Baboon

These large monkeys have dark brown fur, long limbs, big heads with doglike muzzles, and sharp canines. Tails are usually short stubs, though some reach two feet. The biggest males wear a ruff of gray fur around the neck.

A troop defends its home ground, yet 90% of the time it flees when surprised or threatened, vanishing into trees or undergrowth. Fleeing baboons can climb at double their normal speed in five-round bursts. Corner them or menace an infant, however, and they turn savage, especially the males. They drop from above or charge and leap, biting for 1d4. 2d4 large males lead the troop and fight in front with +1 damage, often baring fangs and shrieking to scare intruders off first.

Troops number 10-40, occasionally up to 100, about half of them young. Juveniles never attack, and females fight only to protect their offspring; each female gives birth once a year. Baboons feed in the morning, nap in the afternoon, and sleep at night in branches or on cliffs after a last meal. Males may forage miles away but always return by dusk with food stuffed in their cheek pouches. They are bright, curious, and have excellent memories, but keep no treasure.

Their diet is leaves, roots, grass, fruit, and seeds, plus eggs and insects, turning to mice and frogs when food is short. Gangs of big males have rarely been seen running down small antelope and even leopards. Most predators will eat them; jungle troops are fairly safe high in the trees and fear giant snakes most, while mountain troops face wolf packs, sabre-tooths, and mountain lions. People hunt them for pelts and their chewy, tasty meat and string their teeth into jewelry. Young captives can be tamed, and some primitive cultures revere baboons as messengers of the gods.

Banderlogs look like green-skinned baboons with brown fur. Stronger and less panicky, they chatter in a crude language. Their bite does 1d4+1, but they prefer to cling to a branch one-handed and throw coconuts (1d4+1) or retch plant globes, the purple fruit of the globe palm, at targets up to 30 feet off. A globe bursts in a 5-foot splash, with a 25% chance of hitting anyone within 1d6+3 feet; anyone splashed vomits for three rounds and has half Strength for an hour, with no save. They climb in double-speed bursts like baboons.

Small tribes follow one or more big males (6-8 hp per Hit Die, +1 damage) and nest in leaf bowers high in palm trees. A tribe has a 5% chance of hoarding a piece of jewelry or other random valuable. They eat as baboons do, plus rodents and big insects, and fall prey to lions and other carnivores, while hunters want their pelts and teeth.