So why not more than just canines?

Because Hunting needs to disappear.

Nu-uh

I'm going to take my cat, Opal, out hunting with me. She weighs about six pounds, so she can't actually bring anything back to me, but she's athletic!

Or...I can take my dog, Lefty, out hunting with me. He has a deformed right paw, runs with a limp, but is still more dangerous and useful out in the field than Opal ever will be.

Or, better yet, I can do a jailbreak for that mountain lion that was wandering our suburbs a couple weeks back. I'll just pretend that he's not as impossible to train to hunt as a cat. Maybe he'll fetch what I kill, but I bet he eats it before I get to see it.

Yes-uh.

Which is sad because traps are f-ing insane for influencing, etc.

Really don't care. I'm still extremely irked that you need to forsake totems to take hunting. Novices I teach actually get little rants about it every once in a while, if they ask what the difference between the two is.

It's what they represent, not the actual skills contained.

It really makes perfect sense. If you don't worship totemic spirits, why would they imbue you with their power?

If you don't worship totemic spirits, why the * are you in the Ebonguard?

Thank you, Narsrim.

I could understand it being a problem for Paladins or Ur'guard.. but it fits really really well with the forestral guilds. I like how Daganev incorporated it - as a summation of Nature. Rather than drawing the spirits DOWN, the Tracker lifts themselves UP, to be more like the spirits. I think that's cool.

Because you could give a less about the guild and want to catch squirrels and fish?

EDIT: Watch your language. ~Shiri~

That's how Daganev is trying to RP it himself, but not as how it is actually represented in the Ebonguard. And it really doesn't work that way. It's not a summation of Nature in ANY way whatsoever, it's figuring out how to bend it to your will instead of working with it and learning from it. This necessarily "draws the spirits down," it doesn't enhance them at all. The trackers who profess to follow the spirits (or the trackers who say they "can't choose one so went hunting instead") are just deluding themselves. It's like saying "I follow Stag completely, but I chose Moon for the skills." It doesn't make sense (to me at least).

Can a tracker do SPIRITBOND SQUIRREL, the simplest of them all? No. Period. You reject them so that you can claim you're close to them.

Um.. how does bending Nature to your will NOT fit Glomdoring? Enslaving Fae, anyone? They ARE Nature.

And if you want to worship Crow or Night, you join either the Blacktalon or the Shadowdancers. The Ebonguard are the physical arm of the forest, and as such, they have a more physical approach to the spirits. No, a hunter can't spiritbond squirrel, but they can catch a trout or chicken with their hands. Does both produce food? Yes. Except the tracker actualy benefits the whole of Glomdoring, where as Squirrel totem benefits only the user.

No, the tracker doesn't benefit the whole of the Glomdoring any more than squirrel, because whatever they catch still needs to be sold to a village for production (and face it, villages have plenty of beef/poultry/fish). All it really does is earn the tracker a bit of gold.

And that's where we differ from the Blacktalon and the Shadowdancers. We worship all of the spirits with those two above all. We don't say Crow is better than Night, we don't say Night is better than Crow. We follow both. That is the way the Ebonguard were initially crafted, that is our RP. Honestly, if you want hunting, go to the Serenguard-- they don't care. I do.

And how the heck does "bending the physical aspects of nature" in any way fit the Glomdoring? The fae are more spirits, given physical nature by Ellindel, but that does not change that they are spirits. We don't tear down our forest to turn them into houses, we don't build houses in the treetops... the closest we get is forming living Ravenwoods into totems. *We generally leave the forest alone, not forcing it to do what we want-- instead, we serve it.*

Wouldn't binding a spirit (fae are nature spirits) to yourself soley for your own benefit (like getting food) be bending nature to your will?

Oh wait, thats totems, not hunting. My bad.

Well, kinda. And I think there are some who see it that way. It depends on whether you see it as forcing them or as asking them for their aide.

Yeah. I'm just saying, if your into forcing your will onto the nature spirits, it would STILL make more sense to take totems .

Shadowdancer: Hi Mr. Pigwidgeon! Will you help me?

Pigwidgeon: Umm, I'm not walking into your creepy shadow forest. Sorry.

Shadowdancer: Ok, thanks! *faesummon Pigwidgeon, it is dragged out screaming in horror as it is bound in shadows*

=====================================================

Ebonguard: *faesummon pigwidgeon* *Nothing happens* *Ebonguard runs home crying.*

That so reminds me of Shayle. That's just hilarious.

She's not sad! She loves me! *pet sprite*