Is this sounding suspiciously akin to Orson Scott Card's Ender's Strategy, or is it just me?

Not that it buggers me, don't you think that, it is one hell of a good book. but maybe the war academy constant contest may be something to look upon. What is the difference between what you are intending to write, and what Card wrote is that the main character, even though he is the actual leader of his group, has to manage to remain a loner in Card's novel, whereas he is trying to create bonds in yours. Somehow, in a war context, Card's choice seems the most logical to me. You can only lead your group to death ONLY IF you love your group, and don't love your soldiers individually. Knowing that your friends are about to die probably don't make you feel all the better for sending them to certain death.

Therefore this whole "war academy"+"love binding" thing in your novel seems highly difficult to grasp for me. But again, that may be only because I am stubborn and rational. Love NEVER acts in rational ways. Stories about soldiers of both genders falling in love while at war or during formation must be aplenty. They don't even need to be of different genders, in fact.

And the egg thing is one great idea. Only I would handle it differently, I supose. I gather from what you wrote previously that it takes BOTH genders to get an egg, even if if DOES NOT take both to hatch and mature the baby dragon. So let's assume that, either Lieann IS a female instead of a Beta Male (which would simplify the coming of an egg in the story), or that Lieann is SO obsessed by the fact of getting an egg that he's prepared to lie to everyone. I don't know how the physical contact goes for your dragons, but I suppose that, at one point, Ravennin MUST be aware that Lieann is NOT a girl, right? He can't just pretend it poses him no problem to see a male hatch...

From this first assumption, to the second: If Lieann IS male and Ravennin KNOWS about that, either they were planning to have babies log before they even tried to have sex, in which Ravennin discovers Lieann to be a male, which would explain why Ravennin accepts so readily the egg, but NOT why the others do, or maybe, second option, which I think is just the best for you:

Lieann fled from his original group with the egg of someone else, just in time to meet the others, before their "gang of four" forms. The desire to be a "mother" was so strong in his Beta brain that he stole the egg and fled with it. (Maybe a mental disorder?) Later the love between him and Ravennin develops, and Lieann introduces Ravennin to his new responsibility(egg). Note that this can only be posible if physical differentiation between a female and a beta male is difficult enough for Liean to stand the part. The logical explanation of all this is that Lieann did not tell Ravennin that he was male, and that love sprang al the same between them. Only at the moment to have sex does he discover that "she" is a "he", which should logically rebuke him for quite a while, and bring your group almost to dissolution, since internal communication should be not only limited, but also agressive. Then only Ravennin understands his love and his position as Dominion, accepts to share this egg with another male he loves, and use all the resources his group can provide to hatch it.

If Lieann is male enough for it to be visually evident, or any other sense you wish to make it plain to, then the egg problem becomes another problem.

If the goal of the "contest" is to come out of it with a youngling, then four males can only do so by stealing an egg. There is no other way. Why four males would want to win the contest knowing that there is no way for them to survive after that as a group is a mystery. Maybe stealing other eggs or destroying them is a normal part of the contest, because it is a normal part of the dragon's life cycle? Maybe it is good for gene mixing? Therefore all males tribes could survive, and all females (amazones) ones would too? Dunno. seems suspicious to me. But maybe Lieann's strategic abilities precisely lie in always knowing how to get that egg?

What about that? Every group that is sent in Academy's contest goes in with ONE egg. The winning group, the one which is to become a Clan, is to come out with ALL the younglings hatched and most of the discarded shells, in proof of his personal hatching. This way, even the most unusual groups can be accepted as fit to survive. And this group of four IS very unusual. But how many groups and eggs should there be to make it acceptable? How many members should the original groups be composed of?

On a second thought, this will probably NOT be interesting for you, since you are NOT interested in showing the fights, but more the linking of the group...

Damn! I wish I could make it easier for you...

Don't feel bad, you're helping more than anyone else is. I find it really interesting to look at my characters and worldbuilding from your perspective - while it's not the solution to my problems, it does provide me with surprising different ways of considering things which may inspire me to come up with my own solution. :)

For example, I read your post late last night, and was laying in bed thinking about the dilemma of getting an egg when none of the characters are female, and I came up with the crazy 4am thought, "Wouldn't it be convenient if instead of a female they could just get the territory they're trying to win pregnant? That would be more dramatic too, because it would combine the too separate goals into one big one..." Then I blinked and realized this made no sense. BUT! It reminded me of _HeartMate_, a fantasy romance novel where there are magical clans, each with their own territory (a manor house), and the magical 'heart' of the territory is a room called the HouseHeart which is magically attuned to the essence of the clan. Being in this room makes clan members relax and heal faster, and is where children would be hidden if the house were attacked or there was a tornador or blizzard or something.

So when applied to my worldbuilding, a room like this would logically be the nesting room, where the clan's future would be nurtured. (Also reminds me of Anne McCaffrey's dragon hatching grounds, the most 'magical' place in her sci-fi setting and such a powerful archetype that teens write fanfiction set there every year despite the threats of McCaffrey's lawyers.) Anyway, this nesting room, being associated with nurturing and healing, would logically go with the character Attranath. Not Lieann, who is much more an advisor-to-the-king type than a mother type. So maybe Attranath's role in act 3 would be to use his loyalty/faith to create/magically attune this nesting room to the essence of the clan, and possibly protect an egg there. Lieann, OTOH, should be earning his fame and respect for his strategic abilities by being a visible, taunting figure to the clan's political opponents, orchestrating these opponents' sneaky crushing defeat.

That still doesn't answer the question of where the heck they can get an egg from. Ravennin has a big sister, so they could get one of her eggs, but that wouldn't really be satisfying. The point, psychologically, of ending a romance with a baby is to show that the pair of lovers who have chosen each other and struggled against lots of opposition to be together becoming unified genetically in the child, and perpetuating their family into the future through that child. So really there ought to be at least two eggs, one for Merru and Lieann, and one for Ravennin and Attranath, so even making Lieann female (which I wouldn't do because it would make the first two acts of the plot come unravelled) wouldn't solve the problem; I'd have to make Lieann AND Attranath female, which is not at all what I want to do.

But, that's the neat thing about writing science fiction and fantasy - with the right bit of technology or magic, the impossible becomes possible. (And I still haven't decided whether this is going to be a fantasy story or a science fiction story. :/ ) In fantasy, one of the underlying principles of magic seems to be that if the characters want something badly enough or believe in it faithfully enough, they will magically get what they want. So perhaps the eggs could be magically created, although it would have to be handled carefully to not seem contrived. In science fiction, OTOH, the moral is more that human ingenuity can make astonishing things happen. So perhaps Lieann and Merru could do a little research and creatively twist some existing piece of technology to be able to create an egg from two males' DNA. Somehow that doesn't seem as dramatic as doing it magically... :/

It occurrs to me that if I really want spaceships and computers but everything else works better as fantasy, I could always have magic spaceships and computers like in Melissa Scott's _The Roads of Heaven_. Feels kind of like cheating though. Hmm...

I know this is not exactly what was planned in the beginning, but...

Is there any reason that your dragon eggs have to be made the "natural" way? I mean, Dragons, usually, are highly magical creatures. Let's suppose thgat Ravennin is still a highly powerful mage, although he did not knew it from the beginning of the story, kind of like when I was supposing a duel of totems, remember? Well, now, what if the Egg Hatching was a magical process of bonding two OR MORE people's will and body into something new and different?

Let's take this as a premise. It sounds promising so far, although not much has been written.

Let's say that the "clans" are competting to show their "eggs" to the judges or referees. The egg can be anything, it doesn't even have to be something alive. But in the end, those that can create life from this "egg" bonding spell are those that are the most likely to act as a family, right? This is exactly like having a baby, but without the sexual intercourse, because everything happens in the mind. Convenient, eh? for a group of men...

Anyway.

Let's say that the OTHER groups have their own shaman, or whatever you choose to call them, and each discards one or more member in order to create the "most perfect" egg they can get, out of the mind and bodies of the remaining members. Our four characters now have a reason to get together. They are still hoping to get into a clan. Plus the adaptability becomes a premium quality. But adaptability can only be outcast from a group that does not care about it, but will rather focus on size, or strength, or speed, or any physical attribute, because it is a mind thing.

Maybe love is the only element that can create a living totemic egg? Maybe by being in love, they can create life during this bonding process, and create a totemic representation of the clan that is alive? Maybe this is uncanny, because it doesn't happen often, and again, when it does, only when some element that does NOT belong to this group gets thrown into the milkshake?

Honestly, I think you've got something to dig, there, but I can't find my words right.

Something hit me like lightning!!

All the others are striving for physical attributes!! That must mean something in terms of physical opposition, right? I mean, maybe this is just a way to get back to the spiritual duels, right? Then, what if THIS group could create a "tamer" totem? Kind of like the "virgin", in that "Virgin and the Unicorn" tapestry? They will be so loving that no totem will be willing to attack them, but the most hatred-filled, and then the other totems that have been tamed will come around helping? Maybe this contest of wills and totems is the regular way of choosing the "king" or whatever supreme authority there is? Then they would win this authority and officialy become one in the eyes of the others, because of love and compassion, not because of physical attributes?

Bit of a sissy, right? Bah, was worth trying something...

Ooh, the dragons' eggs are usually created by magic? Interesting! Although, why have males and females and prejudice against homosexuality then? Or did you mean that the dragons normally unite several individuals to magically create something, and in the case of this particular group of characters they create an egg, a child of them all? That's a neat idea too. Maybe they are trying to magically create something else but accidently create the egg instead at the beginning of act three, then have to carry it around/hide it/keep it warm/defend it until the climax, when it hatches?

Oooh, that has lots of potential! ^_^ I'm going to contemplate all the possibilities of this and see what else I can come up with. Like, how does this fit in with the idea of Attranath magically establishing a room as the heart of their clan? How would a normal clan of dragons with some female members establish a new clan/create an egg? How are the egg and the clan heart room related to forcing society to overcome its prejudice and accept the 4 characters as a family?

What I had in mind at the moment I wrote my preceding post is that Dragons mate just like every other species in the universe. And what is supposed to be achieved in this contest is that the groups are forming and changing themselves in order to create the most powerful defensive totem they can get. Usually, Having an egg happens just the normal way of having something big coming out of your a$$hole, which is by no mean an easy feat when said thing is about 1/7th of your own weight...

Then every groups recruits and casts away members almost continually until satisfied with their totem, and the groups is more or less static from then on. I suppose that what they have to do then is endure and survive for a while with their totem protects them from wild life? Anyway, maybe there is an old legend about an "immaculate conception", a dragon "born from the mind and souls of his parents" which will free them all? I don't even know if there is anything to free them from, to begin with, but it sounds so much like JC's conception... Maybe this dragon will hatch and become tha Tamer every dragon has been waiting for? The very dragon that will not only copy but absorb every totem it will meet, modifying the draconic society, by leaving every other group defenseless, and becoming always stronger? It will force each family to come closer and form one much bigger group? Maybe it will help exosexuality, by making sexual intercourse with dragons of other groups more easily accessible? Maybe the dragons as a race are dying from genetic exhaustion, because they are specifying too much when creating their totems? Maybe these four are the only ones to have formed a group after being outcast?

As for Attranath forming that special room, maybe this is where I am lost. Maybe that heart of the clan as a romm can only be made by a female, because through magic she hides everybody in her womb, but this time there is nowhere to hide, and Attranath has to make do with what he has, that is his brain, and create traps and hidden passages and such? Maybe because there won't be anyone to heat the egg while hunting or protecting it while away, his whole challenge will be to create a fire in which the egg will be laid to hatch, but that fire must not be seen by anyone, be it dragon or animal, in order to conceal their position?

New idea. Maybe this egg is a sort of Rimpoche? A religious man that will have memories of his previous life just after hatching? Maybe he has memories of EVERY dragon? Maybe these specualtions are precisely what is holding the group together and tearing it appart? Maybe one of them will simply not buy the legend and pretend it's something else, putting them all in danger?

Uh, let's forget the totems idea. But some of these other ideas have potential.

Quote:

Original post by Fournicolas Maybe it will help exosexuality, by making sexual intercourse with dragons of other groups more easily accessible? Maybe the dragons as a race are dying from genetic exhaustion, because they are specifying too much when creating their totems? Maybe these four are the only ones to have formed a group after being outcast?

I do want it to be a bit shocking that these outcasts have formed a group and are attempting to compete against the famous/noble young dragons who make up the other teams trying to create the new clan. I think it might be interesting to have an older brother or cousin of one of the characters on an opposing team.

Genetic exhaustion is also an interesting idea. Did I tell you about the dragons' mythology? The dragons have this mythology that originally life was created when a god, a feathered serpent containing every animal trait, decided to rest by cutting itself into parts, each of which became an animal, which founded a clan of its species. So there were 12 clans of different types of animals (Llyon, Tyger, Dogge, Foxxe, Coon, Coney, Nyghtengayle, etc.) each of which had a strength and some weaknesses, and they kept to themselves and didn't talk to each other much. But then a young male Llyon fell in love with a beautiful female Nyghtengayle - but she wasn't interested in him because each kind of animals married only its own kind. The Coon, master of trickery, advised the Llyon to disguise himself as a Nyghtengayle warrior - but Llyon's disguise came off and he got caught. He tried bringing her his kill to impress her with his hunting prowess, but what a female Llyon would have liked was not pleasing to a female Nyghtengayle. He tried singing like a male Nyghtengayle, but he didn't have a very good voice.

But, the female Nyghtengayle was impressed by his persistance and passion, and eventually she agreed to elope with him. Their child was a Griffin, and closer to being godlike because it had 2/12s of the parts that made up god, not just one. In different ways, misfits from each of the animals clans joined this new clan and interbred, and the result was a clan of dragons, where each individual had a different strength based on which of the original 12 species he was most similar to (his soulbreed or totem) and the different strengths of the clan members worked together to make civilization. Their end of the world myth is that someday all of gods bits will be reunited into a new feathered serpent, who will leave the planet and return to swimming among the stars.

So since they have this myth of breeding themselves into being a god, maybe you can see how this combines interestingly with the idea that their breeding practices have gotten them backed into a corner genetically (or perhaps magically). :)

Quote:

As for Attranath forming that special room, maybe this is where I am lost. Maybe that heart of the clan as a room can only be made by a female, because through magic she hides everybody in her womb, but this time there is nowhere to hide, and Attranath has to make do with what he has, that is his brain, and create traps and hidden passages and such?

Lieann is brain and traps, Attranath is heart. But other than that, this is a great idea - it's normally a female's job but they don't have a female, so Attranath has to do it. Maybe the desire in Attranath's heart to give his love Ravennin a clan and a child was so strong that when they were attempting some magic as a group this wish sidetracked it and they got an egg instead. That would fit nicely with the theme of 'alarming accidents turning out to be lucky' in the first 2/3s of the book, like Merru's accidentally becoming a construct.

Quote:

Maybe because there won't be anyone to heat the egg while hunting or protecting it while away, his whole challenge will be to create a fire in which the egg will be laid to hatch, but that fire must not be seen by anyone, be it dragon or animal, in order to conceal their position?

That's a neat idea, but I don't think it will fit. I'd rather have Attranath himself be the 'fire', and I want the others to hunt for him and protect him while he incubates the egg, or something like that. That would be good because it would show him taking the female role, and the others acting like husbands or perhaps a sister-mate if they took a turn at incubating the egg while he took a break.

Quote:

New idea. Maybe this egg is a sort of Rimpoche? A religious man that will have memories of his previous life just after hatching? Maybe he has memories of EVERY dragon? Maybe these specualtions are precisely what is holding the group together and tearing it appart? Maybe one of them will simply not buy the legend and pretend it's something else, putting them all in danger?

No, I want the child to really be a child (or 2 children) who unites the best qualities of its parents. Perhaps I could write a sequel about the child growing up and joining a clan.

I think what we need to focus on is that the climax is society changing to be more accepting and open to new ideas. How specifically might society/the draconic race change, and how can the 4 characters' actions be the cause of this change?

I am not sure I can tell YOU how dragon's society is going to cha nge afterwards, because I don't know much of dragon's society for a start. For the moment, I'll simply try to gather what I already know of it, by what you've told so far.

They are behaving in a "large multi-parental cells" kind of society, that is probably subject to a sort of loose hierarchy.
They tend to be "civilized", that is they try to avoid as much as possible physical violence.
They hatch eggs.
They have a special room for each clan where you can retire in times of danger.
They have a sort of contest to define how new clans can be formed.
They have a quasi-religious belief about their evolution that, someday, they will return to space, or that their breed will disolve into nothingness while their essence flees them.

So far, I still lack the knowledge of why this contest is taking place, and how the outcome comes to be known as clearly defined.

I don't know how the actions of the four can modify the perception of society, because I don't know how society is perceiving itself on the whole.

Maybe the fact that outcasts from the "trial" band together is utterly dangerous because that would wreck the stability of having twelve still defined clans, even if interclan sexual mixing came after their primary defining. This would cause the creation of a thirteenth clan, which would already endanger their conception of society?

Maybe the magical creation of an egg, instead of the natural way of doing things, is seen as both a betrayal of their physical heritage, and a possibility to escape their genetic doom?

Maybe homosexual relations had been already normalized, even if dispised, but the fact that four males happen to create life for themselves, thus establishing themselves as a life-bearing clan, is going too far beyong the borders of normality?

Sorry I can't help you further, but this is more down your alley than mine...

Quote:

Original post by Fournicolas I am not sure I can tell YOU how dragon's society is going to cha nge afterwards, because I don't know much of dragon's society for a start. For the moment, I'll simply try to gather what I already know of it, by what you've told so far. They are behaving in a "large multi-parental cells" kind of society, that is probably subject to a sort of loose hierarchy. They tend to be "civilized", that is they try to avoid as much as possible physical violence. They hatch eggs. They have a special room for each clan where you can retire in times of danger. They have a sort of contest to define how new clans can be formed. They have a quasi-religious belief about their evolution that, someday, they will return to space, or that their breed will disolve into nothingness while their essence flees them.

Well, I can certainly describe their society more. The above is a pretty good start, let me see what I can add.

Some clans are more noble/rich/powerful than other clans, and among these there are often political arranged marriages.

Dragons are territorial (have scent glands), and this territoriality has gotten weaker over the generations to work with a civilization where they are living much closer together then their primitive ancestors did - instead of several square miles of territory, an alpha male clan leader would now only mark his nest and the gate of his house if he owns the whole house, or the doorway of his room if he only has a room. The leader of a clan will scent-mark his subordinates. Every individual's scent will naturally get on their nest, clothes, and anyone they touch, especially a lover. It's hard to hide affairs unless you take a shower afterwards to scrub the other person's scent off.

Female and beta male dragons also go through heat cycles, during which their scent is much stronger and more alluring, such that alpha males have trouble not jumping on someone in heat. They also collect this scent and use it to make aphrodesiac drinks called muskfroth, which are color-coded by whether they contain male or female musk. Ravennin, being hyperterritorial, has a sensitive nose and is thus good at hunting and particularly strongly affected by muskfroth and heat-scent. Merru OTOH is 'nose-blind' - as is normal for a human, he can't distinguish individuals by their scent or track game by its scent, and he is unaffected by muskfroth and heat-scent.

They treat the idea of soulbreeds/totems the same way we treat astrological signs - as an indicator of personality type. A common pick-up line would be to ask another dragon what their soulbreed is. There is a minor taboo against marrying someone who has the same soulbreed as you do (The supersition is that, for example, too many Tyger parents might result in a child who is LITERALLY a Tyger). But this is not much of a problem because males usually take their totems from one set, while females usually take theirs from a different set. Clan leaders are supposed to have the Llyon as their totem - Ravennin is a Tyger, a minor strike against him being considered a good leadership candidate. It is very fashionable to wear a cape of your totem animal's skin, especially if you hunted it yourself or if it was given to you as a gift (you're not supposed to buy them.) A common way to amuse children is to make origamis of the totem animals and give them to the children to play with like dolls.

The dragons have holidays - perhaps where everyone must wear a masquerade costume and it is taboo to say any names, one where there is a big faire/festival with dancing, where dragons give flower necklaces or crowns to other dragons they like, and maybe one like valentine's day.

Alpha males are regarded as dangerous to small children because they are so much bigger and stronger - an unrelated alpha male is not supposed to play with children younger than about 6 years old or go anywhere near a nesting female, and even the child's father would not usually be left alone with a baby. Thus making it doubly odd that a clan of all males would try to hatch and raise a child. A gesture of affection from a husband to a wife would be for him to lay curled around her in the same pose a female would use to lay curled around an egg.

Quote:

I don't know how the actions of the four can modify the perception of society, because I don't know how society is perceiving itself on the whole.

Society views itself as protective and admirable. Think of a European noble family proud of its heritage and traditions, especially its land, antiques, heraldry, and the honor of their family name. The primary duty of society is to protect children and family honor. So society is afraid of new and different stuff because it might threaten these things.

Maybe 16th and 17th century Spain may be a good start to evolve it from? Or same period Italy? I am thinking about Florence and Venise, where grandiose bals were held, in the name of the family, which purpose was to display the riches of the family, but which sprouted a number of duels around it, for honor purposes, mainly. The trouble with honor is that it often demands blood, which won't easily fit within the boirders of a society trying as much as possible to avoid physical violence. A reason for this would be that Alpha Males, those more prompt to physical violence, and which are held most dangerous physically, are INDEED VERY dangerous, and would probably wreck havok as soon as they went berserk on another Alpha. Perhaps this is a remnant of their former "animal" past?

It would be fun to imagine two duelists with smoke rising from their neck, nose and mouth, because their body temperature has risen far beyond the normal, and that the origin of the fire breathing dragon image was this physiological effect, for protection of dwelling? Maybe in the beginning it was just a protective fluke, like ruffling the feathers or the tail of a cat, but it was more dangerous to both atacker and defender?

So now, knowing what kind of outcome a direct opposition between two alphas would have, the society policed itself into almost 14th Century Japan, where everybody tried as hard as possible not to step on anybody else's feet. And to regulate the population on such a tiny island, rigid honor has been invented. So the most likely reason for rigorous honor to be invented in this kind of society is extreme promiscuity. Maybe they have been living on a small archipel, like Japan, or if they have been living on a large continent, then a betterment of living conditions resulted in an increase of natality, which in turn resulted in promiscuity. Anyway you choose, if you want to have honor pushed to extreme, it would be best to leave territoriality to a souvenir. Or else, I misunderstood your words, and extrapolated too far. Maybe Honor in the European Medieval sense? But that was more of a hollow word, then. You would as soon kick a peasant to death for eyeballing you as you would lie down in flattery in order to avoid being kicked to death by another powerful lord who suspected you to cheat on him with his wife. Or the other way around, possibly... Honor was a reason to fight someone else to grab his territories and possessions. But I suspect this is not the case here. Maybe you meant pride of heritage? But the same would come out of it. You could easily fell insulted as someone made a remark about your past or ancestors, and you would end up fighting the other one. Difficult in a society which avoids as much as possible physical violence...

But I would like you to expand on "Some clans are more noble/rich/powerful than other clans, and among these there are often political arranged marriages." What does wealth consist in? Is it land, which would fit with the territoriality animal concept? Is it money? In this case, a new kind of clans would soon evolve: the merchants, and they would also get some power very soon. But then what is the currency, how is it harvested, what is its primary use, how rare is it? Is it seashells? A rare metal? A sort of crop? Some sort of hunting trophie, like teeth or claws? Is it something else, like possession of some other type? Some purity of blood that is not left to other clans, like those closer to the original clans by bloodline? The less mixed? the MORE mixed, maybe? But this one would be difficult to determine.

And I am dreaming about a Nyghtengayle cape... What would it be like?

As for the scents, I suspect that Ravennin is a throwback of evolution while Merru is way beyond the scope of it. Neither of them belongs to his time. Ravennin must feel aggressed and aggressive in a building, because of all the scents he must sniff in it, whereas Merru could be locked in an elevator with a dozen of females in heat without even raising an eyebrow or breaking a sweat. I am just wondering how you can compile this kind of "20th century society" with such a trial undergone in the middle of nature. But once again, maybe the Nature part is just in my head, and everything happens in a building. Which would ask the question of WHERE do they gather, those four outcasts? In the basement? On the roof? Nowhere in the building would they be safe, since the rest of the population would try to destroy them, for simply BEINT, which would be outrageous.

As for Honor and Homosexuality being mixed, maybe you want to atone this a notch, or maybe raise it, and make it SO outrageous that you cannot even mention the fact that you're a beta, or that you know of a beta. Which would be the reason of their group being so dangerous to society as a whole, or anything equally perverse and unhonorable. Maybe in higher circles Alpha like to have homosexual relations, as a fashionable behavior, like in Ancient Greece?

That's all for now, I'll try to add some more latre in the day, after my daughter's been sent to bed... Cheers!!

Oh, you have a daughter? Cool. :) Little kids are one of the things I miss most, living a hermit's life in my apartment the way I do. (Probably that would be obvious if somebody psychoanalyzed my choice of what to write about - romance, family, eggs... lol.) I'll be happy when I get to see my little brother (13 years younger than me) next month. Hmm, maybe I can talk him into playing DDR with me...

Anyway, back on topic. The answers to many of these questions depend on whether we went with the fantasy version of the story or the science fiction version of the story. So let me answer the ones that don't depend on that first.

- Nyghtengayle Cape: All of these totemic capes are made from one whole skin of that animal, unless the animal is too small, in which case a few are stitched together. The cape is generally worn with the animal's forelegs(if any) going forward over the shoulders to meet in the center of the chest, usually held together with a clasp made from the animal's head or a jewelry clasp made in the shape of the animal's head, and the body, hind legs(if any) and tail (if any) making the back of the cape. The Nyghtengayle, being a large winged snake, is a bit different. It is worn with one wing forming each edge of the back of the cape (from the dragon's shoulder to ankle). Between the two wings could be one large snakeskin (about 2' wide), or two or three smaller ones stitched together. The shoulder pieces would be made of narrower sections of skin from the tail, and the clasp wouls be made from the animal's head including its feathered crest.

A totemic cape is very impressive looking, and they are mostly worn at parties or political meetings by an alpha male wanting to show off his hunting prowess, or a female wanting to show off her mate's hunting prowess. Their advantage and disadvantage as clothing is that they immediately reveal the wearer's personality type. This can be good or bad depending on the dragon's personality - some personalities are considered more attractive, and some are weaker to intimidation, manipulation, or other politicking.

- It is obvious at a glance and from birth if a dragon is a beta male, so there would be no possibility of keeping it a secret, with the exception that it might be possible for a beta male to go in drag as a beta female (or an alpha male to go in drag as an alpha female, I suppose). But an alpha and a beta would never be mistaken for each other - alphas look like football players, while betas look like ballerinas. (Is there a word for male ballerinas? o.O )

- It is not currently fashionable anywhere in the story setting for alpha males to be homosexual. (Possibly bisexuality could have been fashionable in the past, it might even have been normal for a clan leader to sexually dominate his subordinate husbands as well as his wives. But being exclusively homosexual would never have been popular because social power is too tied up with authority and family.) Beta males are expected to be homosexual, and are regarded as being like Sirens, dangerously tempting alpha males to ruin. So alpha males would normally ignore or mildly bully beta males, and it would be considered suspicious for an alpha male to be friends with a beta male. Most alpha males would be embarassed and angry to be related to any beta males.

- The main thing that determines the relative nobility/power of a clan would depend on whether we were going with the scifi or the fantasy version.

- - In the fantasy version, it is the territory that the clan holds. Most territories are mostly self-sufficient - around the clan's house they have some hunting grounds (for leather as well as meat), a forest (which supplies lumber, fruit, and nuts), and a water source, which are the things needed to keep a clan fed and clothed. Many territories often have some extra resource/industry which the clan exports in trade for anything they lack or luxuries. Some examples: a clay deposit and a ceramic kiln, sand and a glass kiln, a metal mine and a smithy, a secret recipie for brewing an alchol or making a dye or weaving a fabric, etc.

- - In the scifi version, a clan functions more like a small company or a military troop - a group of people which can be assigned a responsibility and will then semi-autonomusly carry it out. In this case the actual territory of the clan might be a spaceship or an apartment, and only the highest-ranking clans would have generations-old manor houses. These high-ranking clans would generally be governmental executives, like royalty or a family that owned a corporation - instead of laboring directly to produce something, they would manage and administrate the smaller clans.

In both cases, a territory that has been prosperous over many generations will have invested the income in building a stronger, grander clan house, and can afford to support more co-husbands, wives, and children, or to temporarily hire laborers or soldiers when needed. Co-husbands are necessary for political power, because one or two males can stay to guard and hunt for the family while one is sent off on political missions to nearby territories. (A side note - beta females are generally considered more attractive than alpha females, and there aren't many beta females, so almost all of them end up married into noble clans.) Political alliances are made with neighboring territories through trade pacts and alliance marriages. (So the alpha male children of beta females are marrying other beta females, and this is how beta males are born, and why almost all beta males are of noble blood.)

There are also special territories - if there is a military academy, it would be one of these. Rather than being self-sufficient, the academy would charge tuition to feed, house, and train the students. One of my early ideas was that the main characters would acquire not just any territory, but the military academy territory itself, which would give them control over the education of the next generation, and they could open the school to females and beta males instead of just alpha males, and cause the society to become more accepting and open-minded that way. But that seemed somewhat impractical and slow.

- The clan's honor would be its reputation - it's desireability as a trade partner or a family to marry into (or a school to attend). Accusations of homosexuality would be a strong insult to a clan's honor because if the clan's blood is 'tainted' with that trait, who would want to marry into it? Similarly, hyperterritoriality or the birth of a beta male can be considered 'taints' in a clan's blood. Being a submissive is different - every alpha male is supposed to want to be a clan leader, but many have to settle for being subordinate husbands. Preferring to be a subordinate is one of those things that can be politically convenient for the submissive's family, but is considered a quirk, not a virtue, in the submissive himself. The polite dragon reaction to unacceptable things is to not talk about them, and to unacceptable people is to avoid socializing with them. If, for example, an alpha male had a brother who was a beta male, his enemies would taunt him with this fact while his male friends wouldn't mention it, and would probably pretend the beta male brother didn't exist if they visited the alpha male's house. A girlfirend OTOH would reassure the alpha male that she didn't care that his brother was a beta, and might even make friends with the beta male, treating him like a sister-in-law.

- I don't think it really matters much what the currency is, since either way it would be something abstract and controlled by a royal or governmental mint. In the fantasy version it would probably be discs of metal or bone marked with symbols (like coins), while in the scifi version it would be credit on credit cards.



Hmm, what else... you are definitely right that Ravennin is a throwback while Merru is ahead of his time. Ravenning like hunting and the outdoors but is stressed out by being around too many people, while Merru likes parties and shopping downtown, but hates being alone and would get lost in the woods. :)

Beta dragons could be considered either biological throwbacks to when their wings were less vestigial and they had more feathers and lighter bodies for flying, or the path that the dragon species is going to take in the future now that they are moving away from hand-to-hand combat between alpha males over territory, and more toward living close togetherin civilization where beauty and brains are better for surviving and attracting mates than size and strength.