Monster Monday: Bonnacon, the Medieval Bullshit Beast

Today's Monster Monday is the bonnacon, a strange bull-like creature often found in medieval bestiaries.  Unlike a normal bull, the bonnacon's horns are largely useless, curving inwards toward its own head.  It defends itself instead by spraying burning poop at its attackers.  As you might imagine, the bonnacon usually had the funniest picture in the bestiary.

Kongelige Bibliotek, Gl. kgl. S. 1633 4º, Folio 10r, via Wikimedia

Those expressions are priceless.

The earliest recorded reference to the bonnacon (also known as the bonasus) comes from Pliny the Elder's Naturalis Historia:

There are reports of a wild animal in Paeonia called the bonasus, which has the mane of a horse, but in all other respects resembles a bull; its horns are curved back in such a manner as to be of no use for fighting, and it is said that because of this it saves itself by running away, meanwhile emitting a trail of dung that sometimes covers a distance of as much as three furlongs, contact with which scorches pursuers like a sort of fire.

Although such an animal clearly doesn't exist, that doesn't mean Pliny made it up.  Pliny's work was an encyclopedic compilation of information on animals, plants, rocks, astronomy, medicine, and magic, begun in 77 AD and nearly finished by the time Pliny died in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.  He claims to have consulted about 2,000 books, and lists over 400 sources for his information.  The bonnacon may have originated in a work that no longer survives, or belong to an earlier oral tradition.  It may have started life as a joke, a trick that Paeonians played on Romans in the same way that Australians warn tourists to watch out for drop bears, or it could have originated in an observation of a wild European bison with diarrhea, a tale which grew in the telling.  The European bison's hairy, ridged back and its inward-curving horns do lend themselves well to the description of the bonnacon, with its curved horns and horse mane.  It was not uncommon for garbled transmissions and exaggerations to lead to Roman authors recording the existence of fantastic beasts on the peripheries of Roman territory: Julius Caesar, in his account of the conquest of Gaul, describes knee-less elk that sleep upright leaning against a tree, and a deer with an single horn that sprouts into five points.

Medieval bestiaries were collections of animal illustrations combined with descriptions of the beasts and their behavior and lessons that Christians could draw from these animals.  They derived much of their description from the Physiologus, a similar work of late antiquity, but they incorporated elements of other works as well.  The bonnacon made the transition from the Naturalis Historia to the bestiaries, but the monks seem not to have made the attempt to bring a spiritual reading to the description of the beast and its flaming poop.  Its popularity may have been grounded in scatological humor rather than theological study.  The Aberdeen Bestiary, created around 1200 AD, describes it thus:

In Asia an animal is found which men call bonnacon. It has the head of a bull, and thereafter its whole body is of the size of a bull's with the maned neck of a horse. Its horns are convoluted, curling back on themselves in such a way that if anyone comes up against it, he is not harmed. But the protection which its forehead denies this monster is furnished by its bowels. For when it turns to flee, it discharges fumes from the excrement of its belly over a distance of three acres, the heat of which sets fire to anything it touches. In this way, it drives off its pursuers with its harmful excrement.

The description is much the same as Pliny's, but its location has shifted from Paeonia (roughly modern day Macedonia) to the more mysterious and less known Asia.  Illustrations of the bonnacon often feature armored hunters protecting themselves from its flaming poop with large shields, usually while looking suitably grossed-out.

Oddly, the bonnacon found its way into Jacobus de Voragine's The Golden Legend, a 13th century collection of fantastic and inspiring tales about the lives of saints.  In the story of Saint Martha, the saint tames a ferocious beast called the tarasque, which is described as "a great dragon, half beast and half fish, greater than an ox, longer than an horse, having teeth sharp as a sword, and horned on either side, head like a lion, tail like a serpent, and defended him with two wings on either side, and could not be beaten with cast of stones ne with other armour, and was as strong as twelve lions or bears."  We dungeon delvers are more familiar with the classic D&D tarrasque (with two 'r's), a nigh-unstoppable Godzilla-like monster that has served as the final boss of many a campaign.  In The Golden Legend, the tarasque is said to be the offspring of the biblical Leviathan and, oddly enough, the pooptastic bonnacon (here rendered 'bonacho').

My bonnacon is below.  After the stat block, I will talk about my decision making process in statting the beast up.

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2016 Jonah Bomgaars.


This reddish-brown creature resembles a bull with a wild mane and inward-curving horns

Bonnacon   CR 3

XP 800

N Large animal

Init +0; Senses low-light vision; Perception +10

DEFENSE

AC 15, touch 9, flat-footed 15 (+6 natural, -1 size)

hp 30 (4d8+12)

Fort +7, Ref +4, Will +1

OFFENSE

Speed 40 ft.

Melee slam +7 (1d6+7)

Space 10 ft.; Reach 5 ft.

Special Attacks acid dung spray (20-ft. cone, 4d6 acid damage, Reflex DC 15 half, usable once every 1d4 rounds), trample (1d6+7, DC 17)

STATISTICS

Str 21, Dex 10, Con 16, Int 1, Wis 11, Cha 3

Base Atk +3; CMB +9; CMD 19 (23 vs. trip)

Feats Run, Skill Focus (Perception)

Skills Perception +10

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Acid Dung Spray (Ex)

As a standard action once every 1d4 rounds, the bonnacon can expel the contents of its lower digestive tract out of its anus, covering a 20-foot cone in copious amounts of acidic feces.  Those coated in the feces take 4d6 acid damage and an additional 2d6 points of acid damage for 1d3 rounds thereafter, or until the feces is removed (a full-round action provoking attacks of opportunity).  Those who succeed on a DC 15 Reflex save take half damage from the initial spray and do not suffer the ongoing damage.  The save DC is Constitution-based.

ECOLOGY

Environment warm or temperate plains

Organization solitary

Treasure none

The bonnacon, or bonasus, is a solitary species of bovine that would be unremarkable if not for its highly unusual defense method.  Its inward-curving horns are not suitable for goring, but the bonnacon’s strange digestive system produces a highly acidic dung that the creature propels from its anus at would-be attackers.  Most predators are put off by such an attack, allowing the bonnacon time to escape, but some humanoid societies consider the bonnacon hunt to be a test of skill and courage.  

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Although the bonnacon is a mythical beast with an extraordinary and unnatural ability (the poop attack), I opted to stat it up as an animal rather than a magical beast.  I first set out to stat it as a magical beast, but I could never get it to turn out quite right.  Statting up a monster using the rules and guidelines found in the back of the Pathfinder Bestiary can be quite the balancing act; whenever I got one aspect of the bonnacon right, it became too powerful in other ways.  I finally settled on making the change to the less inherently powerful animal monster type and it turned out much better.  There is precedent for statting up clearly mythical beasts as animals - the giant roc, for instance.

For the bonnacon's famous dung, I opted for the more naturalistic idea that it had acidic poop rather than literally flaming, napalm-like poop.  After all, it is described in the original sources as burning 'like fire', not literally combusting.  The acid dung spray attack is therefore more analogous to a skunk's musk or a bombardier beetle's acid spray than a dragon's breath weapon.  I also reduced its area of effect to a more manageable 20 foot cone; being able to cover a whole acre in burning poop would obviously be an overpowered ability for such a creature in-game, and I don't even want to contemplate what hellish demiplane such a beast's anus must draw its payload from.

-your scatological d20 despot