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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charles Rampant" data-source="post: 7029404" data-attributes="member: 32659">We finish this series with the animals of the book, Aurochs, Cow, Dolphin, Swarm of Rot Grubs, who get presented together on two pages. We’ll see what there is to say about these. <img src="http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/45/Aurochs_NEW_final.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />We get an image of the Auroch in the book, which looks so hilariously shaggy and gnarled that it basically looks like a tree with legs. It’s got the grumpiest expression that I’ve ever seen on a cow as well, so I’d definitely avoid any field containing one of these.So the Auroch is a divinely-created War Cow, essentially, ridden around by the Orcs who favour Baghtru. They are the same size as horses, and look like basically the best ground-pounding cavalry around - 50ft move, 38hp, and a Charge attack which can do 4d8 damage and knock someone prone. If you then ignore the question of how far apart the rider and the now-prone enemy are, this will let the Orc on top get advantage on the attack. I’d suggest that you swap out the riders themselves to suit the player group - a low level group might benefit from normal Orcs who they can easily kill, while a higher level group might be best put against Orogs. Interestingly, the Orcs treat the Aurochs as honored warriors, and do not eat them. I’ve got an amusing image in my mind of lowly Orcs (of Shargaas, perhaps) regarding the Aurochs with jealousy, an idea that might be worth pursuing if you do an Orc campaign at any time. Next up is a Cow, which, well, it’s a cow. Judging from the damage on their gore, I should pay them more respect than I normally do! I guess that this profile might be useful if your party goes to fantasy-Spain and gets into a bullfight? Much more interesting is the variants. We get an Ox, which can carry a lot and is good as a method to ignore the encumberance rules. The Rothe lives in the Underdark, is medium sized, and communicate with dancing lights. That’s quite fun, and I can see it being a way to surprise and worry the party, when they hear hundreds of footsteps approaching, with flashing lights proceeding them, only to realise that it is just ambulatory lunch. At least, until the Drow guards make their move… Finally, we get the Stench Kow, which is pretty amusing: a Cow from the Lower Planes with resistance to fire, cold and poison. I guess that makes sense, and certainly Planescape made it clear that the planar inhabitants still needed food. They get a stinky ability that reminds me of the Catoblepas, and you could use the two types together. Next up we get the Dolphin, which I can only imagine was put here because they realised that Storm Giants need pets as much as Triton player characters need rides. On the subject, I’m hoping that one of the upcoming adventures has a long underwater segment, since that could be a lot of fun.Finally, we have the Swarm of Rot Grubs, which are maggots; just like D&D needs mega cows, it also needs mega maggots, apparently. These get mechanics that are basically the same as the Spawn of Kyuss, but in a CR 1/2 format, so this looks like a good way to add some horror to an undead section of your campaign - Skeletons don’t really have much body horror to provoke, while having maggots burrow into your skin and try to gnaw on your heart most decidedly does. At CR 1/2 it is easy enough to add them to even tier one adventures, while they are quick enough to run that adding a bunch to tier two combats in undead dungeons isn’t going to slow things down too much. A solid entry, not that exciting but serving a definite niche, albeit one that the Spawn of Kyuss also fulfills at a higher CR.With that, we reach THE END. I’m not going to cover the NPC statblocks - both because they seem self-evident, and also because, to be honest, I don’t want to. Thank you for reading this far, and I hope that the discussion here between myself and others - with thanks to [MENTION=53176]Leatherhead[/MENTION] [MENTION=6777078]RotGrub[/MENTION] [MENTION=6801228]Chaosmancer[/MENTION] [MENTION=6801226]MechaTarrasque[/MENTION] [MENTION=5435]fuindordm[/MENTION] [MENTION=83242]dave2008[/MENTION] [MENTION=6787650]Hemlock[/MENTION] [MENTION=6863864]Bitbrain[/MENTION] [MENTION=6867728]ArchfiendBobbie[/MENTION] and anyone else I’ve forgotten - helps you to use this fine book to improve your campaign. The first post now has hyperlinks to all the monsters covered in the series, so hopefully this can serve as a useful resource in the future, unless the forum falls over and explodes again or something. So long, and thanks for all the crits.</blockquote>

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