The "Zephyr" in Zephyr hounds

[Hajo]

I've been trying to learn about the word zephyr, and it seems to be a word for a gentle breeze or wind, and the name of a greek god (god of the west wind).

So it's both about wind. In german, Greyhounds are "Windhund", so, mybe, Zephyr hounds are a play of words about wind, and they are related to Greyhounds somehow? or are they something completely different, based on other uses of the word zephyr which escaped my research?

[PowerWyrm]

I've been trying to learn about the word zephyr, and it seems to be a word for a gentle breeze or wind, and the name of a greek god (god of the west wind).

So it's both about wind. In german, Greyhounds are "Windhund", so, mybe, Zephyr hounds are a play of words about wind, and they are related to Greyhounds somehow? or are they something completely different, based on other uses of the word zephyr which escaped my research?

I bet the word "zephyr" refers to the fact that Angband hounds can breathe... so they kinda act like the wind god.

[Hajo]

Yes, that is a good explanation. Thanks

[MattB]

Maybe it's simply that 'Zephyr' begins with a capital 'Z'?

[Hajo]

For the Quyulthulgs and Yeeks I have let people convince me of that. I don't know, but the zephyr hounds seemed to be more than just something to fill an alphabetical gap. At least for me they are pretty defining to Angband, even more than orcs. And I believe that they even inspired the Diablo I developers, they had some hounds in there, too.

Before my research I expected "zephyr" to be something more obscure, occult and mystique, and I feel a bit disappointed now. On the other hand the association of "wind, breeze" and "breathing" isn't so far fetched, and to me the explanation is sensible enough to trump the alphabetical gap theroy.

[kaypy]

I seem to recall reading somewhere that Quyulthulgs involved not only an unused letter Q but also a large amount of alcohol.

This may, however, have been merely speculation.

Any idea how far back zephyr hounds go? Do they predate having multiple species from a single letter? If so, did the original version match the name better?

[Derakon]

Moria had multiple monsters with a single letter, and did not have zephyr hounds, so that should give you some idea of the timing. As best I can recall, zephyr hounds were added in the first version of Angband.

[ekolis]

Did they come in multiple flavors as they do now? Or just one, that breathes wind?

P.S. Since when did Google Chrome add grammar checking? I typed "multiply" by mistake instead of "multiple", and I got a white underline below it!

[Derakon]

I'm almost positive that all of the flavors of zephyr hound we now have were in the first distributed version of the game.

[Timo Pietilä]

I'm almost positive that all of the flavors of zephyr hound we now have were in the first distributed version of the game.

Multihued version with basic four + poison is JLE addition. I think all others have been there forever.

[Derakon]

Oh, you're right. I always forget about those guys.

[MistMage]

Hello, lurker here.

Sorry to resurrect an old topic, but I believe I've found out something that I wanted to share because I thought it was interesting.

Because I'm interested in the origins of some of the less obvious monsters and unique names in Angband (and the history in general) I'd decided to research this topic specifically because, as a previous poster mentioned, I think they are one of the defining monster types of the game.

I did a search on the name "zephyr hound" and I found this article. At the bottom it mentions that "Elemental Hounds were inspired by the Elemental Birds entry of Monsters: A Field Guide and are a HARP transformation of the Zephyr Hounds found in Rolemaster's Creatures & Monsters.".

After investigating it there are indeed zephyr hounds in the current version of that game, and more importantly, after looking more thoroughly I found a reference to it in the first edition of it as well.1,2 The first edition, according to Wikipedia, came out in 1980 which is 10 years before Angband (1990 according to Wikipedia).3

So in conclusion it looks like that may have been the origin of the name.4 Another interesting note on that is that the publishers of Rolemaster were also the publishers of MERP, which I believe was the origin of several other unique names (such as those of the ringwraiths that Tolkien didn't name).





1 Yeah, this research was carried out using, err, not entirely legal means. But to be fair I had a pretty academic interest in it, and anyway what are the odds that I'd have access to American roleplaying supplements that are older then I am?

2 Specifically, the reference that I found was in a supplement called Rolemaster Companion 6 in a list of monster stat bonuses without any additional descriptions. The supplement that I assume had the actual descriptions of it (Creatures & Treasures 1 3) was missing from the *cough* package 1 that I had to research on. As stated though there is a description in the edition of Creatures & Mosters printed in 1999 (by the way, the types of hounds described there are: fire, ice, night, storm, vapor and water).

3 Though the base game Rolemaster came out in 1980 I wasn't able to find out when Creatures & Treasures 1 was released, but Creatures & Treasures 2 seems to have come out in 1989, so it's still before Angband.

4 It's also worth noting that there seems to have been a bit of overlap between Rolemaster and D&D, so it isn't impossible that zephyr hounds might have been in some D&D supplement as well (seeing as how a lot of things in the game are related to D&D). I didn't go that far in this research though.