NOTICE!

After four (4) wonderful years I have finally decided to close Torayan Weyr. It was a heart wrenching decision... but in the end it is for the best. With my wrist problems and the lack of time to properly care for my Weyr and update the website I don't think it's fair to my outstanding and much loved members to neglect them due to that lack of time. We have also been quite.. comatose.. as of late, and it is obvious that although it was a blast, Torayan has run its course in the world of RP. I will never forget the members who have stuck through with me 'till the end nor those who are a bit newer and gave my Weyr a chance. And for those of you who had applied recently I deeply apologize for not responding but I just don't have the time anymore to pay Torayan the attention it and its members deserve. I hope that all of you who were members have fond memories like I do, and I'll never forget you.

I'm starting a group for prior or current members so we can all keep in touch... if you would like to join and touch bases once in a while, please email me

Updated 2002-03.06 (Terran)

If you're new to our Weyr, welcome! Please take a few moments to read the FAQ, and acquaint yourself with our Pern.

If you have any questions, or suggestions for this page, please email the BoD and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.

What is Pern?
Are you accepting new members?
What are the requirements to join Torayan Weyr and keep up an active membership?
What's your posting style, and how active is Torayan Weyr?
What are all these abbreviations? OOC? RP? BoD?
What's your stance on the Pern canon?
What's everyday "life" like in Torayan Weyr?

Q: What is Pern, exactly? I love to role-play, but I'm not familiar with the world.

A: Pern is a world created by Anne McCaffrey, author of the immensely popular science fiction series, The Dragonriders of Pern. The basic premise is that Pern, an Earthlike planet in the Sagittarian sector, was settled by Earth colonists. The colonists were happy and successful in their new world until a mysterious organism began dropping from the skies, ingesting anything organic in its path.

Pern's first human settlers suffered severe loss of life and property in the first few Threadfalls, but enlisted the help of a small, intelligent avian species (dragonets or fire-lizards, "flits" for short in fandom) which many of the colonists had adopted as pets. Fire-breathing, able to teleport themselves out of danger, and instinctively averse to the airborne menace, the dragonets helped immensely, but they weren't enough.

Pern's astronomers and biologists calculated that the Thread incursions were not just a fluke: they would return every two hundred fifty years, for fifty-year periods. Horrified at the prospect of fifty years of Thread running unchecked, the colonists scrambled for solutions. Finally, the colonists drew up plans to biogenetically engineer larger versions of the native dragonets, big enough for a human to ride. The dragons would bond exclusively with one human at birth, forming a symbiotic pair-bond, and when grown, dragon and rider would protect Pern from the spaceborne spores as part of a fighting wing. (Read McCaffrey's novel, Dragonsdawn, for the whole story.)

The dragonriders are the Air Force of Pern, with the primary goal of defending the planet from Thread. Highly structured communities called Weyrs grew up around the special concerns of housing dragons and their riders. The Holds and Crafts tithe goods and services to support the Weyrs which protect all Pern from destruction.

Our story takes place two thousand Turns (or years) after colonization, at the beginning of the Eighth Pass of the Red Star. The social structure of Weyrs, (dragonriders / military bases) Holds, (basically the cities of Pern) and Crafts (universities / guilds) is firmly established.

For more background information on Pern, visit our Web Resources page. Better yet, head to your local bookstore and pick up one of Ms. McCaffrey's books. You're in for a great experience.

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Q: Are you accepting new members?

A: Of course! We are always accepting new members, whether you've been role-playing forever, or this is your first real jump into Pern fandom. We happily accept transferred adult dragons and riders, though at this time, queens may only be Impressed at Torayan.

Q: What are the requirements to join Torayan Weyr and keep up an active membership?

A: We recommend that you have read at least the Dragonriders of Pern trilogy (Dragonflight, Dragonquest, The White Dragon) or the Harper Hall trilogy before you join. (Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, Dragondrums) Either trilogy will give you an excellent background on Pern society and culture.

If you haven't read the books yet, that's fine too, we love to recruit new fans!

Basic membership requirements:

You must be 13 years of age or older as of the date of joining, to comply with the US Children's Online Privacy Protection act of 1998.

You need an approved persona sheet before you can start role-playing with us.

To keep our charter as an approved club, we can't allow lurkers, though it's fine if you need some time to read posts and get your bearings before you hop into the fun of posting. You can always contact a BoD member for help introducing your character. We are always glad to co-post with anybody in the club.

You need to have access to our web site, to keep up on what's going on. If you're reading this, you're fine. :)

It would also help if you have a Yahoo! ID, because then you can access our members-only content on our Yahoo! Groups sites. (persona sheets, Threadfall charts, timelines, etc.)

Mailing Lists:

Members must maintain active status on all three of the club mailing lists.

TorayanWeyr - our role-playing list.
TorayanYounguns - our Weyrling and Candidate lesson role-playing list.
TorayanNonsense - our OOC chat list. Watch out for flying Marshmallow Peeps!

Age requirement: New members must be age 13 and up from the time of joining, since we require identifiable personal information to join. This is to comply with United States Federal regulations on online information gathering. We are writing a formal privacy policy and will post it soon.

We review applications based on writing quality, creativity, and the well-rounded quality of the persona sheet. Our current members range in age from approximately 15 and up.

Younger members, please keep in mind that some storylines may include mature themes and violence, though nothing on the list will be over a PG-13 or a mild R rating. Basically, if you wouldn't see it on a standard network prime-time TV show, we won't have it on-list. Anything graphic will be taken off-list.

Real name and postal mailing address: Required to join, but only for BoD use. We will never share this with anyone, including other club members, and we will not use it for anything other than official Weyr business.

Posting Style: Round-robin, (one member posts the beginning of a story, and others react through email) with full story posts cheerfully accepted. If you have any questions about our posting format, please ask.

Weyr Activity Level: Torayan is a hopping place! We have our lulls during holidays and vacations, (and Yahoo! Groups freakouts) but we usually average between 10 and 20 story posts a day on the RP lists, and 5 to 10 daily posts on the OOC list. It's active, but not completely frantic, except during special events.

Torayan Weyr has no formal posting requirements, though we may implement them in the future. If we haven't heard from you for several weeks, we'll attempt to contact you and see how you're doing. If you don't respond, we may deactivate your personas. (mark them as NPC on the website) We'll wait a little while longer, and if we still don't hear from you, we'll unsubscribe you from the lists.

We are very understanding of real life issues getting in the way. As long as you give us a heads-up, we're willing to work with you on setting up a leave of absence. Once you're a member, you'll more likely have the opposite problem: not being able to stop posting!

Optional 'Zine: Many Pern clubs publish a print or HTML "Zine," or fanzine with stories, pictures, poems, and songs based on the club's doings. Our Zine will be optional, meaning you don't have to write reports, stories, etc. unless you want to. We may even make a print Zine and use those snail mail addresses well. :)

Check out our PbEM guide and our Persona Sheet for the nitty-gritty on the rules and regulations, and direct any other questions to the BoD.

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Q. What are all these abbreviations? OOC? RP? BoD? You gaming people are worse than the government!

We plead guilty to the typical fandom obsession with abbreviations. (and two of our BoD members, or Board of Directors, are civil servants, so we can't help it!)

Here are some of the most frequently used abbrevations:

BoD: Board of Directors, variously called Moderators or Game Masters. (GMs)
IC: In-Character: actions or posts done from the point of view of one of your characters on Pern.
OOC: Out-Of-Character: emails or comments from you, the owner of the character, on Earth!
RP: Role-Playing
PbEM: Play-By-Email: Our style of gaming.
PC: Player Character
NPC: Non-Player Character

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Q. What's your stance on the Pern canon?

A. We think of ourselves as "medium conservative." We're conservative in terms of the basic structure of Pern, and the normal round of life in the Holds, Crafts, and Weyrs. We're liberal in that we embrace most of the "fandom allowances:" girls are allowed to Impress and ride both green and blue dragons, depending on sexual preference. We have also appropriated certain crafts and customs from later Passes, like the Dolphincraft. (Check out our History to learn more about our scenario.)

As far as character creation goes, we're pretty liberal. We like to have a full spectrum of characters in our Weyr, of all personality types, appearances, sexual orientations, and temperaments. The more creative you can be in your persona sheet, the better.

If you must write a Mary Sue, (thanks to Cibryen Weyr for the hilarious parody) give her some kind of drastic flaw, like a verbal tic or a really vile temper... we adore drastic flaws!

Creativity and detail are especially helpful when you're entering a contest for a ranking persona.

Q. What's everyday "life" like in Torayan Weyr?

A. In as few words as possible: active, inclusive, and fun! We love our newbies as much as we love our Oldtimers, (heh) and we want everyone to have a good time, first and foremost. We try to run an organized ship, (the key word is "try") while not losing sight of the fact that the G in RPG stands for "game."

The BoD is open to weyrwide plot suggestions, crazy proposals, and just about anything you dream up. We may have to tone it down to match our scenario, or wait until the right time to put it in play, but we love to hear your ideas.

We are trying to institute regular Weyrling and Candidate lessons on our TorayanYounguns list, to give you the "full experience" of being a dragonrider. Bear with us while we get everyone into the habit of teaching and attending lessons. :)

We enjoy each other's company outside of Pern, and we have an active out-of-character chat list, which you may participate in while your first persona is in the approval process.

Any questions? Please ask the BoD, we'd love to help you decide whether Torayan Weyr is right for you!

Rachel - Weyrwoman Kalina, queen Pirenth (Charter Holder)
Crysty - Weyrleader R'vynn, bronze Wynnyth (BoD)
Mary - Junior Weyrwoman Ysera, queen Miryath (BoD / Webbie)

We hope to see you in the skies of Pern!

Links:

Meet our Members
Personnel Listings - Winglists, Candidates, etc.
Available Positions
Persona Sheet
Play by Email (PbEM) Guide

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