The Canis and Behmoor

The people of Behmoor, known ethnically as Behs. and locally as Canis are a strange but loving folk up in the Northeastern Everridge, where they have called a swath of the land home for many, many, generations. Due to where they live, they are fairly well defended along their borders by forestry, and on at least one edge there is a massive river that not only supplies them with fresh water, but defends their position. The Behs have used this land for their entire lifetimes hunting and fishing and harvesting the natural bounty, desecrating it is a punishable offense in their eyes, and they police the area heavily with regular patrols of dogs and hunters.

Behmoor proper is situated right beside the major water way, and to ensure they could never be cut off from it a canal was dug to reach the grand fortress city, the keep proper sits atop a man made hill with the river flowing down around it to either side, and continuing into the walled city of the same name. Behmoor Keep is a dark slate coloration because of the use of volcanic concrete taken from far to the west, and the entire thing is made from the disassembled skull of a legendary mountain giant known as The Beast. The rest of the bones of this once might goliath make up the foundations to the city's walls, and the volcanic cement that was used to held soldify the keep is the same used across the ancient defenses all around. Thus this walled refuge has stood for thousands of years, constantly watching over its intended wards.

To call it a city in the more modern sense is foolhardy, it's more like a fortified township, with a market, a church, and places of business, with homesteads taking up the rest of the tight fitting space. Over the years as more people have moved tot he region, there has been a swath of homes built outside of the walls. Thus it could be considered the smallest seedling of what a city could one day be. The territory that Canis controls is actually quite vast, and they are a strong regional power that can reliably be understood to be an alternate trade partner for those who wish to trade with the Drow along the water ways. This has earned them a steady flow of income over the centuries as well due to their long standing kinship with the dark elves.

The Canis are of one mind, and those who are ethnically Behs are pretty firm in these entrenched traditions, thus most of the militayr power is based around them acting as warriors alongside their dogs. Non-Canis are of course welcomed as additional manpower, but must earn the rights of being a Hound and it can take over a decade to earn that kind of citizenship among the Canis. Those who earn this right are welcomed into the fold and given an initiation, an invitation to join in the Morsa Bora, a ritual psychotrip engaged during the winter solstice where the Behs witness the Battle of the Beast firsthand every year.

The Canis Hounds are the core of the military, and are always commanded by the younger brother of the current Cana, they paint their bodies with a strange sap dyed with wood ash, and wear little armor because it removes their mobility. Younger hounds wear elk mantles, while veterans are allowed to wear the cloaks of bears, with the commander, or Canak wearing a pelt of a troll. What armor they do wear is on their arms and legs, leathers and hides bound up and strewn with colorful feathers, this gives them a wild and beast like appearance as they charge with mere pants and belts to hold their weapons, adorned in pelts and feathers, and coated in ash making them look like monsters of the forest. Their traditional weapons are the axe, the club, and the knife, an axe is the jaw, the knife is the teeth, and the club is the impact of a warhound into its prey. Younger warriors use ironwood clubs and curved knives, veterans use broadaxes and serrated daggers, and the Canak uses a bladed ironwood club with fenrir teeth called the Gnasha.

Typical tactics are hit and run, brutally using a stream of warhounds to batter the enemy and hold them in place while the warriors catch up, sack the engaged soldiers, and then quickly run back to places of rest where the next wave will be waiting and watching, charging into the disoriented enemy forces while their comrades breath and catch their winds. The Canak leads by example, his hounds and himself are the first ones into a charge, and his goal is to break the line before his men approach, by being a giant battering ram. The Canis do not use ranged weapons, if their dogs are meant to fight by teeth and might, then so are they.

A Canak and a Cana are always brothers, younger and older, respectively, there has not been a singular generation since the time of the founder, that a Canae, wife of a Cana has birthed anything other than twins upon first successful conception. Each pair of twins is always a set of boys, though not always identical, generally these tend to be the only males born to a Canae, with a rich history of beautiful daughters who generally would be married off and away as powerful bargaining chips later on. Each Canis daughter would be wedded with two hounds as both a gift and a warning, to mistreat a Canis is to invite the retribution of her Pack. Killing of the hounds would see the perpetrator abducted and never seen again, mistreatment of a Canis bride, much the same fate. However, Canis women are of strong stock and hardly miscarry of die to childbirth, making them a hot commodity, plus having relations to as elder a land as the Behs peoples can make some people very happy.

The Kingdom of Canis was founded by Behcan Dakmors, an exiled chieftain over one of the many Behs tribes who took a pilgrimage up the Obscuran Peaks and drank from a wellspring that gave him unquestionable power and vitality, as it did also for his hounds. He met several Obscuran Kings in his questing, of which he gave one of his dogs, and they gave him an axe of metal. Thus a bond was formed, and he continued his travels, until he reached the far and distant lands of the Dwarves, meeting yet another king, he gave them yet another one of his hounds, and they gave him an amulet of gold to wear around his neck, and thus a bond was formed. Through this bond was an agreement, unspoken and unsaid, and the exile returned to his homeland with only one hound to his name, and a fire in his belly about what he had come to know. It was then he saw that a monster was trampling not only his people's lands, but lands across the great forests. So he called upon his newfound friends and they hunted the mighty giant down back to his homeland, a vicious month long battle ensued, but eventually The Beast was slain, and the three peoples divided the parts equitably.

The Dwarves lacked for food, so they took the organs away in trains of carts, the Obscurans lacked for leather so they dragged away the massive skin up into the mountains, and the Behs lacked for a home, so Dakmors called for helps to drag away the muscles and bones. for the muscles his tribesmen and his dogs would eat freely for a decade upon them, and grow mighty and fierce. For the bones? They would become the foundation of a Kingdom, the backbone of the new people, no longer simply the tribal Behs, they were now Canis, and he was their Cana, Pack and Father. He adopted another outcasted boy as his blood brother, and thus the Canak was founded, the Battle Brother, then he bedded the most beautiful Behs woman in all the tribes, his Canae, Wise Wife. So it was said that when she conceived, they had two beautiful baby boys, twins, and one was given over to his blood brother to raise as the second Canak and he would raise the other babe as the Cana to follow his father. This is the origins of the Canis people, where they derive their knowledge from, and who they venerate highest in their worship. The proof of all of this? One can see the very bones of The Beast still protecting the peoples today.

All Cana and Canak are required to drink a special poultice that strengthens their bones and turns their nails into claws, their canines into vicious daggers within their mouths, and their bodies into something not quite human. Cana live a predetermined life, all Cana will live till they reach the age of eighty barring death by combat or disease, all Canak live to seventy so that they may clear the way to the Olman Lands, a path of pilgrimage for all dead Canis to walk that is fraught with peril. Those who live good lives of honor will have their mighty hounds watch over them, those who do not, must brave it alone, but each Canak walks the path before their brother and clears the way for the Cana, proclaiming yet another comes home to the Father, and battles the forces of the wilds as he awaits his brother. A Cana never walks alone, and walks with their great hounds by their sides, and meets their Canak at the gates of their promised lands, before they join the Imat Canis, the Immortal Pack, and live forever with their ancestors.