I want to run the Mission to Mithril adventure. There are encounter tables that list many different kinds of animals (Hunter, Killer, Chaser, Grazer, etc.). But the adventure only lists two actual animals, the Crystallice (Small Reducer) and the Calamamler (an Intermittent).
How do you handle the other possibilities on the Animal Encounter table? When I looked at Supplement 2 (Animal Encounters), I found the same thing. Lots of tables for different environments with the types of animals to be found there, but not actual descriptions of what those animals are. Is the referee expected to create these for every world?
I have several different animal atlases or atlases of wildlife to use to come up with ideas of what various animals indicated by the encounter tables might approximate. Some possibilities for animals do appear in the Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society, and more in the various adventures. Unfortunately, for any given world, the referee is left to his or her own imagination as to how the various animals may look.
One other question... On the encounter tables, a number is listed after the die roll. For example, 4 Chasers. What does that mean? Does it mean that, for any encounter, up to 4 individuals might appear? Can't seem to find an answer to that anywhere.
Dan
Looking at the example given in
LBB 3: Worlds and Adventures page 35, the number after the die roll indicates the number of animals encountered, so in your example, it would be 4 chasers. Now, if you wish, you could vary the number by allowing any number between 1 to 4 to appear, using a 4-sided die for the roll. I would modify the chaser to a weight of 20 Kilograms, rather than the 200, as assuming a mammalian form of predator, each 200 kilogram chaser is going to require about 2000 kilograms of prey animal per year. Mithril's climate is not the type to support large numbers of herbivores in any given area, as it is essentially an Arctic biome, not an African savanna or an American Great Plains, with large numbers of large herbivores.
My recommendation for Mithril is to reduce the mass of the predators by a factor of 10 unless you are in a coastal hex, where the possibility of larger sea mammals or creatures would exist. This would put the 80 kilogram hunter at about the size of a leopard or mountain lion, the 40 kilogram killer as a larger version of the wolverine, and the 20 kilogram chasers as large foxes or average coyotes. That brings them in line with the 100 to 200 kilogram grazers. The 100 kilogram grazers would be roughly comparable to caribou or reindeer, with the 200 kilogram grazers smaller musk oxen or yaks. If you go with the larger predators, then maybe boost one of the grazers to closer to 500 to 1000 kilograms and come up with some form of vegetation for them to eat.
If in a coastal hex, then treat the 200 kilogram grazers as seals, with adjusted weapons, and boost the 100 kilogram grazers to 1000 kilograms, and treat as walrus or elephant seals. Also, when it comes to figuring edible portions of a carcass, a D4 +1 is a very good approximation, especially for larger animals.
Edit Note: I should add that I have Mission to Mithril both on my computer and in about 3 hard copies. It is a good introductory adventure. You might also want to figure about 2 to 3 kilograms of meat per day per person for an adequate ration.
