Imagine two neighbouring clans, one of which herd goats but keep no filthy dogs. The other clan keep dogs but herd no filthy goats. Hey presto, instant cultural diversity and social friction to enrich a campaign. But wait, there's more: a third neighbouring clan may or may not have goats, but they do use alynxes for herding sheep, which the other two clans, who use alynxes only for hunting, see as a major insult to Yinkin.
If, OTOH, we follow Stephen and the SFC, the three clans would all use alynxes for herding sheep, and none of them would have goats or dogs. I'm definitely *not* saying that such a campaign would be *dull*, but i *am* saying that the above could *enrich* such a campaign.
David Dunham:
>I think the antipathy towards dogs among the Dragon Pass Orlanthi is simply
>a given, like the fact that Praxians hate horses, no matter who rides them.
>Or, look on it as a matter of taste. Why is white the color of mourning in
>some cultures, but in others it's black? No good reason, it just is. The
>Orlanthi (again, this only needs to be true of Dragon Pass, since Greg
>hasn't detailed others) just don't like dogs.
I don't think anyone has said that orlanthings have to *like* dogs, which should be evident from appellations like 'lowly', 'unclean' and 'stupid and ignorant' dogs to take a few examples.
I'm not arguing that orlanthings are dog-people as opposed to cat-people, i merely argue that they keep dogs for 'stupid and ignorant' tasks, like herding sheep.
Going from *dislike* of dogs to a *complete ban* on dogs in the Dragon Pass area is rather rash. Even in Prax, where the horse is an extremely taboo animal, you find a praxian *horse* tribe, the Pol Joni. Of course, they are despised by the other beast riders. But hey, sheep and goat herders in Dragon Pass are despised by the cattle herders.
>> why the animosity between alynxes and dogs? Where does it come from?
>
>King of Sartar has two mentions of the Bad Dogs, who each time harmed alynxes.
Ah yes, but those were the *Bad* Dogs! If there are Bad Dogs, one would surmise there are *Good* Dogs as well. Otherwise they would simply be called 'the Dogs', neh? Likewise, in the Healing of Mastakos, the Bad Dogs are also called 'wild dogs', which puts them in contrast to 'domesticated dogs'. The way i see it, the KoS references actually support my theory, if only implicitly.
My original point, which started this thread, was that Voriof was the good, domesticated dog. Having Voriof as the orlanthing Brother Dog explains why he is such a good shepherd. I interpret the story about Voriof learning the arts from Varnaval to mean that Varnaval was the original shepherd of the orlanthings and that Voriof was Varnaval's canine aide.
Maybe Varnaval (possibly a Dragon Pass deity from the arcadian bliss of the First Council, or even a refugee from the destruction of Genert's Garden) was rendered obsolete (together with the culture) by the Dragonkill War, and then Voriof expanded into that pantheonic vacuum via the northern orlanthings, who have always used dogs, and who brought Voriof with them into Dragon Pass.
I still think 'voriof' (with the -i- pronounced consonantically, and the stress on the first syllable) sounds like a dog barking. This alone would be evidence IMG that VORioF is Brother Dog.
RE: broos
>As for broos, I thought that occasionally you get a broo that doesn't look
>like a parent, and when that happens, it looks like a goat. At the very
>least, the always-present horns are goat horns by default.
The goat-broo is a cultural invention of Dragon Pass, or rather the received wisdom of the runequest 2nd ed sources which strongly reflect DP orlanthing cosmology. I'm not sure broos as a race have *any* intrinsic features apart from being chaotic and roughly humanoid. Assuming that the horns are always-present (though i don't think each and every broo has horns), they are goat horns as a result of breeding, not of inherent nature. The type of horns depend on breeding animal. In DP the default horns *are* goat horns, since goats are the default broo breeding animal in Dragon Pass.
A thought:
If a particular band of broos would impregnate only humans for a few
generations, what would be the result? Would the broos look more human?
Would they become smarter? I would probably answer 'yes' in both cases,
because it would mean broos that could infiltrate human society. Imagine
the shock of the uroxi who senses chaos, assumes they're ogres and casts
his Protection to prepare for the acid vomit, and then gets hit by Thed's
Chaos Curse totally unprepared.
Michael Raaterova
<.sig omitted on legal advice>
Powered by hypermail