Lamanacock

Weight: 1.5kg, Length: 60 cm. Dioecious reproduction. Usually monogamous, but in cases of unusual bounty, some males have two or three nests with females and litter. Nests in trees. Excellent climber, runs both up and down trunks. The adult, male lamanacock is a colourful animal, while females and juveniles are well camouflaged in their natural habitat. Female lays 3-18 eggs once per year. Both parents gather food for the litter. Typical diet consists mainly of small animals, caught with its long, sticky tongue.

The male lamanacock will fiercely defend its territory, which is usually about 100 m in radius from the nest. The male might hunt outside its defended territory at night. When threatened in its territory, the male lamanacock will stand still, facing its opponent, and inflate the pressure sac under its jaw. This indicates that it's prepared to spit poison through it's nostrils, which it will do when the target is less than 2 m away.

Hits: 7

Speed: 4m

Skills: Athletics (dexterity) 2, Stealth 0

Attacks: Spit poison 3m

Traits: Poison (Difficult / D3 Dex / 1D min), Small (-3), Camouflaged (in natural habitat, unless colourful)

Behaviour: Pouncer

Forest Lobster

Weight: 2kg. Length: body 40cm + tail 30cm. Has a semi-rigid shell which acts as a strong and somewhat flexible exoskeleton. Dioecious reproduction. Partners up to get offspring, and stay together during 3 months gestation, after which the litter of 400 - 600 small "prawn" are ejected into lake water. These prawn will attach themselves to marine animals, inject their own core, the "larvae" into the animal, and then spend up to a year as a parasite. About 2% of the prawn reach the state where they can grow sufficiently in a big enough host animal. This is followed by a marine phase on the lake bottom, where the animal grows to full size in about nine months, and its shell hardens while it feeds from vegetation and carrion. During this time, it gets oxygen through large, feather-like gills, which are discarded when it moves out of the water for its adult, land based life which normally lasts 10 to 20 years.

The male forest lobsters dance, clattering with its claws raised in the air, provoking other forest lobster males, or other larger animals, to impress females or die trying. Male forest lobsters will maim other males, usually by cutting off a claw, but it will never attack other animals it is provoking, unless it gets attacked. If attacked by other animals, it will never back off, and will fight to its death. Such evens aren't unusual since it's terribly annoying. This behaviour leads to a ratio of 3:1 females to males in the adult population, and this is countered by the fact that females need a six month recovery period after each gestation.

Hits: 5

Speed: 3m 

Skills: 

Attacks: Claws (D3)

Traits: Alarm, Armour (2), Small (-3)

Behaviour: Gatherer

Neon Jump Rat

 

Weight: 0.5 kg, length: 25 cm body + 25 cm tail. Dioecious reproduction. Monogamous. Adult males are always colourful, in pink and light blue. Adult females get colourful when the offspring leaves the nest, until it's about to lay eggs again. Juveniles and nesting females have a dull brown and green colour. Lays 3-8 eggs in a nest high up in a tree. Both parents prepare incubation by collecting seeds which will provide the bulk of food during incubation, and until the juveniles can jump or climb down from the tree.

The rat can rapidly climb up a tree, but it's unable to climb head down, so it prefers to jump down, jumping to branches, tree trunks etc if the drop is more than 3 m, since it will be very slow and vulnerable climbing down. Some rats descend trees by running in circles around the trunk. On the ground it prefers to move in long jumps, unless it's moving with offspring unable to jump like that.

Brown and green neon rats will always try to hide when threatened, only attacking if cornered, or in case of female, if majority of offspring is threatened. Colourful rats are more likely to be aggressive, either to protect offspring, or to attract partners through feats of courage.

Both parents are very involved in gathering food and protecting the offspring, both seeds and small animals which get paralysed by a weak poison in the saliva of a colourful rat. The poison is too weak to cause more than a rash and temporary pain for someone human sized (and is non-existent in a dull rat), but rat bites are very likely to cause infections which lead to fever and other complications. When hunting, it sits very still, and suddenly jumps up to a meter at its prey.

Rats held in captivity lose their bright colours, and stay dull.

Hits: 2

Speed: 5m

Skills: Athletics (dexterity) 3, Recon 3, Stealth 1, Survival 2

Attacks: Bite (1)

Traits: Small (-4), Infection (Routine, 1D-2, 1D days), Camouflaged (in natural habitat, unless colourful)

Behaviour: Omnivore

Desert Mushroom Tree

 Some mushroom trees are adapted to arid, sunny land.

Mushroom Tree

 Mushroom trees and other giant forms of fungi, are mainly found on worlds with low gravity and dense atmosphere. They usually grow where it's damp and shady, such as under the canopy of huge trees in rain forests, but they can also be found in e.g. lava tunnels, and there are similar organisms which are adapted to arid and even sunny environments. Some mushroom trees have the feature of photosynthesis, either through symbiosis with micro-plants, or through endogenous photosynthetic pigments.

Why Behind the Claw?

I made this blog as a way to share possibly helpful material and comments from a Mongoose Traveller campaign which is just starting. Traveller was the first RPG I bought in the early 1980's. I refereed it a bit with my friends, but I spent much more time just playing those years, and when I started running my own campaigns in earnest, my main focus was on HârnMaster. I had a more or less continuous HârnMaster campaign during most of the 1990's. I revived HârnMaster in 2020, and we played more or less weekly for three years. 

Now I've decided to return to the Third Imperium, and since I liked the original setting, and remembered those old adventures I never got to GM, it felt natural to go with Mongoose 2nd edition. Through amazing offers on Bundle of Holding and Humble Bundle, I've also been able to gather a decent bunch of Traveller stuff for a very reasonable price.