Surviving the Great Darkness

[Martin]

Would anyone care to speculate how the minor elder races of Dragon Pass, notably the centaurs and the beastfolk survived  the  Great Darkness...did each have their own culture hero who fought  a version of the IFWW battle for their race?

[soltakss]

I think they fought in IFWW.

However, how many of the Beast Folk were around in the Greater Darkness?

Centaurs have various origin stories that place their creation firmly after Time. There may have been Centaurs before Time, in which case Ironhoof would be their cultural hero, but I am not sure if he was born before Time.

Minotaurs definitely existed before Time as they are the descendents of Minotaurus, son of Storm Bull. I think they would have been tied to Storm Bull, but they are not Praxians in the sense of the Survival Covenant.

Ducks may have been around in the Greater Darkness, but some say they were brought from the God Time by the EWF, so wouldn't need to have survived the Greater Darkness.

Are Beast valley and the Wild Temple remnants of the Greater Darkness? I haven't a clue. None of the old maps that I have seen refer to them. They definitely existed after the Dragonkill as the Beast Folk found a refuge there. This means they might have existed during the EWF, but I haven't seen them on the maps. Ducks settled in the Upland Marsh after the Dragonkill, I assume, but where were they before that?

Edited December 11, 2016 by soltakss

[M Helsdon]

5 hours ago, Martin said:

Would anyone care to speculate how the minor elder races of Dragon Pass, notably the centaurs and the beastfolk survived  the  Great Darkness...did each have their own culture hero who fought  a version of the IFWW battle for their race?

Some of the Beast Men are the result of hideous experimental surgery during the rule of the Empire of the Wyrms Friends to recreate extinct races; others survived the Great Darkness. It is generally impolite (and risky) to ask Beast Men about their origins.

[Darius West]

Agreed.  I remember reading (in Wyrms Footprints perhaps?) that the EWF experimentation was performed by Delecti in his "stitched zoo", and that the centaurs he created this way were in constant pain and hence called Pain Centaurs, and that Ironhoof subsequently heroquested to restore his people to their status as true centaurs from before time.  Obviously this is not true of the minotaurs so much, as sons of Stormbull and new minotaurs are still being born such as Morak from Cults of Prax.  Ducks are long term allies of Beast Valley (Do they count as Beast Men?).  Other races of Beast Valley include Elurae (Fox women), Anstanabli ( "little people", probably like sprites, who have a feud with the "winged folk"), manticores (cross between human, lion and scorpion), fauns (term used synonymously with satyr) and probably others.

[soltakss]

The Pain Centaurs were described in King of Sartar, together with a different origin story of the Grazelanders (Pure Horse Tribe under the Black Net), both are probably true.

I see some Beast men as being EWF experiments to recreate lost races, others as being the result of heroQuests bringing back those lost races from before Time, others as remnants of the lost races and others as just always having been there.

Take you pick as to which is which.

[Martin]

So...given we all know about the snippets on the centaurs from KoS....some died out in the Grear Darkness and some survived ...so again how did those that survived do so...did they have a culture hero?

and what about the other beastfolk?

did the fox women, satyrs,  and bugheads and others have their own culture hero?

[Yelm's Light]

Nevermind, already covered.

Edited December 19, 2016 by Yelm's Light