Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
Sign in- Marketplace
Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
Sign in
Hi, I have an idea kinda for a monster… maybe.
haven't they made, like, a half dozen TV series about them?
There's one, some guy dies in a dream or something after having sex with the lead character or something like that...
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Well, you know, um, er, ah, could share...
maybe
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
…maybe.
anyways basically, you know vampires? Well I was just thinking that it would be cool if there was some sort of mechanical creature that used blood as a power source, and was like a vampire construct. And then I had this idea to make it somehow related to Greek mythology, because I mean the vampire like creatures from Greek mythology are already partially mechanical (Empusa, they’re blood drinking humanoids with flaming hair and one of their legs is made of bronze) so then I was thinking it could be like some sort of human that tried to gain immortality by replacing all of its parts with mechanical ones and powering them with other people’s blood. So then I turned Hephaestus into a former human inventor that, wanting to preserve their own life, slowly turned themself into a blood drinking, four armed winged horror made of bronze.
still working on the whole… everything but i think its kinda cool.
That certainly sounds cool.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Random weird mechanic: after performing a kill, they have to drain the body entirely of blood, but that leaves them vulnerable to attacks. So…
Armored Wings. Basically gives a temporary bonus to AC, and tactic wise, would be used to protect when draining blood of victims.
Hi, I’m DrakenBrine, here’s my Sig and characters
I am The Grand Envisioner!
I like it, maybe it Has an ability similar to the Bheur hag’s maddening feast where it can frighten anyone near it while draining a body of its blood?
also, i think that it shouldn’t be able to regain hitpoints unless it spends a long time repairing itself or uses up a lot of its stored blood.
Pandas eat exclusively bamboo, and they only have 1 stomach. And koalas eat exclusively eucalyptus and they only have 1 stomach.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
They also are like, the worst functioning creatures on earth. They can barely digest their food at all.
Pandas are carnivores if you look at their digestive system, and for whatever ungodly reason they refuse to eat anything but hard grass that any real herbivore would get so much more out of. There's a reason they just keep eating and eating and eating like that.
And koalas weren't built to eat eucalyptus either. While they've evolved to process it better than most creatures, they are still poisoning themselves and grinding their teeth flat. Seriously, they have so many adaptations, but they are the worst at having an ecological niche. They have devoted their entire bodies to eating that worthless plant, and they still suck at it.
If you want a good example of herbivores with a single stomach, look at horses and rabbits.
Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.
Awake, impure, divine
Breathgiver of the Strugels
I know all of that. I specifically mentioned those two animals as compared to dragons because dragons are also obviously carnivorous (just look at their teeth and claws, and usually binocular vision [depending on the artist]), but we were discussing their evolving to include trees as part of their diets. And any and all of those shortcomings can easily be handwaved away by the whole “dragons are magic” thing. I suppose I could have referred to other primates who are largely omnivorous and also only have 1 stomach too though.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Also, koalas have bacteria in their gut that breaks down the toxins before it can harm them.
On another note, koalas are literally the least intelligent mammals on the entire planet. Their brains are literally smooth.
Kasrik Argentum Stellaris Fiddlesticks the Wizard, Lord of Stars, Master Trickster, Creator of the Mosh of Stardust Hornets and Mimiczilla.
"You're never fully dressed without a smile!" >:3
"Honk."
Nice use of mythology.
Unfortunately my school focuses a lot on med school (I say unfortunately because I am not interested in med at all) so I know a lot of med students. They are all very smart people but they will be the first to tell you it is very difficult.
Edge case arguments are the whataboutism of D&D...
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Okay, whatabout all the omnivorous primates on the planet? We’re not edge cases.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Well, not right now...
(sorry, was looking at timelines today).
We don't eat trees.
We cannot gain broad sustenance from the widely planted grass on the planet unless we treat its seeds first in a process called nixtamalization. The second most widely eaten one, though, we can get a lot out of.
We cannot process raw minerals needed such as calcium and iron directly through mastication of stone or soil, and our overall evolution has favored a single stomach to go along with much of this world's overall speciation and within our group.
We are very efficient at breaking down proteins and such, but plant matter is not so readily done -- hence the whole value in iit as a cleaner.
However, I should also point out that we belong to a four limbed group that evolved, whereas dragons belong to a six limed (normally) group that apparently did not evolve, and was instead created whole cloth as they were, so ultimately by that basis they could have a dozen stomachs.
Or none. They may just have a direct gullet with a couple gizzards!
Dear heavens...
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Humans might not eat whole trees, but other primates do, or at least their leaves and bark in addition to the fruit. I believe it’s either orangutans or chimpanzees that chow down on monkeys and tree leaves at the same time way a human would go to town on a steak and salad. And as you said, they’re magical creatures, so they could very well not eat trees and only have one stomach. My point is, it’s possible. Combine that with the fact that dragons hibernate so extensively for such long stretches at a time, it’s highly probable that their dietary requirements are such that they might eat, well, anything and everything within a mile radius once every couple of hundred years and then unbutton their flys and go down for a looong nap like me after Thanksgiving dinner. How would that affect your model? I’m just trying to open up all possible angles of research for you so you don’t miss anything.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Well, let me think on this a moment.
I mean, I don't see anything about hibernation in the sources on dragons for Red Dragons in game -- but I don't have fizban's, so it might be in there. In reading the lore around them, though, I am somewhat disappointed by the way they rely so heavily on the nibelung, but that's just me being cranky about how dragons are represented. smacks of humanist derision.
Would this apply to my my dragons for the purposes of my overall biomass determination? My dragons don't hibernate that I can tell so far. will put some thougth int that as I go into the general game stuff again.
Hibernation requires engorgement -- the storage of essential nutrients for the period that are consumed by the body itself over time. This is most likely going to be in the form of lipids, sugars, and proteins, since they are, based on our own analog of Earth, the primary energy suppliers and the most readily converted to storage form (fat, simply enough).
Generally speaking, this would suggest that Dragons are homeothermal -- a rarity in reptile variants -- and that the period enables them to have the exceptionally long lives they have in game. THis does exist in counter to the flight capability concept, however -- but if they are in a torpor or hibernating or estivating, they aren't flying. FLight becomes something akin to that of the cheetah's speed -- used in hunting, and otherwise "eh, **** it".
That would mess slightly with my dragon design -- they tend to run hot; potentially too hot, which is an inherent weakness built into the for the sake of poor adventurers, lol.
However, as a matter of biomass consumption,, it would have a significant impact since plant matter really sucks at being stored (chubby little koalas and lumbering pandas aside) by omnivores and carnivores -- but in this case, would be a pleasant "last snack" so to speak, a topping off to ensure the proper nutrients.
The bulk of it would come from the animal world, though. So, we're talking a substantial amount of food -- you mention a couple hundred years. Let's reduce overall stasis to a plucked out of thin air 5% (based mostly on the one year in 200 feeding frenzy), so the biomass to account for that would exceed 200 million tons. Given overall density, that's a range of 300 to 400 square miles, stripped bare of anything and everything that walks, flies, or crawls and is large than a racoon, followed by a more localized destruction of the immediate 5 to 10 square miles around its den that would be stripped bare of anything resembling surface rock over 3 square feet and and plant life larger than a person.
WHich certainly sounds much more like the ferocious dragons of the game, lol. two hundred years for things to establish would also enable tree regrowth, supporting the use of their overall inclusion, for propagation, but it is also long enough that humans, by and large, wouldn't consider it a problem of the usual sort, treating it more like a natural disaster instead of trying to find ways to kill the darn thing.
Dwarves, Elves, and Gnomes (who, in-game, tend to compete for the same territory as Dragons) would be much more aware (and wary) and would generally be the ones who would focus on the opposition factor. In a world where they have been around longer, they would likely have been significantly responsible for the reduction in number that would result in their being able to have stable kingdoms and such -- as well as enabling that of humans.
But going back to the thrust, and interesting quirk appears. Reproduction among them, if they have a staggered, non-seasonal torpor/hiber/estiv cycle, might be interesting to attempt, since it could be that a dragon that is ready to mate may not have an eligible partner within several thousand miles of their territory. IF we presume a scent based "heat" cycle or period (and that the downtime is spent gestating and laying), those pheromones are going to be potent and strong close to the dragon, and carry for a really long ways -- so light enough to reach upper layers for dispersion, where they could be scented on the wing, and dense enough that one could argue they would be almost mist or smoke like near the source.
And, because I am chuckling as I realize that, that scent could trigger instinctual memetic responses in the amygdala. dragon stench triggers flight or fight responses (which have far more than just those two overall outcomes).
that's a lot. but it doesn't actually alter the underlying parameters so much. They would still need a set amount of biomass, and while it does shift the scale of their territory by orders of magnitude and mean that when they aren't hibernating they are almost exclusively seeking out food (as opposed to hoards, which would become incidental).
Hmmm. Given flight speeds listed and similar such things, we're probably talking a 200 years down, 5 years up cycle, if we add in the intelligence factor and the desire for a hoard (collection and transport). That would give them the necessary time to scour the country side and get the necessary food, be annoyed by these insects that have invaded their territory and built unnatural caves of wood and grass and rock, and the yada yada of it all.
But that's why I did go to the underlying basis -- so that I can see the ripples from it -- biomass is really useful that way.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Bards being determined by Muses was an interesting idea that has, like my consideration for biomass, has gotten slightly crazy, lol.
If anyone is familiar with the Mike Hammer series, there is a recurring character that is always "just glimpsed", hinted at, seen in a moment, then gone, and Hammer has an absolute crush on her. That's what I am going for with Muses.
Bards glimpse them, hear their whispers, smell them, and always just hints -- tantalizing and such. And they can directly meet their Muse, but they can never know that they meet the muse, even if they guess, because if they do it will upset the Muse and they will abandon them -- leaving them without magic.
It allows me to have performers, troubadours, speakers, and all the rest of that stuff that Bards do outside of magic but without the magic that makes them function. It makes Bards special and all that -- while giving me fun things to do around their character subplots and such, as well as kick in when folks start to do the seductive bard routine...
five days to finish my classes. Thankfully I have all of them off. Gotta cover the birthday, y'know.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
See, this is why I asked these questions. I knew if anyone would enjoy the thought exercise it would be you.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting