Animal Encounters
 

TIL I learned that there are more tigers in captivity in the USA than there are in the wild, combined, in the rest of the world.

As of 2006, there were an estimated 12,000 Tigers in the US (4,000 in Texas alone)- the vast majority of these animals in the hands of private owners! Add in African lions and hybrid 'Ligers' and that number goes even higher.

In a T2k scenario, it's likely that a lot of private owners would not be able to take care of their big cats. Many will starve to death, or be put out of their misery, but it's not beyond the realm of possibility that quite a few lions and tigers and bears, etc., will get loose (especially in the chaos following the TDM)- it happens more than you might think, IRL.

The point that I'm getting at is that encounters with Tigers and other big cats in the CONUS would not be terribly unrealistic. Has anyone encountered big cats in a game?

What Ref hasn't thrown a pack of feral dogs at their players? Or wolves? Inspired by stories of "Hogzilla", I threw a huge feral pig at my players in a campaign set in Arkansas. I also created a travelling merchant NPC whose caravan featured a camel he rescued from a zoo in Poland. The players encountered it during a winter snow storm.

What animal encounters have you designed, as a Ref, or played through as a PC?

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I read that and became deeply sad.

Didn't TDW make an adventure on this I think a challenger article?

"Tyger, Tyger", or something like that.
Also due to efforts to stop various illnesses, the U.S. has more Vietnamese Pot Bellied Pigs than Vietnam, Thailand , though they are trying to bring them back.

Feral pig encounters can be very bad news indeed - they are unbelievably dangerous and could easily take out a couple of PC's in the right conditions

From what I've heard, their meat can also be a bit stringy, and tough if not cooked carefully (there's a procedure). It's not like the pork we're used to.

I looked on your site and didnt see them -have you ever done stats on a feral pig?

As a kid, when i first got T2K, i laughted at animal encounters.

Now though, much older and experienced, i think they add a good, different dimension to the game.

I've used wild dogs to generate noise and spook players. i might have had them steal food or boots left out over night to be a nuisance.

In australia, dingos are common but not really a threat. Wild dogs are generally a dangerous mix of dingo and / or domestic dogs gone wild. Pack animals, i know of kangaroo shooters who have been scared of wild dogs at night, just the real life threat they pose.

Re feral pigs or any animal, even a light wound can be an issue for player characters. If left untreated it becomes infected quickly. Turning to a medium wound?!

A good chance for the medic or wanna-be medic to get involved!

Considering how much time characters spend searching for food and stuff to make fuel wild animal encounters should be part and parcel of any T2K campaign. Plus they offer great ways to work their way into campaigns as specific "adventurers" a la the Challenge Article that has been mentioned before

Feral hogs are leaner than their civilized cousins, less fat and longer looking legs and an odd appearance as a result. But even domestic animals can be interesting. I'm going to have a company that goes to farms with pigs to root and turn up land and geese to weed maturing crops as a no fuel ag alternative. They may get a contract to develop a farm crop for a cantonment or a colony. Keeping the non food critters safe from men and beasts might be assigned or contracted to the players.

GOAT
 

Great idea. IRL, there's a company here in my neck of the woods that rents out goats- mostly to farmers- to weed fallow fields prior to planting. I've also heard that goats are great for "mowing" lawns.

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Also pig waste is being looked at as a way to make bio fuel - I know there experiments with it in the 80's as well as more modern efforts

https://projects.ncsu.edu/project/sw...03manbrett.htm

https://www.thepigsite.com/articles/...e-utah-project

Embargo On!
 

It worked for Barter Town in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (a very underrated entry in the franchise, IMHO, featuring some of the best world-building in post-apoc film).

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I am very surprised that no one has ever done a Barter Town type sourcebook or module - and that method to produce fuel is realistic - and if you read the book adaption it mentions specifically how a lot of the trade was people bringing in various things for them to repurpose for use in the "new" world - i.e. it wasnt just fuel that was making that town important it was the various craftsmen and smiths that were there

Methane is VERY hard to liquify. It is about four times harder than Propane. Most of the Methane gas "Digestors" on farms are producing the gas and immediately burning it (like natural gas piped into your home) to make electricity, which is then dumped into the power grid. The Northwestern Rural Electric Cooperative here where I live in PA gets almost 20% of its power that way.

Ok, I can't resist since shark week just ended...:rolleyes:

https://youtu.be/hhmKfpKM8bw

What about the Free City of Krakow?

Free City comes close - I was meaning more like the movie itself but not set in 2000 or 2001 - more like several more years in the future after civilization has really had a chance to break down even more (keep in mind what Sydney looked like by the time of Barter Town - we arent talking a couple of years after the start of the game timeline)

Feral hogs are WAY different from farm animals and damn dangerous critters. A wild boar is both ill tampered and equipped with fair sized tusks. They can kill or seriously injure humans easy enough if they want to, not to mention the average dog, horse, or cow.

Another point of interest for farms and communities.

Yep! This is why they were real life monsters in the forests of Europe.

Pop superstar Shakira says she was the victim of a random attack by a pair of wild boars while walking in a park in Barcelona with her eight-year-old son. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-58747464

Synchronicity III
 

Whoa! When I woke up this morning, kind of groggy, for some weird reason, I thought about Shakira. I have no idea why. I'm not a fan and can't remember the last time I heard one of her songs. Weird. :confused:

On a slightly related note, here in southern Arizona, we have a critter called a Javelina. It looks like a boar, but it's not even a wild pig (it's a peccary). Anyway, they have terrible eyesight will sometimes attack humans if they feel threatened. It happens once every couple of months in the Tucson area. Javelinas have tusk-like canines that can tear right through clothing and flesh. They can do some damage, but I can't recall any fatalities (besides a few small dogs).

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AKA the Skunk Pig so cute!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peccary

It doesn't even need to be a large animal or a pack of smaller ones.

I've had players searching a home run into a dog (typically some relatively benign breed like a poodle or corgi) eating its now-deceased former owner - and that pup is now none-too-pleased to be interrupted at mealtime. The dichotomy of a small dog suddenly launching itself with extreme violence at a PC, resulting in the need to shoot poor little Muffy...

Somebody that the PCs are either trying to avoid or surprise is going to hear the gunshot.

Death awaits you all – with nasty, big, pointy teeth!
 

Reminds me a bit of the Rabbit of Caerbannog scene in Monty Python & the Holy Grail. :D

Agree with your point. A single, small critter with rabies still poses a deadly threat to PCs.

They are definitely ugly-cute, IMHO. And you really can smell a pack coming if you're downwind of them.

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After the last 12 months of raising a labradoodle from the age of 12 weeks, and seeing how she isn't mean, she's just crazy (she's a people person who, if you let her, literally greets you at the door by standing on two legs, slapping her paws on your shoulders, and demanding chin scratches), I could easily see an animal encounter gone wrong - accidentally shooting the pet of the NPC you are trying to find.

She's supremo hot -- maybe that's why.

Anyway, to stay on topic, what about a swarm of killer bees or murder hornets -- how would you stat that?

Not just Lions and Tigers and Bears
 

Great call! We have Killer Bees here in S. AZ. Thankfully, no Murder Hornets... yet. We also have a couple of species of scorpions, variety of rattlesnakes, and Gila Monsters, all venomous. The rest of CONUS has its fair share of dangerous reptiles and insects. It'd be a pretty cool resource to have stat blocs for them. Anyone looking for a T2k-related project?

I would venture to say that most T2k campaigns take place in Europe. AFAIK, there aren't a lot of venomous critters native to that particularly continent, especially in the central part where a lot of T2k action takes place. Have Africanized bees made their way to Europe yet?

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Even worse, you kill the adored pet of an assassin, who tracks the team with the goal to kill each and everyone.

Sounds like a movie!

There is an even worse scenario that dawned on me.

The group encounters a sick bat, and one of the characters manages to get bitten. That triggers an emergency, high priority quest to track down a viable rabies treatment protocol in their current predicament.

I had a Black Lab/Great Dane about 30 years ago who sounds just like her! Except -- 125 pounds...

My pet Vietnamese Pot-Bellied pig, Princess bangs on the door making horrible noises wanting her dinner. It sounds horrible and a city slicker wouldn't know what is behind the door!

I think I'll stick with Cammie at 65 lbs. She's strong enough that my wife and daughter can't really walk her when her nose is on something. The nose follows the scent, the dog follows the nose, and if you begin walking, she assumes you'll keep up... No problem when you stop as she'll just sit and wait, but when she's walking, it's at a fast pace.

And with the pandemic, meeting new people has been tough, resulting in her assuming that *everyone* she sees when we're on a walk absolutely wants her to run over and say hello.

Pigs are like dog sized bulldozers and require one to child proof their home, but I love them. When I get a dog again, I plan on one raised to not harm the pigs and poultry.

Another critter among the same vein as killer bees (more properly called Africanized Honeybees) is fire ants. Here in South Texas, they are responsible for the deaths of many pets and even some little kids. Some adults also get heavily stung or killed, often by mowing the grass. CPS workers are very careful when servicing electrical equipment; fire ants love to make nests in those places (a note to Scroungers in a T2K setting).

Encountered them when I lived in Florida. They wait until they've covered your unsuspecting foot then sting altogether at the same time. Luckily jumping in the pool made quick work of them, as did boiling water poured down their nest.

See Rats
 

Rats have long been viewed as dangerous to humans, and not without reason, but rats can also help them. Here's a positive animal encounter idea:

https://www.apopo.org/en/what-we-do/...RoCf-0QAvD_BwE

The locales where this appears to be going on are somewhat exotic, by T2k standards, but perhaps some enterprising Pole (or other nationality) could start their own rat-assisted mine-detection enterprise.

Credit to my teenage daughter for bringing this to my attention.

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All ants seem to like the 60HZ cycle of electronic stuff.

"Barcelona tackles roaming wild boar problem".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-59352740