Populating a tropical archipelago

[genshou]

Good responses. I'm going to echo the lizardfolk. There is always room for lizardfolk in the tropics. And they're not even an evil race normally, so you can get some interesting interactions if you have a party that is inclined to avoid hacking at every nonhuman thing in their path without thought.

And you should definitely include killer plants. This is fantasy, after all!

 

[Quartz]

And some sort of coral monsters. And palm-treants.

 

[taliesin15]

And let's not forget all manner of land-based snakes, boas, pythons, anacondas, and of course highly poisonous smaller sized snakes.

A lot of RW tribes in such climes employ lethal poisons with dart guns and on spears...

also, don't forget about using panthers and tigers!

Glad someone mentioned sharks--don't neglect killer whales

seems to me that jungles are a place where natural selection tends to breed creatures that adapt to their surroundings so well that many of them have chameleon qualities--I'm thinking that some creatures and humanoids might have special hiding abilities

another thing, if you're talking about a rain forest situation, don't forget to use molds, mushrooms and slime--enchanted and not

and then there's apes and chimps

 

[frankthedm]

Deep ones bringing gold & fish to isolated villages that were not well off in exchange for captives and creation of hybrids.

 

[Wraith Form]

Not exactly your question, but don't forget the freak tropical storms that pelt rain for a few minutes then disappear.

 

[Frostmarrow]

Tasloi

I once used the tasloi on a "deserted" island in an old Mystara-campaign. They are pretty much like kobolds. I think they can be found in Shining South for FR.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

As long as you're looking at the natural critters like sharks and octopi, you might as well take a look at the anthropomorphic versions of them in Savage Species (as well as dire, giant or huge versions of them).

Not that you need dire or giant critters to give your players a challenge, of course. I was talking to a guy who worked at an aquarium who was discussing some footage of a giant (6') octopus that was eating sharks in their main tank...he also showed some footage of an octopus climbing from a quarrantine tank to another one about 20' away (across dry land) into another quarrantine tank to devour its inhabitants...then crawling back. He also noted that one of the aquarium's young interns had been attacked and nearly dragged into a giant octopus' tank- it grabbed her with 5 tentacles while anchoring itself with its other 3 and started pulling. It took several other people to extricate her from its grasp.

Smart, strong, and capable of squeezing itself into ridiculously small spaces- sounds dangerous enough for low-level PCs to me.

Another thing that has been hinted at in previous posts is the sheer number of dangerous natural but small critters in the Tropics. If you look around the world, you'll find things like crabs that swarm, some of the most dangerous jellyfish in the world (like sea wasps and Man O Wars), sea snakes, the most poisonous centipedes in the world, and one of my personal favorites, the poisonous cone snails.

Cone snails, having a number of species ranging from about 1-6" in length, have one of the nastiest neurotoxins in the world. They use it primarily for hunting fish with their harpoon-like radula (kind of a hybrid of tooth and tongue). Some have toxins so potent that they are quite capable of killing humans.

 

[Wraith Form]

Not that you need dire or giant critters to give your players a challenge, of course. I was talking to a guy who worked at an aquarium who was discussing some footage of a giant (6') octopus that was eating sharks in their main tank...he also showed some footage of an octopus climbing from a quarrantine tank to another one about 20' away (across dry land) into another quarrantine tank to devour its inhabitants...then crawling back. He also noted that one of the aquarium's young interns had been attacked and nearly dragged into a giant octopus' tank- it grabbed her with 5 tentacles while anchoring itself with its other 3 and started pulling. It took several other people to extricate her from its grasp.

Cthulhu ftaghn?

 

[Nifft]

... birds? Sea birds are very common on islands IMC.

If it's a volcanic island chain, you could have a few Half-Dragon Rocs living in a caldera, swooping out to catch whales every now and then.

If it's a coral atoll, on the other hand, I'd expect to see more amphibious critters like Nagas and Lizardmen.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Hairfoot]

Deep ones bringing gold & fish to isolated villages that were not well off in exchange for captives and creation of hybrids.

That's a great plot dynamic.

I'm still trying to get a feel for how the different monster populations could co-exist: dominant races, who would fight whom, what gets traded, uneasy truces etc.

Perhaps a nice little trade cartel, with amphibious races (e.g. sahuagin) harvesting pearls, which they pass on to a humanoid land-based tribe, which pawns them to pirates, with food, weapons and slaves going the other way. Gives the PCs something to interrupt (good) or muscle in on (bad or ugly).

And palm-treants.

I'll start work on my slow Jamaican accent.