Partly adapted from the Finnish edition of Clinton’s book and forum discussions with Josh.
Something happened when the Moon rose. Or perhaps it was the Skyfire, or the long Year of Shadow. Whichever it was, that was when the ratkin started to appear in Near. And not just ratkin, either: although these are localized phenomena, other sorts of animal people have also been sighted. These are the children of the Moon.
Beastkin (anthropomorphized animals, furries – why not?) are mostly the same as humanite characters, mechanically. Each has a mandatory Secret that belongs to that creature only. They are not part of the Human Equation, however, and neither do they have any obvious relationship to each other, apart from the human-oriented view that they’re all “like animals”.
Beastkin characters can access their own racial crunch, generic beastkin crunch and animal crunch freely. Like animals, the assumption is that a given character only gets the sort of crunch that fits its animal qualities – no SECRET OF SMALL SIZE for a large creature and so on.
Beastkin are not psychologically or physically similar to humans like the old species are, so the Story Guide might well throw in some well-chosen circumstance penalties and such when the two breeds interact. Beastkin can refresh their Pools with animals of their own approximate type as well as people.
The fauna of Near is just as varied as you’d expect of a good and nice fantasy world. The environs of the Sea of Teeth are particularly rich in all sorts of life, but everywhere in Near there are animals fitting the environment; some even say that this is what Hanish gave Near, a living biosphere. Animals are not intentional creatures, so they don’t get Motivation Keys.
What they do get are BEHAVIOR KEYS:
| Behavior Key Framework |
|---|
| Keys of this type depict inborn instincts. |
| 1 Pool: Fulfill your routine. |
| 2 Pool: Struggle to fulfill your routine. |
| 3 Pool: Fulfill your routine despite exceptional circumstances. |
As can be seen, Behavior Keys do not provide experience points (and do not have a Buyoff condition) – instead, they provide Pool points for whichever Pool is running the lowest at the moment. This is useful for animals, as they get only one Pool point from a normal Pool refreshment.
The typical animal has very few Abilities; in fact, only Bestiality (V) and Passive Abilities are a given, while anything else depends on the animal’s nature. Pools are also likely to be low, with Reason practically non-existent. Animals usually can’t learn non-animal Secrets, although I do use the generic Secrets (SECRET OF SPECIALTY and whatnot) to depict important animal characteristics when I feel like it.
Of course, most of the time animals are secondary characters run by the Story Guide, so it’s not very likely that these details would matter much. Still, there are some ways for player characters to access their animal side, too.
Animals are tamed with ANIMAL KEN (I), simply enough. Most animals aren’t naturally tamable, though. For those that are, the player needs to choose how he wants to handle the animal as a game element:
In other words, quite straightforward once you remember that the same fictional thing need not have the same mechanics.
My brother Jari, after playing a campaign in Qek, came to develop his own Story Guiding technique for animals. Because we have a bit of extra space here and I find this stuff interesting, let’s review.
OK, so I haven’t thought to go to this direction with my animals, but now that Jari’s shared his zoo with us, I certainly could. Some of those creatures are pretty wild. Jari’s using the TRAD ANIMAL, by the way.
This comes in a strange place in the book, but the occasion suits us: I like hearing about ideas and gaming technique people have for THE SHADOW OF YESTERDAY, so please do share yours if you get around to playing with this stuff. As you can probably perceive here, practical play techniques can be really different for two people: I wouldn’t know where to begin with this bestiary, but apparently Jari has it all sorted out!
| Bestiality (V) |
|---|
| Practically all animals have this Ability, depicting their ferocious, unthinking nature. It is useful when the animal has to overcome obstacles with pure force and speed. It’s not so much that this is the only important facet of being an animal; rather, we decide that dramatically the only reason animals are going to triumph in conflict is due to their being “good animals”, represented by this Ability. |
| Training (R) |
| A trained animal can support a person with this Ability. It can also try to understand human intent and fulfill tasks set to it by using its training. |
| Secret of Centaur |
|---|
| Centaurs are large quadrupeds from the Great Plains, just my example of yet another Beastkin all but unknown in Near. They get a RUNNING (V) Ability and never run out of VIGOR: they always have one point left as long as they get enough to drink. |
| Secret of Gharial |
| These crocodile-men would be found in very small numbers in Qek; I’m told that they worship death gods in ancient temples there. They do not grow old, ever, and they grow larger and stronger with age, gaining Pool points. |
| Secret of Losing the Mind |
| A beastkin may make a BESTIALITY (V) check to fall into a seizure or frenzy that removes the check result in Advances from the Reason Pool, (R) Abilities and Secrets associated with intelligence. All but one (or two if even) of the Advances are immediately distributed between VIGOR and INSTINCT Pools. The change is permanent. |
| Secret of Animal Speech |
| Animals are actually not much for speaking, but whatever degree of communication they manage, this beastkin understands without Ability checks and regardless of prior experience with the animal in question. Most beastkin understand animals related to them naturally, but for others they need this Secret. Cost: 1 REASON |
| Secret of Moon Instinct |
| The character always knows where the Moon is, even if hidden. Cost: 1 INSTINCT |
| Secret of Sociality |
|---|
| A social animal associates its BESTIALITY (V) with INSTINCT as well. It can engage in social conflicts over dominance, initiative and other cooperative issues. |
| Secret of Cunning |
| A cunning animal associates its BESTIALITY (V) with REASON as well. It can conflict over avoiding traps, understanding what happens around it and other such issues of rudimentary intelligence. |
| Secret of Tameness |
| A tame animal can refresh Pools like people. It can also learn the TRAINING (R) Ability. |
| Secret of Natural Weapons |
| An animal with this Secret has equipment ratings that depict its natural strengths, such as thick skin, teeth or wings. The “equipment quality” of the beast is established with a BESTIALITY (V) check, which may be rerolled in a refreshment scene. Natural weapons do not have imbuements. |
| Secret of Small Size |
| An animal with this Secret is smaller than a human, and thus gains a bonus die every time being small helps them; others gain a penalty die when the small size impedes their actions. |
| Secret of Great Size |
| An animal with this Secret is so big that it has STATURE (V), which it can use to overcome small obstacles with mere size. The animal can also get the SECRET OF BULK. |
| Secret of Flight |
| An animal with this Secret can fly. The cost is paid whether the animal flies or not. Cost: 1 VIGOR per scene |
| Secret of Nocturnality |
| An animal with this Secret is usually awake at night, and has adapted to low-light conditions. The animal associates all of its Abilities with INSTINCT at night-time and does not receive circumstance penalties for lack of light. |
| Secret of Man-killer |
| The animal does not fear people. When fighting with BESTIALITY (V) against a member of the old species, any Harm it causes is increased one step, but not over MORTAL (6). Requirement: has killed a person. |
| Secret of Trad Animal |
| The old TSoY rule for animals is to give them any Secrets that make sense for them, sort of like how item imbuements work. You can do that here as well: have the animal use its BESTIALITY (V) or TRAINING (R) or Passive Abilities instead of the Abilities the Secret requires, of course. |
| Animal Imbuement |
|---|
| The equipment is an animal. The character may use his ANIMAL KEN (I) or other animalhandling Abilities in lieu of BESTIALITY (V) or other animal-only Abilities to activate imbued animal Secrets. |
| Pool Imbuement |
| The equipment has a separate Pool. This mostly makes sense for animals, but there are other places in the book for this as well. The Pool is one point in size and can be used whenever the character uses the equipment, as whichever type of Pool. It replenishes when the equipment is maintained. |
| Secret of Beastmaster |
| The character can tame normally untamable creatures with his ANIMAL KEN (I), forcing them to take the SECRET OF TAMENESS. He can also make any animal he tames a sidekick with the SECRET OF SIDEKICK regardless of Ability levels. When he tames an animal that doesn’t have established statistics, the player gets to allocate his check’s worth of Advances for the animal, while the Story Guide allocates twice that. |
| Secret of Behavior (specify) |
| The character gets along especially well with animals that have a certain Behavior Key. He has no Pool spend cap when interacting with the specific sort of animal. |
| Key of the Predator |
|---|
| The animal is predatory by instinct. |
| 1 Pool: Lurk or roam. |
| 2 Pool: Attack prey. |
| 3 Pool: Attack an unusual prey. |
| Key of Herding |
| The animal likes to live among its own kind. |
| 1 Pool: Remain with your herd. |
| 2 Pool: Follow the herd’s lead. |
| 3 Pool: Defend the herd. |
| Key of Nocturnality |
| The animal prefers being active at night. |
| 1 Pool: Be in a scene at night. |
| 2 Pool: Refuse to come out in daylight. |
| 3 Pool: Feed or mate at night. |
| Key of the Animals |
|---|
| The character likes animals a lot, perhaps even more than people. |
| 1xp: Help an animal. |
| 2xp: Tame an animal. |
| 5xp: An animal helps you out. |
| Buyoff: Kill an animal. |