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Volstov Dragon Corps - Dragon Classifications

Since I’m currently working on a long-form fanfiction about the infamous Airmen of the Volstov Dragon Corps, I took it upon myself to parse together a list of what dragons fulfilled what roles based on mentions in the books themselves. All I’ve looked at so far is Havemercy, since it’s the one that deals with the dragons most directly. I’ve compiled a list, complete with a key, as well as explanations and relevant quotations under the Read More.

For the purpose of this list, bold names are mentioned directly in canon, italicized ones are those that could be surmised from context clues, and ones without formatting are the ones never directly mentioned, and which I guessed on. But there’s reasoning behind them all under the divider!

I’d love to discuss this huge meta mess with anyone that happens to be interested! And since I haven’t gone through Dragonsoul or Steelhands yet, if you have any extra (or contradictory) evidence, please let me know! I’m intending to turn this post into a meta resource for anyone who’s interested in such a thing. I’ll add other quotes as necessary. (And there are also some below that deal with how raids were structured.)

Rook – Havemercy – Jacqueline Balfour – Anastasia – Swift Evariste – Illarion – Firebreather Niall – Erdeni – Firebreather Ace – Thoushalt – Jacqueline Merritt – Vachir – Firebreather Jeannot – Al Atan – Jacqueline Ghislain – Compassus – Crusher Maghougin – Chastity – Crusher Adamo – Proudmouth – Crusher Ivory – Cassiopeia – Firebreather Raphael – Natalia – Swift Compagnon – Spiridon – Crusher Luvander – Yesfir – Swift

Rook – Havemercy – Jacqueline “The only girls we consistently had up in the air were my Have, of course, and the other two Jacquelines, those being Jeannot on Al Atan and Ace on Thoushalt.” – pg. 387, Havemercy

Balfour – Anastasia – Swift Rook specifically mentions “a swift like Anastasia” – pg. 177, Havemercy

Evariste – Illarion – Firebreather The type of dragon that Evariste pilots is never directly mentioned in the text. However, I thought that Firebreather made the most sense, on account of a few reasons. First of all, near the end of the novel when Rook is talking about the dragons that are still in (mostly) operational condition, he groups them together by type. The swifts are mentioned first, followed by the three Jacquelines, two crushers, and then Illarion and Erdeni. Cassiopeia is the only Firebreather canonically identified—but the Dragon Corps features about 3-4 dragons of each type, and Evariste/Illarion are one of the only three pairs that has no distinct mention.

Niall – Erdeni – Firebreather Like Illarion, Erdeni is never directly mentioned. But like her, Rook mentions Erdeni in the same group: near the end of the novel when Rook is talking about the dragons that are still in (mostly) operational condition, he groups them together by type. The swifts are mentioned first, followed by the three Jacquelines, two crushers, and then Illarion and Erdeni. Cassiopeia is the only Firebreather canonically identified—but the Dragon Corps features about 3-4 dragons of each type, and Niall/Erdeni are one of the only three pairs that has no distinct mention.

Ace – Thoushalt – Jacqueline “The only girls we consistently had up in the air were my Have, of course, and the other two Jacquelines, those being Jeannot on Al Atan and Ace on Thoushalt.” – pg. 387, Havemercy

Merritt – Vachir – Firebreather Merritt/Vachir have no canonical mention—not even a scant one like Evariste and Niall. However, based on the number of crushers, mentions of how swifts were fewer in number than the rest of the dragons, and the fact that there are only three Jacquelines (who are all accounted for)… it only makes sense that Vachir is a Firebreather.

Jeannot – Al Atan – Jacqueline “The only girls we consistently had up in the air were my Have, of course, and the other two Jacquelines, those being Jeannot on Al Atan and Ace on Thoushalt.” – pg. 387, Havemercy

Ghislain – Compassus – Crusher “a crusher like Compassus” – pg. 178, Havemercy

Maghougin – Chastity – Crusher Chastity’s classification is never directly mentioned. However, at the end of the novel during the attack on Lapis, Rook mentions that he and Havemercy are not doing as good a job of clearing out the catapaults as a crusher might. Shortly after, Maghoughin/Chastity land in the same area and begin wreaking havoc. Rook inventories those that are lost a paragraph after Chastity goes down—two Jacquelines, two crushers, and a swift. The Jacquelines are accounted for, and there are context clues to identify the other crusher and the swift.

Adamo – Proudmouth – Crusher [Credit for the catch goes to seagreenish/luvanderwon!] It’s mentioned in Steelhands that Proudmouth was a crusher. Quote and reference page forthcoming.

Proudmouth is mentioned as being “too big to get out of the way quick enough” at the end of the novel when the Ke-Han catapult a boulder in her direction. Rook notes immediately after that “[they] needed the bigs for sheer force” (pg. 398). Thus, her classification seems pretty cut and dry. Further evidence is in that he mentions her in the same grouping as Compassus, who we know is a crusher.

Ivory – Cassiopeia – Firebreather Rook outright states that Cassiopeia is a “fire-belcher” – pg. 177, Havemercy

Raphael – Natalia – Swift On page 285-287, Rook talks about one of the times he went on a raid with Compagnon and Raphael. We already know that the typical raids are groups of three—with a swift for recon, a firebreather, and a crusher. The Jacquelines, from context, can fill in for either the firebreathers or the crushers, but seem more prone to filling in for the firebreathers. Later that same chapter, he mentions that Raphael is “still running point on recon”, making it clear that Natalia is probably a swift.

Compagnon – Spiridon – Crusher Spiridon’s classification is never directly mentioned, but there are a number of context clues that convinced me she’s a crusher. As mentioned in the previous entry on Raphael, she goes on a raid with Natalia and Havemercy, in which we know that the former is a swift, and can surmise that the latter is playing the role of firebreather. So logic seems to dictate that Spiridon is a crusher. Furthermore, during the attack on Lapis, the three dragons that dive through the winds and into the magician’s dome are Spiridon, Thoushalt, and Al Atan. An earlier conversation between Rook and Ghislain mention that the crushers are better at sustaining in the Ke-Han wind magic due to their weight, and the Jacquelines are probably the next heaviest because they can fill in for either a firebreather (who needs extra fuel) OR a crusher. Rook’s inventory of downed dragons accounts for the two Jacquelines, a swift (Yesfir), and two crushers—the only other crusher being Chastity.

Luvander – Yesfir – Swift It’s mentioned on pg. 185 that the Corps “only had two swifts.” However, on pg. 387, Rook says “all of the swifts but Balfour’s Anastasia could barely lift their own heads for flying.” Rook’s improper grammar aside, it doesn’t make any sense that he wouldn’t simply identify Raphael as the other swift pilot—which leads me to think that perhaps there are three swifts instead of two: the “only two” perhaps being in reference to how many there were besides Anastasia. During the attack on Lapis, a boulder endangers Proudmouth—who, as a crusher, is too big (and thus slow) to get out of the way in time. Despite Rook’s boasting that Havemercy was almost as fast as Anastasia (pg. 177), he states that they are too far away to intervene fast enough. Luvander/Yesfir, however, are, and take the boulder for Adamo. Soon after that, when Rook is inventorying the number of dragons that had gone down, he lists one of the swifts. Yet Balfour doesn’t go down until later in that chapter (pg. 400), and Rook makes no direct mention of Raphael whatsoever.

“One of the scientists—widely considered the most talented architect in all of Volstov—was something of a zealot, and the three dragons he’d designed were all named after prayers: Thoushalt, Compassus, and his most recent triumph, Havemercy” – pg. 45, Havemercy

“Only Rook, Ace, and Ghislain have gone. […] There might be another raid tonight, but propably not. It might even just be a false alarm. Raids are usually only called for one of three reasons, those being that the Ke-Han are at our doorstep—which is pretty unlikely—or that one of the watchtowers to the east’s been attacked. Third reason’s if we’ve been fighting awhile already and th’Esar gets it into his head that a preemptive hit’s necessary. Since we haven’t been fighting in a while, and since you don’t hear the alarms that’d indicate a city-breaching, I’d guess it’s the guard towers.” – pg. 158, Havemercy

“Basically, our girls were all designed by different men who I guess were thinking completely different thoughts at the time they designed them, so things are real different depending on whether you find yourself saddling up a swift like Anastasia or a fire-belcher like Ivory’s Cassiopeia, or a Jacqueline-of-all-trades like Havemercy” – pg. 177, Havemercy

“Havemercy was…almost as fast as Anastasia herself” – pg. 177, Havemercy

“And where fire was concerned, [Havemercy] was the most precise and so could hit them hardest and fastest.” – pg. 177, Havemercy

“The way rounds worked was that you signed up for at least two shifts a week, and it was best if you were working in threes with a swift for recon, a fire-belcher for razing, and a crusher like Compassus, or a Jacqueline-of-all-trades like Havemercy. Once things started getting hot and heavy I was working with Ghislain and Balfour pretty regular, but also with Ace ‘cause there was no beating us when we worked together” – pg. 178, Havemercy

“‘It’s three for a raid,’ I said, loud over the wind as we were climbing now, and the higher up we got the more it whipped around us sudden and fierce. ‘Unless the fighting’s hot, then we got no need for recon because the Ke-Han are barreling out from the hills every which way and we just got to plug them up no matter what.” – pg. 182, Havemercy

“We only had two swifts. Recon was dangerous flying: the point of being small was to get close, and if you got too close, there was always a chance you wouldn’t get out again.” – pg. 185, Havemercy

“Things came to a head the night I was out with Compagnon and Raphael” – pg. 285, Havemercy

“The Rittenhouse was nearest, was what Compagnon said, and with Raphael still running point on recon, I’d just have to wait there by myself while he got the meds out of their nice restful sleeps” – pg. 287, Havemercy

“Compagnon had done a run with Spiridon that put her out of commission, we guessed probably for good, and all of the swifts but Balfour’s Anastasia could barely lift their own heads for flying. […] The only girls we consistently had up in the air were my Have, of course, and the other two Jacquelines, those being Jeannot on Al Atan and Ace on Thoushalt. As for the rest, there was Adamo on Proudmouth, Ghislain’s Compassus, then, when they could wing it, Evariste and Niall on Illarion and Erdeni, in that order. All the other girls were fucking out.” – pg. 387, Havemercy

“We’d never flown in such a group before, except in the real bad times—and even then it wasn’t all of us, maybe seven or ten at a time.” – pg. 391, Havemercy

“I saw one of the boulders go hurtling toward Proudmouth’s back—she couldn’t see it, not to mention she was too big to get out of the way quick enough—but we needed the bigs for sheer force. I was too far away to get between the speeding rock and Proudmouth’s back legs when Luvander streaked into place on Yesfir, got caught smack in the side, and went down all at once, rock and man and dragon together.” – pg. 398, Havemercy

[Mentioned as having gone down up to this point—Compagnon/Spiridon, Jeannot/Al Atan, Ace/Thoushalt into the blue dome. Then Luvander/Yesfir. Prior to this quotation, Magoughin/Chastity had just gone down.] “We were out two Jacquelines, <i>two</i> of our fucking bigs, and one of the swifts, and who knew what else since I’d stopped paying attention.” – pg. 399, Havemercy

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