im on the road right now and my driver isn't exactly the [i]steadiest[/i] so please excuse any typos...

[@Gisk]: a tail-less whiptail...i definitely wasn't expecting that! off to the character tab with ye.

[@RedDusk]: the overall military force of caerel is severely lacking. technically, each fief should be able to supply at least twenty men at arms in times of national crisis, but with the isolationism many lords have gotten so lazy that some of the names on the list have died of old age, and the ones that haven't are severely undertrained. whenever the lack is brought up, the lords wave it away by saying the dragons are fearsome enough to make up for it. each fief does have a rrained complement of city guards, though, that rotate from village to village every few years.

as far as dragonriders being a separate faction, you're mostly right. civlians regard dragonriders as a breed apart, the strongest of the species, and look to them for protection. for their part, since their services as protectors are really no longer needed, dragonriders sit inside the mountain amongst themselves. as for the food, draketooth is capable of supporting about half its population; the rest comes from tithes from across the island. with fifty separate counties supporting one entity it's not a huge burden on individual farmers, and dragonriders usually don't charge for any other services they do for the populace. anything else they need like smithed goods they trade for with delver-found valuables. also, keep in mind the population of dragonriders isn't that big, and also that dragons only need to eat once a week or so.