Aurochs & Bison

Huge relatives of cattle, aurochs existed well into the late Middle Ages on our world.  And bison were essential to the Native Americans.  Being trampled by a stampeding herd could be lethal to even the most well-armored adventures.  But it’s who hunts and tends the herds that lead to adventures.

Kobolds have hunted bison in the Vulture Plains using snares and traps for as long as anyone can remember.  But the recent domestication of deinonychuses has given them new mobility and efficiency.  Now the bison are nearing extinction.  Without aid, human and dwarven miners in the area will starve.

Aurochs have been extinct in Yunland since the Leucrotta Age.  But since midwinter, strange spectral herds of them have been spotted moving in and out of the mists.  Some hunters have tried to capture them.  One brought back a calf; seven more returned as frost-rimed zombies.

The skin-slicing, blood-drinking razorgrass of the Blood Plains is harmless to herd animals, lethal to humanoids.  Elves and gnomes still hunt aurochs and bison, though, on magical wind skiffs and hang gliders.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 174