Re: Symbology of Praxian Cattle Egrets?

From: Chris Lemens <chrislemens_at_...>
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 17:12:38 -0800 (PST)


Mike Dawson:
> As I hunt about through various sources for a
> myth to use to fram the Heroes attempt to
> get from Horn Gate to Jaldon's Point, I've
> started to focus on cattle egrets.
>
> I've never heard a mention of them existing in
> Prax, but I've never known a big bunch of
> temperate climate herd animals to lack these
> creatures.
>
> They're sort of like cranes, so might serve
> symbolically as examples of loyalty and
> awareness.
>
> But the real reason for thinking of them is that
> these heroes are a bunch of non-Praxians
> by and large, so they can't (or shouldn't!) try to
> take the role of Waha. And that led me to
> an idea for a zinger to use in game: "You are like
> egrets--on the backs of beasts, but
> insignificant."
>
> Does anyone have an idea about the Praxian Egret
> spirits/Egret Warriors/Egret Man and
> his Spear?

"Let me tell you, boy, why you're like an egret. You might have heard how Waha showed our ancestors how to take care of the beasts, and how to butcher them, and how to ride them. And yes, he also showed all the other tribes, too, but we got first pick of the beasts. Now, what you don't know is that after all the beasts were picked, there were a couple of two-legs tribes left over. You might have heard about the cannibal cult; that was one of the tribes. But you don't know about the Brash Tribe. When all the beasts were taken, the Brash Tribe said that, since there were no beasts left to choose from, they could take any of the beasts chosen by the other tribes. Waha did not know what to say, because they were so Brash. But soon they caused trouble. They let other people do the work of protecting and herding the beasts, then took whichever ones they wanted to ride or eat. This made the other tribes mad. They said that the Brash Tribe was lazy and bad to the beasts. They started fighting with the Brash Tribe. Waha did not like this. He told them that they could only ride the beasts when other people were not riding them. But the Brash Tribe disobeyed Waha. This made him madder. He told he Brash Tribe that they could not eat the beasts, but they disobeyed him again. This made him really mad. So he turned them all into Egrets. Now they only ride the beasts when we do not; now they do not get to eat the beasts; now they are nothing. Just like you."

Of course, since they were a Praxian Tribe, they had a founder and he's not dead . . .



Chris Lemens


Yahoo! Mail - More reliable, more storage, less spam http://mail.yahoo.com

Powered by hypermail