Hollow Moon Planetology: Blue Moon -- Animal Life
by Sharon Dornhoff Animal Life in the Hollow Moon
Compared to Ordana's task of adapting plant life to Matera's
darkness, her Immortal associates Ka and Seshay-Selene (who took
responsibility for terrestrial and marine animal life,
respectively) had it easy. The only substantial changes they found
necessary at first, to allow Mystara's nocturnal animals to prosper
in the Hollow Moon, was to alter certain species' coloration to
suit the colour-shifted lunar spectrum, or the dark vegetation
against which they'd need to camouflage themselves. Behavioural
changes, which would acclimatise them to the moon's constant darkness
and lack of seasons, were carefully conditioned into the long-
lived vertebrate species, with little alteration to their genetic
makeup; for insects and other invertebrates -- which undergo much
faster evolution, thanks to their short generation-time -- most
could simply be deposited in the HM and allowed to adapt on their
own. There are, indeed, animals in the HM which significantly
differ from their Mystaran ancestors -- most notably, the siliceous
"glass" corals of Mare Foecunditatis and the Vesper Ocean -- but
these were introduced to the setting specifically to fill essential
biological roles without which the lunar ecosystems would be
incomplete: they were never endangered on Mystara, so could be
placed on Matera in an altered state.
Like lunar vegetation, many vertebrates in the Hollow Moon look
bizarre to Mystarans. Most wild species tend to be several shades
darker in colour than their planetary counterparts, to blend in
with the black or near-black vegetation that surrounds them; for
those animals in which melanism is occasionally seen on Mystara,
such as leopards, black pigment is universal among the lunar
breeds. In other cases, an animal's dark colour may prove to be an
illusion caused by the HM's indigo light: a tiger on Matera would
appear pure black, until torchlight or a Light spell renders its
orange stripes visible. (Many deep-sea fishes IRL show a similar
"false black" camouflage, turning bright orange under divers'
lamplight.) In a quirk of Materan adaptation, fishes and marine
mammals in the crystal-bottomed seas break with the usual
coloration of free- swimming species, in that they are equally dark
on both upper and lower surfaces. Since half the time, light in the
lunar seas shines up from the seabed instead of down from the
surface, having a pale belly and dark back isn't useful for fading
into the background (except for a few pelagic porpoises, who've
cleverly adjusted to the reversed lighting at fulldark by swimming
upside-down! :-D).
Among those animals which aren't dependent on camouflage, either as
stalkers who must remain inconspicuous or as prey themselves, lunar
varieties tend to go in entirely the opposite direction: they are
extremely pale, albino, or even (mostly for invertebrates)
bioluminescent. Pale coloration is especially common in those
species which constantly live under leaf litter or other cover
(e.g. salamanders, moles, centipedes) or whose natural defences
leave little to fear from predators (e.g. porcupines, poisonous
frogs, hippopotami). Mystaran species which became albino through
subterranean living, such as white apes, always retain this lack of
pigmentation in the Hollow Moon, even if the perpetual twilight
permits them to forsake their cave-dwelling habits.
One feature shared by many lunar animals is bioluminescence -- the
biochemical production of light, by means of the firefly-enzyme
luciferin, or by harbouring symbiotic, luminous bacteria. While the
majority of species introduced to the HM setting used scent or
sound to communicate and attract appropriate mates, those which
depended upon sight- recognition and/or visual cues were placed at
a distinct disadvantage, in their new environment: they either
couldn't see each other for courtship purposes, or -- due to the
colour-shift effect -- they didn't recognise members of their own
species, when they saw them! In order for those animals which
depended on visual signals -- red, orange, or yellow cues,
especially -- to perpetuate themselves in the Hollow Moon, the
Immortals Ka and Seshay-Selene had to borrow Ordana's trick of
adding modified symbiotes to an existing species, without changing
the hosts' genetic makeup. By daubing a crop of luminous bacteria
onto an animal's body, and adapting these bacteria to transmit
themselves from generation to generation, the two Immortals could
give a visually-oriented species clear, distinctive markings by
which to attract a mate, warn predators of its venomous nature, and
communicate with its own kind though behavioural displays and body
language. Markings that, rather than being cloaked in twilight,
actually glowed in the dark! Patches of brightness could be placed
on parts of an animal which might be covered for camouflage
purposes, as with a frog's inflatable throat-pouch, or could be
designed to glow only during the breeding season and remain
inconspicuous throughout the rest of the year. Because the bacteria
would generate their own light instead of reflecting ambient light,
any colour of markings could be selected, the better to conform to
each animal's expectations of what a member of its own species
"should" look like.
Had the HM's Immortals stopped there, having restored lunar
animals' ability to signal their mates, Matera would probably be a
very gloomy, drab place -- black vegetation, black or pale animals,
and only half the usual number of colours to its spectrum. But
things didn't end, just because the moon's moths, fishes, and other
sight-oriented species were once again able to tell each other
apart. Simply put, the very idea of glow- in-the-dark animals
turned out to be so marvellously-captivating to Seshay-Selene (who
was still relatively new to her Immortal powers, when she joined
the HM's "design board", and who'd never created life before), and
so appealing to Korotiku (since spiders were one of the taxa which
had thus been enhanced), that these playful Immortals promptly made
a game of creating hundreds of unique, luminous species for the
lunar environment! The Immortal whale quickly filled the seas with
glowing varieties of nearly every marine animal taxon, while
Korotiku -- who'd been rather stifled by Ka's stolid insistence
that the Hollow World conform closely to existing ecosystems, and
was delighted to exercise some creativity in this novel environment
-- happily usurped the Preserver's role in populating Materan lands
with arthropods, devising bioluminescent arachnids, myriapods, and
insects of all kinds. The dinosaur-Immortal nearly threw a
hissy-fit, at seeing HIS idea (!) for the museum-worlds being taken
off in such a frivolous direction -- creating brand-new lifeforms
had never been a part of the plan! -- but Ordana was grateful for
ANY addition of light to benighted Matera, by that stage, so Ka's
objections were decisively voted down.
The practical upshot of all this is that, while the vegetation of
Matera is drab and foreboding, its insect and marine life are
anything but! Normal-coloured invertebrates certainly do exist,
having been brought there for their own protection, but they are
far less noticeable than the multicoloured swarms of luminous
moths, flies, beetles and crickets which flutter and hop through
the air, or teem upon the ground. Spiders with brightly highlighted
leg-joints stalk brilliant, gleaming silverfish on the forest
floors; ants wave light-tipped antennae to one another, as they
tend their shining herds of aphids; even lowly cockroaches expose
striking, colourful patterns, when they spread their wing-covers.
In the seas, glowing coral reefs harbour scintillating
representatives of every known animal phylum, from sponges to
stingrays to ammonites. Even Ka eventually came around, gifting
several venomous amphibians and reptiles with glorious, shining
patterns that warn predators of their toxicity! All of the vibrancy
and attractiveness which is so weirdly absent from the dusky,
pale-flowered lunar plant life, is stunningly displayed by Matera's
cold- blooded animals ... the same animals that are so often
dismissed as "icky", by the uninitiated. The simple fact that
arthropods are some of the most beautiful things in their world has
had a marked effect on how Materans view such creatures; it's no
fluke, that this is the one place in the Mystara- Patera-Matera
system where aranea are an accepted and open part of society, or
that lunar folk eat by choice many things which Mystara's
Graakhalians eat by necessity. :-)
Unique Materan sea life
Nowhere in the Hollow Moon is the diversity of bioluminescent life
more evident, than on the coral reefs of Foecunditatis. In nature,
corals are restricted to shallow waters because they are dependent
on sunlight: each tiny polyp harbours photosynthetic algae within
its body, and cannot survive for long without a source of light*.
Ordana's alteration of these algae to make do with lower
light-levels went part of the way toward letting coral adapt to the
HM setting; but, unfortunately, it wasn't enough. The long periods
of deeper darkness, when sunlight shines on the Nearside instead of
the Firmament, were too long for the delicate, calcareous corals of
Mystara to cope with. This posed a real quandary for Seshay-Selene,
in her efforts to populate the seas of Matera with life, as coral
reefs are vital habitats for an enormous variety of marine animals
and algae. Moreover, even if they could be adapted to live in
darkness, the opaque masses of calcium carbonate which coral-polyps
lay down, in building a reef, would've cut off all incoming light
from beneath the sea floor, at fulldark ... a source of
illumination, for growing algae, which was equal to if not greater
than that light which struck the waters from above!
[* - This is one of the reasons divers near coral reefs are
discouraged from kicking up sand from the bottom -- it coats the
polyps and deprives them of light.]
From the beginning, the problem of keeping the sea floors clear of
debris and silt had been a serious concern, for the Immortal whale;
if too much material blocked off fulldark's sunlight from beneath
the Maria bedrock, half of the available energy for underwater
ecosystems would be lost. In the Vesper Ocean she was able to
create powerful currents to wash such sediments into massive
submarine dunes, leaving large areas open and illuminated, but the
other seas were too small to accommodate such complex dynamics in
their depths. For tiny, rain-fed Mare Crisium, reducing the mineral
content of the water served to discourage silting, but all of the
other seas were fed by sediment-rich rivers that would soon coat
their bottoms with muck if she let them be. She never did find a
good solution for Mare Humorum, which remains murky and relatively
unproductive to this day (fortunately, its shark-kin inhabitants
don't mind these conditions).
The solution came to her at last, when she took a break from
pondering this dilemma and examined another form of stationary
marine life: sponges. Glass sponges, that is ... a kind of sponge
which builds its skeleton out of tiny rods of clear silicon. And
what worked for sponges' skeletons, she suddenly realised, could
surely work for corals', too! Whereas normal corals construct their
underpinnings out of white calcium carbonate, a siliceous skeleton
would be completely transparent: able to admit light from beneath,
as readily as from above. Slight modifications to the refractive
index of a polyp's skeleton could be made, during its growth, so
that incoming light-rays would always follow the path of a
coral-branch to its end instead of spilling out; in effect, it
would pipe light from the crystal seabed directly to the coral
animal's algal symbionts, like a fibre- optic cable! Once such a
reef had been laid in place by Seshay-Selene, it could even counter
the process of sedimentation by growing ever-taller, as each branch
of coral extended itself to rise above the silt-line and the ever-
growing glass pillars from which they sprang piped fulldark's
sunlight up through the muck in which they'd become embedded. If a
branch should be broken off above the sediment, kelp or similar
large algae would quickly claim the projection's still-glowing tip
as a holdfast, until such time as new coral polyps became
established. Most importantly, by laying several yards of silicon
"branches" and sediment between the crystal seabed and a reef's
life forms, this would raise the Hollow Moon's coral communities
well clear of the terrible cold that restricts the HM setting's
benthic organisms to sand-crust islands, and the underwater
basalt-shelf offshore of the Apennines.
Inspired by this idea of crossing sponge and coral biology -- which
proved phenomenally successful; in fact, the whole of the Mare
Foecunditatis seabed is covered with glass corals, as are parts of
the Vesper Ocean and a few spots in Humorum! -- Seshay-Selene then
tackled the problem of Mare Tranquillitatus: a habitat, which also
needed to retain its clear, light-permeable seabed; yet which,
although it adjoined Foecunditatis, she'd planned to set aside for
pelagic species rather than reef-dwellers. Since combining the
features of two different animals had worked out so well the first
time, the cetacean Immortal used the same technique ... but with
protozoa instead of animals. Borrowing from the biology of amoebas,
shell-bearing foraminiferans, and cold-resistant strains of
OD&D/AD&D jellies and puddings, she created the giant
forams: barrel-sized amoebas which could consume organic sediments
as well as living prey, could endure the chill of the crystal
seabed, and which constructed hollow shells (called "tests") for
themselves out of rubble, pebbles, and sand. These mindless
bottom-dwellers would constantly scour the depths clear of edible
silts, while scrounging bits of inorganic debris to cement into
their tests; when a giant foram died, its test would provide
housing for crabs, octopi, morays and other cavity-dwelling
creatures. Every few years, all of these giant foraminiferans would
abandon their usual (asexual) method of reproduction, congregate by
the millions in a few Immortal-chosen locations, and each break up
into dozens of small amoebae that could merge with others of their
kind in a mass reshuffling of genetic information ... leaving their
tests behind, in immense mounds, while the resulting offspring set
out to once again scour the sea floor for stones and sand-grains*.
Whole islands have been known to form on Mare Tranquillitatus, over
centuries or millennia of giant- foram mass matings, by this
process.
[* - Foraminiferans IRL really do have a life cycle like this;
contrary to popular impression, not all one-celled organisms are
ignorant of sex! ;-) Giant forams encountered by PCs can be treated
as scamilles for the purpose of game-stats, although they are not
intelligent. Encumbered by their tests, they can't move from place
to place fast enough to warrant a movement rate in combat, and if
they fail a morale check they cease attacking and withdraw all
their pseudopods into their cemented shells (giving an effective AC
of -2). They take half damage from cold-based attacks. Giant
forams' tests may incorporate bits of metallic or stony treasure,
gathered from sunken ships or scrounged off the sea bottom, though
this is rare in the extreme. Giant forams are solitary except when
they gather to mate; if one is killed, others nearby will neither
notice nor care.]
Having assured the Hollow Moon's seas would remain illuminated for
the next million-odd years -- eventually, silt would fill Mare
Foecunditatis and the giant forams' tests would pile all over
Tranquillitatus' floor, but she'd have plenty of chances to fix
that when the time came -- Seshay-Selene went on to populate them
with dark-adapted sea life of all sorts. In addition to mundane and
luminous animals*, Matera's marine habitats are home to sea snails
and chitons as big as watermelons, which help clean algae off the
gleaming corals' branches; giant scallops with transparent
"windows" in their shells, that let in light for symbiotic algae;
bizarre, bloated cephalopods called "vampire squid" that seem
halfway between squids and octopi; horseshoe crabs that swarm
Vesper Ocean beaches during circle tides; and silly-looking
pycnogonids (called "sea ticks" by Materan sailors) that seem to be
all legs and no body. Among fishes, virtually all of the same kinds
are present as one might encounter in the Mystaran seas, although
those which can detect electrical impulses -- sharks and rays,
sturgeons, electric eels, etc -- are at a distinct advantage, in
the unending darkness. Benthic fishes are confined to areas where
the crystal is covered in sand-crust, silt, or solidified lava.
Adventurers expecting to find prehistoric reptiles in the HM seas,
as they have in the Hollow World's, will be in for a
disappointment: only one ichthyosaur (Ophthalmosaurus, an 8-HD
creature) from the fossil record has the kind of large eye-sockets
that imply it might have been a night hunter. Sea turtles and
flippered crocodiles, some of them truly enormous, are found on the
moon, but sea snakes and marine iguanas find the habitat far too
chilly to survive there. There are several species of non-sentient,
primitive toothed whales in the Vesper Ocean, along with various
seals, tuskless walrus, and a few polar bears on the ice-flats of
the sea's frozen outer rim. Great auks and skuas -- veterans of the
dark arctic winters -- also congregate on the ice, but most
seabirds are absent.
[* - In the seas of the Hollow Moon, this group includes -- but is
hardly limited to! -- sponges, anemones, jellyfish, comb jellies,
flatworms, nudibranchs, cephalopods (mostly ammonites, squid and
octopi), bristle worms, shrimp, crabs, sea cucumbers, brittle
stars, feather stars, sea squirts, skates, eels, many reef-dwelling
fishes (to match the glowing corals!), sea turtles, and more kinds
of zooplankton -- some of them, also housing symbiotic algae --
than a druid could classify in a year.]
Two other habitats should be mentioned here, namely Mare Nectaris
(freshwater) and the hydrothermal vents of the kopru. While most
life in the lunar lakes and rivers are Ka's and Korotiku's doing,
Seshay-Selene also took steps to ensure that Nectaris' crystalline
bottom would remain relatively clear of muck. There, gigantic but
harmless flatworms rendered cold-resistant by the Immortal whale
slither over the crystal, slurping up organic material and
shovelling debris out of their path. Hence, the floor of Nectaris
is a mudflat that's cris-crossed with streaks of open bedrock, and
these ever-changing trails let in enough light to promote algae and
a lake-bottom ecosystem of archaic armoured fishes (gars, suckers,
etc), mussels, giant crabs (many of the self-camouflaging
"decorator crab" sort), giant leeches (which look exactly like the
harmless giant flatworms, at first glance), and giant crayfish. In
the subterranean hot springs of the Stofler-Walter-Purbach-Arzachel mountain range, giant clams and tubeworms
which cluster round the spewing "black smokers" use
chemoautotrophic bacteria to live on hydrogen sulphide, and these
in turn provide nourishment for the kopru and a bewildering array
of intermediate lifeforms... many of them extinct throughout the
rest of the world, long before the Hollow Moon or even the
dinosaurs ever existed. Slithery giant hagfishes, and relict
trilobites unseen beyond the vents since the Cambrian, are among
the least-alien of these freakish fossils come to life.
Land animals of Matera
Compared to the Hollow World, the vertebrates of the Hollow Moon's
land areas aren't terribly impressive. Most of the larger
herbivorous dinosaurs, judging by the size of their eye-sockets and
lack of evident specialisation for hearing or smell, were
day-feeders; and without such massive prey to feed upon, the big
meat-eaters like tyrannosaurids and allosaurs are out, too.
(Besides, they've already been assigned to the HW setting by TSR
... so if I want to stay consistent, with that product, I'll HAVE
to assume they were diurnal! ;-D) Many of the smaller carnosaur
varieties, however -- especially those sickle-clawed "Jurassic
Park" superstars, the raptors! -- would've been quite capable of
surviving on such "small game" as deer, cattle, or hippos, so
aren't dependent on the presence of sauropods and the like, to make
a living. On top of that, raptors in the movies have already
acquired an image as night-hunters ... and the fact that they were
never placed in the Hollow World by TSR, as their big cousins
were*, supports this view for Mystara's dinosaurs. And let's face
it: Velociraptors are COOL! So, they're among Matera's top
carnivores on land, with their different known varieties ranging
from turkey-sized -- which is still big enough to attack hin or
small livestock -- to the size of a black bear. (One even larger
species which hunts in pairs -- some specimens growing as massive
as tigers -- exist in the deepest wilderness, but Materans know
nothing of them: they'll be every bit as surprised as the PCs, to
meet one!)
[* - Sure, nobody but a few palaeontologists even knew that
Deinonychus & kin existed, back when the HW set was published
... but, hey: finders, keepers! Allston missed his chance, so I'm
takin' them! Nyaah, nyaah, nyaah! ;-D]
Other dinosaurs familiar to Materans include some rather drab
herbivores called fabrosaurids, several ostrich-like omnivores
related to the sickle-claws, and a whole bunch of coelurosaur
species -- pint-sized carnivores, ranging in size from that of a
chicken to that of a deer -- including a giant domesticated variety
(also known to Mystarans as the so- called "Rockhome lizard") which
can be ridden. One armoured genus, Scutellosaurus, is present in
the western forests, but it lacks the weaponry of HW ankylosaurs
and stegosaurs and is inoffensive and timid. Two kinds of segnosaur
-- picture a bipedal, dinosaur version of an aardvark, complete
with long foreclaws for ripping open termite nests and simple,
peg-like teeth -- pose a threat to the region's giant termites and
the aardovai who depend on them; but dinosaurs as a rule aren't the
major problem that they are to HW races: only the raptors offer a
substantial danger to human- sized travellers, and they are
cunning* enough to have learned not to attack armed humanoids ...
unless they've clearly got them outnumbered or can catch them
off-guard.
[* - None of this "dinosaurs were dumber than rocks" nonsense on MY
watch, thank you! Raptors are semi-intelligent pack hunters, just
like wolves or lions, and have a similar skill at choosing and
bringing down their prey. Even the herbivorous dinosaurs are of
animal intelligence -- they were certainly as smart as crocodiles,
if not more so, being closer to birds than crocs are -- and the
omnivores are nearly as bright as raptors.]
Pterodactyloids such as Pteranodon aren't heavily represented in
the HM, as most of them have already been assigned to the Hollow
World and must thus be presumed diurnal by default. (This is
ironic, as they're the younger branch of the flying reptiles and
lived side-by-side with birds, so were more likely to have become
nocturnal than their predecessors, in order to avoid competition
with feathered flyers!) A much older group of pterosaurs, the
long-tailed rhamphorhynchids, does have many representatives on
Matera, filling many of the ecological niches normally occupied by
day-flying birds. None of them grow particularly large, except
those which share the roles of seabirds such as gulls or albatross;
the Apennines are home to the largest (3 HD) of these
leather-winged flyers... not counting the pteryx, who are fully
sentient. Skinwings from the shadow-elf caverns were introduced to
the Hollow Moon, along with their vesper elven masters, but these
domesticated pterodactyls have failed to establish any feral
populations and exist only in captivity.
Among other extinct reptiles, there are large numbers of
crocodylians in the Hollow Moon, many of which are quite different
from their modern relatives: there are bipedal crocs, long-legged
crocs built for running on land, and even a few slender, arboreal
species (look up "Sphenosuchia" in a palaeontology text, if you
think I'm kidding here...). Most have shorter snouts and less
dermal-bone armour -- hence, a poorer AC -- than our present-day
gators and crocs. Giant varanoid lizards, including the tremendous
and rapacious Megalania from the Pleistocene of the Wallaroo
grasslands, are able night-hunters and can be found in the eastern
deserts and savannahs. None of the older, Triassic reptile taxa
appear in the Hollow Moon -- or the Hollow World, for that matter!
-- because they were already long extinct when Ka (a Jurassic
megalosaurid) was born, so never had the chance to be
preserved.
Less-exotic herpetological specimens are much more abundant than
dinosaurs, on Matera. Frogs, toads, salamanders, and caecilians
(which are legless amphibians, not worms as the MMC implies) thrive
in the dim light and humidity of the midlands, some of them
becoming giants; HM travellers can hear toads, treefrogs, peepers
and bullfrogs chorusing non- stop, all year round. Toxic varieties
of frog or salamander are often luminous, as an extra warning for
predators not to even think about it. Nocturnal lizards are common,
especially geckos and chameleons, in both normal and giant
varieties. Tortoises and freshwater terrapins are neither more nor
less common than on Mystara, though several archaic, soft- shelled
species exist in the swamps and marshes that are extinct on their
planet of origin. Conventional crocodiles, alligators, caiman and
gavials are present, along with their non-aquatic predecessors I'd
already mentioned. Snakes, especially heat-sensitive pit vipers
such as rattlesnakes, tend to do very well on the moon, as rodents
and other small- mammal prey are superabundant.
Birds aren't nearly as successful in Matera's darkness as reptiles
or amphibians, with the obvious exception of owls. Nightjars,
whipoorwills, and other members of the goatsucker-taxon do well in
the moon, and there are quite a few nocturnal grouse, quail,
ptarmigans and woodcocks. Rails and night herons wade the lunar
streams and shorelines, and one crepuscular roadrunner keeps the
snake population of the Sohktar deserts in check. The flightless
Dark Jungle cassowary -- long extirpated from the Orcs' Head
Peninsula, by the humanoid tribes' careless overhunting -- has been
given free reign in the midland forests, where few predators dare
challenge its formidable claws and legendary temper. A few of these
fierce ratites are actually tamed as steeds by the hin of
Shaergarde. Piranha birds also roam the midlands, but are seldom
encountered; many of them -- the red, orange, or yellow members of
their multicoloured flocks -- sport luminescent feathers! One small
glade in the heart of the Wallaran dreamlands, yet cut off even
from that mysterious region by steep cliffs or deep chasms on all
sides, is home to giant kiwis and the giant earthworms they sniff
out.
Mammals in the Hollow Moon include many, many archaic or ancestral
species from the Age of Reptiles... virtually all of which will
look like ordinary shrews or rats, to adventurers. Indeed, most can
be considered either rats or -- for the bad-tempered kinds -- giant
shrews, if game-stats are called for. Many of these primitive
mammals have a mildly-poisonous saliva, comparable to that of an
AD&D large centipede, for use in incapacitating insect prey. A
few have spiny coats like a hedgehog's. Some lay leathery eggs like
a reptile, while others bear live young. Very few grow any bigger
than a squirrel. The largest group of these animals are called
multituberculates by palaeontologists, and they're of interest to HM
gamers for just one reason: they've got the most efficient set of
all-purpose gnawing/shearing teeth of any vertebrate that ever
lived, enabling them to chew their way through leather, cloth,
wood, or thin metal more quickly than your PCs will ever believe!
Should a character accidentally set a backpack down on top of a
multi's burrow-entrance, OR leave anything that smells of food,
grease (including freshly-oiled weapons or armour), sweat, or blood
out where these little suckers can get at it, rest assured it's
going to have holes gnawed clean through it in a matter of minutes.
(And your players thought giant magpies were annoying...! ;-D) The
largest of these antique mammals, and one of the most irascible, is
the heat-loving ash crawler of the volcanic uplands, an animal
which was brought to Matera when its appalling stupidity seemed
guaranteed to bring about its extinction. Regrettably, its
relocation proved premature; these distorted beasts still exist on
Mystara.
Besides these ancient pests, Matera is home to plenty of familiar
mammals ... familiar to your players, that is. Unless someone is
playing a Wallara, the nocturnal marsupials of the Wallaran
dreamlands -- sugar gliders, wombats, tree kangaroos, thylacines
and devils -- will look downright bizarre, even before they
encounter giant Pleistocene specimens like the bear-sized wombat
Diprotodon! Bats are, of course, ubiquitous in the Hollow Moon's
skies, as their echolocation gives them an unbeatable edge over
other flying vertebrates' sensory abilities; flying foxes fill the
role usually claimed by fruit-eating birds, in lunar ecosystems,
while other bats pollinate flowers, fish, catch frogs or mice, and
consume insects by the ton. Giant vampire bats are present in the
moon as well, being found in the margasta rain forests on the
isthmus of Foecunditatis/Tranquillitatus; but these are of an
extinct subspecies which has yet to evolve the OD&D bats'
paralytic powers, and must feed by stealth as IRL vampire bats do.
Stirges are also found on Matera, mostly in valleys of the southern
humanoid tribelands. Primates aren't widespread in the HM, but
there are big-eyed owl monkeys in the margasta forests, and
prosimians -- lorises, bushbabies, lemurs, and tarsiers -- can be
found throughout the subtropical midlands. Anteaters and armadillos
are present, but rare, and the Megatherium -- a crepuscular animal,
active at dusk and dawn, on Mystara ... therefore, preserved in
BOTH the HW and the HM settings! -- is the only sloth. Pangolins
and aardvarks, along with segnosaurs, are much more likely to prey
on Rheita termite nests; the former animals sometimes occur as a
giants, and although they seldom attack humanoids, their heavy
armour- like scales (AC 2, HD 6) makes them tough to drive
away.
The herbivore side of the Mammalia is somewhat lopsided, on Matera;
while there's oodles of rodents, rabbits, and primitive
intermediates between these two taxa, larger hoofed animals are
actually quite scarce. Some of the more interesting lunar rodents
include giant porcupines, giant beavers (which have an Intelligence
of 4-6, and might well be the ancestors of the Serpent Peninsula's
mugumba mud-people), and the trapper-prized giant chinchillas of
the lunar Alps. Just about any rodent you can think of is found in
the Hollow Moon, except diurnal (non- flying) squirrels and --
believe it or not -- common species of rats or house mice ...
animals which will never become "endangered species", as long as
Mystaran civilisation exists! (OTOH, there are plenty of Materan
field mice, and rats other than Rattus rattus, that make pests of
themselves in the same way.) Apart from rodents, and a few timid,
cat-sized primitive browsers called condylarths, the only
plant-eating mammals that can really be considered common in the HM
setting are deer -- including the hardy reindeer of the
crystalbarrens, as well as several woodland and upland species
which grow no bigger than North American white-tails -- and noisy,
gregarious herds of peccaries. There are hippopotami, some of them
giants of their kind, in the Rheita rivers and the marshlands of
the Rilles; they are the largest mammals on Matera apart from
primitive whales, as there are no elephants, rhinos, or sea cows. A
few shy vicuna have been spotted in the lunar Alps, and a number of
tiny, tusked ruminants such as chevrotains forage in what little
underbrush the vesper elves' lands have to offer. Mountain goats
and musk oxen are the only wild bovids in this grass-poor setting,
although some of the domestic livestock kept by Materan humans are
of species which can no longer be found on Mystara and were
provided by the Immortals as a way of preserving both them and
their human caretakers, e.g. the kouprey -- a type of wild jungle
cattle, which went extinct IRL less than forty years ago -- raised
in place of common cattle, by the natives of Deslandres. Tapirs are
the only perissodactyls in the Hollow Moon, and unlike the
"swampmares" of Ator they cannot be ridden (not even by a gator
man).
Virtually all the mammalian carnivores can be found in the Hollow
Moon, except for some of the largest species (lions, smilodons,
cave or grizzly bears) that would suffer from the scarcity of large
herd animals to prey upon (such animals are sent to the Hollow
World instead). While classic "sabre-toothed tigers" are too large
for the lunar habitat to support, its lightweight relatives such as
Machairodus can live there; such cats have 1 HD less than Smilodon
and do -1 hp/die for damage (minimum of 1 hp per attack), but can
run half-again as fast as their bulky HW counterparts. Immense
hyenas with twice the HD and bite-power of spotted hyenas hunt the
Rheita savannah, having much the same enmity and rivalry with
sickle-claw packs as their smaller relatives do, with lion prides.
A few truly bizarre meat-eating animals called mesonychids -- built
like bears and dire wolves, but actually sporting hooves (!) like
the herbivores to which they are related -- have found a unique
niche for themselves as the only predators which can traverse the
crystalbarrens unharmed: their hoofed feet can contact the
heat-leeching crystal without damage, something no canine or feline
paw can endure! Because their habitat is one of the only ones in
the Hollow Moon where ordinary (i.e. hoofed) herd animals can
out-compete giant insects, mesonychids grow much larger than other
predators native to Matera; one of them -- the awesome (and
incredibly ugly) Andrewsarchus* -- is a 9+9-HD, man-eating
nightmare on legs, and the largest IRL mammalian carnivore that
every walked the earth. Immortals help the party which runs into
one of THESE snaggle-toothed throwbacks, in the middle of a frigid
and featureless wasteland where THEY'RE the only fresh meat for
miles! Among the more fantastic carnivores, night-sighted owl
bears can be confronted everywhere on land (including a big polar
bear/snowy owl subspecies, in the Mare Frigoris region); primitive
displacer beasts which lack the displacement power of modern
strains (which might cause PCs expecting the normal variety to
strike at thin air, in itself!) prowl the mountain slopes, like
great tentacled cougars, in kopru territory; and eerie packs of
yowlers stalk the unwary, through the black pine-woods of
Stygia.
[* - Check "Back To The Age Of Mammals", Dragon #167, in the
back-issue files of the TSR website for Andrewsarchus' AD&D
stats ... and disregard the part of the description that says it's
mostly a scavenger. We'll probably never know what the IRL animal's
feeding habits were, but the ones living on the crystalbarrens of
the Hollow Moon are full-time hunters! ;-) Stats for Megalania, the
giant varanid lizard of Pleistocene Australia (and the HM Wallaran
dreamlands), and the giant hippopotamus are also available in the
same article.]
So with so many mammals missing from the fauna one might expect on
Mystara, and herbivores especially being limited in size and
diversity, how can the carnivores of the Hollow Moon -- not to
mention the people! - - possibly find enough to live on? The answer
is simple: Giant bugs. While IRL insects are limited by their size
as to which animals can prey upon them, the giant varieties of
insects, arachnids, and other arthropods which appear in so many
AD&D/AD&D settings as cannon fodder have actually become
the keystones of Matera's terrestrial ecosystems. With their
multiple sensory systems other than the visual, the ability to see
by the ultraviolet light which makes up a major fraction of the
Firmament's total radiance, and a metabolism which allows them to
go torpid during periods of poor foraging, yet live on very few
calories for their size, arthropods turned out to be better-adapted
to the Hollow Moon than the mammals and reptiles with which they
coexist.* While the various "monster books" for games invent
giant-sized versions of only those arthropods which pose a
potential threat, lunar explorers should come across just as many
placid or harmless varieties (which I'm not even going to begin to
enumerate; pick up any book on insects at your local library, and
you'll have literally THOUSANDS of choices! :-D) as dangerous or
aggressive ones. In fact, any time a roll for wandering monsters
comes up negative in the Hollow Moon, don't just tell the players
that nothing much has happened: Throw a bug at 'em! (Harmless, of
course... but don't tell them that! ;-D) And don't forget, most
lunar insects have colourful bodies that glow in the dark, so even
an obviously-inoffensive insect should draw their attention and
(dare we hope...?) invoke a sense of wonder.
[* - For another reference, look up "Bugged About Something?" in
Dragon #174, also available in the TSR website's back-issue files.
It's got plenty of reasons why giant insects might tend to have an
edge over vertebrates -- in physique, sensory capacities, and
hardiness in the face of cold weather -- as well as some nasty
tricks to pull on players who think "humble" insects have gotta be
pushovers. :-)]
Since insects and their relatives, the crustaceans, arachnids, and
myriapods, are so prominent in the HM ecology, it's not surprising
that many Materan societies have learned to tame and -- to the
limited extent that it's possible -- train these versatile animals.
Aranea are able to live openly in lunar communities, since the
majority of people born on the moon consider spiders neither ugly
nor needlessly-hostile, and the arachnids have devised simple
signals by which they or their phanatrel servants can control
unintelligent giant spiders, giant harvestmen, and rhagodessas.
(All the types of non-magical giant spider from the OD&D rules
or Creature Catalogues can be found on Matera, although only the
aranea themselves are sentient.) Giant centipedes have a keep sense
of smell and are uninhibited by darkness; these creatures are
sometimes used as trackers by forest goblinoids, or by thief-takers
with the Cynidicean police. Giant velvet worms -- not arthropods,
but an ancient lineage from which the arthropods evolved -- have
the ability to spit a quick-setting adhesive at prey or targets
designated by their trainers, and the vesper elves eagerly seized
upon these many-legged near-worms as a safer alternative to shroud
spider webbing, when they have a need to capture someone alive.
Giant ambush bugs, squat armoured insects with a venomous bite
(save vs Poison or the bitten body part is incapacitated by searing
pain), can't really be "trained" as such, but are often set as
watchdogs over valuables or entryways, as they'll remain in place
for days on end awaiting a trespasser and may attack with a +4 to
hit it they achieve surprise.
Other arthropods are raised as livestock by Materans, for the
products their bodies have to offer or the benefits they provide.
Giant millipedes -- placid herbivores that subsist on spoiled plant
matter and fungi -- are "sweated" of the defensive compounds they
secrete (including cyanide), for use in pest control and alchemy;
using these compounds in warfare isn't unprecedented, but is
reviled as the HM equivalent of dropping nerve gas on the enemy
(plus it's expensive! ;-P). A smaller variety of giant millipede
produces no toxic "sweat", but has barbed bristles on its posterior
which can be broken off harmlessly, and used for everything from
combs to gaffs to crude weapons (1d3 hp damage) to hooks for
hanging up one's garments. Soft, flat-bodied giant silverfish are
bred for leather, as their smooth, supple hides can be kept
flexible after skinning with applications of the extract of giant
beetle pupas; the thick forewings of fire beetles, also raised for
their light-organs, are cut and fitted for armours (as scale mail).
Giant aphids are milked for nectar, and shorn of the fluffy white
"wool" on their abdomens, that's the closest thing to goose down
available in the Hollow Moon. Giant ichneumon wasps are reared for
pest-control purposes in most lunar agricultural regions, though
this practice is highly illegal within the land of Aran. The
Cacklogallinian trade-cities cultivate giant glowworms and
fireflies for their luminous body fluids, and Modrigswerg
alchemists isolate the active enzymes of bioluminescence from
these, for long-term storage and future use. Giant bees have been
imported to the setting by the Cynidiceans, who domesticated them
long ago, but there are very few flowers in the Hollow Moon which
are of interest to bees and the honey they produce is often of
inferior quality; there are bees -- even giant forms -- native to
Matera, but these are luminous solitary bumblebees and of no value
as honey-makers (lunar beeswax is good enough, OTOH). Pupas of
giant moths are unwoven for silk, although it's a coarser, cheaper
fabric than that which aranea or domesticated giant spiders can
produce.
A few insects aren't bred, but are hunted for their useful body
parts, or because they're agricultural pests or just plain
dangerous. Giant dragonflies -- enlarged versions of the mundane
insects, not the breath- weapon-spewing/MMC monsters --
are killed for their wings, which are used much like window glass,
and to prevent their attacks on livestock and lone persons. Giant
wasps -- another luminous taxon -- have a bounty on them in Old
Aran, as the aranea have a petrifying terror of these deadly
spider-hunters. Nests of giant ants are exterminated without mercy,
for the ability of such creatures to pick clean whole acres of
farmland and to render towns and villages unlivable has been
learned through generations of bitter experience. Matera's
two-foot-long giant cockroaches are likewise regarded as vermin,
but are at least put to good use as animal fodder for Rockhome
lizards, peccaries, and other arthropods; their wings, if prepared
through a lengthy procedure only the Taurus gnomes are able to make
head or tail of, much less understand (!), can be reduced to
fibres, mashed, soaked, pressed, dried, and at last converted into
a serviceable substitute for paper. Scorpions of all sizes are
hunted for their venom -- another alchemical substance the
Modrigswerg pay dearly for -- and for their unique (and IRL!)
property of phosphorescence: while many lunar arthropods glow,
scorpion-chitin absorbs UV light and releases it as blue light, and
will continue to do so for weeks or months after the animal dies,
whenever it's exposed to the Hollow Moon's ambient ultraviolet. The
glow itself is too dim to see by, but the chitin has many
ornamental and decorative uses.
Last but not least, Materans of all races breed and rear giant
insects for -- C'mon, you knew this was coming! ;-D -- food. Yes,
folks... the only thing a Materan would find disconcerting about a
fancy court dinner in Herath, would be the fact that everyone's
expected to sip their giant flies through a straw! Okay, so it's
not THAT bad (quite). But insects are a principle source of protein
in the diet of most HM people, humans and demihumans no less than
aranea or aardovai. With the exception of giant cockroaches which
are considered too filthy in their habits, and giant ambush bugs
which taste absolutely terrible, all of the arthropods mentioned
above are eaten, as well as "sweated", "milked", shorn or skinned.
Giant cave crickets (aka giant locusts) are also farmed
specifically for their meat, and for their egg cases which are
cracked and cooked just like birds' eggs, or else dried and carried
on journeys as lightweight, nutritious iron rations (not unlike
beef jerky). Giant termites are not only the mainstay of the
aardovai diet, but they actually become ill and die if unable to
consume their preferred and necessary isopteran prey! Other insects
-- giant versions of lacewings, mayflies, cicadas and caddis flies
-- are even considered exotic delicacies, as they are very
difficult to rear, or are available for consumption only at
specific times in the course of the lunar year. By comparison, the
phanatrels' appetite for farmed freshwater crabs and crayfish,
which they raise en masse in Mare Nectaris, seems pedestrian ...
yet even they won't pass up a choice platter of stonefly, with
sweet broiled aphid-nymphs on the side.
In fact, that's the thing that's most likely to catch Mystaran PCs
off- guard ... not the fact that Materans eat insects, centipedes,
and other creepy-crawlies on a regular basis; but the fact that
they actually prefer them, to so many other foods which are
available. Vegetables and fruits in the Hollow Moon setting aren't
that much to get excited about -- the fact that they're all the
same dull, boring black might have something to do with it -- and
mammalian livestock is usually considered too valuable, for milk or
wool, to squander on a one-shot meal; plus, it takes a lot longer
to grow a calf into beefsteaks, than to hatch and grow a giant
locust into cricket-meat pies! But moreover, Materans have realised
what most of the world beyond the developed nations of IRL Earth
has never forgotten: insects, properly prepared, can taste pretty
darn good, easily holding their own against most common staple
foods available to Materans or to commoners of Mystara. And
considering that, if it wasn't for insects as fast-breeding,
cheap-to-maintain, high-protein livestock, lunar peasants and
labourers would be stuck eating black bread and potatoes like every
other poor person in a pre-modern society, they've got it pretty
darn good, themselves.
So go ahead and gross out your players, having their friendly HM
hosts feed them whatever multi-legged critter's going to sound the
most nasty... and then tell them it's the best thing they ever ate.
Who knows...? Maybe next time their PCs find a giant beetle
scarfing the last of their food supplies, they'll realise there's a
more practical solution than trudging clear back to town for a
re-stock.
After that, of course, you can have their henchman who didn't
follow them to the moon go on and on and on about how he can't
believe they actually ATE that disgusting bug.... ;-)