Dragons and Riders

**Dragons** are intelligent creatures which can be trained to serve as battle mounts and understand vocal commands. They are said to be capricious in nature, and have to be trained to keep them from laying waste to everything around them. However, dragons will not allow everyone to mount them. Once a dragon has bonded with a rider, that dragon will not allow anyone else to mount it while its rider lives, no matter how familiar said person might be to the dragon, although they are willing to accept another person upon their backs when their own rider has mounted as well.

Dragons are scaled, reptilian creatures with four limbs: two wings, which are used as forelegs like bats and pterosaurs, and two rear legs. They have strong jaws, sharp teeth and claws, leathery wings and long necks and tails, with horns upon their heads. As young hatchlings, they are around the size of a cat. Provided it has food and freedom, a dragon never stops growing, reaching a span width of twenty feet within a year and a half. Great heat emanates from their bodies, to the point that they steam during cold nights, and they only eat cooked meat, using the extremely hot flame which they breathe to cook their food before eating it.

The lifespan of dragons is many times that of a human. Balerion, the largest and oldest of the first Targaryen dragons, already alive when House Targaryen relocated from Valyria to Dragonstone in -128 AC, died of old age in 94 AC during the reign of King Jaehaerys I Targaryen, nearly two hundred years of age.

They lay large, scaled eggs to reproduce. According to Archmaester Gyldayn, and agreed upon by Maester Yandel, the ability of a dragon to lay eggs is proof that said dragon is female. When a dragon is never observed to have laid eggs, this is taking as proof that it must have been male. However, according to Barth and Maester Aemon, dragons have no fixed gender, but are “now one and now the other, as changeable as flame.” Traditionally, Targaryen princes received a dragon's egg in their cradle, allowing them to bond with the dragons as soon as the eggs hatched.

Dragons are believed to be intrinsically tied to magic in the world.

## Daenerys' Dragons

### Drogon†

The largest of the dragons born in the Dothraki Sea at the time of his death. His scales and teeth were black, horns and spinal plates blood red, and his eyes were smoldering red pits. His flame was jet black shot through with crimson and the wash of it could be felt over fifty feet away. The flapping of his wings was like a thunderclap. Drogon was slain in the year 305 AC in the North, during the War for the Dawn.

### Viserion

Currently the largest dragon in existence. The majority of his scales are cream in color but his horns, wing bones and spinal crest are gold. His eyes are like pools of molten gold and his flame is very pale, shot through with red and orange. He has teeth like polished black daggers, and his roar would send a hundred hrakkar running. He is often referred to as “the white dragon.”

### Rhaegal†

The third dragon born in the Dothraki Sea, a beast of bronze and green. His scales were like moss in the deep wood at dusk and they glimmered in the sunlight like polished jade. His eyes were bronze, brighter than beaten shields and they glowed with their own heat. His teeth and claws were black, and his flame a torrent of orange and yellow shot through with green. Rhaegal was slain in the year 410 AC, during the War of Four Daughters.

## Descendants of Drogon

### Ancalagon

The eldest of three dragons born from Drogon’s only clutch of eggs. He is a temperamental beast with terrible red eyes and scales as dark as blood. His wingspan is large enough to cover whole swathes of the countryside in shadow and his fire is jet black streaked in red. He is one of the largest dragons in existence.

### Sunstryke

A formidable, fearsome and experienced male dragon, much more beautiful than his dusky clutch mates. His scales and eyes are the color of hammered gold and his wing membranes are rosy pink. His fire is radiant as the sun and capable of melting steel and stone, and he is both quick and nimble in the air.

### Baethyir

The third and last of Drogon’s brood. A she-dragon - also called the “Dusk Queen” by the members of House Targaryen - her scales, teeth and horns are like obsidian while her spinal plates and wing membranes are wine-dark purple. Her flame is brilliant emerald shot through with black and her teeth are dark as pitch.

## Descendants of Viserion

### Vermithrax

A dragon with scales like beaten bronze. He has great tan wings with the same color along his spinal plates and horns and bronze flame shot through with white. His teeth and claws are ivory. He is very robust and a comparatively tame beast alongside the other dragons in the pit, accustomed to men and their presence.

### Tessarion

A blue she-dragon with wings as dark as cobalt. Even her flame is blue, shot through with streaks of white. Though half the size of her sire she has grown larger than Rhaegal at the time of his death, and is much more agile in the air.

### Nightwing

The fastest of all the Targaryen dragons. The majority of her scales are polished amethyst but her horns and spinal plates are black as the midnight sea, which lightens to twilight grey at her wing bones. Her eyes glitter like tigerseye gemstones, amber with slitted black pupils, and her fireballs are bright orange streaked with black. She is smaller than dragons like Tessarion but larger than Moonfyre and Quicksilver.

### Saeryx

A copper dragon who gleams so brightly beneath the sunlight that he seems to always be ablaze. His eyes are like the finest sapphires and his horns and spinal plates are copper touched by pale cornflower. His flame is radiant gold shot through with the same blue. He is often considered the most beautiful of the dragons and is called “The Dawn Wyrm.”

### Moonfyre

A slender she-dragon. She is celestial blue with peculiar white irises, and her spinal plates and horns are startling silver. Her flame is white shot through with blue and her teeth and claws are ivory in color.

### Urrax

Nearly of fighting-size, a little larger than a knight’s warhorse. He is able to be saddled and can travel a fair distance while bearing a rider. His scales are as dark and hard as iron and his flame is orange streaked with red.

## Descendants of Rhaegal

### Maedhros†

The largest of Rhaegal’s brood at the time of the War of Four Daughters. He disappeared after his rider was struck from the saddle and is supposed dead. Maedhros had scales the color of forest leaves with the sun shining through them and was darker emerald at his horns and along his spinal plates. They became lighter again near his claws, almost white. His eyes burned bright with the lambent light of the sun and his fire was a blinding torrent of orange shot through with green and streaks of pale gold. Had he lived, he would have rivaled Viserion in size.

### Synestra

A quiet, cunning dragon but fearsome when roused. Her scales are scarlet and the membrane of her wings is the soft pink of springtime roses. Her spinal plates and horns are a deeper, darker crimson flecked with black and her eyes gleam as bright as copper discs.

### Caethyr

A mottled brown beast with black along his spinal plates and at his horns. He has eyes like silver stags and great, bulky wings that are always partially-unfurled. His flame is amber shot through with black. He is one of the tamest of the dragons and does not seem to mind the touch of man.

### Quicksilver

A beautiful pale grey she-dragon with pearl wing bones, horns and spinal plates. She is a an agile, graceful beast with eyes like a summer sky and dark flame shot through with silver and blue.

### Myraxes

A young male who is just larger than a hunting hound. He is ghost-grey from snout to tail-tip, with obsidian teeth and claws. His horns and spinal plates are darker, streaked in tarnished bronze, and his flame is a scarlet plume shot through with black.

### Windchaser

A speedy she-whelp who could often be seen as little more than a stormcloud blur in the halls of the Red Keep before the dragons were confined to the pit. Her teeth are sharp black points and she has eyes like the turbulent winter sea.

## Other Dragons

### Vyronas

The only adult dragon who is not a descendant of those born in the Dothraki Sea. His egg was found on Dragonstone by Daenerys Targaryen during her conquest of the Seven Kingdoms and he hatched late in the reign of Daeron III. One of the largest dragons, he is a peculiar indigo color, like the last rays of gloomy twilight before night has completely fallen. His eyes burn bright orange and his flame is the same color, shot through with streaks of black and gold. His roar is powerful enough to make the ground tremble.

### Helcaraxe

An albino she-dragon, white as the new-fallen snows of winter beyond the Wall. She was hatched from an egg laid by Tessarion. Her teeth and claws gleam like polished steel daggers and she has an unusually long, whip-like tail. Her eyes are a crimson so dark they almost appear black and her wing membranes so translucent a book can be read through them. She is known as “the Fury” for her terrible, screaming roar.

### Eranikus

The ill-tempered and only offspring of Ancalagon. He is the size of a carriage and able to be ridden, if someone were brave enough to tame him. His scales are like rubies and his spinal plates and horns black as obsidian. He has bronze eyes and fearsome black teeth.

### Aelyx

The only offspring of Maedhros. He is a cream-colored dragon with spinal plates and horns like polished jade. The scales are darker in color around his claws, like the finest of emeralds and his eyes are smoldering bronze pits. His flame is white streaked with gold and lambent green.

### Balerys

A coal black dragon, the offspring of Baethyir. His flanks are streaked with wine-dark purple and his spinal plates and horns are the same color. He has wildfire eyes and jet black flame which burns unusually hot for his small size.

### Morning

A little she-dragon, the whelp of Saeryx and Quicksilver. Her scales are pale blue and her wing membranes pale pink, nearly white. Her teeth and claws are ivory and she gleams golden along her spinal plates and at her horns.

### Terrax

The most recent to hatch and therefore the youngest living dragon, a whelp of Vyronas. He is a rich amber color like spiced Dornish wine, with eyes that are pools of liquid gold and wing membranes streaked with dusky violet.

## Dragon Eggs

Dragon eggs come in various shades. The coloring of the eggshell appears to indicate the coloring of the dragon within. Currently, House Targaryen is in possession of six unhatched eggs:

* Gold and silver, with veins like pure flame.
* Blue as the ocean deep shot through with pearl.
* Red with flecks of gold and black whorls.
* Pale cream, streaked with gold.
* Black as a moonless night, alive with scarlet ripples.
* Deep green with burnished bronze flecks.