Diggunos
Diggunos are the four-armed, dog-like people of Eslura. The bestiary appendix, which heads their entry DIGGUNO, describes them as bipedal four-armed dog-like creatures found in all corners of Eslura, coming in all shapes, sizes and colours, and says that while they may not woof like an ordinary canine they will certainly sit down with a stranger over a nice cup of tea.[1] The two the novels follow bear that out. Bowmidge Talorn runs the gully post at Haberpaw and will not let a visitor past without brewing tea, and Long Paws juggles lit bombs blindfolded for a travelling circus.[2][3]
Appearance
A digguno stands upright on its hind legs and is large. Bowmidge is more than two heads taller than Bea, and Long Paws at full height reaches a foot above Aero Ellisvat and carries her head above the crowd around her.[2][3][4] The head is a dog's, with pointed ears, a snout, a lolling pink tongue and a sharp-toothed smile, and the paws end in claws.[2][3]
The two of them are unmistakably the same kind. Bea, who had met Bowmidge at Haberpaw, picked Long Paws out of a running crowd in Galecrest on sight as a big blue dog with four arms, like Bowmidge but taller.[4]
Colouring varies as the appendix says it does. Bowmidge is brown, with white stubble on his chin; Long Paws is blue with a white scruffy neck.[2][3]
The four arms are the thing everyone notices first. Seen at a distance through a scope, Long Paws struck Reagan Hideaway as "Some kind of dog-centipede thing?", and Bea gave up on the question of what a four-armed dog carrying muffins was supposed to be.[3][2] All four get used at once and independently: Bowmidge carries a mountain of muffins in four paws, holds three arms out for gullys to settle on while the fourth opens a door, and sits backwards on a chair with two arms leaning on its back and the other two around his teacup.[2] Long Paws juggles lit bombs between all four paws at once.[3]
A digguno's nose and ears are good. Bowmidge called Alpin Loomin by name from the doorway of a bakery on the main road of Haberpaw after years apart, and said he had known his nose had not failed him.[2] Long Paws, underground in the dark, heard a party of Nelazgians coming before anyone else did and said outright that she could not smell them, and later put her snout up, sniffed and judged a fire to be close.[4]
The claws strike a light. Long Paws lights the wick of a bomb by flexing her claws and snapping them at it.[4]
Society
The appendix's line about the cup of tea is the whole of what the books record of digguno custom, and it holds up. Bowmidge will not let a visitor pass without brewing something, promises it on "Digguno's honor", and pulls his old neighbour off down the road rather than take no for an answer.[2] Long Paws is gentler company than her billing suggests, teasing Piercio with a nickname he loathes and stifling a laugh behind a paw when he threatens her with his pin sword.[3]
Nothing collective is recorded. The books describe no digguno homeland, settlement or custom beyond the one oath, and the two named diggunos live far apart: Bowmidge grew up in Haberpaw and has never left it, while Long Paws travels the country with Kantankerous Albertuous's Circus of Marvels.[2][3]
Diggunos live as Eslurians do. Bowmidge carries a surname, which is one of the things that marks an Eslurian out, and both of the diggunos the books name hold work and speak for themselves.[2][3]
Known diggunos
- Bowmidge Talorn is head of the gully post at Haberpaw, where he grew up alongside Alpin Loomin and keeps hundreds of gullys in a crooked house at the top of the hill. He calls them his babies.[2]
- Long Paws performs with Albertuous and Company under the stage name Flint Paw, juggling river spore bombs blindfolded while Piercio works the crowd. She and Piercio share a tent, and by Tab's account the two are never more than ten feet apart. When Tab came to them wanting the Sarakyan put back together, Long Paws told her not to say the name aloud even indoors.[3]
Behind the scenes
The pronunciation guides at the back of both novels list Digguno under species and give it as Dig-goo-no.[5][6] The bestiary appendix heads the entry DIGGUNO, draws an upright shepherd dog holding a steaming teacup, and annotates the second pair of limbs "four arms". Book 2 reprints Book 1's page unchanged.[1]
The novels never use the plural. Every mention in their prose is of a single digguno, and the only place the species is described as a group is the appendix.[1][2][3]