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The Duck People of Sartar

Posted on May 31, 2021

The diminutive Duck People of Sartar are a strange lightning rod for some people. But in Dragon Pass, they are no stranger than the Horse People (centaurs), Bull People (minotaurs), Dragon People (dragonewts), Newt People (newtlings), Dark Men (trolls), Stone Men (dwarfs), or Plant People (aldryami). They are just one of the many non-human peoples that populate the Pass. Although they are usually categorised with the Beast Men, they form one of the tribes of Sartar.

Among the many intriguing things about the Ducks is that nobody – not even the Lhankor Mhy cult – is entirely sure of their origins. It is unknown whether they were originally human and became feathered and web-footed, or originally ducks cursed with flightlessness and intelligence. Some claim they once served Yelm but foreswore the Sun God to follow Orlanth and were denied the sky as punishment. Some Ducks claim to have once been the rulers of the world until their own sins and errors forced them into subservience to lesser races (elves, trolls, etc.) and, later, to humans, but this is taken about as seriously as the Baboon claims to the universal Monkey Empire. The Lhankor Mhy cult is unaware of there being any records of Ducks from the First or Second Ages, but scholarly interest in the history of the Ducks is admittedly pretty minimal.

Most Sartarites simply accept the presence of the Ducks as another of the peoples of Dragon Pass. Many participated in the Duck Hunt in order to placate the Lunar authorities after Starbrow’s Rebellion, and as a result of those crimes, the Ducks have a great resentment of many of the tribes. But the little Duck People revere the House of Sartar and never broke faith with that Dynasty.

Artist Ossi Hiekkala

In truth, the Ducks are far less strange than the Dragonewts. But few folk have any problem with the presence of effectively immortal neophyte dragons that seek to disentangle themselves from worldly affairs.

And yet the Ducks are a mystery. Where did they come from? What are they? Few Sartarites know anything beyond what I posted above, and even the Ducks don’t “know”.

Anyways, with about 6500 ducks in Sartar, they are more common than any cult in Sartar except Orlanth or Ernalda. And they are about as numerous as the Telmori.

As an aside, only the Malani tribe have as many Humakt cultists as the Ducks. And nobody has as many Engizi or Heler cultists as the Ducks.

The Lismelder are a very small tribe. And because they are not part of a city confederation, they can not support a large number of specialists – so the fact that they have a Minor Humakt Temple is pretty impressive.

The TRIBES that took place in the Duck Hunt include the Balmyr, Cinsina, Colymar, Culbrea, Dinacoli, Locaem, and Malani.

Jeff Richard

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Beast people, Duck Hunt, Ducks (tribe), Ossi Hiekkala (artist)

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