Background
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Igen Weyr is a small Weyr located in the continental interior. It receives few visitors by anything other than dragon transport or, very rarely, Trader caravan. This is due to the desert to the west and the mud flats to the east, as well as the jagged mountain range in which the Weyr proper is situated. It is easily a day and a half's difficult ride over rocky terrain from Igen Hold. The climate is arid, sometimes almost unbearably hot during the mid-afternoon, although the lack of cloud cover encourages the temperature to fall dramatically during the night. Such terrain is difficult to traverse by conventional methods, though once or twice a Turn a Trader caravan will pass by to restock their supplies and do a bit of trading on the way to somewhere more hospitable. This warm weather also ensures that the riders fight Thread all Turn long, instead of enjoying brief periods of Thread freezing to dust as it does in colder climes.
Perhaps because of the monotony of the desert landscape, residents of Igen Weyr tend to dress in bright colours, including the ever-present wherhide riding gear the riders sport during Fall and Sweeps, which can come in any color of dragonkind. Loose clothing provides self-contained shade from the sun, though some prefer to wear as little as possible in the heat. In a fighting Weyr, women and men wear clothes which allow them to straddle dragons easily, rather than the more elaborate dresses and skirts favoured by their peers in the Holds and most Halls.
Igen Weyr numbers about 250 fighting rider-dragon pairs, with a Lower Caverns population of about 700, making Igen almost half the size of Fort Weyr. Igen Weyr riders and residents are perhaps less formal and less versed in politics than those in older Weyrs such as Fort and Benden, possibly because their geographical isolation occasionally acts as a barrier to relationships outside the Weyr. In order to keep life pleasant in the midst of heat and dust storms by day and bitter cold at night, the entire Weyr must be closely knit - leaders, riders, residents and crafters.
The pace of life is inevitably set by the dragons' needs, even for nonriders. Those raised at Igen are well acquainted with the toll that Threadfall takes on riders by now, and the children cannot even remember a time without Fall, although the adults can, if they think hard enough. Few can imagine not living their lives around the needs of dragons and their riders.
Those who visit the Weyr inevitably get a fast education about Weyr life. Though human nature remains constant, human behaviors vary widely, and there is no greater contrast than that between a Weyr's standards of behavior and morality and those of the small cotholds which dot even the inhospitable Igen Sweep Area landscape. Most Holdfolk are shocked by what lifelong Weyr residents consider quite normal, almost past the point of having to notice. The most obvious example is, of course, sexual morality, which is noticeably strict and preferably private within Hold life, whereas in a Weyr it's a casual part of life, nearly as unremarkable as eating, grooming and conversation.
