to the northern continent, though this is more through romantic idealism and a sense of ancestral pride than anything tangible these days. Moranese like their traditions just fine.
WESTERN HOLD
The second hold, and the most important in the scheme of the wider world. Most of Pern has scant metal resources, but the western continent is different. The mountains are rich with ore, and Western Hold's core purpose revolves around extracting this precious resource. Western Hold sits up in the mountains to the north, with mines delving deep into them. Wherhandling is a common and useful vocation in the mines. As a knack for handling dragonkin is thought to run in the blood, it's also said that Western always provides the most likely candidates to Impress outside the Weyr itself. Western is also the wealthiest of the three holds due to its metal, and while mainlanders think of it as hicksville they can't deny the importance of the resource or its economic influence. The upper crust at Western are proud of this and like to think they're more important than they might actually be.
Western is also the cultural hub of the continent, home to Western's (admittedly modest) official branches of major crafts. The talent of Western smiths comes as no surprise, but it's in their harpers they take the most pride. The whole western continent is proud of its roots and there is no better way to honor them than through tale and song, celebrating the things that are uniquely Western as well as the old ballads.
Western does produce its own food and herd animals (predominately sheep and goats) but does a lot of trade with Moran to the south. Most of Western's working folk are involved in the mining or some extension of maintaining those operations. Women serving as wherhandlers are unusually common, and considered a weird Western continent thing by mainlanders and even some people from the other nearby holds.
Generally, Westerners are known to be active and resourceful but perhaps a bit too self-congratulatory as a whole. They're often the source of new fashionable trends on the continent that ruffle the feathers of the more traditional Moranese.
TORIL HOLD
Torilans, if we're honest, probably better embody the spirit of the first ambitious sailors to go west than Moranese do. Don't tell this to the Moranese, it makes them cranky.
Toril is the smallest hold but it makes up for it in force of personality. Across the strait from the other two holds and the Weyr, Toril Hold has a sense of adventure and frontier spirit that has faded in its older brethren. Their primary export is lumber, taking advantage of the large forests to their north. These are, of course, not an inexhaustible resource but for now Toril is doing quite nicely. Imported metal from Western Hold is also fueling some small industrial advances, and if mechanization become a thing on Pern it's going to be at Toril Hold.
Toril Hold also boasts the best booze on the Western Continent.
Toril and the Weyr are sometimes a bit strained with one another, as Torilans are raring to expand their borders and the hold will not be the smallest for much longer. Meanwhile, Western Weyr is leery of having even more territory to protect with its limited compliment of dragonriders. To compound the hold's problems, a significant part of Toril's population comes in from the mainland. Dissatisfied holders take dragonback passage here pursuing the promise of unclaimed land they might work for their own. Toril's Lord has been making a nice profit off these ambitious newcomers, but the threat of Thread has kept settlers more contained than they'd like to be and there are cultural rifts between westerners and mainlanders that cause some social troubles, leaving Toril with a bit of a fractured identity. On the bright side, exploring and mapping the unexplored territory to the north and west provides a vocation for many of Toril's restless and eager youth.
Holds
(The 3 Western Continent Holds are described at the end of this entry, under the map.)
Holdings are territories belonging to a Lord or Lady Holder, with Lords being more usual. The Hold itself is the home of the Lord or Lady. Holds are large, impressive, and made of stone. They're built to withstand harsh winters, hot summers, and Thread if it comes to it. All Holds have a sort of castle town surrounding them to support all the work that needs done, which is also considered part of it. There are markets and workshops and housing and pretty much what you'd expect.
Smaller settlements occur throughout holdings. These range from little fishing villages and cotholds all the way up to minor holds in their own right, but all are beholden to the Lord or Lady of the Hold. The whole Holding itself is bound to the Weyr that defends it in turn, and tithes supplies to support it.
Most people on Pern are holders. They do their day jobs, raise their families, and are the cogs that keep the world turning. In general terms the climate amongst holders is traditionalist with a list of expected gender roles, especially among the nobility. Marriage of one's children is of great concern for those with a lot to inherit off and need to establish good trade.
Growing Up Holder
If you were born a holder you were raised in the most traditional Pernese family situation. You probably had both a mother and father who were married, and likely had several siblings. (Probably fewer, if you were from the more congested area around the Hold proper.) If you were the oldest, especially if you're male, your parents probably groomed you to take over the family business. If you're approaching your twenties you might even have an eye on respectable marriage prospects, and (if so inclined) perhaps be planning to start your own family.
Even if your parents weren't trained academically in a particular craft, they had something they were good at in order to put food on the table. You probably assisted once you were old enough, or were apprenticed to someone of a different trade.
If you were searched as a dragon candidate, you probably found life in the Weyr alarmingly different from home. The commonly fractured family structures are weird. The military efficiency and urgency surrounding Falls is a bit overwhelming. The Weyr is a more liberal, pragmatic, fast-moving place with different social mores and it often leaves candidates very nervous of their future. What would it be like to remain here permanently, with a dragon or otherwise?
Crafthalls
Crafthalls are frequently built into Holds or at least very close by. Their populations are smaller than Holds generally, and their entire purpose is to further their profession and train its new members. Each craft has one hall on the mainland somewhere, but Western Hold has one shared crafthall and this is, naturally, a source of much collaboration and bickering. The person in charge is the Mastercrafter, technically, but there's usually a great deal of delegation that goes on unless the Mastercrafter has an unusual talent for management.
While there are a lot of "just folks" in crafthalls, most of the hall's support staff are family of crafters.
Growing up Crafthall
If you aren't from the crafthall itself you were most likely born a holder, as Weyrs tend to be more reluctant to let their viable youngsters go because dragons need candidates. Still, you might be weyrbred if you were especially talented.
If you were born there and not chosen as an apprentice, your life has gone a lot like it would at any Hold. Otherwise, you were singled out at a relatively young age (probably 6-8) as special by a practiced member of the craft. You had a gift, and circumstances (family, obligations, transportation to the hall, the crafters) allowed you to pursue it. You lived in a dormitory with other children your age and studied and practiced hard, growing in the academic end of your trade and developing your skills. You were much better educated than most Pernese youths.
As an adult (depending on merit and personal choice) you either rose to a well-respected place in the hall with students and projects of your own, or you took to the road to put your abilities to work in the Holds and Weyrs as a journeyman.
Sometimes crafter apprentices are Searched by dragons, but the halls are very loathe to let their gifted youth go. It's seen as a waste of talent. Candidates searched from crafthalls that were pursuing mastery of a craft are likely to be bitter about losing all they've worked for, as even if they don't Impress to a dragon and return to the hall their studies have been disrupted irreparably. They will always be behind.
Weyrs
Weyrs, capitalized, are essentially Holds for dragonriders. Weyrs, uncapitalized, are the personal quarters of a rider and their dragon. A Weyr has hundreds of weyrs.
That clarified, a Weyr defends several holdings from Threadfall by sending wings of dragonriders to burn the spores out of the sky before they touch the ground. Life in the Weyr revolves around maintaining a fighting force of dragons, and during a Pass (as now) it's a busy place. The leaders of the Weyr are its Weyrleader and Weyrkeeper, which are the riders of its current dominant dragon pair. This seems insane to holdfolk who are used to trusting authority to an established bloodline, but given how central dragons are to the Weyr it makes things easiest if both the winged and non-winged denizens agree that the same people are boss.
The Weyrleader is the Weyr's military head, and rider of the bronze dragon that last mated with the senior gold. The Weyrkeeper is that gold's rider, and is the domestic head. The Weyrleader runs drills, organizes the wings, and leads the charge in Threadfighting while the Weyrkeeper manages the Weyr's economic and political affairs. There are usually several junior keepers that ride the younger golds, acting as assistants.
The Weyrleader's is a glamorous but extremely taxing job, and its holder can change twice a year if the senior queen is particularly fickle. The Weyrkeeper, by contrast, will likely hold their rank until their dragon cedes her dominance due to old age or severe injury. The Keeper is thus a pillar of stability about which the whole Weyr turns, while the Leader is forever a product of the changing times.
Beyond this, a Weyr runs similarly to a Hold but with a much narrower purpose and a different culture. Weyrfolk value a person's accomplishments without consideration for their origin and tend toward a degree of blunt practicality that holdfolk (whose occupations are passed from parent to child, as well as social class) would find artless at best and without apparent rhyme or reason at worst. Your pedigree means nothing in the Weyr. They just want people in the job they do best, and that is your social yardstick.
Growing Up Weyrbred
You were raised underfoot in a dragon Weyr. While it's possible you know both of your parents and had a childhood similar to a holder, there's a solid chance your mother raised you alone (if she had the resources) or you were brought up communally in the Weyr's creche. This is especially likely if one or both of your parents were dragonriders, as tending a dragon and other duties leave no time to raise a child. If you were creche raised, even if you know who your parents are your relationship with them is probably distant and awkward.
The crecheworkers brought you up with other kids near your age. You were educated as part of a group and worked and played together with your classmates for as far back as you can remember. Most of you grew up fully expecting to be chosen as a dragon candidate, and few were disappointed.
If you weren't chosen or aged out of candidacy, however, it was likely easy to find work. There is always something to be done around the Weyr, and your upbringing taught you basic skills in several areas to ensure you could find it. You could also have left for life in the Holds now that your dragonless future was set, but crossing that cultural border goes better for some than it does for others. As a weyrbred person you are less traditional and have a more merit-based view of life than a holder. Questions of inheritance, descent, and purity of blood are a bit baffling and your views about women being in charge of things are quite different. Whether you like it or not, the Weyr left its mark on you and it will likely never rub off.
Living as a Dragonrider
Regardless of where you are from, if you Impressed you certainly spent time as a candidate. During your candidacy you were taught how to care for a dragon and participated in ground crew duties about the Weyr, assisting with upkeep of the dragons and learning how the system works. You were extremely busy except when you were asleep, and likely mended harnesses and hauled firestone in your dreams too. A full dragonrider, likely one with a wounded dragon keeping them out of the air for a while, served as the Candidatemaster. They were a combination of den mother and instructor for your class.
You stood on the hatching sands with the rest, possibly after several failed attempts, and that day your life changed. Your dragon was egg-sticky, wobbly, and very hungry when you first met him or her, and while the world was a bright and confusing mess they were sure of one thing: they loved you. And whatever you might have felt, whatever fears or hopes you’d had, in the end they didn’t matter. You loved them back.
You were secluded with the hatchling for a week, feeding them and ensuring their hide was kept oiled, but the most important part of this time was getting to know one another. Your dragon came to trust you, and you learned to separate your thoughts from one another's. With your bond secured and your dragon strong enough to face the world, you and the other new dragonriders from the clutch were trained together. Whether or not you wanted to be here in the first place, your dragon loved you and you worked too hard not to be proud of your accomplishments.
The odds are several of you did not make it to graduation. Learning to fly, flame, and travel between is extremely dangerous, and few clutches graduate intact. You likely knew someone who suffered an injury that prevents them from serving in a fighting wing, someone who was killed in early flight or fire drills, or someone who disappeared on their first hop between and was never seen again.
You never quite get used to loss, but as Pern's only line of defense against Thread you will know more of it and be expected to do your job just the same.
But it's not all bad. Once trained you graduated to a fighting wing, which was your new family. As a dragonrider you are well-respected by most Pernese and have an important duty you perform.
On Dragon Loss
Sometimes, dragons or riders die. Dragons were not engineered to survive on their own. When a rider dies, their dragon travels between in grief and is never seen again. Riders who lose dragons report they feel as if they've lost half of themselves, they usually plunge headlong into a deep depression. With proper support, a dragonless rider can live on and begin to rebuild their life, but it hurts.
FIGHTING WINGS
12-33 dragons, led by the Wingleader (a bronzerider, very very rarely a brown or grey) and their two wingseconds. (Bronze, brown, or grey. Blues and greens just don't have the stamina to fight a whole threadfall, and the upper wing leadership needs that.) The size of the wing determines how many wingthirds it has, if any. These officers can ride any dragon color.
Wings recruit from the ranks of newly graduated weyrlings to fill in for missing/injured members or (in more fortunate times) give overworked riders some relief.
A wing has a name chosen by its founding riders, colors, and can have an emblem if you'd like to make one up. Different wings tend to specialize in flying certain parts of a threadfall, whether it's the high clumps or catching what the first wave of dragons misses. Generally, larger wings of many smaller dragons are better above with the smaller wings of slower and heavier dragons below.
Gold dragons cannot breathe flame, but the queen's wing can participate in fighting threadfall at the lowest level by having their riders carry flamethrowers.
MORAN HOLD
Moran is the oldest of the three holds under Western Weyr's watch. It was founded by sailors from Tillek, and is named after the captain of the first ship to land on the western continent. The Moranese are best known for carrying on Tillek's tradition as fishermen, but also prove quite successful at maintaining livestock and farming. The land it sits on is fertile and mostly open, and the abundance of food means that Moran Hold sports the largest population of the three.
During the threadfree Intervals, Moran Hold does a roaring sea trade with the northern continent. For the last 240 turns, however, Thread has been falling on Pern. This limits voyages to a much smaller range to ensure that ships are within reach of Western Weyr's protection when Thread falls, so most cargo coming in is from and to Toril Hold to the west. Trips out to the smaller islands to the south also occur from time to time, but it will be a while before anything big is established there. It's not a good time to be living out on the isles, and dragonriders tend to resent these bold settlers for being so far away.
The Moranese are generally hard working people, with sons raised on the decks of ships or in the fields and sometimes the daughters too. It's more common for women to do less physical jobs (such as selling/trading goods and keeping records) if they do have work outside tending the household, but not unheard of especially if the family is large. Moranese take pride in being sturdy and steady, as well as the courage of their ancestors for first sailing west. They also have the strongest ties to the northern continent, though this is more through romantic idealism and a sense of ancestral pride than anything tangible these days. Moranese like their traditions just fine.
WESTERN HOLD
The second hold, and the most important in the scheme of the wider world. Most of Pern has scant metal resources, but the western continent is different. The mountains are rich with ore, and Western Hold's core purpose revolves around extracting this precious resource. Western Hold sits up in the mountains to the north, with mines delving deep into them. Wherhandling is a common and useful vocation in the mines. As a knack for handling dragonkin is thought to run in the blood, it's also said that Western always provides the most likely candidates to Impress outside the Weyr itself. Western is also the wealthiest of the three holds due to its metal, and while mainlanders think of it as hicksville they can't deny the importance of the resource or its economic influence. The upper crust at Western are proud of this and like to think they're more important than they might actually be.
Western is also the cultural hub of the continent, home to Western's (admittedly modest) official branches of major crafts. The talent of Western smiths comes as no surprise, but it's in their harpers they take the most pride. The whole western continent is proud of its roots and there is no better way to honor them than through tale and song, celebrating the things that are uniquely Western as well as the old ballads.
Western does produce its own food and herd animals (predominately sheep and goats) but does a lot of trade with Moran to the south. Most of Western's working folk are involved in the mining or some extension of maintaining those operations. Women serving as wherhandlers are unusually common, and considered a weird Western continent thing by mainlanders and even some people from the other nearby holds.
Generally, Westerners are known to be active and resourceful but perhaps a bit too self-congratulatory as a whole. They're often the source of new fashionable trends on the continent that ruffle the feathers of the more traditional Moranese.
TORIL HOLD
Torilans, if we're honest, probably better embody the spirit of the first ambitious sailors to go west than Moranese do. Don't tell this to the Moranese, it makes them cranky.
Toril is the smallest hold but it makes up for it in force of personality. Across the strait from the other two holds and the Weyr, Toril Hold has a sense of adventure and frontier spirit that has faded in its older brethren. Their primary export is lumber, taking advantage of the large forests to their north. These are, of course, not an inexhaustible resource but for now Toril is doing quite nicely. Imported metal from Western Hold is also fueling some small industrial advances, and if mechanization become a thing on Pern it's going to be at Toril Hold.
Toril Hold also boasts the best booze on the Western Continent.
Toril and the Weyr are sometimes a bit strained with one another, as Torilans are raring to expand their borders and the hold will not be the smallest for much longer. Meanwhile, Western Weyr is leery of having even more territory to protect with its limited compliment of dragonriders. To compound the hold's problems, a significant part of Toril's population comes in from the mainland. Dissatisfied holders take dragonback passage here pursuing the promise of unclaimed land they might work for their own. Toril's Lord has been making a nice profit off these ambitious newcomers, but the threat of Thread has kept settlers more contained than they'd like to be and there are cultural rifts between westerners and mainlanders that cause some social troubles, leaving Toril with a bit of a fractured identity. On the bright side, exploring and mapping the unexplored territory to the north and west provides a vocation for many of Toril's restless and eager youth.
