Dragaera

Two Words on Dragon Heirs

David Silberstein davids at kithrup.com
Wed Sep 3 13:23:24 PDT 2003

On Wed, 3 Sep 2003, Greg Morrow wrote:

>David Silberstein wondered aloud to the group:
> >I have been wondering how the Heirship swings
> >over to Morrolan - was it decided that the e'Drien line was the
> >nextmost acceptable after the e'Kieron (and he's the head of the
> >e'Drien line), or does he inherit that from his mom (whose name we
> >still don't know, I think), since she was an e'Kieron daughter?
>
>We know that Morrolan's mother was e'Kieron?

/Taltos/, chapter 14, pg 144 in th Ace PB:

  "I'm your cousin.  My name is Morrolan e'Drien.  I am the eldest son
  of your father's youngest sister."

I have speculated elsewhere about whether Dragon lineage follows the
father always, or can perhaps sometimes follow the mother.  But I am
nearly certain that Rollandar's wife, Adron's sister, was an e'Kieron.

Note that "eldest" would appear to be wrong, although it occurs to me
as I type this that Morrolan might not have known of his brother
Molric when he said that.  Or Vlad or Steve just got it wrong.


>I inferred from the text in Yendi (to the effect that "it was decided
>that the e'Lanya line would be the next to take the throne") that
>there was a sort of turn-taking among Dragon lineages.

This is my understanding as well.

>How often is the succession shuffled?  We can presume that there was
>a Dragon heir during the 17th Athyra reign--Houses apparently always
>have heirs, regardless of how removed they are from the throne--but
>we can also presume from Yendi that the Dragon heir of the Athyra
>reign was replaced by Norathar's mother early in the reign of the
>18th Phoenix.

Well, Adron was the Heir at the very beginning of that reign, and
perhaps he had only recently been chosen.

While /Yendi/ mentions the "Lady Miera" first, and "Lord K'laiyer"
second, the preface to /Paths of the Dead/ states that the "Lord of
Kee-Laiyer Meadows" was the Heir, not Norathar's mother.

Shrug.