Moa & Uintatherium

In our world, moas didn't do so well against humans—Polynesian settlers wiped them out in less than 100 years (roughly around the time of the Black Death in Europe).  But in a fantasy world they might have better luck.

Meanwhile, uintatheriums are ancient herbivores, roughly looking like a cross between a rhino and a hippo.  And while they didn't escape the Eocene Epoch (other large herbivores more closely related to our ungulates displaced them), they might roam the grasslands and marshes of your fantasy world.

Adventurers are aboard a ship whose cargo hold is full of moas.  (An intrepid baronet hopes to start a colony on his island.)  Midway through the journey a gremlin releases the birds from their pens, and the agitated moas lash out at any sailor who comes near.

Uintatherium skulls are prized by orcs, hobgoblins, and ogres as percussion instruments and ornaments for their battle standards.  Adventurers who wish a favor from a humanoid clan chief would do well to bring the warlord a uintatherium, alive or dead.

What adventurers first take to be a mirage turns out to be a moa nesting ground.  While they are observing the flightless birds, a gnoll hunting party (see the Monster Codex) attacks the nest and may stumble upon the adventurers as well.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 5 171

If you ever want to see a terrifying bird, check out the cassowary at the National Zoo.  It has a flashy crest.  It has barbed wing-claws.  It has a kick that can (admittedly more in theory than in practice) kill a man.  It is terrifying.

Chalicotherium & Kaprosuchus

Seemingly part sloth and part…horse? okapi? who knows…chalicotheriums are herbivorous megafauna common in Lost Word forests.  Like most herbivores, they’re content to leave you alone, but are surprisingly dangerous if you get between one and its young.  Meanwhile the kaprosuchus is a crocodilian-like creature.  Don’t look for them in the water though; they lunge through the woods instead, which may explain their ramming attack.

While making a courier run, adventures’ gliders crash-land in the Shivering Forest.  They soon find out how the woods got that name: from the way the undergrowth quivers as hungry kaprosuchuses lunge for their prey.

In their last adventure, a party of sellswords shut off an artifact that had been powering a mini ice age.  As the glacial sheets retreat, a new land bridge is revealed connecting Falconyr to distant Ikari.  Among the first creatures to take advantage of the bridge are the great chalicotheriums, knuckling their way toward the new grazing lands they scent on the winds.

Adventurers receive reports of drake attacks in the nearby woods.  It turns out the attacks are really being caused by primitive crocodile-like creatures—kaprosuchuses, the local sage says.  Weirdly though, these great lizards disappear upon being slain.  A sorcerer has discovered a way to use ancient cave paintings to summon prehistoric animals.

—Pathfinder Adventure Path #91 86–87 & Pathfinder Bestiary 5 170

Note that Pathfinder Adventure Path #91: Battle of Bloodmarch Hill has animal companion statistics for chalicotheriums.

Speaking of primitive crocodilians, a little while ago askserithal wrote:

I'm trying to make statistics for this prehistoric croc and I can't really think of any good bases for it because it has so many things it's like.  Any suggestions?

I would try the dwarf caiman from Pathfinder Adventure Path #55: The Wormwood Mutiny.  Maybe advance it to 1 or 2 HD and give it some kind of speed surge (like drakes have) or similar special ability to reflect its quickness.

Did you guys hear about my research project?  I’m investigating what makes tortoiseshell cats so adorable.  That’s right, I’m trying to prove…the Calico Theorem.

In other news I’m traveling at the moment but will try to update as best I can.

Basilosaurus & Megalania

Somewhere between civilization and lost worlds lies the wilderness. 

Lost worlds have the convenience of being just that—worlds unto themselves.  Whether high plateaus, lost continents, or even the center of the planet itself, they are self-contained, discrete things.

But wilderness…that’s something else entirely.  It’s not a place; it's just where civilization isn’t, and then it goes on getting wilder and wilder.  And eventually, if you go far enough out, you find megafauna…beings just as out of time as dinosaurs, but more liberally sprinkled over the landscape.  Apparently, some things just refuse to go extinct or hide out on the Isle of Dread.

At least that’s how I’d play the primitive whale basilosaurus and the monitor/iguana-like megalania.  In a super-low-magic, Allan Quatermain-style campaign, these might be climax monsters: “Good lord!  The legend is real!”  But in campaigns where fireballs, wyverns, and T. rexes are commonplace, megafauna aren't exciting because of their stat blocks; they’re exciting because spotting one means your PCs are farther away from civilization than any man, woman, or grippli has ever been before.  When a sperm whale capsizes your boat, you might at least be near a shipping lane.  When a basilosaurus does the same thing, don’t look for a rescue.

Adventures are dispatched to rescue the commodore of the HMS Manticore, left stranded on an island after a mutiny.  Investigation reveals his campsite but no commodore.  To receive their full bounty, the adventurers must carve his remains out of the belly of the megalania that devoured him.

A sunken sea in the Lands Below hides pods of basilosauruses from the world.  Regular clashes with charda whalers make these primitive whales leery of humanoids, and they are quick to smash small craft.

Peacock Jim, the head of the thieves’ guild, is notoriously agile and hard to kill, courtesy of years of acrobatics and combat instruction.  But the dexterity-sapping venom of a megalania might be just the thing to slow him down…assuming one could be found and successfully milked.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 3 193

This is seriously our third Whale Day Friday in a row.  That’s just bizarre.

An alternate (and possibly more accurate but less official) name for the basilosaurus is zeuglodon.  3.5 fans can find an alternate take on the zeuglodon in Frostburn, a sourcebook I happen to like.

I had a whole tome on theories of wilderness left over from a Sacred Geographies class, but it was borrowed and never returned (along with a few other books) by a girl I went on, like, two dates with.  If anyone knows a half-Ecuadorian girl named Michelle who likes college radio, feel free to liberate them for me.

Archelon & Baluchitherium

Giants from another age—and I do mean giants; these things were huge—the archelon and baluchitherium recall an older, wilder era.  But older does not mean forgotten.  As the Bestiary 3 notes, these megafauna are prized as guardians or mounts in their respective environments.

Archelons are turning up dead and drugs are pouring into Mersea.  The culprit is a bizarre aquatic smuggling ring.  Vodyanois surround packages of contraband in water orbs shaped to look like jellyfish, which are then fed to archelons on the sly.  When the giant turtles make the trip to Mersea, they are intercepted by ceratioidi thugs, who gut them and reclaim the goods.  To the ceratioidi, the profits from the contraband more than make up for the cost in slain archelons.  In truth, the fact that slaying these beasts undermines their locathah rivals is an added bonus.

Ettins aren't the only ones who value baluchitheriums.  Whole tribes of gripplis live out their lives on the backs of these herding megafauna.  Their mobile homes keep them safe from army ants, kamadans, and mobats.  The gripplis only abandon their baluchitheriums during mating season (for obvious reasons), meeting other tribes to trade, arrange marriages, and conduct religious ceremonies.

“The Old World is not a myth,” says Professor Jeffersil Frobisher.  “I believe the story that humans migrated from there is true—not as part of some mythical, metaphorical origin story but as historical fact.”  He pauses to sip his water.  “What’s more, I believe the Old World still exists…and it is a land of giants.”  He brandishes a baluchitherium skull for emphasis.  “I intend to prove it.  I intend to go there.”  These are the last words he speaks before obsidian-tipped arrow shafts loosed from unseen bows pierce his heart.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 3 192

Daily Planescape has a nice take on these beasts as well.

Speaking of megafauna, back when I was a college concert promoter I had to cut Star Ghost Dog’s stage time—not just once, but twice.  One time was beyond my control; the other was poor judgment.  This link to their album The Great Indoors, featuring the track “Megafauna,” is a sad attempt at a public apology to them.  Sorry, guys.

Megaloceros & Megatherium

And we’re back!  Thanks for bearing with me this past week, hooray for warranties honored and hard drives fixed, and hello to you new followers!

The megatherium is one of the ultimate symbols of the Age of Mammals—nothing you know about modern sloths can really prepare you for the size and power of the giant sloth.  (Even just the bones in the Smithsonian seem oversized and gargantuan.)  And the megaloceros and man actually cohabitated in the Ice Age, so these beasts are perfect as the mighty stags of legend in your game.

Typically peaceful, megatheriums grow dangerous during mating season.  Vanaras know this and will lure suspicious intruders into their midst, counting on the beasts to stun them with their Awesome Blows.

Megaloceroses are found in pockets throughout the North.  In Greenest Ire only a few remain in the Kings’ Woods and poaching is punishable by death.  Nevertheless, the prices paid by Turmish lords for their racks inspires some foolhardy peasants to recklessness.  White king stags are known in the Near Forest; gnomes regard them as brothers.  Big game hunters chase the mighty great elks of the taiga in Firsa, but few come back alive; those hunters not gored by the elk themselves are finished off by the neanderthals who ride them.

The monstropolis of Kimerax is legendary for its diverse population of humanoids—monstrous and otherwise—and its towering blocks of tenements.  When the Spurfoot halfling tribe requested to settle there, the hobgoblin hierarch assented, provided they be of use to the city—as lamplighters.  His mirth at the diminutive halflings’ expense was stifled when the halflings leapt at the opportunity, riding through the streets on their giant sloth steeds bringing light to even the poorest districts.  Now the halflings are honored servants of the city, and their riders have earned acclaim not only as lamplighters and town criers, but also for riding their megatheriums into battle in the city’s defense.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 2 187

I’m sure there are some disappointed megalania fans out there (I know, right; how could you not be?) but since it’s filed with basilosaurus we’ll have to wait till we swing round the alphabet.

After my snark a week or so ago, Will comes to the defense of the bull-like gorgon here.

Radio show! With a Los Campesinos! Christmas tune, even more new Dungeonesse, Stars, Nite Jewel doing Michael Jackson, and a Rostam mashup I can’t get enough of.  Full disclosure: The headphone jack was busted this week, so volume levels are a bit all over the place. But the music was choice. Download it!

(Music start about 5:30 into the file. If the feed skips, load in Firefox or Chrome, Save As an mp3, and enjoy in iTunes. Link good till Friday, 12/21, at midnight.)

And stay tuned for next week’s The New Indie Christmas!

Arsinoitherium & Glyptodon

Megafauna don’t enjoy the name recognition that even the more obscure dinosaurs do.  But they’re ideal as exotic herd animals, dire beasts, Norse companions, arctic and jungle wildernesses, Lost Worlds, and any situation where a dinosaur would just seem silly—or where a GM’s inner five-year-old protests mixing people and the Mesozoic.

To become an adult in the Two Horns clan, young men must travel with an arsinoitherium pack for a season, without being gored or trampled.

Hobgoblins respect a good defense as much as a good offense.  In the arena of Baked Sands, the wagers are flying fast and furious over the upcoming bout between an ankylosaurus and a glyptodon.

The daimyo of the Osua District’s pride and joy is a glyptodon whose plates are painted with scenes of cranes and bridges, and he walks it daily on a silk lead.  The ninja clan recently paid to assassinate him is aware of this fact as well.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 2 186