Post by B'kay on Apr 8, 2008 12:28:53 GMT -5
Chewing Firestone
Dragons have a double stomach. One section of the stomach is specifically designed to mix crushed firestone with special acids, allowing the dragon to belch flame. Firestone is a special stone readily available on Pern, which contains a substance called phosphine. It is this phospine which produces the flame when mixed with the chemicals in the dragon's stomach acid.
Stone has to be chewed carefully for obvious reasons. Once the flame has been produced, and the flaming session over, the residue of stone, or ash, left in the dragon's stomach can cause him to feel quite ill ... therefore you must provide a place for your dragon to regurgitate the ash. If not, he'll regurgitate it all over your weyr. As always, it's a rider's responsibility to clean up after his dragon.
You will quickly discover one important fact: Phosphine ash stinks. This is why you'll find that all dragon Weyrs have an ash pit to which riders can take their dragons to regurgitate, and the ash pit is invariably located downwind of the living quarters.
There are firestone pits, which need to be better manned and more stone dug, along Araelen Weyr's southern heights. Syth and I have examined them, and we have a very good supply of rock there ... I plan to request a mining team of the Weyrleaders so that we'll be more than ready to fight when Thread begins to fall. Currently, there is plenty of rubble lying in the area to start on. You can't mistake firestone ... all you have to do to identify it is smell it.
Producing flame takes training practice. We won't be teaching our young dragons to produce flame for some time yet, but your assignment is to study firestone and, if you have a firelizard, encourage your pet to show you how he chews rock and belches flame. If you do not have a flitter, partner with another weyrling who does. Once you've practiced some, please answer the following questions:
1.What do you notice about the particular bits of firestone your firelizard selects to chew? Size? Smoothness? Odor?
2.What cautions do you note the firelizard taking when it chews the stone?
3.How much stone did your flitter chew before it was able to produce flame?
4.How much time elapsed between chewing the last bit and producing flame?
5.How large, and how consistent, a flame was produced?
6.How well did your firelizard control the strength and accuracy of its flame?
7.After flaming, what symptoms did you notice that alerted you to the fact that the firelizard needed to regurgitate ash?
8.What did you note about the smell of the ash ... and the firelizard ... after flaming?
As you've no doubt already noticed, there is a good supply of sweetsand in the Weyrling Barracks store room. You're about to find out why we dragonriders prefer sweetsand to other substances to bathe our dragons ... and firelizards ... especially after they've been producing flame.
OOC NOTE: There really aren't "right answers" to the questions, per se. Use your imaginations and have fun. :-)
Those who have weyrling characters without a firelizard, and have no other persona who *has* a flitter, post here and ask for someone to partner with them, to be allowed to observe the "practice session". My Ravyna has no firelizard, but B'kay does, as does Gaylen, so I'll just double-up my characters when I post. :-)
Dragons have a double stomach. One section of the stomach is specifically designed to mix crushed firestone with special acids, allowing the dragon to belch flame. Firestone is a special stone readily available on Pern, which contains a substance called phosphine. It is this phospine which produces the flame when mixed with the chemicals in the dragon's stomach acid.
Stone has to be chewed carefully for obvious reasons. Once the flame has been produced, and the flaming session over, the residue of stone, or ash, left in the dragon's stomach can cause him to feel quite ill ... therefore you must provide a place for your dragon to regurgitate the ash. If not, he'll regurgitate it all over your weyr. As always, it's a rider's responsibility to clean up after his dragon.
You will quickly discover one important fact: Phosphine ash stinks. This is why you'll find that all dragon Weyrs have an ash pit to which riders can take their dragons to regurgitate, and the ash pit is invariably located downwind of the living quarters.
There are firestone pits, which need to be better manned and more stone dug, along Araelen Weyr's southern heights. Syth and I have examined them, and we have a very good supply of rock there ... I plan to request a mining team of the Weyrleaders so that we'll be more than ready to fight when Thread begins to fall. Currently, there is plenty of rubble lying in the area to start on. You can't mistake firestone ... all you have to do to identify it is smell it.
Producing flame takes training practice. We won't be teaching our young dragons to produce flame for some time yet, but your assignment is to study firestone and, if you have a firelizard, encourage your pet to show you how he chews rock and belches flame. If you do not have a flitter, partner with another weyrling who does. Once you've practiced some, please answer the following questions:
1.What do you notice about the particular bits of firestone your firelizard selects to chew? Size? Smoothness? Odor?
2.What cautions do you note the firelizard taking when it chews the stone?
3.How much stone did your flitter chew before it was able to produce flame?
4.How much time elapsed between chewing the last bit and producing flame?
5.How large, and how consistent, a flame was produced?
6.How well did your firelizard control the strength and accuracy of its flame?
7.After flaming, what symptoms did you notice that alerted you to the fact that the firelizard needed to regurgitate ash?
8.What did you note about the smell of the ash ... and the firelizard ... after flaming?
As you've no doubt already noticed, there is a good supply of sweetsand in the Weyrling Barracks store room. You're about to find out why we dragonriders prefer sweetsand to other substances to bathe our dragons ... and firelizards ... especially after they've been producing flame.
OOC NOTE: There really aren't "right answers" to the questions, per se. Use your imaginations and have fun. :-)
Those who have weyrling characters without a firelizard, and have no other persona who *has* a flitter, post here and ask for someone to partner with them, to be allowed to observe the "practice session". My Ravyna has no firelizard, but B'kay does, as does Gaylen, so I'll just double-up my characters when I post. :-)
