Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!: A Dresdenverse Bestiary

[Jeckel]

O, doh, I forgot about the quoted smaller the a rat part. A question though. When you say 'environmental effects', are you using the general meaning, like "things that affect the environment" or is there some explanation on the topic in the books? The nearest I could find by searching the books is page YS:257 in the example for Backlash & Fallout. I'm thinking to use a mixture of person sized swarms and simple narrative, maybe with a final zone wide swarm near the end. And thanks bro, looks like my players' farm is about to have a bad harvest.

[Deadmanwalking]

Environmental Hazards, YS p. 325. Basically, a swarm of attacking locusts isn't meaningfully different than a cloud of corrosive gas, except in what sort of things you do to remove it.

[Jeckel]

Ahh, 'hazards', that will teach me to do two word searches in the pdf. I read it over and it is what I figured, their example of rolls for walking through the tundra is exactly how I've been handling my players in the desert. That gave me some ideas like big swarms of insects doing a maneuver to put a 'Obscured Vision' aspect on the characters.

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Need a bit of help though. So locusts eat all the crops and the farm has to sell all the cattle and the herd of horses since there is no food to feed them. The money that they get from the sells will be enough to invest in the start up of a new venture for the farm.

After talking with the two players that would want input on the animals maybe going away (the farm owner and the main foreman), they both agreed that given the choice they would like to stay with horses in some fashion. I thought for a bit and decided it would be fun for me, and surprising to the characters, if they got possession of a small stock of Shetland Ponies (the little dwarf horses).

My thoughts are to take the Riding Horse, drop the Inhuman Strength, lower Athletics from 4 to 3, and both Endurance and Fists from 3 to 2. Does that sound about right to you?

[Deadmanwalking]

High Concept: Shetland Pony
Other:
Hardy And Intelligent

Skills:

Good: Athletics, Endurance, Fists,
Fair: Alertness, Might, Rapport,
Average: Conviction, Discipline, Empathy, Presence, Survival,

Stunts:

Fleet of Foot (Athletics)

Powers:

Claws [-1] (Hooves)
Echoes of the Beast [-1]
Herd Instincts [-1]

Total Refresh: -4

Stress:

Mental: OOO
Physical: OOOO
Social: OOO
Armor: 0.

Note: Shetland Ponies are actually surprisingly tough, strong, little bastards, so here's what I'd give 'em.



High Concept: Panda Bear
Other:
Playful And Friendly
Mostly Herbivorous

Skills:

Great: Survival,
Good: Endurance, Fists, Rapport,
Fair: Alertness, Athletics, Empathy, Might,
Average: Conviction, Intimidation, Presence, Stealth,

Powers:

Claws [-1]
Echoes of the Beast [-1]
Inhuman Strength [-2]
Inhuman Toughness [-2]

Total Refresh: -6

Stress:

Mental: OOO
Physical: OOOO(OO)
Social: OOO
Armor: 1.



High Concept: Penguin
Other:
Social Creature
Awkward On Land

Skills:

Great: Survival,
Good: Athletics, Rapport,
Fair: Alertness, Empathy, Endurance,
Average: Conviction, Discipline, Fists, Presence,

Powers:

Aquatic [-1]
Echoes of the Beast [-1]
Arctic (Penguins take no penalties of any sort from cold, and ignore barrier values based on snow and ice.) [-1]

Total Refresh: -3

Stress:

Mental: OOO
Physical: OOO
Social: OOO
Armor: 0.

Notes: Some Penguins are much smaller, possessing Diminutive Size and only 2 Physical Stress.




High Concept: Bearded Lizard
Other:
Doglike Devotion
Omnivorous

Skills:

Good: Athletics, Survival,
Fair: Alertness, Discipline, Empathy, Rapport,
Average: Conviction, Fists, Presence, Stealth,

Powers:

Diminutive Size [-1]
Echoes of the Beast [-1]

Total Refresh: -2

Stress:

Mental: OOO
Physical: OO
Social: OOO
Armor: 0

[Jeckel]

Super totally awesome, and (since I'm keeping track ) that brings the total animal count to 51. Your like some kind of DFRPG machine, my hat is off to you sir.

[vultur]

Awesome creatures!

What about a Giant or Colossal Squid, Elephant Seal, and Moose?

[Deadmanwalking]

High Concept: Male Elephant Seal
Other:
Terrifying Preadator
Awkward On Land

Skills:

Superb: Fists,
Great: Endurance, Might, Survival,
Good: Alertness, Athletics, Stealth,
Fair: Discipline, Intimidation, Rapport,
Average: Conviction, Empathy, Presence,

Powers:

Aquatic [-1]
Claws [-1]
Echoes of the Beast [-1]
Supernatural Strength [-4]
Supernatural Toughness [-4]
Hulking Size [-2]

Total Refresh: -13

Stress:

Mental: OOO
Physical: OOOOOO(OOOO)
Social: OOO
Armor: 2.

Note: Female's skills are likely a bit less combat focused and, being smaller, may only have Inhuman Toughness and/or Strength. These things are scary.



High Concept: Giant Squid
Other:
Lots Of Tentacles
Smarter Than You'd Think

Skills:

Superb: Endurance, Might,
Great: Athletics, Fists, Intimidate,
Good: Presence, Survival, Stealth
Fair: Alertness, Discipline, Rapport,
Average: Conviction, Deceit, Empathy,

Powers:

Claws [-1]
Aquatic [-1]
Echoes of the Beast [-1]
Supernatural Strength [-4]
Inhuman Toughness [-2]

Total Refresh: -9

Stress:

Mental: OOO
Physical: OOOO(OO) (+1 Mild Consequence)
Social: OOOO
Armor: 1.

Note: Smaller than you might think, but stil capable of grappling Kller Whales and maybe winning. Collossal Squid are likely a bit bigger, and the largest have Hulking Size.



High Concept: Moose
Other:
Agressive As Hell
Still A Prey Animal

Skills:

Superb: Endurance,
Great: Fists, Survival,
Good: Alertness, Might,
Fair: Athletics, Discipline, Rapport,
Average: Conviction, Empathy, Intimidation, Presence,

Powers:

Claws [-1]
Echoes of the Beast [-1]
Inhuman Strength [-2]
Hulking Size [-2]

Total Refresh: -6

Stress:

Mental: OOO
Physical: OOOOOO (+1 Mild Consequence)
Social: OOO
Armor: 0.

Notes: Moose sometimes lack antlers and thus claws. Some are small enough to lack Hulking Size, and will have No Pain No Gain instead. Still scary critters.

[Jeckel]

After a week or so of catch-up, I now have all the currently posted animals (except the two swarms) archived on the web and have given each sheet a picture to boot. Each animal is stored in an XML file and converted to HTML for its web-page, and I am hard at work on a simple interface to retrieve each sheet in various different formats for ease of use and transfer to your favorite gaming tools, be that notepad, forum posts, wikis, email, etc. I'm shooting for that stuff to be done by August.

The animals' Group Home-Page has links to all the animal's pages. Enjoy and I hope people find it useful.

[Deadmanwalking]

Okay, that looks awesome. 

One suggestion: Remove the descriptors (Good+3 for example) from the Stress Tracks. That's only going to cause confusion.

[Ravangames]

sent PDF to Jekel for proofing.  Do you want a copy too Dead?

[Jeckel]

Thank-you, this is only my second web-site, but I had a couple years of desktop interface programing since the first one and I think the lessons have paid off.

On the stress track part. I kinda like the number, but I see your point about the word, and since the number can never be negative the sign also seems unneccessary. What if I change it to just show the number, like "Mental (3): OOO" instead of "Mental (Good, +3): OOO"?

Either way, I only have to modify one line of code to make the change, so for the moment I have removed it all together and will put the number back in if you think it makes sense. But for now, I'm off to prepare for rp. Tonight is the night my players have devastation inflicted on their farm and get rewarded with Shetland Ponies.

[Deadmanwalking]

sent PDF to Jekel for proofing.  Do you want a copy too Dead?

Sure, PM me a link.


And yeah, the number on it's own with no word or + should be fine and unconfusing.

[Deadmanwalking]

Looking at the page, under armor and Consequences, you might want to note that the extra consequences are Physical, just to avoid confusion.

Anyone have any additional requests? I'm still perfectly happy to stat up whatever.

[Ala Alba]

It's getting pretty hard to think of an animal that isn't pretty much already on that list and still worth stating.

Nevertheless, I did my best:

Ostrich
Otter
Seal(regular)
Armadillo
Kangaroo
Koala
And most importantly: a Dropbear 

[Deadmanwalking]

I should be able to manage everything but the Dropbear. Those things are totally supernatural.