Dogs in Prax?

[Sir_Godspeed]

4 hours ago, Jeff said:

There are dogs in Prax. They are used for hunting and guarding camps, but not for herding.

Thanks! 

Speaking of which, how important is hunting to survival in Prax? I'd assume that hunting is mostly a side-activity to supplement the meat from the herd animals (and equally or more importantly, the milk), but I could be wrong.

[Thaz]

4 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Speaking of which, how important is hunting to survival in Prax? I'd assume that hunting is mostly a side-activity to supplement the meat from the herd animals (and equally or more importantly, the milk), but I could be wrong.

The Great Plains tribes on Earth used dogs for hunting small game. How much biomass was that? And of course outside of the various but rare nice bits of Prax does the compact extend to small game? The Compact animals are at least in part supported by Magic. Not so Gophers or whatever....

[Qizilbashwoman]

7 hours ago, Thaz said:

The Great Plains tribes on Earth used dogs for hunting small game. How much biomass was that? And of course outside of the various but rare nice bits of Prax does the compact extend to small game? The Compact animals are at least in part supported by Magic. Not so Gophers or whatever....

This should be asterisked as the Great Plains were not habitable until horses arrived after the Spanish introduced them and they went marrón in 1598. Before that, the Great Plains were a wasteland where the defeated largely went to starve and die.

This use of dogs and stalking was a feast or famine lifestyle that no one chose and was extremely unpleasant and brutal. The Plains were where the losers of borderland skirmishes were pushed in extremis.

[Ian Absentia]

Okay, here's my first pass at a unifying myth for dogs in Prax.  Actually, it's v1.3 -- it's difficult to organise the order of events in a time before Time.  I don't doubt that contradictions will abound.  Also, I'm open to suggestions on the identity of Brother Dog's father. (Rowdril, perhaps? I'm sure that son of a bitch got around.)

Thanks to @Sir_Godspeed for inspiration regarding the Morokanth.

Brother Dog
The Loyal Companion

Brother Dog was born to Eiritha by one of her earlier lovers prior to the Great Darkness.  In those days, he walked on two legs.  He was a good god, alert and sharp of senses, able to track and uncover deeply hidden secrets, and he roamed widely.  After the coming the Darkness and destruction of the Devil, he welcomed the birth of his new half-brother Waha into the surface world.  Brother Dog walked ever with Waha as his brother sought out the People who wandered in the Darkness.

However, when Waha turned to the cleansing of the Devil’s corpse, Brother Dog betrayed Waha’s purpose, coveting the Devil’s Bone for his own.  He stole the withered, leathery member and ran off into the wastes to bury it, returning in secret to roll and gnaw upon it.  But when left alone, the Bone’s malignant nature continued to sire many lesser evils that plagued the land with foul odors and stains upon the landscape.  Waha smelled the evil on his brother, though, and eventually tracked it down, following Brother Dog to his hideaway.  Waha seized the Bone and destroyed it with mighty magics, then turned his wrath upon his brother.  Brother Dog bowed low in supplication, pledging eternal service in return for mercy.  Waha relented, but only after transforming his brother into a beast and denying him a place at the Survival Covenant, consigning him instead to stand watch at the outskirts of camp on four legs instead of two.

Thereafter, Brother Dog enjoyed the meager favor of the Men whose camps he swore to protect, but ever felt the fear and contempt of the herd beasts who still smelled the rank odor of the Devil’s Bone upon his maw and recoiled nervously from him.  The greatest contempt of all, though, came from the Morokanth, who knew of Brother Dog’s disobedience to Waha, and who sneered at his subservience as he stole a seat at the camp of Men; and Brother Dog returned disdain upon the Morokanth who turned the Covenant on its ear, walking about on four legs themselves, yet herding men-who-were-beasts.

Although with a place near Waha’s campfire, Brother Dog remained a beast and found himself with few allies in a hostile and hungry landscape.  During the Great Darkness, Waha introduced the young Foundchild to Prax to teach the ways of the hunt to the People that they could find the food that no longer availed itself in plenty.  Brother Dog followed the hunter from afar as he grew to manhood.  Sensing the mighty hunter as an able companion, Brother Dog approached Foundchild, eagerly demonstrated his many talents to both protect and aid in the hunt, and proposed a partnership that he would be spared as prey and they would instead hunt together.  Foundchild admired this beast greatly and they embraced as brothers, following each other in turn where the hunt would take them.  Foundchild introduced his new brother to Men over whom Waha did not hold such sway, to whom Brother Dog became a loyal companion and not a lowly cur.

Since Time began, Brother Dog has committed his being to the hunt, the herd, and the hearth, ever in service to Man, sharing in his plenty and his want.

!i!

Edited February 27, 2020 by Ian Absentia
Two legs good, four legs better!

[Ian Absentia]

By the way, have we all read this bit from Greg, c.1999?

Who Are the Dog Fathers?
https://www.glorantha.com/docs/doggods/

!i!

[Ian Absentia]

I already have some follow-up thoughts, potential edits, and possible heresies:

• Eiritha at the time of Brother Dog’s birth is not yet the “mother of cattle” by Storm Bull.  She is, however, “an animal goddess, a daughter of Ernalda, Mother Earth, and Hykim, Father of Beasts.” (Cults of Prax)
• Rowdril, the Father of Dogs is not a dog himself, but is the sire of "dog-ness," the traits that make a dog a dog.  He’s a randy fellow, and gets around during the Godtime.  Dog-ness has been sired in several places throughout Glorantha as a result of his travels, including Saird, where he sired Ensoval, the dog-god commonly associated with more civilised breeds (and possibly in Sartar where alynxes inexplicably behave like dogs).
• Grodrulf is the proper name of Brother Dog in Balazar.  Perhaps this his name in Prax, too?
• Grodrulf, Brother Dog, is thus the son of Eiritha and Rowdril from a tryst that preceded her union with Storm Bull.

!i!

[Rob Darvall]

5 hours ago, Ian Absentia said:

However, when Waha turned to the cleansing of the Devil’s corpse, Brother Dog .... stole the withered, leathery member and ran off into the wastes to bury it, returning in secret to roll and gnaw upon it.  But when left alone, the Bone’s malignant nature continued to sire many lesser evils that plagued the land with foul odors and stains upon the landscape.  ...

Which could also account for the Orlanthi dislike of dogs. They're too close to Prax and the myth and attitude has seeped in.

[jajagappa]

5 hours ago, Ian Absentia said:

By the way, have we all read this bit from Greg, c.1999?

Who Are the Dog Fathers?
https://www.glorantha.com/docs/doggods/

Came out of my work with Greg on Saird. 🙂

"Erindamus" of course was intended to mean "brother dog" in Dara Happan.

2 hours ago, Ian Absentia said:

Rowdril, the Father of Dogs is not a dog himself, but is the sire of "dog-ness," the traits that make a dog a dog.  He’s a randy fellow, and gets around during the Godtime. 

Rowdril is a dog - the first true dog. And Is the one that all other dogs branch from.  The one who is not a dog is Rowdril's father, Jajagappa.

Rowdril was brought back to worship by Verenmars, and his great war dogs aided the armies of Saird in establishing that kingdom.

2 hours ago, Ian Absentia said:

Grodrulf is the proper name of Brother Dog in Balazar.

That was the intent! 

2 hours ago, Ian Absentia said:

Grodrulf, Brother Dog, is thus the son of Eiritha and Rowdril

Definitely not Eiritha.  Ernalda?  Quite possibly.  I don't recall if I did any further lineage though.  Would have to dig out some very, very old notes.

[Sir_Godspeed]

The totemic ancestor of carnivores is Fralar, who is also the father of Yinkin, Telmor and Basmol. I'd imagine that BRother Dog (or Rowdril, rather?) would be in there somewhere. 

However, this is God Learner/3rd Age Nochet Knowledge Temple genealogies, so their influence on Praxian myths would be limited/uneven. 

I tend to view Eirithia as the mother of, specifically, herbivorous herd mammals, although she's taken in several unrelated adoptive children through the Covenant (including, if I understand correctly, birds and lizards). 

I'm not sure if there is an intermediate step between this view of Eirithia and the undifferentiated Animal Rune (ie. Hykim/Mikyh). I'd assume so, but I don't know the name. Besides, again, this is pretty God Learnerish/Monomythic thinking which might be entirely irrelevant to the Animal Nomads. 

In the end I'm not sure who should be the mother: Eirithia, Ernalda (is she even a relevant narrative figure for the Praxians?), or a hypothetical *Fralara, "mother of carnivores". But this also leaves the fatherhood uncertain. 

Yinkin was the son of a totemic beast god (Fralar) and a land goddess (Kero Fin). Perhaps a similar ancestry is possible for dog-kind. Perhaps a different option is preferable.

Throwing away the slavish adherence to the Monomyth of narrative clarity is perhaps the best option here. As long as the story makes sense to Praxians, that's the most important thing.

I think the core of the story works very well. A disgraced brother (or other close companion), spared for the sake of familial ties and repentance, but always kept in servitude and at an arm's length. Gets some measure of recognition by excelling in a useful skill nonetheless. Both potential aide and potential pest.

Edited February 28, 2020 by Sir_Godspeed

[Ian Absentia]

4 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Came out of my work with Greg on Saird.

Yeah, I was pretty sure the name Jajagappa wasn't a coincidence. 😄

4 hours ago, jajagappa said:

[Grodrulf's mother...] Definitely not Eiritha.  Ernalda?  Quite possibly.

I realised that roping in Eiritha as the mother of a dog was going to be a stretch, but I really wanted to land that connection to Waha turning his brother into a dog.  Ernalda as the mother would make him Waha's uncle.  The real rub is that, according to your genealogy, Grodrulf/Brother Dog is born a dog via Rowdril, leaving no room for the Waha transformation narrative.

57 minutes ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I think the core of the story works very well. A disgraced brother (or other close companion), spared for the sake of familial ties and repentance, but always kept in servitude and at an arm's length. Gets some measure of recognition by excelling in a useful skill nonetheless. Both potential aide and potential pest.

Thanks -- that's where I really felt rubber touch the runway.  You may be right, and this is one of those three-blind-monks-feeling-up-an-elephant situations.  On the trunk-and-tusks end, the Balazarings remember that Grodrulf was always a dog; on the ass-end, the Praxians remember how he was turned into one by Waha.

Hmm.  I'm feeling v1.5* coming on.

!i!

[*v1.4 was the Eiritha-Rowdril connection.  I need to ruminate on this "Waha's brother" angle some more.]

Edited February 28, 2020 by Ian Absentia

[g33k]

31 minutes ago, Ian Absentia said:

... I realised that roping in Eiritha as the mother of a dog was going to be a stretch, but I really wanted to land that connection to Waha turning his brother into a dog.  Ernalda as the mother would make him Waha's uncle.  The real rub is that, according to your genealogy, Grodrulf/Brother Dog is born a dog via Rowdril, leaving no room for the Waha transformation narrative...

I think this is a classic Glorantha-ism, with one "provably true" myth in one place, and an incompatible (but also "provably true") myth in another place.

Keep them both.

Develop them both.

Let them both breathe and grow.

Let them both ... Be.

[Ian Absentia]

1 hour ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I tend to view Eirithia as the mother of, specifically, herbivorous herd mammals...

Wait a minute here...I think you may be right.  But does that make Waha a herd mammal?  I mean, yeah, he's the son of the "mother of cattle" (The Glorantha Sourcebook) and the Storm Bull, but aside from being depicted as wearing a horned helmet I've never read any reference to him bearing a beast-like form.  He's a god -- is he fixed to a particular form?  And that takes us back to the lineage of Rowdril, the first "true dog".  Is he restricted to a conventional canine form, or can he walk about in man-form while bearing the essence of a true dog?  Must all of his divine offspring also start out locked into beast-form?

This is where my myth played loosey-goosey with the nature of divinity and the Godtime.  Things don't start out fixed until a mythopoeic event happens that locks it down.  Eiritha had any number of lovers before she gave it up to marry Storm Bull (again, all the way back to Cults of Prax).  Were all of them cattle-themed, too?  Probably not.  And did she have other offspring by any of those earlier paramours?  I haven't read anything to the contrary, so...sure.  And were all of those other offspring necessarily "cattle"?  Maybe not.  While marriage to Storm Bull and giving birth to the various cattle of Prax has become her defining myth, there are plenty of other possibilities that preceded it.  If some other god came along, like, say, Rowdril, and turned on the charm in the Godtime before Storm Bull, she might have had one or more previous children who, like Waha, are beast-oriented, but not in beast-form.

Baby, I'm sticking with v1.4 and putting an Eritha-Rowdril tryst back on the table.

!i!

[Sir_Godspeed]

7 hours ago, Ian Absentia said:

Wait a minute here...I think you may be right.  But does that make Waha a herd mammal?  I mean, yeah, he's the son of the "mother of cattle" (The Glorantha Sourcebook) and the Storm Bull, but aside from being depicted as wearing a horned helmet I've never read any reference to him bearing a beast-like form.  He's a god -- is he fixed to a particular form?  And that takes us back to the lineage of Rowdril, the first "true dog".  Is he restricted to a conventional canine form, or can he walk about in man-form while bearing the essence of a true dog?  Must all of his divine offspring also start out locked into beast-form?

This is where my myth played loosey-goosey with the nature of divinity and the Godtime.  Things don't start out fixed until a mythopoeic event happens that locks it down.  Eiritha had any number of lovers before she gave it up to marry Storm Bull (again, all the way back to Cults of Prax).  Were all of them cattle-themed, too?  Probably not.  And did she have other offspring by any of those earlier paramours?  I haven't read anything to the contrary, so...sure.  And were all of those other offspring necessarily "cattle"?  Maybe not.  While marriage to Storm Bull and giving birth to the various cattle of Prax has become her defining myth, there are plenty of other possibilities that preceded it.  If some other god came along, like, say, Rowdril, and turned on the charm in the Godtime before Storm Bull, she might have had one or more previous children who, like Waha, are beast-oriented, but not in beast-form.

Baby, I'm sticking with v1.4 and putting an Eritha-Rowdril tryst back on the table.

!i!

I think you make a fair point. Maybe not to convince a God Learner, but perhaps Praxians, which is ultimately the important thing here. 

 

I was myself considering a *Fralara(*Rowdrilla)-Genert pairing, but I realize that it would be such a hypothetical (based on a dead god and a hypothetical feminine) that it's basically pointless, narratively. 

I was also thinking about the relationship with Telmor, but this ties into the issue of the concept of "dog", which on the one hand refers to a specific sub-species of wolf, and on the other hand, refers to the entire canid family, which encompasses much more than Canis lupus. 

Ayway, I think your choice to keep it relatively local is the neatest and most satisfying one. It's good to keep in mind that these are stories that kids will learn by retelling from their elders, so using the same characters over and over again is good not only from a didactic sense, but also because it knits their worldview together in a more robust fashion, imho.

Edited February 28, 2020 by Sir_Godspeed

[Ali the Helering]

19 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

This should be asterisked as the Great Plains were not habitable until horses arrived after the Spanish introduced them and they went marrón in 1598. Before that, the Great Plains were a wasteland where the defeated largely went to starve and die.

This use of dogs and stalking was a feast or famine lifestyle that no one chose and was extremely unpleasant and brutal. The Plains were where the losers of borderland skirmishes were pushed in extremis.

According to the Wikipedia article on the 'Plains Indians' maize cultivation became widespread several hundred years earlier 

[Ian Absentia]

5 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I think you make a fair point. Maybe not to convince a God Learner, but perhaps Praxians, which is ultimately the important thing here. 

I think that's exactly it.  With another day's perspective, I believe I started to get a little too God-Learnery about it, trying to make all the pieces fit together neatly.  And that may just be an artifact of mortals trying to look backward into the Godtime.  Maybe it's like reading a Philip K. Dick novella in reverse -- instead of being able to see how the present fans out into a multitude of possible futures, you see how a multitude of possible pasts resolved into the present.  Or, you know...something.

So I'm back to v1.3 as originally presented.  The first three paragraphs succeed in answering on a mythological level the questions posed by @Darius West in the OP:  Are there dogs in Prax, and what role do they play in society?  The main body of the myth presents the story from the Praxians' point of view, how Waha's brother became a dog.  The specific identities and origins don't matter that much -- it's just Waha's brother, another child of Eiritha, and he's the source of dogs in Praxian culture.  The last paragraph is a bridge myth, how the Praxians adopt the somewhat limited role of the hunter, Foundchild, into their society, and with Foundchild, his canine compatriot.  To the Praxians, this makes fine sense: Waha's brother the dog is also Foundchild's adoptive "Brother Dog" -- that's how we got hunting dogs in Prax in addition to camp and guard dogs.  To the Balazarings, though, this version sounds a little hinky -- as far as they know, Brother Dog was always a dog, son of Rowdril -- but not entirely irreconcilable.  Brother Dog himself is fine with either version, because here in linear Time it let's him do what he does best.

!i!

Edited February 28, 2020 by Ian Absentia

[Qizilbashwoman]

4 hours ago, Ali the Helering said:

According to the Wikipedia article on the 'Plains Indians' maize cultivation became widespread several hundred years earlier 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Village_period

Yes, in borderlands areas near the rare waterways. The soil of the Plains is fantastically ill-adapted to farming and it remained a delicate and extremely hard life. There's a reason that when the horse was domesticated by the Plains peoples, they immediately turned to bison hunting big time.

[Ali the Helering]

2 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Village_period

Yes, in borderlands areas near the rare waterways. The soil of the Plains is fantastically ill-adapted to farming and it remained a delicate and extremely hard life. There's a reason that when the horse was domesticated by the Plains peoples, they immediately turned to bison hunting big time.

A variety of crops and risk-limiting methods allowed sustained mixed agriculture and hunting in widespread settlements for some eight centuries before the arrival of the horse. 

The horse allowed a step-change in population concentration, but it was never a requirement for survival. 

[Monty Lovering]

I like the idea of Praxian's having untrained camp dogs that alert them to strangers as that is what dogs do, but the dogs are essentially scavengers and playthings for children plus occasional food; the animals that the Praxians are fixated on are their herd animals.

This makes Balazar different, as they have no herd beasts but a closer relationship with dogs who are well trained and valued.

Nice contrast. And it makes me think that the Lunars have adopted the use of trained guard dogs originally from Balazar that are regarded as scavengers by Praxians and appositional to alynxes by Sartarites and Heortlanders. 

[g33k]

On 2/29/2020 at 9:25 AM, Monty Lovering said:

... And it makes me think that the Lunars have adopted the use of trained guard dogs originally from Balazar ... 

I think the Lunars have dogs "natively" -- not "adopted" from Balazar or anywhere else... q.v. "Saird," and other sources.  They had dogs from the beginning.

That said... they may well have broadened their use of dogs, seeing uses they hadn't seen previously, in some of their new territories.

[jajagappa]

8 hours ago, g33k said:

I think the Lunars have dogs "natively" -- not "adopted" from Balazar or anywhere else... q.v. "Saird," and other sources.  They had dogs from the beginning.

Yes, that is correct. The Jajalaring folk survived the Great Darkness in Saird, and are distinct from the Votanki of Balazar.  Jajagappa is on Row IV on the Gods Wall and is a known DH deity (not for the nobles to worship though!) and his dogs are part of those who help make the transition from life to death. 

Edited March 2, 2020 by jajagappa

[Darius West]

I am very glad I posed this question.  I have enjoyed reading all the responses.

[Bill the barbarian]

On 3/3/2020 at 7:16 AM, Darius West said:

I am very glad I posed this question.  I have enjoyed reading all the responses.

Agreed, good call!

[Darius West]

While we know Agimori are the children of Lodril and generally worship Foundchild the hunter, there is never any mention of the Agimori employing dogs in their hunting.  Do Agimori employ dogs in their hunting? 

I personally think they don't.  Agimori are noted as taking a particular delight in hunting, and dogs would make that easier, perhaps too easy, which doesn't correspond with the Agimoris' regime of training hardships.  For this reason I don't think Agimori Foundchild worship includes Brother Dog. 

I am interested in people's opinions on the matter.

[David Scott]

If a player wanted to play a men-and-a-half (per RQB 75) and chose the Hunter occupation, I'd let them have a hunting animal (typically a shadowcat or dog) per the occupation (RQG 69). I'd let them have a dog or another animal - maybe a even a baboon (normal), monkey or hawk, but not a shadowcat as they are Sartar and Hendrikiland specific (RQB 144).

The men-and-a-half have been in Prax and the Wastes since before the Dawn, and their hunters have been in contact with those of the other tribes (per Organization LB 88), they hunt the same animals, and occasionally participate in the same Great Hunts. I've always imagined that hunting animals are not widespread amongst any of the Praxian hunters, and I apply that to the men-and-a-half too. Note that in the Great Hunt, hunters must hunt alone - so no hunting animals.

As for camp dogs, I don't think the men-and-a-half have those, as they are related to Waha (Waha's brother is a dog - RQB 144).

[Ironwall]

They could use dogs as camp guardians.