Dumb Plans to Save Dwarven Civilization

General ACKS Forums House Rules
1

Dumb Plans To Save Dwarven Civilization: Cross-Breeding.

We pay a human wizard to cross a Dwarf with a Cave Bear. That’s it, that’s the plan.

Design requirements:

Type is humanoid

Body form: same as any dwarf

Movement: as dwarf

AC: as dwarf

HD: 1-1hd, advances as class levels (as dwarf)

Attacks: by weapon, as dwarf

Morale: Dwarf

Special abilities: dwarf racial; sensitivity to rock and stone, hardy, etc. Caving & climbing.

Special disabilties: none

Senses: night vision, lightless vision 60’ (ex nihilo), and acute olfaction w/tracking 3.

Intellect: Dwarfoid

Alignment: Neutral

Other characterisics: The reason we are here. “Average the lifespan and reproductive cycles of the progenitors.” Dwarves have 1 baby every 15 years; bears, 2.5 every 3. Average is 1.75 babies every 9 years, or about 4 times as fast as dwarves. Lifespan of a bear is 35, dwarf, 150, average is 92.5, about the same as humans.

Rationale: we all know that our low fertility is the cause of the decline of our race. By creating a specialist race of fighting-dwarves, we can reduce the casualties taken while making those casualties easier to absorb.

Night-vision makes the fighting-dwarf superior to the beastmen in night battles, as they can shoot ranged weapons from beyond the range of the beastmen’s lightless vision. Lightless vision, and caving make the fighting-dwarf superior to the beastmen underground, with better vision than all but the kobolds, and innate sense of direction and ability to surmount obstacles.

Acute olfaction reduces surprise even when outside our underground homes, while the Tracking will help us engage in drustdrostdrest.

Cost of abilities: Dwarf racial abilities cost 200xp. One minor ability costs 1/8th of 500xp, therefore dwarf racial abilities cost 3 minor abilities. However, in the custom race generator, we get 5.5 powers. To be safe, we round up to 6. To this we add lightless vision for 2, acute olfaction and night vision for 1 each, caving, and climbing again for one each. Tracking 3 comes packaged with olfaction and is a general proficency, so it doesn’t count as a special ability for xp cost. Even if the Judge is cruel, and demands we pay for it as proficiencies, it is only 3. Total 6+2+1+1+1+1+3=15, divided by 8 for 1.825. We will need a crossbreeder with INT 13 or higher to effect this creation, but almost all mages of that level will qualify.

Net cash outlay: 625gp per minor ability, plus 2,000gp per HD. For absolute safety, we allocate 12,000gp, enough for a 1**hd creature. In addition, we pay the mage an equal amount for his time, and post a bond for an additional payment if the crossbreeding is successful and to specifications (we really don’t want him to screw this up). Throw difficulty is increased by 2, but we’ll treat it as 3 to be safe. A mage of this level ought to have a laboratory, but we’ll cover the cost for the lab, with a +3 bonus. Net fixed cost: 42,000gp, Variable, 24,000 per crossbreeding attempt.

An 11th level mage will have a research throw of 6+, with difficulty increase and decrease canceling out (ideally, he’d have Transmogrification, but we can’t count on that). Ergo, 1 in 4 dwarves subjected to this proceedure will die. Thus, we will only pay out the 12k bounty 3 in 4 times, reducing its cost to 9k. We shall allocate 3,000gp subsidy per volunteer, selecting among the most devotedly Lawful young dwerrows out there (note: 1,000gp per male, 4,325gp per female). We shall aim for an average age of 30 (a little on the old side for their new forms, but acceptable, and legally adult) and 60% female (inbreeding cannot be allowed. Note: get dwarves from regionally distinct areas, including the Juttings if at all possible). The cave bears will cost around 880gp per. We should prefer younger ones, just in case it matters. We add another 120gp for incidentals, total cost: 37,000gp per attempt. Cost per success: 49,333gp, round up to 50,000.

We aim to produce 30 female and 20 male crossbreeds. With cost as given, we can see that 2,500,000gp ought to cover the variable cost of the project. Taking into account possible bad luck and fixed costs, allocate 3 million.

We shall have 30 female fighting-dwarves, average age 30. Menopause for fighting-dwarves is calculated to occur at 48.5 years, round down for safety. We shall select dwarven women who have not had a child in the last 12 years. They will endeavor to get pregnant as swiftly as possible. They can expect around 3 pregnancies each before menopause. With 1.75 children per pregnancy, we get 5.25 children, round down to 5 for safety. 10% of dwarf children are miscarried, and we can’t assume to improve that. Assuming the dwarf male/female ratio persists, that is 1.5 female fighting-dwarves per female!

Things get even better in the next generation, because fertility starts for fighting dwarves at age 9. We shall count on observing the traditions of the ancestors, and delaying marriage till 15. (OOC note: Dwarves are considered adults at 25 {ACKS humans are considered adult at 18, btw}, but their demographics require that they start having kids at 15 to maintain even a stable population. Ick.) In their fertile window, the 45 estimated second-generation fighting-dwarves shall each have (at least) 4 pregnancies and 7 children, minus 10% stillbirths, for 2.1 females per female. Each generation, the number of fighting-dwarves will double.

Possible difficulties: I see nothing wrong with this plan. /jk

But, seriously, this is basically what the Zaharans did with the bugbears, so we should expect some political blowback (to put it mildly). We allocated 500,000gp for misc. expenses, and migitaging this blowback should be on the top of the list. We also should probably do this experimentation at a secure location, i.e. a vault of our own. We are allocating a stupid amount of money to our mage or mages (likely 1 of sufficient level plus several apprentices). We will need to secure their loyalty, and money is only a part of that. We also must ensure that the mage is NOT a Zaharan! In fact, the Mage should be Lawful if at all possible. All of our dwarven volunteers must be non-Chaotic, or else the hybrid will be Choatic, likely including its descendants. We shall select for Lawful dwarves, hoping that any who slip through are at least Neutral.

Oh, and we need fat stacks of cash. However, once the investment is made, the results are self-replicating, unlike constructs or automatons. Heck, we could potentially pay the mage as little as 3,000gp per attempt, 4,000 average per success, if we managed to swing a bulk discount. That would reduce the cost massively, by about 1 million gp.

Revision: This could also work with Brown Bears, which are nicer-tempered, have natural affinity for dwarves, and don’t love sentient flesh. That is probably a safer idea, and one less proficency makes it cost less, and makes the resulting custom race level up faster, but where’s the fun in that?

1 Like
2

A sporecaster can do a budding/sporing myco-dwarf without human interference.

Also, dwarf demographics do not require them to start at 15. They stay fertile up to about 75. If first child is had at 25 and there’s 15 years in between, second at 40, third at 55, fourth at 70 that’s 4 per woman. If 12 years in between there’s time for 5, even.

1 Like
3

Good point on the females. But ew, icky fungi, vs. noble bear friends.

4

Dumb Plans to Save Dwarven Civilization: Uber-Mules

Okay, so, some people think my plans to crossbreed Dwarves and Bears are “too crazy” and “an abomination against the ancestors”. Fools! I’ll show them, I’LL SHOW THEM—ahem. That is, I have several less-insane ideas for crossbreeding. (please don’t shave my beard)

It is widely known that, while dwarves love donkeys and mules, we get along poorly with larger horses. Nothing could be further from the truth! No doubt this is Elvish propaganda, as the foolish knife-ears seek to disassociate us from the horses that they revere.

In truth, horses and dwarves get along just as well as donkeys and dwarves. (now, camels, f— camels) Rather, our tendency to not use the breeds of horses that Elves and Men prefer arises from our material conditions. Put simply, horses are not sure-footed in mountains. Large war-horses also generally require grown feed, which is difficult for us dwarves to supply, given that we often are forced to operate long distances from our mountain homes. Donkeys can effectively graze on the go.

(note that Dwarven Wardens can lend their horses sturdy-footed, but they cannot learn to use spears and lances until third level. We need a mount that basic first-level dwarves can ride in for the charge on, ideally the existing tradition of the vaultguards)

Donkeys are too small to comfortably sit an armored rider, so we use mules instead. Mules are also faster, a nice perk. Because of their horse ancestry, they can be trained for war, and have the base morale of a donkey, making war-mules the bravest equids. They are also quite easy to train, as much as donkeys and far more than heavy horses. However, mules make only one hoof attack, and not that strong of one, and don’t gain another on a charge. Additionally, mules lose the Acute Hearing, Acute Olfaction, and Listening of donkeys, but this is an acceptable loss. More troubling is the loss of efficient grazing, which limits our operational range.

Design Requirements: as many HD as we can get without going Huge (a different Dumb plan…), hoof attacks on a charge for good damage, at least 33 stone load (for a heavily armored dwarf with weapons and some kit, plus plate barding and a saddle), Sure Footed and Efficient Grazers.

The Heavy Horse has a HD of 3+3, so the easy route would be to take its body form, its HD, and add donkey abilities. We cannot count on the transmogrification process (the Judge) being so kind. Moreover, the Sure Footed, at least, is tied to the conformation of the donkey. Thus, we need the BME of the donkey, then apply it to various intermediate HD values until we get the maximum within the 2,000 pound limit of a Large creature. Sparing the spreadsheet, the BME of a donkey is 2.5, and as a result, our crossbreed must have no more than 2 HD. Oddly, that is what a mule has…

For CCF, a donkey’s is 0.03, whereas the heavy horse has a mere 0.007. Donkeys are strong indeed! However, because our heavy donkey is 4 times the size of a regular donkey, we will apply the square-cube law. We get a naïve result of 60 stone, and an adjusted result of 37.9763 stone, round up to 38 stone. Since the base load of the heavy horse is 36 stone, we’ve made a slight improvement while staying with the bounds of sanity.

Now, we can calculate the steps of transmogrification.

Because we are blending two very closely related species, the type should be animal, not monstrosity. We choose the body form of the donkey, and take the movement of same (120’, slightly slower than a true heavy horse), and the AC (2 either way). We choose a middling 2hd, and get weight, size, and load as previously calculated. Sadly, we must take the attacks of the donkey, with 1 bite or one hoof. However, we up the damage to 2hd worth… the same, on the chart. Since we are leaning towards the hooves of the donkey, I doubt we will be able to talk the Judge into letting trained for war give a second hoof attack.

We assign morale as the stout donkey. We skip all special senses except Night Vision, for 1 minor special ability. Efficient Grazers and Sure Footed are another two special abilities, as is training for war. That makes 4 special abilities. We retain the intellect of the donkey and it is Neutral.

Breeding: both breeds have 1 foal every two years. Donkeys live slightly longer, roughly 1.25x as long, so our crossbreed will live roughly in the middle. Females will be able to have 5 foals per generation.

Cost to create: two HD, plus 4 minor abilities, for 6,500gp per attempt (in materials). We’ll use foals, to minimize confusion, for cost of 12.5gp per matched pair. Difficulty of the throw is boosted by +1, and a base 11th level mage without magical engineering or transmogrification has a throw of 6+. At that level, and for the bulk we pay him, he ought to have a +3 lab. Adjusted throw is 4+, one-fifth surviving. We pay labor cost for success, and all materials for attempt. Cost per success, adding in 87.5gp of incidentals, 14,700. Add in bad luck for an even 15,000gp per.

We source our subjects from a wide variety of realms. We make 50 mares, 5 stallions, and breed each mare with each stallion in turn, for maximum diversity. That’s 835,000gp, and the result: a mountain ready, wide-ranging heavy horse. Slow, but brave. With the training modifier of the donkey, +2, instead of the miserable modifier of the heavy horse (0), fully one-third will be trainable for war in groups, while 4/5th will be trainable by animal whispering. All but the most retarded will be teachable in groups as mounts, while even those dullards can be animal whispered to mount status. In practice, most of those not ready for war will likely be trained as workbeasts. Donkeys are very smart, so training time will likely be just one month. As essentially domestic animals, the cost of cavalry marshal training for their trainer will dominate. Total cost for training as heavy cavalry warmount: (120*(1+0.5*7)/6=90gp, plus the cost of the juvenile, approximated as the cost of the heavy horse, 10gp, all multiplied by the graduation rate of 1/3rd. Total cost: 300gp, less than the cost of a war-mount heavy horse. If we assume the washouts are trained as work beasts, and are worth as much as a heavy horse plus some extra for lack of feed, just 200gp after selling off the rejects.

Potential problem: Cross-breeding with the mighty heavy horse might mess up the internal nature of the efficient grazing. After all, mules lack this useful ability. Solution: breed with steppe horses. This gives us a weight of 180 stone, 32 stone normal load, and basically everything else. We’ll need to reduce armor to Lamellar, but that is doable.

5

Dumb Plans to Save Dwarven Civilization: Bear-Dogs

So, I think my plan to make uber-mules went well. I mean, nobody shaved my beard, so that’s a win. However, while I might be excited by possibilities of self-feeding lamellar-barded cavalry, others seem not so enthused. Indeed, I must admit that these mounts being unable to move faster than an Orc does limit their utility chasing down skirmishers (though beastmen are often too ill-disciplined to engage in such tactics). As such, I shall return to dwarvenkind’s core competencies, namely, heavy shock tactics. Today, we are making mini-bears.

But why? Why improve on what is already perfect? In short, bears are too big. As size Large, they have trouble fitting into the mines and caves that we call home. Worse, they have trouble fitting into the narrow nooks that the vile goblins and kobolds love to hide in. As a (semi) experienced vaultguard myself, I can confidently assert that getting stuck in caves remains a real threat, even for lovestruck highborn excavators. Therefore, I propose we hire a transmogrifyier to blend our noble dog breeds with our beloved ursine friends to create the ultimate beastman-killing weapons: the Bear-Dog.

But what breeds shall we use as our base stock? Black Bears and Brown Bears are effectively the same on what special abilities they offer, while the Cave Bear adds Blind-Fighting and Caving… and a taste for demihuman flesh. We don’t need either of these, since for blind-fighting, my transmogfier contacts assure me that Low-Light Vision, 60’ can be added for double the cost to any crossbreed (as for Caving, that is the responsibility of their Delver and Excavator handlers). A Polar Bear, should we procure one from our comrades in the Juttings, would add in Swimming proficency… and psychotic aggressiveness, so let’s not. I prefer the noble brown bear, for its higher natural morale and slightly higher carrying capacity factor. As such, it is chosen.

For dog breeds, I refer the interested to the excellent article published by one “Autarch” as providing an overview of the common breeds. The standard Mountain Mastiff, though closest to our desired outcome, provides no interesting features not provided by other breeds. The Underterrier offers Swimming, but the loyal Kairn Tar (our indigenous breed of watchdog) provides the greatest Alertness, which is of greater utility. If we are forced to pass underwater within our caves, floaties can be provided.

The Steps of Crossbreeding!

  1. Type: We want an animal. To avoid the severe trainability penalties that come with a highly unnatural form, we shall not chose a hybrid form in the next step.
  2. Body Form: Ursine. Not hybrid, for reasons stated above, Ursine because we want our dwarvish affinity with bears.
  3. Movement: Because of our above choices, we have the movement of a brown bear, 40’/120’. The dog had a faster speed, but that is an acceptable sacrifice (note that one of the advantages of the underterrier was its faster movement, but that it would have been lost in this step anyway).
  4. AC: AC3. This is actually better than we would get if we calculated it for a normal Ursine animal of its HD and size (see below), which is 2.48, so, thank you, alchemical oddities!
  5. Hit Dice: we chose an in-between amount. To be specific, we choose an amount that gives the most HP and HD (and therefore attack throw), without being of Large size. This turns out to be 3+1 HD (and gives us a tasty 7+ attack throw). Note that getting a +1 to hp is advantageous to attack throws but not to proficiencies.
  6. Weight and Size: we need to reverse-engineer to find the BME of brown bears. This is 1.71. Applied to 3+1 HD, this gives ~384.8757, rounded to 385 pounds. The CCF for a brown bear is reverse-engineered to be 0.03125, giving a carry capacity of 12ish stone, but, because size category changed, and this is a normal animal, we should apply the square-cube law. Using the baseline of a brown bear, we find that the carry capacity of our bear-dog should be around 15.3528. Since this is plenty to wear man-sized plate (5 stone needed) either way, the 15 doesn’t seem crazy, but we scored with the AC rules oddities being in our favor previously, so I shall go with 12 stone, the rest being taken up with a shaggy hide.
  7. Attacks: Another oddity: the crossbreed gets the attacks of its body form progenitor, period. If the crossbreed has greater HD, its attacks are scaled up, but, per RAW, they are not scaled down. We shall not be so forgiving. Brown bears do 1d4/1d4/1d8, which is equal to either a small or a large claw for their size, and a very small bit (small for 4 HD, even). We choose 1d3/1d3/1d6, large claws for their size, very small bite (small for 3 HD), and exactly 6.5 average damage, precisely as predicted by 2 points per HD, reading +1 HD as 0.25.
  8. Morale: either, as they are the same (0).
  9. Special Abilities: the juice we are here for: Tracking 3 (as bear) ###, Climbing (as bear) #, and Alertness # (as the Kairn Tar), and Listening # (as dog). Add in a Hug ##, dealing 2d6 damage (since they are man-sized). Like the bear, the hug triggers on both claws hitting, and permits a claw cleave.
  10. Disabilities: None in progenitors, so none here.
  11. Special Senses: Take ‘em all! Night Vision #, Acute Olfaction #, Acute Hearing #, and add on Lightless Vision (60’) ##. These will be the best guards ever!
  12. Intellect: Animal. We shall preserve the mentality of the bear, to minimize the strangeness of the new form. Brown Bears have a training modifier of +1, and training time of 2 months. However, bears as a class have a training time of 3 months, so we will bank on that, as a case of reversion to the mean.
  13. Other Characteristics: Age categories are the average of the progenitors, 0/1/2/5/10/14/19/24, rounded off. The average reproduction rate is 2.9 cubs per year, which we will express as 2d2 per year.

Cost: 3+1*#### # HD gives 14,625gp base cost. We will need a mage of at least INT 13, but that should be basically every 11th level mage. An 11th level mage with INT 13+ and a max-value laboratory can succeed on the research throw for a crossbreed of this value on a 2+. At a research rate of 1,750gp, it will take just over 8 days, so 4 per month (assumes 6-day work week, and an apprentice or two helping out). In one year, we can get 48 crossbreed attempts. Run the production line for two years, 96 attempts, around 90 successes (statistically), 1.5 million or so spent on materials, and 768,000 spent on retaining the mage for the duration.

We aim for 2/3rds female, and breed them like crazy. We will get 15 or so cubs per female. With a generation of 5 years, that’s 50% population growth per year.

At the cost of Animal Training 2 (75gp wage), and 7.5 months (racial affinity, two tricks plus initial taming time), 6 trained per batch, we can train a cub for 98.75gp. We will also need to feed them. Brown bears eat 4gp per week in supply cost, double the cost of an herbivore but half the cost of a full carnivore (reflective of their omnivorous status), so that is our baseline. As man-sized, bear-dogs will eat one-quarter of that. We assume that the smaller ones will eat the same amount to account for putting on muscle and treats for good behavior training (and general cuteness). For five years to adulthood, that is 204gp. Thus, eventual sale price will be about 350gp, counting in kenneling and miscellany. Let’s see what we get…

For BR, we must use a complex spreadsheet. I calculated based on the assumption that spiked barding was a must (it boosts damage by nearly half again, and the most it can increase cost to recruit is by 200 from a 650 baseline, or less than one third, so this is clearly correct). I found that, depending on barding type, a 120-bear unit would have BR of 7.5, 9, 11, 13.5, or 17.5, from least AC to greatest. That’s a lot! In fact, in every case, even after factoring the higher cost of their omnivorous diet, the wages of these bears pay back the cost (before interest) of raising and equipping these bears in less than 10 months, with the fastest payback at Scaled armor (AC +3, total AC 6). This validates the basic profitability of this venture. In combat, I recommend pairing these fierce beasts with Fury handlers, to keep up with them on foot and match them in ferocity.

But it is in caves that they truly shine. They can squeeze anywhere a dwarf can, can climb on a 4+, track on a 3+, avoid surprise at an astounding +3 (never surprised against normal creatures, surprised even by bugbears and the like only rarely), fight in total darkness, and hear noises on 5+. They can go toe-to-toe with bugbears in every statistic and come out on top. They are the ultimate weapon.

Gentledwarves, the choice is obvious.