Squirrels

In the Multiverse, the variety of lifeforms is immense. Even if you count only the Universes inside Vortex scope, and the one planet in each Universe that is touched by the phenomenon, there is far too many species for a human mind register, with or without magical help. Despite that, there is repetitive patterns. Most obvious being, of course, the human race: the Vortex has a significant tendency to bring more humans than members of any other talking race. Our 'counterparts' in Parallel Universes are not always identical to us, but in many cases they are so similar that one divination spells can set a native of Sharitarn apart from a ii human. 
   However, humans are not the only specie found in more than a few Parallel Planets. The list is huge, and it includes talking and non-talking species. 
   Goes without saying that most individuals brought by the phenomenon do not survive the day. Some explode in contact with the air because the basic laws of their Universe are too incompatible to those of this one, some are sea animals brought in the middle of a continent with no water around or polar animals arrived in the middle of Lost Pride Mountains. Among those able to survive the first hours, and days, many non-talking animals cannot endure the competition for life on the Planet Blessed by the Vortex. 
    Earthling squirrels belong to that category of losers. There is no wild land on Sharitarn where they can survive. Some humans have "rescued" Earthling squirrels in the past and keep them in private gardens, is possible to buy those pets in some markets but isn't cheap.      Notwithstanding,  you do find wild squirrels in the woods in some parts of Sharitarn.
   The specie is particularly characteristic of a region know as "Grey Snakes", "Stone Maze", or "Stone Noodles".
    Squirrels are one of the species better suited for survival in that vertical environment. Not the animals of Earth, but variants of them that you would have no trouble to recognize. 



 

Stone Maze Squirrels

    The cute little fellows variate between the size and approximate weight of a large dog to far larger than an male African elefante, and a bit heavier than your average Earthling brontosaur must have been.           
     Whatever their size and weight can be those animals have in common their sharp reflexes, amazing speed, and inclination for climbing vertical surfaces without slow down their running. Because of that will hardly surprise you the fact that the highest  elite among Warrior Castes of Stone Maze mount squirrels.     
     Squirrelmen are admired as the maximum expression of their caste by other Warrior Castes, and considered solid pillars of community by most their compatriots. But not all Warriors who mount a squirrel achieve the honor of being called squirrelmen, for that is a distinction reserved for those how mixed their minds and spirits with the mount with such perfection that they are like one, in intention and action.  
      Most squirrels are wild animals, however. And among those trained by talking species only few lineages produce mounts. 
      Smaller squirrel races are sometimes kept by Sharitarnes of Stone Noodles and surroundings for some of the reason farmers on Earth used to keep dogs. Those are the most common domesticate squirrels on the planet. 
       Living in the Noodles you also find a specie of centauroid which has the body of a squirrel with a humanoid torso where the animals have heads. Most the race alternate between a wild life and a sort of second class citizenship in human nations of the Noodle. Some families have achieved citizenship, as Warrior Castes or Rangers, and in rare curious cases even as Scholars or Mage Castes.
      Is very unlikely for a 'squirrelroid' to be found far from the shadow of Stone Noodles. The non talking animals on the other hand are a product in the global market, and have been for some time. When you want to give your young grand daughter a numus but don't have that sort of money_ and on the other hand you do have enough money to choose something less cheap than local fauna, for the sake os status if nothing else_ chances are that you will spoil the little lass with a pert squirrel taller than her.

Stone Noodles

    It is a single structure of stone that covers a large territory at North East Coast of Main Continent. The maze moves constantly, but at a speed too low to be noticed in first sight. Looked at distance the formation has an aspect that reminds spaghetti, it raises as tall as mountains that covers the horizon but the structure continues bellow the surface of land and ocean. Inside this formation there is forests with trees and vines covert be leafs that act like mirrors, there is wild lizards made of living metal, and human cities that move with the stone under them and must be rebuild each time if is crushed by the friction between two parts of the structure moving against each other. 

     There is parts of the ocean carried kilometers above sea level and fresh lakes and rivers running under those salt tears for thousands of years, until the day when the whims of Stone Noodles opens the bottom of their stolen seas. Temperature is more constant here than anywhere else on Sharitarn, and has been like that since before life develop on the planet.

The idea of squirrelmen Warriors was given to me by Sol-Caninus during a conversation in his Deviantart gallery. 
   Sol had published a picture of his deceased cat, with no reference of scale, and that gave me the idea of a cat as a mount. Nothing original about that, I know. But inspired his comment that if he could choose a version of any animal as a mount he would choose the squirrel. 
    Coming to think about I concluded that squirrels do make more sense than cats, or even tarns. Carnivores are cool, intimidating killing machines, but they have to be more expensive feed than herbivores. Perhaps giant lizards less so than birds and mammals, because homothermia is freaking expensive, but cold blood has its own set of disadvantages I suppose. 
   I would hardly have though about tree rats, since that animal isn't found in the fauna of any region I happen to have  inhabited. Never saw one face to face. Still, the way they move in videos seems interesting.