The Bestiary

A world is not only made of sentient and thinking creatures. It also possesses specific flora and fauna. This page intends to help you create a bestiary. 

But what means "Bestiary" in reality?

Formerly, a bestiary was a kind of gladiator which struggles against ferocious beasts, commonly lions and tigers. The word evolves through middle-age to design a book which deals with a real or mythical flora and fauna so as to illustrate a moral principle, mostly of christian inspiration. This evolution results from Aesopus's Fables and will be reuse by Jean de la Fontaine. Now you know everything about the word "Bestiary".

What's a Bestiary in a Roleplaying Game?

In the RPGs, the bestiary is a compilation of creatures, supernatural or not, translated through the game in terms of rules and dices. Some Bestiary are very simple, consisting in a board recapitulating characteristics. Some others are more complete, like true biology books and sometimes illustrated.

Preliminary Work before creating a Bestiary :

Before creating a Bestiary, fastidious and very long job, it may be useful to ask some important questions : here are some examples :

1) Does creating a Bestiary have priority?

It's useless to create a bestiary if your rules, world, characteristics, archetypes and so forth are not totally determined. These elements are essential to elaborate a coherent bestiary for your universe.

2) What's the level of importance of your bestiary?

As a function of the scale of your universe, it's not always necessarily to create a very dense nor complex. Then, if your universe is a world like "The Lost World", it's clear that the bestiary is of prior importance because the main enemies will be animals.

Détermining dthe Content of the Bestiary:

Before creating your bestiarey, you must determine it's content. This content will be radically different from one universe to another. We can determine three great families of creatures which can be involved in a bestiary  :

1) Real Creatures : these are the creatures you may encounter on Earth. Of course, you might not include a pig, a hen or a fly. Only dangerous creatures, such as predators or parasites may figure in it and be translated into rules. For instance, lion, tiger, panthera, bear, wolf, dog and even cat which may be dangerous to a normal beeing. For reasons which may be not fight, you can also include steeds and preys.

2) Mythological Creatures from various Religion on Earth : These are all creatures from mythologies, folklores and legends all around the world. They are generally evoked because of their ferocity toward men, thair magical properties, or their fabulous natures. Examples are numerous such as Pegasus, salamanders, wurms, dragons. Some are misknown like Perytons, Rakshasa or Ki-Rinn. Vampires, Giants, Titans and Lycathropus are quiet exceptions because many RPGs treat them as races of sentient beings : it's up to you to consider creatures as sentient but in this case, they can't be in a bestiary.

3) Creatures from your own universeThese are creatures YOU create. For instance, many space RPGs deals with extraterrestrials, so they created a whole fauna and flora for it.  Some heroic-fatasy RPGs, like AD&D, created many races belonging only to their own universe.

A Balanced Bestiary :

When you create your bestiary, you must try to balance it. But balancing doesn't mean that all creatures must be equal but that somme of them are really weaker or really stronger than others. Why? Because it is important that Players from any level of power might encounter to harsh creatures (Harsh! Not impossible!). This equilibrium doesn't include only characteristics and skills but also inherent powers. A monster with only 1 hit point may be more difficult to destroy than a dragon if he may kill a character in one single shot. Then, you just have to consider all this elements to create creatures graded toward à medium beginner character. (It doesn't prevent you from creating really weak monsters or very powerful monsters) :

1) 25% of the average score of a beginner character : these creatures are only a difficulty in a beginner character meets a throng of them. They might be granted with weak characteristics, few chances to hit and deal little damages.

2) 50% of the average score of a beginner character : These creatures may have average characteristics of a power which may be problematical or a long range power. They might then become a real challenge.

3) 75% of the average score of a beginner character : these are really dangerous creatures for beginners or problematical for higher level characters. Thay might have dangerous powers or deal important damages.

Afterwards you may create equivalent or more powerful creatures than a beginner character. You may intend normal creatures for beginners Character and mythological ones for more experienced characters. When you create new creatures which belong to your world, don't forget to simulate a battle so as to asses their real potential. It's the better way to avoid a slaughter during a scenario.

Type of Damages dealt by Animals :

It's important to determine the type of damages done by animals so as to codify them in term of rules and to choose those which are appliable and those you will have to ignore because of their incompatibility with your rule system. Let's try to list those damages (the assessment of their damage value consider no armor : these are the damages done to a human body without any protection) :

1) Bite : this type of damage is done by creatures possessing fangs. Considering the size of the bite and the resulting wound, damages may be more of less important. A mouse's bite won't deal any damage but a rat may deal 1% to 3% of damage on the average Hit Points of a beginner characters. the Bite of a super predator (sharks, tigers, bears) may deal 40% to 100% of damage (lethal). A bite dealing a loss of 20% or more of Hit Points always involve an haemorrhage more or less important (loss of Hit Points per Round). Many mythological creaturs, such as dragons or chimaera may bite too.

2) Scratch : this type of damage is done by creatures possessing claws. Commonly, they are less important than bites but many creatures can scratch. A cat may deal  2% to 5% of damages, a super predator between 15% and 30%. Beware! One of the most dangerous animal for his scratch is quiet amazing : it is the sloth. Although he is a slow animal, he can scratch at a lightning speed and many jaguars died disembowelled by a sloth.

3) Impalement : this type of damage is done by creatures possessing tusks, horns, beaks or rostrum. Resulting damages mùay vary but must be between  1% and 40% of lost Hit Points.

4) Crushing & Stamping : this type of damage is done by heavy creatures or pack of creatures. It mey be a lone creature, such as an elephant, a bull or a pack of zebus. Many mythological may crush because of their size. A crushing may deal between 70% and 100% of damages and normally, a stamping is mortal for a normal human.

5) Suffocation : this type of damage is done by creatures possessing constrictive capacities or who drown their preys. Constricting creatures, like anacondas, tighten their body around their victim and each time the victim expells its air from its lungs, the anaconda constricts more. The prey die of suffocation. Crocodile grips their preys with their powerful jaws and drown it under water. You can maage this by two methods : an amount of Hit points lost each round or a saving throw each round based upon a characteristic (like constitution), on a failure, the victim loses an amount of hit points. Each round, a victim may try to escape with a strength roll but those predators often possess a significant strength, generally greater than the strength of a beginner character.

6) Venoms : may creatures generate venoms : insects, snakes, fishes. Mananging venoms is quiet complicated but you can classify them in four main categories :

    _ Paralyzing venoms : A saving throw based upon a characteristic is necessary to resist to them. Failure means applying of the venom's effect.

    _ Digestive venoms : they deal damages each round.

    _ Corrosive venoms : they deal great amount of damages in a single round (no repetition afterwards).

    _ Mixed venoms : paralysing and corrosive or paralyzing and digestive.

7) Magical effects : only for mythological creatures of course. Possibilities are huge so we won't try to do a census : here are some examples :

    _ Elementary effects : the creature controls an element (fire, ice, metal, water, air...) or can throw an elementary attack. 

    _ Petrification effects : The creature may turn a living into stone, metal, salt... with it's eyes or through a venom it may spit or sweat.

    _ Illusion effects : the creature generate an illusion affecting one or several senses.

    _ Invulnerability effects : the creature is unaffected permanently or temporarily by one or several elements (iron, magic, wood, gold)

As a conclusion, don't forget that a Bestiary musn't be a compilation of creatures which can turn powerful players into gruel and porridge. Monsters must be a challenge but Players must be able to reach levels where thay can compete with them on an equal field or overpower them.

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