''Chogi was a loyal hound. Going from a puppy raised in an army of strong men to an old dog laying in the warmth of the open fireplace of the man who took him home with him. His life sadly not remembered by the bravery of his war efforts and his strength, but of what happened later.

Years post war, the peaceful land was invaded by the evil spirits and entities of darkness, Muses, spirits and of course the soul singers put a stop to the invasion after a long fought war where the muses numbers declined quite drastically, causing a depression on the population used to their beauty and inspiration.

When the spirits could not make an on-sight attack and soul singers became more rare the hound noticed even though technically the singers could have split up and covered every graveyard it would be a bit more work than they could handle

So instead when the night came the spirit crawled through a window and cleared the cradle of Chogi's owners child, the man and wife ended their lives in sorrow and were laid to rest.

Chogi was sad and kept fed by the man's uncle, who allowed the dog to take on an honorary soul singer role, but he was horrified to find the spirits coming almost every night to dig out a grave to mess up a body, possess it or eat disrespect the person to cause more evil in the world

Chogi didn’t stand for it and angrily he fought them off night after night, sleeping days and almost never eating.

One day the pair of Alexander and Clairitia were close enough to hear of the strange dog and found him, offering him to go with them, but he declined. Feeling bad they could not leave him all alone and fed the dog along with the deceased owners uncle.

''He only hurt the bad'' the uncle said and Clairitia the kindness goddess among many things took the lace off of her shoe and tied it to the tail of the dog. Using magic learned from Halcyon to turn the tail into a raw heavy strike hide whip with the force to strike not only through the enemy but actually cause a damage so heavy that healing from it takes days, giving him a lot of time to finish off their enemies.

It was only a day or more when Clairitia left that another man buried had his dog sit by the grave and unexplainably grow a similar tail too, more muscular and pointy with a strong unbreakable spine.

The thing kept happening and the dogs kept showing up, all sizes and colors they guarded graveyards for hundreds of years in great numbers, but all good things do come to an end and the war saw soldiers trying to recruit them by force, causing them to fight back in self defense and their numbers dwindled down to the low 50's or less.

These days it's estimated around 20 or so are still around, Chogi is long gone but the Grave Keepers also known as Grave Hounds, are a living memory. As for why new ones no longer form, that may have to do with how they were treated unkindly by the mortals, it broke Clairitia's generosity spell on the original dog and others.

A few gods have shown an interest in them over time, but despite them being dogs they show no interest in following and doing anything with someone giving orders.

Their nature is a mystery. They mainly live in rural villages working solo, thanks to their incredibly strong attacks they usually don't get to fight often as anything evil knows to stay away from them.

Lore by the wonderful  ChoaWawa

Art by Kayllek of DA