Death of a Telmori's Wolfbrother

[Peter Hart]

If a Telmori's wolfbrother dies, how badly would the Telmori be affected? I am assuming he or she would become incredibly despondent, possibly suicidal.

[General Confusion]

My understanding is that the Telmori just don't draw a moral distinction between two-legged people and four-legged people. If you kill a wolf brother. . . Well, you just killed this person's brother. Their family is probably gonna come after you.

 

This obviously is a neat explanation for how all these wars and border conflicts between the Telmori and all the other Sartarite tribes occur; some farmer shoots a wolf and oops, that's a blood feud. 

[Joerg]

Do characters or beast brothers whose companion dies remain orphaned, or do they form new bonds?

[Brian Duguid]

5 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Do characters or beast brothers whose companion dies remain orphaned, or do they form new bonds?

The Coming Storm says:

Quote

If the wolf brother dies, or is killed, another may not be found.

 

[Joerg]

Telmori can get quite old (at least those descended from Ostling and Onelisin, few others ever received a name in history). Do these bonded beast brothers gain protection from old age like the butterfly companions of Chalana Arroy healers?

[Brian Duguid]

21 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Telmori can get quite old (at least those descended from Ostling and Onelisin, few others ever received a name in history). Do these bonded beast brothers gain protection from old age like the butterfly companions of Chalana Arroy healers?

In my mind, this terminology confuses us. The "wolf brothers" are Telmori, they regard their two-legged companions as part of their own community. They bond with them for life when the two-legged are old enough for their adulthood initiation (no doubt the four-legged ones find it frustrating waiting for the two-legged pups to mature more slowly). If the two-legged companion dies, I'd expect that the four-legged Telmori do not bond again with another two-legged sibling.

It makes no sense to think that the two-legged ones offer the four-legged some kind of "protection from old age" unless we privilege the two-legged partner in the relationship. I think all we can sensibly say is that we don't know how long the four-legged can live. This is where much of the previous official material fails, in my view, to make a sufficient imaginative leap. Perhaps there are four-legged Telmori living to a great age, and they play an active part in Telmori history that writers have so far failed to reveal. The description in The Coming Storm (pp 126-127) certainly implies that, without then going on to follow through.

[Joerg]

15 minutes ago, Brian Duguid said:

It makes no sense to think that the two-legged ones offer the four-legged some kind of "protection from old age" unless we privilege the two-legged partner in the relationship. I think all we can sensibly say is that we don't know how long the four-legged can live. This is where much of the previous official material fails, in my view, to make a sufficient imaginative leap. Perhaps there are four-legged Telmori living to a great age, and they play an active part in Telmori history that writers have so far failed to reveal. The description in The Coming Storm (pp 126-127) certainly implies that, without then going on to follow through.

To me, this rather sounds like it takes both a two-legged person and a four-legged person (using the Animal farm definition for weirder beasts) to make up a whole Hykimikyh person. There will be orphaned or unpartnered non-whole persons of either number of legs, regrettably incomplete people.

One thing I am a bit unsure of is how being a shaman with (yet) another approach to becoming a complete person interferes with this concept of a whole person in two bodies.

There are Hykimi folk who are more or less incomplete by default, like the Basmoli of Prax.

[Akhôrahil]

It feels like the wolves really need some kind of longevity, or older Telmori will never have a wolf companion (a regular wolf gets maybe 12 years at most).

[Peter Hart]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

Telmori can get quite old (at least those descended from Ostling and Onelisin, few others ever received a name in history). Do these bonded beast brothers gain protection from old age like the butterfly companions of Chalana Arroy healers?

As per the RQG bestiary pp162-163 (wolf companions are Dire Wolves) "The Telmori claim kinship with a breed of wolf that is larger and more intelligent than normal." so maybe these have a greater longevity too. Since (again, as per the bestiary) they are raised together from birth into adulthood the implication is that they would have a similar life span.

[Peter Hart]

I am thinking that if a Telmori or Dire Wolf were to witness his companion being killed (say in combat) then they would almost always become either fanatical or demoralized in a non-magical way. This would last until the end of the combat. 

[Joerg]

2 minutes ago, Peter Hart said:

As per the RQG bestiary pp162-163 (wolf companions are Dire Wolves) "The Telmori claim kinship with a breed of wolf that is larger and more intelligent than normal." so maybe these have a greater longevity too. Since (again, as per the bestiary) they are raised together from birth into adulthood the implication is that they would have a similar life span.

Humans have rather extreme neoteny, with a long-postponed adulthood (even if you allow for early teenage adulthood) compared to most beasts. Any beast brother (wolf or otherwise) would long have experienced full sexual activity by the time the human partner approaches it.

Canon tells us that the shape-shifting magic is bestowed (to the human-shaped Hykimi) only upon reaching (magical if not sexual) adulthood. (The elusive goal of mental maturity is hard to define, and while there seems to be something like a minimum age for certain phases of brain development to finish, full development of social and intellectual maturity may be delayed long after the wetware architecture allows it.)

Things could be different for pups shifting between the two shapes or at least mental developments.

[Brian Duguid]

The adventurers in the campaign that I run recently killed a Telmori ituvanu shaman's wolfbrother.

The consequences have not yet played out, but they'll be finding out soon enough! 🐺😤

Edited September 19, 2023 by Brian Duguid

[Peter Hart]

19 minutes ago, Brian Duguid said:

The adventurers in the campaign that I run recently killed a Telmori ituvanu shaman's wolfbrother.

The consequences have not yet played out, but they'll be finding out soon enough! 🐺😤

can imagine things are going to get pretty bad for them!

[Rodney Dangerduck]

On 9/19/2023 at 3:29 AM, Brian Duguid said:

The adventurers in the campaign that I run recently killed a Telmori ituvanu shaman's wolfbrother.

The consequences have not yet played out, but they'll be finding out soon enough! 🐺😤

In our campaign, during a Great Hunt, my Vingan PC killed a Telmori priest's wolfbrother, but spared (and even healed) the fatally wounded Telmori, out of pity and Honor.  Eventually, after some very interesting trials and strange paths, they were reconciled, and are now mythically bound together.