The Updates

The Dogs of Horizon

Most historians think that this curious gift came to the dogs sometime during the Mythic Dreamtime - certainly, it's been happening since recorded history began. The dogs aren't infallible, and can't understand every oath you throw at them, but if they discover you've broken an oath they are relentless. From time to time you'll get people thinking they can outwit the dogs being torn apart in the street. If you break an oath and they find out, you might survive if you flee town immediately and never come back. But dogs are everywhere in the city, and you will have to be careful out in the wider world; all domestic dogs are desceneded from the dogs of Horizon and will help their cousins to enforce oaths.

Here is how swearing oaths with dogs works:

• To swear an oath, you should find a dog (which is trivially easy, there's strays everwhere), call it over, place your hand on your head and speak the oath aloud. If the dog doesn't understand the oath, or you swear an oath the dogs cannot enforce, it will jerk its head away before you are finished. If the oath is suitable, the dog will lick your hand. It will then scamper away to tell the other dogs what you have sworn.

• You have to choose an oath which are short and simple, because they're only dogs and they can't understand complicated oaths. "I swear that I will stay away from your daughter" is a good oath. "I swear that I will, to the best of my ability, ensure that the trade routes between Horizon and South Jurica remain open, subject to a trade tariff being paid to me of 20%...." is much too complex. Generally, oaths should be bold statements, not weasel-worded messes of preconditions and loopholes.

• Dogs can't understand human language, because they're only dogs. Therefore, you can't swear to tell the truth, or to lie, or not to say or write something.

• Dogs cannot smell oathbreaking. They will only come after you to tear you to bits if they witness you breaking the oath, or find evidence of you doing so. On the other hand, they do make an effort to keep an eye on things to see whether or not you're keeping the oath: it's terribly, terribly difficult to avoid their attention as you make your way around the city (you'd need to be a Master Thief to even think about travelling anywhere without the dogs noticing).

• The dogs pass information to one another swiftly. Even the Beggars can't match the Lamppost Network in terms of information gathering.

• Killing a dog is bad luck. Very bad luck. People who hurt dogs have a way of disappearing. Given that part of the Mayor's duties is to look after the dogs, it doesn't take a genius to think that some of this bad luck is governmentally inspired.