A sudden thought sparked in my head today... what if Ilya was Actually in Cor Devourer and not Laewyn? It would make more sense... and white innocent bunny vs the horrors of the world. Seeing things not meant to be comprehended by mortals, a world so devoid of happiness and yet choosing to continue on despite how scared you are. She is oh so very little yet oh so brave. I just imagine gore as an allegory for loss of innocence and i go feral (Reanimal did this pretty well well imo!)
I also feel more inspired to rework Yorick and Boris then! + Mish would make way more sense then (Mish is supposed to be Yoricks hill-hound)
About hill-hounds:
Hill-hounds are NOT REAL! just fyi to anybody reading lmao. Theyre also as far as i know not rly based on anything i know? Maybe at most The legend of Korra bc she has some dog/polar bear hybrid?
The name is a huge WIP bc while it sounds cool, i have too much dog knowledge to in good faith find this name fitting for the breed it actually is. I made this up like 6 years ago. But i used "hound" to reffer to a/any dog. But a hound as in the actual type of dog, does not represent what i want at all in a "hill-hound". For those unaware, a hound type dog are dogs used for hunting. More specifically to track or chase its prey. While what i want a "hill-hound" to represent is a more fictitious role. They would first and foremost be used as a mount, secondary livestock guardian and third companion... for those who have the space at least. As mount they would not be used to carry loads of weights, i think horses, potentially other animals would be a much better fit. But for adventurers, those that often need to travel, potentially even knights this would benefit more. They could actually be trained to fight, are loyal to their rider (or whomever they formed a bond with), can traverse harder terrain AND if they are badly wounded with result of amputating a paw, they will still be able to run on 3 legs (prosthetics being a thing too ofc). I dont think i need to give example for live stock guardian dogs... i feel like a wolf or coyote might see the hill-hound and think "aight, not even gonna attempt to get a sheep from that place". For my non dog knowers (and bc i like yapping ab dogs) live stock guardian dogs are NOT the same as herding dogs! Live stock guardian dogs tasks are literly to protect the "live stock" (could be sheep, goats any type of farm animal that could get killed by wild animals). Herding dogs jobs are to guide a group of animals to specific places (wherever the farmer wishes). This is a very important distinction!! As the herding dogs scare the animals but a live stock guardian dog is more so seen as... well protector!
As for the reason i chose "hill" is that id like to imagine that this type of dog was bred by and for larger races. Was mainly thinking of hill giants, but i think orcs, bugbear, goliaths ect ect would make great use of them aswel!
So for now ill still call them hill-hounds. They have different breeds wich i have not given much thought too except for just mixing guard dogs and live stock guardian dogs. The obvious "places where its colder will have thicker coats". If used for guarding will likly have more muscle and if used as mount will have better endurance ect... I imagine they (unlike actual dog logic where larger means gets less old) would get much older then a regular dog, i think up to 30/double the age of a regular size. But that also means they stay puppy longer, longer pregnancies. But also less puppys... id love to go into why that is but im getting tiored
Suddenly a thought popped up... if hill-hound chihuahua... would they be just... regular dog sized? Crying ab the thought of a jack russel terrier, those would destroy cities just chasing like a cat LMAO
Also crying
Most ppl "look at my character, they r so cool"
Me: puts way too much thought into what esentially is just "dog 2.0, theyre dogs but theyre bigger"
I got dogtism (dog autism) and its terminal -insert a sad cowboy emote-
Anyway- Gwylim also has a hill hound! However when Gwilym got Ypi he didnt know she was gonna grow that big...
I was gonna talk more about how Ilya would fit into the lore with the gods more but im finished yapping for the day