Dragaera

Foreheads

Fri Apr 11 13:07:00 PDT 2003


On Sat, 5 Apr 2003, David Silberstein wrote:

> I imagine that our resident medical/biological experts could explain
> learnedly about the widow's peak being a recessive or dominant trait,

Dominant.

> and the genetic implications behind the fact that it shows up in all
> Dragaerans except Teckla.

The implication would be that no nobility ended up as Teckla, or nobles
who join House Teckla don't have children, or that a noble's point is a
strong selection disadvantage for Tecklas (which I can well imagine).
I assume that the recessive gene was bred out of nobles long ago because
homozygous recessives get kicked out or perhaps exposed a la Oedipus.

Note that it's _not_ a simple way for the nobility to kick out Teckla
hybrids.


>
> I also started looking for it in portraits of Dragaerans, since that
> was kind of the whole point.  The covers of the Paarfian romances
> do in fact show Khaavren & Piro having a clear noble's point,
>
>    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0312864787

Is this Piro?  He looks too wry and doesn't look young enough; and his
clothes seem a bit simple for a Viscount and the colors are wrong.  I
thought this might be intended to be Morrolan, which would make the
altar-like object more probable.