Non-Human Orlanthi (and similar cases)?

[metcalph]

My own opinion is that the mythical ancestors of the Ducks were part of the Seabirds Army that sided with Sshorg after the drowning of Duravan and in the wake of that God, they invaded southern genertela and were generally wiped out.  Their alliance with dastardly Sshorg generally explains their cantankerous and demeanor in the Modern Age as oposed to their noble and kindhearted brethern in the Eastern Isles.  The Durulz ignore this because to do otherwise would mean accepting in their hearts that they are despicable as everybody says they are. 

At Sevid, Orlanth fought the Bird-headed tribe (Arcane Lore p90).  This I believe are the Ducks.  Now Sevid is in what is now Maniria and the Ducks remained there for the most part in the Dawn and Imperial Ages.  Sometime in the Imperial Age, a tribe or clan or ducks was either invited to or kidnapped by the EWF and sent to live in the vicinity of the Stitched Zoo where they aided Delecti in his research.  The ducks survived the destruction of the EWF because their base nature meant they willingly took bribes from the Dragonewts and the Blue Moon assassins to betray their masters.  Their untrustworthy nature also meant that they warned some important people of the EWF what was going to happen - only Delecti listed to them and survived.  That is why Delecti has not exterminated the Ducks.

[Jeff]

1 hour ago, davecake said:

Yes. It makes perfect sense that ducks are a type of keet, and in the East Isles there are duck keets that are more or less indistinguishable physically from the ducks of Dragon Pass, and the God Learners just assumed they were connected based on that and, it seems, not much else. 
 

Only that’s not how the ducks, or anyone else in Dragon Pass, remembers it, and they seem culturally and magically distinct from duck keets entirely, so 🤷‍♂️
 

(I personally go with the idea that they originated from duck keet eggs that arrived in Dragon Pass without live ancestors to teach them much of their own culture so they just adopted the local one, sometime during the Inhuman occupation probably, but that is wild speculation that doesn’t agree with the ducks own stated opinions, and just raises many more questions than it answers. Luckily the weirdo duck keet monk PC that arrived in Dragon Pass as their one unique thing in my 13th Age in Glorantha playtest never got around to asking difficult questions, I just liked being a kung fu feathered fury)

That's the sort of thing that only cloistered scholars in their libraries might say. Of course the ducks aren't keets. They are ducks, not parrots or other birds. They come from Ganderland, a great expansive empire of DUCKS, not of silly parrot people or whatever. Honestly, if I were a duck, I'd find such scholars just offensive. But fortunately, few ducks join Lhankor Mhy - getting a beard over that beak is just too hard.

[davecake]

33 minutes ago, Jeff said:

That's the sort of thing that only cloistered scholars in their libraries might say.

Yes, who are you going to trust, some scholar who spends hardly any time in the real world? Or some foreign traveller who spends too much time learning about the world outside Sartar in weird places like the some alleged Eastern Islands? Both equally untrustworthy. 

33 minutes ago, Jeff said:

I'd find such scholars just offensiv

And I hear some of them are <narrows eyes> God Learners. 

And the less said about the vile slurs on the noble race of ducks spread by that metcalph fellow the better. Who are you going to believe, some kind of Sage, or the words of the noble duck people? 

[Thaz]

There are the Humakti Trolls in the Haunted Ruins of course as well. 

[Ali the Helering]

'Duck' is an inaccurate and offensive slur upon the mighty Durulz!  This is simply the standard approach of the entrenched anti-Avian Rune-ist system. 

 

[Sir_Godspeed]

3 hours ago, Ali the Helering said:

'Duck' is an inaccurate and offensive slur upon the mighty Durulz!  This is simply the standard approach of the entrenched anti-Avian Rune-ist system. 

 

Well, what can you expect from these boisterous, hairless monkeys gallavanting around. 

5 hours ago, metcalph said:

My own opinion is that the mythical ancestors of the Ducks were part of the Seabirds Army that sided with Sshorg after the drowning of Duravan and in the wake of that God, they invaded southern genertela and were generally wiped out.  Their alliance with dastardly Sshorg generally explains their cantankerous and demeanor in the Modern Age as oposed to their noble and kindhearted brethern in the Eastern Isles.  The Durulz ignore this because to do otherwise would mean accepting in their hearts that they are despicable as everybody says they are. 

At Sevid, Orlanth fought the Bird-headed tribe (Arcane Lore p90).  This I believe are the Ducks.  Now Sevid is in what is now Maniria and the Ducks remained there for the most part in the Dawn and Imperial Ages.  Sometime in the Imperial Age, a tribe or clan or ducks was either invited to or kidnapped by the EWF and sent to live in the vicinity of the Stitched Zoo where they aided Delecti in his research.  The ducks survived the destruction of the EWF because their base nature meant they willingly took bribes from the Dragonewts and the Blue Moon assassins to betray their masters.  Their untrustworthy nature also meant that they warned some important people of the EWF what was going to happen - only Delecti listed to them and survived.  That is why Delecti has not exterminated the Ducks.

That's a very interesting take. Thank you.

[Joerg]

12 hours ago, Jeff said:

That's the sort of thing that only cloistered scholars in their libraries might say. Of course the ducks aren't keets. They are ducks, not parrots or other birds.

At this point the keets squawk in outrage that the parrot people of Forng aren't and never were Keets! Why, they don't have any remnants of webbing in their feet! 

 

12 hours ago, Jeff said:

They come from Ganderland, a great expansive empire of DUCKS, not of silly parrot people or whatever. 

Wouldn't it then have been called "Drakeland"? Having their homeland named after geese is just another symptom of the malady (mallardy?) that the durulz suffer.

 

12 hours ago, Jeff said:

Honestly, if I were a duck, I'd find such scholars just offensive.

And how would that differ from your (duck's) opinion on humans in general?

Just imagine a late 19th century anthropologist entering your hometown with phrenology calipers and an unshakable air of cultural superiority... of course you would loathe them, especially once they start digging up some of your dead kin (or killing some of your live kin) to take back sample skulls to their institutes for research.

 

12 hours ago, Jeff said:

But fortunately, few ducks join Lhankor Mhy - getting a beard over that beak is just too hard.

Luckily, LM doesn't insist too much on the moustache, and will take the chin beard which may affect only the lower half of the beak.

[Darius West]

On 2/25/2020 at 8:11 AM, Sir_Godspeed said:

Do Minotaurs join Stormbull? Or am I comitting a kind of racial prejudice here?

As sons of Stormbull, with natural berserking and a high beast speech, Minotaurs are excellent natural Stormbulls who are much closer to rune status due to their parentage.  The minotaurs of Beast Valley might not be so inclined to join Storm Bull, but non-Beast valley Minotaurs will likely simply gravitate to Stormbull.  The classic example of a minotaur outside of Beast Valley is of course the slave boy Morak, brother of Norayeep, from The Travels of Biturian Varosh, who was born as part of an unusual Stormbull ritual.

[alakoring]

On 3/2/2020 at 11:34 AM, Jeff said:

how do they plow people always ask

People don’t have much understanding of farming (in our world, the plow is maybe 5000 years old, and farming could be twice as old).

Given that the durulz are sometimes called “half-beasts” it seems possible that they were an extraordinarily successful experiment by the Remakers (to reverse-engineer keets), and didn’t exist in Dragon Pass before the end of the Imperial Age.

[Sir_Godspeed]

I aways assumed they were horticulturists working with adzes/hoes, hence their ability to work on wetlands and hence their overall association with vegetable-farming over grain - although the latter might just be me inferring stuff from King of Dragon Pass.

[French Desperate WindChild]

On 3/3/2020 at 8:26 AM, Jeff said:

 But fortunately, few ducks join Lhankor Mhy - getting a beard over that beak is just too hard.

until a duck becomes alchimist, discovers that a beak is based on keratin  and can be assimilated to a beard

[g33k]

On 3/6/2020 at 9:03 AM, French Desperate WindChild said:

until a duck becomes alchimist, discovers that a beak is based on keratin  and can be assimilated to a beard

... or Fumbles, and gets tentacles instead.

Ducktapus.

[Akhôrahil]

On 3/6/2020 at 5:50 PM, alakoring said:

Given that the durulz are sometimes called “half-beasts” it seems possible that they were an extraordinarily successful experiment by the Remakers (to reverse-engineer keets), and didn’t exist in Dragon Pass before the end of the Imperial Age.

Seen somewhere: "All ducks are Pain Ducks."

It makes a lot of sense to the ducks be Remaker creations, and I'm sure their relationship to Delecti might get in there in some way too.

Edited March 19, 2020 by Akhôrahil

[Joerg]

One of the maps in Heortling Mythology mentions ducks in or on the Solkathi Sea in the Flood/Storm Age.

[alakoring]

On 3/6/2020 at 9:03 AM, Sir_Godspeed said:

I aways assumed they were horticulturists working with adzes/hoes, hence their ability to work on wetlands and hence their overall association with vegetable-farming over grain - although the latter might just be me inferring stuff from King of Dragon Pass.

There’s a good chance we inferred that for King of Dragon Pass. It was one of the earliest pieces when Greg Stafford was still approving all artwork individually. (Eventually he realized that it was all good, and stepped out of the pipeline.)

[Brootse]

On 3/2/2020 at 5:41 PM, Akhôrahil said:

Wind Children and Orlanth, although this is hardly surprising.

Depending on your premises, Morokanth and the Praxian gods.

I imagine Newtlings might be able to get away with worshiping humans gods? As might, of course, the rare baboon...

A player in my campaign has a baboon character named Stormin Norman who's Melo Yelo's Orlanth worshipping brother.