Puke Dragon

 

Weight: 25kg, Length: 80cm + 30cm tail. Solitary.

The puke dragon is totally deaf, but it has excellent, finger like, olfactory organs on the back of its head, and its two "horns" are used to determine wind speed and direction, to help determine the origin of odours. It has two pairs of eyes. The fixed, forward pointing pair provides sharp, stereoscopic detail in an octave range from yellow to UV at distances from 1 cm to 10 m. The second pair points sideways for a 360° field of vision in the IR range, by swinging its head when the head is erect, but with blind spots straight ahead and back as it tilts down to eat from the ground. This second set of eyes is more for noticing movement and temperature difference, than for detailed vision. To compensate for the blind spots, it moves and turns a lot when eating, to cover all directions with the IR eyes. This is most noticeable if the food is smelly or if there is a strong wind, since that would make its sense of smell less reliable.

The puke dragon is a slow animal. It mainly eats decomposing wood (including small protein rich reducers), but also carrion when it finds it. The dragon turns cellulose to sugars through acid-catalyzed hydrolysis. It's developed internal structures which are highly acid resistant through a glass-like inner coating of most exposed surfaces, in combination with extremely rapid regrowth of damaged tissue in the remaining surfaces. After processing cellulose, it ejects remaining acid through the nose opening.

When approached by a threat it will turn directly towards the threat, and face it. If the threat approaches, it will squirt the content of its acid gut at the threat when it gets within range, which is about 2 meters. This rapid emptying of the gut will damage the rigid, glass-like coating, and can be lethal to the animal. It can only be done once in weeks. If it survives the injuries it's inflicted on itself, it needs to regrow its damaged cellulose gut, and will be both defenceless and reliant on a carrion diet for several weeks.

The easy way to deal with a threatened puke dragons is to slowly back off until out of sight, and then either take another route, or just wait until it's left, which is usually within 10 minutes unless it was chewing wood, which could leave it in the same spot for about 30 minutes.

The reproductive system and social habits of Puke Dragons have not been properly researched. It's rare to come across more than one at a time, and most tissue will rapidly decompose when it dies, at least if it dies after ejecting the acid gut. It seems to have parallel gut systems for cellulose and other food, sorting as it swallows.

Hits: 10

Speed: 1m 

Skills: 

Attacks: Claws (D6), spit acid

Traits: Armour (1), Small (-1)

Behaviour:

The Amazing Fire Station on Colchis!

Spoilers below! This post contains some details about three Traveller adventures, Flatlined, Islands in the Rift, and Chariots of Fire, so if you're a Traveller player who hasn't already played those, you might want to stop reading now.

I'm currently bringing my travellers through Islands in the Rift, and I followed Seth Shorkowsky's suggestion to place Anders Blixt's classic Amber Zone adventure Chariots of Fire on Colchis. The travellers had a bad second jump from Acadie, and I made Blixt's little country of Castica into something like a Caribbean paradise province where they could relax -- until someone asked them to fetch two fire engines from Handor. The government of Colchis seemed like it treated its more remote provinces like subsidiaries where the local management better sort their internal issues out, or be replaced, so I think it fit. The local environment and local production ability is at TL5 in this remote island, despite Colchis at large bing at TL 9.

One of my players, another Anders, has been passionate about Lego for 50+ years, and he's a creative, mechanical engineer with several patents in his name, so I asked him to build me a fire station where they could steal the fire engines. My input was basically how many vehicles it had to fit, and what the measures were for those vehicles. He took it from there, and made much more of this than I could have imagined!

The travellers made a trip to Colchis high port during their preparations, so that they could book passengers and load cargo, and they used their advanced sensors in Perfect Stranger to get a lot of pictures of the fire station then, so I allowed the player's to look at the model from the outside while they planned their heist, and Anders temporarily stepped into the role of an ex fire fighter NPC who had until recently worked here.

Anders had obviously planted some possible ways in for the Travellers, and besides my son, the players are a seasoned team, who were the first Swedes to take part in the Robot Wars TV show with their fighting robot Rawbot, which is still in the basement just below where we stand. They look just the same as 20 years ago.

The front of the fire station faces the main road, and that might not be the best side to approach from, even if the night is dark. A false alarm should have called out most of the fire brigade crew, and the rest will probably sleep in the top floor near the corner to the right in the picture, but the staff in the control office where they take alarm calls and direct the fire fighters, should be awake in the top floor corner room to the left, with blue windows. The yellow structure on the roof is a solar and battery powered communication station which will continue to work in case of a power loss. The tower in the far right corner is for drying hoses, and there is access to/from the roof near it via a roof window. 

The back side is mainly garage ports, the two last for the ladder truck, which need 4m clearance. There are maybe more interesting things on the side of the building There is an air intake at the bottom of the hose drying tower, but the NPC fire fighter doesn't know if that's protected by the burglar alarm. There are also the air outlets at the top of the tower. The electricity to the fire station comes via the little yellow transformer building.

They discuss breaking power before going in, or sneaking in as the fire trucks exit for the diversion, but finally decide to wait a while after the bulk of people leave for the false alarm, cut out the glass pane in the door leading to the side of the garage part, visible above, and try to sneak in that way.

The aslan character rolls 11 as he cuts the glass pane with his augmented dew claw. The four travellers all sneak in and get out of plain sight for whoever is moving in the upper level.

The aslan then proceeds to go up the stairs, only to notice that someone is making a cup of relaxing tea in the middle of the night. He aims for a while, and downs him with his stun gun before he is noticed.

The stunned fire fighter is given a dose of the memory loss substance the travellers themselves suffered from on Neon five months ago. The travellers establish themselves on the upper floor.

The people in the control center hasn't noticed a thing.

Hands in the air, and just do as we say. If you just follow our instructions, you will both be fine. Now open the doors for the two big fire trucks. Thanks. Now you call the main border station and tell them that there is a fire in the rubber factory in Jaco. They should take on their gas masks as the toxic fumes might come their way, and let the fire trucks cross the border! Then these ladies also get a dose of the memory loss drug.

There they go. Not a scratch so far.

Approaching the border control, two things became apparent: 1. The scam about this being a legitimate fire department mission hadn't worked. The gate was closed and the border guards were aiming guns at them. 2. None of us really understood how combat worked with vehicles.

Fortunately the border guards all missed the fire engines, and ramming the gate only caused minor damage. 

Of course, Anders wanted to show the details in the fire station we hadn't seen. After all, he had made quite an effort here...

Anders, being an automotive engineer, not a house building expert, had the idea that in case there weren't electrical power on, you'd have to get up the (out of focus) yellow staircase in the rear of the picture, and turn the big, black wheels by the big grey engines above each garage door. Two players protested, and meant that it's always possible to open garage ports from the inside by the port, for instance by pulling a chain right by the door. I'm not sure how they could be so certain of safety standards on Colchis, but this is typical discussions in our team, but since they decided not to cut the power, it didn't matter.

The fire fighters sleep in the corner room with the blue beds, and the next rooms are toilets and showers. Then there is a gym with (going clockwise from 10 o'clock) barbells, bench press, shoulder press (with a fingertip on top) a long bar with a crash mat under, wall bars, and finally a tread mill. You've seen the pantry before.

More details on the gym and pantry, and in the lower right corner, you see the classic bar for getting down quickly if you don't prefer the stairs.

More of the pantry.

Between the pantry and the control center in the corner, there are archives, the managers office (unfurnished) and (under roof) a small conference room behind the double doors.

Lifting off this floor, reveals some more. First, more office space below the control room.

Reception area below the pantry.

Conference room where visiting school classes get to se some suitable audiovisual presentation. Anders said the was a big flat screen, but considering the tech level, that probably means a projection screen...

Storage area under the dormitory.

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.