Lesser Chiguir ('Chi-goo-ear')

Siegfried shook his head. "Look, I don't care that you think you're too skilled for this sort of task. It's a high priority job, and you happened to be in the office." The guildmaster of the Mercenary's Guild pulled a contract off the board and pushed it across the table. "I'm invoking the charter, you need to take it."
Vance groaned. "It's like I'm fourteen again, running errands and finding pets. Why didn't I come to the hall tomorrow instead of today?" The hunter quickly scanned the contract. "Ah. Lord Kholer. That's why this is all prioritized."
"Understand now? You will be well compensated for your time, and so will the Guild, so we're not dropping this one on some class C still wet behind the ears. Get it done and get it done fast, before Kholer comes to his senses and rescinds the contract bounty." Siegfried pointed at the inkwell on the table, and Vance thumbed the contract. "Good. Get going."

---

The Kholer estate was, if anything, a parody of what a mansion of a Foremost family would be, a overwrought monument to wealth, a giant nautilus shell composing the front foyer of what would have been a palace in any other era, with a small army of attendants and household help. Today, however, Vance arrived to find the estate being picked over by more butlers and maids than he had ever seen in one place, carefully walking over the grass while looking down, inspecting hedgerows, and climbing trees. One of them stopped when she saw him.
"You must be the mercenary that Lord Kohler sent for!" She was sweating heavily; her black outfit was doing her no favors in the burning sun of second season. "We were told to expect you and to let you know that we'll be responsible for searching the manse for dear Kanna. Your task is to search outside the mansion walls."
The hunter blinked. "What, just me, searching the entire capital city?" Vance frowned. "Seems like a mismatch of resources."
"You are a tracker, master Mercenary, are you not?" The maid looked puzzled. "Surely you'll be able to search the streets more efficiently than any number of us in the household could."
"I am, to my chagrin. Alright. Did you have any information that would be useful for me, in order to find Kanna?" Vance drew a notepad from his vest.
"Only that she escaped this morning and was seen crossing the south lawn. Oh, and that she favors sweets, particularly those baked tarts from Morrison's." The maid thought for a moment, then reached into a pocket. "Here's a piece of tart, we were all given something to try to lure Kanna out if we saw her."
Even the pets ate fancy. Vance accepted the small piece of tart, wrapped in a silken kerchief. "My thanks. If you'll excuse me, I have some searching to do."

---

Vance heard the rubbish bin before he saw it. In an alley two blocks away from the Kohler estate, behind a number of fancy restaurants, were rows and rows of cans, designated for trash, and one particularly large one that had to be pulled out to the street by mains power before it could be emptied. It was in that bin that Vance saw the fat chiguir, happily munching away on what appeared to be a discarded cake. This chiguir was so amazingly fat, Vance briefly wondered if he could even pick it up.
He pulled the tart out from his pocket and held it over the bin. "Come on, Kanna. Come get your treat." The animal perked up and dropped the cake it was eating, crawling across the mounds of trash to Vance's hand. With a grunt, he grabbed the animal and pulled it out of the bin. His nose twisted; the chiguir was filthy and smelled like a sewer.
The animal was panicked and squeaking loudly; Vance had it firmly gripped under his arm as he exited the alleyway, the pedestrians on the street giving him a wide berth. He sighed. "The things I do for a Florin."

Basic Information

Anatomy

The chiguir are large four legged rodents, more or less similar to the common rat or mouse, but much larger. The lesser chiguir is the size of a large cat or small dog, with a large, squarish head and larger at the withers than a proportionally sized rat. The lesser chiguir's fur is short but extremely dense, forming a coat that insulates the animal during cold nights in the hills. They have no tails, the principal difference between it and the greater chiguir, which has a tail multiple feet in length.

Growth Rate & Stages

Chiguir are, for their size, extremely fast growing. A lesser chiguir can reach full adult size in one season of twelve weeks, though it takes significantly longer before they are capable of breeding. This growth is fed by their voracious appetites in their youth; young lesser chiguir will spend almost every waking hour eating ravenously.

Ecology and Habitats

While both lesser and greater chiguir are found across the Saibh continent, they are most prevalent in the vast and empty hills in the District of Vannis, on the southern coast of the Principality. These hills are marginal in most respects; little rain and poor soil make the area unsuited for agriculture, and the hills channel fast moving winds that damage topsoil and stunt the growth of the plants that do manage to grow. 
Both varietals of chiguir are well suited for the land, being burrowing rodents that are too large for birds-of-prey to safely attack. They are hardy, omnivorous, and capable of surviving long periods of drought and famine. During the rainy seasons, when there is a burst of life in the hills, chiguir reproduce at a dramatic pace, taking advantage of the temporary glut of food and water.

Dietary Needs and Habits

Chiguir are a completely omnivorous animal, believed to be able to eat virtually anything. This is an adaptation to their native environment, but allows them to spread across the continent, as they are highly adaptable foragers and scavengers. When raised as pets, lesser chiguir seem to enjoy grasses and grains and prefer them over meats, though wild chiguir are frequently seen scavenging carrion.
This adaptability makes chiguir notoriously hard to eliminate as pests; most poisons and similar simply do not work on them. Their ability to subsist on virtually anything means they're a common sight eating out of rubbish bins and digging through outlying city dumpsites.

Behaviour

Wild and feral chiguir are social animals that live in roaming packs in the hills. In the wild, they are wary and quick to hide, but domestic chiguir are friendly and calm around strangers. Pet chiguir are well regarded as unflappable and intelligent, undisturbed by most activity around it. All chiguir, however, are attracted to shiny objects in their view, which they will retrieve and return to their home, whether it's an underground burrow or a cage.
Feral chiguir that have come in continual contact with people (or who are fed by people) in city environments have been noted to occasionally become aggressive, with recorded incidents of chiguir stealing food from people and breaking into poorly-secured food storage.

Additional Information

Domestication

The Cruvans were the first to domesticate lesser chiguir, likely due to them being a prominent animal in their native lands. The relationship was mutually beneficial - chiguir were companion animals that were loyal, easily bred, harvestable for meat and skins, and capable at retrieving game, though the animal's propensity for shiny objects meant that they also often stole things from others. The forced dispersal of the Cruvans across Saibh after The War of Unification meant that the chiguir followed them. This sparked a temporary craze for chiguir as pets in all of the resettlement cities, and the Cruvan diaspora for a time would be paid handsomely for chiguir pups and animal husbandry advice. The chiguir bred rapidly enough for the purpose, and soon the cities were overrun with feral chiguir once the pet craze was over with.
Pet chiguir are larger and significantly more docile than their wild and feral counterparts, and do not require leashing or physical control in order to follow their owners and obey commands, which make them excellent pets for young children. Their loyalty to their owners results in regular articles in the Etoile Monitor of chiguir guarding their owners in hospitals and the like, or defending their owners from physical attack. Domestication has not affected their affinity for shiny objects, and chiguir are widely complained about due to their propensity for theft.

Uses, Products & Exploitation

Live chiguir can be trained to retrieve game, but are inferior to dogs for the purpose. When slaughtered, chiguir meat is tough and gamey, a good survival meat but not appropriate for culinary use. Their furs make excellent coats and hats and are the main material used in the clothing of the Cruvans.

Geographic Origin and Distribution

The lesser chiguir are commonly found across all of Saibh as pets, feral street animals, and agricultural pests. There are likely more feral chiguir near the urbanized areas of Etoile than wild chiguir in their native hills, as it became fashionable to have them as pets not long after Unification, and the majority of those animals were released back onto the streets once they became too much to handle for their owners.

Average Intelligence

Chiguir are intelligent rodents, capable of following verbal commands, inventively scavenging, and demonstrating the ability to avoid simple traps. They are commonly used as animals in experiments at The Academy of Etoile for animal intelligence, as a 'baseline', though they require more resources to maintain than simple rats. Chiguir can be taught to lay waste directly into rubbish containers and are self-cleaning, making them low maintenance pets.

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

Chiguir have unusually poor eyesight, being insensitive to motion and reacting slowly, but have very good hearing, likely an adaptation to their native hills in the southern part of the Saibh continent. Experiments have revealed an excellent sense of haptic kinesthesia, which is better known as the ability to sense objects by tactile feedback, presumably some sort of highly sensitive reaction to air movements. Lesser chiguir can navigate mazes completely blindfolded without coming in contact with the walls, a feat that rats and mice require whiskers to accomplish.

Lifespan

16-18 years

Conservation Status

Extant, Feral

Average Height

~2ft

Average Weight

~90lb

Average Length

~3ft

Geographic Distribution

• Saibh

Related Ethnicities

• Cruvans