Monster Monday: Tasmanian Devil & Dire Tasmanian Devil

Today's Monster Monday is the Tasmanian devil and the dire Tasmanian devil. Sometimes called the "marsupial wolverine" by me and at least one other person, Tasmanian devils are fierce little critters from the island of Tasmania off the south coast of Australia. At about 2 feet long, the Tasmanian devil is the largest living marsupial carnivore. They may not be big, but their jaws are so strong that these guys can eat bones. They just munch 'em down like it's no big deal, even though whenever I try to eat a chicken wing bone my dentist yells at me.

photo by Mike Lehmann, via Wikimedia

So cute! Does it really deserve to be called a devil?

The devils got their name because, when they get together at night to feast on a delicious carcass, they let out terrifying screeches. When white settlers in Tasmania heard unearthly howls and crunching bones coming out of the already none-too-friendly Australian night, they thought that was fairly devil-like. They usually eat carrion, but they can take down prey when they need to - they can even take down a small kangaroo if pressed.

What about the dire Tasmanian devil? A lot of dire animals in D&D and fantasy in general are based on actual prehistoric creatures. This started with the dire wolf, canis dirus, which was a slightly bigger than normal wolves. Fantasy game designers ran with the exciting 'dire' descriptor and applied it to a slew of prehistoric animals like the short-faced bear and irish elk. They didn't stop there, though, creating 'dire' versions of animals with no real prehistoric equivalent, like dire weasels and dire badgers. The dire Tasmanian devil is one of the latter. Although there were larger prehistoric devils in Australia, Sarcophilus laniarius, they were only slightly larger than modern devils, not five feet long like the dire Tasmanian devil below. I took some creative license because I like 'dire' animals.

via Wikimedia

Tasmanian devil skull. Nice teeth.

I've been using the name 'Tasmanian devil' a lot in this post, but you won't see it in the stat block below. Why? Let's talk some more about real-world names in fantasy worlds. I mentioned back in my titanosaur post how names that reference real-world places (like the Argentinosaurus from Argentina) don't really work in a fantasy world. The Tasmanian devil finds itself in a very similar situation, given that most fantasy worlds do not have an island called Tasmania, let alone the Dutch explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman for whom the island was named. Take away 'Tasmanian' and you are left with just 'devil', which is rather broad and pretty confusing, especially in a world where real extraplanar devils exist.

I ran through several potential alternative names before settling down on one. 'Devil quoll' sort of works - quolls are a related cat-sized marsupial carnivore that are smaller and less bitey than Tasmanian devils, but if I named it 'devil quoll' I'd have to explain what quolls are. 'Marsupial devil' gets the idea across fairly well, but it also conjures up images of Satan with a pouch full of babies on his tummy. Its genus, sarcophilus, sounds pretty cool but it sounds more like a dinosaur than a fuzzy little guy. Eventually I settled on 'tarrabah', which is one of the Tasmanian Aboriginal names for the creature recorded by early white settlers, along with 'poirinnah' and 'par-loo-mer-rer' - I went with tarrabah because it starts with a 't' like Tasmanian devil. If you incorporate it into your campaign (and boy have I been giving a lot of thought to an Australian-inspired fantasy world), call it by any of those names or none of them.

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2018 Jonah Bomgaars.

This squat, black-furred creature sports a large head full of sharp teeth

Marsupial, Tarrabah    CR 1/2

XP 200

N Tiny animal

Init +1; Senses low-light vision, scent; Perception +5

DEFENSE

AC 14, touch 13, flat-footed 13 (+1 Dex, +1 natural, +2 size)

hp 6 (1d8+2)

Fort +4, Ref +3, Will +1

OFFENSE

Speed 20 ft.

Melee bite +3 (1d4), 2 claws +3 (1d2 plus grab)

Space 2-1/2 ft.; Reach 2-1/2 ft.

STATISTICS

Str 10, Dex 13, Con 14, Int 2, Wis 13, Cha 6

Base Atk +0; CMB -2 (+2 grapple); CMD 9 (13 vs trip)

Feats Power Attack

Skills Climb+3, Perception +5; Racial Modifiers +2 Climb

SQ tenacious bite

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Tenacious Bite (Ex)

A tarrabah’s bite is powerful enough to shear through a metal trap. When attacking an unattended object, the tarrabah ignores the first 5 points of hardness.

ECOLOGY

Environment temperate forest, plains, and hills

Organization solitary, pair, frenzy (3-6)

Treasure none

The tarrabah, also known as the devil quoll or marsupial wolverine, is a nocturnal hunter and scavenger. About the size of a cat, but much squatter and thicker; its powerful forearms and large head give it a front-heavy look and a bulldog-like gait. Tarrabahs sleep in secure burrows during the day, emerging at night to search for prey or carrion. Although they are solitary animals, when a tarrabah encounters a kill too large for them to eat in one night, they call others to the area with their haunting cries and, after a few fights to establish dominance, feast communally on the carcass. They often eat the entire carcass, including bones and fur. Tarrabahs have an adversarial relationship with thylacines, whose kills they often scavenge and whose young they will opportunistically eat; thylacines, in turn, prey upon both juvenile and adult tarrabahs.

This giant tarrabah is roughly the size of a black bear

Marsupial, Dire Tarrabah     CR 2

XP 600

N Medium animal

Init +1; Senses low-light vision, scent; Perception +8

DEFENSE

AC 14, touch 11, flat-footed 13 (+1 Dex, +3 natural)

hp 22 (3d8+9)

Fort +6, Ref +4, Will +3

OFFENSE

Speed 30 ft.

Melee bite +5 (1d8+3), 2 claws +5 (1d4+3 plus grab)

STATISTICS

Str 16, Dex 13, Con 17, Int 2, Wis 14, Cha 6

Base Atk +2; CMB +5 (+9 grapple); CMD 17 (21 vs trip)

Feats Defensive Combat Training, Power Attack

Skills Perception +8

SQ tenacious bite

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Tenacious Bite (Ex)

When attacking an unattended object, the dire tarrabah ignores the first 5 points of hardness.

ECOLOGY

Environment temperate forest, plains, and hills

Organization solitary, pair

Treasure none

The dire tarrabah is about five feet long and stands three feet tall at the shoulder. It uses its powerful forearms and sharp claws to grip prey while its bite crushes armor and bone with ease. Like their smaller cousins, dire tarrabahs are both predators and scavengers. They eat the carcasses of other giant marsupials, and are capable of surprising bursts of speed that can take even a red kangaroo by surprise.

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Plot Hooks and Encounter Ideas

• The adventurers are disturbed by loud howls in the night as hungry tarrabahs descend on their bush camp to feast on their rations - but the adventurers might end up on the menu if they aren't careful.
• A diprotodon rancher asks the adventurers for help getting rid of a pair of dire tarrabahs who she thinks have been attacking her flock in the night.
• A gnomish druid wants to keep tarrabahs and thylacines from stealing and eating each other's young, and he has roped the adventurers into his wild scheme, which involves a lot of shape-changing.

Fun fact: Tasmanian devils will eat human corpses, but they don't kill and heat humans. The same cannot always be said the other way around - according to the Illustrated London News Sept. 14, 1861 (which calls the devil the 'ursine dasyure' - add that to the name list) convict settlers in Tasmania ate devils and described the taste as "not unlike veal." 

-your sarcophile d20 despot