Populating your Lost World

[Susano]

Okay, the obvious choice is Weta Workshop's THE WORLD OF KONG: A NATURAL HISTORY OF SKULL ISLAND, however, there are a number of other sources I'd like to recommend:

A LIVING DINOSAUR -- Roy Mackal
The search for the mokele-mbembe, the sauropod of the Congo, also lists other dinosaurs of Africa.

SEARCHING FOR HIDDEN ANIMALS -- Roy Mackal
Contains the buru, a 15' lizard from India, and Pulp-era stories of the man-eating tree of Madagascar.

AFTER MAN -- Dougal Dixon
THE NEW DINOSAURS -- Dougal Dixon
Both books detail life on Earth after an extended period of evolution. After Man presumes it is 50 million years after man has vanished from the Earth, taking with him dogs, cats, horses, cows, whales, and so on. The New Dinosaurs looks at what might have happened if the dinosaurs never died out. The first book has rats the size of wolves and large predatory bats. The second book has all sorts of odd dinosaurs, including an enormous descendent of T. Rex.

THE NEW DINOSAURS -- William Stout
A beautiful book of art by William Stout, this book (not to be confused with the one above) gives a look at the real world of the dinosaurs, through life, death, mating, and so on. I was able to find a revised edition of the book, which contains a lot of modern material in the first few chapters, all updated from its original early 1980s publication.

GURPS: PLACES OF MYSTERY
A source book about interesting lost ruins and places around the world. All of them can easily be dropped into the Hollow Earth.

THRILLING PLACES
This HERO System sourcebook is due out in about 4-6 weeks. It will detail various places (such as a German castle and an American office building) that make for good adventure locals when not in a Lost Word. Oh, and there's at least one ruin in there, too.

THE COMPLETE DREAMLANDS
This Call of Cthulhu sourcebook describes the fantasy world of H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands. Can either be used to provide possible Lost World societies, or as an alternate world reachable via Weird Science.

EXPEDITION -- Wayne Douglas Barlow
Want to get really strange? Adapt some of these alien animals from Barlow's fictious survey book to your Lost World.

And, of course there's the "Walking With" series:

WALKING WITH DINOSAURS
WALKING WITH BEASTS
WALKING WITH MONSTERS
CHASED BY DINOSAURS

[TheRavenIs]

Wow, how do find the time for this? I love it, thanks.

REPPED!!!!

[Prometheus]

I'd add Dinotopia by James Gurney. The island is a ready-made Lost World you could drop right into a game.

[Susano]

Wow, how do find the time for this? I love it, thanks.

REPPED!!!!

Oh, I own all of this, too.

And for those who want the World of Kong for HERO....

http://surbrook.devermore.net/adapti...ng/wokong.html

[Gawain]

Do you ever plan to stat out the creatures in those other books??

[Susano]

Do you ever plan to stat out the creatures in those other books??

Whoa... now you're talkin' crazy!

(No idea, really)

[Steve Long]

THRILLING PLACES
This HERO System sourcebook is due out in about 4-6 weeks. It will detail various places (such as a German castle and an American office building) that make for good adventure locals when not in a Lost Word. Oh, and there's at least one ruin in there, too.

There are a number of locations in TP, such as Neos Themiscyra, K'hull Island, Xinca-Hol, and the Island of the Pale White Lady that could easily be lifted into a Lost World whole-cloth with little or no work on the GM's part.

[Susano]

There are a number of locations in TP, such as Neos Themiscyra, K'hull Island, Xinca-Hol, and the Island of the Pale White Lady that could easily be lifted into a Lost World whole-cloth with little or no work on the GM's part.

Yeah... I never did give it the going over I wanted to. Too much input, not enough downtime to digest it all.

[the Evil DM]

Lands of Mystery for JI is an invaluable resource. If you can find a copy of it.

[Steve Long]

Lands of Mystery for JI is an invaluable resource. If you can find a copy of it.

You don't need to worry 'bout that, seeing as how we're publishing a new, all-improved edition of LoM by Aaron and myself next year.

[Vestnik]

Whoa... now you're talkin' crazy!

(No idea, really)

Man, I would LOVE to see the stuff in After Man statted out. I spent hours and hours over that book in Junior High School.

[Susano]

Oh no! No you don't! I won't do it! I won't!

Control... slipping... must... remain... firm....

[Just Joe]

Man, I would LOVE to see the stuff in After Man statted out. I spent hours and hours over that book in Junior High School.

I did a little bit of work on this recently, but didn't get that far. Two things stopped (or at least delayed) me. One is that as cool as they look, the creatures don't necessarily stat out that differently from real-world animals* (which made the task less exciting). Second, my gaming attention shifted, as it is wont to do.

If anyone's interested in my not-quite-complete write-ups of the horrane and two types of raboon (grandis & vulgaris), remind me by PM next week, when I should have time to try to get them up. (Can I put HD files up directly on these boards?)

* OK, I gave the large raboon 35 STR, 24 BOD, and a 1 1/2d6 HKA (3d6 + 1 w/ STR), which is nastier than what I'd give any real-world modern terrestrial (as opposed to aquatic) predator. Hmmm . . . I need to look up a polar bear and compare. The large raboon should be nastier (except possibly lower OCV).

Edit: Of course, knowing Susano, I'd bet you'll end up with more and better write-ups from him before next week anyway.

[Susano]

My thought with AFTER MAN was to do packages. To make a rabbuck, take a deer and add/subtract the following...

And so on.

[Bismark]

For more speculative beasties there is the stuff in THE FUTURE IS WILD DVD; my favourites are the '200 million years in the future' thingies like the Megasquid and the Squibbon (and I have always liked the large predatory worms).

The Swampus and Lurkfish (both from the 'hothouse' episode) would make nice denizens for a remote tropical swamp area.