Ducks in Roshar

[sylbladio he/him]

Literally the title. Are there ducks on Roshar? (lol)

[Quantus he/him]

Hard to say.  There are Birds on Roshar, though they arent native to it, strictly speaking, and are mostly found in Shinovar.  They are rare enough that all birds tend to get called "Chickens", even ones that would be more accurately described as parrots, so it's kind of hard to say whether any of them are actual Ducks by our definition.   I dont think there has been any specific mention of an aquatic bird yet, but that may change once we get a better look at Shinovar itself.  

[Agent34]

1 minute ago, Quantus said:

Hard to say.  There are Birds on Roshar, though they arent native to it, strictly speaking, and are mostly found in Shinovar.  They are rare enough that all birds tend to get called "Chickens", even ones that would be more accurately described as parrots, so it's kind of hard to say whether any of them are actual Ducks by our definition.   I dont think there has been any specific mention of an aquatic bird yet, but that may change once we get a better look at Shinovar itself.  

IIRC we get an indirect mention of geese from Rock's viewpoint, Horneater arrows are fletched with goose feathers.

[Karger he/him]

I seriously doubt that any native ducks exist.  All forms of Rosharan chickens seem to be imported.

[Quantus he/him]

26 minutes ago, Karger said:

I seriously doubt that any native ducks exist.  All forms of Rosharan chickens seem to be imported.

I think the question is whether there were any Ducks included in that Import.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

2 hours ago, sylbladio said:

Literally the title. Are there ducks on Roshar? (lol)

Unlikely outside Shinovar, as ducks would need permanent bodies of water.

[Karger he/him]

52 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

Unlikely outside Shinovar, as ducks would need permanent bodies of water.

Roshar has some.

[SingingMosaic]

Probably not outside of Shinovar, but my reason is, where would they go during highstorms? Being on the water would make them less safe you'd think. This said, I don't know much about the lives of ducks.

[Gilphon]

Cursory googling tells me that Ducks are pretty good at surviving storms- there are even stories of them shrugging off hurricanes. 

Generally they try to vegetation to hide beneath- so I could see them managing to shelter in Rosharan Forests- although they are so closely knit that there's no room for the highstorms to knock over the trees, a duck is a pretty small bird, it could probably fit and be safe. 

The issue though isn't actually the highstorm- it's the lack of seasons. Like a lot of earth fauna; ducks have a bunch of adaptations designed to help them deal with winter that would be useless to them on Roshar, and thus they'd end up getting outcompeted by native fauna. Like their fancy circulation system that lets them safely walk barefoot on ice is gonna end up being a waste of energy. And as migratory birds, they have an instinctual drive to fly halfway across the continent every six months, which would be bad. 

So... my overall judgement is that it would be tough for Ducks to survive on Roshar, but not impossible if they found the right habitat. And given that their were definitely Geese that came from Ashyn, ducks would be far from the weirdest thing the Ashynites decided to bring over. 

[Ripheus23]

There's no need for ducks on Roshar as we already have a fitting -ling word for the old stories, namely "The Ugly Cremling."

[SwordNimiForPresident the sword/that sword]

On 4/9/2020 at 0:32 PM, Ripheus23 said:

There's no need for ducks on Roshar as we already have a fitting -ling word for the old stories, namely "The Ugly Cremling."

Wouldn’t it be “The Pretty Cremling”? I feel like being ugly is already their normal.