Fort Weyr

The most important thing for you to keep in mind is that flights are a spectator event, and something done for the enjoyment of the RP. They are NOT a private contest. Flights are a group “show” put on by the participating riders and “directed” by the female rider. Please feel free to ask any questions about any aspect of the mating flight process.

Throughout this lecture We’ll be using ‘he’ and ‘him’ to refer to male dragons and their riders, and ‘she’ and ‘her’ to refer to female dragons and their riders.

1. Scheduling and Frequencies
2. Advertising
3. Male Participation
4. Proddiness
5. Flight Generalities

• Channels
• Blooding
• Launching/Room Numbers
• In Weyr
• Control
• Poses and Catching

6. Flight dos and don’ts
7. Advice to Maleriders
8. TinySex and Flights
9. Recap and Credits

Scheduling and Frequencies of Flights
Mature greens can rise every 4-6 RL weeks at maximum. These flights should be scheduled in advance if possible and can be advertised on +events. Spontaneous flights can be fun, but please: do not assume that just because there are maleriders logged in, that they are up for the intensity of flight RP.

Greenriders are also encouraged to hold ‘off-camera’ flights if they so wish. With the number of NPC greens in a weyr, and the fact that greens rise ICly every 3 months or so, there is usually a greenflight every other day. Off camera flights help make this more realistic, and also give ‘schedule space’ for those riders who want to RP the flight, but can’t seem to find the time to do so.

Advertising of Flights
Riders of female dragons may “advertise” in advance through their @doings, and through their RP of proddiness around the Weyr and on the DTU. Letting male riders know about your flight is a good idea, so that they’re aware and can try and attend. Some riders I know send out +mail to those riders they’re particularly interested in having attend, or ask for good days and times. If a greenrider sends you a +mail, please please PLEASE reply to her. There’s nothing quite as discouraging as scheduling a flight, and having NO ONE show up.

Female riders, try to schedule your flights around other flights, and other events on the game. You can use the DTU to talk with other greens and make these scheduling decisions, or look at the flight board and see when other riders are having theirs. When flights are staggered by day and time, you can expect much better attendance from males.

Male Participation
Males are expected to participate in as many flights as they are comfortable with. Female riders feel pretty crummy if they have a flight and no one shows up. Bronzes are expected to participate in gold flights if they can, and green flights if they wish to. Speaking from a personal point of view, I encourage you to attend a green’s first flight, if you can swing it. The rider is most likely going to be nervous and having a few friends around (who are interested in RPing!) can help calm nerves quite a bit. The female riders may wish to have another green/gold rider there to ‘hold your hand’, to help answer questions or help make decisions.

Proddiness
A word about ‘proddy’ RP. Well, three words: DON’T GET CRAZY.

Proddiness is nothing more than a hormonal surge, and the hormones of your lifemate, at that. Have fun, sure, but try not to go overboard. Lunatic proddiness RP is not very IC, or fun for the other people who have to suffer through it. While J’nab in the books attacked F’nor while proddy, not all greenriders (or goldriders) should respond that way. Pick the way(s) that is/are most IC for your character, and play your character as you see fit.

However: if you are going to go the bloodthirsty route, please contact your wingleader and the weyrleaders beforehand. Attacks with knives or fists will not be tolerated ICly. You must also page the other player you wish to ‘attack’ and gain their permission beforehand. In other words: this is not a spontaneous thing. While the weyrleaders won’t stand in the way of a good plot, this sort of thing must be thought out because it does have long reaching IC consequences.

Greens will rarely be proddy for more than an IC day or three, golds may be proddy up to an IC week. However, with the time compression the game is on, that means greenriders don’t get to be proddy for long – less than a RL day. So frequently a bit of hand-waving is done, and we ignore the compression. Ergo a green with a flight on Friday could start playing proddy on Wednesday, and a gold with a flight on Saturday could start being proddy at the beginning of that week.

Flight Generalities
CHANNELS:
When it comes to the actual day of the flight, the female will usually RP a bit, and ICly and/or OOCly invite interested males to her Weyr for the flight. After any initial DTU RP, the flight discussion should be moved to the DTU channel ‘flight’. The female rider should remind the male riders to get on that channel. As a reminder, ‘dtu channels’ lists all channels, and ‘dtu hear +flight’ will add the flight channel.

If NPC dragons are attending, you will need to page them the same information you give out on the flights channel. We leave it up to the individual female riders as to whether or not they would like NPCs to participate. It’s up to the greenrider to coordinate with players who are NPCing whether or not to hold the flight on the ground or to make sure that an object that can pass the skylock, such as a firelizard will need to be used to participate.

BLOODING:
Once the cast is assembled, the show may start in the feeding grounds. If the rider running the flight wants to have blooding, generally, the males will sense the female’s readiness and begin to blood first; the female joins them a few poses later. Female riders: be sure to clue the males in on when to start blooding. This can be done over the DTU and the ‘FLT’ channel, or via page to get one person to start it off.

Dragons move to the feeding grounds and RP blooding; these poses can get fairly graphic, but don’t have to be gruesome if you don’t want them to be. The riders usually gather somewhere outside, though somewhere indoors can work too, just be mindful that not everyone may want to be involved in the effects of the flight and may have other RP going on so retreating to the Guest Weyr quickly is generally a good idea. Blooding rounds are controlled/directed by the rider of the female dragon. Gold/greenriders: be sure to tell your chasers which blooding pose is your last and don’t forget to page people running NPCs. EX: <=flt Okay guys, after this last blooding pose, Greenieth will launch up into the sky.>

LAUNCHING/ROOM NUMBERS:
Any of the lower skyrooms will forward flight messages to the ground so that flights can be watched. The weyrleaders would like to encourage you to use the sky room immediately up from the feeding grounds for all flight roleplay. Dragons can and do range outside the weyr during flights, and that is at the discretion of the female rider. Just follow her lead and ‘pretend’. This way, riders unfamiliar with our sky rooms aren’t lost all over the weyr.

Give your NPCers the numbers below to make things easier for them. It’s entirely up to you whether or not you want to have the flights in the topmost sky room and +watchable.

Southern Bowl: #675 (easiest way to reach the feeding grounds)
Above the Bowl: Sky room directly above the Bowl, emits to the entire bowl floor. Go ‘u’ from any bowl room.

IN WEYR:
Once the dragons take to the air, the riders move into one of the ground weyrs. You can either use the rider’s weyr,(many people just like to handwave how they got there and use the @tel command) or a guest weyr. The guest weyr is located right off the southern bowl (#675). Female riders, remember that some of the males attending may not be familiar with your Weyr. Pro or page directions to the ground weyr.

There are a couple of OOC reasons for the riders to move to the weyr, as well. One is that it cuts down on spam, as you’re usually receiving everything through your dragon, as well as seeing it yourself. The other is that almost inevitably, someone makes a goof during the flight, for instance posing oneself blooding, instead of the dragon. This happens all the time, so don’t let it ruin your enjoyment of the flight if it happens to you, and don’t harass someone else if they make a mistake. There’s a saying: it’s not a real flight unless someone mavs.

Once you’re into the private weyr, some females like to switch to a low-key, casual OOCness. Others like to RP intensely in the ground weyr as well. Some may also choose to run the entire flight, combining weyr and sky poses within the guest weyr to allow maximum participation. Male riders, watch the greenrider for signs. Female riders, make sure you make your wishes clear, either through posing, or paging, or talking out loud. This is often best done during pre-flight information.

CONTROL:
During the entire flight, from pre-blooding to post-catch, the female rider is in control. With this control comes the responsibility of communicating with the male riders. She can bar certain males from the flight, can determine if she would like a male to drop out of the flight, and will decide who wins the flight. The female rider controls the atmosphere in the inner weyr as well.

Male riders, please be aware that if the greenrider asks you to stop a certain line of RP, you are expected to do so. If you try poses, and they aren’t getting a response, you might also want to cool it. If the female rider likes what you’re doing, she’ll respond.

If a female rider indicates that she does not like the tone that your RP is taking, KNOCK IT OFF. No questions asked. Things can get really fun in the ground weyr if people RP, but it may be that the female rider has lag, or line noise or just a headache, and doesn’t want to deal with it. Also, if you are going to RP something unusual, no matter how IC it might seem, please do clear it with the female rider first. She may not want to deal with her flight being the catalyst for your dragon breaking his neck and you becoming dragonless. Or maybe she will. But /ASK/.

On that note: If you plan on injuring your male dragon during the flight, even if it’s a slight wingstrain, etc, you MUST clear it with the female rider before hand. Period. End of story. If you plan on something having extreme consequences (long term grounding, etc) you must also clear it with your Wingleader and the Weyrleaders. Again: the administration doesn’t want to step on anyone’s plots, but if you have a string of these in a row because everyone wanted to do it, and there was no coordination between folks, it could easily turn into an angsty mess.

Males, the decision on the winner is -entirely- up to the female rider. It is NOT your place to make that decision for him or her. Posing grabs instead of attempts is a perfectly legitimate reason for females to start barring you from flights, and will likely not see you catching many dragons, either.

POSES/CATCHING:
Everyone involved should be as detailed as possible with their dragon poses so that all involved can try and visualize what’s going on and which dragon is where. However, the female rider has the option of setting a line limit to the poses – remember, not everyone has fast connections, and you may spam someone by writing a novel.

Females should warn the males if they’re going to move suddenly, or RP something intricate. You do NOT have to have your dragon zip all around the airspace, all of that can be RP’d with the dragons in one OOC sky room, though you can fly around more if you wish. However, it can get extremely confusing for maleriders, particularly for those not of Fort, so please keep this in mind.

Male dragons, if you want to try a particular maneuver, you might want to check with the female first. The more communication there is during a flight, the easier and more fluid the RP. You can communicate any number of ways – pro’ing on the channel flight, talking in the ground weyr or paging.

A word here about dragon abilities and Fort rules.

Remember your dragon’s size and abilities. Metallics cannot turn on a wingtip and blues cannot last in a gold flight. At Fort: any male may chase in a greenflight. For junior golds, it’s the gold’s preference if she wants to allow blues to chase, though they cannot win. No blues may chase in a senior gold flight, their riders are grounded. It’s too dangerous for them. Bronzes and browns only for senior golds, and only a bronze may win. Bronzes may win greenflights, but keep your dragons’ relative sizes in mind and how likely it is for the win to take place.

Female riders should tell the males when the green or gold is in a position to be caught. Males, you should ONLY post ATTEMPTS to catch the female, unless the female rider has said otherwise. The female will let you know when she’s been caught. It is -entirely- her decision. If you pose grabbing her, you make it very difficult for her rider to continue. This is NOT your place. Posing grabs instead of attempts is a perfectly legitimate reason for females to start barring you from flights.

Read that last paragraph again, it is probably the #1 rule of flights – pose ATTEMPTS to catch the female, not automatic successes.

The female will usually project something to the flight channel, such as: < < OK boys. I'll pose once more, and you can make your attempts. >> Flights vary in length with the number of people and the amount of lag, but a good goal to aim for is about 30-45 minutes for a green flight, and an hour to an hour and a half for a gold flight, starting from the RP in the feeding grounds. Female riders, you may wish to have a friend among the spectators to try and gauge when spectator interest is waning. Also remember that the male riders may have other things they wish to RP that day.

A suitable catch attempt pose would be: Blueth reaches out with his tail, seeking to intertwine it with Greeneth’s.

An unacceptable pose would be: Bronzeth snakes his neck around Goldeth’s, fouling his wings with hers so that she cannot get away.

Once the capture has been made, the other males should fly home or down to the bowl. It’s considered rude to keep trying or hang around the sky.

For gold flights, the gold rider has a lot less leeway about who wins. With senior flights, the winner will be the Weyrleader, and is nearly always decided in advance. I haven’t known of a Leadership flight yet that was decided on a coin toss. With junior flights, the Weyr may need a gold that Clutch, and so the gold rider will have to select a bronze.

Greenriders have complete freedom to choose who wins their flights, and there are several ways to do the choosing. The winner may be chosen on a basis of RP seen that day, or prior RP. Some greenriders draw a name at random for the winner, or narrow it down to a couple of riders and then choose randomly. Another way greenriders choose the winner is for larger RP intentions – she may choose someone as a catalyst to starting an IC relationship. She may have RP’d her dragon having a particular interest in a male dragon long before the flight, so choose him to win if he comes to the flight. She may deliberately choose someone she ICly can’t stand, just to see what happens. Weyrmated green riders will often choose their weyrmate if the dragon is of an appropriate color. It’s often polite to let the males who chase know how you’ll be choosing, so they know what to expect.

Flight Outline and Poses
The female’s rider may wish to prepare a simple flight outline to help keep the event within a time limit (we recommend a maximum length two hours) or to save too much decision-making during the event itself! Usually this outline is very simple – just a list of poses in each “stage” of the flight. For example, a typical flight might be planned thusly:

• Pre-flight proddy RP until scheduled time
• Greenth moves to the feeding grounds at start time
• 2 rounds of blooding poses
• 1 round of takeoff poses
• 3 rounds of flying poses
• 1 round of catch poses
• “Caught” pose and after-flight RP

Some femaleriders like to take this a step further and pre-write their poses. This is a matter of preference; it can take a lot of stress off of the female rider during the actual flight and allow him or her to focus on reading the chasers’ poses. One technique that offers some benefits from both prewritten poses and off-the-cuff poses is to pre-write short poses and flesh them out in response to chaser poses as needed.

If the flight’s outcome (winner) is predetermined it’s polite and generally expected for the female rider to mention this in the +bbposts. Most green flights that are open to the public are not predetermined, but predetermined queen flights (particularly senior flights) are not uncommon.

Flight Dos and Don’ts
TinySex should NEVER be expected by any flight participant, whether male rider or female rider. If you have any concerns about this, ask the other rider. Flights are draining RP; it is far more common for people to chat or idle than it is for them to TS.

Always defer to the female rider running the flight. Males, if you have a problem with the flight, please log it and send the unedited log to the weyrleaders, along with your complaint. The weyrleaders are there to assure that everything stays within the realms of canon.

Females, if the flight is predetermined, you really must let the maleriders know. While not everyone is flying to win, those that are should be given the courtesy of knowing beforehand if the winner is already chosen.

Always pose ATTEMPTS – no power posing is allowed. This is covered above, but is always worth saying again. And goes for male to female, female to male, and male to male posing. Males, feel free to pick on NPCs, but DO NOT powerpose with either the female dragons or the other males. For those that don’t know, power posing is the following:

Blueth rams into Browneth, causing the larger dragon to spiral out of control and crash out of the flight.
Instead, page the brownrider before hand and ask if they want a minor collision. Then pose something like: Blueth veers suddenly, crowding Browneth’s wing room. – Then Browneth can pose the outcome of the collision, if there is one.

The mated dragons should “fly off into the sunset”; don’t RP out the dragon sex publicly. If you really want to do it, send the dragons home first. TinySex (Or ReallyBigSex in the case of the dragons) is not a spectator sport and is against MUSH policy in public rooms. Often the dragons return to sleep near where their riders are.

A note about NPC riders, or flights with low attendance. Unless the flight is held off- camera, or all the attending dragons were NPCs (hey, it could happen), please choose a PC dragon to win the flight. The male(s) went to the trouble to show up for your flight, the least you can do is reward him/them by choosing a PC to catch. If you decide not to hold your flight that night, please let everyone involved know, and possibly reschedule it as well.

Females: do thank the people that showed up for your flight. It’s good policy, and lets the riders who did not win know you appreciated their participation.

Many female riders also offer the option of allowing questions from the males who did not win in RP determined flights. If you allow this option, please remember that on the other end of the screen is a person just like you are. RP critiques should be done with the utmost of care and consideration.

Advice to Maleriders
Many female riders have said that they particularly appreciate it when male riders come just to RP, and not to win. This might be something you want to consider doing occasionally. It can be a lot of fun, and add to the enjoyment of the flight for everyone. If you do attend a flight and do NOT want to win, male riders you must tell the female rider – they can’t read your minds.

Male riders, try not to get involved in this as some sort of ego contest, or complain and whine that you should have won. Remember that the aim of the flight is RP and spectator enjoyment. You can have just as much fun, if not more, RPing having lost the flight.

Male riders, please try and look at it from the female rider’s point-of-view. There may be anywhere from one to seven (or more!) riders that show up to the Flight, but only one person can win. Most female riders take making this decision seriously, and are not being cavalier or callous about it.

If a femalerider offers the opportunity for questions, and you have them, don’t hesitate to ask what you could have done differently, or how you could improve your RP. Flights are the most arbitrary of online events. What one greenrider likes, another may not. Some prefer descriptive poses filled with allegory, while others prefer poses that give them an exact idea of where your dragon is in relationship to theirs. Sometimes, asking polite questions is the only way to find this out and improve. And please, if a female rider does offer you flight criticism, try not to take it personally. They really are trying to help.

The male rider who wins a green flight has no further responsibilities. This is not true of PC gold flights. Even if it’s only a junior gold flight, the male is committed to attending the Clutching and the Hatching and RPing those. He may be expected to participate in other OOC Hatching duties – descing eggs or hatchlings, and other such things. If you’re concerned about that, talk to the gold rider before the flight about what your duties would be if you win.

Tinysex and Flights
And now for a few words about Sex:
TinySex should NEVER be expected by any flight participant, whether male rider or female rider. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER. If you have any concerns about this, ask the other rider. If you are in a situation where a rider is pressuring you to TS after a flight, you are perfectly within your rights to say no, and to leave the weyr OOCly. You should also inform your Weyrleaders, and their Weyrleaders of the situation. If you can, please get a log of the attempts. Do NOT pressure other people. This is harassment, and will be dealt with harshly, if it’s discovered.

On the other hand, ICly your characters have sex. And it shouldn’t matter if they are a same-sex pairing. In fact, it’s very atmospheric and IC to have same-sex pairings. It can be disturbing when you see female riders reluctant to choose a same-sex malerider to win a flight, or to see a malerider reluctant to even participate in flights where the femalerider is the same gender. We all know what the IC aspects of being a rider entailed, and if you aren’t interested in winning, at least show up for the RP.

We’re not saying you shouldn’t RP having a Craft or holdbred background, and being ICly uncomfortable about it the day after or something like that. That can be a great deal of fun. We are saying that during a flight, you think like the dragon, not like the player, or even the rider.

Recap and Credits
1. The green/gold rider is in charge. You do as she asks.
2. No Powerposing.
3. Remember your dragon’s size and abilities.
4. Do NOT kibbitz at the green/gold rider if you don’t win.
5. Green/gold riders try to offer the opportunity for male riders to come to you and find out what they can do better next time. Be tactful.
6. Don’t overdo proddiness.
7. Green/gold riders, promote your flights!
8. DO HAVE FLIGHTS! Flights are good.
9. NO ONE IS REQUIRED TO ENGAGE IN TS AFTER A FLIGHT. PERIOD!!
10. Green/gold riders, thank everyone who showed up and be sure to post the results to the BBoard with appropriate thank you.

Credits:
Credit for this handbook goes to Dyani at Honshu Weyr on SouConMUSH and Jenna and F’niah of PernMUSH, with additions by F’erg of PernMUSH and contributions from the WLM-Staff at Ista Weyr on PernMUSH