The Houndfather
The Houndfather is one of the characters most representative of Tales of Mythic Prehistory's goals and tone. The first dog, treated as an equal to human heroes. There's a certain tragedy you can add: The Houndfather can speak, but his descendants end up losing their speech. There's also amazing comedic potential if you explore his relationship to the Wolfmother and portray it as a divorce rather than a civil war. In the campaigns I run in Mythic, I try to explore both in equal measure, presenting the Houndfather player both with a spiteful ex and a great pressure to ensure his people's independence/safety.
A small digression about Wolves: I consider them one of the core factions of Mythic, being the only one of humanity's major rivals that isn't semi-humanoid. The Wolfmother is treated as a genuine power of the world, up there with the Unicorn (often slain by the Unicorn Slayer), the Crowned Beast, and the Last Mastodon. They possess an incredibly synergistic set of abilities and units, and there's always more of them than you see at the start of an encounter.
The heroic Houndfather is an excellent support character, being able to specialize as an attack dog or an emotional support dog. Despite being unable to use any gear, I consider the Houndfather one of the better characters in a power gaming scale.
I haven't locked them in yet, but I'm starting to figure out the different villain forms of the Houndfather for his zine. The original Houndfather villain is kinda all over the place, so I'm excited to split him into a solo boss and a rival, and then the leader type excites me for a completely different reason.
The solo boss is a paranoid leader, convinced that humanity will betray him and enslave his children. He's built as a monstrous attack dog. Resilient and fast, he's gonna rip up heroes and howl at the moon. He's agreed to humanity's protection, but he's nowhere close to domesticated.
The rival party member is the true support engine of the rivals, having pack tactics and different abilities that let him guard allies and "herd" enemies. Very domesticated, and I'm kinda imagining him as a Bernese Mountain Dog.
The leader type is an experiment, being a duo boss inspired by the Houndmaster from Darkest Dungeon. Far more sinister than the other two villains, I imagine this Houndfather as a crazed hunter/shaman who somehow chained the Houndfather. The shaman himself is gonna be pretty scary, but his hound is gonna be nasty.
Anyway, that's all I have so far.