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.

Monster Monday: Basan, the Japanese Death Chicken

Today's Monster Monday is the basan, an obscure Japanese giant chicken monster with death-breath.  The creature bears a passing similarity to the cockatrice, although instead of turning its victims to stone, the basan breathes out plumes of cold ghost-fire.

Basan illustration for Ehon Hyaku Monogatari by Takehara Shunsen (1841), via Wikimedia

The basan comes to us via Ehon Hyaku Monogatari (Picture Book of 100 Stories) published in 1841, and Gazu Hyakki Yagyō (The Illustrated Night Parade of a Hundred Demons) published in 1776.  Both were Japanese bestiaries compiling folklore and ghost stories that greatly influenced the Japanese yōkai tradition.  The basan itself was said to live in the mountains of Shikoku, the smallest of Japan's four main islands.

When converting this beast into a monster stat block, I briefly considered making it some sort of undead cockatrice because the descriptions of its unburning ghost-fire made me think of negative energy attacks.  In the end, I kept the negative energy angle and made the basan a living creature that was affected by negative energy in the same way that the undead are.  Despite its outwardly comical appearance (giant chickens are almost never unfunny), the basan needs to be an eerie monster, hence its connection to the plane of negative energy and its association with undeath.

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

PC Race - Perinin: Cunning Warrior Hares

Last week d20 Despot brought you togbins, a fierce race of cold-dwelling tortoise-men who love to hunt.  This week, continuing my collaboration with Kent Hamilton in celebration of his graduation from concept design school, we bring you perinin, the brave and cunning race of hares that are the togbins' favorite prey.

Kent Hamilton Concepts

Well, as you can see from the above picture, perinin are clearly not the timid prey that togbins wish they were.  Perinin are agile and cunning, and they use their natural knack for tactics to outsmart and overwhelm their physically superior adversaries.

Read on for more information about this Pathfinder-compatible playable race.

Monster Monday: Tsuchigumo, Spider-Legged Tiger Demon

Today's Monster Monday entry is the Tsuchigumo, a truly frightening Japanese monster with the body of a tiger, the legs of a spider, and the head of a demon.  They eat people - no big surprise there.  They also use an array of magical powers and their innate shape-changing ability to lure and/or confuse their prey.  Also, they are full of skulls.

Just... no.  Not okay.

Monster Monday: Basajaun, the Basque Sasquatch. Basquatch.

Today's Monster Monday entry is the basajaun - or 'Lord of the Forest' - a hairy forest man of Basque mythology that lives in forest or mountain villages tending crops and sheep.  Long ago, according to the myth, humans stole the secret of agriculture from the basajaunak (plural of basajaun).

source

The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is (C)2013 Jonah Bomgaars.