Fantastic Fauna and Flora
- Thread starter Verequus
- Start date
alsih2o
First Post
Glancing Geckos.
These 1 hp animals deliver a stinging (DC 12 Fort or -2 to all attacks and saves) bite. They are normally not aggressive, but defend themselves as a group, with all in an area fighting to the death if one is attacked. Every glancing Gecko in 60 feet can see through every other Glancing Geckos eyes.
Cruel and stupid adventurers will occasionally attack a Glancing Gecko (they tend to live in subterranean areas, as the sheer distraction of seeing all the movement outside is stunning) and soon suffer the wrath of many of these tiny menaces as they all believe they are being attacked.
I use a Tokay Gecko image-
These 1 hp animals deliver a stinging (DC 12 Fort or -2 to all attacks and saves) bite. They are normally not aggressive, but defend themselves as a group, with all in an area fighting to the death if one is attacked. Every glancing Gecko in 60 feet can see through every other Glancing Geckos eyes.
Cruel and stupid adventurers will occasionally attack a Glancing Gecko (they tend to live in subterranean areas, as the sheer distraction of seeing all the movement outside is stunning) and soon suffer the wrath of many of these tiny menaces as they all believe they are being attacked.
I use a Tokay Gecko image-
Attachments
My critters I have created for Oathbound:
http://www.oathbound.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=25&forum=5
http://www.oathbound.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=25&forum=5
You should take a look at After Man: A Zoology of the Future, by Dougal Dixon. A fairly complete alien, though Earthly, ecology, that you could easily stick into your fantasy world, completely replacing squirrels and dogs and horses. And with lavish illustrations, to boot. I tried it once, but the players really weren't into it, so we just retconned back to normal fauna. He has another book The New Dinosaurs, i believe, that could also be the basis for a fantastic ecology.
Keep in mind, in both these cases, i'm not talking magical normal animals, just unusual and sometimes fairly fantastic (within the realms of real-life physiology, if just barely).
Keep in mind, in both these cases, i'm not talking magical normal animals, just unusual and sometimes fairly fantastic (within the realms of real-life physiology, if just barely).
All mammals are descended from a single species of advanced therapsid. For the unicorn I decided to have it descend from a different species altogether. Which makes it a mammaloid technically speaking. It looks like a mammal, acts like a mammal, even bears young much like a placental mammal, but it is not a mammal.
The most obvious difference is a horny beak under fleshy lips in place of the incisors you find in horses. It does have molars same as a horse.
In more dangerous monsters I've made basilisks and cockatrices dinosaurs. Small dinosaurs.
The most obvious difference is a horny beak under fleshy lips in place of the incisors you find in horses. It does have molars same as a horse.
In more dangerous monsters I've made basilisks and cockatrices dinosaurs. Small dinosaurs.
MaxKaladin
First Post
The Forgotten Realms had a number of unique plants, trees and critters of various kinds spread across its books, especially the 2nd edition books.
For my upcoming homebrew I'm planning on including a plant that has insect-repelling properties. I have not created a lot of details for it yet, but will probably make it a vine. It's going to be the sort of thing people cultivate to use to keep vermin out of the house and make the setting a bit less realistic in that regard. Most homes will plant it around the walls of houses to make a natural insect barrier and spread some around inside in places like bedding to repel insects that get inside. It will also be mixed into soaps to provide for hygene. It isn't the sort of thing that will stop "monsterous" bugs like giant spiders but makes everyday life more pleasant as people won't be bug infested and so forth.
My current game has elves (not drow, regular surface elves) "ranching" large spiders to harvest their silk to make clothing and armor. Elven spidersilk is rare and prized. I'd worked out a bit of an ecology where the spiders were raised in groves of fruit trees and captured things like small birds that tried to get to the fruit in their webs and used them for food. The elves periodically harvest their webs for silk and harvest the fruit for food. It thought it was a nice "ecologically friendly" sort of thing for the elves.
For my upcoming homebrew I'm planning on including a plant that has insect-repelling properties. I have not created a lot of details for it yet, but will probably make it a vine. It's going to be the sort of thing people cultivate to use to keep vermin out of the house and make the setting a bit less realistic in that regard. Most homes will plant it around the walls of houses to make a natural insect barrier and spread some around inside in places like bedding to repel insects that get inside. It will also be mixed into soaps to provide for hygene. It isn't the sort of thing that will stop "monsterous" bugs like giant spiders but makes everyday life more pleasant as people won't be bug infested and so forth.
My current game has elves (not drow, regular surface elves) "ranching" large spiders to harvest their silk to make clothing and armor. Elven spidersilk is rare and prized. I'd worked out a bit of an ecology where the spiders were raised in groves of fruit trees and captured things like small birds that tried to get to the fruit in their webs and used them for food. The elves periodically harvest their webs for silk and harvest the fruit for food. It thought it was a nice "ecologically friendly" sort of thing for the elves.
Mercule
Adventurer
The change I made that seems to weird people out the most is, actually, a deletion. My world has no elephants or any variants on them. That branch of animals just never formed. Dunno why it seems to grab people, but it gets a fair number of remarks.
Oddly, it's never even come into play. I'd made the decision to remove them and not said anything to anyone. Then a player made a comment about circuses and elephants (it's been a decade, so I don't remember much about it). I responded that it would be hard to do, since my world doesn't have them. I've never had to say anything else about the matter, but every new player seems to find out within the first couple of sessions.
I also added a burrowing, hawk-like bird, called an arrach. It lives in an area where it has little to fear on the ground, but there are some nasty non-earth flying predators. Things like griffins, wyverns, etc. A hawk would be bite-sized to most of those.
Edit: I generally try not to make things too freaky, though. The players need some sort of baseline from which to act. A surreally fantastic setting is just an open invitation for some players to go into non-serious mode.
Oddly, it's never even come into play. I'd made the decision to remove them and not said anything to anyone. Then a player made a comment about circuses and elephants (it's been a decade, so I don't remember much about it). I responded that it would be hard to do, since my world doesn't have them. I've never had to say anything else about the matter, but every new player seems to find out within the first couple of sessions.
I also added a burrowing, hawk-like bird, called an arrach. It lives in an area where it has little to fear on the ground, but there are some nasty non-earth flying predators. Things like griffins, wyverns, etc. A hawk would be bite-sized to most of those.
Edit: I generally try not to make things too freaky, though. The players need some sort of baseline from which to act. A surreally fantastic setting is just an open invitation for some players to go into non-serious mode.
JVisgaitis
Explorer
Great thread! I really don't think there is enough of this around. With Violet Dawn, we went for dark fantasy on an alien world so everything has a new look to it and we have a lot of crazy flora and fauna. Personally, I'd have it no other way. I prefer my fantasy to be fantastic, not earth with goblins and orcs.
