Crossbreeds and History

So all the various beastmen races were created back in the days to serve as soldiers but is there a reason for a mage in our current age to replicate that?

Crossbreeds are not really loyal to their creators and that is even more true of their offspring who have no more reason then normal mercenaries to serve a character.

Am I missing something?

There SHOULD be some way to ensure the loyalty of created monsters. I love the idea od a mad sorcerer building a loyal army of clones/monsters/beastmen. Maybe some sort of "conditioning" while in the breeding vat?

Also, didn't Saruman produce his own loyal army of Orc derivatives?

Adult crossbreeds can be controlled with enchantments (if sapient), or tamed and trained (if of animal intelligence).

Child crossbreeds, or next generation breed your crossbreeds, can be raised as loyal pets or slaves.

So all the mechanics you need to create your perfect minions are right there...

 

 

 

Perhaps charge as a special ability “Loyalty to Creator.”

It's worth noting that Zaharan Ruinguards have an "ancient pacts" ability that grants a bonus to reaction rolls with intelligent chaotic monsters, and gives those same monsters a penalty to saving throws against charm spells cast by Zahran Ruinguards. This apparently represents the remnants of ancient sorcery, so maybe it's something that could be replicated by the right spells?

A spell that replicates a proficiency is covered under Transmogrification in the PC; off the top of my head it's a 20 point base cost, then whatever duration.

It might be more interestingly done as a weakness - so that whomever can get the upper hand would be the one effected by the 'Ancient Pacts' - so, yes, the monster is extra loyal/charmable to you, but if someone else figures it out...something like "Subservient to the Master of Isengard", in Saruman's case, and some enterprising thief snags the Keys of Orthanc and is able to make the case to the orcs that he's the master now...

 

 

There's always the Jem'Hadar Solution - make them dependent on an alchemical substance for sustenance, and make sure you're the only one with the recipe. If they rebel, they starve.

Or create an army of vatborn constructs who exist solely as extentions of your terrible will, without minds or souls of their own. The downside being that they instantly shut down as soon as you get killed by some entreprising heroic type, but by then you won't care all that much.

Plus you can go all "ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL" on your minions to taunt your enemies without ever leaving your evil throne room.

[quote="Alex"]

Child crossbreeds, or next generation breed your crossbreeds, can be raised as loyal pets or slaves.

[/quote]

Wow, I didnt even consider slavery! :-o

Now the only thing I am still missing is a metric of how fast the various species can breed. 

Thought there was something about that in L&E but I could only find the time that would be require to reach adulthood...

[quote="Rodriguez"] Now the only thing I am still missing is a metric of how fast the various species can breed. 

Thought there was something about that in L&E but I could only find the time that would be require to reach adulthood... [/quote]

If you look at the monster descriptions, there's usually a description of how many young and females are present in an average lair. That, combined with the time-to-reach-adulthood information in Lairs & Encounters, should allow you to work out how rapidly any species with that information can increase its numbers. (You do need to make some assumptions about child and infant mortality rates, though. I've got no solution for that.)

Hm. Theoretically, we can say that some part of mortality rates for humans is covered by the domain growth rules - so the percentage difference in L&E for a given monster from the human listing might provide some guidance. Whether or not any of those numbers are different enough to materially effect the die used I dunno.

This is the funniest thread ever.

I actually worked out the gestation period and birth rates for all the monsters but I didn't put it into L&E because I was like "no one would actually ever use this in play". 

As rules of thumb, assume that:

  • animals mate at adolescence
  • inter-birth interval is twice the length of the "child" age, minimum 1 year if the creature has at least 1 HD.
  • animals give birth to "offspring bundles" starting at adolescent age + inter-birth interval and keep going until they become infertile or die at middle age
  • survival rate of "offspring bundles" is usually between 0.1 and 0.9 depending on animal. It's 0.5 for humans.
  • number of children produced at each "offspring bundle" is the amount required to sustain the population + 50% (typically 3).

EXAMPLE: A human has a childhood starting at 2 years, and adolescence starting at 13 years, with middle age at 38. Inter-birth interval will be 2x2 = 4 years. A male and female mate at age 13, and produce offspring bundles at 17, 21, 25, 29, 33, and 37. Half of these offspring bundles survive (3). Amount of childen required to sustain population is 2+.5*2=3, so offspring bundles average (3/3) 1 child each.

 

[quote="Alex"]

I actually worked out the gestation period and birth rates for all the monsters but I didn't put it into L&E because I was like "no one would actually ever use this in play". 

[/quote]

It's like you don't even know us.

 

The ACKS community: Where Alex can give us multiple pages of tables in horrifying detail about the life-cycle of every monster in the game and our response is “Yeah, this is great, but I think it’s missing something.”

[quote="Monty Python"]

All right, but apart from the detailed rules and tables for sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what has Alex ever done for us?

[/quote]