Flamepipes
Flamepipes are tubes of brass engineered to eject and ignite streams of naphtha to project devastating flaming arcs. They are attached to dragon ruhuimur towers and fortresses as terrifying weapons
Dragon Towers
The first sketch shows a Master sitting in the command chair of a dragon tower. Before him is the lattice bone screen that he looks out through. On either side of him kneel his Righthand and Lefthand, with the tubes connected to their helmets that allow them to be talked to by other crew in various parts of the tower. At both lower corners of the drawing can be seen the ‘voice forks’ that the …
Dragon Ruhuimur
I drew the second and third drawings in 1982; they predate the writing of the Stone Dance by decades—showing just how long I had been brooding ideas for the books The first drawing shows the final form that a dragon and its tower took. The original image was produced in 1993, but was constantly modified during the writing of the First Edition of The Third God as I came to more fully understand how everything …
Rank and Insignia
There are many categories of military personnel maintained by the Masters throughout the Commonwealth, but all of them wear metal service collars that carry sliders. One of the functions of these sliders is to indicate rank. The second diagram shows some of the work that culminated in the tables displayed in the first diagram. These tables show the ranks and insignia for the Ichorians, for legionaries and auxiliaries. Those displayed cover ruhuimur (or dragon) crews …
The Legions
Excluding the double Ichorian legion, there are 46 others distributed around the Guarded Land. Theoretically each consists of 27 dragons or ruhuimur, each accompanied by a squadron of 400 aquar-mounted auxiliaries. The dragon, with its tower and flamepipes, is the ultimate, terrifying expression of the power of the Masters.