Welcome to Canis Major

a wolf and animal rpg (role-playing game)

Canis is a writing community for play-by-post (forum-based), freeform roleplay set in a fictional dream world in the intrusion fantasy genre. Most characters on Canis are wolves; many play elements are focused around wolves and canids, but the world makes room for a large variety of other animal characters such as dogs, horses, cats, bears, deer, and many, many more.

Our community is focused on flexibility, creativity, and collaboration. That boils down to a few important features:

  • There is no set activity requirement to write
  • The setting and plot are member-created and staff-supported
  • The game is continuously improved to increase fun and decrease stress

Learn more in our Rulebook!

AW
You give me a heart attack

#1
AW
03-22-2021, 04:12 PM (This post was last modified: 04-04-2021, 02:36 AM by Rosencrantz. Edited 1 time in total.)
@Guildenstern — welcome for 1 other to join!

^^
Once out of the misty woods and into the grassy terrain, the idea that this was the afterlife was becoming less and less for the warrior. After meeting the smoky female and the change in topography - he didn't know what was happening but they were certainly living. At least, to a certain degree.

After long stretches of nothing but grasses, growing green with spring's touch, drying the once snow moistened grasses into a dry straw-like structure into a livelier green. The soldiers marched on, Rosencrantz saying little as he felt there wasn't much to say for now. Their destination? A small one in the distance with stones reaching out from the earth and into the sky. A strange outcrop of sorts but it was a change from their bland grasslands for now.

“I remember dying.” He finally says, not breaking their pace toward the towering stone structures. He wasn't certain of what he just said, but he was certain he felt the cold touch of death before... A long pause over takes him as he thinks of what he was saying. How crazy it all sounded.
^^
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[Image: photo-1477468572316-36979010099d_1.png]
#2
03-25-2021, 11:34 PM (This post was last modified: 03-27-2021, 03:46 AM by Andraste. Edited 2 times in total. Edit Reason: immortalized typo )
saw Geralt, had to join


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She had awoken in a stone tomb, cracked rock around her. A cave-in, perhaps. The air had been crisp about her, her own breath fogging to create its own mist within her grave. Upwards she had crawled, scrabbling at the earth with now-bleeding claws, ripping rock from its resting place until finally, finally, she had made it to the surface, gasping for breath. A bare patch of rock surrounded by tree-less plains. She had climbed out of the dirt, panting in this strange, unknown air, and turned to the sky. Strange laughter escaped her lips as she shook off the dirt and scraped dirt back over the hole she had climbed out of, marking it in triumph over this earth that could not contain her.
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She turned her eyes to the surroundings, scaling over the jagged claws of rock that broke through. Was she, too, a jagged claw, ripping its way from the earth? She grinned, eyes narrowed into slits as the sun warmed her ragged coat. It felt good to be alive.
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And then the witch found a sun-warmed rock and flopped onto it, inhaling the fresh scent of the field. She was free... this place was different and she felt it in her soul that those who chased her were left far behind. Her eyes closed and she fell asleep...
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...Only to be woken hours later by the voices of a pair passing. She raised herself out of the crevice of rock she'd rolled into, blinking sleepily at them. She grinned and rose to her paws, stretching. “But do you remember living?” They had white coats and her memory flashed to another pair of wolves, coats glistening white and eyes full of arrogance. No, these were not they. These were new strangers, alive and awake in this new land that she had just begun to experience.
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“Common”    “Loet'ah (Cheunh)”
#3
03-31-2021, 11:48 PM
 The end of the forest, as it turned out, was not some boundary of the habitable world, but merely one land that bled into another. Wooded edges frayed with fallen logs and leaf litter, unraveling like a pulled sweater string to reveal a horizon-kissed plain.

 Guildenstern blinked, turning his head when his brother spoke. Well, death was more expansive than he’d initially planned. Not yet inclined to speak, the voice of another yanked his attention like the tug of an rein.

 A soldier was a masterpiece of minimalism. In training, they stripped away all that was superfluous, leaving a machine. Humor was the first thing to go. This was why he didn’t swing his head round to his brother and quip how they’d managed to find someone even uglier than him.

 But he thought it.

 “Only parts.” Guildenstern said to the stranger by way of answer. “Who are you? Are you a native of these lands?” She was a wretched female, but a poor rudder was better than aimlessness.

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#4
04-04-2021, 02:43 AM
^^
The paladin didn't expect an answer or reply from Guildenstern. It was simply a fleeting thought, happily left to be carried by the wind and forgotten just like all other thoughts before it. They were not dead now. No matter how vivid that memory may be. The unbearable warmth that burned him from the inside out only to be left cold, but no cold that he nor certainly Guildenstern had ever felt before. The cold was comforting, all-enveloping and he remembered finding peace...

And that peace felt all too brief.

They awoke once again into this bitter world they were born into. But this time they had one another. There was little comfort to find in another tool of war, but it was better than the nothing at all he could have sworn had him for the longest time before this. Nothing but faded faces and memories that demanded to be remembered. At least @Miriam was a pleasant thing to have around. Her feminine graces were a welcomed addition as far as he was concerned - at least more so than only seeing Guildenstern's manly visage that left more to be desired.

Speaking of feminine graces.

The voice was not aggressive enough to alarm the soldiers and send them immediately into a defensive stance. A brief moment after Guildenstern passed and Rosencrantz turned too to see the scar-riddled woman. She may as well be a female version of the brothers with a cold warmth in her eyes. “Only just.” He added to Guild's answer. Having nothing to add to the questions already told, he remained quiet now, he too waiting for the answers from this woman.
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[Image: photo-1477468572316-36979010099d_1.png]
#5
04-04-2021, 11:37 PM
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The two white wolves looked at her calmly and she returned the stares with a blink. They did not jump in fright or anything else when seeing her mauled face, so they had balls at least, but they didn't seem all too surprised either.
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They answered just as cryptically and she smirked. “I suppose, if being spat out of the earth itself is 'native' to here.” She frankly didn't care if they thought she was some lunatic, raving about this. It was said without flourish, for it was simple truth. Surely it was strange to have crawled out of the earth without knowing how she arrived, into a place so unlike any she'd personally experienced... but she was too tired and jaded to be in awe of the absurdity. “I am Andraste.” They spoke of dying, so she figured their own experience was something akin to hers.
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She slipped off of the stone, slinking towards them in a wide circle. “What about you two?” she mused aloud, inspecting them passively, as if it bored her. “You both look well-worn, and I would know.” She grinned, sharp teeth probably the only unmarred thing about her. There was no explicit threat in either her words or her behavior. She was curious, for sure, but she had no vested interest in either pale brother. She knew she was a wretched beast, but youthful desire for beauty had been left behind long, long ago.
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“Common”    “Loet'ah (Cheunh)”
#6
04-10-2021, 09:22 PM
TW: misogyny


 He wished they would stop running into women.

 While the one -- Mary? Miranda? Martingale? (he hadn’t allotted the brain space to care) -- was edging the line between helpless damsel and distraction, this new burly female appeared to be anything but helpless.

 Appeared being the operative word.

 Guildenstern kept his gaze on the other pale beast, scoffing at the observation. “Well worn - but not well used. Soldiers should walk away from their battles unscathed. Clearly you’ve lost most of your fights, which is just as well female.”

 It wasn’t his fault Rosen had skipped into a fire, but at least it’d come from a power greater than himself and not the brittle claws of another.

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#7
04-13-2021, 05:48 PM
^^
He noted her words. Spat out by the earth. What a strange way of describing how one found themselves here if not birthed. Though, he supposed, they themselves, waking up in a misty nightmarish woods didn't sound any better with the lack of memories on how they arrived there in the first place. How he had so many blackened memories that didn't involved Guildenstern and many unknown faces as if they were important to him once, now nothing but smoke.

He was indifferent to the conversation. However, it seemed Guildenstern had a little more ire to it all as he spat out fire to the woman who now named herself as Andraste. His one eye glanced over at his brother briefly, noting no emotion and only a vacant glance to see what his expression may be before focussing back on the woman. He was oblivious to Guild's feelings toward the woman they now had at their side, Miriam, but perhaps, unknown to Rosencrantz, he still held some beliefs from their father against the other sexe.

The half-faced man was quiet for the most part, only speaking now to clarify the air. “What is it that you want from us Andraste?” The man was unexpressive, cold as he spoke with a blank mask covering his mauled face.
^^
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[Image: photo-1477468572316-36979010099d_1.png]
#8
04-18-2021, 01:41 AM
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 She cackled at the lesser-scarred man's words. Mockery jingled in her voice as she rose to her paws and sneered down at the greyer of the two, the one who spoke so nicely to her. “Perhaps, or perhaps I wanted to get all fucked up.” Sparing no thought to politeness after the brute of a man had made his feelings clear, she scoffed. “Maybe I like the pain, male. The witch had no desire to share any of her past with this one, her disdain for him clear in the way she looked down at him.

 The truth was, her past was much more mottled than that of a wolf who sought out pain for pleasure - which wasn't truly the case for the bitch.

 The other spoke up and she looked at him, face falling to plain neutrality. This one hadn't sought to offend her at first words, so she could at least give him that cold bluntness in return. “Nothing. You two woke me from my rest.” She tilted her head, thinking. Had she been younger and less pissed at the world, perhaps she would have used this as an opportunity to seek out some lunch or some other fun. “Though maybe you can tell me what this place is. Did I finally end up in hell?” Ha, maybe those damned traitor 'Angels' were right all along.

 She knew when she finally did die, hell was her destination.
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“Common”    “Loet'ah (Cheunh)”
#9
04-28-2021, 11:00 PM
 Guildenstern was no stranger to fear or pain. He lived with both. He remembered being held by the scruff over a cliff’s jagged edge, a pup of two months, learning not to fear the fall.

 Death was inevitable, in the end. Regardless of when that end was.

 Still, he would have preferred a better after life than bickering in a field with Freddy Krueger’s boinking buddy.

 “We are in the process of answering the same. There are thick, fog-drenched woods to the Southwest. That is where we woke. It wasn’t as disheveled as the...unbirth you described.”

 But he grew wary of the wondering. “I ask now, does it matter? We are conscious - of that we can all agree.  ”

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#10
04-29-2021, 07:22 PM
^^
No, their awakening was a little more elegant than that. On a bed of roses, draped in a fine mist. The men awoke in a dream like place one equally of beauty and horror. Fitting for the men who were both charming to look at, but fierce underneath the chiseled, masculine features. Perhaps her awakening was fitting for the woman as well, clawing her way out of hell like the hellion she was.

As Guildenstern ignored her threat - or invitation, Rosencrantz did not. It was his turn to show his teeth. The half-faced man was the more placid of the two more-or-less lately, taking in a woman to walk alongside with them and help her find her feet again; but he was not quiet soft just yet neither. If she liked the pain as much as she claimed to, he was more than willing to give it to her here and now. Stepping forward at her threat-offer, lips rising to flash his own threat with pearly whites. He invited her to decide on her next course of action quickly as a low growl rumbled through him.

His brother's answer to where they were and why were enough. The burnt man had nothing else to add other than wait to see if she truly was a sucker for pain as she claimed to be, but he would not push further than he already had if she wished to let it drop.
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[Image: photo-1477468572316-36979010099d_1.png]
#11
05-07-2021, 01:46 AM
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 How interesting how the tables flipped for these two. The first of the two, the rude one, answered her with words while the scarred one stepped forward and threatened her. She smiled innocently at him, knowing very well how true the threat was but knowing full well that if it did grow into an actual battle, she would be at the disadvantage. These two were well-traveled, used to their bodies here. She, on the other hand, was tense and sore.

 In other words, not in fighting condition. She would let it drop.

 “For how long, though,” she mused - though this time it did not carry the air of a threat. “Have you two encountered any packs or other strays like myself yet in your wanderings?” If they had, she'd have to plot out a route. Whether or not she went southwest, she would figure something out. Even if it required another nap in the sunlight, basking as if she was not a devil.
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“Common”    “Loet'ah (Cheunh)”
#12
05-24-2021, 01:53 AM
 “Yes, we have a stray of our own. Why, do you want her?” All too quick to interject then, the social situation a buffer he happily seized to air his grievances. The woman that trailed by their sides was weak, pretty enough in lavender rimmed grays, but little more than a distraction. A waste.

 Guildenstern eyed the ugly she-wolf, his shrewd gaze following the tense line of muscle under the ragged, scarred coat.

 He wanted to be sure she’d thought better of it. “What’s her name again, brother? Marigold?”

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#13
06-27-2021, 12:33 PM
^^
Coiled and ready to strike, Rosencrantz licked his lips in anticipation for a fight even after she seemed to have taken a proverbial step back to try and defuse the bomb she had lit. Only for his ire to shift onto Guildenstern as he quickly threw @Miriam into the mix by offering her on a silver platter to this strange woman.

He had only just days ago agreed to take her in, to let her travel with them for her own comfort's sake. To shelter her with their presence and already she seemed far more comfortable than the snivelling lost girl he had found in the mist. Now he was to just toss her like trash to the first individual that might just swallow her up whole?
 
“No.” He growled with distaste dripping in his one syllable word. Eye furious as he sought the silver hues of his brother. 

And there was no changing his mind. She was here to stay for a little while longer, until she moved on on her own volition. 
^^
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[Image: photo-1477468572316-36979010099d_1.png]
#14
06-29-2021, 12:52 AM
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 She observed the drama with amusement, calculating eyes flashing from one brother to the other. The two really could not decide which wanted to be civil and which wanted to be savage, did they? The first man began to offer their whore to her and she fought back a laugh, masking it with a sniff as the other man vehemently opposed the idea.

 “Ah, sounds like miss Marigold,” or whatever, it sounded fake, “has a special place and not one by my side.” Or in my stomach, she thought with a lick of her lips.
“No matter, I've no need of strays or their fancy providers,” a sarcastic quip, but she was already stretching to leave.

 She'd smile at them. Perhaps one time, long ago, the smile might have looked sweet. Now, it was a caricature of a wolf, bearlike in form and ruinous. She rolled from her stretch and turned from them, eyes never straying from the two men. It was a pity, she might have liked to follow two similarly delicious looking men...

 But nevertheless.

 “I wish you two and your stray the best, hope she doesn't stray too far.” After all, she couldn't smell the woman and she surely didn't see a little thing following behind the men. Perhaps she had already picked up on their bad attitudes and had left them. That was Andraste's plan, so she began to trot away, stub of a tail flicking as if being tossed in farewell.
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Exit unless stopped

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“Common”    “Loet'ah (Cheunh)”
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