Basgiath War College · Riders Quadrant
Dragon Threshing
Dragon threshing is the rite that turns a first-year cadet into a rider, or kills them, or sends them back for another year. It happens on 1 October, in a valley, and the dragons run it.
Play the Threshing
A full run through the rite. Four to eight minutes, no account.
The short answers
- What is threshing
- The annual selection in which first-year cadets of the Riders Quadrant enter a valley and dragons decide whether to bond with them.
- When it happens
- 1 October, every year, whatever day of the week it falls on. It comes two days after Presentation Day, which is why it is often called dragon threshing day.
- Where it happens
- A bowl-shaped forested valley southwest of the Basgiath citadel, ringed with ancient redwoods, boulders and steep canyon cliffs.
- Who takes part
- First-year cadets. Dragons are already resident in the valley and are under no obligation to choose anyone.
- Who chooses
- The dragon. A cadet cannot apply, negotiate or refuse. What each dragon values is subjective.
- If a dragon refuses you
- A cadet who is not chosen and survives may repeat the year and stand in the valley again. Sawyer Henrick is the canonical repeater.
- Can a dragon kill a cadet
- Yes. Cadets have been incinerated, including groups who tried to move through the valley together.
- What the bond leaves
- A relic on the rider's skin, often shaped like the dragon, and a channel of power that later becomes a signet.
What happens, in order
The valley
The first-years enter on foot through a bowl-shaped forested valley southwest of the citadel. The dragons are already there. Nothing about the ground is neutral: redwoods, boulders, cliff faces, and whatever the dragons have left behind.
The approach
Cadets spread out and try to read the valley. Groups that move together have been incinerated. Because what each dragon values is subjective, there is no reliable tactic, only choices and their consequences.
The decision
A dragon selects a cadet, refuses one, or kills one. The cadet can feel a choice being made, and can feel a refusal, before anything visible happens.
The bond
The dragon leaves a relic on the rider, often shaped like the dragon itself. Bonded cadets leave the valley as riders, with riding leathers and a private room.
The refusal
A cadet who is not chosen and survives may repeat the year and enter the valley again. Not chosen is not the same as dead, though the valley does not separate the two cleanly.
After
The dragon channels power. Lesser magic arrives first: doors opened without touching, mage lights, preternatural speed, powered pens, placed runes. Weeks or months later, a signet manifests.
Why dragons choose
Riders do not choose dragons. The dragons choose, and they choose for reasons of their own. The series is explicit that what one dragon values is not what the next one values, which is why the quadrant cannot teach a formula for Threshing and instead teaches cadets to survive it.
Scale matters here. In one recent year roughly 100 dragons were willing to bond, down from 137 and 163 in the two years before. A dragon that attends the valley is not promising to take anyone home.
An unusual bond is treated as an event. When a black dragon chooses, the consequences are felt through the whole college, because black dragons are the rarest and the most selective of the six known colours.
What the bond does
The bond is not a ceremony, it is a channel. The dragon leaves a relic on the rider's skin, then begins to push power through it. Lesser magic arrives early and quietly: a door opened without a hand, a mage light, a pen that writes without being held. A signet takes longer, weeks or months, and what it becomes depends on the rider as much as the dragon.
Dragons speak only to their own rider, by mind, and reveal their full name only to that rider. A bonded dragon can also go silent, and does so when the Empyrean meets.
Two further rules are worth knowing before you read anything deeper. Mated dragons cannot be separated for long, roughly three days, without both deteriorating, and they tend to choose cadets in the same year so that their riders are posted together. And if a dragon dies, the rider almost always dies with it. No rider has survived the loss of their dragon.
What the game does with this
Every run is scored on six figures that the game keeps hidden while you play: courage, instinct, cunning, loyalty, aggression and patience. The valley conditions change daily, which is why the same choices do not always produce the same animal.
Rarity, temperament and bond strength are ours. The books do not rank dragons, and this site does not present its weighting as canon.
How Threshing actually goes in Fourth Wing
Spoilers: Fourth Wing
This section contains material from later in the series.
The first book runs the rite in full. A cadet who expects to die in the valley leaves it bonded to two dragons, which the series treats as unprecedented, and the quadrant spends the rest of the book arguing about what that means.
Read the chapter before this paragraph. The rest of this site keeps its spoiler gates where they are for a reason, and the Threshing chapter is the one most worth arriving at cold.
Sources
Questions people actually ask
Threshing is the selection ritual at Basgiath War College. First-year cadets of the Riders Quadrant walk into a valley, dragons decide which of them, if any, are worth bonding with, and the cadets who are not chosen either die or repeat the year.
October 1, every year, whatever day of the week it falls on. It comes two days after Presentation Day and marks the end of the first year of rider training.
Cadets enter the valley and are left to the dragons. A dragon may bond with a cadet, ignore the cadet, or kill the cadet, and what each dragon values is subjective. Cadets who are chosen sense it, and a cadet can also tell when a dragon has decided against them.
No. The choice runs the other way. The field guide is blunt that nothing about who dragons choose is up to humans, and a cadet can do everything right and still walk out unbonded or not walk out at all.
Yes. Cadets have been incinerated at Threshing, including groups who tried to move through the valley together for safety. The publisher copy for Threshing Day states the rule of the day plainly: do not die.
A cadet who survives without a bond may repeat the first year and try again at the next Threshing. One rider in the year Fourth Wing covers is the canonical example: he failed to bond, repeated the year, and bonded on the second attempt.
A bonded cadet is elevated to rider, issued riding leathers and given a private room instead of shared first-year quarters. The dragon leaves a relic on the rider and begins to channel power, which after weeks or months shows up as a signet.
Ready to be chosen?
Take the rite yourself. Four to eight minutes, no account.