Mongoose

The mongoose is a small to medium-sized carnivore that can be found throughout most of Idiri and into Ruleska and Riendu as well, where it occupies a wide variety of environments. Although absent from most of the Great Hazari and other extreme deserts, mongooses can be found along the Adelantean coast where it favors scrub, plains, and woodlands. They can also be found in urban areas, free-ranging, semi-feral, or even kept as cherished pets. Although they can sometimes prey on domestic fowl and their eggs, mongooses have a good reputation overall, being considered lucky and plucky, as well as good protection against snakes and scorpions. The two most common types of mongoose in Raziya are the Raziyan or great grey mongoose and the pepperspot moongoose.

Great Grey Mongoose

The great grey mongoose is of medium size, with a small-eared pointed head and a long, agile body with an almost equally long tail. While it is most commonly grey in color overall, it can also shade more rusty or yellowish, and even grey-pelted individuals also have flecks of yellow, brown, and rust amid the heavy ticking that accents their fur. Its coat is fairly long and coarse, and in colder seasons it can look a little as if it has draped a shabby marzuq around itself.

Adaptable and wide-ranging, great grey mongooses do not live in deeply arid or densely forested environments but can be found nearly anywhere else. In Amunat they are common all up and down the Tamarat River and its delta, while elsewhere they favor the scrubby coastal plain, the light montane forests and verdantcanyons of the desert massifs, and the submerged but still green course of the Tamrasset River in Raziya. The great grey is mostly diurnal, but can be found hunting at dawn and dusk as well and sometimes even into the night, especially when the moons are bright. The creatures live in small social groups, usually a single mating pair or a small unit of related individuals.

They have a very broad diet, consuming everything from lizards and frogs to insects and crayfish to birds and smaller mammals -- occasionally including their cousins the pepperspot mongoose. But great grey mongooses have earned their valiant reputation for their ability to do battle venomous snakes without sustaining harm, as well as for still less common feats. It is said, both among the Razmani and the Amunati, that certain great grey mongooses are born with a destiny to be the true heroes of their kind, and to track down and slay crocodiles and even dragons. In Amunat it is said that this mongoose is the only creature that capable of hunting even the terrible Gargut-Ammat, and with a well-placed bite to its throat can induce it to disgorge itself of all the things it has ever swallowed.

Pepperspot Mongoose

The pepperspot is a species of dwarf moongoose, which at about the size of a large kitten makes it one of the smaller of its kind. It has a round head with a pointed muzzle, and small rounded ears set close to the skull. Short-legged and low to the ground, it gets around with a scampering motion and can be surprisingly fast and agile. Its short soft coat comes in many different colors, from rusty peach to brown or dark russet. In place of the ticking seen on the pelts of its cousins, the pepperspot lives up to its name with a dense scattering of little dark spots across its shoulders and upper forelegs, which become steadily sparser further down its sides and back.

The pepperspot mongoose is almost strictly diurnal, and lives in groups of about a dozen or so animals. These are most often related, but sometimes a newcomer will be "adopted" into the group and will join the rest in lookout duty and helping to care for the young of the chief breeding pair. Pepperspots prefer scrub environments with ample clumped grass and woody shrubbery, and unlike other dwarf mongooses will also dwell within the more densely vegetated environment of spring- or river-fed oases. They can make themselves quite at home in cities too, particularly where there is plentiful cover from shrubs or junk.

Pepperspots take mostly smaller prey, from small lizards and frogs to their favorite meals of cicadas and scorpions. As their larger great grey relatives are valued for the role in keeping venomous snakes at bay, pepperspots are appreciated for reducing the number of scorpions available to go crawling about in one's house or shoes. Like the great grey, pepperspot mongooses can make good pets, though they do best with another mongoose or other small animal for additional companionship.