Riding Beasts

[robject]

I'm taking suggestions for riding beasts.

Ways to Contribute

1. Feel free to suggest here anything that strikes your fancy.

2. Feel free to email me any suggestions (robert dot eaglestone at gmail dot com).

3. Feel free to email me if you're interested in using T5 BeastMaker to create and write up such a beast.

4. Or, feel free to use T5 BeastMaker to create and write up a beast, posting it here for all to see, comment on, and use as they like. You get named as its creator.


Examples of BeastMaker in Action

A backwards-engineered beast: http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=29959&highlight=beastmaker

A finished example entry from BeastMaker, alas without a walk-thru: http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=32254&highlight=beastmaker



Critters I have in mind:

Land beasts (the Kian is an existing example), slow or fast, small or large (or very large), adapted to various environments. 2-legged, 4-legged, and more-than-four-legs.

Sea beasts (the Daghadasi is an existing example), swimmers, drifters, divers, amphibians, and so on, fast and slow, small and large.

Flyers, adapted to various environments, small and large, drifters, hunters, pouncers, you get the idea.

A few robotic beasts. Yes, this is not explicitly in the material, but the pieces are there.



How much text?

I'm also taking suggestions on the average amount of text that's good for describing these. While each one is worth a full-length Bestiary entry, I'm wondering if there's a more compact format to allow more than one per page (for example).

Let me put that another way.

Take the standard equipment list. A piece of equipment has a line of data, but then descriptive text explaining the What, When, Where, Why, How, and sometimes Who .... of usage. I think beasts need that as well.

I think it's not as much text as a Bestiary, but it's a bit longer than a piece of equipment.

What do you think?


Here's the example text for a critter I built last year:

The Avoug

Type: Eater
Size: 5 (roughly person-sized)
Length: 1.5m
Loco: Walker
Speed: 1
Str: 80
End: 6
Weapon: Peds
Behavior: A8 F5
Symmetry: Trilateral
Structure: HBS-T-LL-LN-M
Mass: 80 kg
Armor: 5
Edible? No
Taste: Bad

The Avoug is an omnivore eater native to Okh Gvagh (0734 Tuglikki), and a typical foe faced by gladiators in the Grand Ounaerzghovag Arena. About the size of an average human, the Avoug has a leathery hide, a body made to take punishment, and a foul odor. Field reports advise against trying to eat these animals. Its front two trios of legs are articulated and built for climbing, while its rear trio of legs are thick and strong. Its muscled tail is strong enough to strangle a human. Three Avoug are placed in the arena for each gladiator.
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[Reban]

Well I'd suggest you'd have to do an "average" Terran Horse as a baseline that one can build on for horses both of different breeds and different planetary environments.

An idea crossed my mind the other day to see if I could do a cavalry regiment mounted on Miniphants. I need to dig out the original JTAS article and check to see if they can be ridden

 

[robject]

Example - Lubii

Here's an example riding beast. This might also serve as a mini-walkthru of the BeastMaker process.

The LUBII

Profile: Carnivore Trapper, Size 6, 7.5m walker, 4,200 kg, Spd 5, AS F11.
Str 72, End 3, Claws, Teeth.

Found near the dense jungles of Malea (Rhinom-3/Deneb Sector), the Lubii is a large trapper, typically reaching 7.5 meters long and massing over 4,000 kilograms at adulthood. Its thin build, six powerful legs, and interesting exoskeletal features give it the speed necessary to escape pack hunters and the apex predator, while its overall size, claws, and teeth give it the ability to kill its prey. As a trapper, it prefers to wait for its prey to come to it; a natural slime exuded from subcutaneous glands strongly attracts food animals, and serves as protection from intense solar rays from the primary.

Despite its somewhat disgusting nature, a few locals have managed to train individual specimens. Once broken, they are not disobedient, and can typically carry 10 to 20 people up to 10 kilometers per hour, with 3-minute sprints at up to 50 kph.



WALKTHROUGH


Planning. Note that since this will be a riding beast, in some cases I re-rolled until I got what I wanted. For example, a 10 kilogram beast is not what I wanted (though it could make a good recon beastie or letter carrier?). Additionally, unless I have a compelling reason not to, I will assume more or less a default length for a creature of its size, and a default density of 1.0. This lets me skip a couple steps without hurting anything.

Beast Name. I randomly generated Vilani words for a name. I got "Lubii", which sounds fairly amusing, so I kept it. (Blatant plug for my word generators: http://eaglestone.pocketempires.com/scripts/vilanitools.html).

Basic Beast (p.581). I roll 1D to determine niche, and get a 4, which maps to Carnivore. Rolling another 1D on the Carnivore table, I get a 1 -- a Trapper. Interesting, but I'll go with that.

Just to be complete, I roll for quantity and get "many" - 1D x 1D encountered in the wild.

By reason, a riding beast typically cannot be smaller than Size 5 (roughly person-sized)... and probably should be Size 6 just to be on the safe side. I select Size 6 by fiat.

Rolling flux for Locomotion, I get +1, a Walker.

Rolling 1D for Strength (I assume no gravity DM), I get 3 = Size x 3D. Rolling 3D, I get 12, so the Strength is 6 x 12 = 72. Note that Strength in beasts also represents hit points.

Rolling 1D for speed results in 5... and now I see why this creature is a riding beast. It's speed is 50 kph. Not bad for a Trapper. Makes me wonder why a Trapper would need that sort of speed... perhaps a pack hunter or apex killer lives in its native environment?

Rolling flux for weapon results in -4 (Carnivore): Claws.

Rolling 1D on the reaction rolls results in AS (attack if it has surprise) and F11 (otherwise, it flees on 2D = 11 or less).


Body Structure (p.582). A flux roll for symmetry results in -2, bilateral symmetry. Rolling flux for Head-and-torso, Walker Front Legs, Walker Rear Legs, and Tail results in a head with a brain and senses, two front pairs of legs, a rear pair of legs, and no tail.

Flux rolls on the Body Features table results in a slimy exoskeleton, and a respectable set of carnivore's teeth.

Size (p.583). I'll just select the default length for Size 6 (7.5m) from Table A. Flux (-1) for the body profile on table B results in Thin: for volume purposes, it's Width and Depth is its Length / 10, or 0.75m.

[FONT=arial,helvetica](NOTE: "Thin" here means its length-to-width and length-to-depth ratio is 1/10. So it's 7.5m long, 0.75m wide, and 0.75m tall.[/FONT])

Volume. Assuming a standard Density from Table C (=1.0), Table D then lets us calculate volume as L x W x D = 7.5 x 0.75 x 0.75 = appx 4.2 cubic meters. That turns into 4,200 liters, which maps to about 4,200 kilograms. (Note that if your beast's density is not 1.0, you need to multiply that here.)

Endurance. The critter's END is 1D. I roll a 3.

Riding. This critter is sufficiently massive to carry people. According to "Riding" and the "WORK ANIMALS" table, this beast can carry up to 4,200 kg / 3 = 1,400 kg of riders. At 72 kg per person avg, that's 19 people carried.

How fast for how long? Each hour, this beast can carry its riders at 50 kph for END minutes = 3 minutes. Then, it can carry its riders at half speed -- 25 kph -- for another 3 x END minutes = 9 minutes. Then for the rest of the hour, it can plod along at 5 kph.

So in an hour, it can carry about 19 people about 10 km.


Edibility (p.584). Let's just see if this creature has... other uses in a survival situation. Rolling flux (-2) for edibility results in "no", this creature is not useful for food for humans. Rolling flux (-1) for taste results in "Slightly Off", so it's not even tasty. I'm stopping there.


Training (p.578). As we all know, riding beasts must be trainable, so I re-rolled until the three training values (Defer, Obey, and Learn) were "reasonable" (for some value of "reasonable"). I eventually settled on Defer = 0 (an 8D task, "Beyond Impossible"), Obey = +3 (5D, Staggering), and Learn Simple Task (-1). The "-1" there means these animals are not really trainable, but individual members of this class may be. Combined with Defer=0, it is clear that it is a rare combination of beast and trainer to find one of these in use.

Given that this creature has a slimy exoskeleton, I think the reason this creature is rarely encountered is due to its overall grossness.

 

[Timerover51]

Found in the dense jungles of Malea (Rhinom-3/Deneb Sector), the Lubii is a large trapper, typically reaching 7.5 meters long and massing over 4,000 kilograms at adulthood. Its thin build, six powerful legs, and interesting exoskeletal features give it the speed necessary to escape pack hunters and the apex predator, while its overall size, claws, and teeth give it the ability to kill its prey. As a trapper, it prefers to wait for its prey to come to it; a natural slime exuded from subcutaneous glands strongly attracts food animals, and serves as protection from intense solar rays from the primary.

So sort of a 6-legged crocodile, but the description makes no sense. You describe it as thin, but it is 25 feet long and weighs about 9,0000 pounds. A 9,000 pound croc is not thin.

Next, it is worried about pack hunters in a jungle? How big are these pack hunters? Plus there is an apex predator at least as large, if not larger that this animal? Jungles are not noted for having large ground animal biomass if the jungle is very dense. That severely limits available food at ground level.

It lives in dense jungle, but needs additional protection from the solar rays from its primary? Plus you give it an exoskeleton, which, in theory, should provide some protection from the sun, and make it a bit difficult to tackle as a prey animal.

I keep blowing hot and cold on getting T5. This does not exactly encourage me to do so. Against that, it is not like I would have to use the design sequences in it.

 

[robject]

So sort of a 6-legged crocodile, but the description makes no sense. You describe it as thin, but it is 25 feet long and weighs about 9,0000 pounds. A 9,000 pound croc is not thin.

More like a 6-legged, 25' long Gila Monster.

This is a nomenclature issue. "Thin" here means its length-to-width and length-to-depth ratio is 1/10. So it's 7.5m long, 0.75m wide, and 0.75m tall. A croc is maybe closer to 1/20. Or more, since it's rather flattish vertically.

Getting past the nomenclature, a thing 7.5m long, 0.75m tall, and 0.75m wide displaces 4.2 cubic meters. At a density of water, that is 4,200 kg.

Next, it is worried about pack hunters in a jungle? How big are these pack hunters? Plus there is an apex predator at least as large, if not larger that this animal? Jungles are not noted for having large ground animal biomass if the jungle is very dense. That severely limits available food at ground level.

It lives in dense jungle, but needs additional protection from the solar rays from its primary? Plus you give it an exoskeleton, which, in theory, should provide some protection from the sun, and make it a bit difficult to tackle as a prey animal.

I keep blowing hot and cold on getting T5. This does not exactly encourage me to do so. Against that, it is not like I would have to use the design sequences in it.

The color text is mine. Traveller doesn't generate the why's, just the what's. I inferred the presence of the other carnivores to explain this creature in a way that interests me.

So, would you just recommend I just change a word, from "in" to "near", or change "dense jungle" to "edge of the jungle" or "marshlands" or "savannah", or something? Wouldn't that fix all the problems you found?

 

[robject]

Well I'd suggest you'd have to do an "average" Terran Horse as a baseline that one can build on for horses both of different breeds and different planetary environments.

An idea crossed my mind the other day to see if I could do a cavalry regiment mounted on Miniphants. I need to dig out the original JTAS article and check to see if they can be ridden

Both of those are good ideas. Thanks.

 

[Timerover51]

More like a 6-legged, 25' long Gila Monster.

This is a nomenclature issue. "Thin" here means its length-to-width and length-to-depth ratio is 1/10. So it's 7.5m long, 0.75m wide, and 0.75m tall. A croc is maybe closer to 1/20. Or more, since it's rather flattish vertically.

Getting past the nomenclature, a thing 7.5m long, 0.75m tall, and 0.75m wide displaces 4.2 cubic meters. At a density of water, that is 4,200 kg.



The color text is mine. Traveller doesn't generate the why's, just the what's. I inferred the presence of the other carnivores to explain this creature in a way that interests me.

So, would you just recommend I just change a word, from "in" to "near", or change "dense jungle" to "edge of the jungle" or "marshlands" or "savannah", or something? Wouldn't that fix all the problems you found?

You can do whatever you want with it. I will make no further comments on the thread. My apologies for making the comments to begin with.

 

[SanDragon]

Or, maybe, the slimy exoskeleton lets it slip through dense growth without getting scuffed up.

Slime for lube; Lubii! Exoskeleton for a light armor-like protection.