Aurochs

The aurochs were massive herd animals that were domesticated during the early years of Age of Exultancy. They were used originally as beasts of burden and for food, and their vast herds were beloved by the populace as they grazed upon the gentle hills above Old Lafaelle. However, during the Age of Ascendancy and the culminating Godling Wars, their breeding programs were combined with unfettered bloodforging to turn them feared tools of warfare. The vast herds were riden by heavily armoured warriors as a stampeding calvary, crushing foes under their thunderous hooves. No aurochs survived into the modern world, but the old families of the Protectorates still hold onto their memory through art and artifice.

The Last Auroch

The original Thulayans who fled into Refuge at the end of the Godling Wars had tried to bring some aurochs with them. Even as the famines scoured the desperate populace within Refuge, they would not resort to eating the few they had saved, for their loyalty and love for the beasts would not allow risking their loss. But even this mercy was not enough. The numbers of aurochs could not sustain their population, and the confines of Refuge offered no space for their exercise. Many believed that the aurochs died of grief away from the grasslands where they would wander. The last Auroch to die was but a shadow of its ancestors who had thundered across the plains. The grief of the Thulayans at its passing was immense. The leaders preserved its bones, and its skull was encased in gold and it is said to have hung above the tomb of Thulaya herself.

Cultural significance

Since the Return, the Skull of the Last Aurorch was taken from Refuge and remains on display within the halls of Lord Protectors at New Lafaelle. It is a reminder of what was lost before the Destruction and the sacrifices that were made in order to survive. In the modern day, the symbol of the auroch skull has become synonymous across the Protectorates with strength and sacrifice for the common good - the tenets that drive the Returned and the teachings of The Church of the Faceless.

Artists and musicians still celebrate the auroch herds, and the last of them that died in Refuge. Grand tapestries adorn the great families, many of whom claim some ancestral links to the herds. The The Shield even uses the stylised skull of the auroch as their official symbol, stitched into their uniforms and carved upon their shields. To them it symbolises their strength of arms, loyalty to each other, and their sworn duty to protect the people.