Polar Fauna

Make art for user-made content.

Moderator: Forum Moderators

Forum rules
Before posting critique in this forum, you must read the following thread:
User avatar
doofus-01
Art Director
Posts: 4122
Joined: January 6th, 2008, 9:27 pm
Location: USA

Polar Fauna

Post by doofus-01 »

I was trying to come up with some monsters and wildlife for the frozen north. Polar bears, yetis, aaand... ice-dragons (?) could be good, but they are big beasts and don't make good level 1-3 units. But are there others, that are smaller? Are there any northern animals that would be useful for other campaigns or eras?

I've got a start on some wolves. I'm not a fan of the mainline wolves (they remind me of opossums), though I understand why they are as they are[*]. The units with blue stuff are not really part of this, but if there is some generally accepted lore for the frozen north, maybe it could be relevant. If not, never mind them.
northern-fauna-1.png
northern-fauna-1.png (30.12 KiB) Viewed 5727 times
[*] - they look good as part of the goblin riders, and one wouldn't want to change them much from that.
BfW 1.12 supported, but active development only for BfW 1.13/1.14: Bad Moon Rising | Trinity | Archaic Era |
| Abandoned: Tales of the Setting Sun
GitHub link for these projects
User avatar
Neoskel
Art Contributor
Posts: 724
Joined: November 27th, 2007, 5:05 am

Re: Polar Fauna

Post by Neoskel »

Hmm, most far north type critters would be mammalian beasts. Bears and wolves are pretty much a given, you could also do stuff with wolverines and other (enlarged) mustelids as far as predators go. Giant eagles and owls could work for flying monsters. A lot of creatures identified with extreme cold are connected to the sea as well. Leopard seals and giant crabs could be pretty dangerous. You could also go the Warcraft route and just make animal-people of any and every arctic/antarctic animal you can think of.

As for folklore creatures, a lot of them would be intelligent. You could do something with the wendigo which i suppose would be some sort of ice ghoul. Selkies are a magical people who shapeshift between seal and human forms by casting off their sealskin 'coats'. Some sort of generic snow/ice elemental maybe.

Just throwing out ideas, hopefully some are useful.
User avatar
UnwiseOwl
Posts: 510
Joined: April 9th, 2010, 4:58 am

Re: Polar Fauna

Post by UnwiseOwl »

I've been looking for some decent ice wolf and ice bear sprites for a while, so if you make these I am totally going to steal the bears for the IE.
Maintainer of the Imperial Era and the campaigns Dreams of Urduk, Epic of Vaniyera, Up from Slavery, Fall of Silvium, Alfhelm the Wise and Gali's Contract.
But perhaps 'maintainer' is too strong a word.
User avatar
tr0ll
Posts: 551
Joined: June 11th, 2006, 8:13 pm
Location: canada

Re: Polar Fauna

Post by tr0ll »

what about an ice weasel, license is "CC-BY-SA-3.0-MIGRATED; Released under the GNU Free Documentation License."
Image
someone just has to remove that silly irdyaball :P
User avatar
doofus-01
Art Director
Posts: 4122
Joined: January 6th, 2008, 9:27 pm
Location: USA

Re: Polar Fauna

Post by doofus-01 »

I sense someone is being less than serious...
Iceweasel-icon-large.png
Iceweasel-icon-large.png (14.05 KiB) Viewed 5673 times
Never let another man touch your ice-weasel
BfW 1.12 supported, but active development only for BfW 1.13/1.14: Bad Moon Rising | Trinity | Archaic Era |
| Abandoned: Tales of the Setting Sun
GitHub link for these projects
User avatar
zookeeper
WML Wizard
Posts: 9742
Joined: September 11th, 2004, 10:40 pm
Location: Finland

Re: Polar Fauna

Post by zookeeper »

I'm not very fond of the "bears and wolves as monsters" trope, really. If it's a fantasy world, there's a lot more room for more original monsters than that.

A few ideas:

- A terror bird with the look of an arctic bird, such as a snow owl
- A woolly rhino
- A woolly rhino with three horns and a mane, to make it look a bit like a triceratops
- A cold-adapted glyptodon
- A hybrid of polar bear and glyptodon
- A hedgehog-kangaroo

The pleistocene epoch is a goldmine for ideas (google for "pleistocene megafauna" for more). Some of the animals that have existed in prehistoric times are quite outrageous, so I wouldn't recommend sticking to boring animals like wolves, bears and walruses.
User avatar
Gambit
Loose Screw
Posts: 3266
Joined: August 13th, 2008, 3:00 pm
Location: Dynamica
Contact:

Re: Polar Fauna

Post by Gambit »

I would love a hedgehog-kangaroo.
User avatar
Dixie
Posts: 1757
Joined: February 10th, 2010, 1:06 am
Location: $x1,$y1

Re: Polar Fauna

Post by Dixie »

Appart from wolves, grizzly/polar bears and wolverines, you could also name pumas and lynxes. Maybe giant Snowy owls? Mooses, giant racoons or beavers among less-predatory animals? Mammoths could be awesome too. And/or sabertooth tigers? Walruses? Just throwing ideas around :)

Maybe these animals would behave kinda like real animal and less like monsters, that is not run around the entire map to grab your units, but only attack if one of yours walks within ~3 hexes of them?
Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny - Frank Zappa
Current projects: Internet meme Era, The Settlers of Wesnoth
User avatar
homunculus
Posts: 537
Joined: July 21st, 2010, 9:47 pm

Re: Polar Fauna

Post by homunculus »

i really like how the fur does not look like scales.
Dixie wrote:[...]Maybe giant Snowy owls? Mooses[...]
reminds me that we don't have owlbears.
campaign ruthless in your nearest 1.11 add-on server
some wesnoth-related drawings
User avatar
zookeeper
WML Wizard
Posts: 9742
Joined: September 11th, 2004, 10:40 pm
Location: Finland

Re: Polar Fauna

Post by zookeeper »

One important consideration is to make units different. Monsters which only have a blade melee attack and nothing special to them are more or less just copies of each other, so whenever possible I'd suggest favouring units which can have a specialty of some kind; charge, skirmisher, steadfast, poison, unusual attack stats or movetype, magical properties, etc.
User avatar
doofus-01
Art Director
Posts: 4122
Joined: January 6th, 2008, 9:27 pm
Location: USA

Re: Polar Fauna

Post by doofus-01 »

zookeeper wrote:If it's a fantasy world, there's a lot more room for more original monsters than that.
Good point.
Neoskel wrote:Hmm, most far north type critters would be mammalian beasts.
Yeah, I think I'm going to stick with making them mammals. So, no insects or lizards.

I have a first crop. I don't have .cfg or even names for them yet. Yeah, they all have the same colour pallet, I'll change it later.
northern-fauna-2.png
northern-fauna-2.png (12.49 KiB) Viewed 5542 times
The horse-rhino thing was originally going to be a big elk-like beast, but I screwed up the horns (as seen in the one without a shadow), so it got a rhino horn. I may get rid of that horn. Needless to say, it'll have "charge" ability.

The one below that is supposed to be a big beaver/kangaroo/squirrel thing, hopefully it is readable enough. I know the tail sucks, I'll get that ironed out. The idea behind it, aside from just being ridiculous, is that it has engineering projects, like beavers, so it builds fortifications and appears organized and sentient, rather than wandering around like a deer.

The cat is supposed to be a sabre-tooth or something, nothing too original.

Below the cat is a weasel, but instead of an ice-weasel, it is an armored weasel. Maybe it can curl up and roll itself around, or maybe it is just resistant to damage - depends upon how much stomach I have for animating it.

The bottom-most thing is either more creative or more hare-brained. It is sentient, but solitary and territorial, so it has no society or technology. It can use magic. It has low movement, maybe restricted to certain terrain near water.

The little thing in the top-right is small and furry and I'm not sure if it is really anything.
BfW 1.12 supported, but active development only for BfW 1.13/1.14: Bad Moon Rising | Trinity | Archaic Era |
| Abandoned: Tales of the Setting Sun
GitHub link for these projects
User avatar
zookeeper
WML Wizard
Posts: 9742
Joined: September 11th, 2004, 10:40 pm
Location: Finland

Re: Polar Fauna

Post by zookeeper »

Good going. The only thing which looks off to me is the beaver/kangaroo/squirrel thing's, which seems like it should be a lot smaller.

The weasedillo is my favourite. Could it have a venomous stinger? :mrgreen:
User avatar
GunChleoc
Translator
Posts: 506
Joined: September 28th, 2012, 7:35 am
Contact:

Re: Polar Fauna

Post by GunChleoc »

The top right furry thing could have an ambush skill, hiding under rocks or something. Maybe some venomous spit as a ranged attack?
User avatar
Gambit
Loose Screw
Posts: 3266
Joined: August 13th, 2008, 3:00 pm
Location: Dynamica
Contact:

Re: Polar Fauna

Post by Gambit »

Backstab doesn't come up often. The little guy could have ambush and backstab.
User avatar
artisticdude
Moderator Emeritus
Posts: 2424
Joined: December 15th, 2009, 12:37 pm
Location: Somewhere in the middle of everything

Re: Polar Fauna

Post by artisticdude »

:shock: Dat squirrel... I swear, something about it really reminds me of a certain relative of mine, eerily enough (a distant relative, thankfully!). Its left (our right) foot seems like it should be slightly more horizontal... i.e., not at the exact same angle as its other foot.

As for that little fuzzy thing, I don't know if you've ever read the Edge Chronicles, but it reminds me of the 'Wig-wigs' in that series:
Spoiler:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_of_the_Edge_Chronicles wrote:[Wig-wigs] lack legs or any other appendages, resembling small wigs with eyes. They are orange and fluffy, very cute to an unexperienced eye. They soon show their dark side when they practically split in half to resemble a bear trap, and clamp their fearsome jaws upon their unlucky victim. [...] Wig-wigs are very dangerous creatures, due to their tactic of overwhelming prey through sheer numbers.

The cat and the horse-rhino thing are really impressive. 8)
"I'm never wrong. One time I thought I was wrong, but I was mistaken."
Post Reply