Bestiary of Cidri

[tomc]

I'd like the bestiary to be as big and as interesting as possible. Include everything you like, sentient, plant, beast, bug, etc.

Pick the page count and give us your best X pages. Do the same for volume 2. The number of entries per category will be different. The categories themselves may be different. And that's okay.

[JLV]

I'm admittedly torn on this.

The greedy part of me wants it ALL, right NOW -- the bigger the better.

On the other hand, I can't help but remember the Fantasy Bestiary and the Fantasy Folk books for GURPS worked really well -- both were better books, in my opinion, as separate books than either would have been if they had been jammed in together.

Thus, I think, speaking in the interests of getting the best possible products, I would vote for separating them out along the lines you suggest (one for intelligent species, one for everything else); but please don't "forget" to give us that book on intelligent creatures down the road!!!

[Shostak]

Wow, am I looking forward to this book!

My two (hopefully helpful) bits: I support the broadest book possible. Leaving out sentient creatures means no dragons or any of Cidr's similarly intelligent fauna, which would be very unfortunate. If there were plans for a Races of Cidri book, I could see leaving Reptile Men, Elves, Orcs, and similar society-building races, out of the beastiary, but if that is not also in the works, I'd advocate for including them in what might be better referred to as a "Natural Encyclopedia."

[JohnPaulB]

Originally Posted by guymc

NO SENTIENT CREATURES
One take is to have this be a "beasts only" book, eliminating anything of human or human-like intelligence. This would mean no entries for anything of human-like IQ level. It eliminates the usual human/elf/dwarf/halfling group, as well as giants, mermen, neanderthals, orcs and the like (semi-humans), and totally non-human intelligent beings like reptile men, octopi, basilisks and dragons. The dividing line would be intellect only. This implies a separate book at some point on the intelligent races of Cidri.

Originally Posted by Shadekeep

Votes in favour of intelligent races being separate from the general bestiary. In the intelligent races book it would be good to have things like cultures, jobs, and abilities related to the races. The bestiary book can focus more on things like lifecycles, habitats, and whether certain beasts can be domesticated. If it includes plants, then it could also incorporate materials about medicinal uses and such.

Originally Posted by JLV

I can't help but remember the Fantasy Bestiary and the Fantasy Folk books for GURPS worked really well -- both were better books, in my opinion, as separate books than either would have been if they had been jammed in together.

Thus, I think, speaking in the interests of getting the best possible products, I would vote for separating them out along the lines you suggest (one for intelligent species, one for everything else); but please don't "forget" to give us that book on intelligent creatures down the road!!!

I would like 2 books. I will buy 2 books. I hope they are very thick.

TFT Fantasy Folk
This would be along the lines as Shadekeep suggested. Sentient 7 IQ and above. Their societies and inter-relationship with environment and humans. Include Dragons here.

TFT Bestiary
This would be for Beast, Monster, Bug and Plant. Half a page at least for each entry.

This book should list the Sentient Races that would be in the TFT Fantasy Folk and perhaps give a line or two, but tell the reader to go to TFT FF to get all the info.

I don't know if I want this arranged per environment (like Jungle, Plains, etc.) or strictly alphabetical order. But it should definitely be into sub-book Beast, Sub-book Plant etc.

Bugs should be done as regular insects encountered singularly or horde. But you could also have mutated giant insects also.

Include dumb dragons here. Hive mind should go here, unless they form a society that humans would interact with.

[DarkPumpkin]

My preference is to include all types of creatures, including intelligent races. I have in my RPG collection at least 3 creature books which excluded certain categories, intending to "fill them out later", but then the game line was never completed. Carpe diem!

[Helborn]

My vote is for two books - Bestiary and Folk - IF Folk will happen within a short time frame (~6 months) of Bestiary. Otherwise one book with all.

[RobW]

Surely the main purpose of a bestiary is to help GMs and players create their worlds.

I don't think sentience is a good basis for deciding what goes in/out.

Excluding interesting creatures like dragons, octopus, liches just because their IQ is higher than 7? Please don't!

That said, does anyone really need great detail on the generic playable Elves, Dwarves, etc. Probably not.

[RobW]

And from the (Cidri) scholar's perspective -- IQ is a continuous variable, and making categorical distinctions based on arbitrary cutoff points leads to poor taxonomies.

e.g. a bestiary of creatures with DX >= 15, and another with creatures DX < 15 either -- doesn't sound appealing.

[RobW]

I could imagine some Cidri scholars compiling specialist volumes based on habitat, eg the Rare and Unusual Creatures of the Cidri Deserts

But I can't imagine a scholar leaving out creatures like dragons from these volumes.

[Chris Rice]

I am certainly of the "one big book" camp and don't want to be rifling through different books for my creatures and foes. The precedent has already been set anyway with the new TFT Legacy Edition rule book which combined previous, separate boooks.

Since TFT is a Stat Lite system, there should be plenty of room in the book for everything, sentient and non sentient.

I'd like to see creative descriptions of habitat and behaviours which would help in designing interesting encounters and adventures on the fly. It might also be possible to include sample encounters for some creatures, showing unusual ways they could be used in play.