Threshing Day Game FAQ

An interactive dragon-bonding game set at Basgiath. You build a cadet, walk into the valley, make a handful of choices, and find out which dragon answers. It runs in the browser in about three minutes and needs no account.

The game runs on this site at the top of the homepage, and in full screen at /play. Nothing to install and nothing to sign up for.

Dragonkind is the official interactive experience for the Empyrean series, operated by Yarros Ink, Inc. and linked from the author's site. An account with an email address is required to use it.

No. This is an independent interactive experience inspired by the published Empyrean world, and it is not operated by Rebecca Yarros, Yarros Ink, Entangled Publishing or Red Tower Books. The official experience is at dragonkind.com.

No. This site asks for no email and no account. Your runs, collection and codex fragments are stored on your own device.

No. It is a companion anthology of thirteen stories, catalogued as The Empyrean #3.5 and published on September 29, 2026. The fourth novel is still in progress with no announced title or date.

Spoiler free. Riders, pairings, Threshing outcomes and later-book material all sit behind gates until you raise your spoiler setting or open a gate by hand.

No. The engine, the scenes, the rarity ladder, the bond strength and the cadet dossier generator are all this site's own invention. Canon facts on the site are sourced and labelled; game mechanics are labelled as game mechanics.

Threshing is the annual trial on October 1 when the first-year cadets of the Riders Quadrant enter a forested valley below the citadel and hope a dragon chooses them. Riders do not choose dragons. A dragon either bonds with a cadet, ignores the cadet, or kills the cadet.

Yes, this site runs one. It is an original short run written for this website, not the official Dragonkind experience. You pick your way through the valley, and the site resolves a dragon from your choices, your stats and a seed.

No. The official interactive experience is at dragonkind.com, operated by Yarros Ink, Inc. This site is an independent fan project and is not affiliated with Rebecca Yarros, Red Tower Books or Dragonkind.

No. The run is played in the browser and your record is kept in your own browser storage. There is nothing to sign up for before you start.

No. There is no published official algorithm. The matching system on this site is its own game mechanic, built from six stats, colour weightings and a seeded random roll, and it is labelled as site-game content everywhere it appears.

The run is written to be readable before you finish the series, and later-series material is held behind a spoiler setting you control. Anything past Fourth Wing is gated rather than mixed into the default text.

A single run is short by design, a few minutes of choices rather than an evening. Each run ends in a bond, a rejection, a burn or a rarer hidden outcome, and you can start another immediately.

It is any dragon that comes to the valley on October 1 to choose a first-year cadet of the Riders Quadrant. Around a hundred dragons were willing to bond in the year Fourth Wing covers, down from 137 and 163 in the two years before.

Black is the rarest of the six mature colours, and no black dragon had been born for a century before the events of Fourth Wing. Only two living adult black dragons are named anywhere in the series: Tairn and Codagh.

Colour is a set of temperament tendencies and a question of rarity, not a rules system. The in-world guide says never look a red in the eye, never back down from a green, and do not show trepidation to a brown. Colour does not determine tail type.

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.

It is the official interactive Empyrean experience, linked from Rebecca Yarros's official site navigation and operated by Yarros Ink, Inc. Its landing page opens with "Let Conscription Day Begin" and "Dare to enter the Rider's Quadrant?".

There is no published price for the experience. Creating an account collects an email address, and the privacy policy states that no other personal information is required to use the interface.

Yes. The privacy policy says you can visit the interface without giving personal information, but that you have to create a user account to use certain services. The account collects an email address.

The official attribution block credits Rebecca Yarros with the story, Infantree with the website, Andreas Rocha with the background art and Arancia Studio with the dragon art.

Not yet established. The experience is behind an email gate and there is no public description of its sequence, its steps or its endings, so this site does not describe them.

Not yet established. The only public-facing language on the landing page refers to Conscription Day and the Rider's Quadrant, and whether Threshing itself is part of the flow is not documented publicly.

Not yet established. No cooldown, energy system or daily limit has been described in any publicly reachable source.

Not yet established. There is no public description of what completing a run produces, so any claim about results, cards or codes would be a guess and is not made here.

Only one Empyrean interactive experience is official, and it is dragonkind.com, operated by Yarros Ink, Inc. Everything else, including this site, is independent fan work.

No. It is an independent fan project about Threshing Day. It is not affiliated with Rebecca Yarros, Red Tower Books, Entangled Publishing or Dragonkind.

No. The game is a web page that runs in the browser, with no install step and no app store listing.

Yes. There is no charge for the run and no paid tier, and the site does not gate the result behind anything.

Yes. The run is built to be played on a phone screen first, and the layout reflows to a single column rather than requiring a desktop.

Dragonkind is the official experience and its contents are not publicly documented. This site is an independent run that explains its own mechanics openly, labels every dragon fact with a source, and lets you play without an email address.

Threshing Day is a 13-story companion collection in the Empyrean series, published on September 29, 2026. Each story follows one character through their own Threshing, and the stories are arranged by year.

No. Threshing Day is not Book 4 and Rebecca Yarros has said so directly. It is a companion collection, catalogued as The Empyrean #3.5, and it does not continue Violet and Xaden's story after Onyx Storm.

No, and the distinction matters. It is a collection of thirteen separate short stories rather than one short novel, and the publisher sells it as a companion collection.

September 29, 2026 in the United States, from Red Tower Books. International release dates vary by market, and the UK and Commonwealth edition comes from Piatkus.

Thirteen riders: Xaden Riorson, Brennan Sorrengail, Dain Aetos, Sawyer Henrick, Sloane Mairi, Imogen Cardulo, Ridoc Gamlyn, Aaric Graycastle, Mira Sorrengail, Liam Mairi, Bodhi Durran, Rhiannon Matthias and Garrick Tavis.

No. All thirteen stories are rider points of view. Rebecca Yarros has said the dragons know too much to narrate, and the collection is framed as testimony gathered later by two Basgiath dragonkind professors.

The publisher recommends it. The stated reading order is Fourth Wing, Iron Flame, Onyx Storm, then Threshing Day, because the collection contains spoilers for the novels even though it can be read as an introduction.

The official interactive Empyrean experience is dragonkind.com, operated by Yarros Ink, Inc. There is no published description of its contents, so this site does not speculate about them.

Dragonkind is the official one and requires an email account. This site runs an independent browser game about Threshing Day, with a short run, a dragon result and a shareable code.

Yes, in the game on this site. You take a cadet through the valley on Threshing Day, make a series of choices and get a dragon resolved from those choices rather than picked from a list.

Not yet established. A television adaptation has been in development, but no video game release has been announced, and this site does not invent one.

Six stats are tracked through the run: courage, instinct, cunning, loyalty, aggression and patience. Each colour and tail has its own weighting against those stats, a seed adds variance, and the run resolves into a colour, a tail, a temperament, a rarity and a bond strength.

Yes. Every run produces a deterministic code, and that code can be opened on its own result page, so a result can be shared without an account on either end.

More than twenty named dragons are attested across the published books, from major figures down to dragons that appear in a single line of text. This registry lists only dragons with a reachable source and marks anything uncertain.

Codagh is the largest dragon on the Continent and stands roughly a metre and a half taller than Tairn, who is the second largest. Both are black dragons, and the registry records each of them with its own spoiler level.

Andarnaurram. She is called Andarna throughout the books, and the full name matters in-world because a dragon reveals its full name only to the rider it bonds.

The names are built on Gaelic roots. Tairneanach is given as thunder, Sgaeyl as shadow, Deigh as ice, Codagh as war, Marbh as death and Feirge as anger, and this registry records a meaning only where a source states one.

Six colours are in wide service: black, blue, green, red, orange and brown. Golden is recorded as a hatchling colouring rather than a seventh mature colour.

Blue dragons are rare, formidably large and described as the most ruthless of the six, and the rare blue daggertail is called the most lethal sub-category in the field guide. Black dragons are deadlier still by reputation, and far rarer.

It is treated as an event that concerns the whole college rather than one cadet, because black dragons are the most discerning of the six and had not hatched for a century. Both living black dragons are bonded to riders whose careers shape the war.

No. The in-world field guide says tails are a matter of choice and need, decided after the juvenile stage. Some fan tables pair colours with tails generically, but the per-dragon records contradict those tables and this site follows the records.

Six are described: clubtail, daggertail, swordtail, scorpiontail, morningstartail and feathertail. Five of them are adult weapons and the sixth belongs to young dragons.

It is tipped with knifelike spikes. The field guide says a blue daggertail can disembowel an enemy with a single flick of the tail, which makes it the most feared close-range tail in the ledger.

No. The books state that tails are determined after the young stage by choice and need. Clubtails, daggertails, swordtails and scorpiontails are all recorded across more than one colour, and this site never maps a colour to a tail as a rule.

On the field guide record, the blue daggertail is the most lethal sub-category, and a morningstartail adds blunt force to the same weapon. Scorpiontails kill with venom rather than with a strike.

Yes. Colour and tail are decided separately, so any colour can in principle carry any adult tail. The per-dragon records show the pairings that are actually attested, and the registry lets you filter them.

Basgiath is the military academy of Navarre, built into the side of Basgiath mountain, where officers for the four quadrants are trained over three years. It is both an honour and a death sentence, and only a minority of cadets graduate.

Riders, Scribes, Healers and Infantry. The Riders Quadrant has its own citadel, the Scribes Quadrant keeps the Archives, the Healers Quadrant handles medicine and the Infantry Quadrant forms the bulk of the army.

A narrow stone bridge roughly eighteen inches wide and two hundred feet above the ground, connecting the main building to the Riders Quadrant citadel. Every rider candidate must cross it, and roughly fifteen percent of candidates die doing so.

The trial that comes before Threshing, taken in the autumn after about two months of training. Cadets who do not pass it die, and the survivors go on to Presentation Day and then Threshing two days later.

Everyone takes an entrance exam with a written paper and an agility test. Most students are conscripted, some volunteer and some arrive as punishment. Rider candidates then face the Parapet, and the quadrant is the one most cadets do not choose freely.

Three years for all Navarrian officers, whichever quadrant they are in. Family contact is restricted during the first year only, and graduation falls in July.

The Vale is the valley behind Basgiath where the dragons live, and it holds their hatching grounds. Dragons are fiercely protective of it, and humans are not welcome there outside the days the college brings them in.

It is the branch of Basgiath War College that trains dragon riders, based in its own citadel above the main college. Cadets there cross the Parapet to enter, and they train to bond a dragon and fight as aerial combatants.

Four. First, Second, Third and Fourth Wing are all attested, and each wing carries three sections.

Flame, Claw and Tail. There are exactly three sections in a wing, each led by a Section Leader, and no fourth section is established.

Three squads per section, each roughly fifteen to sixteen cadets, which puts a wing at a few hundred riders when it is full.

A Wingleader commands a wing, a Section Leader commands a section and a Squad Leader commands a squad. The senior posts usually go to outstanding third-years, though an exceptional second-year can hold one.

Not until they bond. First-years share quarters, and a bonded rider is given a private room along with riding leathers.

Not yet established. The title is used in the series, but no sourced definition of the duties or of how the post is filled has been published, so this site leaves it blank rather than guessing.

Thirteen stories, one per character, each covering that character's own Threshing Day. The stories are arranged by year, so the collection moves through the ritual across more than a decade of in-world time.

Xaden Riorson, Brennan Sorrengail, Dain Aetos, Sawyer Henrick, Sloane Mairi, Imogen Cardulo, Ridoc Gamlyn, Aaric Graycastle, Mira Sorrengail, Liam Mairi, Bodhi Durran, Rhiannon Matthias and Garrick Tavis.

She is not one of the thirteen viewpoints. Her Threshing is already covered in Fourth Wing, and the collection deliberately steps sideways into the riders whose day was never shown.

224 pages in the US hardcover and ebook listing. Earlier pre-publication figures of 176 and 179 pages circulated before release and are superseded.

The US edition is ISBN-13 978-1682818084, ISBN-10 168281808X, published by Red Tower Books on September 29, 2026.

Yes. The collection carries its own spoiler warnings for a reason, and at least one story revisits a death that Fourth Wing spends its whole length preparing for. The publisher recommends reading it after Onyx Storm.

The deluxe first edition hardcover carries sixteen full-colour interior pieces by Joe Requeza, colour endpapers and sprayed edges, and was sold in the US and Canada while supplies lasted. The standard hardcover is plain black with silver spine type.

No. This is an independent fan project. The official interactive experience is dragonkind.com, operated by Yarros Ink, Inc., and the books are published by Red Tower Books and Entangled Publishing.

Yes. There is no charge, no paid tier and no account needed to play a run or to open a shared result.

No. No official algorithm has been published. The matching system here is this site's own game mechanic and is labelled as such wherever a result is shown.

Every record carries a provenance label: canon for facts stated in the published books and official material, community report for claims that rest on fan trackers, site-game for invented mechanics, and unconfirmed for circulating theories. A community claim is never presented as canon.

It means the published books and official material do not answer the question, so this site leaves the field empty instead of filling it with a guess. It is used for unknowns such as one dragon tail type, the current Commandant and the internals of the Dragonkind experience.

Tell us, and include the book and chapter if you have it. Records are corrected against the published text, and anything that cannot be sourced is moved to a community report rather than left standing as fact.

Fourth Wing, then Iron Flame, then Onyx Storm. Threshing Day is best read after Onyx Storm because it contains spoilers for the novels, even though it can technically be read as an introduction.

Every record lists its sources. The strongest are the official publisher and author pages and the interactive experience at dragonkind.com; the weakest are fan trackers, which are labelled as community reports on the record itself.