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Message: <blockquote data-quote="seasong" data-source="post: 485192" data-attributes="member: 5137">MonstersThe wilderness is a dangerous place. The following text contains a few of the reasons why.Note that this is not an exhaustive list by any means - it is just a sampling of the "wilderness flavor" I am trying for.DragonsNo discussion of the dangers of the wilderness is complete without mentioning dragons. Dragons are believed to be manifest forces of nature, neither good nor evil, but instead possessed of a strong sense of duty to the natural world. They are noble creatures, but do not think twice about destroying anyone or anything that is needlessly damaging the wilderness. At the same time, they recognize the need for a certain amount of civilization, and sometimes grant land to this or that group to foster such.Dragons are said to live for one thousand years, at which point they meld into the earth, becoming an unusually shaped formation of stone or mountain ridge. Upon hatching, a dragon is said to be the size of a person, and they nearly double in mass every three years for the next decade. Thereafter, they grow far more slowly (doubling in mass for each age category). The oldest dragons are gargantuan beasts, weighing between 100-200 tons before turning to stone.They never sleep, but may become lost in their meditations or communing with nature, making them less alert than normal.Dragons tend to be druid-like, and normally advance in level as follows:[CODE][color=cyan]Wyrmling    0Very young  1Young       2-5Juvenile    5-8Young adult 8-10Adult       10-13Mature      13-16Old         16-17Very old    17-18Ancient     18-19[/color][/CODE]AmalanSix hundred years ago, there was a group of slaves to the orc tribes, who were led to freedom by the hero Thera. The grand-daughter of Dianas (goddess of the grape), Thera's wisdom led her to the valleys that would become Theralis, but discovered that they were guarded by an eight ton dragon of fierce temper. The dragon was Amalan, and he had only just recently been given these lands to protect in honor of his centennial birthday.When Thera spoke with him, he was at first reluctant to grant humankind any space in the valleys, so pristine at the time, but at the behest of his peers, he grudgingly sent her on a quest - should she succeed, he would grant the valleys, should she fail, she must move on to other lands. Thera's Quest was the destruction of a mighty necromancer who sought the secrets of eternal life, and who was too well entrenched in his fortress for even the mightiest dragon to assault. Thera prayed to Dianas, and developed a plan. She asked Amalan for a few of the grapes of his valleys, and promised that the grapes would lead to the necromancer's downfall. These he gave, and with them, she made a powerful wine, blessed with Dianas' potency. She then entered the necromancer's fortress posing as a merchant of wines. When he sampled her wares, he found them good, and let her in. That night, he drank deeply of the special wine, and fell into a deep slumber from which nothing would wake him. Thera cut off his head, and brought it back to Amalan. To Amalan's surprise, the head awoke at that point, having been so deeply drunk it failed to noticed its severance, and died in Amalan's hands.The lands were granted, and Thera founded the city.Today, Amalan has little to do with the region, other than to occasionally check to make certain that the people have not overextended his grant. He is very old now, nearly 60 tons, and powerful beyond measure. He is rarely seen silhouetted against the sky, perhaps once every several years, and is taken as an omen of a bad seasons to come ("When dragons fly, people die").Large PredatorsIn general, the larger predators are few in number, and overlap very little in a given region. One does not usually find a mountain lion in the company of wolves, for example. The big carnivores also tend to cover a fairly large area, individually, and the likelihood of randomly encountering one in any given stretch of wilderness is somewhat low, unless you are doing some activity that attracts them.With that said, the predators of this world are hideously dangerous to the unprepared, and the typical person is unlikely to survive a direct confrontation.The best known predators are the trapping mantis (common to the wild valleys to the east), mountain spiders (common everywhere), black hounds (rare near civilization, reasonably common near ancient ruins), reasonably normal bears, and and armorcats (occasionally found dominating a wild valley or mountain ridge). A less common, but extremely dangerous creature of the rockier mountains, is the bazilisk.Trapping Mantis (ankheg): A stocky, human-sized mantis that burrows, feet first, a few feet beneath the surface of the earth and then lies in wait there for large prey, typically a small to medium sized mammal. The trapping mantis is reasonably rare near Theralis, but are common enough in the barbarian valleys to the east that an orc tribe is said to use their serrated forelegs as spear heads. According to forester tales, the trapping mantis attacks by impaling with its forelegs to hold the prey, and then vomiting its stomach acids and enzymes onto the victim. The trapping mantis hunts alone, and is fairly nomadic, adjusting its favored haunts as its prey learns to avoid it.Bazilisk: A fat, snub-nosed serpent of grey tones and brilliant yellow eyes, typically weighing 50-100 pounds and between six and eight feet in length. According to legend, those who meet its gaze turn to stone, but most scholars agree that this is more likely a hypnotic effect. All agree that its toxin is as deadly as they come, calcifying tissue with staggering alacrity. Bazilisks are only found in rocky areas where its skin colors blend well.Black hounds: These phantom-like beasts resemble black-furred hounds or wolves of human size or larger. They are possessed of almost malevolent, primal cunning, and sometimes behave in disturbingly intelligent manner. Some hunt in packs, while others live alone (and unfortunately, the loners are the really dangerous ones). Black hounds can slip between the material and spiritual realms, although they never remain in the spiritual realm for long. Legends give them various other powers, ranging from running on water to "smelling souls". A small pack or loner can usually be found along mountains far from civilization - near civilization, they tend to be hunted until dead.Mountain spiders: These are essentially Large spiders that build massive web labrynths through an area of forest, cave system, or narrow crevice. The spiders themselves usually clump into communities, but they hunt individually and do not organize or work together in any way. Their poison is paralytic rather than deadly. Mountain spiders do not use their webs to trap prey, but to store them - the spiders themselves stalk and attack prey far from the webs, then drag them back to the webs to bind and later consume.Armorcats: Possibly not an actual feline, the armorcat looks and moves like one, but has a rhino-like hide and a thick, spike-tipped tail. Armorcats are amazingly efficient predators, and generally work alone. They are said to be able to blend into surroundings so well as to become almost invisible until the moment of attack, although this could well be exaggeration of their natural stealthiness.Dangerous FloraIn a magical wilderness, one can not depend upon the local flora to remain passive. Although for the most part the trees, bushes, vines, flowers, grasses, ferns, mosses and so on remain reasonably quiescent, there are numerous species of each which do not.Near the Theralis valleys, the most common threats (known to almost everyone) are damp moss, assassin vines, ropers, spitseeds, and rivercutters.Damp moss: Found in cool, quiet places with plenty of water nearby, damp moss feeds on decomposition. To that end, it has evolved an area sleep effect which affects anyone who touches on the moss, however briefly. Once asleep, they will continue to sleep until they die of starvation. Damp moss has varying appearance by regional sub-species, usually resembling the most common moss of the area. It can be spotted by the remains of past victims, usually small animals. An odd species of squirrel is immune to its effects, and sometimes burrows a small shelter in the safety of the moss; this, in turn, sometimes attracts larger predators onto the moss.Spitseeds: This is a species of bush which reproduces by firing its sharp, flechette-like seeds at passing animals during the winter. The seed's cover is lethal poison, and when the animal dies, it hosts the seed's growth into a new bush. The corpse is protected by the vigorous poison in its meat - most predators avoid the corpse based on smell alone.Rivercutters: A type of river weed that only grows in swift-moving currents. It typically feeds on fish that pass through it. Rivercutters are made up of near invisible, razor sharp strands  that knot and tangle in the currents. Fish pass into it and are entangled and sliced into by the strands, which then extract nutrients from the body. Rivercutters tear away and regrow when the corpse weight gets too high. In general, it is not deadly to humans, but can cut a person up pretty fiercely. The people of the Theralis valleys generally rip it up unmercifully when they find it.</blockquote>

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