#dogstock

There’s quite a bit to go over with this so bear with me

Pictured: 3rd male and Virgin Queen (Uhasr)

The Dogstock are the Godstock People of the Dog, descended from an ancient warrior class of a now very dead culture. There’s still a lot of details to work out so I’m skimming over this part, honestly. The warriors of this culture ate the flesh and drank the blood of the Dog to become more like it, and were changed. The level of change that just imbibing the flesh of the Dog imparted is not sufficient to explain the level of purposed biology that characterizes Dogstock, and this culture didn’t practice active manipulation of stock in the way the Jacantese do, so the full history of their origins are somewhat mysterious. (I have ideas (not worked out)).

The Dzuzhnutte Empire perfected the Dogstock as they exist today, and their design, handling, and breeding as perpetuated still in Orimat today. The Dzuzhnutte conquered the entirety of the Dochira, the Hochkiskuph Steppes, and the isthmus in between which now holds the modern day the Kiiz principalities (Ann-Kiiz, Bel-Kiiz, Osat-Kiiz) primarily by the strength of a massive and powerful army of specialty bred and trained Dogstock soldiers. One could argue the high cost of maintenance of this army (among other factors) was the nail in the Dzuzhnutte Empire's coffin, but honestly it's all conjecture. Like the people who first captured and consumed the Dog, the Dzuzhnutte are no longer around.

There are three major broad cultural groups of dogstock that I'll be talking about, if i talk more about these guys publicly:

The Uhasr (/yhezr/) (i cannot pronounce this word correctly either)

The empire didn't collapse all at once, it shrank, it abandoned its peripheries. One of the first such regions to be abandoned was the Hochkiskuph, a relatively small, cold desert region with little obvious wealth in anything other than sheep. The Dogstock soldiers stationed in the Hochkiskuph were not retrieved, as there was no particular need for them. Dogstock are cheap to breed and expensive to feed, or so it goes. This happened about 700~ years from the modern day, and the abandoned Dzuzhnutte Dogstock warslaves formed the basis of the modern day Uhasr culture.

Uhasr Dogstock are a very decentralized culture characterized more or less entirely by their shared language. Uhasr means "ear-having", and is a reference to their uncropped ears. Dogstock slaves of the Dzuzhnutte (and descendant cultures, the tradition persists) had their ears and tails cropped as a mark of servitude, and the Uhasr, being master-less, take great pride in their intact ears and tails, enough to consider them their defining features.

The Uhasr Dogstock are nomadic hunters who exist in an ongoing state of constant conflict with the indigenous Hochki people, who are mostly nomadic herders. The Dzuzhnutte Dogstock were brought to the Hochkiskuph to hunt people, and did not stop doing that once left to their own devices.

Uhasr Dogstock practice exocannibalism (they eat their enemies' flesh), collect body body parts as war trophies (particularly hands and heads), observe religious practices that could be said to be the only surviving form of the ancient Dzuzhnutte state religion, have a strong culture of storytelling and communal theatre, and are generally known as "Feral Dogstock."

Oan Dogstock

Citizens of the Kiiz are Oan. A person from Ann-Kiiz is Ann-Oan. Oan Dogstock are Dogstock who are legally citizens of the Kiiz. The Kiiz are a trio of city states controlling the isthmus between Dochira and the mainland. They political history of this region is up in the air, I'm working on it. You'll get what you get lmao.

The Kiiz are currently undergoing a period of high art and culture, scientific developments, religious inspiration, lofty patronage of the arts. The Kiiz are an enlightened culture where Dogstock live freely among humans, slavery is illegal in the Kiiz, unlike Orimat, and all Dogstock are full members of society. In practice, it's rare to find anyone willing to sell property to Dogstock, and 95% of Oan Dogstock rent houses, or live with human sponsors, for who also often employ them in exchange for food and housing.

The Dogstock of the Kiiz exist in a strange, tense state, trapped between the Uhazr and the Orimish Dogstock in the eyes of their human contemporaries. The experience of the Oan Dogstock is one of supplication and opposition, they crop their ears to distinguish themselves from the feral Uhasr savages, and leave long their tails to distinguish them from servile Orimish slaves. A notable percentage of Oan dogstock are particularly strict adherents of the local religion of the Kiiz (idk much about it other than it's monotheistic - one of if not the only monotheistic religions on the continent).

The Orimish Dogstock

The Uhasr (a dogstock culture) are descendants of such slave-infantry that was abandoned when the empire that used them to capture the steppes decided the land wasn’t so profitable after all, and more pressing matters drew their attention elsewhere. Like tools left spent on the ground, the unneeded, excess dogstock were left to survive on their own in Hochkiskuph. The native peoples, of course, did not welcome them any more, or see them any less as oppressors when the hand released the lead. To the Hochkiskuph peoples, the Uhasr are a predatory ghost, an echo that consumes them even in absentia. To the Uhasr, one human is much like another, differing in number and equipment, but never in essence. Uhasr are a species of wild animal with a human face. Humans are prey on two legs. Humans smoke and poison uncovered dens on principle, Uhasr abduct and consume men and women and children all the same.

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