Name: Beast Hall

Current Craftmaster: (Open)

Colors: Yellow

Purpose: The Masterherder, who is usually a skilled veterinarian, covers all breed propagation. His craft is in charge of the care of stud beasts and breeding dams, and keeping track of the best bloodlines. His goal is to breed stronger animals suitable to their uses and locations. Mountain ovines and bovines are different from the types best off in fields and plains. He and his crafters keep stud beasts of each variety to breed stronger crosses in Holds that find their breeds are weakening.

Artificial insemination has survived as a skill from the earliest days of beastcrafting. The present-day Craftmasters do not know the source of their knowledge, but the process works and continues to work, so they continue to employ it. During the First and Second Passes, the veterinarians used embryo transplant as well, but those techniques are long lost.

The Beastcrafthall has nothing to do with dragons, fire lizards, or watch-whers. Generally, a dragon healer from one of the Weyrs, such as Moreta, cares for one of these when need arises.

The beastcrafters are involved mainly with the study of the animals that once came from Earth: runnerbeasts, bovines, llamas, porcines, caprines, ovines, and canines. They also look after avians, domestic wherries, and the rare chickens and geese, improving egg yield and size of roasting fowl. Some journeymen make a particular study of tunnel snakes, not as they do of breeding stock, but more as an investigation of their habits so that holders may more easily rid themselves of these destructive and dangerous pests.

Location: Keroon Hold

Information curtesy of the Dragonlover's Guide to Pern