Dragonsfire MOO: Other Resources

Learning About Pern

Anne McCaffrey's Official Home Page
Lola's Guide to Good MOOing: what it says, and written by one of our own. Check it out!
Quirk's alt.fan.pern Frequently Asked Questions list
If you're going to read just one Pern-themed book, try McCaffrey's Moreta, which gives the broadest picture of Pernese life and is a great tale to boot; otherwise, enjoy the first two trilogies: Dragonflight (the first to be written of all the books, and wonderfully dramatic), Dragonquest, The White Dragon focusing on Weyr life (and) Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, Dragondrums which primarily explore the Harper Hall.
As for other books, The Dragonlover's Guide to Pern written by Jody Lynne Nye with Anne McCaffrey provides quite a lot of information, and even a short story. Note that in some cases info differs between books written earlier and books written later. The People of Pern by Robin Wood displays some paintings of McCaffrey's characters, and even--on the cover--an image of McCaffrey herself!
Nerilka's Story is set around the same time as Moreta and includes a Hold marriage, among other things. Later books such as All the Weyrs of Pern and Dolphins of Pern are interesting reading, but don't apply to DF Pern as directly; Dragonsfire is set two Intervals after the one in which Dragonflight began, but began before AtWoP was published and thus its timeline diverges strongly at that point, with no AIVAS. Books set earlier in time such as Dragonsdawn and Dragonseye (aka Red Star Rising) likewise don't directly apply, as even in Moreta's time Pernese had forgotten their origins. However, for example, Chronicles of Pern: First Fall gives helpful information on flying Thread when one is pregnant.
Ron Dippold's Index to The Dragonlover's Guide to Pern: eminently printable index of both names and terms; contains some words not found in the alternate index, below, which itself may have words not in this one. :)
Kynn Bartlett's Index to The DLG.
Becki Chorzempa's All The Plants of Pern: plants on Pern, taken from the novels

Getting Connected

TinyFugue: incredibly handy client for connecting to online games such as DF, that runs on "almost any UNIX-like system." There's another unofficial tf info page as well.
MUTT(tm): "Winsock-based M* client", recommended by Charlton
MUSHclient: "MU* client for Windows", recommended by A'var; the latest version has Even More Features including 100,000 line buffers.
SimpleMU: "MUSH Client For Windows and Windows 95", recommended by Ch'rron

Pern and Fandom

All the Weyrs List: a list of all the dragon names used on the various games, important because we endeavor not to duplicate any.
A Dragonlover's Guide to Pern Fandom: This is directed towards offline fandom, not online games, but most of its info applies even so--check out the comments on creating Pernese personae in particular!

Fun & Games

Jean's PernM* Drinking Game (Reed's Ginger Ale is moving up in popularity -- try the raspberry!)
Goldrider Application (satire!)
Draconic Purity Test: Not particularly Pern-themed, but funny!

Art (visual and aural)

Michael Whelan's art: Whelan has done the cover art for several McCaffrey books.
Robin Wood's art: Wood did the art for People of Pern.
D.S. Francis' original artwork on a new site -- amazing, amazing, amazing. Here's the rest of her Curio Cabinet.
Perry Bailey's origami firelizards with flapping wings -- pictures and diagrams thanks to Valerie Vann!
Cathie's Cupboard and Crafts: Cross-stitch designs featuring, by permission, Michael Whelan's art!
Lisa Konrad's original artwork -- some great dragons in flight! (Some are animated.)
Talyce's Dragon Alphabet: Links to capital-letter alphabet featuring dragon-ish critters: follow the link to Initial Caps and thence to Dragon.
Tania Opland and Mike Freeman have recorded a marvelous Masterharper of Pern CD.

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