Rion Bergquist wrote on Wed, 5 Jan 2005 21:00:17 -0700
>I would appreciate it if you folks could dig through your respective gray
>matter and give me quotes (with sources) that describe each House's patron
>animal and the colors that each house is generally seen wearing
>i.e. Dragons wear Blackand Silver and have, well a Dragon as their patron
>animal.
>The sooner we have these descriptions the sooner we'll have art together for
>Steve to approve. After that we hope to have a Merch section on the
>Dragaera site that will have shirts, mugs, and various other print on demand
>Dragaera fan gear.
Hi,
Yeah!
Cool!
dragon
"had a sudden, clear vision of a monstrous head--narrow, triangular,
and reptilian. He had never seen it before, but his stay in Faerie
had taught him to recognize it. Three small tentacles, which Miklos
knew to be sense organs, descended from its chin, there would be
larger ones around its neck, Miklos didn't remain to see them."
Brokedown Palace, Chapter 3, page 44
"The dragon stopped suddenly, and the Prince could see its neck
tentacles becoming hard and rigid. He chuckled to himself at the
vaguely sexual impression it gave. Then he realized that the
dragon was standing in almost the same place he had vacated a
few minutes before, and he was very pleased he had moved. But what
had it found? The athyra.
Brokedown Palace, Chapter 3, page 45
"It is one thing to know that a dragon's head is taller than you
are, another to see one close up. The dragon wasn't looking at
him but at the dzur; and all of its tentacles were fully erect.
This time Miklos found nothing amusing about it. He stared
mesmerized, until he heard a louder snarl than he'd hear yet, and
a thin black streak launched itself across his line of sight and
into the dragon's face."
Brokedown Palace, Chapter 3, page 46
"He was fifty feet away when Vilmos leapt onto the dragon's
back, crying, 'I said I'd strange you, and by the Demon Goddess
I will!'"
"Even his massive hands couldn't come close to actually
fitting around the dragon's throat, but he took one of its
great tentacles and twisted and pulled it."
...
"Teeth, however, are not the dragon's only weapon. A claw that
was as big as Vilmos himself swung out too quickly to be seen,"
...
"Miklos saw the dragon's tail whipping around."
Brokedown Palace, Chapter 3, page 49
"The dragon...turned toward us, then, its mouth open, showing teeth
the size of Blackwand, and began to move in our direction."
Issola, Chapter 15, paperback, page 235
The size of Blackwand: "It was small for a longsword"
The Book of Taltos, Taltos, Chapter 6, page 60
"It is really hard to conceive of just how big a dragon is, I can
tell you that that it could eat me, perhaps without the need for a
second bite. I can mention that it has tentaclelike things all
around its head, each of which is longer than I am tall and as big
around as my thigh. I could let you know that, at the shoulders, it
was eighteen feet high and much, much longer than that. But, until
you've seen one up close, you just can't really image it."
The Book of Taltos, Taltos, Chapter 12, page 126
lyorn
words used in describing a normal dog
"the sleek build of a lyorn"
The Book of Athyra, Orca, Chapter 2, page 228
dzur
"He heard a snarl off to his left and stepped back, alert. He
found himself staring into the yellow eyes of a dzur, about thirty
feet away from him. Five hundred pounds of black death."
Brokedown Palace, Chapter 3, page 46
Issola
"The issola is a beautiful white bird. I'd seen several during my
recent travels. One usually saw them standing, graceful and lovely
in the early morning or late evening, in swamps or the shallow
banks of rivers. They stand as if their only reason for being
were to look lovely and graceful. And, then the issola would be
holding a fish in its beak, and you'd never see it strike. And
then the fish would be gone in a single swallow, and the issola
would be standing on one leg, looking lovely and graceful."
Issola, Chapter 1, paperback, page 14
jhereg
"It was of average size, if female, a bit large, if male. If my
spell had worked, it would be female. Its wing span was about the
distance from my shoulder to my wrist, and it was a bit less than
that from its snakelike head to the tip of its tail. The forked
tongue flicked out"
The Book of Jhereg, Prologue, page 6
"The jhereg walked up to me. Its claws were long and sharp, but
more useful for running then for fighting. After a full meal, a
jhereg will often find that it weighs too much to become airborne
and so must run to escape its enemies."
...
"It was odd to see intelligence in small, beady snake eyes, and to
have nearly human-level communication with an animal whose brain
was no larger than the first joint of my finger."
...
"And she turned and spread her batlike wings. She had to run a step
two before taking off."
The Book of Jhereg, Prologue, page 7
"this ugly little reptile was lying amid broken shell fragments. Its
wings were tightly drawn up against it, and its eyes were closed. The
wings were no larger than my thumb."
...
"The bite was too small, and the poison still too weak for it to affect
me, but he was certainly in possession of his fangs."
The Book of Jhereg, Prologue, page 11
"allowed me to scratch its snakelike chin."
The Book of Athyra, Orca, Chapter 1, page 217
Colors of the jhereg and also a guess of color change in spring.
"The female was larger and becoming dark brown as summer gave way
to autumn; the male was smaller and lighter in color. Savn
guessed that in the spring the male would be green or grey,
while the female would simply turn a lighter brown."
The Book of Athyra, Athyra, Chapter 1, page 9
"each wing when folded forms a perfect triangle"
...
"Yet seen from the front, it looked like there was a snake's head
bobbing up and down between the walls of two houses that had been
built too close together."
The Book of Athyra, Athyra, Chapter 9, page 104
iorich
"Her eyes were as soft as an iorich's wing,"
The Book of Jhereg, Jhereg, Chapter 7, page 58
orca
"Off to the left, the side I was on, a pair of orca surfaced for
a moment, then dived. I kept watching, and it happened again,
somewhat closer, then yet a third time. They were sleek and
graceful; proud. They were very beautiful."
...
"Yinta said, 'Those were shorttails. Did you notice the white
splotches on their backs? When they're young they tend to travel
in pairs. Later they'll gather into larger groups.'
'Their tails didn't seem especially short,' I remarked.
'They weren't. They were both females; the males have shorter
tails."
The Book of Taltos, Phoenix, Lesson 2, page 193
dream of an orca with the face of a dragon???
"I woke up in the middle of the night with the half memory of a
dream in which I was flying over the ocean, into a nasty wind, and
my wings were very tired. I kept wanting to rest, and every time I
did an orca with the face of a dragon would rise out of water and
snap at me."
The Book of Taltos, Phoenix, Lesson 4, page 227
teckla
"A little way off, a teckla sat up on its back legs, motionless
except for a quick, furtive movements of its gray, whiskered head."
Brokedown Palace, Chapter 3, page 44
athyra
"On a branch of the oak nearest him sat an athyra with its thick
brown plumage and hooked beak.
Brokedown Palace, Chapter 3, page 44
"A large brown bird that I recognized as an athyra studied us with
one eye."
The Book of Taltos, Taltos, Chapter 11, page 113
Bye.
Linda G.