Where a shaman meets the Great Tiger

Siberian Tiger

Thanks to Gianni Vacca, I discovered an amazing video about the friendship between a goat and a tiger. It probably actually shows a shaman in goat form (certainly his Animal-Mother) negotiating with Bar, the Great Tiger Protector Spirit.


Enjoy !

Pagocynocephali and Other Strange Creatures of Piano dei Carpini

Pagocynocephali

Giovanni dal Piano dei Carpini, the Pope’s emissary who travelled to the Mongol Empire from 1245 to 1247, wrote a report of his journey which can be found online for free (e.g. on Play Books). He not only told what he witnessed himself, but also what he had been told. Among weird things, Piano dei Carpini mentions several times strange creatures or people who he never met by himself. These are not described in Wind on the Steppe, but a GM could use them if he wanted to bring more fantasy to the game. They are mostly more or less humanoid and intelligent and are dwelling in remote areas like deserts. Piano dei Carpini describes them only very succinctly, in one or two sentences: I tried to imagine a bit more about their culture and characteristics. These are of course suggestions.

The Pagocynocephali (or Ice-Dog-Headed-Men)

They are people whose women look like normal human beings but whose men have the head of a dog. These half-dogs males have a special power: when they spring into a river in Winter, they turn into a powder which, mixed with the water, turns in turn into ice with their original shape. Thanks to this hard and solid constitution, they are very tough and dangerous opponents which the Mongols had to fight once. You may either allow a 6 pts body armour, or consider that only blows with at least half of their hp hurt them (they break), or simply double their hp. Otherwise use the stats of humans, with a bite attack and a smell skill like dogs.

Pagocynocephali are hunter-gatherers, with embryonic agriculture and stock breeding. They prefer to live near to their ancestor-river where their dead are dissolved for a last time, never getting back their form but becoming part of the river instead. Their human intelligence combined with their doggy senses makes them unsurpassed hunters and excellent scouts, almost never surprised. Their empathy to dogs allows them to sneak into the Nomads camps without making the watch dogs barking. They are envied and feared for this and, as a consequence, hated and despised by humans. However, PCs who manage to go beyond their prejudices may discover a rude but peaceful nature. If humans can gain their confidence, they will be eager to trade furs, skins, amber or fish eggs against manufactured items, silk or weapons and so on. If only they could cease this unpleasant habit to smell the bottom of theirs visitors…

Their shamans are mostly black with allegiances to Animism and Ancestors. They have a dog spirit or a river spirit as ancestor, or both. They have the power of adaptation [cold water]. When turned into ice, they can float and swim.

Pagocynocephali mate only with normal human females, giving birth only to males, which explains why all their women are human: they must however be captured, which is after all the traditional way in the Steppes, or sometimes traded for. Pagocynocephali grant however a strong respect to their women and developed a matriarchal social order, which could explain why the women seem not all to be willing to go back to their former human mates.

Piano Carpini may have mixed up these creatures with the Kyrgyz, which, among other versions, are said either to descend from dogs or from a piece of water, lake or river.

Scenario hints (which can be combined):

• Women are disappearing !

-         The Ice-Dog-Headed-Men are seeking new women, but this has to be found out by the party which task is to rescue the clan’s women and girls who strangely disappeared.

-          A woman has been abducted by the scarying Ice-Dog-Headed-Men a few years ago. The party is in charge of avenging the humiliated clan and rescuing the unfortunate woman from these monsters, which could not be achieved before for some reasons left to the GM (may be simply the Ice-Dog-Headed-Men –or the clan- left the country but are now back). But the former young girl has now several husbands and children whom she doesn’t want to leave, being quite happy with her new life.

-          Women and girls are missing. Evidence of dog presence can be found (excrements, hairs among human footprint…). Everything designs the Ice-Dog-Headed-Men as the perpetrators. Actually, the women have been captured by another clan, tribe or nation to be sold as slaves: the abductors are trying to lure pursuers with false hints.

-          Same as above, but instead only one young woman took flight with her lover for any reason.

• Guides and scouts are needed for an expedition in Siberia, and the Khan heard about the Ice-Dog-Headed-Men: the Bek or the Khan puts the party in charge of finding them and proposing to hire them as mercenaries.

• The Qaghan wants to subdue the Ice-Dog-Headed-Men as Tengrii orders and sends scouts to find and spy them and make a report.

• Pagocynocephali can simply be an encounter during any travel through a remote country.

Other strange humanoids:

The Stiff-Limb-Men

In a desert south of the Kara-Khitai Empire (may be the Kara-Korum?) live semi-bestial human beings with no knees, so that they need help to stand up when they fall. They don’t speak but only growl. Assume an intelligence of 2D6 and a movement 4. I guess they are as developed as early hominids.

The Cynotaurs

Near the Arctic Ocean, close to the country of the Samoyeds, live humans with the head of a dog and oxen hoofs instead of feet. They talk a little but most of the time yap. Culture: similar to Inuits, with professions like hunter (adapt the Siberian hunter to the tundra), shaman-ess, Fisher, dog breeder. Skills : Bite and Smell as a dog and Kick 1D6 + db. They can call dog spirits and yack spirits as ancestors and are able to communicate with dogs. They are basically Tengriists and know a lot of local nature spirits.

The Single-Limbs

In a desert close to Armenia dwell humans with a single arm issuing from the belly and a single leg, so that they need to be two persons to shoot with the bow.

The Desert Rats

Gobi Jerboa (www.factzoo.com)

Luce Boulnois tells the following anecdote in her book about the Silk Road:

There was in Khotan [a kingdom in the Tarim] a particular race of rats, with a golden and silver fur, which was somehow supernatural. The kingdom of Khotan was menaced by a vastly superior Hsiung-Nu army, and the king remembered that he never made any offering to theses rats. So did he and asked for their help. He saw in a dream a giant rat who told him that he shall not fear the enemy and attack the next day. So before dawn, the Khotani army started and attacked the nearby camping Hsiung-Nu. The Nomads jumped on their weapons and horses, but all their leather goods, belts, bow stings, armours and so on had been gnawed away. The Khotanis easily won the day and the Hsiung-Nu fled in panic. After this victory, the king of Khotan built a temple and never stopped offering to the desert rats.

This is an example of the kind of help one can request from a nature spirit. Of course, only a Great Spirit can involve so many rats against a huge payment, but the protecting ichchi of a colony could control enough rats for a smaller task or to help against a small party of enemies.

The desert rat could be the Gobi Jerboa, a kangaroo- like small rodent with big ears living in the cold desert (click on the picture to see the movie).

Griffins

Griffins, from a Scythian piece of gold jewellery

The Griffin as described in the BRP and proposed in WotS corresponds to the descriptions of imaginative medieval European travelers coming back from Central Asia and Middle East. However, the griffins depicted in the steppe artwork like the Scythian’s, but also by ancient Greeks and Persians (which is not so surprising) are slightly different: they are smaller and with the full body of a lion. I suppose that the huge griffin with the forelegs of an eagle is referring to the medieval heraldic symbol and became therefore the RPG-canon. I propose here alternate statistics for this “steppe griffin”, up to the Game Master to use this one or the “standard” BRP-griffin, or both.