steve98052
Mongoose
NEWTRAV UPDATE 4 DEC:
pages 80, 82, 83: Of the seven animal encounters illustrated, four strongly resemble terrestrial life. The jungle howler looks like a primate, the skitterer looks like a lizard, the raptor lizard looks like a feathered dinosaurs or a bird, the scourge resembles a bat, and both the skitterer and raptor lizard are described as lizards. The thunderer could be mistaken for a giraffe until one notices the tusks, extra eyes, and reduced number of legs. There's a lot more to Earth life than well-known vertebrates. Most are small, but with different internal structures larger examples could serve as the inspiration for alien creatures. For example:
(My first playtest comment! I just downloaded the playtest materials.)
pages 80, 82, 83: Of the seven animal encounters illustrated, four strongly resemble terrestrial life. The jungle howler looks like a primate, the skitterer looks like a lizard, the raptor lizard looks like a feathered dinosaurs or a bird, the scourge resembles a bat, and both the skitterer and raptor lizard are described as lizards. The thunderer could be mistaken for a giraffe until one notices the tusks, extra eyes, and reduced number of legs. There's a lot more to Earth life than well-known vertebrates. Most are small, but with different internal structures larger examples could serve as the inspiration for alien creatures. For example:
- Annelids may have been the inspiration for Dune sandworms.
- Arthropods are extremely diverse in shape; one could imagine alien pseudo-crabs with internal skeletons but armored shells, pseudo-centipedes that reproduce by budding heads from each segment after growing to a certain number of segments.
- Cnidaria are strictly marine creatures, but one could imagine a creature that hunts by dangling tentacles from high places.
- Echinoderms may have been one of the inspirations for Hivers.
- Molluscs are extremely diverse, and at least a few have superficial resemblances to the Sirene geest worm.
- Carnivorous plants (pitfall, flypaper, snap, suction, and trap-hair types) all fall into the "trapper" Traveller encounter class, without even being animals; they don't get very large on Earth, but that might not be true of alien vegetation.
(My first playtest comment! I just downloaded the playtest materials.)
