Basgiath War College · Riders Quadrant
Which Threshing Day Dragon Would Choose You?
The books never tell you which dragon would choose you. This game does. Your choices lean the match, the run seed settles the rest, and the dragon still decides.
Try Your Threshing
Enter the Vale. Four to eight minutes, no account, and the result names your dragon.
Your result, explained
- Colour
- One of the six categories the series names: black, blue, green, red, orange, brown. The tables below say what each one reads as.
- Tail
- One of the six canon tail types. The engine scores tails separately from colour, because colour does not determine tail.
- Temperament
- Two words drawn from this site's own list. Invented for the game, not a book classification.
- Age
- A site-game figure. The books give an age for very few dragons.
- Rarity
- A site-game weighting from common to legendary. It is not a ranking from the books.
- Bond strength
- A site-game score assembled from the run. No book publishes a number like it.
- Share code
- A short deterministic code for the result. The same payload always produces the same code.
The colours the field guide opens with
| Colour | What the series establishes |
|---|---|
| Green | Green dragons are common. They descend from the Uaineloidsig line, are described as the keenest intellects and the most rational of the breeds, and are prized as siege weapons, especially when paired with a clubtail. The standing instruction in the field guide is never to back down from a green. Named greens include Teine, Feirge and Cuir. |
| Red | Red dragons are common and are the quickest of the colours to temper, with red scorpiontails singled out as the worst of them. The field guide advises a rider never to look a red in the eye and to approach from the left or the front. Named reds include Cath, Deigh and Sliseag. |
| Orange | Orange dragons are common and are described as the most unpredictable of the six, running a hue spectrum from apricot to carrot. The field guide treats them as a constant risk. Named oranges include Marbh, Glane, Solas, Baide and Claidh. |
| Brown | Brown dragons are common and are the least documented of the six colours. The only guidance the field guide offers is not to show trepidation to a brown. Named browns include Aimsir, Aotrom, Chradh and Fuil. |
Colour Explorer
Compare the six categories, then take the colour you were given back into the registry.
Spoilers: Fourth Wing
This section contains material from later in the series.
Black and blue
| Colour | What the series establishes |
|---|---|
| Black | Black dragons are the rarest of the six colours. None was born for a century before the events of Fourth Wing, and two living adults are named: Tairn and Codagh. They are described as the smartest, most cunning and most deadly of dragonkind, and the most discerning when choosing a rider. A black bonding is treated as an event that concerns the whole college. The Dubhmadinn line, whose original hatching ground lies in the valley above Riorson House, counts Codagh and Tairn among its descendants. |
| Blue | Blue dragons are rare and formidably large, and they descend from the Gormfaileas line. The in-world field guide calls them the most ruthless of the colours, and singles out the rare blue daggertail, whose knifelike tail spikes can disembowel an enemy with a single flick. Sgaeyl is the best known blue in active service. |
The late-series category
Spoilers: Onyx Storm
This section contains material from later in the series.
A separate late-series category. These dragons have shimmering scales that shift colour and can blend into their surroundings, and at least one belongs to a separate den that keeps its distance from Navarre. Andarna, bonded to Violet Sorrengail, is one of them. The word used for the category in fan material is "irid", and the fan sources contradict each other on the exact in-text term, so this site records the category and flags the label as unconfirmed.
The golden hatchling phase belongs to the same late material. Golden is not a seventh colour. It is a stage, and the books take their time before saying so.
The tail types the field guide opens with
| Tail | Structure | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Daggertail | A tail tipped with knifelike spikes rather than a blade or a weight. The blue daggertail is the rarest and most lethal sub-category, and the field guide says its tail spikes can disembowel an enemy with one flick. | A close-range killer. It rewards a rider who can hold a line and finish a fight quickly, and it is the least useful tail for striking at structures or at anything the dragon cannot reach. |
| Swordtail | A flat, blade-like tail used for slashing. It cuts rather than crushes, and it is built for a wide arc through a target rather than for a single point of impact. | Effective against riders, gryphons and wyvern in the air, and less effective against fortifications. It pairs with an aggressive, mobile fighting style. |
| Clubtail | A blunt, heavy tail built for bludgeoning. Green clubtails are singled out in the field guide as prized siege weapons because the green intellect is matched to raw physical force. | A structure-breaker. It is the tail a command reaches for when a wall, a gate or a wardstone needs to stop existing, and it is slower than the bladed tails in a turning fight. |
| Scorpiontail | A tail tipped with venomous barbs that deliver a sting. The field guide names red scorpiontails as the quickest of all dragons to temper. | A killing weapon rather than a brawling one. The sting rewards patience and a single committed strike, and it is the tail most feared by infantry. |
Spoilers: Fourth Wing
This section contains material from later in the series.
The two tails held back
| Tail | Structure | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Morningstartail | A composite tail that carries the bludgeoning weight of a clubtail and the eviscerating spikes of a daggertail on the same weapon. | The most flexible of the six. It can break a formation and then finish what is left of it, which is why it is treated in the ledger as the strongest tail a run can produce. Tairn is the only known morningstartail in the series, and he is proud of it. |
| Feathertail | The juvenile tail. A feathertail has feathers rather than a weapon, and it has no claws and cannot breathe fire. It cannot carry a rider, and it cannot form a traditional signet bond. | None in a fight, and that is the point of the entry. Because a feathertail cannot channel the way an adult does, it can instead give its full power directly to a human, which is unpredictable and can burn the dragon out. The books establish that every dragon passes through this stage, and that the adult tail is then decided by choice and need. |
Colour does not decide the tail
The usual assumption is that a black dragon arrives with a daggertail, or that reds are scorpiontails by rule. The in-world field guide does not support it. Tails, it says, are a matter of choice and need.
What the dragon records do show is that a handful of combinations are treated as more dangerous than rare. The blue daggertail is the clearest case. Build a result around that pairing and the game will tell you what it is, without pretending the books rank it.
How the match is built
Each scene in a run moves six hidden figures: courage, instinct, cunning, loyalty, aggression and patience. Scenes also carry a small lean towards one colour. Neither is shown to you as a number, and the game never explains a choice as a bonus.
At the end, the engine scores every colour and every tail, adds the run seed, and resolves an outcome. Rarity falls out of the score margin, the flags you set and the conditions in the valley that day.
The practical consequence is that two identical runs can end with different dragons, and a careful run is not automatically handed a patient colour. The seed is doing part of the deciding, which is the point.
Sources
Questions people actually ask
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.
3 further answers are held back because they give away a plot point. Raise your spoiler setting in the header to read them.
Ready to be chosen?
A different seed produces a different dragon, even from the same choices.