Renyu

Renyu are bipedal canids capable of speech and of using tools. They are not considered particularly intelligent, though they can be trained to use weapons and to serve in a variety of other capacities, though they are not able to perform jobs that require higher order thinking or intense concentration. For instance, they make good bearers or laborers, and can serve as scouts for armies or hunting parties; but one would not usually employ renyu servants as scribes or majordomos.
Renyu very much resemble dogs standing on their hind legs (and unlike the Kzinti and Mrrshans, they are digigrade). It is possible that they are in fact derived from dogs, perhaps raised up into sapience by some powerful sorcerer of the past. Many tales suggest such beginnings, but they are so many and varied that it is impossible to know.
Like other canids, renyu prefer to live together in social groups or packs. They dwell in all climes of Ardha, though especially where humans live, either integrated in human society as servants and fellow denizens, or on the edges of civilization as scavengers and rogues. Even these latter, if captured and subdued, can usually be broken and trained. In Cothon-Gadeed, the Guild of Beastmasters at the Confraternity of 'Issa the Baptist are the ones who specialize in training animals and beasts of many kinds, and renyu in particular.
They are able to speak human tongues, though typically in a somewhat broken or simple fashion. Their senses of scent and hearing are especially keen, which makes them good lookouts and scouts. And though they are able to put up a good fight with their fangs, they prefer to hunt and fight with weapons, especially simple ones like spears and javelins.


Free Renyu
While many renyu are happy to serve humans--and humans in particular, rather than any other of the intelligent races--some chafe at work and expectations. Many such have come through Cothon-Gadeed, and a number of them banded together for mutual protection in the undercity (the Medina al Taht). These Free Renyu aren't any kind of formal tribe, but they can be approached somewhat as a collective.
They can be difficult to come across, however, for chafing at service as they do, they generally prefer not to be found--and they are quite willing to crawl and wriggle through tight spaces and to live in foul-smelling places where men would rather not go. As last reported, there were a number of these renyu who had made some kind of friendship with a group of bandits making use of the Medina al Taht for a covert base.

The Was'go
A tribe dwelling the sea caves of the Ocean's Throat northeast of Cothon, led by a scarred male imaginatively named Scar. They had been subordinated to the will of a rogue magic-user and alchemist, Yramrag, until that individual was defeated and killed, and the Was'go thus set free. The group that set them free included the tinkerer-adventurer Durham, who owns the Ringing Anvil in Cothon, and so are on especially friendly terms with him, including serving him as scouts. His loyal bodyservant Pako is also a member of the Was'go tribe.
The Was'go have often been in conflict with the Hsia-Hsia Sakkra tribe who also dwell in the sea caves, and sometimes with the Gao Alkari as well, who also live there. These conflicts have recently been ended with a truce negotiated by certain adventurers, though tensions between the three groups naturally continue. The Was'go also tell tales of a strange location hidden away within the caves which they call "The Land of Ghee and Yoghurt", a place of mists and magic where fruits and delicacies can be found that per force cannot be found elsewhere in the cave system.