What is a Junior Weyrling?

[Theresa]

Hello!

I'm a brand-newbie (and will be introducing myself formally later today-- got a pressing appt. in a few.) Anyway, I'm thinking of writing a persona for the "Junior Weyrling" male greenrider who's listed in the Tsunami Wing at DCW. 

The thing is-- I've never run across that term before in twenty-*coff* years of Pern role-playing, and I cant seem to find it in the site information-- which is amazingly expansive and helpful otherwise, btw. So, I don't know where he and his dragon would be, training-wise, age-wise, nor which Clutch his green came from.

Any help is greatly appreciated!
Thank you,
Theresa

[Avery]

Hi Theresa,

Triad has a shortened weyrling clutch period because of how it takes us 2 RL years to do 1 Pernese Turn. Instead of doing an 18 month weyrlinghood, we do a 6 month IC weyrlinghood (1 year in OOC turns). A junior weyrling is in months 1-3 of training, lives in the barracks with others, and has not yet /betweened/. A senior weyrling has moved out of the barracks, has /betweened/, and is doing the most advanced parts of training before graduating to fight.

There's a lot of cool info about weyrlinghood here, or you can contact your mentor (me!) for more detail.

You're welcome to make a weyrling that would have happened from a prior clutch. A junior weyrling would have Impressed within the last 3 months - a senior longer before then. Weyrlings under 16 remain as staff assistants till they're old enough to join a fighting wing. DCW does have a new clutch coming up that will be Hatching soon, so if you'd really like the full weyrlinghood experience, maybe you'd like to make a candidate and go through the whole process from the ground up? Or maybe you'd like to make a junior weyrling at Dragonsfall, which just had a Hatching last month, and join the current weyrling class there. The advantage of impressing in a played clutch is having a lot of PC classmates to write with!

[Theresa]

Thank you so much for your reply and this very helpful information, Avery. And hello! I'm excited to meet you as my mentor!  I'll contact you off-forum for further discussion of this, if you don't mind. Have a great day!