Before the survival covenant, there were two-legs and four-legs. There were natural divisions, but not all that meaningful, since they all had the same abilities. The survival covenant divided the entire group a different way: the eaters and the eaten. This is not a natural division, but one imposed by the civilizing Way of Waha. It is a meaningful division. To be an eater is to speak and protect and not to be eaten by others in the survival covenant. To be eaten is to bleat and be protected and not to eat others in the survival covenant. To confuse the two categories is antithetical to Waha's Way.
But there are many living things outside the covenant. Since they are outside the covenant, they are not covered by it. This means that they are not defined as eaters or eaten in the sense where confusing them for the other type is sinful or taboo. Most things are outside the covenant: plants, dead spirits, small four-legs, the other two-legs of Prax, predators, and chaos. Waha knew all of these things and defined the proper way of relating to each before the Dawn. But those relations have nothing to do with the covenant, so it is a category error to talk about any of these things under the rubric of the eater and the eaten (even if you eat them). Eating them is not sinful or taboo-breaking in the same way that breaking the survival covenant is.
The Outlanders first came after the Dawn, after Waha left. Waha did not set down the proper way of dealing with Outlanders. But they are vile. They do not know the right ways of living. They do not send their animals' spirits back to their mother. They probably do eat each other; after all, they don't have the covenant to protect them. If they bring their pollution into Prax, killing them is righteous because they do not belong here. But that does not make them into the eaten. They are still outside the categorization of the covenant. So, generally, Praxians do not eat Outlanders; they don't think of them as food.
But the morocanth are sneaky. They know a way to identify a two-legs as one of the eaten, or to identify a gern as an eater. This is not a trivial thing. It is a heroquest involving an identity challenge. After a successful ritual, the two-legs IS a gern, and IS one of the eaten. Given the serious expenditure of magical energy needed for this kind of thing, Morocanth are not going to do this in a normal situation. They would do it in desperate need (e.g., all your bull-gern are dead and you need a stud-gern). They might do it to add a fine specimen to their breeding stock. They might do it to creatively solve a problem or make a very strong political statement. But they wouldn't do it just for the sake of snacking on player characters (though the bison men will tell you different). That would probably make even the morocanth a little squeamish, because the new gern still look like not-food.
For the other tribes, gern are food. But every tribe prefers its own tribal animal, for very sensible reasons. It knows grazing that is best for its own animal. It moves through terrain that is suited for its own animal. Taking animals from another tribe through these areas is really problematic. The best approach is to trade them back to their own tribe for animals of your own tribe. This is a mutually beneficial exchange, and it explains why Praxians engage in apparently retaliatory raiding: they want to either get back their own animals, or get animals to trade back for their own. The second-best approach is to eat the other tribe's animals first. This explains why you raid at all: to preserve your breeding herds.
Newtlings are a bit of an exception. They are simply Outlanders, but the nomads identified them as animals at the first encounters. Remember that this would be early first age. The newtlings would have gibbered something unintelligible (just like lions, wolves, and bears do) and might not have been carrying anything recognizable as tools. Praxians would probably have thought of them as some unknown kind of predator, like a lion, bear, or wolf. It's OK to eat predators without propitiating their mothers. And newtlings are tasty. Once the pattern was set, I can see it perpetuating. If any minotaurs had strayed into Prax, the same thing could have happened to them. (It does make me wonder, though, how the Praxians think of the Basmoli.)
The other big exception is the cannibal cult. They represent a big deviation from the Way of Waha. I think that they are not a response to, or misunderstanding of, the Way of Waha. I think they preceded the Way of Waha. Humans hunting humans for food sounds to me like the ultimate expression of the desperation of the survivors of the great disasters of the wastes.
So, I generally agree with Peter Metcalfe's statement: "Waha's rules are silent about things outside the Survival Covenant and Praxians must rely on their own judgment whether such and such practices are acceptable. Because of their background, Morocanth are more likely to consider eating outlanders as acceptable." I would just enrich this statement with aspects of the Way of Waha other than the covenant and with a culturally accepted practices that have accreted over time. But I wouldn't be quite as absolute as saying (in relation to Newtlings), "I don't expect the Nomads to have qualms about any source of food. They are bad terms with the rivers and newtlings as river-worshipers are likely to be their enemies." I think they do have qualms about some food sources, but very few absolute prohibitions. Eating chaotic things is gross; plus, they might be poisonous or diseased or spiritually polluting. Eating certain plants must be accompanied by the
right little rituals to keep the plant mother happy. Eating non-predatory animals must be accompanied with the peaceful cut. Eating predators is OK, but dangerous for obvious reasons. Other tribal animals are better to eat than your breeding stock, though their milk tastes odd. Eating eaters of the covenant is taboo. Eating anything a vulture has been at is something you only do in desperation and, preferably, after using the Condor's magic. Eating anything intelligent (even Outlanders) is problematic for lots of reasons: first and foremost, their relatives might come for you (taking insult at you eating their relatives' bodies, above and beyond just killing them); and second, eating people is what the cannibal cult does -- while there might be differences, Praxians would prefer not to be associated with their practices.
All that said, as a narrator, I would not make cannibalism or its absence into a key feature of Praxian culture. It's sufficiently far removed from normal Praxian life that you could probably not get a clearly defined statement of why cannibalism is bad from a normal Praxian. "It just is (but you never know about those Morocanth)." The only time they think about this is when they know that the cannibal cult is skulking around. You'd get a faster response to questions like "what does unicorn taste like?" (Marshmallows?)
Chris Lemens
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