bubba smith Posted January 5, 2009 Report Share Posted January 5, 2009 Re: HPA In The Works: The Great White Hunter's Bestiary It's a Bestiary, so I'm only interested in what they'd be hunting. While I don't dislike the idea of expanding on the Pulp archetypes at all, I don't envision this as a "Great White Hunter Sourcebook." That might make for an interesting series of HPAs, though! Sorry, but I don't understand who you're referring to here. it WOULD make a good series and i think the big 5 =randals raiders Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nolgroth Posted January 5, 2009 Report Share Posted January 5, 2009 Re: HPA In The Works: The Great White Hunter's Bestiary Living Fetish Dolls! with blow guns. And big knives.Have you been playing Diablo 2 again? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmadanNaBriona Posted January 5, 2009 Report Share Posted January 5, 2009 Re: HPA In The Works: The Great White Hunter's Bestiary Much as I absolutely adore the Great White Hunter archtype (and I do... "Buck" Landis, my first Justice Inc. character, was a Lost World Romance Great White Hunter. I confess to Genre Fiend tendencies), I'm actually drawing sort of a blank on this one. Maybe some of the alternative cryptid explanations for some of the ones commonly thought in the current gestalt to be dinosaurs, like Moloke Membe or "Water Horse" lake monsters like Nessie. I did recall Mbwun from Relic, which is a possibility that could be explored, a cryptid "created" by a shamans potions using cryptoflora ingredients. Other than that... beats me. I usually wound up shooting at megafauna. Speaking of megafauna. to be blunt, the Bestiary versions of a lot of the real megafauna could use a good makeover into more cinematic forms. Right now even big animals have a certain sameness to them. OHHHHHH.... I just had an idea.... maybe the answer is a section for talents/superskills for animals! like Eviscerate, a naked trigger for a claw attack that goes off with a successful Grab & Bite MPA, perfect for Utahraptors and Tigers alike. in the same vein, it'd be a good section for adding toughness packages to customize how hard your beastie will be to drop. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Obvious Posted January 5, 2009 Report Share Posted January 5, 2009 Re: HPA In The Works: The Great White Hunter's Bestiary OHHHHHH.... I just had an idea.... maybe the answer is a section for talents/superskills for animals! like Eviscerate, a naked trigger for a claw attack that goes off with a successful Grab & Bite MPA, perfect for Utahraptors and Tigers alike. in the same vein, it'd be a good section for adding toughness packages to customize how hard your beastie will be to drop. This is a great idea. One possible addition would be a list of strategies that could be used by animals with the Cunning template added. I recall reading about a professional hunter who wasn't able to get a shot at a particular leopard (or maybe jaguar, I don't recall exactly) until it was within leaping distance of him, because it kept some obstacle between them as it approached. The Tsavo lions were also pretty cunning in their hunting. A man-eater with just a taste for human flesh and no smarts to back it up ends up shot within a week or two. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bubba smith Posted January 5, 2009 Report Share Posted January 5, 2009 Re: HPA In The Works: The Great White Hunter's Bestiary Random idea: Pitch-Black Lions - the lion equivalent to the panther - who stalk their prey in the dead of night' date=' invisible to their prey who are slaughtered before they know it.[/quote'] lio-panters sounds goood Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sketchpad Posted January 5, 2009 Report Share Posted January 5, 2009 Re: HPA In The Works: The Great White Hunter's Bestiary Living Fetish Dolls! with blow guns. And big knives. Been watching Trilogy of Terror G-A? How about Giant Fire Ants? Yeti? Vampire Bats? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Mackinder Posted January 5, 2009 Report Share Posted January 5, 2009 Re: HPA In The Works: The Great White Hunter's Bestiary Mongolian Death Worms? Mentioned in 'Fortean Times' magazine - there are apparently still folks in isolated parts of Mongolia convinced that this beast exists. Supposedly it is a kind of giant earthworm that can kill people or livestock with what is basically a poison-gas breath weapon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Long Posted January 5, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 5, 2009 Re: HPA In The Works: The Great White Hunter's Bestiary The Mongolian Death Worm is already in AB1, or else I would include it here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigJackBrass Posted January 5, 2009 Report Share Posted January 5, 2009 Re: HPA In The Works: The Great White Hunter's Bestiary I'm tempted to send a party off in search of the Namibian Fog-Basking Beetle, although big game hunters might be a bit disappointed when they find it It does have one of the best names ever, though; and a reasonable level of acrobatics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Liaden Posted January 5, 2009 Report Share Posted January 5, 2009 Re: HPA In The Works: The Great White Hunter's Bestiary If we're talking beetles, a giant version of the bombardier beetle could make for an extremely unpleasant encounter, especially if the beetle is large enough that its toxic gas could be fatal to humans. Great White Hunters are rarely prepared for quarry that shoots back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lawnmower Boy Posted January 5, 2009 Report Share Posted January 5, 2009 Re: HPA In The Works: The Great White Hunter's Bestiary From my neck of the woods, where in a pulp setting you'll run into Kwakiutl head-hunters, secret Japanese bases, bootleggers and American annexationists, we have: Bears (Kodiaks, Grizzlies) Giant cougars You shouldn't have killed Bambi's mom: moose and elk can be very dangerous. And in an aquatic vein, imagine an isolated pulp mill town, connected with the world only by the coastal steamer, when a spout breaks in the choppy waters. Killer whale? Sea Lion? Anyway, they're tired of seal, and big enough to capsize a boat. Good thing there's a famous tiger-hunter is in Vancouver on his way to catch a CP liner for the Orient... . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest steamteck Posted January 5, 2009 Report Share Posted January 5, 2009 Re: HPA In The Works: The Great White Hunter's Bestiary How about the lions "The Ghost and the Darkness" encountered by Col. Patterson at Tsavo while he was trying to build his bridge in the 1800s. That always seemed a very pulp like story. Nuts got beaten to it. Well add my vote for them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Long Posted January 5, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 5, 2009 Re: HPA In The Works: The Great White Hunter's Bestiary The "Man-Eaters" previously mentioned will be sufficient to cover the Tsavo lions and other such menaces, I think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Basil Posted January 6, 2009 Report Share Posted January 6, 2009 Re: HPA In The Works: The Great White Hunter's Bestiary Maybe a giant catfish' date=' great white whale, or other aquatic great prey.[/quote'] You mean things like these? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Basil Posted January 6, 2009 Report Share Posted January 6, 2009 Re: HPA In The Works: The Great White Hunter's Bestiary I'm tempted to send a party off in search of the Namibian Fog-Basking Beetle' date=' although big game hunters might be a bit disappointed when they find it It does have one of the best names ever, though; and a reasonable level of acrobatics.[/quote'] Hey, hit that BGH with a shrinking ray, do 7 or 8 levels of Shrinking, and he'll find the Namibian Fog-Basking Beetle nothing to sneeze at! Hey, there's an idea: Tiny Game Hunters! Sorry, Steve. I know, fun but not helpful. Oh well... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Long Posted January 6, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 6, 2009 Re: HPA In The Works: The Great White Hunter's Bestiary Well, at least Tiny Game Hunters would find the Dire Chinchilla to be a serious challenge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Main Man Posted January 6, 2009 Report Share Posted January 6, 2009 Re: HPA In The Works: The Great White Hunter's Bestiary Australian "Drop-Bears" could make for an interesting and thrilling encounter... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordGhee Posted January 6, 2009 Report Share Posted January 6, 2009 Re: HPA In The Works: The Great White Hunter's Bestiary The standards elephants lions tigers bears water buffalo pumas jagurs snakes How terrain effects the hunt how the animals use it Lord Ghee Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JmOz Posted January 6, 2009 Report Share Posted January 6, 2009 Re: HPA In The Works: The Great White Hunter's Bestiary I might not remember it in another book, if so I am sorry, but what about the Yetti/Sasquatch? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Obvious Posted January 6, 2009 Report Share Posted January 6, 2009 Re: HPA In The Works: The Great White Hunter's Bestiary There are some Conan stories with "dragons" that are obviously some sort of dinosaur, and there's a Solomon Kane story with "harpies" that are humanoid bats. How about a couple of mythical monsters made over into natural animals, or rather natural animals that could be the inspiration for the myths? Maybe something like a large clawed and fanged monkey with a prehensile tail, which inspired stories of the manticore. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghost-angel Posted January 6, 2009 Report Share Posted January 6, 2009 Re: HPA In The Works: The Great White Hunter's Bestiary I might not remember it in another book' date=' if so I am sorry, but what about the Yetti/Sasquatch?[/quote'] Asian Bestiary II p132 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Admiral C Posted January 7, 2009 Report Share Posted January 7, 2009 Re: HPA In The Works: The Great White Hunter's Bestiary The Cassowary, a vicious ostrich-like bird that still causes fatalities in northern Australia. The Tasmanian tiger. I believe it went extinct right around the turn of the century. Extra large, or lethal, swarms of army ants, piranha (cinematic piranha) locusts, and killer bees. An homage to the The Hound of the Baskervilles might be good. That's not too weird. In homages if you really needed some filler you could have an homage to the wood beast from Flash Gordon. I could easily use this in any number of primitive societies. Whether or not Princess Clara administers the test or not is optional. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Liaden Posted January 7, 2009 Report Share Posted January 7, 2009 Re: HPA In The Works: The Great White Hunter's Bestiary Sorry if I seem to be on a megafauna kick, but I remembered another classic mammalian giant: the Megatherium, or giant ground sloth. The size of an elephant, it weighed up to five tons and could stand on its hind legs and tail to a height of twenty feet. (If you p!ss one off, you'd better have a big tree to climb.) Those huge claws could probably dissembowel a man with one blow. As you can see from the linked article, while the megatherium has long been thought of as a placid grazer like modern sloths, new research suggests it might have been omnivorous, a scavenger or even a predator. And indications are that it went extinct only 8,000 years ago, so isolated survivors are certainly not a stretch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Mackinder Posted January 7, 2009 Report Share Posted January 7, 2009 Re: HPA In The Works: The Great White Hunter's Bestiary The Tasmanian tiger. I believe it went extinct right around the turn of the century. The last known Tasmanian Tiger (Thylacine) specimen died in the Hobart zoo in 1936. That is usually given as when the species became extinct. However, there have been reported sightings of wildly varyiing reliability up to the present day. Interestingly, very few of these sightings have been in Tasmania - most have been on mainland Australia, where it supposedly became extinct thousands of years ago (about the time that the Dingo was introduced). As an aside, it is easy to look at a picture of a Thylacine and mentally classify it as something similar to Canis (the dog family). However, it was on a totally different branch of the evolutionary tree - being a marsupial (females had a pouch for carrying immature young) with stripes, a quite different anatomy and markedly different behavioural traits. That shallow similarity to Canis carries over into these reported sightings - something about the size of a dog or wolf, and roughly the same shape, but striped and with a very very different gait. And able to gape its jaws to an amazing degree (think crocodile). Thylacoleo, the Marsupial Lion, is another possibility, if not already covered. Extinct for over 20,000 years, but there are cryptozoologists who claim it still exists in isolated regions (natch!). Think of it as a Marsupial version of the Sabre-Toothed Tiger, except a tad bigger with the inside curve of its giant canine teeth having SERRATED EDGES. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FenrisUlf Posted January 7, 2009 Report Share Posted January 7, 2009 Re: HPA In The Works: The Great White Hunter's Bestiary For something a little different, what about the Beast of Gevaudan? Hey, why not a European adventure for the GWH? More seriously, if you wanted to use the wildest legends (but stayed within reality otherwise) for the Beast, how would you write it up? I'd go with a very clever wolf, stronger and faster than normal, and probably some Combat Luck as a start. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.