REPOST:
Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology,rec.games.frp.dnd
Subject: short shameful review: the bulette
From: talysman <talysman@globalsurrealism.com>
Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2003 18:38:36 GMT
--------
AVAST! LANDSHARK, HO!
so anyways, Jake discovered the gloriously amusing bulette, aka
"landshark", and asked me to write a review. I was planning on doing
the beholder family next, but hey, bulettes are pretty amusing.
let's get something out of the way first. apparently, there are
certain websites out there promoting the idea that "bulette" is
pronounced like "BOO-lay". this pronunciation was obviously dreamed up
by some kid from the deep south who likes to show his sophistication
and education by greeting people with "BONE JOWER! COMMIE TALLIES
VOWZ?" come ON, people! you don't say "cigaray" or "penn jillay" or
"my beautiful laundray", do you?
bulettes are these weird rhinocerous-sized creatures that look like a
cross between an armadillo and something else. there seems to be some
confusion about what that something else is: the D&D books say
"turtle" while Hackmaster says "shark". sharks certainly sound scarier
than turtles, plus claiming turtles as part of their ancestry suggests
that bulettes are slow (as Jake puts it: "O NO! A BULETTE! LET'S BREAK
INTO A SLOW WALK AND ESCAPE!") but actually, the stats show that
bulettes are faster on land than a barbarian -- and remember, this is
a game that thinks barbarians are SUPERMAN.
if you are puzzled what a bulette looks like, check out this picture:
http://www.sonnet.com/eqdir/clamper/Julia.html
oops! wrong picture! try this instead:
http://www.origami.as/gallery.php?gallery=26&image=299
as I already mentioned, bulettes are also called "landsharks", as well
as "dirtfins" (Hackmaster) and "Teeth of the Earth" and various other
weird things. this is because they also burrow through the dirt and
attack people from below. keep in mind this was YEARS before the movie
"Tremors" and even a few years before Dr. Who had to fight the
tractators, but somewhat after Spock did the nasty with the Horta.
according to Dragon #74, bulettes are able to travel through the dirt
because a bulette "secrete a slime from its skin that works like
the potion for transmuting rock to mud ... But this secretion must be
weaker than the potion in strength and duration, and it seems to work
only on earth, not rock." hmmm. transmute dirt to mud. the secretion
must be WATER!
bulettes are supervoracious and will eat anything, apparently, but
they don't like the taste of dwarves and they never eat elves. no
explanation. you would think that maybe it's because elves have a
distinctive smell and are poisonous, but no, the Dragon article says
bulettes have a very poor sense of smell and hunt entirely by sense of
seismic activity. maybe bulettes have learned not to attack any
creature that skips.
the Dragon article, incidentally, takes the usual "gamer fiction"
route of having a bunch of fantasy sages sitting around in a tavern
discussing exotic animals, but this one has a twist! it's based on
Melville! there's this hunter, you see, named A'ahb, and he hunts this
rogue albino bulette the natives call Mobh Idich. he uses a captive
kobold as bait (no mention if the kobold's name was Itzmayl.)
there's a problem with the article. see, bulettes are rare, which is
a Good Thing, since they devour all animals withing their 30-mile
territory. so this A'ahb guy travels far and wide to find one, and
eventually finds an area where the locals use mud from a hole where
Mobh Idich has recently emerged to use on their plows (to make the
plowing easier.)
so A'ahb kills the bulette. smooth move, A'ahb! I hope all those
starving local children yowl all night outside your window!
bulettes have this neat defensive adaptation where, when they are
enraged, their dorsal fin sticks straight up and exposes their only
vulnerable spot. of course, this is vulnerable in the sense that
scalemail is vulnerable (D&D tends to overprotect its beasts. D&D
IS YOUR MOM!)
also, getting close enough to stab this dorsal weak spot with your
stabby sword is pretty difficult, because for some reason a bulette
can JUMP STRAIGHT UP AND KICK IN FOUR DIRECTIONS AT ONCE. I've seen
comical comments about the bulette before, but no one has meantioned
how humorous a jumping bulette would look.
on the whole, bulettes are pretty interesting, although they have
their problems (but what fantasy beast *doesn't*?) if you think that
supervoracious burrowing turtles are bad, you should check out the
tarasque -- essentially the pseudomedieval fantasy equivalent to a
giant rubber japanese monster, emerging every few months to devour a
few villages. I mean, 840 hit points! THE HELL? 50 feet tall? this
thing can hold two bulettes in its mouth! IYKWIM!
and then both bulettes would jump up and kick out the monster's teeth.
Newsgroups: alt.religion.kibology,rec.games.frp.dnd
Subject: short shameful review: the bulette
From: talysman <talysman@globalsurrealism.com>
Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2003 18:38:36 GMT
--------
AVAST! LANDSHARK, HO!
so anyways, Jake discovered the gloriously amusing bulette, aka
"landshark", and asked me to write a review. I was planning on doing
the beholder family next, but hey, bulettes are pretty amusing.
let's get something out of the way first. apparently, there are
certain websites out there promoting the idea that "bulette" is
pronounced like "BOO-lay". this pronunciation was obviously dreamed up
by some kid from the deep south who likes to show his sophistication
and education by greeting people with "BONE JOWER! COMMIE TALLIES
VOWZ?" come ON, people! you don't say "cigaray" or "penn jillay" or
"my beautiful laundray", do you?
bulettes are these weird rhinocerous-sized creatures that look like a
cross between an armadillo and something else. there seems to be some
confusion about what that something else is: the D&D books say
"turtle" while Hackmaster says "shark". sharks certainly sound scarier
than turtles, plus claiming turtles as part of their ancestry suggests
that bulettes are slow (as Jake puts it: "O NO! A BULETTE! LET'S BREAK
INTO A SLOW WALK AND ESCAPE!") but actually, the stats show that
bulettes are faster on land than a barbarian -- and remember, this is
a game that thinks barbarians are SUPERMAN.
if you are puzzled what a bulette looks like, check out this picture:
http://www.sonnet.com/eqdir/clamper/Julia.html
oops! wrong picture! try this instead:
http://www.origami.as/gallery.php?gallery=26&image=299
as I already mentioned, bulettes are also called "landsharks", as well
as "dirtfins" (Hackmaster) and "Teeth of the Earth" and various other
weird things. this is because they also burrow through the dirt and
attack people from below. keep in mind this was YEARS before the movie
"Tremors" and even a few years before Dr. Who had to fight the
tractators, but somewhat after Spock did the nasty with the Horta.
according to Dragon #74, bulettes are able to travel through the dirt
because a bulette "secrete
the potion for transmuting rock to mud ... But this secretion must be
weaker than the potion in strength and duration, and it seems to work
only on earth, not rock." hmmm. transmute dirt to mud. the secretion
must be WATER!
bulettes are supervoracious and will eat anything, apparently, but
they don't like the taste of dwarves and they never eat elves. no
explanation. you would think that maybe it's because elves have a
distinctive smell and are poisonous, but no, the Dragon article says
bulettes have a very poor sense of smell and hunt entirely by sense of
seismic activity. maybe bulettes have learned not to attack any
creature that skips.
the Dragon article, incidentally, takes the usual "gamer fiction"
route of having a bunch of fantasy sages sitting around in a tavern
discussing exotic animals, but this one has a twist! it's based on
Melville! there's this hunter, you see, named A'ahb, and he hunts this
rogue albino bulette the natives call Mobh Idich. he uses a captive
kobold as bait (no mention if the kobold's name was Itzmayl.)
there's a problem with the article. see, bulettes are rare, which is
a Good Thing, since they devour all animals withing their 30-mile
territory. so this A'ahb guy travels far and wide to find one, and
eventually finds an area where the locals use mud from a hole where
Mobh Idich has recently emerged to use on their plows (to make the
plowing easier.)
so A'ahb kills the bulette. smooth move, A'ahb! I hope all those
starving local children yowl all night outside your window!
bulettes have this neat defensive adaptation where, when they are
enraged, their dorsal fin sticks straight up and exposes their only
vulnerable spot. of course, this is vulnerable in the sense that
scalemail is vulnerable (D&D tends to overprotect its beasts. D&D
IS YOUR MOM!)
also, getting close enough to stab this dorsal weak spot with your
stabby sword is pretty difficult, because for some reason a bulette
can JUMP STRAIGHT UP AND KICK IN FOUR DIRECTIONS AT ONCE. I've seen
comical comments about the bulette before, but no one has meantioned
how humorous a jumping bulette would look.
on the whole, bulettes are pretty interesting, although they have
their problems (but what fantasy beast *doesn't*?) if you think that
supervoracious burrowing turtles are bad, you should check out the
tarasque -- essentially the pseudomedieval fantasy equivalent to a
giant rubber japanese monster, emerging every few months to devour a
few villages. I mean, 840 hit points! THE HELL? 50 feet tall? this
thing can hold two bulettes in its mouth! IYKWIM!
and then both bulettes would jump up and kick out the monster's teeth.
