Processes of a Dragon Rider

Initiation
Every organization has a way of testing new members.  The PDRs are no different.  Every one of the initiates are hand chosen by the Elder Dragon Riders when they are born as possible future riders.  At Age 5, the chosen are sent to a PDR Academy.  The parents of the chosen almost will always make their children go since it is an honor to be a parent of a Dragon Rider.  At the academy, the initiates will study the arts of war and fighting with the addition of traditional learning such as mathematics, read, writing, and magic.  They will learn what most children learn in 10 years in only 3 years, no more, no less.  At the end of the scheduled academics, the initiates will take an exam over all the subjects they learned.  The exam isn't the decider if the initiate becomes an apprentice, this is the decision of a master wishing to take on an apprentice and he/she will choose the one they see most fit.  Because of this, only around 10% of initiates will become apprentices.  The other 90% will almost always be offered an apprenticeship with a trade profession depending on their exam scores.  The new apprentices are now virtually permanent members of the PDR and will be trained and taught by their new masters.



Apprenticeship
After all the lose ends of initiation have been tied up, the new apprentice moves into their new master's domain.  Sometimes domains or homes are shared with other Riders, but depends on the master.
-Getting their Dragon
Before they go to the new master's home, they must first travel with their new master to the headquarters of the PDRs.  At the headquarters, a large ceremony is held for the new apprentices who are encouraged to fill up on as much food as they can while the party lasts.  While they are sleeping, the apprentices are taken up by their masters and are locked away in a large mirrored room with no windows are visible door and with only lighten by a strong orb which is scripted to create light.  The masters make sure that the apprentices don't have any thing on them except for under clothes.  In the room, there is a scripted (magically altered) dragon egg in the center.  The egg looks like a opaque gemstone boulder that is about 3 feet tall.  When the apprentice wakes up and finds himself in the room, he/she will mot likely panic and try to escape the room, but after hours of trying they will settle down and start paying attention to the egg.  When the touch it, they will be knocked out and fall into a deep dreamless slumber for 2 days.  During this time, the dragon, about 2 and half feet in height, will slowly hatch out of its egg in a scripted trance (it won't open its eyes) and will lay down next to the apprentice.  While they rest the remaining amount of time, their spirits will connect in ways unexplainable by words. When the dreamless slumber ends, both the dragon and the apprentice will dream together and share thoughts.  After one day of the dream, both will wake up at the same time, not surprise by seeing each other.  The new dragon hatchling will have the same personality of the apprentice, and they will share thoughts with each other.  They will be like one mind with separate thoughts.  They will and won't be each other.  Once again, I have something unexplainable by words.  They both will exit the room together through the door their masters brought them in.  The apprentices and their dragons will travel home with their masters (whose dragons are too large to walk on pathways.  They go off on their own, but stay close by enough to get to the rider in case of trouble.

The apprentice will train with their master and dragon (Who is growing in the process) to further what they learned as a initiate, in addition to learning about dragons.  When the apprentice turns 14, the dragon will be large enough to fly.  The master will teach the apprentice the ways of making a dragon's harness, since the dragon will always be outgrowing the old one.  After making their first harness is made, the apprentice and the dragon will then be taught how to fly by both their masters (Dragons master being the master's dragon of course) together.  This will take roughly a year to teach the basics to the apprentice and after that their will be another ceremony at the PDRs headquarters for the advancing apprentices.  This will be more of a gradation than the previous ceremony.  The apprentices will be given their first true weapon by their masters, usually a sword but can be a bow or crossbow.  The weapon will be the last thing given to them by their masters, who now begin searching for a new apprentice. 


Novice
The apprentice rises up to being a novice and will be assigned a house to stay in for further training.  This house is usually with other new novices and they will train and study independently.  They will live at an assigned location where they will survive by themselves.  On occasion, they will be given jobs or tests by the Headquarters to perform.  Doing so, the novices will be awarded or punished for failing.  They will have to repeat a test again and again until they get it, results may be fatal.  This is a process for weeding out the impurities in the riders; the novices whose masters did sloppy training will surely die.  The event of death is shown to the novices often as their friends die before their eyes (It toughens them).  The novices will on average complete a test every 3 months and a job about every week.  The novices' jobs will be more of a peacekeeping missions and not just difficult tasks that tests are.  If they survive for 5 years as a novice, they will advance to a rider status.


Rider Status
At this point, only about 2% of the original initiates have passed or survived long enough to become a full fledged rider.  They will move out of their house and be awarded a new scripted weapon by the Master Riders, the riders each will chose a branch of the three with their dragons.  They then will be assigned a region to protect or overlook.  The rider and the dragon will live in a reclusive location by themselves and will spend most of their time scouting the land for danger, hunting, looking for firewood, crafting new cloths or saddles, etc.  The rider can almost never leave the area they were assigned, often lucky riders are paired with another to protect a more prone area, so one rider could leave for a few days while the other took care of any trouble.  After years of experience or shown skill, a rider might just become a master.


Master Status
About .5% of all initiates become masters; these are the most elite of the riders and ranges over a large age range.  Masters only become masters when they have shown to be zealous as a rider and a good example of one.  They are rewarded with an upgrade to their house, which mostly includes making it into a tower.  They may now chose to take in an apprentice if they like, taking their part in raising the next generation.


Elder Status
The Elder Riders are said to each be chosen by a god, which means there are 12 of them.  One of each race has an elder.  It is said when a new elder is chosen by a God, the chosen will challenge the elder to a fight, most times it is a apprentice or novice.  If the youngling is slaughtered, he was just being cocky or misinterpreted something as a message from their God.  If they kill the elder, they are surely chosen.  New elders are gifted with skills other riders are not.  They can easily script items, as well as easily decide who might be able to be a rider.  Elders are most of the time extremely powerful in the magical arts and are said to have been half 3rd generation.  Their dragons are, however, extremely unattached to the elder for some odd unknown reason.  The dragons seem to not have the same bond as the other riders do.