Barntar's hardy redmane cattle

[Lordabdul]

Barntar's Lodge is supposedly up in the hills of the Far Place, near Alone, somewhere between the Bachad and Amad lands. Barntar grazed his "hardy redmane cattle" there until a great bear killed them all. That's pretty much all we know. I'm thinking of having one of the local clans either (1) having brought back this redmane cattle through heroquesting a long time ago, or (2) looking into doing that in the near future, either to strengthen their herds or just to make a better host for their wyter or whatever (currently leaning towards 1, though).

I'm wondering what the hell this "redmane cattle" could be. If my english doesn't fail me, that's a weird combination of words since "mane" is the hair on a horse's neck, while "cattle" is some kind of cow. So was it a kind of horse or a kind of cow? Was it a weird unique animal that's a mix of both? Right now I'm leaning towards a kind of hairy cattle animal like, say, a Muskox, where the hair would be short and brown on the body but longer and redder around the neck.

[Eff]

The aurochs, according to a 1602 description, was born with reddish-brown fur, which darkened to brown or black in the adult bull but remained red-brown in the cow. In addition, the aurochs had shaggier, longer fur around the head and neck, similar to a bison's mane or the long fur of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_cattle . We know that the aurochs is probably independent from the redmane cattle, but it's possible they're related, since we know that aurochs return to Dragon Pass during the Hero Wars. 

Perhaps redmane cattle are a domesticated aurochs, unlike the lesser Uralda cows? Or, if we were being sillier, perhaps they're a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beefalo or other such bison/cattle hybrid, with an obvious mane and red fur... 

[Lordabdul]

Highland Cattle is another option I had in mind, yes. Of course one of the problems is to try and make it different enough from the Red Cow clan so it doesn't look like a rip off

1 hour ago, Eff said:

We know that the aurochs is probably independent from the redmane cattle, but it's possible they're related, since we know that aurochs return to Dragon Pass during the Hero Wars.

I'd rather stay clear of the auroch connection because not only is my campaign set in 1611, way before Argrath shows up, but also there's already some Auroch Bringers in the Red Cow campaign, too.... Ian already did everything that's cool!  

[g33k]

There's some possible matches in Devonshire...

Red Devon, North Devon, South Devon (not clear to me how differentiated these are; I am not an expert!)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Devon_cattle#/media/File:Red_Devon_bull.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Devon_cattle#/media/File:South_Devon_cattle.JPG

[Eff]

2 hours ago, lordabdul said:

Highland Cattle is another option I had in mind, yes. Of course one of the problems is to try and make it different enough from the Red Cow clan so it doesn't look like a rip off

I'd rather stay clear of the auroch connection because not only is my campaign set in 1611, way before Argrath shows up, but also there's already some Auroch Bringers in the Red Cow campaign, too.... Ian already did everything that's cool!  

You know what? Let's get wild here. What big livestock aren't present in this part of Genertela? 

Water buffalo? Unsuitable climate, though they may be a common sight in Caladraland.

Bali cattle? Not really clearly distinguishable from zebu or domestic cattle. 

Gayals? Overlapping pretty strongly with Bison People.

Llamas and alpacas? It exceeds credibility to describe them as cattle. 

Camels, though... Of course, the terrain is completely unsuitable, being a temperate rain forest/cloud forest. But there was a genus of camelid, Camelops, which was native to the relatively forested climates of western North American of about 10 million to 14,000 years ago. Camelops hesternus was bigger than modern camels, somewhat more robust in build, and with a short neck that distinguishes it from the High Llama. And camels do have fur structures that might be describable as manes... 

[Joerg]

2 hours ago, Eff said:

You know what? Let's get wild here. What big livestock aren't present in this part of Genertela? 

Water buffalo? Unsuitable climate, though they may be a common sight in Caladraland.

Bali cattle? Not really clearly distinguishable from zebu or domestic cattle. 

Gayals? Overlapping pretty strongly with Bison People.

Llamas and alpacas? It exceeds credibility to describe them as cattle. 

Camels, though... Of course, the terrain is completely unsuitable, being a temperate rain forest/cloud forest. But there was a genus of camelid, Camelops, which was native to the relatively forested climates of western North American of about 10 million to 14,000 years ago. Camelops hesternus was bigger than modern camels, somewhat more robust in build, and with a short neck that distinguishes it from the High Llama. And camels do have fur structures that might be describable as manes... 

While camels have been used for plowing (I remember seeing an image of a plow drawn by a team consisting of an ass and a camel, the ass walking the hard, unplowed soil while the camel softly padded on the already plowed land), I do think that Barntar would know the difference.

Hardy redmane is a god enough description for the majority of the Highland cattle I have see - there are some color variations outside of ginger red, but those might not be bred for.

There is of course the dappling that occurs in the course of domestication, and that is iconic about the Holstein cattle. I have even seen galloway cross breeds with a white stripe covering the rib cage area while the front and rear were nicely black, and a color variation like this with most of the body but the head being a darker brown and only the head retaining the ginger of highland cattle might be Barntar's special breed.

 

Now where do I have the file on cattle breeds that I started preparing when writing this in the Gloranthan Miniatures thread:

On 11/12/2019 at 2:42 PM, Joerg said:

Look out for a thread on the subject of bovine looks and ancestry elsethread, soonish.

Don't awaken sleeping dragons!

 

[Ali the Helering]

A variety of Hardy Redmayne