Animals of the Americas: A Library of Uncommon Creatures

[SuperDave]

Wow, I'm really impressed at the large and positive response. Sorry for the long reply with many quotes in it, but here I go...

*lots of useful stats, snipped*

A few of these animals are mentioned as having identical stats to other animals, such as Parrot, Puffin, and Dove using Raven stats

Thanks for letting me know! I don't have access to the PDFs right now, but I'll look 'em up and include the page-numbers later.

I was aware that a lot of stats can be substituted for others (and I've done that with a few of these creatures), but I was hoping that someone out there would have stats for these specific creatures. Which I feel is usually better than substituting something close. (As any ornithologist can tell you, puffins, parrots, and doves are all wildly^{har dee har har} different birds.)

This, entirely. There are very, very few circumstances under which you actually need stats for a salmon.

...that said, I did some stats for a salmon a while ago.

Excellent. Thank you! Salmon are extremely important to Pacific Northwestern fishing communities (i.e., pretty much all Pacific Northwestern communities), so any adventure that involves overland travel in Fusang or Tuniitaq will probably make use of these stats.

Ok this is cool and all but what about the stats for a Jackalope?

Oh, don't worry. I found stats for jackalopes, too.

Since you went to the bother of listing whales and dolphins/porpoises/etc. as separate things, why do you have the Orca listed under whales when it's a member of the Delphinidae family, which includes multiple dolphin species like the common bottlenose?

Meh, I didn't feel like being quite that scientific about it. The purpose of the list is to give everyone a place to find these things. It might have been more efficient to group them by region/habitat, but I thought that I could minimize overlap by organizing them into families instead.

It needs more extinct megafauna.

MUCH MORE extinct megafauna!

Ask, and ye shall recieve.

Edit: Unfortunately, not all of the statted megafauna lived in the Americas, so they can't really be included here.

Going to third this sentiment. Our world today is so boring without them.

Edit:

You should also get stats for the Steller's Sea Cow.

If this is also the thing that Squish was doing those Buffalo people for...well...I think I found a campaign setting to run. >.>

Stellar's sea cow has been added. And thanks for your interest in the setting!

Are you looking for real animals only, or would mythical work as well? I'm thinking Thunderbird and Sasquatch would fit.

Thunderbird are gonna be spirits, and sasquatch are gonna be a playable race.
This thread's just for real animals with no magical abilities.

Thanks for mentioning them, but Squish is right, this is just for mundane animals. Whatever monster stats we have are included in the entries for each region. Feel free to contribute your own monster stats if you want to homebrew them, but since Thunderbirds have such significance to our setting, and Sasquatches might be a playable race, the thread is probably gonna want to vote on our own stats for those two particular beasties.

(Actually, someone [don't remember who exactly] said something a while ago about having "cool plans" for the Sasquatches, and is probably just waiting 'til we get to Fusang to post them.)

Mainly this list was assembled to overcome the challenge of how one even represents something like a salmon's leap, or a horned lizard's ability to shoot blood from its eyes. Once the animals are all in one easy-to-find location, people can modify them as they see fit (make 'em into dire animals, apply templates, use them as familiars, etc.). After all, how are you supposed to design a creature that's half anteater and half prehensile-tailed porcupine if you don't have any idea how tough or strong either of those creatures are?

Plus, I figured that a lot of adventures in Crossroads: The New World are going to involve hunting and catching these animals. The fur trade was probably the single biggest incentive for the French to set up colonies in Canada, so stats for beavers, minks, and ermines are going to be not only important, but essential to many campaigns. The number of pelts you can catch will determine how long your trip will take, how much of your limited provisions you'll use up, and the size of your reward upon returning to the trading post.