Defending Your Territory

One of the chief ways animals communicate with and defend their territory or belongings against other animals is through scent marking. This involves rubbing objects or creatures with scent glands, urination, defecation, and other methods of leaving one’s distinct smell on the target. Every species language includes scent as a component, and no one learning another species’ language can truly understand it without knowing that species’ repertoire of scent messages. 

When an object or area becomes contested between two or more animals, a scent battle can ensue. Scent battles are a sort of non-lethal conflict by proxy, but follow different rules, since the parties are usually not both present at the same time. One party marks a target with her scent, then the other character comes along later and tries to overwhelm the previous scent. This can go on for days, sometimes months, without the two characters ever actually meeting. This does not imply, however, that scent battles are unwinnable, or fought by attrition. Victory can be achieved depending on the difference in Hit Dice/Total Levels between the two animals involved. 

Table 4.4 Scent Battle Resolution Matrix shows one way to resolve the conflict. It is based on the original fantasy game cleric’s ability to “turn the undead.” A player consults the column on the left, “PC Level,” to find her own current Total Levels. She then cross-references it with her opponent’s Hit Dice or Total Levels to the right. The number shown is the modifier to her core dice roll when trying to win a scent battle against that opponent; that is, the number she adds to her roll. A * indicates victory without rolling. The opposing character will simply give up the fight and move on to other prospects. 

NPCs who fail three consecutive Scent Battles will also give up and move on to another area. 

Note that this is the only modifier applied to your core dice roll during a Scent Battle, unless you have the Guardian niche.  Guardians can add their niche die roll result to a Scent Battle check.

                                        Opponent's Hit Dice/Total Levels

              

PC Lvl	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
1	+7	+3	+1	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
2	+9	+5	+2	+0	No	No	No	No	No	No
3	+11	+7	+3	+1	No	No	No	No	No	No
4	+13	+9	+5	+2	+0	No	No	No	No	No
5	+15	+11	+7	+3	+1	No	No	No	No	No
6	+17	+13	+9	+5	+2	+0	No	No	No	No
7	+18	+15	+11	+7	+3	+1	No	No	No	No
8	*	+17	+13	+9	+5	+2	+0	No	No	No
9	*	+18	+15	+11	+7	+3	+1	No	No	No
10	*	*	+17	+13	+9	+5	+2	+0	No	No

5e Animal PC -- Baboon Warlock

Because why not, that's why.

Baboon Warlock
Small beast, Chaotic neutral

Armor Class 12 
Hit Points 8 (1d8) 
Speed 30 ft., climb 30 ft. 

STR 8 (-1) DEX 14 (+2) CON 11 (+0) INT 10 (+0) WIS 12 (+1) CHA 15 (+2)

Skills Deception +2, Intimidation +2
Senses passive Perception 11
Languages Common
Saving Throws Wisdom, Charisma  

Cantrips This baboon warlock knows the chill touch and eldritch blast cantrips.
Otherworldy Patron This baboon warlock serves the Archfey. 
Fey Presence This baboon warlock can cause each creature within 10 feet of it to make a Wisdom save against its spell save DC of 12, or become charmed or frightened by the baboon until the end of their next turn.
Pack Tactics The baboon warlock has advantage on an attack roll against a creature if at least one of the baboon's allies is within 5 feet of the creature and isn't incapacitated.
Spells This baboon warlock knows the 1st-level spells ray of sickness and witch bolt. 

Actions
Bite Melee weapon attack: +1 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target.
Hit 1 (1d4-1) piercing damage

My next project...

I'm entering the home stretch on the writing of Great & Small's extended rules.  I should be finishing the final draft in a couple of weeks, then moving into laying it out.  After that, I will go forward with some kind of crowd-funding effort to pay some artists and get it available for sale in hard-copy and PDF (with art), but with an art-free PDF version always available at no charge.

Anyway, since my brain feels like the end is in sight with this project (which it's not; I'm gonna maintain this blog indefinitely, adding support material, reviews, etc.), it's starting to let some of the other ideas down in my creative dungeon scratch at the door, demanding to be the Next Big Thing.

The one that's scratching loudest is one I've wanted to try for a long time, but just seemed too... niche, I guess: a musical horror fantasy setting inspired by vintage monster rock songs. 

To scratch that itch, I wrote up a little ditty and started a second blog, so I could have a foundation in  place if the idea proves popular.  You can read about here: Tales from the Haunted Jukebox.

Hope you like it.  If it grows some legs, I'll add more over there intermittently, but Great & Small remains my top priority.

Review -- The Book Of The Dun Cow

This is how it's done, folks.  If you're looking for a near-flawless example of an epic fantasy novel starring animal characters, The Book Of The Dun Cow by Walter Wangerin Jr., is what you want. I'd argue that the book is -- or can be -- to animal fantasy role-playing what Tolkein's Lord Of The Rings is to traditional longpaw fantasy gaming.

Set in a distant time before Man, when the sun still orbited the Earth and animals could still speak, the stakes in Wangerin's tale couldn't be any higher: there is a horrible evil rising in a distant land, that threatens the very pillars of creation. Its vile army of monsters and dark magic spreads at a rapid pace, and few in its wake are willing to acknowledge its coming before it is too late for them.  So it falls to a noble rooster king, Chauntecleer, and the common-folk animals of his kingdom to rise to the occasion and save the world, perhaps at the cost of their own lives.

Like C.S. Lewis's Narnia (another big influence on Great & Small), The Book Of The Dun Cow is a Christian fable cloaked in an epic fantasy story, but is so well done that it transcends its own religious identity to become something with more universal appeal.  When I first read it back in high school (aka, the Pleistocene Era), I couldn't help but see it as at least a thematic cousin to Tolkein's great trilogy as well as Lewis's series. It just feels like an epic medieval fantasy, despite the lack of swords, elves, and castles.  Indeed, I distinctly remember pitching it to a friend as, "Animal Farm meets The Lord Of The Rings."

It has a distinctly medievalist outlook, for one thing, with a feudal system overseen by rooster monarchs and every animal in the realm knowing (and mostly loving) his or her place in the God-given social order.  And it features a multi-species cast of reluctant heroes drawn together by fate and tragedy, to carry out a sacred pact of which they never knew they were a part, but still feel duty-bound to uphold.

Also like LOTR, Dun Cow features monsters that would become staples of nearly every version of the D&D game and its imitators.  Tolkein had dragons and orcs, of course.  This novel has basilisks and their master, the Cockatrice, with their powers pretty much straight out of (or into?) the Monster Manual.

Winner of the National Book Award in 1980, Dun Cow was considered a surefire future classic, but seems to have fallen into obscurity among fantasy fans since then... a fate it does not deserve. In my opinion, it's not just the definitive animal fantasy novel, but a great fantasy novel, period.  It has pride of place on my shelf alongside Tolkein, Lewis, Lackey, and Tad Williams' Tailchaser's Song, as one of those fantasy books I keep coming back to and always seems fresh, revealing new depths every time it's read.

Contrasted with Watership Down -- which was essentially a sandbox hexcrawl with rabbits -- Dun Cow is more of a scripted campaign with a multi-racial adventuring party.  It's a great model for how  to integrate characters of multiple species who might otherwise be antagonists to one another into a cohesive unit bound by loyalty and mutual affection.  In addition to Chauntecleer the rooster, the main heroes include a depressed dog, a family of mice, and a weasel.  Even ants get in on the action.

I loved Watership Down, as both a kid and an adult.  But it was The Book Of The Dun Cow that first made me want to play D&D with animal PCs.  If you haven't already, I recommend you read it, and see if it has the same effect on you.