Two Sword of Cepheus Monsters

[Timerover51]

I purchased the PDF format edition of the Sword of Cepheus after getting my interest peaked by the "Störtebeker Teaser" article in Cepheus Journal 1 along with the AlegisDownport review. It is quite the interesting game, and because of the Open Gaming License, a game that can be readily modified and added too. I am pleased to add it to my computer role-playing game rules collection.

In reading through it, my interest was caught be quite a few things, one of them being the Monsters section, and also the Transport section. More about the Transport section in a later post. Two of the monsters mentioned are the Elephant and the Sperm Whale. The following is an attempt to flesh them out a bit better. First, the Elephant.

Basically, you have two species of elephant, the Asian and the African, the African being the biggest. In both species the male is larger than the female, by between 50 and 100 percent. The mass given for the elephant in Sword of Cepheus is 3200 kilograms, which is about the weight of a full-grown female Asian elephant, the kind preferred for use as a work and transport elephant. With that mass, the elephant is rated at "M" for strength and endurance, giving it a rating of 22 for both characteristics, and a 4 for Dexterity. This gives it 48 damage points. For attacks, it is given two possible, Trample for 3D damage and Tusks for 2D damage.

There are some problems with this. First, the female Asian elephant does not usually have tusks, and if she does, they are very short. The male Asian elephant has tusks, as do both the male and female of the African species. So, depending on what variety and where you are located, there might be a 50% chance or a 100% chance of a tusk attack. While the female African elephant is not that much bigger than the Asian female, the Asian male can be 50% bigger, while the male African can be 100% bigger. That additional size should be plugged into the damage point total, but that is a bit difficult, as the damage point scale only goes up to "Z", which is 34 if my calculations are correct. So, rather than use the size scale chart, what might be considered is adding a 2D6 throw to both the strength and the endurance stats of the male Asian elephant, and a 3D6 roll to the male African elephant for strength and endurance. That would also give you a range of damage for the elephant, rather than a flat figure which the players can keep track off.

Then there is the elephant trunk, an extremely dextrous and powerful orgen, which is not factored at all into the possible attacks. Having spent a lot of time reading John Taylor, the African ivory poacher, accounts of elephant hunting in Pondoro, and Sir Samuel Baker's accounts of elephant hunting by both him and natives, along with his experiences at hunting from an elephant, one cannot overlook the trunk as a dangerous bludgeoning weapon. It may not always be used, but it is probably worth at least a 2D6 attack, with the added die modifiers for strength.

Lastly, an elephant has a 75% chance of treasure, in the form of ivory. While the tusks of the Asian male elephant are nothing to shout about, Baker figured that the average African tusk would go about 75 pounds, or 150 pounds for a pair, with some tusks running more than twice that in weight. Ivory is not likely to be a common commodity, as the people doing the hunting are not using high-powered rifles or one-half pounder rifles like Samuel Baker. While Baker does go into considerable detain on how natives with only hand weapons took elephants, in his book Wild Beasts and Their Ways (available on Project Guterberg), they are not easy nor very sporting. Ivory is listed as a minor gem 4, with an average value of 700 gold pieces. At around 10 gold pieces a pound, ivory is not something to be ignored.

Note: The above comments may be taken to include the mammoth as well, except the mammoth would have even heavier ivory, plus a lot of valuable fat covering the carcass.

Next up, the Sperm Whale.

 

[Timerover51]

The Sperm Whale

Every since I read Frank Bullen's book, The Cruise of the Cachalot, when I was in 6th grade, I have been fascinated by whales and whaling. Bullen's book can be found on Project Gutenberg, and is a great read. In talking with the library staff at Mystic Sea Port, Bullen served on 4 whaling ships, rising to the position of 1st Mate. He knows of what he speaks. To really flesh out an encounter with a sperm whale, his book is a must.

The basic data for the Sperm Whale is 40,000 kilograms in weight, Strength and Endurance rated as "Z", which equals 34 if my calculations are correct, a dexteriy of 3, and some combat bonuses. Here is one area that I would add something. If you roll 10+ on encountering a Sperm, which means that he attacks, I would give the Sperm Tactics-1, based on Bullen's accounts of fighting whales. I use "he" deliberately, as a cow whale would rarely fight, just run and try to escape. Also, the cow whale is a lot smaller than the big bulls, somewhere between one-third and one-half the mass. Bullen reported that:

I never heard of a cow-cachalot yielding more than fifty barrels of oil; but I have both heard of, and seen, bulls carrying one hundred and fifty. One individual taken by us down south was seventy feet long, and furnished us with more than the latter amount;"

Depending on whether you run into a pod of cows with calves and a few bulls, a pod of bachelor bulls, or a solitary bull, you have several different possibilities for size. When you look at the damage point total of 71, compared to the 48 of the considerably smaller Asian elephant, it seems a bit too low. As "Z" is the highest rating a monster can have, if you encounter sperm whales, role a D6 to determine the size of the pod. One or two, roll 6D6 for a mix of cows, calves, and medium size bulls. Three, four, or five, roll 2D6 for a smaller pod of medium and larger bulls. On a roll of 6, roll 1D6 for a pod of large to very large bulls, with a one on the roll meaning a very large bull that is likely going to be a fighter. For getting a more accurate damage point total, subtract 2D6 of the encounter is of a cow sperm whale, reflecting a lower strength and endurance. For a smaller bull, subract 1D6 from both Strength and Endurance. Medium size bulls stay at "Z". Larger bulls roll 2D6 to add to Strength and Endurance, and the very large solitary bulls add 3D6 to Strength and Endurance.

Now for attacks, the Sperm would use both teeth and the tail flukes. Repeatedly, Bullen reports whale boats smashed and men killed by devastating strikes from the Sperm's tail flukes. It would be best to plug in a 4D fluke attack as well, but not both attacks at once, it should be one of the other. The Sperm is using either his front end to attack, or his tail end, not both at once.

but with a perfectly indescribable motion, a tremendous writhe, in fact; up flew the broad tail in air, and a blow which might have sufficed to stave in the side of the ship struck the second mate's boat fairly amidships. It was right before my eyes, not sixty feet away, and the sight will haunt me to my death. The tub oarsman was the poor German baker, about whom I have hitherto said nothing, except to note that he was one of the crew. That awful blow put an end summarily to all his earthly anxieties. As it shore obliquely through the centre of the boat, it drove his poor body right through her timbers—an undistinguishable bundle of what was an instant before a human being.

Then there is the attack on a ship by a Sperm Whale. The are three whaling ships on record that were attacked and sunk by a Sperm Whale: the Essex, the Ann Alexander, and the Kathleen, the Kathleen being sunk in 1902. Then there are 4 reports of whalers being sunk, 3 by finback whales and 1 by a humpback, these reports from Roy Chapman Andrews in his book, Whale Hunting with Gun and Camera. Ships of the period covered by Sword of Cepheus, if attacked by a whale, are simply sunk, no saving throw possible. Roll 3D6 to determine how long the crew has before the ship sinks.

Lastly, there is the matter of treasure. Now, if your characters decide to "cut-in" a killed whale, they can collect sperm whale oil and spermaceti from the whale. That could range anywhere from 30 barrels for a small cow to 150 barrels or more from a very large bull. Sperm whale oil is about the finest lubricant around, as well as making the finest candles from the spermaceti, and the finest lamp oil before petroleum arrived on the scene. If you assume that the value is one silver piece per gallon, then a barrel of 31 and a half gallons will bring in between 30 and 32 silver pieces. Then there is ambergris, that extremely valuable perfume fixative, which in the 1870s was worth between "one and three guineas an ounce" (Bullen again). That would mean an average of 1 gold piece per ounce, with 35 ounces per kilogram. Ambergris can be found in the intestines of dead Sperm Whales, and in the vicinity of freshly-killed ones, apparently being vomited up in the whale's death throes. Depending on how generous the Gamemaster is, you can throw between six and ten D6 to determine how many kilograms of ambergris you have found. Lastly, there are a varying number of teeth, up to about 32, that can be sold as whale ivory or for scrimshaw work.

The players need not be on an extended whaling voyage, but simply hired to help out a shore-based whaling station, or be sent on a mission to obtain ambergris by an alchemist for use in his or her potions. Another possible mission would be obtaining a supply of sperm whale oil for the port's lighthouse, as the supply is running dangerously low, and the merchants are getting restless.

 

[Proneutron]

If you assume that the value is one silver piece per gallon,

You nailed it. Until replaced by petroleum a gallon of sperm whale oil had about the same value as an ounce of silver. Assuming your coins are one ounce.

 

[Condottiere]

As I recall, it was premium because it burned cleaner, compared to lard.