Pleistocene Animal

These beasts belong to a lost age of great mammals and flightless predators. Others from the same era, such as the cave bear, giant boar, smilodon, mammoth and mastodon, dire wolf and cavemen, are described in their own entries.

This 4-foot-tall flightless hunter is marked like an ostrich: a huge head on a long neck clad in short white feathers, a black body with a white belly and tail, and yellow-scaled legs. It honks loudly enough to be heard half a mile away, males thrum like a bass viol in mating season, and it hisses in combat between bites. Swift and relentless, it chases prey until it eats or dies, kicking with two claws for 1d3 each and biting for 2d4.

Nests are heaps of stones on rocky outcrops, and during warm months eggs or chicks are present 25% of the time. Chicks are 10% to 80% grown, with Hit Dice in proportion; they never start a fight but bite for 1d4 in defense. Eggs and young fetch 50 to 80 gp and can be reared as hunters, guards or mounts, and each long wing or tail plume sells for 2 gp.

A colossal hornless forerunner of the rhino, this grey-brown plant eater is 15 to 18 feet tall at the withers, runs up to 28 feet long, and weighs as much as 15 tons. A 4-foot head sways on a 6-foot neck. Its eyes are weak but its hearing and smell are sharp, and it charges almost any animal it notices, rearing to stamp with its front hooves for 5d4 each. It usually lives alone; two are a mated pair and a third is their calf, whose hit points and size come from a percentile roll times 14 HD and 15 feet. Raised from a calf or held by magic, it can haul 8,000 pounds. An adult hide makes good leather armor and is worth 50 to 100 gp.

This moose-sized deer lives in temperate lands. Its antlers span 10 feet, letting it gore two foes at once if both stand right in front of it. Normally calm, it is very dangerous in the rut.

A ground sloth the size of a grizzly with shaggy russet fur, it can rear to 20 feet and weighs about 6,000 pounds. Slow but stronger than nearly any would-be predator, it always acts last in a round. It is mostly a gentle grazer of wooded plains, using three foot-long claws on each forepaw to shred shrubs and trees for food. Threatened, it rises on its hind legs and swipes with both paws for 2d6 apiece. Every second year a female has 1 or 2 cubs, which mature in four years and appear in 33% of encounters.

This 10-foot flightless bird (6 feet at the shoulder) has a massive head and beak, dark gray and brown plumage, pale gray legs and black claws; mature males sport a red crest and an orange tuft at the back of the head. It brays deeply and screams a war cry when fighting or challenging a rival. It hunts and breeds in packs, with a 10% chance of eggs or young nearby; the young are 10-80% grown, with proportional Hit Dice, and only tear at helpless prey, copying the adults.

Utterly fearless, it attacks even when outnumbered, opening with a leap that doubles its claw damage to 2d4 per foot. After that it kicks with each claw for 1d4 and bites for 2d6. A bitten target smaller than man-sized is snatched up, shaken and flung down for 1d6 damage, losing its next round. Eggs and hatchlings sell for 70 to 100 gp and can be trained the same way as axebeaks.

Much like a modern rhino but covered in a shaggy russet coat, it roams cold, temperate and subarctic lands and guards its territory fiercely. Nearly blind but keen of ear and nose, it charges any intruder: its horn deals 2d6, doubled on the charge, and throws man-sized or smaller targets 10 to 20 feet. It can trample such victims with each foreleg for 2d4. It mistakes wagons for animals and charges them too, smashing one apart with little trouble.

Among two or three, one is female; a fourth is a calf, somewhere between 30% and 60% the size of its parents. When the calf is in danger, adults gain +1 to hit, and seldom abandon a trapped or wounded mate or young. The thick hide, good for armor, brings 20 to 30 gp, and alchemists pay 10 to 20 gp for the horn to make fake healing potions.

Also called the brontotherium, this rhinolike giant is 8 feet at the shoulder, 16 feet long and up to 8,000 pounds, bearing a broad yoke-shaped nasal horn. It fears nothing. Its horn rams for 2d8 and tosses man-sized or smaller foes up to 20 feet into the air, and its forefeet trample such creatures for 2d4 each. Bulls charge anything that threatens the herd, doubling both horn and trample damage when the charge connects. A group of more than six includes 1d4 calves, 10 to 80% grown, which never fight and hide under or behind their mothers. Its very thick hide sells for 20 to 70 gp and makes fine leather armor, especially for large humanoids.