The smallest of Pern's northern Weyrs, Ista is situated on the southwestern shore of Ista Isle in a volcano which is a "dramatic half-peak….the blackstone like giant jagged fingers." On the lower side, facing the sea, is a plateau with a fenced in corral that fills the narrows between the Bowl and the plateau.
Too few weyrs are available within the Bowl to house all the Weyr's riders and dragons, so additional weyrs below the plateau are occupied, hidden in the lush greenery surrounding the base of the Weyr mountain as well as on the outer mountain on the south facing wall overlooking the heavy forests that cover the island. Lower still is a bay where dragons and people go to swim just off the black sand beaches.
Come by and grab a drink at The Klah Pot in Ista's lower caverns, or drop by for an impromptu spiderclaw bake on one of our many beaches! The evening often brings bonfire dances and the occasional dice game on the inner shore of our waterfall and lake.
As you can tell, Ista Weyr has taken a somewhat laid back view this current generation. While we have yet to resort to colorful tropical shirts and sitting under umbrellas on our beaches, there is a very friendly and informal feel. Maybe it's the fact that most of Ista's leaders are currently amongst the younger members of the population.
Either way, we love new people and also welcome visitors from other areas! So hop on a boat from the mainland or get a watch rider to bring you by. We'll keep some chilled fruit and a bonfire going for you!
Please also see Ista's own wiki at http://istaweyr.wikidot.com
I S T A W E Y R N E W S
Weyrleader: |
S'tao |
|
Sr. Weyrwoman: |
Wyn |
Weyrsecond: |
Tia |
|
Jr. Weyrwomen: |
Lisya |
Wingleaders |
Ai'den, S'tao |
|
Rt. Weyrwoman: |
Katarra |
Weyrlingmaster: |
I'deni |
|
Headwoman: |
Mika |
Steward: |
(Open) |
|
Asst. Headwoman: |
Vyune |
Ista, though one of the smallest Weyrs, is also the best situated: based on a subtropical island wafted by sea-born breezes. The living cavern is always full of people going about their business and you're more than welcome to join in!
@move to #2070 or snag a boat from the mainland to explore. Feel free to @send *isf or page any of the staff with questions. If you'd like to become a resident write *isf with your request. There are a few requirements to keep in mind, namely that you have a programmer's bit, that you have a reasonable description, and we'll need a /short/ written history blurb from you (send it to *isf). Think about what sort of job you'd like to do as well - everyone at the Weyr works in some capacity or another.
Staff: Jordan, S'tao, Ai'den, Rh'iad, and Wyn
Last updated: April 25, 2012
Under construction, sorry!
This is the Atlas rendition of the Weyr. A room to room map.
Locations:
Northeastern Bowl:
Hatching Grounds
Leaders Ledge - Weyrleaders' weyrs, Records Room
Stairs to Junior WW's ledges
Guard Barracks
Eastern Bowl:
Living Cavern entrance
Storage outside entrance
Central Bowl:
Training Grounds entrance
Feeding Pens on Plateau to Beaches
Southern Bowl:
Ground Weyr entrance
Infirmary entrance
Living Cavern:
Kitchen
Lower Caverns
Lower Caverns:
Weyrsecond's Office
Headwoman's Office
Supply Cavern
Crafters' Area
Baths
Creche
Resident Barracks
The Klah Pot
Candidate's Barracks
Workroom
Training Grounds:
Weyrling Barracks
Waterfall
Ista's Beach:
South Beach
Sandy Beach
Pier
Ocean
Runner Trail
Taken from the random menu in the Living Caverns:
- Large tureens of that old standby, oatmeal porridge, occupy one end of the serving table, followed by dishes of toppings, including chopped dried fruits, sweeteners, shelled nuts, and thick sweet cream. Further down, thick slabs of day-old bread await with a stack of toasting forks for the hearth. A scant supply of jam pots is supplemented by a more generous supply of fresh churned butter, along with fresh fruit chutneys and a platter of redfruits, mangoes, and citrus fruits. Fresh juice and hot klah, along with chilled milk, fill out the scant repast.
- The Living Cavern is redolent with the heady scent of the fresh, warm pastries that overflow their platters. Cheese filled. Fruit filled. Dripping with crumbly strudel toppings and icing. Steaming crusty loaves of sourdough bread are continually delivered from the Kitchens as the bakers finish up. To fill in the empty spots, jam and fresh churned butter pots line up along the loaves. The klah is a trifle stale, but the spiced cider is mouth-scalding hot. The usual platter of fruits is fairly picked over, with only a few spotted redfruit left.
- Thick stacks of pancakes and egg toast are kept warm in covered chafing dishes. Nearby, a variety of sausages fare similarly in ceramic warming dishes filled with hot water. A few carafes of fruit syrup are still on the sideboard, but most have migrated to the trestle tables. A few of the citrus juice carafes have also traveled, but most remain along with the more or less hot klah and tepid milk. A generous bowl of stewed winter fruits rounds out the breakfast offering.Smoked fish, served in its entirety including head, awaits spreading with crme fresh on chewy bread rolls. Scrambled wherry eggs, spiced with chopped herbs, and several rashers of thick bacon slabs fill the chafing dishes in the center of the table. An assortment of aged and mild cheeses accompany the decoratively sliced fresh fruit this morning. Several herbal teas are offered in baskets for individualized brewing. Oddly enough, although the hot water for the tea is steaming hot and the juices are appropriately cold, the klah is barely warm.
- Fresh, fluffy buttermilk biscuits are heaped in several open baskets, surrounded by pots of jams and fresh butter. In warming dishes, brown mounds of fried shredded tubers glisten greasily, while in a nearby tureen, a white gravy filled with unappetizing chunks of sausage has begun to congeal and separate as it cools. For once, the klah is scalding hot and brewed to perfection, the juice and milk carafes are so cold that humidity has condensed on their outsides, and plenty of clean mugs are lined up to be filled.
- Smoked meat cold cuts and sliced brown bread make up the bulk of today's luncheon, along with a mussel broth thickened with cream and chunks of tubers. Raisin and apple cobbler, served with volumes of whipped cream, is an inviting dessert. The first wine skins of the day, a rather vinegary white Tillek, have made their appearance by the klah and juice carafes at the end of the sideboard.
- An overwhelmingly strong odor of garlic permeates the entire Living Cavern as a drudge deftly slices an immense roasted mutton quarter for serving on flatbread rounds with sliced onions and a cold cucumber sauce. An inventive cook has attempted a Benden baklava, with mixed success. The resulting rich, buttery confection could stand more sweetener and nuts to measure up to the original. To one side, a tureen of lentils and greens makes a filling side dish, along with several blocks of ovine cheese and grapes. A sangria punch, milk, and klah fill their usual spots on the serving table along side a pair of second rate red wines, a merlot and chianti.
- Meatrolls, omnipresent in most meals, have finally made an appearance with a typically Istan twist. Instead of the usual herdbeast filling, the cooks have used a spicy fish and spiderclaw filling, rolling the resulting savory packet in sesame seeds before baking. For those preferring a blander lunch, pan-fried patties of minced fish, tubers, and cheese are available alongside baskets of flaky crescent shaped rolls. A generous bowl of sweetener-glazed berries and sliced fruit rounds out the meal, along with a salad of tossed field greens and mustard sauce. No wine as yet today, but the klah is mostly drinkable, and the ale and juice carafes have just been refilled.
- A thick, savory stew of spiderclaws and fiery sausage, thickened with river grain fills one tureen today, while the other contains a mild, creamy cheese soup of some sort, flavored with a hint of white wine. Several baskets are filled with an assortment of hard rolls and sweet quickbreads. The rest of the spiderclaws have been boiled and served with a red dipping sauce, alongside a simple citron custard filled tart. Mango wine, klah, redfruit juice,ale, and chilled mint tea are all available to drink, although the supply of mugs is sadly lacking.
- Cold cuts again make an appearance, this time thinly sliced from the previous night's roast wherry and porcine, along with an assortment of dressings and fresh chopped vegetables to be rolled in the ample supply of ground corn flatbreads. Sliced and fried tubers, heavily salted, fill several warming dishes. Redfruits, mangos, and grapes fill one platter, but the real dessert is the ladened platter of nut and fruit cookies. One enterprising cook has put a bowl of fresh whipped cream alongside the klah pots, more than making up for the lack of cold juice and the mediocre white wine.
- Immense rounds of yeast flatbread, topped with a baked layer of garlicky red vegetable sauce and melted cheese fill most of the sideboard. Some rounds have been finished off with chopped vegetables and sausages, but most are covered with small headless salt fish. Breadsticks, a tossed salad of field greens, and full steaming tureen of spicy bean and redsauce stew fill the rest of the sideboard. Ale, wineskins, juice, milk and scalding hot klah pitchers barely squeeze onto the end of the tables.
- Saltfish stew, thickened with cream and a few winter vegetables, fills the tureen tonight, while the abundant fresh catch of the day, prepared poached, broiled, grilled, and even panfried, is kept warm in the chafing dishes. A rather scrawny roast wherry is already nearly picked bare, with the smoked porcine quarter fares little better. A large serving platter of river grain pilaf steams temptingly, just delivered from the kitchen alongside a dish of cooked greens and turnips. But the real temptation is the klah flavored cake, dripping with syrupy icing, and the redfruit cobbler that crowd in on the end of the sideboard. The beverages have been relegated to another table, generously filling it with pitchers of dark ale, white wine, hot fresh klah, cold juice, and iced spiced tea.
- A young bovine has clearly been slaughtered for tonight's repast, for it's remains make up the bulk of the dishes on the sideboard. Bovine stew in a thick gravy fills the tureens beside bowls of mashed onion and garlic tubers, while a drudge behind the table slices off thick slabs of juicy rare prime rib. Fried mushrooms and other sauces and garnishes are available, as are roast tubers in their skins, and a savory cheese and sweet squash casserole. The fresh berry bubblies heaped on the platters at the end are nearly too hot to touch, much less eat. A hearty High Reaches ale makes an appearance tonight with the drinks, more than making up for the sour, weak red wine in the wineskins. The usual pitchers of klah and juice round out the displayed feast.
- Several roast wherries, stuffed with sage and sausage bread dressing fill most of the sideboard. A lentil and orange squash stew fills one tureen, while the other contains unappetizing blobs of cooked white dough bobbing in broth with a few chunks of fingeroots and celery. The medley of vegetables in the next dish includes corn, fingeroots, peas, and green beans. The kitchen drudges have just refilled the bread basket with hot fresh bread rolls, with a few of the earlier buttery crescent rolls hiding near the bottom. A thick, gelatinous egg custard, ornamented with a few dispirited wizened fruit chucks is the minimal dessert offering. The beverage offering is less sparse, with the usual klah, wine, and ale filling most of the pitchers. Most of the ones reserved for juice are empty, but a few might have a bit left at the bottom.
- Ovine stew, flavored with mint and garlic, fills the tureens tonight, filling out a scant meal of meatrolls, boiled tubers and turnips, and crusty sourdough bread. A few casseroles of noodles and fish fill in some of the empty spots, but mostly, several bowls of leafy green salad, with chunks of spiderclaw meat garnishing the top and a melon and redfruit salad bulk up the dinner menu. The harried drudges have just brought out platters of sweet rolls and pastries, along with crispy buttery cookies, still warm from the ovens. A truly excellent white wine, which tastes suspiciously like a Benden vintage, and an even better stout ale fill several pitchers to nearly overflowing. Although the klah has a slightly bitter, burned taste, it is at least scalding hot, while the juice and milk are equally cold.