Gold Dust Weyr is situated in the South, with its sister weyr, Black Crystal. Nearly a hundred yeras before Gold Dust was founded, successions of untreatable plagues swept the Southern Continent and nearly obliterated all the poeple there. This plague also struck the fire lizard population and spread to the Northern flits.

Gold Dust's timeline begins in the 181st turn of the tenth Interval and will bridge into the 11th Pass. A part of the Lower Caverns has been sectioned off into the Gold Dust Flit Colony, an attempt at a breeding program to rebuild the very small flit population. Riders, as well as anyone else, are encouraged to Impress as many flits as they wish.

The turn now 199 and Thread will soon begin to fall. For now, the leadership is shared by Vree and the two transfered queens, Mandalay and Kanta. There is not yet a Weyrleader since the senior queen hasn't risen to mate yet, ever. And the weyr's strength is very depleted since a variant of the plague swept through and claimed many lives. But hopefully, Gold Dust will have a firm leadership by the time Thread falls...

• All referneces to worlds and characters based on Anne McCaffrey's fiction are copyright Anne McCaffrey 1967, 2000, all rights reserved, and used by permission of the author.