Dragaera

kethna

Joy Jennifer Nicholson jjnichol at MIT.EDU
Tue Nov 23 10:01:15 PST 2004


While I appear to be wrong as far as jhereg, there do still remain a number of
Dragaeran species with 6 limbs.  A friend and I postulated that 6 limbed creatures
were those that were native to Dragaera, while the 4 limbed ones were imports
>from the "small invisible stars".  However the example of the jhereg and the 
serioli seem to contradict this.

Still, I think it would be interesting to compare leggedness among those creatures
on which we can speculate.  Different number of limbs lead to questions of relatedness
and evolution.

here's a short list of creatures in each group, off the top of my head and without 
having the time to dig through my books atm.  Perhaps someone can add more to it?

6 legs:
cat centaurs
tiassa
chreotha
dragons


4 legs:
easterners
dragaerans
serioli
jhereg
issola
jenoine

dzur might have vestigial wings, for all we know.  the tiassa's wings are only mentioned once, in
an easily-overlooked description of a statue in Taltos.l
 

> Joy Jennifer Nicholson wrote:
> 
> >I would consider it likely that kethna  have 4 legs and 2 wings.  A signific
 *ant
> >number of "native" animals in Dragaera seem to have a total of 6 limbs - the
 * jhereg,
> >the tiassa (which has wings), and the cat-centaurs. 
> >
> Jhereg have a total of 4 limbs. The cover artists probably used a 
> traditional fantasy dragon template, which is 6 limbs, but Steve has 
> confirmed that Loiosh has two legs, two wings. Thus the confusion; if 
> you believe the covers, Vlad actually doesn't have a mustache and has 
> red hair. And every cover appeals to a broader fantasy base by having 
> what seems to be a mini-dragon, but this doesn't match the description 
> of jhereg in the books. (Loiosh would kill me if I had used the words 
> "pet dragon" instead...)
> 
> Jose
> 
> -- 
> Jose Marquez             | There are 10 types of people in
> jhereg69 at earthlink.net   | the world: those who understand
> http://www.hackwater.com | binary, and those who don't.
> 
>