For the blog carnival.
The themes anthropology and archeology, so why am I talking about animals?
Well... Animals feature in the cultures of people, because of course they do. Domestication and the like are all part of cultural body of knowledge.
Additionally non-domestic animals feature as elements of mythology and culture. This isn't always just "sacred animal" ideas, its sometimes quite complicated.
And in a world with things like animal spirits and other strangeness, there's gonna be ways that bleeds into the cultures. I mean, these already feature in real world cultures.
Anywho-
(i may update this with pictures later)
Archaic Humans
The most obvious, and most mentioned, extinct animals that are not extinct in Kith and Kin are people. You get to play these.
Summarizing them is difficult, after all the majority of people in the setting are archaic humans, and there's very little in the way of consistencies even within a species of people. However some notable things are...
- Broadfolk tend to be less social than Youngfolk (homo sapiens). While Youngfolk have networked relations between bands and tribes, its even more severe with Broadfolk, since their groups are actually quite a bit lower (a few dozen at most). Of course, this can and does absolutely change based on environment. This trend tends to result in cultural deviation occurring more frequently.
- This is actually realistic for them as people. Neanderthals and Denisovans seem to have lived in much smaller groups than Homo sapiens.
- Smallfolk, conversely, are far more social than Youngfolk. Starting as islanders, but slowly spreading from there to coasts and more inland regions, Smallfolk learned to survive by emphasizing social bonds and collective identity. An individual Smallfolk is more at home with a group at the larger end of a Youngfolk group, and this would be considered moderate to small. Due to this, Smallfolk are among the first to have developed quasi-urban societies, and tend to vary less in terms of social drift from each other, but as always exceptions are common.
- Treefolk, Wildfolk and the Kith are harder to summarize. The former two tend to lie between Broadfolk and Youngfolk, and the Kith cannot be summarized in any easy way.
Domesticates
Many forms of technology are much older in Kith and Kin than in the real world, while others are far off or regularly lost. Much domestication occurred in the real world between twelve thousand years ago, to just a few thousand years. The earliest firmly domesticated animals are dogs, roughly 13,000 years ago, but prior to that there is evidence of cohabitation.
Of course, this becomes a bit weirder in Kith and Kin. Though there is a common trend that animals with existing social structures will often be the ones to be domesticated.
- Canines have been domesticated for a vast amount of time in Kith and Kin, given the pushed up timeline. I say canines rather than dogs or wolves because the extended timeline means that other social canines have long been domesticated too. This lends itself to a much greater variety in "dog breeds." The wild counterparts to these animals still exist, of course, but as a short list...
- Wolves, the classic, lead to domestic canines as we understand them, which are effectively a subspecies of the Gray Wolf.
- African Wild Dogs, as social canines that support the weaker members, already had an existing social structure Kith and Kin could interact with. Canines from this grouping are thus often more protective of their young, and of the young of others. There are, of course, morphological differences between them and canines familiar to us
- Jackals, Coyotes, Dholes and other "Less social" canines are not fully domesticated, but uneasy truces are easier to form and maintain with them. They are at least, mostly, tame in regards to their behavior towards the Kith and Kin, but are not fully cooperative.
- All of the above is mediated by the Dogpact, an ancient spiritual bond between the Kith and Kin and the Canine spirits whom act as the collective representatives of the Canines. This will be detailed later in this post.
- Goats, Pigs, Sheep and Cattle are all potentially on their way to domestication, but maintain a degree of wildness that makes mass farming them impractical at best. They are hunted, fearfully avoided and rarely, worked with.
- Felines as a whole maintain their aloof and predatory nature, but some smaller kinds have taken interest in the Kith and Kin. This cannot be said of some of the larger kinds. Its not wise to rely on the tameness of asocial predators. Its fortunate that for the most part they are more considered with actually filling meals.
- Lions are not asocial, quite the opposite, but are not tamed nor domesticated. Most Kith and Kin would give them a wide berth, and vice versa.
- Some plants have been selectively bred to provide nutrition, but mass scale agriculture is still rare, though not rare enough that most Kith and Kin have not at least heard of a "City." The eldest city is fed by the vastest collection of these domesticates.
- Beyond this, mild and limited progress exists towards domestication of other animals and plants. Some corvids and other birds, however, have shown enough intellect to form a very different kind of relationship with the Kith and Kin. A diplomatic kind.
Beasts of Old
Extinct animals and plants yet live in the world of Kith and Kin. Some of these existed at the rough time that Kith and Kin is "set." However, the setting is intentionally anachronistic and so animals that never co-existed do so in this setting.
Think less "flintstones" and more "Avatar: The Last Airbender" but stone age and extinct animals occupy the role the hybrids do. Or perhaps "Primal." I cannot list all extinct beings that are in this setting, but a small taste is possible.
Note that when I say "Extinct" I mean extinct in our real world. Generally assume any extinct animal is somewhere in Kith and Kin.
- Mammoths and Mastodons still walk the planet. Respected and revered by the cultures that rely on their meat for survival. There are spirits that resemble them, and their vitality and strength are revered.
- Other Extinct Afrotherians cannot be summarized easily. Breaking tone for a moment, currently not extinct afrotherians also can't be summarized easily and I am kind of losing my mind over it. What do you mean the closest extant relatives of elephants that are not elephants are fucking manatees and dugongs? What do you mean the golden mole is more related to elephants than other moles?
- Apologies. Additional Afrotherians in Kith and Kin include wolf-sized shrew-like predators, hippo-like trollish beings, bizarre relatives of elephants and giant manatees. I doubt that extant people would recognize their relation, but its certainly possible...
- If so, then the Afrotherians might be seen as some sort of strange vast family of creatures. Canines and Felines all somewhat resemble each other, but the Afrotherians? Each is its own being. Seems like a fitting mythologization.
- Extinct canines were bigger and less social. Borophagine, Amphicyon and more exist, and fill a niche somewhat akin to bears. Similarly, they are feared as bears are. Though these are, perhaps, a little bit faster.
- Woolly Rhinos are revered similarly to Mammoths, with an additional "warlike" quality thanks to their aggression and near-blindness.
- Cave Bears and other giant bears are revered as something between demons and petty gods in the northern regions they inhabit. Fortunately they're not extremely prone to hunting Kith or Kin, they're often much too small for that, but its unwise to trust a bear to not eat whats available to it.
- Sivatherium, Paraceratherium and other mammalian giants are often revered similarly. In the places were Paraceratherium inhabits, its seen somewhat similarly to Mammoths or Elephants. Its names in these places often mean "Noble Giant" of some kind.
A small break before the next section. Non-Avian dinosaurs do exist in Kith and Kin, though they are rare in the regions I have focused on thus far. But, I would hesitate to call them rare overall. Kith and Kin is not a world limited by earthly geography, after all.
Reasonably, its hard to imagine what the perception of non-avian dinosaurs would be in the paleolithic world. But given the awe that is reasonably regularly afforded to existing giant animals, and the fear that existing, much smaller, predators are given...
Needless to say, the Kith and Kin find an odd sort of kinship with the mice and rats when these beasts make themselves known.
- Raptors, even the smaller kind, are seen in a way that would remind one of big cats and avian raptors, perhaps being named for them even. The largest of them, Utahraptors and their kin, might have a degree of the cleverness that pop culture grants them, though not as extreme as might be thought. A feather from their tail would be seen as a noble trophy, certainly.
- Ceratopsids might be seen as something similar in mind to a rhinoceros. Less blind, but perhaps no less aggressive. Less prone to intra-group conflict, perhaps.
- Ankylosauria would resemble turtles, for a moment, before the crushing tail and superior size and speed are noticed. Still, a worthy hunt and a grand meal. But quite dangerous.
- Stegosaurians have similar defenses, being closely related, but the spikes and plates would certainly be given significance as trophies or other objects of reverence.
- Sauropods grew to sizes that, recent analysis suggests, might have rivaled the blue whales in weight. Hunting the largest of them is a non-option. They are groups of organisms vast enough to be landscapes. They might be revered, scavenged and followed perhaps, but not hunted.
- Tyrannosaurids dwarfed all currently extant (and paleolithic) land predators. They were also likely not a "rushdown" group, more like tigers or sabre-tooth-cats. Fortunately they would probably ignore Kith and Kin alike, unless they threaten their brood. Humans could, theoretically, out-run them, but not by much and not forever.
