The Dragonriders of PernŽ is a trademark, Registered U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, of Anne McCaffrey.
Online Pern and Myself
I first met Pern aged 11 in 1989, when a friend showed me her stuffed fire lizard and I tried to tell her it was a dragon. She lent me Dragonsong and I was hooked. This, of course, was at a time when only the coolest kids had computers at home, and the internet was unheard of (in my world anyway; I've no doubt that there are people out there who'll claim that they've been online since 1985 and earlier). I discovered the rest of the books the following year, but it was another six years before we acquired the internet and I was exposed to the existence of MUSHes and MOOs. I was computer illiterate when we first got online but was persuaded to learn how the net worked, and by July 1996, I was able to use search engines (I'm quick, huh?). Inevitably, one night it occurred to me to look up Pern. The first page I went to, all unawares, was the Harper's Tale homepage as it was then. Once I'd managed to figure out what it was, my initial reaction was "Hey, I could play on Pern!" closely followed by "Some people have way too much time on their hands." I soon found out that nearly all the Pern pages online were about these games or their characters. I rather enjoyed reading logs from the games I found, but I was never interested enough to connect.
Until around March 1998: I was at university with my own net access from there as well as at home, and the publication of The Masterharper of Pern had recently renewed my interest in Pern. Another search led me back to the HT webpage, which I'd long since forgotten. Clicking around, I came across a page of logs and realised suddenly that these were the first ones I'd ever read. After nearly two years, I'd come full circle, and, for some odd reason, I felt almost nostalgic. Finally, I decided that, in the great tradition of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em," I would get a character. Small problem: I couldn't figure out how to connect. So I resolved to wait until I got home that summer, and then my brother could explain the technical stuff to me. In the meantime, I browsed the web, trying to find out more about this gaming thing and thought up a character to play.
At the beginning of July 1998, nearly two years after finding HT, I connected for the first time. In a brief flurry of interest in my new activity, my brother wrote a client for me and helped me understand some of the MOO commands, despite the fact that he'd never played either. I needed the help; I couldn't even cut and paste. Since then, my ease with computers and my typing skills have improved in leaps and bounds, although I'm still fairly pathetic with these sorts of things. I've never had many characters, and I only play on Dragons' Dusk and Harper's Tale. I'm not the sort of person who can cope with a dozen chars across five M*s. I prefer to devote more time to fewer... and writing self-indulgent accounts of them which now you get to wade through.
The Characters
Pyrene: Practically perfect in every way The child-hating nanny turned junior weyrwoman at High Reaches Weyr, Harper's Tale.
Emmett: And now for something completely different An aging resident 'barfly' at Tillek Hold, Harper's Tale.
H'rand: Faster than a speeding meatroll! A laid back bluerider at Igen Weyrhold, Dragons' Dusk.
Pyrene is, by far, my favourite, mainly because she's been around for so long and was my first and only character for over six months. She's now the only one who's really active since RL has increased and I'm too busy with that to really concentrate on more than one character. Her pages have a lot more to them than the others' as a consequence. My other alts are inactive, but can still be persuaded to RP if asked. Emmett is a lot of fun, a completely different set of RP experiences. Then there's Hu who's the nicest of the bunch really, which is probably why I can't bring myself to be as mean to him as the other two, although he does get his fair share of suffering. If you see any of them online, feel free to bug for RP.
To follow convention, here's one of these guestbook things... read it, sign it, ignore it: it's your call.
Anne McCaffrey's Pern
Anne McCaffrey If you want information on Pern, where better to look than the official homepage of the Dragonlady herself? All sorts of personal insights into Anne McCaffrey can be found here, along with the latest news about Pern.
Online Pern
All the Weyrs List A useful, up-to-date resource for anybody interested in a PernM*, containing links to and information about every online Pern game that has existed, plus a list of the dragon names in use throughout.
Links that are relevant to a particular character can be found on that one's page.
Questions, comments, lawsuits, etc? Email the player and she should (hah!) get back to you quickly.
