Horses & Hounds

Woof.

Virtually every covenant has animal as well as human inhabitants, and sometimes these animals have a large enough impact on a saga to become grog characters. It is not suggested that every chicken, plow-ox, and farmyard rat should have a character sheet; however, some characters may have Animal Companions or exotic pets, and it might be interesting for these animals to become player characters run by the same player, or by a different one.

Horses and hounds are common examples of animals that are suitable as player characters, but any animal is theoretically possible. As a guideline, creatures between the Sizes of –3 and +2 (from cat-sized to horse-sized) probably make the best animal grogs, but these shouldn't be seen as hard limits. Lords of Men (Chapter 5) has details of a number of animals that are found in noble households, from pets to hounds, hawks, and horses. Medieval bestiaries divide animals up into clawed beasts, hoofed beasts, birds,

fish, serpents (including lizards), and vermin (insects, spiders, mice, and so forth); only the latter are not suitable as animal grogs due to their small size. See Art & Academe, page 29, for a longer discussion on animals in Medieval Europe.

There are several inherent problems with playing an animal grog that are not represented by Virtues and Flaws. This places the animal grog at a distinct disadvantage compared to human characters, which is only offset by the novelty of playing an animal rather than a human.

Most animals lack grasping hands, and even those that have them (such as monkeys and birds) lack the fine control and opposable thumbs of humans. This bars them from many simple tasks, and precludes the use of weapons or tools.

There are some advantages to having an animal's body. Most have a covering of fur, feathers, or scales, which grant an intrinsic Protection of at least 1. Further, animals usually possess at least one natural weapon such as claws, teeth, or horns. Some animals can fly or breathe water, and require no special Virtue to possess these abilities. For a list of the qualities that an animal's physical form can have, see the supplement Houses of Hermes: Mystery Cults, page 40. If using the system of mundane Qualities to describe the intrinsic features of animal forms, do not apply any listed modifiers to Characteristics or Abilities; instead use the system described later in this section.

Animals get involved in stories without realizing it, but can have a significant impact on events.

A magus at the covenant is a great traveler, and he has heard of a distant covenant that breeds horses that are immune to the effects of The Gift. The player characters set out to acquire such a beast, and perhaps negotiate the purchase of more than one. Naturally, the breeder of these horses sets a high price for them — more than the characters were prepared for — but he suggests a way in which they could earn a discount. Every year, he must round up the magical stallion that is the sire of his foals; if they assist him with this difficult task, then he will reduce his normal price for one of his three-year-old mares.

A covenant that has an exotic animal among its grogs comes to the notice of one of the king's agents. He is collecting animals on the king's behalf for a menagerie, and seeks to acquire the creature owned by the characters. If the magi want to hang on to their grog, they must find some way to dissuade the king's man without directly interfering with mundane politics. Certainly, if the man does not return from his mission, the king will send further agents accompanied by armed men to discover what has happened.

CUNNING RATHER THAN INTELLIGENCE

Animals do not have Intelligence, and are therefore bereft of the ability to reason. They are incapable of logical thought, or of drawing conclusions from evidence. For example, a dog that sees a hare dash into a thicket either chases in after it, or waits at the point its quarry entered the bush. It does not think to go around to the other side of the bush to the point where the hare might leave.

The Cunning characteristic possessed by beasts means that they act largely through estimation (also called instinct), and are ruled by their Personality Traits. However, they still possess the other components of a mind — cognition, common sense, memory, and imagination. See Art & Academe, page 31, for more details on these inner wits. However, animals are severely limited by their comparative difficulty in learning new things; this is represented by the Restricted Learning Flaw (see Chapter 6, New Virtues and Flaws), which all animal grogs must take.

Animal characters cannot speak, but they can understand any languages they know. However, unlike human characters, they do not receive an automatic Native Language Ability. When earning experience points in a human Language, an animal always has a Source Quality of (4 + Cunning), meaning that they tend to learn more slowly than humans. Furthermore, if an animal has a negative Cunning score, it must reduce any human Language Score by a similar amount, to a minimum of 0. Thus a creature with Cunning –1 that knows French 1 can only understand a handful of words at most. Creatures with a positive Cunning receive no bonus to understanding language.

In Mythic Europe, animals are naturally capable of communicating with members of their own kind, and with closely-related kinds, so dogs have a Language Ability called Dog, horses speak Horse, and so forth. This Language Ability allows an animal grog to communicate simple concepts only, as if they had a Language Score of 2 (ArM5, page 66). They can talk to related species as if their Language Ability was one point lower, so a wolf, for example, can understand a few words of Dog. This Language Ability cannot be increased with experience.

AGING RATE

"...a hedge (lives for) three years, add dogs and horses and men, stags and ravens, eagles, enormous whales, the world: each one following triples the years of the one before."

— Inlay around the pavement in Westminster Abbey, 13th century

Animals age at different rates to humans; most clawed and hoofed beasts have a shorter lifespan than humans, whereas birds and fish in Mythic Europe live about the same time or longer than humans. There are three things to be considered: the age at which aging begins, the adjustment to the aging roll due to age, and the number of aging rolls per year. A human, with an average lifespan of 50 years (ignoring lifestyle modifiers), begins aging at 35, adds 1 to the aging roll for every 10 years, and makes 1 aging roll each year. The storyguide should decide upon the average lifespan of the creature and adjust these figures accordingly. Thus, a creature with an average lifespan of 10 years has a modifier of (50/10), or 5. It therefore begins aging at (35/5) 7 years old, adds one to the aging roll for every (10/5) 2 years of age, and makes (1 x 5) 5 aging rolls each year. If more than one aging roll is made each year, they should be spread evenly throughout the four seasons, with any excess occurring in Winter. Some example aging characteristics are given in the nearby table.

A grog character that is a domestic animal is easy to integrate into any saga — horses, dogs, hawks, and other animals that frequently associate with mankind can be purchased from breeders by any character or covenant that desires them. Integrating wild animals can be similarly easy, depending on the species involved; a bear could have been found as a cub and trained as an entertainer, or a character with the Animal Ken Virtue might befriend a raven and keep it as a pet. A trained animal is capable of performing certain tasks even complex tasks — at the command of its master, and you should be clear what commands you know and can complete without the barrier of language between you and your master. Rules for training animals are given in Art & Academe (page 119), and summarized under the Animal Trainer, earlier.

Playing a character without an intellect can pose a significant challenge. As a starting point, play careful attention to the human Language score of the grog (modified by Cunning, as mentioned earlier). If she lacks a Language score, or has a modified score of 0, then she can only understand direct commands in which she has been trained. Feel free to stare blankly at other players if they try to communicate with you beyond your understanding. As a creature ruled by instinct, an animal grog should act in accordance with her Personality Traits and Flaws as much as possible. They should dominate every judgment or decision the character makes; lacking free will, an animal feels neither restraint nor guilt over the actions it takes.

Character creation of an animal grog is different in several respects from that of human characters. The reader is directed to Houses of Hermes: Mystery Cults, pages 38–43, for more information on this.

An animal grog has the Size of her animal form, which is normally a creature between Size –3 and Size +2. The Large Virtue or Small Frame Flaw can make the character an usually large or small specimen of her kind, and adjusts the normal Size of the creature by one point in the applicable direction.

Animal characters receive the same number of points to spend on Characteristics as humans. However, when dealing with human characters, rather than characters of their own species, they take penalties to Presence and Communication according to the following table:

After Characteristic points have been decided, add twice the character's Size to her Strength, and subtract the character's Size from her Quickness.

Animal grogs suffer from the effects of the No Hands and Mute Flaws, but these are intrinsic to the character concept, and do not count toward the character's normal allotment of Flaws, nor do they provide points with which to buy Virtues.

Animal grogs are required to take the Restricted Learning* Flaw. They generally have the Domestic Animal, Wanderer, or Companion Animal Social Status Virtues or Flaws. Other suitable Virtues and Flaws include:

Virtues: Berserk, Domestic Animal*, Enduring Constitution, Ferocity*, Improved Characteristics, Lightning Reflexes, Long-Winded, Pack Leader*, Perfect Balance, Rapid Convalescence, Piercing Gaze, Reserves of Strength, Self-Confident, Tough, Wilderness Sense

Flaws: Clumsy, Companion Animal*, Fragile Constitution, Fear, Noncombatant, Nocturnal, Pack Mentality*, Poor Eyesight, Poor Hearing, Poor Living Conditions*, Reckless, Reclusive, Weakness; most Major Personality Flaws taken as Minor Flaws.

* See Chapter 6, New Virtues and Flaws.

Animal grogs cannot take Virtues and Flaws that involve interaction with human society. An animal grog with the Animal Ken Virtue can use it to communicate with unrelated animal species, and, at the option of the troupe, with humans as well. This Supernatural Ability substitutes for a Language Ability, but can never be higher than the creature's native animal Language Ability.

An animal grog receives 120 experience points for his pre-adult life; this leaves him at the starting age shown in the table earlier (under Aging). The character also receives a single Animal Language at a score of 2. This implies that some infant animals are particularly fast learners, which is true; by the time they reach adulthood, they have a fair complement of Abilities. Note that birds need no Ability to be able to fly, but could benefit from Athletics to perform unusual maneuvers. Likewise, all fish can swim, but may need to roll on their Swim Ability to escape predators or chase prey.

An animal grog subsequently gains the usual number of experience points per year (usually 15) beyond their starting age. However, an animal usually has to make Aging Rolls much earlier than a human, so players may wish to take care in applying too many additional years to an animal grog. The storyguide might want to restrict the maximum Ability scores of an animal grog based on his age, much like human characters are limited (ArM5, page 31).

Animal grogs typically possess the following Abilities: Area Lore, Athletics, Awareness, Brawl, Hunt, Leadership (for pack or herd leaders), Music (for songbirds), Stealth, Survival, Swim.

Training packages are inapplicable for animal grogs, because of their restricted Ability sets.

DOG, 1 YEAR OLD: Athletics 3 (chasing), Awareness 3 (scent), Brawl 3 (biting), Dog 2 (dominance), Hunt 3 (rabbits)

DOG, 4 YEARS OLD: Athletics 3 (chasing), Awareness 3 (scent), Brawl 4 (biting), Dog 2 (dominance), Hunt 4 (rabbits), Leadership 1 (dogs)

HORSE, 3 YEARS OLD: Area Lore 1 (5) (water), Athletics 4 (running), Awareness 3 (predators), Brawl 3 (kick), Horse 2 (food)

HORSE, 10 YEARS OLD: Area Lore 2 (water), Athletics 6 (running), Awareness 4 (predators), Brawl 4 (kick), Horse 2 (food), Living Language 1 (rider)

HAWK, 8 YEARS OLD: Athletics 4 (diving), Awareness 4 (prey), Brawl 2 (claws), Hawk 2 (mice), Survival 1 (mountains)

An animal grog could easily become a companion by being transformed by powerful supernatural effects. As a result of warping, the creature could become infused with powers of its own, or else become corrupted by some hellish power. The most extreme form of this sort of transformation entails gaining a Might Score. The four Realms of Power sourcebooks include details for creating creatures that are either aligned to or are members of a given supernatural Realm.