Islands of Pern

Wingleader R'dat

Name: R'dat NPC/Free
Age: 48
Gender: Male
Rank/Craft: Wingleader
Residence: Ithaca Weyr

Description: R'dat is a short, stocky man with steel wool hair and a small square of a mustache that he keeps meticulously trimmed. He has sharp brown eyes and a craggy face that is set in a habitually irate expression. His clothes are always well-tailored and well-kept. He has a few small Threadscores on his right leg and arm, thin reminders of past mistakes that he felt that he should not have made.

Personality: R'dat is famous for his stinginess, his out-of-control rants, and drilling rituals that could either make perfect sense or, just as frequently, not. However when R'dat's not pursuing some strange obsession, he's one of the best wingleaders out there. He roams the halls of Ithaca like a burrower, growling and mumbling to himself, always on the look-out for a new crisis to overmanage -- when he's not hiding away in his office, devising new ways to make his wing perform flawlessly.

Despite his rather explosive personality, one does not have to look very deep into him to realize that everything he does for the betterment of himself, his wingmembers, his Weyr, and his planet.

Background: Ranadat was born in a Weyr and came from a long line of dragonriders. His uncle, a tough-talking brownrider, was his greatest influence, often sitting him down in the evening after falls, giving him mulled wine to drink, and talking at him for hours until he fell asleep. It was his uncle who told him to become a dragonrider and when he did, was often at his back, telling him to stand up straight, pick up his feet and look him in the eye when he was talking to him.

Therefore, after the death of his uncle, R'dat found himself suddenly required to take everything his uncle told him and apply it to himself. He molded the world around him into what he thought was the best way of doing things and succeeded in alienating every single person he knew and getting himself labeled as a perfectionist.

However, when he met the woman he would fall in love with, things suddenly changed. Noticing other people for the first time in Turns, he showed her how sweet and thoughtful he could be, getting to know and understand exactly what she wanted and needed and giving her just that. He courted her precisely and won her has his weyrmate.

Then, she too had died, the victim of what R'dat called a vicious fault of leadership because she had flown in the Wing of a man he despised. After three dragonriders pried him off the battered Wingleader, R'dat vowed to make himself the leader of that wing, succeeding in just two Turns. Now stationed at Ithaca Weyr, he keeps a portrait of his lost love in his office, forever reminding himself of the responsibilities of the position he occupies.

Dragon's Name: Shyseth
Color: Bronze
Age: 30
Age of Rider at Impression: 18

Description: Shyseth is an average size for a bronze, his color fairly even about his body, though there are a few duller bronze blotches on his undersides. Scores mark him on the base of his tail and across his back and wingshoulders.

Personality: Shyseth's personality can best be described as non-existent. One dragon commented that he was the dullest bronze that he had ever met. Unless a queen rises or Thread is in the air, Shyseth is fast asleep. He dozes off at the drop of a hat, a fact that often irritates his rider. His unruffled manner often shields him against his rider's fiery temper, and serves him well in Threadfall. He has a quick, efficient, and accurate Threadfighting style, one driven by the fact that he just does what needs to be done and absolutely nothing more.

Last Updated: 8/08/2004