Sergio Mascarenhasset aside the heart of his catch and thank the Unknown Hunter for his prey, or he might just worship Orlanth. You don't _have_ to worship a hunter god to be a hunter. I see no reason that ducks would object to either Odayla _or_ Zong, however.
>Many or few, do they worship some hunter god? If yes, which?
What does it matter? A duck hunter might ritualistically
Sergio RW ducks are carnivors that eat mainly fish. Why would gloranthan ducks depart from that pattern? Sorry, Sergio. This is not so. Real World ducks areprimarily vegetarians who feed on algae, grasses, pondweed, and an occasional tidbit of insect, frog, etc. Anyone who has kept ducks (as I have) is well aware of the fact that they are NOT carnivores. When you go to feed ducks at the pond, what do you take with you? Tidbits of meat? NO! You feed them bread.
That said, some ducks are more carnivorous (or more vegetarian) than others. The type of duck known as the merganser are definitely piscivores (fish-eaters). However, mergansers have narrow, saw-toothed beaks, and are easily distinguishable from the ordinary flat-billed ducks. Sartarite ducks are invariably portrayed with wide flat beaks, hence are not mergansers.
Another duck variation is between diving ducks & dabbling ducks. Both of these are mainly herbivorous, though - the difference is whether they eat floating plant matter, or dive to the pond bottom for their food.
Wait! What vegetables do they eat? IMO they have almost no agriculture, they are fishers, hunters and recollectors.
They eat laverbread, what else? Ask any Welshman. IMO they have plenty of agriculture - every duck home has its pond. Also, they raise rice (of course).
Sandy, IMO ducks drinking milk makes no sense (specialy if you agree with
me they are basicaly birds, not mammals). Tough. I think they keep cows, goats, and sheep, all ofwhich are milkable. They're probably bigger on the sheep, though, because of the water connection.
> their natural inclinations and body form make them rather
crappy hunters.
You don't need a special 'body form' to set a trap for a rat, a lysard or a small bird (men don't have the best 'body form' to hunt lions either).
First off, I don't think anyone whose hunting inclinations are restricted to setting traps for muskrats and lizards is going to bother to worship a hunting god.
Men have a fine body form to hunt lions. We're evolved as visual plains pack-hunters, and are the only animal in the world even capable of hunting lions. Humans are actually pretty well-designed as hunters, when you consider that we are evolved to use stone-age technology. Stone-age men can hunt mammoths, bison, crocodiles, and whales. We're devastating.
In what way are ducks inferior in body form? Well, 1) they're shorter. For a sight-hunter, height is important. 2) They're slower. Humans aren't the fastest animals around, but we're not the slowest, either. We're around average, actually. 3) They can't climb very well. 4) They're weak and small. 5) They are less able to cooperate with one another. Humans are excellent at cooperation, ducks less so. None of these are killers, but the whole ensures thatducks aren't as good as humans at this task. Given this, why wouldn't a duck just stick to what he's good at and pay a human to do the hunting for him?
One of the central important facets of duck existence, in my opinion, is that they fluidly adapt the local human culture to their needs. The ducks of Sartar are good Orlanthi. The keets of the East Isles are good East Islanders. The ducks of Heortland are good Heortlanders. The ducks of the New Fens are city folk. Some of them are even Malkioni. Of all species in Glorantha, ducks are the best at slipping into the local society and fitting in perfectly. This is one reason they're such a mystery - they actually abandon whatever past and whatever gods they used to have in favor of the local ones. NOTE: if the Lunars actually manage to take over Sartarite culture, I predict that within three generations the ducks will all be good Lunars, avid for the goddess, even as now they are the most hostile of all the Sartarite tribes.
From: joelsona_at_cpdmfg.cig.mot.com (Andrew Joelson) Birds that turned to Darkness became bats. Light worshipperswith bird familiars/allies that turned to Vivamort created the vampire bats.
Sounds good to me. It also maintains the Insectivore/Darkness link that I've secretly maintained for years. I.e., my belief that trolls are insectivores, not primates. I realize that bats aren't insectivores, but chiroptera, but they are close relatives to insectivores (so are primates). More advanced mammals, such as the carnivora, ungulates, and rodentia, are in a separate category.
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