>This is Waha! business. This is mens business, this is not for those without Waha! ancestors to meddle with.
Cherish the ladies....
Not going to dare calling any of the Paps spirits "agricultural" in polite company but it's fun to look at them as alternative approaches to getting people fed. Different options in the Earth cult's endless nutritive arsenal that may work better under certain conditions or at least be intriguing enough for people to try from time to time. Different relationships between two-legs and four-legs.
Obviously Waha is the most successful with his carnivorous approach to pastoralism. He's the Butcher. People who raise their own meat love him, the kebab god. Two-legs eat, four-legs bleat.
He lives in the Paps to be near his mom. In the Nomad Gods era, he was formally classed as an Earth spirit.
Good Shepherd also keeps herds and as of Cults of Prax is actually senior to Waha as "friend of Eiritha's, at that time he became the father of many Protectress spirits of Prax." He's (an) old husband-protector figure, not a son of the goddess. He's not Waha's brother.
That's one of them pregnant statements. Sure, Cain was born first and sure, it makes sense that vegetarian pastoralism pre-dates the Peaceful Cut in Genert's Garden and maybe even Death. It definitely pre-dates Storm Bull.
The Christian allusion in this figure doesn't really age well and could use some gregging, but as it stands, this guy is another of what Frazer would call "dying gods." He's the blood sacrifice. Bizarrely and perhaps uniquely, he "was once a mortal." He's the key to resurrection and the transmigration of souls. "Some say he learned the spell from Flesh Man."
If I was in a fighting mood, I'd say it's starting to look like maybe *some strains of* Daka Fal are not exactly Waha's older brother back from the dead, but Waha's "uncle" who also happens to be mommy's college boyfriend. I'd even suggest maybe there's a myth out there where Storm Bull in a rage kills the Good Shepherd, brings Death into the world and that's why the world is messed up.
But the Good Shepherd wasn't gone forever and remains in vastly diminished form within the Paps complex. In theory, the tribes could go vegetarian and live on milk and forage. People could renounce the covenant and everyone could eat like the four-legs eat. Nobody tries this because who wants to go hungry? But the option remains on the table.
Three Bean Circus. More than just potheads, this spirit presents the option of a completely pacifist harmony where beasts and men intermingle even more. I'm not slamming vegetarianism at all here. I'm just reading the text and let the Wahaists laugh.
And this is not a stealth attempt to insert agriculture back into prehistoric Prax. I'm sure these hippies rummage around and cook up whatever bland but nutritious and morally pure stew they can. Somewhat hilariously, they do not provide support.
Four-legged food, but the secret here may be how to cook up plants that your herd beasts find inedible in the unprocessed state. They might also have access to groovy medicinal herbs, this being California in the '70s.
Either way, no sane Wahaist would go this way because life is hard enough without giving up animal protein and besides, meat tastes good. Three Bean Circus remains on the table but usually comes out as a curse on people you don't like.
Ronance. Weirdo. People has suggested he represents a kind of naturally occurring tap water irrigation, a kind of found xericulture. I like that. He is not dew, since Dew Maid brings dew. Give him the "dry serpents" or hidden gullies and springs, the fodder that isn't quite robust to qualify as oasis. Nomad Gods specifies that he was the food god in the Golden Age; this was what they had instead of agriculture.
May reflect that blissful state when two-legs and four-legs were one and at the exact same raw stuffs. Still alive and can still be called out of the Paps if people ask for him.
Horn of Plenty. The first entry in our list that is not a guy, although there could be a tantric dimension here above my grade. Buried wealth, so there may also be an Asrelia mystery here. In fact, this may simply be the primary face of Grandmother Earth within the Paps. I would suggest that milk is the secret here, the only ritually permissible food that two-legs produce under ritually permissible circumstances.
Tough Waha braves normally do not go here but in extremis maybe they secretly long to be back in momma's arms suckling the wealth of the universe. Momma will make it right, and if not, maybe Grandmommy will provide. But let's not talk about that. Not a practical option for most adults.
Serpent Guardians. Furies, scorned women, the earth cult protects itself. Not a food option. The opposite of food, the absence of any of the other five nutritive approaches. Food withheld. When things get bad enough that nobody eats.
I love the mechanic in Nomad Gods where your tribe can freely go to the Paps and "check out" a new nutritive approach, but you can only ever follow one economy at once.
So that's fun. But there are other diets you can't get at the Paps.
First, there's Foundchild. Non-herded carnivorism. Pure hunter, maybe a little gatherer on the side. It's funny that his myth is another mother/son relationship like Eiritha/Waha. He's not Helpwoman's husband. In this Earth-dominated system the cthonic relationships are strongest and the provider/protector works for Mom.
[Ghosts of Kyger Litor, maybe. Hard sometimes to draw that line.]
Maybe there are people who say Mom killed Storm Bull to appease the ancient rites. Maybe there are people who say before Mom was "married to" Good Shepherd she was married to Genert. She keeps their shades with her in the endless catacombs. I am not going to go that far.
Anyway, Foundchild. Mostly for people who don't have access to the Paps and its repertoire of diets. Which, by the way, formally includes the rhinos and zebras (!) but NOT the bolos or anyone else we know. Whatever bolo people eat is not really a Waha or Ronance or Good Shepherd mystery. They hunt.
Cannibal Cult. We know and love to argue about what they're about. I like the part about how they get the carnivore covenant wrong. See also sometimes: Cacodemon.
Father of Independents. Our least-favorite guy at this point. Not normally considered a Paps spirit except in a reference that Cults of Prax never follows up. We can scratch him from the list of Eiritha subcults -- each a way to eat on the Plaines -- or rationalize his presence here as a mask of someone else. Or make something up.
So the Earth cult in Prax. Maybe the elemental associations of the Great Tribes parallel the more formal Esrolian husband-protector relationships, except here of course they are the priestess's sons. Son-protectors. Son-providers.
One tribe doesn't have representation among Waha's grandsons. Morokanth starts to look more and more like their dad all the time, Eiritha's other boyfriend. In the old Earth lozenge the "earth king" corner is always dead or hidden, at least up here in Genertela.
But this is probably unspeakable. Anyhow, Pairing Stone. New local color for what's going down at the Garhound Contests, if you want it.
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