Contributor
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Hi, All!
I'm wondering who among the talented folks at Paizo crafted the Pathfinder Chronicles chapter on Irrisen. I am working on a piece of Pathfinder fiction and have some rather pointed questions about the Irrisen cultural hatred of crows. I've done some Internet research on real-world crow myths and have some ideas of my own, but as the Wayfinder guidelines suggest, I want to make sure I am building on canon, rather than contradicting it.
I'd appreciate constructive thoughts from anyone in the community, but I'm particularly interested in picking the brain of that chapter's author, if possible.
Thanks!
Sincerely,
Paris
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Random thoughts from a random person;
It's not made clear whether or not the crow-hatred came about before or after the 'new boss' took over, or if it is tied to Baba Yaga's people more than to the original Linnorm-King-descended population.
One the one hand, perhaps crows were a favored creature of a pre-Baba Yaga diety or natural entity, and Baba Yaga's people, in breaking the back of the 'old religion,' have recast the servitors of that entity as harbingers of doom. (And, if the clergy / faithful of that local demipower had crows as pets / servants / familiars / temple-mascots, the presence of crows may well have heralded doom for their owners, serving as visible signs of people following 'the old ways' and drawing down the wrath of Baba Yaga's fey and trolls.) Baba Yaga's people might also be cold creatures of ice and stasis, fey and immortal, and find the crow, a feeder upon carrion and common symbol of mortality and the afterlife, to be offensive to them, a sign of decay, to which they aspire to have transcended, in all their ageless beauty. Perhaps the crow represents a spirituality, a recognition of mortality, that the fey and trollish servants of Baba Yaga will never understand, being creatures of undying flesh and cold, changeless and empty spirits. Knowing that their ageless overlords despise the creatures, the local human population also take pains to drive them away, to avoid drawing the attention of the authorities.
(It's also possible that the whole super-winter thing might not have been just some massive spell performed by Baba Yaga, but a side-effect of her conquest over this local nature-diety, and that she keeps his mostly-dead body somewhere, serving as the focal point of the unnatural winter she has called up by tapping his divine spark. Crows could be hated for their attempts to feed on the body of the fallen godling, stealing the power that Baba Yaga is tapping into, or because they are the last living fragments of his essence, scattered before his fall, and always watching for a chance to awaken and drive off the intruders. They could be hated good-guys, with a price on their heads set by the ice-queens, or hated gluttonous opportunists.)
On the other hand, perhaps crows served as the eyes and ears of Baba Yaga (or are merely believed to have done so) and are hated by the common folk for that association. After the armies of Baba Yaga came, the crows grew fat and bold on the corpses of all who opposed her, driving off other local birdlife (such as seagulls, in some areas*), and earning the loathing of the now-conquered people, as they seemed to come with Baba Yaga, and profit greatly by the deaths of their people, settling in to caw and stare ominously at the survivors, still serving as reminders of mortality, and reminding the once-proud warrior people of their breathtaking and overwhelming defeat.
*This happened in my area. We had plenty of gulls, despite being a hundred miles or so inland, mostly flocking around fast food joints, large parking lots and, of course, the dump. One season crows moved in, harrassed the local gulls, raided their nests, smashed their eggs and, like some kind of avian Mafia, took over. These days, you see crows on the side of the road, not gulls. It's kinda freaky to see such organized thuggishness on the part of *birds.*
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Contributor
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I can always count on you, Set, to provide really good ideas. And some of your thoughts are similar to what I have in mind for my story.
It doesn't sound like there's much intent to expand on that tidbit of lore, but I wanted to make sure of that before I get too far down this particular rabbit hole.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this.
Paris
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Hopefully there will be an official answer, but, if not, it shouldn't be too hard to come up with something fun.
In my own Irrisen scribblings, in addition to three types of cold fey (heat-draining seductresses who live in the snow, ice-winged malicious sprites and ice-armor clad Rime Knights), I've bounced around an idea for a Wild Huntsman figure that serves the ice sorceresses. He would predate their arrival and be bound to their service, accompanied by a great stag that he rides, and a lupine 'wild hunt' consisting of winter wolves and werewolves and people who've been temporarily maddened and behave like wolves, having 'joined the hunt.' This figure could be what remains of a Cernunnos-like avatar of whatever nature spirit / demidiety Baba Yaga displaced when she moved in, corrupted to serve her purpose. The Huntsman would be a suitably high-level encounter (with even his werewolf and winter wolf entourage having class levels in Ranger and / or Barbarian), having the Spriggarn-like ability to transform from his imposingly tall stag-headed human-sized form to Frost Giant sized.
Perhaps the Wild Hunt includes not just wolves, but to take the Odin theme a step further, crows as 'scouts', which would be yet another possible reason for the locals to hate crows, associating them with the Huntsman.
It's kinda freaky to see such organized thuggishness on the part of *birds.*
Not at all if you consider that crows and other ravens have the same intelligence as dolphins and chimpanzees and are capable of recognizing themselves in a mirror. These birds (together with parrots) belong to the most intelligent animals on this planet, some individuals being as intelligent comparable to a child of five years.
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It's kinda freaky to see such organized thuggishness on the part of *birds.*Not at all if you consider that crows and other ravens have the same intelligence as dolphins and chimpanzees and are capable of recognizing themselves in a mirror. These birds (together with parrots) belong to the most intelligent animals on this planet, some individuals being as intelligent comparable to a child of five years.
Oh yeah, I'm familiar with some of the experiments with food-on-a-string and stuff with crows, I'm just surprised to see them so organized in their 'invasion.' It really was a 'this is a nice town ya got here, be a shame is something [i]happened to it,[i]' kind of vibe. :)