"I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you." - Batman, Batman Begins "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." - Harvey Dent, The Dark Knight "Yeah, I can fly." - Tony Stark, Iron Man
Inside my hands these petals browned;
dried up falling to the ground,
but it was already too late now.
I pushed my fingers through the earth,
returned this flower to the dirt;
so it could live, I walked away now."
Rise Against - "The Good Left Undone"
Ability scores of some other Diminutive animals...
Bat: Str 1, Dex 15, Con 10, Int 2, Wis 14, Cha 4
Toad: Str 1, Dex 12, Con 11, Int 1, Wis 14, Cha 4
Chipmunk: Str 1, Dex 16, Con 11, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 4
Ferret: Str 3, Dex 15, Con 10, Int 6, Wis 12, Cha 5 (familiar stats)
Hedgehog: Str 3, Dex 12, Con 10, Int 6, Wis 12, Cha 5 (familiar stats)
"I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you." - Batman, Batman Begins "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." - Harvey Dent, The Dark Knight "Yeah, I can fly." - Tony Stark, Iron Man
Inside my hands these petals browned;
dried up falling to the ground,
but it was already too late now.
I pushed my fingers through the earth,
returned this flower to the dirt;
so it could live, I walked away now."
Rise Against - "The Good Left Undone"
Let's go for something akin to a hedgehog. Bump the Con to 13--I see high Con as a theme throughout the lineage. Give it move speed 10ft, burrow 10ft? Or do we see these guys living above ground? I know Diictodon was a burrower.
Location: My happy place. It's OK, they know me there.
Posts: 166
I imagine them as burrowers as well. According to the Diictodon article, deserts were "the dominant environment on the continent of Pangaea in the Late Permian Period." Also, both Diictodon and Robertia were found in South Africa.
...am I the only one who wants to get speculative with these guys?
We know Diictodon survived the Permian extinction, which killed off 90% of all life on Earth. That's why I made their familiar bonus a bonus to Survival checks, and when we get to them, I'm going to suggest they get a massive racial bonus to Survival. Robertia, on the other hand, didn't make it, which raises the possibility that its life style was too specialized to survive a period of hardship.
Which is a roundabout way of saying that I want Robertia to be analogous to naked mole rats. Colonial hive structure with only one reproductive female, vast burrow complexes under the baking desert. I'd feel more vindicated in this view if we had multiple Robertia specimens from the same locality. Unfortunately, I can only find citations of the original paper describing Robertia, but not the paper itself.
"I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you." - Batman, Batman Begins "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." - Harvey Dent, The Dark Knight "Yeah, I can fly." - Tony Stark, Iron Man
Inside my hands these petals browned;
dried up falling to the ground,
but it was already too late now.
I pushed my fingers through the earth,
returned this flower to the dirt;
so it could live, I walked away now."
Rise Against - "The Good Left Undone"
...am I the only one who wants to get speculative with these guys?
We know Diictodon survived the Permian extinction, which killed off 90% of all life on Earth. That's why I made their familiar bonus a bonus to Survival checks, and when we get to them, I'm going to suggest they get a massive racial bonus to Survival. Robertia, on the other hand, didn't make it, which raises the possibility that its life style was too specialized to survive a period of hardship.
Which is a roundabout way of saying that I want Robertia to be analogous to naked mole rats. Colonial hive structure with only one reproductive female, vast burrow complexes under the baking desert. I'd feel more vindicated in this view if we had multiple Robertia specimens from the same locality. Unfortunately, I can only find citations of the original paper describing Robertia, but not the paper itself.
"I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you." - Batman, Batman Begins "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." - Harvey Dent, The Dark Knight "Yeah, I can fly." - Tony Stark, Iron Man
Inside my hands these petals browned;
dried up falling to the ground,
but it was already too late now.
I pushed my fingers through the earth,
returned this flower to the dirt;
so it could live, I walked away now."
Rise Against - "The Good Left Undone"
ISR and demiurge, you're so pat on the dicynodonts! I like these critters, in my Dinosaurs: A Global View by Stephen and Sylvia Czerkas, a lavishly-illustrated coffee-table book (it's like the Draconomicon of paleo books in my collection ), there's a group of Diictodon emerging from their burrows, and a dead Kannemeyeria being savaged by a pack of tiger-striped cynodonts, its throat torn open.
I've never made a connection with the naked mole rats (they're far less warm-blooded than almost any other mammal), but that's an interesting twist for Robertia. demiurge if you're really interested I can ask at the Vertebrate Paleontology Mailing list for a Robertia PDF.
Deserts dominated Pangaea because much of the supercontinent was so far away from the cooling and humidifying effects of the ocean.
"I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you." - Batman, Batman Begins "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." - Harvey Dent, The Dark Knight "Yeah, I can fly." - Tony Stark, Iron Man
Inside my hands these petals browned;
dried up falling to the ground,
but it was already too late now.
I pushed my fingers through the earth,
returned this flower to the dirt;
so it could live, I walked away now."
Rise Against - "The Good Left Undone"
Location: My happy place. It's OK, they know me there.
Posts: 166
No special attacks. I'm not too sure about scent.
I'd go with skill points split between Listen and Spot, and the Alertness feat.
Bite 1d2 sounds okay.
Environment sounds okay.
If they're organized like naked mole rats, I'd go with an organization like Burrow (5-20) or colony (50-100).
"I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you." - Batman, Batman Begins "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." - Harvey Dent, The Dark Knight "Yeah, I can fly." - Tony Stark, Iron Man
Inside my hands these petals browned;
dried up falling to the ground,
but it was already too late now.
I pushed my fingers through the earth,
returned this flower to the dirt;
so it could live, I walked away now."
Rise Against - "The Good Left Undone"
Location: My happy place. It's OK, they know me there.
Posts: 166
CR 1/8 is fine.
It would be nice to see the PDF description of Robertia first, but I've come up with this flavor text in the meantime:
This little creature resembles a cross between a lizard and a naked mole rat, with a parrot-like hooked beak and two fangs in its upper jaw.
Robertia is a dicynodont, an herbivorous therapsid (“mammal-like reptile”). Dicynodonts are characterized by their parrot-like beaks, two tusks in the upper jaw, and barrel-shaped bodies with splayed legs. Robertia is the smallest dicynodont, close in size to a ground squirrel.
Robertia are social animals, living in large communal burrows. Only one female, the queen, is capable of producing offspring; all other females (as well as most of the males) are sterile. Robertia spend most of the day underground to avoid the hot desert sun, but during the cooler parts of the day, multiple individuals leave the burrow to gather food, which they bring back to the burrow to share with other members of the colony. This lifestyle allows the colony to maximize its foraging success.
Robertia is a minuscule creature; the average individual is 8 inches long and weighs no more than a few ounces.
Combat
A robertia encountered on the surface flees down the nearest hole if spooked, giving an alarm call to warn other colony members. If cornered, a robertia will bite.
Last edited by InsanePsychoRabbit; 8th January 2009 at 09:21 PM..
"I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you." - Batman, Batman Begins "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." - Harvey Dent, The Dark Knight "Yeah, I can fly." - Tony Stark, Iron Man
Inside my hands these petals browned;
dried up falling to the ground,
but it was already too late now.
I pushed my fingers through the earth,
returned this flower to the dirt;
so it could live, I walked away now."
Rise Against - "The Good Left Undone"
I like these critters, in my Dinosaurs: A Global View by Stephen and Sylvia Czerkas, a lavishly-illustrated coffee-table book (it's like the Draconomicon of paleo books in my collection 
), there's a group of Diictodon emerging from their burrows, and a dead Kannemeyeria being savaged by a pack of tiger-striped cynodonts, its throat torn open.
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