The Drawing Board: Strange and Deadly Creatures

[Lmns Crn]

I've been tossing these ideas around since the Animals thread. Maybe longer. I don't really know.

There is a region of the Jade Stage where the ecology is strange. Animals are deformed or monstrous, and most are quite dangerous due to the amount of natural defenses required just to live in the Wilding Fen. Things here run the gamut from mutated wildlife (e.g., the hideous bear from the story of Rahm, which I will include below) to occasional Monster Manual creatures (oozes, yrthak, various plant creatures, etc.)

The general idea is that nothing here is really sentient (as far as we know!), and that everything fits into a hot, humid jungle/swamp/marsh sort of habitat, and most things are clearly wrong in some way: twisted or deformed by mysterious local phenomena.

Anyway, I thought I'd share my thoughts so far on one of the smaller and more common creatures of the Wilding Fen. I'm not really good at statting out monsters or anything, so here's the brief text version:

Rahm saw the bear before the bear saw him.

He had been walking the Path of the Earth for eight days, alone in the foothills east of Yolek Ja, waiting for a sign. The Path was an important rite of passage, and Rahm had been given gifts for his journey by his tribe: a handmade leather belt and pouch from his sister, a small supply of dried, spiced wolf from his uncle the hunter, and most beautiful of all, a fine, smooth bow and twelve well-fletched arrows: a gift from the Grun Thah and the elders. They knew of Rahm's desire to become a hunter if the spirits' sign was right, but the bow was more than that. No one would speak it aloud, but the weapon was precious protection; the Path Rahm had chosen was a dangerous one.

He walked in the hot foothills of a dangerous land. Three days' walk  west was the loud city, a wilderness of its own, completely different from the one in which the tribe roamed. To the east and south were Imperial lands, the thought of which made Rahm both excited and scared. Go too far north into the mountains and he would come across the Wilding Fen, where monsters came from, according to the tribe's elders. Rahm had chosen his direction with care, though he tried not to show it: dangerous enough lands to prove his courage and skill, but not dangerous enough to cause him to fail the trial. He hoped.

So far, the Path had been easy, if a little bit uneventful. Rahm had come across a patch of scrubweed for Elder Haara's medicines, and had managed to out-strangle an assassin vine he had accidentally stumbled across. His sister's leather pouch was filled to overflowing with with his valuable spoils: the vine's tapered roots and prized, blood-purple berries. He was not without success, but the spirits had not yet shown him the sign that would tell him the Path was over, and he was a man grown. He prayed for a strong sign, a brave sign, the kind of sign that would prove to the Elders that he was meant to be a hunter for the tribe.

Maybe the bear was that sign, he thought. Surely the spirits have sent a bear as their messenger, to tell me have done well, that I have pleased them.

It was facing away, and had not seen him yet. Rahm hesitated, unslung the Elders' bow, and quietly bent and strung it. Can't be too careful, after all.

Rahm crept silently around to the right, circling the bear, getting closer, getting downwind. His size belied his stealth, born not of grace and nimbleness, but of a knowledge of where not to step. Nervous, he readied the bow in one massive hand, and drew out one of the twelve beautiful arrows in the other. Fletch of goosefeather, head of volcanic glass, shaft of ash-- straight as destiny. Just in case; just to be on the safe side. The spirits have sent me this bear, so I know I am in no danger.

Abruptly, the bear looked up at him, and Rahm knew he had strayed too close to the Fen.

Something was horribly wrong; its entire left side was matted and sticky with sickly fluid; its left eye was filled with dark blood. Its skin was torn and scabrous, its left ear missing completely. The side of its face was an eruption of pale blisters, oozing pus; too many teeth crowded the mouth, bursting through the skin around the muzzle. The bear saw Rahm, and roared its pain and rage.

Rahm found his arms nocking an arrow and bending the bow before his brain had recovered from the shock and he realized what was happening. By the time the goosefeathers brushed his ear, the monstrous bear had closed half the distance between them and was still gaining speed, an unnatural tangle of snarl and claw.

Rahm swallowed, his tongue feeling thick in his throat. O spirits, he cried despairing, is this to be my sign?

Eyes narrowed, fingers released their grip, and the arrow flew free. In that moment, the creature was upon him.[/spoiler]

[Poseptune]

I like your amphibians, PCs coming across them will never know if they are these things or some other creature :) Unless they are always the same color.

You could use some of the templates to make strange and dangerous creatures. Savage Species has a few good ones that will work for your purposes. Winged Creature, Multiple heads, Ooze template, Reptilian, and a few more I can't think of right now because I don't have my book. Yo could also make one creature that transform into another and has a hybrd form (Kinda like a Lycan but with two animals instead of an animal and a humanoid).

[Lmns Crn]

I like your amphibians, PCs coming across them will never know if they are these things or some other creature  Unless they are always the same color.

The inspiration behind the idea was acually frogs. I've read articles about frogs in polluted streams suffering mutagenic effects from industrial waste and experiencing many of the same mutations I've listed for the amphibians here.

If you see a frog with five legs, you can be sure it's still a frog: that's not fooling anyone. But it would likely still unsettle you a bit. That's where I'm going with this.

[Poseptune]

Actually I was watching this show that told about a parasite that lives in the stomachs of predators. After a few mutations it finds a tadpole and burrows into it. Now to get to the predator's (large birds and such) stomach it cripples the frog by creating more legs all over the body. It was quite interesting.

[Xeviat]

I'm not sure if this is too much of an aside, but my world of Sylphenhest is requiring me to make stats for many new creatures. Sylphenhest is quite primeval; animals such as Dinosaurs are quite normal. Native mammals do not grow larger than house-cats, so large birds and reptiles fill their ecological holes. As such, I've used the reptilian template on mammals to create many new creatures.

But I do like your amphibian. Huray for fantastic creatures that are still animals.

[Raelifin]

I figured I'd import one of my earlier animals to my website so as to contribute to this thread in some insignificant way. The beast was modeled after a gigantic brontotherium. Why so big? Uh... magic. Magic fixes all ecological loopholes. :P

http://www.raelifin.com/phaedoras/monster_adautran.php

[Xathan]

I love the amphibians, it's a really interesting idea. (I made a similar thread because I didn't want to clutter up this one) Why do they mutate? is it just a high mutation rate in their genetic code, or something more sinister?