Following on from my post about the Types of Ducks in the upcoming The Feathers and the Fury book, here’s a quick look at how the various species developed in the crucible of the Duck Coast.

Imperial scholars are even more argumentative and divided about the so-called “Origin of the Ducks” than they are on any other subject (even the origins of Lord Vile, God of Corruption, which, to be honest, they stay wisely away from).

There are two accepted theories based on the accounts of two expeditions to Duck Coast.

The Sensible Theory

Attributed to Jana the Sensible, a scholar of the Early Imperial period. When Sotan asked the academic community to classify and fill any knowledge gaps left by Gatanese culture or the Imperial Revelation, Jana travelled with the early Imperial Trade Missions to the Lake Towns of Duck Coast. She gathered her evidence from the Duck Traders she met there, mainly from Lake Duck Heritage.

In the Sensible Theory, River Ducks came first, then moved upriver to the Great Lakes, where their level of civilisation evolved into the stilted Lake Towns. From there, periodic migrations occur due to overcrowding, with more River Duck and Lake Duck communities being established in the inland regions of the Duck Coast with varying levels of success. The ducks of Green Marsh, now the Groglands and the Serpentine Ducks of the Red Sands, are two extreme examples of such migrations. In which the ducks got far enough away from the cradle of their civilisation to become a subspecies with their own culture. Aerial Ducks are a result of a particularly desperate migration where, with the help of an Air Sorcerer, they took to the air in air balloons, nomadically travelling the skies above Duck Coast. Tellingly, despite all its sensibility, this account leaves out Pyramid Ducks found in the Northern Mountains of Duck Coast. Present day defenders of this theory just simply class them as Serpentine Ducks, who also build pyramids, because “pyramids, duh!”.

The Great Walzondo’s All-Embracing Theory of Duck Kind

This is a new, modern, and hotly disputed theory from Heretical Wizard, Walzondo, who claims to have extensively travelled the Duck Coast in the time between the death of Sotan I and the coronation of Illmar I, collecting first-hand evidence and visiting ancient sites undreamt of by Jana. Jana was his contemporary with whom he famously clashed during her lifetime and considered dull and unadventurous.

Walzondo breaks ducks into two branches. Northern and Southern.

The root of the Northern Branch is the Pyramid Ducks, aka the Toberones, who according to their own myths arose from a great sleep beneath the earth, and built cities on huge step-pyramids, to be closer to the Gods, who they believe live in the sky, to be “loved by them again”. Periodically, every hundred years or so, the Priest caste divines that this is not the case, that their city has been a failure in the eyes of the gods. They then sacrifice most of the slave/worker caste to divine where their next city should be built. After which, burn the current city, migrate to the new site, and start the cycle anew. The Serpentine Ducks of Red Sands and the Ducks of Green Marsh (who became the Crusader Ducks when they were expelled from their homeland by Grogzilla) are descended from Toberone slave caste ducks who escaped the fifth and seventh end-cycle, respectively.

The Southern Branch starts with River Ducks who are scattered in small communities throughout Duck Coast. Whose, according to their own legends, the Severn Ancestors fell from the sky in a Cosmic Egg. While Lake Ducks claim that River Ducks are commoners who migrated into the wilderness, and their towns were the landing sites of the seven Ancestors. Walzondo thinks this may be due to snobbery, and that the Lake Ducks are merely more sophisticated River Ducks, whose culture got a leg up by trading with outside cultures, such as through visits from Imperial Trade Missions.

Everyone is a bit confused about Aerial Ducks, and Walzondo wasn’t able to get a sensible answer from anyone. However, he did make friends with this eccentric branch and was able to catch a lift in their Balloons, which allowed him to visit various sites of interest during his expedition.