Real life beasts that need more attention

[crazy_monkey1956]

I am of a mind to write a book called "d20 Zoo", statting several real-world animals, present and past.

I've had that very same idea sitting on a back burner for ages now. Take a cross section of real world animals, past and present and do an entire book on them. Not only animal stats themselves but dire versions, lycanthropic versions, anthropomorphic versions, etc.

 

[Andor]

Australian animals. Lordy, we have no need to ever create a fictional animal again until all of these are statted up.

Even better, Extinct Australian megafauna.

An 8' tall carnivorus Kangaroo.

The megavaranid, a 20' long monitor lizard. Like a Komodo Dragon but 8 times bigger.

Australia... They have snails that can kill you. That's just stupid.

 

[Slife]

Box -freaking- jellyfish.

Like gelatinous cubes, but with poisonous tentacles. And a 30 mph swim speed.

 

[Thurbane]

Giant tiger beetle - should have a massive movement rate.

 

[Scott_Rouse]

I fly fish a lot and so I have quite a few books on entomology. I have always thought larval stages of certain aquatic insects would make cool monsters if they were human size. This one reminds me a little of an Ankheg. It is a Salmon Fly nymph from the stone fly family (not to be confused with Sly and the Family Stone)

And this is from a nymph of a Green Drake May Fly.

 

[Thurbane]

Cockroaches come to mind...indestructible little pests.

Giant roaches are included in the Underdark FR book...

 

[Aus_Snow]

Someone (Betabunny?) put out a Predators book, well PDF, that was pretty nifty. For d20, too.

Narrow-ish, but done well. I think there needs to be more of those. Yes.

 

[Kaodi]

Between statting up real world animals and using some interesting templates, you could have a virtually infinite number of both mundane and extraordinary beasts.

 

[Theron]

Andrewsarchus mongoliensis

(That's an actual size model.)

The largest predatory mammal ever to walk the Earth. About fifteen feet long, with a three foot head. It weighed around a ton.

The best part? Look at the feet. It's an ungulate. A hoofed mammal. Not a canid. Not a feline. An ungulate.

Ladies and Gentlemen, fellow gamers, meet the Dire Hippo.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Andrewsarchus mongoliensis

(That's an actual size model.)

The largest predatory mammal ever to walk the Earth. About fifteen feet long, with a three foot head. It weighed around a ton.

The best part? Look at the feet. It's an ungulate. A hoofed mammal. Not a canid. Not a feline. An ungulate.

Ladies and Gentlemen, fellow gamers, meet the Dire Hippo.

I recall a write-up for that critter in Dragon, back in the 2e days.