Plane of the Apes, Part I: Chimpanzees and Orangutans

I hope y'all like apes, because this month's Monster Mondays are all ape related. I'll explain why in a moment, but first: Today's Monster Monday (yes, I know it's Tuesday) is the chimpanzee and the orangutan. Both of these great apes are intelligent, tool-using forest dwellers. While orangutans are typically loners, chimpanzees have a complex social structure. Chimps will even form hunting parties and sometimes engage in inter-troop warfare.

Orangutan photo by David Arvidsson, via Wikimedia / Chimpanzee photo by Hans Hillewaert, via Wikimedia

At this point, some of you may be wondering, "Hey, but chimpanzees and orangutans are already statted up for Pathfinder. So are gorillas and gigantopitheci, two of the other apes I determined you were going to be profiling either by guessing, reading ahead, or through use of my own psychic powers. So why are you statting them up again?" A fair question. Several months ago, I set out to stat up a man-ape - the sort of monstrous beast that Conan might fight in a rad Frank Frazetta painting or an equally rad but problematically racist Conan short story. In so doing, I checked the pre-existing stat blocks for several apes in order to get a baseline to work off of. What I found was a bit of a mess. According to their stat blocks, chimpanzees and orangutans have 11 Strength - roughly what an average peasant NPC might have. If you know anything about apes, you know this is wrong. Chimps and orangutans have incredibly strong arm muscles. Like Kickpuncher, their punches have the power of kicks. In fact, unless you are pals with Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, adult chimpanzees are probably stronger than anyone you've ever met. The much stronger gorilla has a Strength score of 15, which you might recognize as the roll you got for your fighter's Strength shortly before the GM let you re-roll.

So I set to work doing what RPG nerds do best - pedantically correcting the products of hard-working professional game designers. I did some research into the strength of apes, the many attempts to measure ape strength compared to humans and the assorted downfalls of such trial methods. I read about how apes defend themselves in the wild, and what parts of their body they use when attacking each other. I looked at Wikipedia and saw that gorillas are usually 4'11"-5'11" tall, putting them squarely in the Medium size category, not Large as they had been statted up. I went to a zoo and stood next to a gorilla and confirmed that no, they are not as big as horses. I took all of this knowledge and used it to give you this wonderful month full of apes.

Next week, we will Return to the Plane of the Apes with the gorilla and silverback gorilla, then we'll journey Beneath the Plane of the Apes to dig up the aptly named gigantopithecus, also known as the Dire Ape. Finally, we'll witness the War for the Plane of the Apes with the terrifying and monstrous Man-Ape. But first, let's look at those stat blocks for the chimpanzee and orangutan.

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

Monster Monday: Slow Loris, the Primate with the Poison Bite

Everyone turned to stare when the wizard entered the bar.  Magic types didn't often show up in this part of town, especially not ones dressed so fancy.  The spindly caster leaned on an intricately carved staff tipped with gleaming jewels.  His long blue robes were finely tailored and trimmed with gold.  His ink-black calfskin boots, lightly caked with fresh street-mud, otherwise showed no signs of wear.  And, most peculiarly, he had a furry, cat-sized creature clinging to his shoulder, gripping his robes with little human-like fingers and staring around with round eyes like silver thalers.

He didn't look like he belonged here in the Bilge and Bunyon, but he sure seemed to know what he wanted.  "Ratcatcher!" he shouted, storming toward the chubby Shadow Guild operative's table.  Three toughs stood simultaneously to bar the wizard's passage, but Ratcatcher waved them away.  One of them succeeded in taking the wizard's staff away, but the intruder didn't seem to mind.

"What brings you to my humble table today, Harmac?"

"You know damn well, Rat.  Where is it?"

Ratcatcher leaned back, his stout chair creaking like an old ship.  "I'm afraid I'm not a mind-reader, Harmac.  Maybe you fancy magic boy types forget we aren't all arcanely attuned."  The wizard seemed angry.  Ratcatcher drummed his sausage-like fingers on the table, showing off his many magic rings as a subtle reminder that he was warded against any spells Harmac might try on him.

"The idol, you greasy slop bucket!  Give me back the idol!"  Ratcatcher's bruisers shifted awkwardly behind the wizard, unsure when they should step in.

"I don't know anything about any idols.  I do know that tomb robbing is not looked kindly on by the authorities of this district, and Artaklan antiquities can only be claimed as private property with the appropriate documents of sale and provenance.  Do you have any such documents?"

Harmac reached across the table with surprising speed, hoisting Ratcatcher up by the collar.  With his other hand, he grabbed his sleepy looking pet by the scruff of the neck and shoved it in the thief's face.  "This is Lola," the wizard explained.  "She's a loris: the only species of monkey with a poisonous bite.  And once she latches on, she doesn't let go."

Lola slowly blinked.

"Urk... Don't monkeys usually got tails?"

Two of Ratcatcher's hired goons grabbed the wizard and yanked him away.  As Ratcatcher fell back into his chair, Harmac lobbed the primate at him and yelled, "Sic 'im, Lola!"

The creature, so placid a second ago, hissed wickedly and sunk its needle fangs into the thief's blubbery neck.  Ratcatcher shook his head wildly and slapped at the beast, but it only clamped down harder.  "Yeeooww!" he screeched.  Still trying to pry the simian assailant off with one hand, he reached into a leather satchel with the other and threw a jade idol across the table.  "Take the damn idol, ya crazy wizard!  Just get yer thrice-cursed pet off me!"

Harmac pushed the bruisers away from him, straightened his robes, and whistled two short notes.  Lola unclamped her jaw from the fat man's neck and waddled across the table, grabbing the idol along the way.

Ratcatcher cursed and rubbed the red swelling on his neck.  "You owe me 2500 thalers for the rock, Harmac.  I see you again and you don't got the money, you and yer little tree-rat are dead!"

Turning for the door, Harmac grabbed his staff and gave Lola an appreciative scratch under the chin.  "Pleasure doing business with you!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Today's Monster Monday is the slow loris, the world's only venomous primate!  Okay, technically it isn't venom but a toxic, allergenic compound secreted by a gland of the animal's armpit that activates when mixed with the loris' saliva, supplemented by their diet of poisonous plants, but that takes longer to say.  And technically slender lorises have the same toxic defense system as the slow loris, but people know about slow lorises because they've been in a bunch of youtube videos.  Call me when you're an internet sensation, slender lorises.

via Wikimedia

Also, unlike what certain wizards and thieves in the above story snippet may have suggested, lorises aren't monkeys; they are more closely related to lemurs.

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

Monster Monday: Orang Pendek - The Hairy Forest Man

Lately, in my spare time, I've been doing some research for the Southeast-Asian-themed region of my campaign setting.  As a direct result of that, today's Monster Monday is the Orang Pendek, a mythical forest-man creature from the jungles of Sumatra, which I have imagined as an intelligent orangutan-like ape capable of making and using tools.

'Orangutan Attacked by Dyaks' by Joseph Wolf, via Wikimedia

I've also made a new intelligent animal subtype that allows for animals with an Intelligence higher than 2 without making them Magical Beasts, because language and tool use are not magic.

via primatology.net

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is (C)2014 Jonah Bomgaars.