Dobhar-chú

## Dobhar-chú (dover-koo) are large, sapient otters native to the waters around and flowing through Kork.

Origins

A Fey being called Doffer'Coh, or "King Otter" in the dialect of his own people, descended to Dorhaun from Askaadya, settling in Kork. He was the last of his clan, and rather than be hunted for the magics in his blood, he fled to a world his people had forgotten. He found creatures there that resembled him, but they were small and sometimes hunted for their fur. This angered the old one, and reminded him of those who would have taken his skin and blood at home. He used his magical voice to call all the otters around Kork to him and made them like him through a bloodrite, making them knights of his line. They grew stronger, smarter, and as large as the mightiest orcs, with some being the size of the great brown bears of Enagia. However, as they were not fey and their minds were still primitive, the power required was great and it aged him a thousand years. He lived a century more, tended and protected by his new kin, before dying of old age and grief for his lost world.

Traits and Culture

The Dobhar-chú are a fully sapient race, and their "hands" are large and dextrous enough now that they can manipulate tools as well as any other being. They live in mostly natural, but well cleaned and furnished, caves on rocky islands or in dry burrows by river beds. Several large extended families live together in these "Lodges" and they are a fiercely communal and loyal people. They mostly use their skill with tools to create crafts and creature comforts for their dens, and to help steal them from other peoples, rather than for fighting or hunting. They still eat a diet almost entirely consisting of sea food and hunt with their natural weapons, though they do occasionally make stews or bother to cook their food at all. They have no priests or wizards, but they do have a their share of druids, and they use the Druidic script when they need to read and write. They have their own tongue, King Otter passed it to their ancestors with his magic, but many also speak and write the languages common to the peoples of Kork. At first they hunted the other sapients in revenge for what had been done to them, but eventually a peace was brokered. However, if anyone is caught hunting an otter (even if it is simply one of their non-sapient cousins coming in from the seas or rivers and not a Dobhar-chú), they will hound that person to death.

The River Woman

The Dobhar-chú of the river Sawyer in southern Kork once learned of a woman living in the deep woods who would snatch up children, and pierce their hearts, drinking in the magic bled into the world by their deaths. They learned she wasn't a woman at all, but an eldritch beast stranger even than their patron. This repulsed them even more than might be expected, as their people view harming any child as killing not just that child but a piece of the world itself, for no one can know who a child will grow to be. Unable to allow this to go on but viewing it as wrong to act on land without leave, they reported the killings to the local constabulary, who arrested and hanged the creature, who put up little fight when faced with iron weapons, ending her murderous ways once and for all. The people wrote a song, which became a traditional ballad, about the event. It's name, "Weela Weela Weile," means "Cruel and Wicked Thing" in the Dobhar-chú's dialect, and is the only mention of them in the song. They do not mind. Their reward was justice. However, the storytellers and bards of Kork never let the story behind the song die, so the people of Kork now respect and admire as well as fear the Dobhar-chú.