🥚 Egg Gladiator Memorial Monument 🥚

With many of my pack members over 5 years old, and dynasty space being limited, I'm eventually going to run out of space for all my gladiator pups. So I decided to commemorate them here instead.

(This is the kind of thing that would normally go in my pack lore log, but the Egg Gladiator Games have questionable canonicity* so I decided a separate topic made more sense.)

(*Except Sundaze Solitaire. She is 100% canon.)

First Egg Gladiator Games: Rooibos & Trefoil

Rooibos | 344 stat tumbleweed | Raubritter x Matcha | ☠️ Night 4 ☠️

The littermates stuck close together, sleeping in shifts and guarding each other's backs; but neither thought to watch for attacks from above. On the fourth night, an eagle swooped down to grab Rooibos, too quickly for either pup to react. Trefoil could only watch as her sister was carried away.

Trefoil | 351 stat cream darker | Raubritter x Matcha | ☠️ Night 7 ☠️

After Rooibos' death, Trefoil hung in there as best she could, but eventually exhaustion and hunger were too much for her. On the seventh night, she curled up in a ball and went to sleep and never awoke.

Second Egg Gladiator Games: Orion, Raoul, Sundaze Solitaire

Orion | 351 stat auburn | Raubritter x Cinnamon | ☠️ Night 3 ☠️

On the fourth morning, Orion's mangled body was found on the outskirts of the arena. Judging by his injuries, he had been killed by an adult wolf. One of the other gladiators' parents must have snuck into the arena to thin out the competition...

Raoul | 352 stat auburn | Raubritter x Cinnamon | ☠️ Night 4 ☠️

After Orion's death, the event organizers promised to increase security, but the same rogue wolf killed Raoul the very next night.

Sundaze Solitaire | 373 stat gold lighter | Raubritter x Matcha | 🥚 WINNER 🥚

Despite all the parental interference, Sundaze was somehow able to slip below the radar and win with a bare 1% chance of survival.

After winning the Games and being granted immortality, she made her home in the abandoned shrine of the lunar rainforest. If you're exploring there and come across a golden puppy, she does not need shelter, but she always appreciates a playmate.

Third Egg Gladiator Games: Lava Reef Zone & Kirchner, King of the Bees

Lava Reef Zone | 402 stat henna | Raubritter x Owl | ☠️ Night 4 ☠️

Died of exposure. Winter is harsh and all that.

Kirchner | 409 stat oroide, largest pup | Raubritter x Owl | ☠️ Night 7 ☠️

The self-proclaimed "king of the bees," Kirchner took out multiple other competitors with his bee army (and also chased his rival Century off a cliff), but on the final night of the competition he died from an infected bee sting.

Interlude: Siblings
(because not every pup becomes an egg gladiator)

Churro Gaze, Raoul and Orion's littermate, has found a new home as a chaser for the Novacrest Pack.

Chickadee, the runt of Owl's litter, stayed safe in the den while her brothers Kirchner and Lava Reef Zone went to war. Afterwards, we tried finding a new home for her, but there were no takers. (Her maternal grandparents are half-cousins, which makes for awkward family gatherings.) On the first day of winter, exactly one year after her brothers entered the gladiator arena, she struck out on her own. If you see a cocoa girl with slot 5 cream inuit, slot 8 silver elbow patch, and slot 10 white urajiro, that's her! Tell her I said hi!

Fourth Egg Gladiator Games: Varjak, Tailchaser, and Pioneer

Varjak | 392 stat marengo | Raubritter x Noctis | ☠️ Night 2 ☠️
Tailchaser | 399 stat henna | Raubritter x Noctis | ☠️ Night 3 ☠️

Both Varjak and Tailchaser were slain by eagles on successive nights. It was a harsh winter in Eagleden, and the eagle hunters were forced to go after critter trails (i.e. helpless starving puppies).

Pioneer | 392 stat jet | Raubritter x Noctis | ☠️ Night 4 ☠️

On the third night, Pioneer got into a brawl with his rival Goat, clocking her upside the head and stealing a scrap of meat from her. The next night, Goat kited a stampeding elk bull onto the spot where Pioneer was sleeping, and Pioneer was trampled to death.

Goat also fatally poisoned her other remaining rival, becoming the winner of the Fourth Games. Savage pup. Congrats, Goat!

Interlude: Egg moms

Matcha is the only egg mom who stuck around after the Games ended. She just kinda...never left? And then we had the Project Sarder breeding project, and our pupsitters were scrambling to cover the pups, and she helped out. We all appreciated that. After that she quietly moved into the cave with the other pupsitters, and she's just part of the team now.

Cinnamon and Owl were our egg moms for the second and third Games, respectively. Both of them stayed just long enough to see the Games' resolution and then left for lands unknown.

Noctis, our fourth egg mom, also left immediately after the conclusion of the Games.

Sunshine, our fifth egg mom, joined the Snow Shards Pack as a hunter.

Fifth Egg Gladiator Games: Zoryk Crownsbane, Kyrie Emberhowl, and Taliesin Summersong

Zoryk Crownsbane | 413 stat magnolia | Raubritter x Sunshine | ☠️ Night 2 ☠️

Brash, aggressive, confident in his own superiority. Right at the start, he picked a fight with a smaller pup, Morituri, and after a brief scuffle Morituri fled...but not before biting Zoryk. The bite became infected, and Zoryk died the following night.

Kyrie Emberhowl | 413 stat brass | Raubritter x Sunshine | ☠️ Night 3 ☠️

After Zoryk's death, the remaining two gladiator pups were more cautious, but it didn't save Kyrie from a coyote attack the following night.

Taliesin Summersong | 410 stat ducat | Raubritter x Sunshine | ☠️ Night 4 ☠️

Taliesin, smallest pup of his litter, was the last survivor. He pondered how things could have gone so wrong. Could they have done better? Could they have stuck closer together, found a more defensible location, convinced Zoryk not to run around picking fights? If they'd been more strategic from the start, would one of them have won?

Then an eagle swooped down from the sky and grabbed him. He didn't ponder much else after that.

Sixth Egg Gladiator Games: Vale the Necromancer, Ash the Paladin, and Corin the Dragoon

Vale the Necromancer | 407 stat black | Razanei x Chaos Vector | ☠️ Night 3 ☠️

Too frail for the harsh winter. It didn't help that she spent a lot of her energy trying to animate her bone constructs. That won't keep you warm, pup.

Ash the Paladin | 406 stat gray darker | Razanei x Chaos Vector | ☠️ Night 7 ☠️
Corin the Dragoon | 398 stat gray darker | Razanei x Chaos Vector | ☠️ Night 7 ☠️

Corin jumped face-first into a large rosebush on Night 2, earning himself an open wound. "He'll just probably die on RO," said the arena master.

But somehow he survived until the final night of the competition, when he and a couple of the other remaining pups found a large and not-at-all-suspicious elk cow carcass on the outskirts of the arena. The starving pups gorged themselves late into the night. Ash tried standing guard, but she was very sleepy...

It's not clear what happened after that. In the morning, Ash was gone without a trace. Her body was never found. Corin and Smoldering Mold were found dead, apparently having choked on sharp bones.

Seventh Egg Gladiator Games: Kel Iziade, Kel Dezken, and Kel Nikara

Kel Iziade | 466 stat steele | Razanei x Lyric | ☠️ Night 2 ☠️
Died from an infected bug bite before the first engagement with the enemy. Kel luck is always bad, as they say.

Kel Dezken | 456 stat gray lighter | Razanei x Lyric | ☠️ Night 3 ☠️
The next night, the two remaining squaddies found themselves pursued by coyotes. Dezken held them off just long enough for Nikara to escape.

Kel Nikara | 460 stat ashen | Razanei x Lyric | ☠️ Night 4 ☠️
Nikara was the only one left when a bear ambushed her the following night. It went pretty well for the bear.