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View Full Version : Player Help Making an Inuit-inspired character (also, name a wolf)



Kalmageddon
2014-08-24, 11:10 AM
The system is 3.5, but that's not really the point.
I'm going to play a character that lives in what's basically Greenland and since he's a druid, I thought it would be cool to have a druid traveling on a sled pulled by a pack of wolves he befriended and trained.
What little background I've come up with for the his tribe is that they are nomadic people that sustain themselves by hunting.

From this thread I need two things:
1- What's on my sleigh? What tools and equipment would a character like this use and travel around with? The more detailed the better. As mentioned the setting is some sort of Greenland/Northen Scandinavia or Siberia. Few trees, lots of snow and ice, there are seals, elks, wolves, whales and I assume mammoths as well.

2- How many wolves do I need and what's their name and personality? I want my pack of wolves/sled dogs to be a really important part of my character, so I want to name all of them and making them unique. I've already got the alpha done and from what little info I could google, 16 seems to be the correct number for long travels. So I need 15 wolves.
For the names, in order to keep them as generic as possibile, use an "adjective something" or "something something" structure, like "Blue Eyes" or "Ice Fangs". The more important part is that I need to give all of them a distinct personality as much as that is possibile for a wolf.

On a side note, would the 16 wolves all pull the sled together? Or would my character only use a few of them and alternate them? I know dogs/wolves have incredible stamina when it comes to running.

Admiral Squish
2014-08-24, 12:07 PM
Okay, regarding your sled, you probably want to use something like a dogsled, rather than a sleigh. It's faster and more personal. You would likely carry just the basics, in order to leave room for loot, and the let the dogs go as fast as they can. A week or two of rations (probably seal meat and blubber, remember to pack enough for you and your wolves. You can eat the meat raw, or if you have time, cook it with the blubber), your weapons (spear, bow and arrow), a tent, some spare furs (in case you get wet). Ohh, fun fact, some inuit would freeze fish together and use them as sled runners. They're light as any other material, and in case of an emergency, you have another week or two of food.


Well, the number of wolves required would vary based on what kind of sled, how much cargo, and how fast you want it to go. if you're talking dog-sled, you're looking for 12 or so. Normally the breed of dog is more important than how many for what kind of travel you're doing. Considering how large wolves are, I would say you could get away with 12, or possibly even fewer.
I'm always fond of the way the wheel of time handles animal communication and names. Their thoughts don't translate properly into language, so one's name might be a mental image of sunlight partially obscured by a tree, so the human might refer to that one as Dapple. The point is they don't just speak broken English, they communicate in a much more primitive, literal sense. They wouldn't be able to give measurements in hours or miles, they would instead indicate that the location is still a half a day's hard run away, or show a mental image of the sun in the position it would be in when a certain thing will happen.
I think you would want to pay attention to the roles of the various wolves in the team when figuring out their characterizations. From front to back, you've got the lead dogs, the most important dogs, in the very front. Then point dogs directly behind them, then swing dogs, then a number of team dogs, and finally at the back are the wheel dogs, the ones who provide the muscle to get through obstacles like deep snow.

bjoern
2014-08-24, 12:52 PM
I always name animals, cohorts , etc with good strong John Wayne names.
Dog
Horse
Wife
Etc.

endoperez
2014-08-24, 01:32 PM
I can't help on the inuits, but I can tell a bit about another group of people who live in the north. The Sami people (these days they mostly live in Northern Scandinavia across Norway, Sweden and Finland and also in Russia) use reindeer, not dogs (or wolves), but hunting is one of their traditional means of livelihood. They're relatively little known, but the opening cinematic (ice cutting) part of Frozen featured some things inspired by their culture. The music (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYqQgOs65ho)included Sami singing, and some of the clothing and equipment shown was at least inspired by the Sami designs.

Some information about Sami:

Their shamans used a type of drum onto which was painted their concept of the world. Humans, elk, the land of humans above, the land of the dead below and so on. Some sort of divinations were performed by reading how e.g. a ring moved on the drum, which symbols it touched and so on. You can see an image of such a drum design on the first few seconds of this video (and lots of nice photographs afterwards):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XwpsgkM8m8


The small sleighs they used are called ahkio, they're low, rather small, and a person can sit in one under furs and blankets while the animals pull him. Here's images from google (https://www.google.com/search?q=sami+ahkio&tbm=isch).

They had portable tents very similar to tipis (teepees) of North America, called lavvu or kota. Some of the Sami groups were nomadic, others were stationary. They traditionally lived from reindeer herding, fishing, and the southern groups also had farmers.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_UucBwMpfiRg/SThbq3Ge3bI/AAAAAAAAAMM/Bl9wNoTNyFY/s400/Saami+man+with+Lavvo+and+reindeer.jpg



There are several Sami dialects/languages, here's an online dictionary for Northern Sami. Wolf, for example, would be gumpe, and it also means "to devour". Wizard would be noaidi, etymologically derived from witchcraft.

Here's a list of names (http://www.nordicnames.de/wiki/Category:Sami_Male_Names). The written Gs and Ds are mostly pronounced as Ks and Ts, but that's about all I know of the language. :smallfrown:

Kalmageddon
2014-08-25, 03:06 PM
That's some really helpful stuff, thank you.
Anyone else can give more input?

Also, Admiral Squish, could you clarify the various roles of sled dogs? I can guess that lead dogs lead the rest of the pack and that my character will impart directions to them, mostly, but what about "team dogs"? Or "point dogs"?

Admiral Squish
2014-08-26, 12:27 AM
That's some really helpful stuff, thank you.
Anyone else can give more input?

Also, Admiral Squish, could you clarify the various roles of sled dogs? I can guess that lead dogs lead the rest of the pack and that my character will impart directions to them, mostly, but what about "team dogs"? Or "point dogs"?

As far as I can tell, team dogs are just the ones that fill out the team, sort of 'everyone else'. I honestly can't find anything regarding what the point dogs do, unfortunately, but I'm sure if you dig a bit you'll find details.

Sith_Happens
2014-08-26, 01:27 AM
Once you can have a Dire Wolf as your animal companion, make it the lead and name it Naga. Just trust me on this.

http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130928152209/avatar/images/3/35/Naga.png

Ravens_cry
2014-08-26, 01:38 AM
Amarok should be the wolf's name. It's Inuit for 'wolf' after all.

Admiral Squish
2014-08-26, 11:54 AM
Amarok should be the wolf's name. It's Inuit for 'wolf' after all.

Is it? I thought it was a kind of mythical wolf-like creature. If memory serves, it's large, intelligent, and solitary.

Jay R
2014-08-26, 04:38 PM
The lead dogs need to be able to respond to the reins, find the safe route, etc. The team dogs need to provide muscle and endurance.

Also, the lead dogs are the only two who get a change of scenery.

SuperDave
2014-08-26, 05:42 PM
It just so happens that I drew up some rules for dogsledding (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?323748-Dogsled-Rules) a while ago, which you might find useful. I haven't had the opportunity to playtest them yet, so I'm not sure how balanced they are, but the forum seemed to think they were mostly OK. It also includes stats for different breeds of sled dog (though they're in Pathfinder format, not 3.5, sorry). If you wind up using them, let me know how they turn out!

If you want to watch a movie that shows what it's like to live in a traditional Inuit community, I recommend Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atanarjuat:_The_Fast_Runner). It stars an entirely Inuit cast, the whole movie is filmed in the Inuit language, and and according to the Toronto Film Festival, it's one of the top 10 Canadian films of all time. Plus, it includes a surprising amount of fratricide and adultery, which is something I did NOT expect going in (but it makes sense in retrospect; Inuit are no more proof against coveting their neighbors' wives than any other group of people).

Big warning, though: read the Wikipedia summary before you watch it. Unless you're already an expert on Inuit culture, it's probably not going to make much sense.

veti
2014-08-26, 06:32 PM
I'm not an expert... but I find it hard to imagine controlling 16 dogs at once. I'm pretty sure that "16 dogs" translates to "two teams of 8". The off-duty team would presumably be following along behind, and you'd switch teams when you take a break. That would allow you to travel longer and further each day. But for a traveller on a budget, they'd probably only have the one team, and just have to live with taking longer breaks.

About the setting: if it's Scandinavia, I wouldn't assume mammoths. Mammoths are big, they require a lot of territory to roam, and they don't much like mountains, so that means a lot of open territory. In Siberia or Greenland, yes; Sweden, not so much.