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indi_timberpathGot something a little different for you this week! For some reason, me and dad were talking this weekend and started coming up with ideas for sports for other kinda of creatures, and before we knew it, we had a very fun idea for a dragon sport. So, for my homework this week, I wrote up a little “article” to share this sport with more people!
Fireball is the most popular sport in the dragon kingdom of Zhaelrinth, high atop the Windtooth mountains. Stories of the ferocious dragon sport have been told by adventurers for generations, but now that the dragons have allowed Scrystrand connections into their peaks, the sport is available for everyone to watch on their home crystals.
The basic shape and rules of fireball are easy to understand for anyone who’s watched a pawball match: Players move a ball across a field, following certain rules about how they can touch it, and score points by getting it in the opposing goal. The added complexity and excitement of fireball is just as easy to see though, since the draconic players are constantly airborne, and as the name suggests, their firebreath plays as big a part in their game as our footpaws do in ours.
One of the most fundamental rules of fireball is that dragons may not touch the ball with any part of their body “off the center”. In practice, this means that it’s a penalty not just to touch the ball with any of their claws but also their flanks or wings. Heads and tails are allowed, and use of them is not uncommon, but the majority of plays are done with either the dragon’s breath weapons, or gusts from their powerful wings.
Any standard ball would never survive this sort of abuse, nor would it be able to stay aloft for the duration of game that takes place entirely in the air, but the game’s titular fireball is marvel of draconic engineering. It’s made of the same finely-woven fireproof material that dragons frequently use to decorate themselves, which is actually mined from the heart of the mountains themselves, rather than being grown like most fibers. The ball has a central bladder which is filled with a variety of refined drakegas which is still lighter than air but no longer flammable, and surrounded by smaller bladders of air, allowing it to be perfectly adjusted to weigh nothing, and be moveable from the slightest touch. An inflated fireball like this resembles nothing so much as a person-sized raspberry hanging in the air, and is a strange sight to behold indeed.
However, the real nature of the ball becomes apparent when its temperature is changed. Applying just a little heat to the ball causes it to steadily rise, and dragon breath applies more than a little heat! In a fireball game, a ball shot with flamebreath shoots upward just as fast as it’s propelled forward, meaning a dragon must be careful and thoughtful of their angle to make a goal, or even to keep the ball in bounds.
Despite this added challenge, using breath is the preferred way to score in a game of fireball, due to its unique scoring system. A goal off of a dragon’s body, from the lightest head bump to the most dramatic tail-fling, is worth a single point, but a ball that has been most recently propelled by a dragon’s breath is worth three points if it makes it in the goal. Between these two is a wing-goal, where a ball has been deflected by air, which is worth two points.
The fireball field is, like everything else about the game, epic in scope. The game is played in wide mountain valleys, in an area more than 400 meters from goal to goal, and almost 200 meters wide and tall. The corners and midpoints of the field are marked by tethered balloons, colored to match the teams who are currently playing. Each of the twelve balloon-points is patrolled by a nimble referee-dragon who watches for both physical fouls and balls out-of-bounds, both of which are very frequent due to the intense nature of the sport. The goals at each end are magically-levitated rings of metal, over fifteen meters in diameter, which light up with magical illumination when a goal is scored: white for a body-goal, blue for a wing-goal, and fiery orange for a breath-goal.
Fireball teams consist of nine players. Teams are usually marked not by jerseys, but by distinctive colors and patterns painted on the players’ wings before each match. Positions in fireball are not very strongly defined, but players tend to act as Strikers, who score goals, Sentinels, who try to prevent goals from being scored, and Rangers, who move around the midfield to help all the other players.
This is an exciting time in the sport of fireball. Recent seasons have seen an influx of new players from dragon settlements outside Zaelrinth, who have brought new tactics with them. While Zaelrinth’s dragons almost entirely breathe fire, other types of dragons are capable of creating ice or even storms with their breath. Ice breath has already changed up the game, allowing players to easily send the ball on a downward trajectory with only breath. A common tactic for scoring goals has always been a breath-shot redirected by a wing-buffet from another player, losing a point of goal in exchange for a difficult-to-defend-against attack from above. Now, dragons who breathe ice can do the same with no loss in points, which have led to higher-scoring games, and controversy among fans on whether this adds to the game, or detracts from it.
Storm breath, in contrast, has been a more welcome addition, seen primarily as a flashier and more targeted way to heat up the ball. This impression has only been bolstered by the charismatic personality of the most prominent storm dragon currently playing, Brahven Winter’s-Dawn of the Agheo Starshards. Winter’s-Dawn claims to be working on a tactic that allows a storm-charged ball to actually seek out the goal, but it remains to be seen if this is a mere boast, or something else that will radically change the game.
Fireball is a truly remarkable game, and audiences across Shioza have been caught up in the conflagration. We hope that this introduction can help you enjoy the game even more. Fireball games are visible on the amethyst scrystrand, every Flowerday at noon, from now through the championship series in late Starkmoon.
Fireball: a Newcomer’s Guide
From Song & Saga magazine, Cherrymoon 3432 issue
Fireball is the most popular sport in the dragon kingdom of Zhaelrinth, high atop the Windtooth mountains. Stories of the ferocious dragon sport have been told by adventurers for generations, but now that the dragons have allowed Scrystrand connections into their peaks, the sport is available for everyone to watch on their home crystals.
The basic shape and rules of fireball are easy to understand for anyone who’s watched a pawball match: Players move a ball across a field, following certain rules about how they can touch it, and score points by getting it in the opposing goal. The added complexity and excitement of fireball is just as easy to see though, since the draconic players are constantly airborne, and as the name suggests, their firebreath plays as big a part in their game as our footpaws do in ours.
One of the most fundamental rules of fireball is that dragons may not touch the ball with any part of their body “off the center”. In practice, this means that it’s a penalty not just to touch the ball with any of their claws but also their flanks or wings. Heads and tails are allowed, and use of them is not uncommon, but the majority of plays are done with either the dragon’s breath weapons, or gusts from their powerful wings.
Any standard ball would never survive this sort of abuse, nor would it be able to stay aloft for the duration of game that takes place entirely in the air, but the game’s titular fireball is marvel of draconic engineering. It’s made of the same finely-woven fireproof material that dragons frequently use to decorate themselves, which is actually mined from the heart of the mountains themselves, rather than being grown like most fibers. The ball has a central bladder which is filled with a variety of refined drakegas which is still lighter than air but no longer flammable, and surrounded by smaller bladders of air, allowing it to be perfectly adjusted to weigh nothing, and be moveable from the slightest touch. An inflated fireball like this resembles nothing so much as a person-sized raspberry hanging in the air, and is a strange sight to behold indeed.
However, the real nature of the ball becomes apparent when its temperature is changed. Applying just a little heat to the ball causes it to steadily rise, and dragon breath applies more than a little heat! In a fireball game, a ball shot with flamebreath shoots upward just as fast as it’s propelled forward, meaning a dragon must be careful and thoughtful of their angle to make a goal, or even to keep the ball in bounds.
Despite this added challenge, using breath is the preferred way to score in a game of fireball, due to its unique scoring system. A goal off of a dragon’s body, from the lightest head bump to the most dramatic tail-fling, is worth a single point, but a ball that has been most recently propelled by a dragon’s breath is worth three points if it makes it in the goal. Between these two is a wing-goal, where a ball has been deflected by air, which is worth two points.
The fireball field is, like everything else about the game, epic in scope. The game is played in wide mountain valleys, in an area more than 400 meters from goal to goal, and almost 200 meters wide and tall. The corners and midpoints of the field are marked by tethered balloons, colored to match the teams who are currently playing. Each of the twelve balloon-points is patrolled by a nimble referee-dragon who watches for both physical fouls and balls out-of-bounds, both of which are very frequent due to the intense nature of the sport. The goals at each end are magically-levitated rings of metal, over fifteen meters in diameter, which light up with magical illumination when a goal is scored: white for a body-goal, blue for a wing-goal, and fiery orange for a breath-goal.
Fireball teams consist of nine players. Teams are usually marked not by jerseys, but by distinctive colors and patterns painted on the players’ wings before each match. Positions in fireball are not very strongly defined, but players tend to act as Strikers, who score goals, Sentinels, who try to prevent goals from being scored, and Rangers, who move around the midfield to help all the other players.
This is an exciting time in the sport of fireball. Recent seasons have seen an influx of new players from dragon settlements outside Zaelrinth, who have brought new tactics with them. While Zaelrinth’s dragons almost entirely breathe fire, other types of dragons are capable of creating ice or even storms with their breath. Ice breath has already changed up the game, allowing players to easily send the ball on a downward trajectory with only breath. A common tactic for scoring goals has always been a breath-shot redirected by a wing-buffet from another player, losing a point of goal in exchange for a difficult-to-defend-against attack from above. Now, dragons who breathe ice can do the same with no loss in points, which have led to higher-scoring games, and controversy among fans on whether this adds to the game, or detracts from it.
Storm breath, in contrast, has been a more welcome addition, seen primarily as a flashier and more targeted way to heat up the ball. This impression has only been bolstered by the charismatic personality of the most prominent storm dragon currently playing, Brahven Winter’s-Dawn of the Agheo Starshards. Winter’s-Dawn claims to be working on a tactic that allows a storm-charged ball to actually seek out the goal, but it remains to be seen if this is a mere boast, or something else that will radically change the game.
Fireball is a truly remarkable game, and audiences across Shioza have been caught up in the conflagration. We hope that this introduction can help you enjoy the game even more. Fireball games are visible on the amethyst scrystrand, every Flowerday at noon, from now through the championship series in late Starkmoon.
