Pseudopolis Light Dragons

Discussion in 'THE WATCH BOOKS' started by JAK, Sep 23, 2012.

  1. JAK Member

    In Snuff we meet Colonel Charles Augustus Makepeace the last remaining member of the Pseudopolis Light Dragons, a failed attempt to breed dragons stable enough for use in warfare. He is a whiskery old warrior with burn scars to his hands and face and has written his memoirs "Twenty Four Years without Eyebrows"

    There is no other information on these troops in the book and I’d be interested in your thoughts on this unit and how they tried to use the dragons.
  2. Maljonic Administrator

    What server do you mean, the webring one?
  3. JAK Member

    EDIT -

    Maljonic is not asking a strange question - my signature used to contain a link to a website. The owners of the server it was on intended to close the server down but only managed to remove their client’s access to the websites held on the server, meaning that websites were still live but couldn’t be updated – my signature also pointed out the reason my site was so out of date.

    Having now given up all efforts to regain access I have removed reference of the website, and the original explanation contained in this post is not required.
  4. JAK Member

    The reason for asking this question was that the Discworld Wiki on lspace.org states the Dragons were “An [[Army]] regiment that unsucessfully sought to trade in its horses for dragons.”

    Comments from other forums seem to confirm my thoughts that at two foot long it would be impossible to breed a swamp dragon large enough to ride. I’ve tried to contact the Wiki author and the owners of lspace to see if they could give their reasoning behind their comments but they’ve not responded; so I registered on the Wiki and have altered the entry to remove the comments about cavalry and concentrate on the flame throwing aspect.


    The original Roundworld Dragoons had horses but they always dismounted and fought on foot. Perhaps that’s what Terry intended they did in Pseudopolis.
  5. JAK Member

    The real reason for asking the above question is that for some time I’ve been building a Warhammer Army based on Discworld and had planned to model the Light Dragons as hand held flame throwers. Recently in the Warhammer world a cavalry unit mounted on Demigryphs (wingless griffins) has been introduced and someone I know has used dinosaurs as an alternative mount which made me think of the Dragons and the Wiki entry.

    As no real answer has been forthcoming I’ll wait and see if anything is said in November when Turtle Recall is issued – hopefully it will still be ambiguous and then I can model two separate units, one infantry flame throwers and the other mounted on Dragons.
  6. JAK Member

    Sorry for the delay in updating this – but not my fault. All set to buy Turtle Recall myself when I was informed it would be coming at Hogswatch. Due to a number of reasons it didn’t materialise and I’ve just received as an early Easter Pressie.

    I’m not impressed with the book as it’s not really an update but more of an inclusion of new material among the old unamended original entries.

    From this threads point of view nothing to help resolve my conundrum – in fact Mr Briggs has put another spanner in the works as he fell into the trap of the pun calling the unit the Light Dragoons rather than the Light Dragons.

    Thanks for your help - at least I know how I’m proceeding from here.
    http://www.terrypratchettbooks.org/discworld/threads/pseudopolis-light-dragons-–-the-truth.2703/
  7. Maljonic Administrator

    I guess if he's called them dragoons instead he might be trying to clarify that they're not actually riding dragons but rather using weapons that breathe fire like dragons, same as the Round World dragoons with their blunderbusses... so they might just be trying to use dragons as flamethrowers?
  8. JAK Member

    I think Terry purposely left the military use of the swamp dragons ambiguous allowing the reader to make their own interpretations of the unit; possibly influence by any notions they may have about actual Roundworld Light Dragoons.

    Mr Briggs is supposed to be writing a gazetteer of Discworld and its novels and so should be sticking to the facts as known – therefore slapdash proof reading.

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