SUPERNATURAL CREATURES

[Illiandi Bondsmiller]

The following creatures (or magical plants) exist on the island and may be encountered while playing the hunting mini-game.

Anyone who purchases the appropriate permits through role play may play with these creatures after rolling them up during their hunting mini-game. We provide enough information for you to be able to NPC the creature yourself!

The level of in-character knowledge your character has about each thing is up to you, and sharing that knowledge through role play is a large part of the point of the game.

Nasmara is a very practical society, so on the whole they'll be more happy knowing that they can use a fire-bat wing as an oven mitt more than they'll be impressed that your character was able to kill one.

The Lockouts listed below are mandatory, but you can buy your way out of one with vouchers awarded by the administration for participation in dream-wide events.

Most, if not all, monsters or encounters on this list have a quick 'out' installed for characters that have gotten in over their heads. This enables bystanders to withdraw if they need to.

The art here is done "ICly" by Captain Vensyn, along with his standard advice for the creatures. If your character also draws one of these creatures, we'll put it up with the rest for an island Bestiary!

[Illiandi Bondsmiller]

Description - Four-winged migratory bird with a ranged electrical attack that hits for more on people wearing metal of any kind. Super fast, and posts after each individual in the fight, rather than once a round. Shortsighted, it will usually prefer to attack over defending itself, relying entirely on its speed to save it.

Actions

- Adults require seven hits to bring down, juveniles four.

- The charges weaken as the fight goes on, starting with “can strike sand into glass” and moving through various taser-shocks before the beast can only manage to poof someone’s hair/fur out. The first causes burns, the last is only a distraction, and the rest causes involuntary motion in the struck limb.

- Will flee if it is not successfully hit five times in a row (deciding the beings below are not a threat to it).

Loot

- Can contain gizzard that carries an electric charge for one week, strong enough to stun a beating heart, or start a stopped one

- Fine-quality feathers for 4 excellent quills or 8 arrows that can be fired more than once in a round.

Lockout - A player being hit at all takes enough nerve damage to lock a player out of monster hunting for 1 week.

[Illiandi Bondsmiller]

Description - Literally a hawk-sized bat that perpetually burns, it hits for more on people wearing cloth or with a lot of bare fur/flesh.

Actions

- Attacks in packs of 2-3.

- The flock posts once a round but each bat can choose a different target, usually whomever is moving the most.

- Bats must choose between attacking and defending themselves individually, with a preference for defense.

- A bat’s defense is almost invariably to flitter up and away from anything that strikes at it. If it is grappled, it will continue to burn its victim as well as bite.

- Each bat requires three hits to bring down.

- It takes one post to put out a fire caused by the bat, else the victim suffer burn damage.

- Will flee if no one moves for one full round (being short-sighted, it will decide it has ‘won’ if there are no moving targets, and leave).

Loot

- can contain a bat heart that is hot enough to keep coals alight in a forge for a month, or

- fire-resistant wings that can be made into armor or shielding.

Lockout - A player being hit at all is burned enough to lock them out of monster hunting for 1 week.

[Illiandi Bondsmiller]

Description - These local denizens who normally help maintain the plantlife of the island attacks either alone or in little clouds of up to four. These stay mostly out of sight and use no melee attack as their purpose is not to harm, but to prank.

Actions

With a magic ZAP a struck player can be turned into any local digo for anywhere from four to twenty-four hours. This includes genderbending!

On free-digo days their magic is particularly strong and can include a wider variety of pranks.

Characters able to immediately bribe them with an egg OR who are carrying an immunity to polymorphs (item or innate) will simply not be affected.

[For OOC purposes, mfdragons, toasters, werewolves are excluded. If a player has a desctag effect they would like to use, such as pongo-juice speech, that is fine.].

Loot - none.

Lockout - Due to an agreement with local government, fairies will not attack an individual more than once a month, but being hit by one does not lock a person out of monster hunting for other things.

[Illiandi Bondsmiller]

Description - A beast in a mangled turtle shell, these creatures can get up to 80 pounds and have four flippers, two pinchers, and a head, all of which can retract and pop out again in different holes.

Actions

-Attacking at melee range only, it attempts to pull and keep a person underwater.

-Slower, it must pick between attacking and defending and cannot do both in one post if it has a person in its grasp.

-It is constantly trying to flee and will do so the moment it is both near water and not holding onto anything.

-It can ink like a squid.

-Due to its shell it requires ten hits to bring it down, but each pincher only requires one hit to break free of a hold.

-Victims who are not of aquatic persuasion and remain underwater without aid for five posts are rendered unconscious.

(If your character cannot be rescued and death seems likely, it is acceptable to NPC one of the island’s mermaids to rescue a character that has fallen unconscious. They will chase off the Tojando and deposit the character on the shore, but they will steal goods and clothes that are on the character at the time, or leave them with a nasty bite if there was nothing to steal.)

Loot

-Can contain a water-breathing bladder; when inserted into the mouth and inhaled through, a person can extract PURE oxygen (and all the benefits/detriments of doing so) from the water. Must be stored in the water it was found in, and will rot after three weeks, becoming increasingly unreliable and turtle-flavored.

-The shell is a mediocre, but very long lasting, shield (since it has seven holes in it).

-Its ink sac contains indelible dark purple dye.

Lockout - A player being pinched or bitten is locked out of monster hunting for two weeks. A player merely being grappled and half-drowned is not locked out. A player “rescued” by a mermaid is locked out for a month.

[Illiandi Bondsmiller]

Description - Appearing as a female earth elemental, either animating the soil with living plants still attached, stone, or tree bark, the living manifestation of the Island’s accommodation spell appears to block the player’s way.

Actions

-Using root-binding, stone-binding, or by simply dropping a branch on the character to do so, she speaks in the player’s native tongue to explain that the quarry they were hunting is still needed by the island and may not be taken.

-Always buying enough time for the hunt to be spoiled, she then releases the player after one to four hours of entrapment.

-Matronly, she scolds those who struggles or break with violence from her holds, and

-She never, ever, gets personally hit by an attack, fading from whatever she’s inhabiting to reappear a few feet away in another manifestation.

Loot

-Kindly, Tothak will always leave the trapped character with a honeycomb, a pile of sweet berries, or

-a boon that will ensure the character’s next hunting attempt goes very well (like Silent Step or Casts No Shadow, that lasts a week - if you'd like a custom effect, just ask an admin)

Lockout - A player halted by Tothak may not attempt ANY hunt of any kind for two days, but their next one will be very good (assume extra loot, or allow a happy-accident to save against one attack)

[Illiandi Bondsmiller]

Description - Western-style, huge quadruped reptiles, this intelligent and indigenous race of dragons heavily resents sharing their territory with the Nasmaran villagers. Deals with the local ambassador (usually to do with bribes sent from the diamond mine production) keep a shifting territory line intact, but these flame-breathing giants are known for their cunning bending of rules.

Actions

- When encountering a young one the size of a dog, they belligerently spit and squawk and try to disengage as well, fleeing back for their territory.

- A juvenile the size of an ox will be more desultory regarding territory. Able to speak draconic, it will lie about where the territory line is, and use tail whip attacks or claws to drive the hunter away.

- An adult, the size of a house, will be very certain about where the lines are and will use the minimum amount of physical force to drive a person away from that area - unless the person is belligerent and argumentative. A punishing flaming or tail smashing may be employed to teach hunters a lesson about insolence.

Loot - It being unlawful to do more than disengage from a dragon when you see one (as stated on any permit given), there is no loot.

Lockout - Regardless of being hit or not, a two-week lockout is enforced by the town against the person for ANY jungle activities to allow the dragons to cool back down.

[Illiandi Bondsmiller]

Lesser Gospog- (if you roll a one or a two on the chart) #1, #2

Description - Vine and root bedraggled corpses of the enemies of the Darkhands, these fallen soldiers’ bodies are used as cannon-fodder in land skirmishes. Ubiquitous but dormant, they come back to activity when unburied by hand or natural forces.

Actions

- Lesser gospog are unarmed and rely on strangling holds and brute strength to disable an enemy.
They post once a round.

- They may be subdued by almost any magic - necromancy, freezing, burning, plant-bending, or sufficient holy presences. They may be physically attacked and are susceptible to anything a regular body is.

- They can heal themselves by incorporating vines and other plantmatter into their bodies, making it rather hard to totally arrest their motion. This healing is a free action and they can do it persistent manner.

- Dismantling them stalls their offense for a time, but unless buried, they will reform.

- They return to full dormancy once buried but cannot be fully stopped until then. Seven hits minimum required.

- They do not flee but can be fled from, as their ground-travel is slow and tracking skills are very poor.

Loot

They may have on them any number of rare mushrooms or other damp-growing and useful plants - if someone’s mindful enough to snag them off the creature.

Lockout - none

Greater Gospog - (if you roll a three on the chart) #3
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Description - Vine and root bedraggled corpses of the enemies of the Darkhands, these fallen allies’ bodies are used as commanders among the other undead. Ubiquitous but dormant, they come back to activity when unburied by hand or natural forces. Each greater gospog may have on them armor and weapons heavily damaged by their time underground and in the damp.

Actions

-Weapon attacks appropriate to whatever they have at hand, in addition to unarmed grappling skills.

- They post once a round, and must choose between a weapon attack or a defensive move.

- They can heal themselves by incorporating vines and other plantmatter into their bodies, making it rather hard to totally arrest their motion. This healing is a free action and they can do it persistent manner.

- Dismantling them stalls their offense for a time, but unless buried, they will reform.

- They return to full dormancy once buried but cannot be fully stopped until then. Ten hits required.

- They do not flee but can be fled from, as their ground-travel is slow. Their tracking skills are average, and they may wander into town, attracted by the lights if not defeated on the spot.

- Their weapons are likely to cause infections or tetanus.

Loot

- If a person is inclined, the battered weapons and armor may be stolen, but undead will always be attracted to it, and the rust will never buff out.

Lockout- Being hit at all by this creature is a minimum three-week lockout, enforced by injury, illness, or the town, just to make sure there is no infection.

[Illiandi Bondsmiller]

Description - At the height of a deer but with the breadth of a bear, this shaggy and well camouflaged beast might first be noticed by its flickering tongue. Bearing the head of a non-venomous snake as big around as a dinner plate, the rest of the beast seems to be covered in rustling brown and green quills. Running low to the ground on four burrowing legs and possessing a tail that is, in fact, a highly venomous viper with a functional second head, this creature is bendy and quick.

Actions

- Either head may attack, but while the larger front head only does pinching and minor puncture damage (easily deflected by any armor), the smaller head punctures deeply and injects a hemotoxin.

- The hemotoxin, in larger people such as humans, causes headaches, lack of blood clotting, nausea, AND disorientation, while at the same time causing significant tissue damage to the affected limb. Armor that is metal or thicker than two inches can avoid or mitigate this attack.

- Less avoidable are the long, long quills, which break off into both skin, armor joints, and certain types of armor as well as the very terrain, quickly making any battleground a maze of sharp, clinging objects deliberately formed to dig further and further in.

- A Lavelue is persistently attempting to flee, though if the venomous head on its tail has landed a successful bite it will track that person until either the Levelue or its victim has dropped.

- Lavelue cannot climb trees, but they can swim.

Loot

- The quills are brittle, but rigid, and can make fine needles or adornments. Hollow, they have medical and artistic applications as well.

- The venom glands from the tail can be used to form a potent antivenom with coagulating properties, needed in healing potions.

- A dedicated leatherworker could pull the snakeskin from the tail, and the head is a good trophy, along with some good eating in the body.

Lockout - Getting bitten by the head end presents no lockouts, but the quills will lock a person out for two weeks while the venom will lock a body out for one.

[Illiandi Bondsmiller]

Description - While not actually a tree but rather an infestation of one, a host-tree being used as a temporary hiding place for the working fairies of the jungle can defend itself quite handily. Normally looking quite like a regular tree, it’s only when you get too close does it act.

Actions

- If a person wanders within nine meters (or, 30 feet) of it, the host tree fires thorns out in braces of two or three with stunning accuracy, aiming to both startle and drug an interloper.

- Each thorn has its own drug, which unless noted, each thorn will have an effect that lasts two to three hours. You can choose to have your hunting partner pick for you, or you can roll a 1d7 to see what you got!

1. Smacked with the Ugly Stick: The victim is perceived by everyone else as being suddenly unattractive and untrustworthy.
2. Violent envy: the victim instantly and insanely resents others who are more handsome, stronger, or more wealthy than they are and have a bone to pick RIGHT NOW with them.
3. Inverted love: Victim hates everything they normally love.
4. Dum-dum dart - Victim loses 20 IQ points per dart.
5. Big-head - Victim cares nothing about the opinions of the concerns or opinions of others and becomes incredibly selfish.
6. The Role Reversal - sortof. Victim becomes convinced they are the first animal they see (but do not actually transform)
7. Bad Luck - Victim has to subtract five from every success roll until they go home.

Loot - none!

Lockout - none!

[Illiandi Bondsmiller]

Description- Immature mandrake roots remain firmly under the ground, and only poke up cabbage like leaves into the light. The center leaves of these glow quite brightly, like a candle. The root itself is initially shaped like a fat human infant, though as the root matures it grows longer and thinner into a more adult shape. Highly impressionable, it will look most like whomever is caring for it. Mobile once adult, they can never talk, but only scream or cry.

Actions

- When a Mandrake is first dug up, it lets out a screech that ensures a migraine for anyone present, or, to the more sensitive, a blackout-fainting. If everyone faints, the mandrake reburies itself.

- When a mandrake becomes adult, it will leave its planting and wander off, never to be found again. If restrained, it will become root-bound and rot to death within a day.

- A mandrake reaches adulthood from the time of its discovery to one month after it is interacted with.

- A mature mandrake will start screaming its migraine or black-out inducing wail.

Loot - The Mandrake is its own loot. Take it to a qualified character to tell you what variety and have their player select one from the following. Alternatively, roll the dice.

1. While it is being cared for the Holy Mandrake owner will be found particularly repellant to undead and may not be physically touched by one. To care for this variety, a faithful person must pray in the presence of it and one other person every night.

2. Anything living under the roof of a dwelling containing a cared-for Fertility Mandrake become extremely fertile, even if they were/are barren. (If the mandrake’s influence is lost during a pregnancy, assume difficulties - or get another mandrake!) To care for this variety, a nightly donation of menses or semen must be added to the soil.

3. Tea made from a chopped-up Palliative Mandrake instantly cures any headache. To care for this variety, the mandrake must be sung to every morning in the presence of another before noon before being slaughtered and its parts dried into flakes. Tea is good for one season.

4. Ground-up Purging Mandrake pulp applied to a poultice can leach out contagions, up to and including vampiric and undeath infections. To care for this variety, the mandrake must be given last-rites by a knowledgeable individual before being killed and mashed. Pulp is good for one month.

5. A Golden Mandrake must be fed a silver coin every night for a month, and then slaughtered on the 29th day exactly. The oil wrung from this mandrake, when applied to any goods, will make the next person who holds the anointed product desperately want to own it, and pay up to ten gold for it quite happily. Seller beware - the infatuation wears off after a full day and you may be asked for a refund!

If you notify an admin of your mandrake discovery, we’ll add it to a calendar to remind you and others of its maturity date.

Lockout - A player subjected to the wailing may be locked out of further activity from a few hours to a few days - even if they weren’t the one that found the Mandrake! (For example, if it’s being cared for in the infirmary, and your character visits a patient there when the mandrake reaches maturity, they can still get locked out)