I feel as if the title of this thread will be misleading, as I'm going to start with Theology before I move into actual Dogs, which is meant as a new direction with the world building i.e. covering the smaller cultural details rather than the big picture geography.

 To begin with you have to understand that Haven is sort of inversely Animist as a world.  Rather than saying every object and creature has a personal spirit or god, it is better to say that the first gods make up the body and bones of the world, and all the creatures in it are made in the manner of the gods that created them... if not necessarily their form.

There is no functional difference between the River Erd and the Goddess Erd, who is both the Goddess of the river and the river itself.  One might say she had her form before there was a world for her to flow through, and that would be entirely accurate.

Of course, it would also be innaccurate, since time is a function of the world, and has no meaning in the Greater Sea of Chaos outside of 'Reality', where everything is simultanious, eternal and ephemeral all at the same time.  Time, is in fact a function of the Great Barrier, which was created in the wake of the God War, and thus is kin to Death and War. That is to say that Time is both an embodied God, and directly created/sustained by the Barrier that seperates Haven from Chaos. Confused? Well, we can chalk that up to Chaos.

Why is this relevant... or rather important, when discussing Dogs?

All animals have at least one God responsible for them, which the more primative cultures might refer to as "Totem Spirits", or embodiments of the characteristics of that animal.  There is some confusion of Cause and Effect here, which is to say certain animals were created by certain Gods in their own images (unlike Men, who were created by the abstract God of creation, the Smith, who has no form to mimic), and some Gods were 'promoted' as ideal representations of the animals they sprang from.   Even more confusing is that some Animals (Horses, notably) have multiple gods, including a Totem god, and the goddess Epona, who is favored by the Southron Nornsan's, or at least among those who love to ride, and is essentially viewed as the embodiment of the concept of Riding Horses. (that is the Verb, to ride, horses, not horses meant for riding...)

This is highly relevant when you understand that an animal breed cannot be properly domesticated unless the Totem God spirit is hunted down and subdued, broken or otherwise negotiated with, which can be viewed as an evil act... or a heroic act, depending on teh culture.  Once an event has been accomplished, in theory every culture should 'believe' the same heroic tale, but as always, when dealing with the divine, there are complications.

It is generally accepted, for example, that the Totem Cow offered her life at the beginning of time (as mortals understand it, not Gods...) to feed the starving First Mortals, for her hide to cover their bare skins, and her bones to serve as their first tools.  Thus, there is no more Totem for Cow, and no hero to hunt and slay Cow to make the breed of cows domesticated.  Yet, the halflings of the Sea of Grass (who, if one must be honest, have to contend with the Aurochs, who are most certainly not domesticated), hold the Totem of Cow to be alive and well, and can derive great power from placating Him. The Siti Elves, who never had cause to domesticate Cows (though the contemporary surface dwelling dwarves of that era did), hold that one of their great heroes hunted and slew Cow to prove his worth as a Hero, and that the dwarves stole trophies from the corpse, and thus the loyalty of the dumb animals.

Clearly the Gods know the truth, but they are either not telling, or they can't... as noted the minds of the First Gods are so powerfully alien that they had to create newer gods to intercede with the Mortal Races on their behalf.  It may be that the 'Truth' is simply inexplicable to minds that have never known Chaos.

Which brings us to Dog. Clearly Dog, the Totem God, must have a story (or multiple stories) about his domestication, yet there are none.  The Totem is known, and is even worshipped in a few rare cases, and is indistinguishable from what you would expect of a quintessential Dog to be.  Dogs may be found among nearly every Mortal Race, yet none has a credible heroic tale of domesticating Dog.

The history is somewhat clear. In the Time Before the Titans, known to some as the time of the First Men, there is nothing knowable.  Only a few legends may be credibly linked to that time, such as the sacrifice of Cow mentioned earlier.  The Titans did not keep dogs as pets, not at least at the end of their Empire. Of the early days, none can say.  When the Elves betrayed the Titans and destroyed their civilization in the process, all the mortal races enslaved by the Titans found themselves ill equipped to survive in a harsh and unforgiving wilderness.  This is where the first stories of dogs appear in legends, as each band of starving refugees found wild dogs waiting patiently for them, often with freshly slain rabbits or other game.  It was the dogs that helped the survivors in the first Winter, and stayed with them until they learned to live on their own. Then the dogs left, but not before they'd whelped puppies to stay behind in their stead.

The non-titanic races, which includes the various lizard races and the halflings, along with the gobliniods and kobolds, have their own histories. The goblins regret that they released their 'dirt hounds' when they were cursed, and hunger for dogmeat, along with anything else. The Swamp dwelling lizard races have little use for Dogs, but the sand dwellers in the Desert Hesh have a curious relationship with the Salawa. While the Salawa will happily eat unhatched eggs, the desert Lizard people allow them in their camps and bands freely, guarding their dens during the day while the Salawa prowl their camps at night.   The Kobolds, often viewed as no different than the Goblins, will happily eat dogs captured in human cities, but do domesticate their own breeds, often riding them into battle.  Since the kobold language is indecipherable, or practically so, their cultural relationship with the animal, and their legends regarding it are unclear. Halflings, or 'wild halflings' keep large mastiffs near their home trees, feeding them a portion of the hunt. While most halflings would find it undignified to ride these beasts, they will happily hunt alongside them, but beyond that they seem to have little intrest in the beasts, viewing them as distant allies rather than pets.

The attitude of the halflings is found also in the nomadic tribes of the Sea of Grass, and the most common breed are the same mastiffs.  The Fortress Elves do domesticate the beasts, after a fashion. Heavy chains, spiked collars... fighting pits and so forth, the Fortress Elves view them as everything else, useful slaves.  A young elf who bonds with a hound is certain to have to strangle it to death on his Lords order before too long as an object lesson.

The Orcs of the Wastes, as have been noted, have a very close relationship with their Dogs, even making the God known as Dog one of their main deities (though this Dog should not be confused with the Totem Spirit Dog, mentioned earlier...). Some Orcs go so far as to emulate the Dogs they worship, preferring to live as animals in service to another.  They breed their hounds for endurance, toughness, and hunt with them. As the beasts of the wastes are quite fearsome, several dogs may be lost in any given hunt, but the pack remains strong... and attitude that may be said to be true of all the Wasteland Orcs, even if they don't explicitly worship Dog.

The Tenebrian Kingdoms however, prefer dogs as decorations and status symbols above all else, a fashion they seem to have taken from the cities of the Dragon Desert.  The poor keep small breeds of dogs as rat catchers, favoring them over cats. These mongrels aren't treated as pets so much, and in lean times they are even eaten by their owners. The wealthy have a fantastic variety of breeds suitable for laps, some even smaller breeds may be carried in the hand or kept in a special pocket sewn into their garments.  Such dogs are generally bred for a calm and quiet temperment, with mixed success.

The Nornsans, both northron and southron kingdoms prefer hunting dogs as status symbols. Any wealthy noble or merchant is expected to have a kennel and kennel master, and the training and utility of the dogs in the hunt is favored over looks.  The most exotic breeds are those meant to hunt dangerous game, the wolfhounds and bearhounds.  In the southron kingdoms this is their primary existance, though mongrels and individual dog owners may be found.

In the Northron Kingdom, viewed generally as the wilder half of the Nornsan empire, they are bred for a variety of purposes. Here you will find herding dogs, sled dogs and so forth. Horses fare poorly in the cold, wet climate of the northern kingdoms, though some breeds of shaggy ponies do well, and Vaslimatu's famous first battle did involve elvish cavalry, and took place in the north, so Horses aren't unknown.  Perhaps the most extreme breed of dog in the world is the Nornsa Courser, which stands six feet at the shoulder and may be ridden by a small man for some distance. Coursers have short lives, five is considered old, and they require prodigious amounts of food, but their ferocity in battle is terrible to behold.

As one moves east, away from the Sea working dogs grow somewhat less popular, especially the larger breeds, where Horses are more useful.  It is this region that supernatural tales of spectral hounds, black dogs and the like are most common, and dogs are favored for their rumored abilities to see evil.

On the far eastern Coast, the Spada have one of the most extreme relations to dogs. Spadan Dogs are practically wolves, untamed and vicious, kept in cages and unleashed in battle, with little attempt to recover them in the aftermath. Every Spadan child is expected to fight, unarmed, one of these beasts to the death to ascend to adulthood, and a number of Spadan cohorts group themselves around the scars collected in this ritual battle. Many non-Spada find it easiest to use such scars to identify individuals in Spada.

Just south of Spada, the Kra breed their own war dogs, but theirs are tamed and highly trained, and fielded almost exclusively to counter the Spadan dogs. While a Kra would never display excessive affection for their dogs, they are quite fond of the beasts in general, and view them as 'lucky'.  Kra are perfectly willing to venerate Dogs as heroes in their own right, to the extent that outsiders occasionally, mistakenly, believe the Kra view dogs as people.   The Kra hold, and this seems to predate the Tenebrian influence on their culture, that Dogs are embodied spirits favorable to man, rather than mere animals.

As one goes further south the 'culture' surrounding dogs grows more mixed. (and so far we are exclusively dealing with human cultures). Tenebrian lap breeds and Nornsan hunting or working breeds find counterparts in the Eastern Kingdoms, though the far south tends to be more purely Nornsan, rejecting any and all Tenebrian influence.

Elves: Each Elven Tribe is fairly distinct, but some general tendencies may be observed.  Elvish breeds tend to be thin, fast and long lived... almost elegant works of art.  The Siti actually attempt, with mixed success, to breed magical traits into their dogs.  Dog breeding (and training) is viewed as an artform similar to gardening, and is pursued by enthusiasts for enthusiasts... in other words, most elves have little to do with dogs at all... or they have lots of dogs and can talk for hours about them.  The Illycli have a more human relationship with their Dogs, similar to the Nornsans. They use them for hunting and war, and most Illycli Elves will have access to a Kennel, or own one themselves.  Of course, their dogs tend to be clearly elvish 'breeds' rather than the rougher breeds favored by their human neighbors.

Dwarves: One might expect Dwarves to have little to do with dogs, or if they did that the dogs they favored would be somehow dwarvish in appearance. In truth, the Dwarves have several distinct breeds of dogs, which vary only little between various clanholds. Even the cultural gulf between the northern and southern clans is bridged by their dogs.  Dwarven dogs tend to be small, with short, fine hair or no hair at all, and they tend to be working animals, rather than pets.  While some newer surface settlements have adopted shaggy sheepdogs from the Nornsans, most Dwarven dogs are used to keep clanholds rat free, to pursue goblins and other subterranian nasties into places no sane dwarf would follow and so forth.  That said, the Dwarves do consider their dogs to be part of the clan, and favored dogs (usually breeding dogs) have names and lineages as distiguished as their owner.  Dwarves take the trade of dog lineages very seriously, more seriously than they do many mercantile transactions in fact.  Curiously, however, as a people the Dwarves seem to favor cats, but make no effort to actually interfere in their lives other than providing food and litter.

The Reve: Another human race, the Reve keep hounds and mastiffs in their Halls, but not on their boats. They use them to defend their halls from the horrors of the Reve lands, which includes wolves, bears and even trolls, and do seem to admire their tenacity and feirceness, as more than one Reaver has been noted to use Dog Themed armor or dog tattoos or 'ship names'.


Demons: While there are any number of demonic beasts that superficially resemble dogs, it is notable that there is in fact a breed of dogs, generally known as Hell Hounds, that appears to be a true dog, rather than a demon, though native to the Demonic realm.  While such hell hounds can be summoned, as any native of the Demon Realms might be, this is generally not how they appear.  Demons, for all their cruelty and savagry do, in fact, seem to treat hell hounds much as mortals treat their dogs, within certain limits. Those few diabolists who summon Hell Hounds deliberately note that they can be trained and tamed much as excessively dangerous dogs, provided one has some protection from fire.  Curiously enough, Hell Hounds are not bound, as other Demons are, to the dawn/dusk limit, or at least it is far easier to circumvent. On the other hand, they are not intelligent enough to be negotiated with.  Not surprisingly, when training Hell Hounds, it should be noted they respond far better to cruelty than kindness. It is believed that there are multiple 'breeds' of Hell Hound, but as few are unwise enough to explore the Demon Realms, and even fewer survive such a trip, the truth is not clear. However, reports of Hell Hounds with cold or icy breath, or other supernatural auras have surfaced from time to time, as have depictions of demonic dogs in service to a greater demon that did not resemble any known 'hell hounds'.  In the mortal realm Hell Hounds may be found in some numbers in both the Wastes of Irem and in the benighted lands east of the Pepper Savannahs.

Speaking of the Pepper Savannahs: A small minority of Maxcai tribes keep large numbers of dogs, and run and hunt with them as a sort of mixed pack/tribe.  Such dogs always have reddish fur, and tend to be lean, rather like the elvish breeds, though somewhat shaggier and rougher looking.

Among the cities of the Savannah, there are in fact a number of minor dog gods and notably one of the few exceptions to the 'no totem dog' rule. Dogs are favored among the poor more than the rich, and are expected to fend for themselves when it comes to food.  Not surprisingly, given the relatively poor farming of the region, dog meat is eaten frequently and is viewed as a delicacy by some.   However, care must be taken when slaughtering a dog in the pepper savannahs, as the local sorcerers often use dogs as familiars and spirit guardians. Such dogs are virtually indistinguishable from the others, but killing one tends to bring a number of vicious curses upon the offender's head.  While the same may be said of rats and other vermin, those creatures may be slain with impunity. Apparently it is the consumption of the familiar that offends the sorcerer, rather than its death.... either that, or dogs are somehow more important familiars than vermin. Savannah sorcerers are a strange and scary bunch, and not much inclined to share their secrets with outsiders.  It is true that anyone may join their number and gain access to their secrets, but the price is mortification of the flesh, the nature of those rituals serves to deter all but the most determined scholars, and those who have undergone the rituals become increasingly reluctant to share...

Dragons: Don't keep pets, not even cats. Some say that's why they are so cranky, and why the occasionally kidnap maidens for company.

Orcs (general): While the orcish god Dog (or Hound, in many translations) is exclusively worshipped in the far south, in the Wastes, Orcs in general tend to like and keep dogs, though the more primative and savage the tribe, the more likely their 'dogs' are to be savage and untamed wolves. Most orcs worship various totem animals, and wolf is common, and the orcish language(s) generally do not distinguish between 'types' of a thing. All canids are 'dogs', and all felids are 'cats'.   The best one can hope for is 'big dog' or 'fierce dog'. Similarly, the orcs generally use one word for all the mortal races, with two exceptions: Orcs and Elves.  Dwarves and humans alike are simply 'not-orcs', and Elves are universally called something that directly translates to an explicative*... though most scholars delicately just translate it to 'elf' and leave it at that.





*For the curious, every orcish language used the term 'animal fucker' for Elf, this seems to have lead to the rise of a taboo, stronger than for most mortal races, to avoid sexual relations with animals of any sort.  No historical record indicates exactly why this epithet is so universal among the orcs**. Likewise, Elves are not known for their excessive lust, being one of the more prudish races in general.  It is generally accepted that its simply the strongest insult in orcish ur-culture.  Curiously enough: While most mortal races (barring the lizard races and other such 'alien' races) find elves attractive, and elves have been somewhat more open to reciprocating such attraction than other species, elvish/orcish half-breeds are completely unknown. If an orc finds an elf attractive, s/he would never admit it.  Those rare elves that 'collect' unusual relationships have found orcs stubbornly hard to seduce.



** For the truly curious: throughout Haven's history the Elves have repeatedly, viciously betrayed the Orcs and pretty much done everything in their power to keep orcs from having a viable, stable civilization, denying all orcs the simple comforts that other mortal races take for granted.  Generally this hasn't been deliberate, targeted malice, however, which makes it all the more cruel. With one exception, every time an Orcish civilization has arisen, the Elves have been the one to destroy it, and generally with a zeal that most humans would find repugnant.  Even in that one exception, the Orcs can find Elvish hands in their general destruction, if indirectly (that is to say, the first Goblin War, when the great Orcish cities of the south were... consumed, while the orcish armies were out fighting the Tuathan Elves.)  THe orcs even blame the elves for the general human prejudice against them.