Animal Husbandry

Pets

“Dogs” still have a major cultural hold as the embodiment of loyalty as a pet, but they do not resemble the dogs of our wild very much. There are three major “breeds” of dog: Talirean keythongs (who resemble wingless griffins), Ornassi lions (which are closer to maned cougars in size and body with slightly flatter and wider faces than African lions), and Zafaran basilisks (an eight-legged monitor lizard with a cockscomb mane and stiff tail). Elvish “true dogs” like the Brecilien borzoi exist but are so vanishingly rare to be the equivalent of a unicorn, but they feature prominently in the heraldry of Brecheliant and Palladia. For a more detailed discussion of these, see Hounds of Uskara.
Cats, on the other hand, are omnipresent due to Ornassi culture prizing them as companions and symbols of good fortune. In Talingarde, this remains true for the Ninevarine and Guranese, and to a lesser degree the Quintoro, but among the more northron cultures they tend to have more malevolent connotations due to memories of the Grand Old Dominion. They are associated thusly with witchcraft and infernalism. It does not help that “hellhounds” far more resemble feliform hyenas than what we would consider dogs.
Among the northron cultures then, martens (the local mustelid) are the most common pet among the nobility, and serve similar roles of companionship and pest control that cats do, and similarly express a great diversity of coloration and other traits of domesticity. Lesser scavengers such as raccoons in the north and coyotes in the south are also sometimes kept as pets, but there are no domesticated breeds of note. Moresain dwarves keep brocks, a domesticated breed of badger that looks somewhat like an opossum with porcupine-like quills and mole-like claws. Animals that fill similar roles overseas are foxes in Perdita, chickens (which are a little more dinosaur-like in this setting) in Zafara, and the mongoose (which is somewhat snake-like) of Seotan.
Birds are also a universally beloved animal and pet in Uskara. Falconry is almost an essential practice among the northron nobility, and the southron nobility also practices this but trends more towards “ornamental” bird keeping, especially cranes and the like. Laithish barons keep ferocious darners, also called dragonflies, for similar purposes. The snowy popinjays (parrots) of Magna Orna are highly popular in Brecheliant. While not a bird precisely, bats are commonly kept pets by the dwarves for similar purposes, which was carried by the Guranese even on the surface. Blackbirds, especially rooks, are commonly associated with druids and witches and have a similar checkered reputation as cats in Talingarde. Along the Ornassi Main, the owl is more commonly used rather than the falcon as a preferred bird of prey. The courier albatross, of course, functions as one of the most important working animals in Uskaran culture, carrying messages by wing across fantastically long distances.
More unusual pets favored by various Talirean cultures are imported dinosaurs in Ghorvan, monkeys among the mariners of Agurain, the colorful craydids (kind of like a domesticated coconut crab) of Laithlind, and the cerfon in Brecheliant, a miniature deer. The people of Hes’ are well known for their domesticated bears, and the Cazzeri buy them for their circuses.

Draft

The most common draft animal in Talingarde is the ox, which is important as well as a source of meat and milk as well, and the bovine is essentially the backbone of Talirean animal husbandry. Talirean oxes resemble a bit more the water buffalo in their body plan, with a heavy neck muscle, trending towards solid coloration and with wide, sweeping horns. Their behavior is similar, as they tend to have to be kept near bodies of water.
The Moresain dwarves domesticated the donkey, which resembles a mustang in some ways but is ultimately unrelated. They are hardy creatures that can scale mountains like a mountain goat and were adapted to live in and outside of caves, but have since become a pretty common animal across Talingarde, especially because of their role in being almost a guardian animal, not unlike a goose among one’s fowl. They are small but stubborn and tough, and infrequently are used as mounts by dwarves and other smaller kindred.
Camels are a marsupial that resembles our own Bactrian camel that is related to the vicunas of Magna Orna, and is an import from Algoboa used most commonly in Agurain but also the Ninevar. They are used as draft animals and very occasional mounts due to their resistance to dry conditions, but they are notably temperamental.
In Laithind, the tarbagh is a great horned beetle that fulfills many of the roles that the ox does. Its chitinous shell is also a prized material due to its metal-like tensile strength and gleaming black-blue coloration. Being an insect, the tarbagh is not prone to the same temperamental issues as some mammals, though that also limits the ways it can be trained. They have their own form of intelligence, only that the same techniques do not apply in quite the same way. They were originally used to drive caravans through the swamps, but now it's becoming more common to rely on heated balloons or other more unusual means to traverse the terrain as Laithlind begins to rapidly modernize.

Horses

The word horse, like “dog”, has a somewhat different meaning in Uskara. It refers to any kind of animal domesticated for riding, which includes the mustang, which resembles the horses of our world, and indeed when people refer to a horse, they usually mean a mustang. Horses are rare, expensive, and extremely sought out, and over the course of Uskaran history there’s never quite been a moment where domestication reached a point where horses were omnipresent in the same way they were in say, medieval Europe. Instead, they have always been symbols of prestige, power, and nobility, no matter their exact species.
The first “domesticated” horses were the mustang. Mustangs are not native to Uskara, but instead were brought in by the elves. Thus, they are seen as almost alien and magical animals, and are noteworthy for their difficult temperaments, high intelligence, and somewhat fragile personalities. They are almost exclusively used as a nobility and rarely as true working animals, but rather as symbols of prestige, in war and hunting. Interacting with a horse for many Talireans is at once a mystical and a fraught experience. A mustang is never truly domesticated, and must instead be tamed each by an individual rider, which like a dog they form a special bond with.
In Talingarde, the other horses you may more commonly find are warcats, elephants, striders, and theropods. Warcats are lions specially bred for this purpose by the Chimur (as well as their cousins in Zafara, the Marach). Elephants are native to Seotan but like the tiger were brought to the Ornassi main and domesticated there. Ornassi elephants (as opposed to the behemoths of Seotan) are smaller, comparable to Indian elephants, and can either have a howdah or be mounted by a single rider. They were commonly used as a war animal, and for that reason they are almost extinct in Talingarde. Striders are large arachnids that resemble horse-sized wolf spiders used by the Laithish as mounts. Theropods are dinosaurs originally from Zafara that resemble a gallimimus or other similar species, used by the Ghorvani in their secluded canyons. All of these

Livestock

Talingarde was sparsely inhabited for a very long time, and its indigenous people, such as the Cradish, did not keep domesticated livestock. Deer and other ungulates as well as peccaries (which resembled the boars of Ornassus and Seotan) were, along with guinea fowl, hares and the like, the most common hunted game. Thus, most livestock is not native to Talingarde, including something as widespread as the ox.
The most common livestock is the goat and its cousins, which was the backbone of the Ornassi Main’s livestock as well. In particular, sheep were originally bred in Talingarde, specifically in Rusante, and thus Talirean sheepswool was a sought-out export until the higher quality vicuna wool of Magna Orna eclipsed it. Domesticated fowl, especially the goose which is also native to Talingarde, is the most common source of meat, but mutton comes directly after. While ox meat is prized, they are primarily kept for their milk.
Speaking of fowl, you will not find much chicken or pork in Talirean cuisine, as they are primarily cultivated in the far south of Uskara. In addition to geese as well as game fowl, ducks (originally from Seotan) have become far more popular as a fowl due to their relative ease of keeping. The fact that oxen and ducks both love water, and rice being a popular grain in the south, means that many farms are highly irrigated and have water features.
One exception is the ranges of Agurain in the desert, where great sounders of javelinas are kept by Guranese ranchers in the style similarly practiced by Magnan gauchos. Javelinas are domesticated peccaries, which resemble boars and pigs in some fashions but their meat is darker and somewhat gamier. They are also far more adaptable to the climate. That being said, pigs and pork are more common in Rusante, where the kobolds brought with them their swine from Harakyu, along with chickens, spices and other innovations that give the cuisine of the Quintoro a very exotic feel fitting for their melting pot culture, especially famous for their “curries” that mix Seotanese spices with more traditional Talirean gravy ingredients, often on a bed of bread or rice and using pork, chicken, or tofu (another Harakyuan introduction).
An invasive menace in the Ninevar are the hippos, originated from Ornassus but now one of the most dangerous animals found in the Ibbis River Delta. They were originally brought as an attempt to domesticate them as livestock by the Grand Old Dominion, nearly a thousand years ago, but now have thoroughly become feral and entrenched. Even the crocodiles are less feared than the hippo.
The Laithish, in part due to the strange ecology of the Moddey Wilds, were one of the last to domesticate livestock, and most of the arthropod-dominated wildlife does not translate well to mammal husbandry. Instead, they cultivate large amounts of shellfish in Loch Damallaidh, making their cuisine almost Cajun-like with a large focus on crawfish and mussels. They are also famous for being the first Talirean culture to practice bee-keeping, and their mead is the most prized in all the world. Their tartans are also formed not from wool, but silk, and they are the primary source of silk in Talingarde (though it is considered less quality than Seotanese silk, mostly out of ignorance, as they are virtually identical).
In the far north, the achfee is a large ungulate similar to caribou or elk but with a wooly, shaggy coat, that provides another wool in addition to sheep and vicuna. The Cradish have cultivated achfee for generations, sometimes living migratory lifestyles with their herds. While vicuna wool is prized for its softness and breathability, achfee wool has a silky texture and appearance and extremely warm, making it extremely useful for winter weather. The elves also cultivate something called mycen, formed from a special fungus that appears and functions similar to leather but comes in fantastical colors.
It should be noted that one of the reasons Talingarde was sought out for colonization by the Ornassi was the prevelance of game and especially fur-bearing animals, such as beavers, minks, and ermines. Later, discoveries of animals such as the chinchilla and fur trout in Magna Orna, plus the rise of the Dominion, shifted focus from the fur trade, but it still remains a profession. Most of these animals have been hunted to near extinction, save in the Shade-lands, where it is said a society of beastfolk beavers lives deep in the Toil Teanas. Trappers and furriers are the most common travelers into these wild, uncivilized lands, especially Brecilien "voyageurs." It's in Brecheliant where the cultivation of fur is still a major economic activity, and ermines are the first domesticated fur-bearing livestock there, a relative of the domestic marten commonly kept in noble nothron households.