CREATURES
Explanation
The Creature Birthright represents a Avatar’s close tie to a creature of legend, usually provided by a divine parent as a mount or companion. A player has all of mundanity and literature (especially the stories of his character’s chosen pantheon) to draw upon when choosing a creature for his Avatar. This Birthright might represent a coatl, benu bird, crocodile, wolf, snake or other creature. With enough dots invested in this Birthright, a Avatar could have an even more impressive creature at her disposal, such as a kirin or a young dragon.
Although the line between animal and human intelligence is often blurred in the realms of legend, this trait typically represents creatures of roughly animal intelligence. For more intelligent beings (centaurs or tengu, for example), the Followers or Guide Birthrights are more appropriate.
The entities covered by the Creature Birthright are assumed to be quite loyal, though not necessarily to a suicidal degree. If a creature would die to protect its master, that will become clear through roleplaying. It’s not assumed merely by allocating dots to this Birthright. Communication is likewise not taken for granted. At the start of a cycle, Avatars and their pets might share a limited form of communication (a few simple commands), and they can expand on this limited repertoire as the cycle proceeds. The Creature Birthright does not endow an otherwise unintelligent creature with telepathy or the ability to discuss higher level concepts, though Avatars proficient in the Dominion of Beasts might have some advantages in this regard.
Note that the dot descriptions here are merely guidelines. A very powerful nekomata, for example, would certainly rate more than a single dot, while an infant dragon would cost less than five. Use the following descriptions as rules of thumb.
Trait Effects
| ● | The creature is small, weak, somewhat fragile or perhaps entirely incorporeal — a weak nekomata, a monkey, a scarab, an owl or a raven, for example. Such creatures are useful for warning their owners of dangers and providing some limited reconnaissance, but little else. |
| ●● | The creature is a somewhat larger or more powerful mundane beast—tigers, wolves, boars, large birds of prey. Weak entities can also be included here—a serpopard, Stymphalian bird, or various and sundry nature spirits would fall into this category. |
| ●●● | The creature is a beast of modest power, such as a golem, coatl or a pegasus. |
| ●●●● | The creature is a more powerful one, such as the Taureau-Trois-Graines or a valkyrie horse. |
| ●●●●● | The creature is a unique beast of legend (such as Gullinbursti) or a particularly dangerous monster such as a kirin, a roc or a basilisk. |
