Thinking of making a story utilizing dragonriders

I was thinking of writing about dragonriders (haven't made up the plot yet, just had an interesting idea while world building and thinking of using it as a plot). However, I'm trying to avoid ripping off Dragonriders of Pern and becoming hated, like Eragon. So, I'd like feedback on whether this idea should be allowed to spawn into stories, or if its just a rip off.

Dragons in this story are not a naturally occuring race at all. They are familiars to extremely powerful mages. Most mages have familiars that are relatively mundane animals: monkeys, dogs, cats, etc. A mage with sufficiently high power and skill can perform a ritual and create a dragon to use as a familiar (any overconfident mage who attempts the ritual before they are truly ready usually die or end up permanently, magically injured in the process). Like other familiars, the mage has a special bond with the dragon. They can communicate telepathically, feel/see/hear what the other sees/feels/hears, and the dragons are intelligent enough to talk (though their personalities are identical to the mage that creates them). And the mage's magic goes through the dragon, allowing the dragon to use its master's magic (commonly in the form of the famous fiery breath).

Also like all familiars, if the mage dies, the magic that sustains the dragon will dissipate, effectively resulting in its death. However, there is a catch to creating dragon familiars. If a regular familiar is killed, the mage is brought to their knees in agony, but they can get over it. If a dragon is slain though, the mage might die. If they survive, part of their soul will be destroyed, resulting in loss of magic and severe depression.

This justifies a couple dragon tropes. They hoarde treasure because their mage wants treasure, and they use their familiar to obtain/guard it. They sometimes capture virgins because hey, even mages get horny sometimes. It also makes the rider non-redundant as the dragon does what the mage wants, and if the mage wants the familiar to give him a ride, the dragon will give him a free ride. The ecosystem can sustain such huge monsters because even though the familiar eats, it doesn't require anywhere near the amount of food an actual biological being of similar size would require.

I don't see a question in there...do you just want general feedback?

I haven't read Pern, but Eragon gets most of its hate because the plot is a ripoff of Star Wars and the protagonist suffers from Moral Dissonance. The dragons have very little to do with it.

Although the dragons sometimes factor into it.

I think it sounds fine. It doesn't seem like a ripoff of anything as far as I know.

Riding dragons is just cool I don't think you have a problem there. If you want another story that has dragonriders as a reference, you can look up the Dragon Jousters series by Mercedes Lackey. It's kind of interesting because the culture is closer to Egypt than medieval in it.

edited 11th Jan '12 12:30:06 PM by NoirGrimoir

As an avid fan of Mc Caffrey whose read every pern book i can tell you quite honestly that yoru idea sounds original and very creative and the only part that sounds anything like Anne's books is that the dragons are not naturally created and have a telepathic/empathic bond with a human. And those are both very minor things so you dont have to worry about being accused of ripping off Mc Caffrey as your idea is very different.

Though i do agree with above posters it was more the ripping off star wars and moral dissonance than ripping off Anne's dragons that annoyed people probably because Anne was one of the authors that Paolini got to provide a quote for the backcover recommending his novel to readers.

You might want to put some thought into how intelligent your dragons are, and what sort of things they would want for themselves.

For example (I'm a little hazy on the details but this is the way I remember it) in the Pern series, the dragons weren't really intelligent in the sense that they spoke to people other than their riders, and wanted their own things and then went off pursuing them independent of their riders. They didn't really plan. This made sense to me, due to how the dragons were written. It was an unequal relationship.

In contrast, there was a book series about griffin-riders I read a while ago (The Black Griffin?) in which griffins were equally intelligent (if not always in the same way as humans) and did stuff on their own. One of the characters actually ended up being pushed into doing things he didn't particularly want to do, because of plans his griffin had made.

Either way makes sense, as long as you're consistent with it.

edited 26th Jul '12 6:28:46 PM by LoniJay

Dragons on pern did occasionally speak to other humans when the situation warrented it and they talked amongst themselves a great deal. They were often portrayed as being notorious gossips amongst themselves. They also went off and did their own thing without their rider but their own thing largely consisted of sun bathing.

They came accross as being less intelligent as humans because of their extreme dependancy upon humans (an engineered trait)and inability to think in more abstract/cerebral terms. Also their perception of the world was very childlike with everything revolving around them and their rider, little thought or concept of consequences, easily bored/confused by complex stuff like human politics or science, loved anything that could be thought of as a game, etcetera.

The Dragons of pern were simple creatures in that they had simple easily satisfied needs and desires i.e. food, shelter, a nice spot for sunbathing, having someone to sratch that annoying itch under my left wing, etcetera. Whilst they could and did think about what had happened in the past and what might happen in the future that was ususally when their riders pushed them into it as they preferred to think in terms of the here and now. After all what has happened has happened and cannot be changed and as for the future it hasnt happened yet and might never happen so either way why worry about it.

Sorry that became something of a ramble and if it comes accross as though i am saying your description of pernese dragons was wrong that wasnt my intention as everything you say about them is right especially how they dont plan and the relationship with their riders is unequal. I just wanted to expound more upon pernese dragons :P