Sunday, February 21, 2016

Herd Snail


Number Appearing: Herd

Size: Watermelon to cargo van

Armor:  Thick stony shell

Resilience:  Surprisingly difficult to kill

Intelligence:  Not that you'd notice.

Communication:  Not much.

Disposition:  Sluggish.

Violence:  May stab other snails as foreplay.  Otherwise no.

Enemies:  Rustlers, assorted carnivores, Gourmands

Aims:  Not as such.

Peculiarities:

  • Vulnerable to salt.  Snailherds use goads tipped with rock salt.
  • There are legends of very patient knights training the beasts as Destriers for no readily apparent reason.  Snail jousting may be popular in faraway lands that haven't heard of cricket, competitive walking, and other forms of spectator tedium.
  • Those raised as livestock usually don't get much bigger than a small cottage, but keepers of snail lore maintain that they never stop growing and do not die of old age.
  • Rustling them via herding isn't really practical.  Rustlers on the Beanstalk tend to roll them to a waiting flying boat at the nearest leaf edge.  Turns out that the hulls of flying boats are inexplicably delicious to herd snails, so one way or another they don't go very far.
Treasure:  Love darts (piercing blades of a size relative to the snail, very effective vice boneless creatures), vaqueta steaks, Copious quantities of disgusting acid-proof slime

Format cheerfully swiped from They Stalk the Underworld

2 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. As any good DM would say: "Sure, why not?"

      Blade of Grass
      magic weapon, +3 to-hit, 1d6+3 damage, no strength bonus to hit or damage, usable by any character that can wield a sword of any type

      When found, this is a woven grass sword handle that detects as magical. Players making puns about basket hilts are subject to the usual penalties. If the hilt is planted in fertile earth, watered with 1 quart of fresh water and exposed to normal or magical sunlight, it will grow a green, sword-like weapon in 1 turn. Targets initially struck with the blade must save vs. poison or suffer -4 on attacks and other actions due to infernal itching.
      The Blade of Grass is not metal, with all that implies. If the blade is cut, eaten, scorched, or aged for more than a month, the hilt must be replanted to grow a new one.

      Sorry about the long reply time - my physical therapist severely limited my screen time for a while. I'd resent her for it if she hadn't been demonstrably right.

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