Hunter (/ˈiɦɨʎ/)

Iɦúy

Hunter belongs to the trio of Snow Pups who hold a specific occupation, rather than being a physical embodiment (the other two are Migration and Fire, although Fire's is a fuzzy case wherein they are in both categories).

Divine Domains

Hunter watches over Hunting Season, governing its rules and keeping watch over the routes, herds, and so on. One of the duties taken on by the Protectors of Life, the monitoring of populations, is also considered to be an aid to Hunter (and some say that Hunter seems to prefer playtime with the people who do these calculations over those who do not).
Hunter is also in charge of sport or trophy hunting, almost strictly in the capacity of enforcing the rules and customs of the practice, and is sometimes credited with creating and communicating the rules to the mortal Stenza. (When a council convenes to address whether someone cheated during, say, the Leadership Challenge, they are sometimes said to be representing Hunter directly.)
Hunter's oldest known role is as the muhto presiding over food, ensuring successful hunts and allowing the Stenza to feed themselves. The advent of technologies like food preservation led to this role becoming more refined and paired up with the above roles concerning trophy hunting, and an honorable, sustainable ethos.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

Being that he presided over the entire arctic region, hunting was originally one of Jeshra's domains. Originally, Proto-Stenza and very early modern Stenza needed to hunt continuously in order to survive and feed everyone. While it isn't fully known when Hunter became recognized as their own entity, it was thought to have been firmly entrenched by the time of the invention of food preservation as the presiding spirit over food in the form of fruitful hunts.
Improvements to the processes of preserving food gradually shifted Hunter's role in the Stenza mind, and Hunter picked up associations with rules, honor, tradition, and ritual, particularly as those things pertain to hunting practices, including trophy hunting. Hunter additionally picked up association with a season, namely Long Night (overlapping considerably with the Stenza mating season, coincidentally enough). As Stenza refined and improved their ability to store food, hunting season shrank into its modern time frame, but Hunter remained no less integral. The hunt became more ritualized and offerings of symbolic value were made to them as thanks for a successful kill.
Following the Battle with the Stone Menace and formation of the Unified Stenza Clans, Hunter took up patronage of the Leadership Challenge as an extension of their extant trophy hunting, ritual- and rules-oriented roles. (Cheating at a hunt-based challenge like the leadership trial is considered an affront to Hunter personally, which is why it is treated with the seriousness that it is.)
There are reports well into modern times that Hunter has been encountered, especially keeping watch over their domain. A sight of the Pup while processing the appropriate organ offerings and preparing a carcass is considered an omen (sometimes this is a sign of approval, and sometimes it isn't; it always creates a sense of trepidation in the individuals having the encounter).

Divine Classification

nature spirit

Pronouns

they/them

Related Myths

• Muhto