[Tapper]

Abyss;304132 said:

The two from the Nascent could have used the gate Onrack and Trull later open with the Liosan, or it may have been that one of the players in the convergence at the Whirlwind camp summoned them, since it certainly seemed like they were there for a reason, to take out Karsa or otherwise.

The five from Paran's trip to the Nascent would have logically followed Paran and the TTG back to 7C and picked up the Hounds' trail there, and i agree, the only way to do that would have been to transition across warrens.

Wouldn't the two in the Whirlwind camp just notice the convergence and come by themselves? If they can sniff out power, they would have found plenty there that night.

A curious (though somewhat unrelated) question: there are seven Hounds of Shadow and seven Deragoth, reduced to 5 hounds of shadow (2 missing from Dragnipur), and 5 Deragoth thanks to Karsa. The link in numbers seems obvious, but this being SE, it won't be

But then, what to make of Paran? He is an (uncontrolled?) Soletaken Hound of Shadow, or at the least, possesses the blood of one, which tends to manifest when he needs a boost.

If the 7C Deragoth and Hounds are truely mirrors or opposites with a kharmic tie to one another, is there a chance of there being someone or something with Deragoth blood somewhere to "counter" or mirror Paran as the 8th Hound? Karsa got bit by one, after all...

And what does the whole 'blood of a Hound' mean when concerning them as a species (GotM gives a rough family tree), or for any wild theory of them and Dessimbelackis? The only other comparison we have where sharing/receiving blood grants shapeshifting power is Tiam... and this seems somewhat the same - intentional or otherwise.

[Tarr]

That bit about there being something to counter paran reminds me of the otarnal dragon that is to counter the others and perhaps divers to counter soletaken, but this last one is just musing, nothing to back it up except imass slaughter of the first empire and that could have been for another reason.

The "whole blood of a hound thing" is kind of a mystery, it gives him the ability to veer into something powerful enough to give Kilava pause, makes him impossible to control and gives him some sort of a link with the hounds, but it has not been fully explored yet as to why he became a soletaken hound or if anyone else can do it.

As to how his soletaken form would affect the degaroth we are not sure, wqould they chase him to reclaim a shadow, leave him alone or just kill him.

Perhaps parans soletaken ability may give him some other abilities such as the ability to use shadow or even control of the hounds but we will have to wait and see.

[SiriusL]

It occurs to me that Paran is in a similar situation as some of Soletaken eleint we read about in tBH. When Cotillion is talking with the three tied up dragons, they have a discussion about how the eleint were bound by (K'rul? Their blood-to-warren ties? Lether (hehe)?), but the Soletaken were not. That is, they got all the power of the eleint through drinking their blood, with none of the rules governing that power.

Now look at the Hounds of Shadow. Not only do they supposedly serve Cotillion and Ammanas, but are also part of the Fatid/DoD. This means there are rules governing their power. But Paran got all the power of a Hound (I guess), without really being governed the same way. Unless he's governed by rules as the MotD, but he seems to be able to make rules rather than follow them.

Also, the Deragoth aren't part of any House or ascendant structure. Maybe that's also what makes them so damn scary.

[The Archivist]

Hello, all ...

I thought I would repost this here ... thanks to Kud13 for pointing out there was an existing thread. I would suggest reading pp. 441 to 444 very carefully. Especially the point about the use of faith (and altars) as mentioned before in this thread and in the fact that the Deragoth cast no shadows. Also, Trull looks at the Hounds with some puzzlement and mentions he feels no "affinity" with them. Almost, as if he expected, too. Perhaps, the Hounds of Shadow predate the Deragoth. Anyone know what Deragoth means in Tiste? Something is odd here ... "They are not the child of anyone" .... I do believe the Deragoth are(is?) the Master of the Hounds ... one who make a pact with them ... and paid a price ...

... HoC pg. 443 (Bantam, 2002) ...

*very minor spoilers possibly ... below*

"Dessimbelackis," Onrack whispered. "The founder of the human First Empire. Long vanished by the time of the unleashing of the Beast Ritual. It was believed he had ... veered."
"D'ivers?" (Trull)
"Aye." (Onrack)
"And the Beasts numbered?" (Trull)
"Seven." (Onrack)

[Tiger_sword]

It does narrow down the possibilities, the fact that he is numbered seven (though that does seam to be a common number in the malazan world). There is no doubt of the link between Dessimbelackis, the Deragoth and the hounds of shadow but I think a key link is still missing from our knowledge, one that I hope is revealed in TotH.

[SiriusL]

The Archivist;307113 said:

Especially the point about the use of faith (and altars) as mentioned before in this thread and in the fact that the Deragoth cast no shadows.

Well, the ones freed by Onrack do cast shadows--a lot of shadows, which is interesting.

I don't remember about the others.

[VampireGoat]

well the two in the statues cast shadows because they are reunited with their shadows after the shadow hounds in gotm get slain and then free'd from dragnipur.

The rest of the deragoth don't cast any shadows cause their shadows are still walking around in shadow thrones service.

As I said in the other thread asking the same question, There is far to much solid evidence from gardens of the moon that states that the shadow hounds were born as apposed to veered. Plenty of evidence to prove the shadow hounds arn't dessi.

First there were 2 which had kids who had kids and thus we ended up with 7. Im assuming the avalibility of a deragoth shadow to steal is a necessity when breeding hounds of shadow hence why they stopped at 7 instead of breeding a small(or large)army of them. This is all laid out in gardens

Second, from what I know d'ivers are one being split into a group of identical copies, all the hounds are visably different beasts, of both sexes as well.

Third, we know a divers can increase their numbers by feasting on other living creatures. The hounds have been chewing their way through humanity and its kin for a good few thousand years, in the series so far they are responsible for a large quanity of deaths, yet never has the numbered increased as per other d'ivers including Dejim, a being refered to as dessi's attempt to create an elder god.

Fourth, Dragnipur. Now i know this is pissing in the dark a bit but from what I know despite how many copies a d'ivers grows to, it is still a one being with one soul. If the hounds collectively are dessi how was Rake able to dragnipur two individual souls from only one? As far as I understand when dragnipur makes a kill/injury the chains get ahold of the soul and drag the whole thing to its warren. Two individual beings where grabbed when Rake delt the justice and 5 ran off, I could be wrong but Rake just doesn't same the type to deal in portions of soul, say a foot or a leg. Dragnipur seems to have been built to draw in the lot to me to help power the cart. I imagin with a standard divers dragnipur would have to keep chopping to it got the final and then it'd swallow the soul but it in gotm it got two seperate entities and this is something that is definetly referenced in the later books.

The last point is just an idea, we haven't seen how dragnipur deals with d'ivers

My final point is, look for gardens for answers. I know gotm is rebuked as being the biggest source of rubbish in the malazan series but right here right now there isn't anything to challange the information laid down about the hounds in gotm. If there's nothing that says otherwise then, for me at least, gotm's answer are fact.

And dessi veering into 7 beings is not evidence against, both Dejim and The Pack veer into 7, its just a number.

[D'rek]

some interesting stuff here.

The Archivist said:

"Dessimbelackis," Onrack whispered. "The founder of the human First Empire. Long vanished by the time of the unleashing of the Beast Ritual. It was believed he had ... veered."

Onrack doesn't know everything. They only visited the human FE once, so I wouldn't point to him as a reliable source of what happened.

VampireGoat;307627 said:

First there were 2 which had kids who had kids and thus we ended up with 7. Im assuming the avalibility of a deragoth shadow to steal is a necessity when breeding hounds of shadow hence why they stopped at 7 instead of breeding a small(or large)army of them. This is all laid out in gardens

There is an even greater mystery there that we talked about a long time ago and got no-where. The pack leader of the Hounds is Rood, who's first mate is Pallick and they're first-born is Doan. However, Pallick is not one of the Seven Hounds listed in the glossary or ever seen. Just something to think about, but let's not make a big discussion of this because it's been done already. Search in the GotM forum if you wanna read the old thread.

VampireGoat;307627 said:

Second, from what I know d'ivers are one being split into a group of identical copies, all the hounds are visably different beasts, of both sexes as well.

Third, we know a divers can increase their numbers by feasting on other living creatures. The hounds have been chewing their way through humanity and its kin for a good few thousand years, in the series so far they are responsible for a large quanity of deaths, yet never has the numbered increased as per other d'ivers including Dejim, a being refered to as dessi's attempt to create an elder god.

Fourth, Dragnipur. Now i know this is pissing in the dark a bit but from what I know despite how many copies a d'ivers grows to, it is still a one being with one soul. If the hounds collectively are dessi how was Rake able to dragnipur two individual souls from only one? As far as I understand when dragnipur makes a kill/injury the chains get ahold of the soul and drag the whole thing to its warren. Two individual beings where grabbed when Rake delt the justice and 5 ran off, I could be wrong but Rake just doesn't same the type to deal in portions of soul, say a foot or a leg. Dragnipur seems to have been built to draw in the lot to me to help power the cart. I imagin with a standard divers dragnipur would have to keep chopping to it got the final and then it'd swallow the soul but it in gotm it got two seperate entities and this is something that is definetly referenced in the later books.

The last point is just an idea, we haven't seen how dragnipur deals with d'ivers

My final point is, look for gardens for answers. I know gotm is rebuked as being the biggest source of rubbish in the malazan series but right here right now there isn't anything to challange the information laid down about the hounds in gotm. If there's nothing that says otherwise then, for me at least, gotm's answer are fact.

And dessi veering into 7 beings is not evidence against, both Dejim and The Pack veer into 7, its just a number.

This is a very, very good point. Of course, whether D'ivers have only the one soul or not doesn't necessarily refute anything. Dessim could have used some crazy ritual that used the bounded forms of the surviving Deragoth to make himself into a Deragoth d'ivers, or a Hound-d'ivers, or something else. But it does bear thinking about.

Additionally, Dejim Nebrahl is not a solid reference for D'ivers in any case, as he is not a traditional D'ivers. He was created by the merging of seven individual Trohlbarahl (who were not d'ivers) to create a special d'ivers-trohlbarahl. Trohlbarahl were drinkers of human blood for some sort of power, so Dejim's ability to "splice" his seven souls and create more probably has much to do with his being trohlbarahl. He was very different from any of the other d'ivers so we shouldn't use him as an example for other d'ivers. That being said Ryllandaras has increased his numbers as well, we just don't know how exactly.

[Ayrin]

Regarding D'ivers and numbers...
In DG, when Fiddler & co encounter Gryllen (rat D'ivers) in Tremorlor, isn't it mentioned that there are more rats now, and that this probably is due to him having eaten/killed other powerful beings? So it would seem that even "true" D'ivers, not only Dejim would be able to gain more bodies.

As usual, my books are in another location, so I can't give you a quote.

[Mentalist]

MAybe Dessi WAS the Pack...
but probably not. He probably veered into 7 mules

[The Archivist]

My apologies. First, I am not saying that Dessim is the Hounds of Shadow. I think that he might be the something else... the Deragoth or something Hound related.

Read all of the conversation... not in isolation.

Trull gets Onrack to realize something. "

Trull smiled oddly, then asked, "The First Human Empire or yours?"

consider ...

"I know little of the First Human Empire. We were drawn into its heart but once, Trull Sengar in answer to the the chaos of the Soultaken and D'ivers. The Hounds made no appearance during that slaughter."
then....

Onrack is not really answering the question ... he is avoiding a direct answer.

"If they (the Hounds) are but reflections, then there must be Hounds of Darkness, from which they were torn," Onrack persisted. Yet there is no knowledge of such..." The T'lan Imass suddenly fell silent.

Trull laughed. "It seems you know more of the Human First Empire then you first indicated."

Then this ...

"Dessimbelackis," Onrack whispered. "The founder of the human First Empire. long vanished by the time of the unleashing of the Beast Ritual. It was believed he had ... veered."
"D'ivers?" (Trull)
"Aye." (Onrack)
"And the Beasts numbered?" (Trull)
"Seven." (Onrack)

Two things here ... Onrack is being circumspect about what he knows and Trull is leading him to a revelation.

think that there is something very significant here and am still pondering it. But the possibility the Imass mistook one of the sets of Hounds for the other would definately mess with any timeline anyway. I suggest anyone interested goes and reads the whole conversation between the two again. Hehe ...

[Lisheo]

Very nice point, Archivest... I never realised that Trull was leading Onrack to a revelation...
At the same time, I very much doubt that Dessim is the Seven Hounds of Shadow, as they seem to be able to breed, and I very much doubt that Dessim would let himself do the bidding of Shadow House.
Is it possible that there were once many more Shadow Hounds, as many as the Deragoth, and as the Deragoth died, the Hounds of Shadow also died? So now there ae five each again.

[Raraku]

Actually from all the proof we ve seen i think (even though this has probably been said before) that Dessi made a deal with the last 7 Deragoth to split and bind his soul with them.
It is mentioned that the Nameless Ones were really upset with that unholy union. Cant find a quote but i think its in BH. Like QB he split his soul and put it in the Deragoths by the art of soul shifting.
And maybe the Hounds of Shadow werent originally part of the Shadow but when the Edur came to Burn, they saw the power and majesty of the last 7 before they met Dessi and tore their Shadows from them which is why the Hounds run after their shadows. The Edur who did that knew that they would do this so they bound them in the statues that we see in a realm were no one will really go so there is no chance of them being freed.
They had no idea of the history of the Deragoth and how they protected the 7 Cities continent from the KCCM. Also the reason for the name of the continent as per Osserc is cause of the last 7 Deragoth.

[Mentalist]

the point of rebuttal to this is the same on all htreads dedicated to the topic

The Hounds have falilial relations, they are mostly all different
Add to that the fact that we've met a "Hound in training" in MoI.

While the degaroth, afaik, lack such diversity

[Tiger_sword]

This is no more than speculation but is it possible that the merging of Dessi and the deragoth produced a new species the HoS closely related to the manner in which they were created i.e.perhaps the ritual required the use of shadow (or whatever it was back then). Only the creatures created (HoS) had some kind of free will but were still tied to shadow. Maybe they originally numbered seven but some where killed and thus the remaining members of the pack mated to bring the number back up. Either that or perhaps shadow itself took the deragoth and changed them into the HoS if some where killed others could be taken to replace them (so there would be potential HoS out there) or they could breed amoungst themselves

Basically, my only real concrete point(!) is that if GotM is correct in the assertation that the HoS have some kind of falilial relations then they are catagorically not a Di'vers the like we have ever seen.

It is most likely then that they are either a stand alone species which has to keep up a specific number by breeding or chosing other creatures and changing them to HoS. Only problem with this theory... why have the two that were Dragnipur'ed not been replaced