Dog of War

A Dog of War or Dog Tag is a being made up of a spiritual patchwork of various soldiers, which forms in especially confusing warzones as people lose track of the living and dead.

Abilities

They don't have to sleep,<ref name=":0">“It’s more accurate to say I’m many fragments adding up to a whole.  If I’m good at what I do, it’s because it’s more or less all that I do.”

“So when you can improvise bombs and think those three or four steps ahead,” Lucy said, “it’s because-”

“It’s because that’s the way I think, when I have a free moment to think.  I’m this,

twenty-four seven, seven days a week.  I don’t sleep, I don’t ever 

fully relax.  If I do find distraction, it’s only a small share of me that’s distracted.  The rest is ready.”

“Are you entirely made up of Canadian soldiers?”

“No.  Canadian, American, ANA, armed citizens, others.”

“Why Kennet, then?”

“I think the part of me that thinks of ‘home’ came primarily from a man that thought of Kennet or a place very much like it.”

- excerpt from Lost for Words 1.5 </ref><ref name=":1">“He’s a Dog of War, known in some circles as Dog Tags.  I think his name is an older equivalent to John Doe, but for soldiers.  When warzones are at their ugliest and most chaotic, and people start losing track of who is where, who is alive and who is dead, certain Others may crop up on the battlefields.  Ones that fight, so long as there is conflict around them.  If the soldiers in that war are killing innocents, so will the Dogs of War.  If they commit other atrocities, so

will the Dogs.  They don’t sleep, they keep the battle going, and as 

long as the battle continues, they don’t stay down.  Related to Revenants, but Revenants are the province of Death, not War.”

- excerpt from Lost for Words 1.4 </ref> and don't get bored.<ref>“What’s your day to day like?  What do you do?”

“I walk around at an hour before people are really awake.  I clean and sharpen my weapons.  I watch some TV.  I read and play video games.”

“Feels like you’re just whiling away the time,” Lucy said.

“Waiting, watching.  I don’t get bored in the same way you do.  There’s a stasis in it.  A… lack of anxiety.  I expect to live a long, long time, so there’s no feeling that I’m wasting my time.”

- excerpt from Lost for Words 1.5 </ref> They're not superhumanly strong or skilled, but they are always at least partially in "combat mode".<ref name=":0" /> They have an innate ability to locate weapons.<ref name=":2">“There were others like you?”

“We rarely appear alone.  When the conditions are met for one of us to appear, the conditions are met for several.  After three years of bitter conflict, the conditions had been met enough for there to be twenty of us.  Usually… numbers vary, but for every five like me, there’ll be one more that’s a… they have a few names I’ve heard.  Dogs of Flame.  Frag Tags.”

“Hot Dogs,” Cherry piped up.

“They are…?”

“They burn, they use explosives.  They cover other bases.”

“Like?”

“Like if a practitioner wants to bind us using something like a circle, item, fencing us in?  They’ll do like I did with the can and the

bucket of paint thinner, but… much bigger.  If they blow up an area… 

something like me will survive it.  The practitioners trying to bind us usually won’t.  Someone like me, I can collect grenades.  I won’t magically always have one, but if I wanted to set out to get a gun or a grenade, I’d know just the direction to walk.  The easiest path to take to find or acquire one, whether it’s on a corpse or in a hiding place.  The Frag Tags, they always have explosives or ways to start big

fires.  They don’t come back so easy once they’re properly put down.  

Gotta start a big enough fire or wait for one, and they come walking out

of it.”

“Kind of getting the bigger picture,” Lucy said.  “There were twenty of you, so… four of these guys?”

“Sixteen like me, three of them.  One other.”

- excerpt from Lost for Words 1.5 </ref> They can't be killed as long as it's remotely plausible they could survive an injury, and if they are killed they will reappear within days.<ref name=":3">“What can you do, exactly?  You come back when you’re killed?”

“More like I don’t die in the first place.  I can always keep fighting until I’m badly wounded enough that nobody would believe I could keep fighting.  If I get obliterated, you wait a couple days, I’ll

show up again.  I get stronger with every life I take.  It clarifies 

me.  I and the other ones like me began with no names, no real faces.  Just… uniforms.  Piecemeal, like each part of the outfit was taken from one body.  After one very bloody, prolonged fight, I and two of my squadmates took on handles.  Then names.  Then specializations.  Skillsets.”

- excerpt from Lost for Words 1.5 </ref>

Whenever they kill someone, they grow stronger and better-defined.<ref name=":3" />

Use by Practitioners

Sometimes bound by War Mages.<ref name=":4">“What happened to them?  These others like you?”

“Some came from nearby conflicts that ended for long enough, then took a bullet.  Others were bound by War Mages.  Combat-focused practitioners that like a good soldier and know special ways to bind us.  Others were stopped by other practitioners, caught in other traps. 

To some, we’re like cockroaches.  Pests to be exterminated.  We fled.  

They got two more of us while we were fleeing.  In the end, it was just me and Yalda.”

“Yalda?”

“Our Black Dog.  My friend,” he answered.  “She filled the empty hours of the day and kept me entertained, she watched terrible shows.  Not, uh, not so clarified.  Black Dogs, they don’t take lives, not easily.  Only if they give someone a curse of revenge and that curse kills.  But what was there was… rich.”

- excerpt from Lost for Words 1.5 </ref> The literal dog tag left when one dies is connected to, and can be used to summon, others of their squad.<ref>He pulled off the simple necklace that the dog tags and the singular ring hung off of.  He removed three tags, each of them partially melted,

gouged, or otherwise scarred, well past the point that the labels could
be read.  “For you.”

“What do they do?”

“They’re connected to me.  Throw one down, stride forward into conflict without looking back… I’ll be right behind you.”

“Like…”

“No more than five steps behind, armed.  I’ll give it back to you after, or give you another one, provided you aren’t being frivolous in calling me there.”

Lucy nodded.  Verona ran one finger over the one she’d been given.

“Thank you,” Avery said.

“It’s appreciated.  I imagine these mean a lot to you,” Lucy said.

“Yes.”

“Are they from your squadmates?” Verona asked.

“They are.”

- excerpt from Lost for Words 1.5 </ref>

Weaknesses

They draw power from a specific conflict; it's a potent source of power as long as it lasts, making them difficult to bind, but once it ends they eventually lose their immortality.<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":1" /> If cut off from their war by a strong enough binding circle, they will also be rendered mortal.<ref>“Okay, so… just so we know, how do you deal with a Dog of War or any of its variants?” Verona asked.

“By putting a bullet in them, or some other means of execution, after cutting them off from their power source.”

“How do you cut them off?”

“Draw a circle around them.  I can teach you the basics of binding Others at a later date.  With John, don’t bother trying.  The act of finishing the drawing of the circle gets harder the greater the source of power is.  His source of power is a big, long-running conflict with no sign of ending, even if Canada pulled out six years ago.  Like a large body of water with a narrow hole feeding out the bottom to this particular output, the pressure is immense and the stream violent.  You’re not positioned to put that conflict to rest and you’re not equipped to close a circle.”

- excerpt from Lost for Words 1.4 </ref>

Creation

They're spawned by especially confusing warzones where people lose track of the living and dead.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":5">“Are there a lot of these things out there?” Verona asked.

“By their nature and where they come from, they’re hard to count.  All it takes is that the dead pile up in the midst of greater conflict and violence, people start becoming statistics instead of names, and the

numbers stop adding up.  John’s companion was a Sick Dog type.  It 

looked like any child you could find on a warzone.  He smuggled it here,

it took care of him, he took care of it.  But by its nature, it spread 

sickness and tainted everything around it with malaise.  It had to be dealt with.  John decided to do it himself.  Before my time here.” - excerpt from Lost for Words 1.4 </ref> The Dogs form from bits of pieces of various soldiers on various sides.<ref>“John.  It’s my understanding that you’re a… super soldier?  A Dog of War?”

“No,” John said.  “Yes, about the Dog of War label, no, I’m strong but I’m not a super soldier, like they appear in movies.  I’ve been told

I’m… a stained glass mosaic of a soldier, each segment pulled from 

someone.” - excerpt from Lost for Words 1.5 </ref><ref name=":0" /> They start out without real names or faces, wearing piecemeal uniforms.<ref name=":3" /> It's rare for a war to be big enough to form one yet small enough not to form several; generally there will be a group or squad of them in the same place.<ref name=":2" />

Variations

Dog of Flame

Also known as Frag Tags, Hot Dogs, Blast Dogs. Rarer, perhaps one for every five standard Dogs of war. Unlike other Dogs of War, they are always armed with explosives at all time. However, they require a large fire to "respawn".<ref name=":2" />

Black Dog

Also known as Sick Dogs, Famine Dogs, Rag Tags. Perhaps one will form for every twenty standard Dog Tags. They are to innocent, vulnerable civilians what Dogs of War are to soldiers; the young, the sick, the old. Whoever kills one is cursed (they are as immortal as regular Dog Tags); some are strong enough to curse whoever hurts, or even slights them. They serve as leaders or guides, giving the others direction.<ref>“A leader?” Lucy asked.

“Another kind.  For every twenty or so of the rest of us, you might see one Black Dog, one Rag Tag.  They come from civilians like I come from soldiers, but… they come from wrongs, from pain, attrition.  They’ll look like kids.  Or like old men or women.  Kill them, you get sick, or something twists inside you and you can’t eat enough anymore, or… you get cold and you can’t warm up.  A curse.  The strong ones, you can’t even hurt them or say an unkind word without them laying something

on you in turn.  And they come back too.  They protect us, walk into 

firefights, stop other kinds of binding than just the circles.  They give us direction, motivation.”

- excerpt from Lost for Words 1.5 </ref><ref name=":6">“I don’t know much.  She was gone before I was a practitioner, and she’s a touchy subject for him.  Dogs of War have a multitude of subcategories and varieties.  Labels are rarely tidy, and Dogs of War are something that emerges naturally, for lack of a better way of putting it.  Dog Meat emerge from multiple killings at the hands of serial killers or more violent goblins, Hang Dogs from lynchings and hate, Blast Dogs from areas that have been traumatized, and Sick, Famine, and Black Dogs are rare ones from the more vulnerable innocents killed in those crises, usually the leaders or guides for collected packs and combinations of Dogs of War.” - excerpt from Lost for Words 1.4</ref> Sick Dogs tend to spread sickness.<ref name=":5" /> They tend to be less human, since they can't kill people as easily to clarify themselves.<ref name=":4" />

Dog Meat

Aka Mad Dogs.<ref name=":7">Dog Meat / Mad Dogs - Arise from rare mass-serial killings, goblin-ridden areas, or other similar circumstances where the requirements of blood soaked into ground, endemic and exaggerated violence, and unclaimed & unnamed bodies or mass graves are all met,

coinciding with degradation or stripping away of humanity/human 

features. Come unarmed, often feral with desperation, with eerie improvisational instincts, natural stealth, feral capabilities (climbing

up walls, moving on all fours, or keen senses of smell, among other 

things), and tenacity. Often mutilated or scarred, adding to intimidation value. Tend to appear alone, reflecting some piecemeal version of all of those who almost got away or almost got the upper hand. May appear alongside Goblins as a pet. - Wildbow on Reddit</ref> Formed from the victims of serial killers or goblins,<ref name=":6" /> on the rare occasions where they kill people en masse. Often scarred, with animalistic powers (superhuman sense of smell, climbing on walls) and behaviour. Generally just one will form, from pieces of those who came closest to escape. Sometimes used by goblins.<ref name=":7" />

Hang Dog

Formed from the victims of hate crimes,<ref name=":6" /><ref>Q: To clarify about Hang Dogs - do they take after the aggressors, or the victims? Like, if a Hang Dog arose from the Salem witch trials, would the Dog target inquisitors, or potential witches?

A: They take after the victims.

- Wildbow on Reddit </ref> generally mindless attacks, mass hysteria, and/or genocide (so that people can possibly lose track of the dead.) They begin more human than standard Dog Tags, and may have powers based on their death or the reason they were killed, but possess less equiment. Powered by hate, they generally have a "favoured enemy" who they are more effective against; and can grow in power to the point where they can entrap souls, send people to the Abyss, or inflict a negative afterlife on agressors. They can act as protectors but tend to encourage the conflict that spawned them in the process.<ref>Hang Dogs - Come about from mindless, often group-targeted mass-lynchings and killings (to meet the criteria for the faceless dead or the 'dead as statistics, not people'), sometimes with hysteria involved. More focused against one side in a conflict, with ‘favored enemies’ that they are more effective against, have weaker equipment, more personality from the outset. Stem from hate rather than war, very effective against their favored enemy and against the unaware, are difficult to track and pin down, may have other abilities relating to their means of death or the hysteria surrounding them. May be protectors of 'their' people, but their way of going about this (targeting and mutilating/killing the aggressors) has a tendency to perpetuate or escalate hostilities and do more long-term harm, where such is possible. Can arise from genocide in war, in which case they would band together with other Dogs, but can just as easily appear in groups on their own in a rural area, if there's sufficient murder of a subgroup. Hang Dogs tend to swell in strength more than other Dogs, especially as time passes, and Hang Dogs of sufficient strength may be able to claim souls and imprison them (a consciousness forever embedded in an object, tree, or corpse, watching and unable to speak/act) or to drag or send aggressors to other realms, such as the Abyss or the darker places that lie beyond the gates of Death. Many are put to rest by the very groups that they came from. - Wildbow on Reddit</ref>

References

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