feat. elephants, racism

Changing Breeds Part VIII: Land Titans

I just got back from a lovely weekend at my cousin's wedding, and now I'm sitting down to write this. Sometimes, I think I have issues.

First off today, we have the writeup of the Land Titans, the elephant-men and rhino-men. Why they're in the same group, fucked if I know. Rhinos are closer to horses and tapirs than elephants, and an elephant is closer to an aardvark than a rhino. I know that the book bullshits this by saying mystical and thematic connections are more important, but aside from "really big African animals" I'm not buying it.

It starts by saying GOD DAMN WHITE MAN KILLED OFF ALL THE ELEPHANTS/RHINOS AND THEY'S PISSED NOW, NATURE IS MAKING AN ARMY OF GOD-MEN. Personality-wise, they're gentle giants who will snap you like a Slim Jim if you get them angry, and they're also quite sociable. They're generous and kind, but also hold grudges for years (and yes, they make a "an elephant never forgets" joke.)

They tend to stay in the regions where their elephant and rhino brethren are found, and rarely move due to how endangered they are. The book actually makes an interesting scenario by saying that they sometimes get captured by conservationists or zoos in animal form, but that shapeshifting usually allows them to make a break for it. Or not, because apparently anybody who tries capturing them - even people with good intentions - gets horrifically murdered for their insult.

They apparently have an affinity with ghosts, because why the fuck not?

Female Land Titans love being among large amounts of their fellow animal type in animal form, integrating themselves into their social webs. Males stay on their own and murder anything that looks at them funny until they get older.

One cool thing is that, through semi-formal bonds of integration via gift giving and honor systems, clans of shifters, herds of elephants, and locals often become bound in a large web of mutual aid and defense, with elephants ruining the shit of anybody messing with a small village and the villagers shooting up any poachers that try messing with the elephants.

The stereotype block is as follows:

quote:

Stereotypes
Man: I have to ask myself why I should bear any goodwill at all toward those who've driven our kin to the edge of the Long Sleep. Then I walk among our palaces and towns and recall that not all men are mad.
Mages: Look darkly on the would-be king whose throne rests on ancient secrets...
Vampires: When a corpse will not stop moving, step on it until it does.
Werewolves: Majestic dogs, in their way. I honor their nobility from a very safe distance.

For once, all those quotes are actually kinda cool (and as fuck in the case of the Vampire one.)

Anyway, it's time for our first breed, the Azubuike, the Burnt-Horn People, the rhino-men.



Close, but not quite that kind of rhino-man.



Colder.



Very funny.



Once proud and numerous, the strongest shifter breed on land doesn't do so well against high-caliber rounds and explosives - despite my friend and I running tests that show the exact opposite when you hit the actual mechanics. Fun fact, even with a massively overhauled and hilariously deadly gun system, elephant-men (and rhino-men to a lesser extent) can take two anti-tank bullets to the skull before keeling over.

Anyway, the Azubuike are all antisocial dicks with poor eyesight (with no mechanical reflection) and a fear of fire that, again, has no mechanical reflection. All two dozen of them in the entire world. The writeup of their animal form says they can run up to 35 mph on a charge, and, (un)luckily for them, I can check their math because they give a sort of speed-to-MPH ratio in the core book's listing for vehicles! Since Speed 103 is apparently 70 miles an hour, it stands that Azubuike must be able to go at Speed 51-52 in animal form to live up to the claim. An ordinary person who turns into a rhino and runs at full tilt goes at Speed 34. While that's still pretty terrifying to most people who can sprint at Speed 18 on average, that's not as fast as real rhinos can (apparently) go. However, if Big McLargeHuge, The Man Your Man Could Kill Like, turned into a rhino, he'd be able to sprint at Speed 46, which is nearly enough to keep pace with cars on most of the roads near me. A rhino bigger than a truck slowly catching up to me on a 30 MPH road is kind of terrifying to think about.

Anyway, that ridiculously derail aside, we get to talk about the mechanics. They start with natural 3/2 (thankfully not bulletproof) armor, a 3L horn, and some flat-out frightening stat bonuses to their forms. While the elephant Warform is kind of the chump's choice, it's actually viable here with only slightly lessened bonuses that are negated when you remember, oh yeah, this form can actually carry giant fucking swords or something.

The Jhaa are the Asian Elephant breed, and the book implies they fought in Burma, Cambodia, Thailand, and other nearby countries as "ghostly elephant-men who crushed entire platoons in wild mountain fights." Oookay then. Basically, the Jhaa are Gloriously Superior Asians that all are muscular and beautiful with a taste for high living that's being taken away by the White Devil and secular corruption. Also, they explicitly wear "shockingly immodest garb unless formality demands otherwise."

Yeah, I'm just going to move on. Mechanically, they're broken as hell, but not as broken as...

The Mhole-Rho are the African Elephants, the Walking Mountains, and subject of a long post earlier. Thus, I'll just touch on the fluff. They're colossal, larger than life, empathetic, and bringers of prosperity, something that's sort of fallen apart in modern Africa. They've either tried to struggle through it, or gone a little crazy with bitterness and started murdering soldiers with giant elephant warbands. Most are black people who favor traditional clothing such as dashiki, because they're African, duh, this is how it works. They also often reach seven (or more) feet tall and weigh over 300 pounds. Their elephant form can weigh up to three tons (I know, I'll get to this) and stand from ten to fourteen feet tall, which is kinda colossal when the largest elephant ever officially recorded (Barnum and Bailey's bullshitting aside) was about thirteen feet tall. Hilariously, a three ton elephant is about 6,000 pounds no matter what system of ton you're using, and a fourteen-foot, 6,000 pound elephant would be thinner than a motherfucking string bean. The average elephant weight is about five tons (11,000 pounds), with the aforementioned largest elephant ever recorded being about twelve tons (24,000 pounds). To put it this way, a 6,000 pound elephant's skeleton could be almost a third of its total body weight.

Also, the Warform can be up to fifteen feet tall and only gains about a ton. However, back of the envelope calculations using the Square Cube Law indicate this is more or less in the right neighborhood, from what I can tell.

In the Other Breeds section is only a single entry, the Iravati, South Asian elephant-men who appear to have a common secret, are all very quiet and stubborn, work hard, but also have a shared greedy streak. They, hilariously, get their weight/size proportions right while mentioning how the Mhole-Rho are still bigger. They are literally Mhole-Rho's stats, with the Primal form one dot smaller, a small Dexterity boost to Warform, and a slightly worsened Manipulation penalty. Way to , book.

Christ, this is a lot more than I was expecting to write for these guys. I don't think I can get to the Laughing Strangers without making this post huge.

...

I'm going to have to do a separate entry for every single breed category, aren't I?



Next time: the Laughing Strangers, seriously this time. Featuring: every single art piece in the section being terrifying/bad!