Are Animals in D&D Too " Eurocentric " ?

[Celebrim]

North America doesn't have big cats anymore?

And here I thought when writing that the objection would be that such animals still lived in North American zoos.

Sure, North America has big cats, but it doesn't have lions. The 'Mountain Lion' is a panther*, whereas this is a lion*.

*Ok, technically neither is true, but for the purposes of D&D both categorizations are true as differences between for example panthers, leopards, jaguars, mountain lions, and so forth tend to come out in the wash once you stat them up.

My point being that neither the [African] Lion nor the [Asian] Tiger is eurocentric. Obviously, many D&D campaigns also will contain american lions and sabertooth tigers as well as their more recent cousins.

 

[Desdichado]

As opposed to the clouded leopard, the smallest of the big cats?

mmadsen's teminology is a little screwy. I've never heard of anyone calling the puma/couger/whatever a small cat, and it's certainly bigger than a clouded leopard. It is, however, more closely related to cats that are otherwise smaller, like the jaguarundi. I think he's using big cat as synonomous with "pantherine" or something.

And if that's not good enough, there's still occasional sightings of jaguars in the US. As recently as a hundred years ago, they had them as far north as the Grand Canyon. A few thousand years ago, they weren't rare in places like Florida and what not too.

And certainly they still live in the wild all over Mexico and central America.

 

[mmadsen]

It's a distinction without merit when it crushes your neck in its jaws and drags your carcass into the brush.

I thought that went without saying -- but we should note that when cougars attack people, they generally attack children, rather than adults, and they have been fought off by unarmed joggers.

Jaguars are, or were, North American big cats, too, depending on where one draws the line between the Americas.

Jaguars are indeed big cats -- not just larger than cougars, but more closely related to lions and tigers and able to roar. Oh, and they can really bite:

The jaguar has the strongest bite of all felids, capable of biting down with 2,000 pounds-force (8,900 N). This is twice the strength of a lion and the second strongest of all mammals after the spotted hyena; this strength is an adaptation that allows the jaguar to pierce turtle shells.​

It's "too bad" they rarely attack humans.

Oh, and black panthers are actually melanistic jaguars. Awesome.

 

[Desdichado]

I thought that went without saying -- but we should note that when cougars attack people, they generally attack children, rather than adults, and they have been fought off by unarmed joggers.

On the other hand, they've also been known to kill unarmed joggers in California and the west coast of Canada--up near Vancouver and whatnot.

Oh, and black panthers are actually melanistic jaguars. Awesome.

Except when they are melanistic leopards.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

According to many wildlife experts in Alabama, there are a handful of remaining mountain lions lurking about in the woods in this state. There are no black panthers remaining. This is contradicted by numerous sightings by hunters and other wildlife enthusiasts. The latter have gotten so frustrated by being ignored, they have gone so far as to take plaster casts of prints, after seeing the animal make it.

Then this summer, not 3 miles from my house, a man was attacked by a black panther while walking. He stabbed it several times with a pen knife, causing it to run. Experts again denied that he saw what he saw--until they compared the claw marks to known panther marks and conceded. Not a month later, a black bear was seen near Boaz (Sand Mountain, first foothill of the Smokies going south). Everyone had said those bears don't range much past the state line out of the Tennessee parks.

I think there are more animals hiding out there than we know.

 

[Kaodi]

Which is why I asked the question I did. What do you think is missing?

Being that I am from within the paradigm I am talking about, I may not even be the best person to say, but I can look for some possible answers:

Anteater, the previously mention Capybara, Kinkajou, Ocelot, Pudu, Tapir, Serval, Allen's Swamp Monkey, Blind Snake, Tarsier, Takin, Serow, ...

And even if it is not necessarily an issue of stats... Would artwork ever portray anything but the most generic depictions of animals? Wolves get pictured plenty, and they are all basically drawn the same way, though canids can look wildly different from one another...

 

[mmadsen]

Anteater, the previously mention Capybara, Kinkajou, Ocelot, Pudu, Tapir, Serval, Allen's Swamp Monkey, Blind Snake, Tarsier, Takin, Serow, ...

As a fan of anteaters, tarsiers, etc., I can nonetheless see myself opening the new Monster Manual and muttering, "So, there's no $#!ing frost giant, but they found room for capybara?"

Would artwork ever portray anything but the most generic depictions of animals? Wolves get pictured plenty, and they are all basically drawn the same way, though canids can look wildly different from one another...

You say generic. We say archetypal.

 

[Umbran]

It's a distinction without merit when it crushes your neck in its jaws and drags your carcass into the brush.

But, the distinction does have merit when the discussion is about how many critters that aren't from North America or Europe are in the books. Lions and Tigers are in the d20 SRD, but are not found outside of zoos on those continents.

Of the 50+ normal animals listed in the SRD, 10 are primarily oceanic, and so aren't of any particular land area. Of the remaining, about half appear in some variation or other on multiple continents, and a third are specifically not found natively in North America or Europe.

That doesn't leave a whole lot of animals specific to Europe and NA.

 

[The Shaman]

I thought that went without saying -- but we should note that when cougars attack people, they generally attack children, rather than adults, and they have been fought off by unarmed joggers.

I was one of the investigators of a mountain lion attack in Orange County, California. The cougar attacked an adult cyclist and dragged her into the bushes as a second adult cyclist fought to pull the victim from the cougar's jaws. The cat didn't release its grip on the victim until two more adults showed up and pelted the cougar with rocks. The cat then returned to the carcass of another cyclist that it cached off the trail earlier in the day after eating most of the cyclist's internal organs.

As wildlands are encroached upon by urban sprawl, the number of attacks on adults increases. You can't just look at the numbers; you need to also look at the circumstances.

And bear in mind that a number of those who survive attacks by mountain lions suffer permanent, debilitating injuries.

 

[Corathon]

Being that I am from within the paradigm I am talking about, I may not even be the best person to say, but I can look for some possible answers:

Anteater, the previously mention Capybara, Kinkajou, Ocelot, Pudu, Tapir, Serval, Allen's Swamp Monkey, Blind Snake, Tarsier, Takin, Serow, ...

And even if it is not necessarily an issue of stats... Would artwork ever portray anything but the most generic depictions of animals? Wolves get pictured plenty, and they are all basically drawn the same way, though canids can look wildly different from one another...

By that standard, there's a lot of American and European animals that have been excluded from the game. Where are the stats on garter snakes, sparrows, hedgehogs, shrews, salmon, robins (both European and American varieties), etc, etc

These creatures are excluded from both monster books and from game art because they have nothing to contribute to an adventure game, not because of where they come from.