Extraordinary Zoology

[stormwell]

So I've got an idea for a project.

Inspired by the Monsternomicon for the Iron Kingdoms setting, effectively a Gazetteer that focuses on critters as suppose to realms.

The basic idea is a series of in-character entries on various creatures and monsters complete with stats and game related items.

Any interest?

[Joël of the FoS]

Yes !

[High Priest Mikhal]

For the fluff, oh yes! The crunch is where I'm weak; I was never good at crunching (no pun intended) numbers. And if we're talking an edition besides 3.x, I couldn't really help with the mechanics anyway.

[Mistmaster]

I'm in.

[Lord_Pruitt]

Some of the fluff entries need to be made by a Steve Irwin-eque NPC

[Five]

Some of the fluff entries need to be made by a Steve Irwin-eque NPC

I preferred Rob Bredl.

Haha

Great project concept though, in all seriousness.

[stormwell]

For the in-character 'author' I'm thinking a scholar from the University of Mordent called Pratchett, head of the fledging Department of Extraordinary Zoology.

Do intend to include game stats, though toying with the idea of including ones for different editions/systems (5th Ed, Savage Worlds, etc). Savage Worlds is the system I have the most experience with, 3.5 being a distant second, and so I'm probably going to have to recruit people who know other systems.

I'll create an in-character tread and use this for the discussion tread.

[Five]

Just my two cents:

Every in-character "fluff courier" to date in Ravenloft products, as far as I can think of right now, has been a scholar of one sort or another. Isn't there another vehicle that can be used, yet still be appropriate to the theme?

Explorers, big game hunters, rangers, druids, trappers, game warden/keeper, unnamed editor or publisher (let the reader imagine/flesh out the role) who compiled or commissioned this book (or whatever it is),...

How about anecdotes amateurishly compiled from "eyewitness accounts"; multiple IC vehicles such as the above; a colourful menage of NPCs...

Edit #1: Hell, I think it'd be cool to have conflicting reports within the same report. "I saw/heard/knew of somebody"...Similar to the Shadowrun products' format where the text is presented and comments are scribbled in between. Ravenloft Gaz series did it too, just definitely toned-down. Really blurs the entries, in theory giving the DM's/reader's imagination full creative licence.

I just feel the travelling scholar is old ground now. Surely there's a "new" path that can be blazed...?

That's just me, from my corner in the nothingness. Do what thou wilt.

Edit #2: stormwell: I didn't write this to stifle your creativity or input in any way, shape, or form. In fact, I threw that out there for the exact opposite reason: to offer an alternative platform to really help this proposed project to stand on its own two feet, generally speaking. Please, throw up what you got brewing. Being wrong would not be a new revelation to me, I don't mind saying!

[stormwell]

Just my two cents:

Every in-character "fluff courier" to date in Ravenloft products, as far as I can think of right now, has been a scholar of one sort or another. Isn't there another vehicle that can be used, yet still be appropriate to the theme?

Explorers, big game hunters, rangers, druids, trappers, game warden/keeper, unnamed editor or publisher (let the reader imagine/flesh out the role) who compiled or commissioned this book (or whatever it is),...

How about anecdotes amateurishly compiled from "eyewitness accounts"; multiple IC vehicles such as the above; a colourful menage of NPCs...

Edit #1: Hell, I think it'd be cool to have conflicting reports within the same report. "I saw/heard/knew of somebody"...Similar to the Shadowrun products' format where the text is presented and comments are scribbled in between. Ravenloft Gaz series did it too, just definitely toned-down. Really blurs the entries, in theory giving the DM's/reader's imagination full creative licence.

I just feel the travelling scholar is old ground now. Surely there's a "new" path that can be blazed...?

That's just me, from my corner in the nothingness. Do what thou wilt.

Edit #2: stormwell: I didn't write this to stifle your creativity or input in any way, shape, or form. In fact, I threw that out there for the exact opposite reason: to offer an alternative platform to really help this proposed project to stand on its own two feet, generally speaking. Please, throw up what you got brewing. Being wrong would not be a new revelation to me, I don't mind saying!

I get what you mean, as in the scholar clique.

The Monsternomicon for Iron Kingdoms had a Professor Viktor Pendrake as the main author of the work, true most of the entries are his but he also included accounts from other witnesses and associates. I could do the same with Pratchett being the overall author and writing a good number of accounts but also include accounts from Mordentish Lamplighters, Borcan traders, Tepesti Inquisitors, etc.

EDIT: Suppose I could make Pratchett a retired monster hunter who's been approached by the University of Mordent.

[nothri]

For awhile I was toying with the idea of using a bardic merchant from Borca as the narrator for a Gazetteer.

On the flip side, what if was Frantisek Markov's attempt to assemble what he's learned about strange species through his "experiments".

[DustBunny]

It sounds similiar idea to the 'Ecology of the <insert monster>' from Dragon.
They covered the creature in a narrative/storytelling detail with numbered footnotes as to what this actually meant in the rules.

Some ecologies were narrated from adventurers (Dragons), others from Bards (Lamia), several done by a self proclaimed 'Monster Investigator Guild' (Osquip). They covered quite a few creatures - look here and scroll down to 'Ecology Articles'.

[ewancummins]

Are you making new monsters or writing vignettes and lore for existing monsters?

[stormwell]

Are you making new monsters or writing vignettes and lore for existing monsters?

Probably start with existing monsters, if anything to compile them all together.

But creating new ones is an option.

[Mistmaster]

Well there are some monsters which never had more than one rule-set version; there are also creatures hinted only but which never got stats. Beside, there are a lot of never statted monsters from folklore, usefull for Gothic heart or domains simulating Africa, Asia or America.

[ewancummins]

Teeny Tiny Tales of Terror compiled a tub-load of monsters with vignettes.

It was Mangrum's baby, but a group project.

I did the cloaker.