So, i've been thinking up characters lately and liked the idea of a Satyr knight in full plate as a visual. It got me thinking about something, though: Very often, monstrous humanoids with animal features will get features of those animals but at human scale without any apparent thought of how they actually WOULD scale.
Obvious stuff would be that spider-people can usually walk on walls and ceilings like a spider, or a snake-person being able to spring out rapidly from a coil like a snake, but how well would these things really work when you put them to human scale?
Specific idea I had in mind was that a horse kick is obviously very powerful, but is that something about horse leg physiology or just because it's a big animal with a lot of muscle and mass compared to a human?
You ever been kicked in the face by a deer? That shit still hurts.
>>48270740
Is it more powerful than what a fit human of roughly equal mass could deliver, though?
Also, kind of interested to see if /tg/ has thoughts on any other adopted features like the ones mentioned.
>>48270688
>Obvious stuff would be that spider-people can usually walk on walls and ceilings like a spider, or a snake-person being able to spring out rapidly from a coil like a snake, but how well would these things really work when you put them to human scale?
In general I wouldn't worry about it. I mean, if you're going to have people with prominent animal features, what's the point if they can't do the associated animal things? It's like why giants don't just collapse under their own weights as the square-cube law demands; it would be pretty lame and pointless if they did.
>>48270830
Probably not in all honesty.
Human kicks can be rather impressive.
As for the other things, no, most things don't scale well at all. It's most often due to skeleton and muscle. Things' bones are the size and shape they are because it's appropriate to move that amount of mass in the way intended. Giant ass heavy creatures tend to have big fat short bones. Big ass spiders wouldn't be able to hang on ceilings, little ass horses wouldn't be able to kick very hard.
Also humans are bipeds, hardly any animals share this, our legs are the best legs on earth for being bipedal. It's a wonder how got legged things can walk actually.
>>48270835
True, but seeing flaws them figuring out how to make them work anyway is a very /tg/ thing.
>>48270880
I wonder how a satyr walk would actually look then. More awkward gait than a human or just as smooth? And would two cloven hoofed feet require a better sense of balance than two human feet? If so, could explain them usually being depicted as quite agile.
From there, also issue of horns. Would a human skull with, say, ram's horns be able to headbutt with impunity or are there structural differences that would cause problems?
>>48271027
They'd certainly need to have good balance or shift around a lot.
And no, our heads are too delicate by comparison, well mostly. However this could be easily fixed by the addition of a neck and skull that stands up to being wrenched at and impacted better.
>>48271153
How would such skull and neck modifications like look, externally? Would we end up with neanderthal satyrs or something less human? Or possibly just the proportions of a space marine.
>>48271262
Not a lot different really, just a tad more skull thickness wouldn't look all that interesting.
However the neck would be different, thicker, sturdier and the muscle would run a little way up the back of the head. Think bull-necked.
You have plenty of leeway with these sorts of things for aesthetic purposes, but you could add uncle.hunter1 on skype and when I'm not suffering constant powercuts I could help you making certain fantasy creatures "more believable" in the body. I have quite a decent background in biology/animals for this sort of thing.
I'm heading to sleep soon now so add me now and type a up spiel maybe and I'll get back to you tomorrow after work.
>>48271262
thicker trapezius, smaller brain+thicker skull, horn attachment...definitely not on our temples like in a lot of art, spinal rearrangement for more optimal redistribution of force from whatever headbutting motion these satyrs adopt. notably, swinging your head to whack people from a standing position will concuss you. those are the first things that come to mind
when they charge, rams make their spines into a solid column of fuck you and definitely aren't bipedal. they impact with their foreheads but their foreheads are placed very differently in relation to their everything else compared to humans. note how their brainpan is separated from their ramming surface. I'm not familiar enough with goat anatomy to tell you their structural weakpoints, but the idea of charging and headbutting the way a ram does while bipedal is very silly
>>48271582
Have you considered fantasy... These things can occur by actual magic. I think it's best to go for [fantasy thing] with some added functionality. You can't take a biped magic creature then just turn into a goat, because then it's not the fantasy creature at all. It's just a little reenvisioning.
>>48271582
They could charge head first, drunken master style.
>>48271969
to some extent magic can patch things up, yes. but I think that lipservice to reality followed up by 'lul magic' is worse than just handwaving it with magic in the first place. either the audience won't care, in which case it's extraneous information, or you're setting up the expectation of physiological versions of fantasy creatures and failing your audience.
there are ways to incorporate some of the things I suggested without going full goat. having a stature somewhere in between bipedal and quadrupedal like a gorilla or a bear is feasible, if you give the satyr longer arms in relation to its legs to match, for example. from there the satyr can adopt a mostly ram-like arched posture when charging and the problem becomes the relative orientation of the human head. this sort of modified satyr, when standing bipedal for height or for use of their arms, would probably look like those dogs that stand bipedal and tuck their chins in and have sort of lame peripheral vision. it's still recognizably a satyr, though.
or maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean, I dunno. I wasn't quite sure what you were saying, sorry.
Rams are adorable. If you are far enough.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVCR29aE_OQ
>>48271969
Or, you know, that anon likes to impose limits because they force you to explore new ideas.
Magic certainly is an invaluable tool in worldbuilding, but overusing it will just make it into a meaningless word.
And cosidering the different biological necessities can lead to more interesting cultures than just not!RealWorldCulture or one based on the popculture image of that animal.
My monster people are the result of a freak magic accident, so most of their cultures are based on dealing with their weird new bodies and the apocalyptic war that caused these accidents.
In general, they are very protective of their children because the human part is underdeveloped after birth.
The naga lay eggs that are gathered and cared for by the tribe as a hole, so they have no concept of family. Some tribes just dump the eggs in the wild if there are too many. If child survives, great you've got a strong warrior. If not, one less mouth to feed.
Centaurs have extremely low birth rates due to the spine issue, so there are some bands that steal children during their raids to convert them and bolster their numbers.
>>48272267
Good job, now I actually want a pet ram and exhaust him with a punching bag until he's on the ground panting and dehydrated and I can give him some water from a bottle while petting his soft wool. I also want to refuse to shave him until he's a round, angry ball of fluff.
Sheep get really greasy and gross though. Lanolin builds up and stuff.
>>48272267
But can you use ram for sexual? Can ram use you for sexual?
>>48272274
This.
Honestly, exploring the concepts behind a monster can also help build up an idea of their culture, leading to interesting plot hooks and ideas for PCs or encounters.
>>48271969
>Have you considered fantasy... These things can occur by actual magic.
You can't always go for that excuse in a setting that includes Antimagic Field to test whether something is magic or not.
>>48270830
It concentrates the power to a smaller surface and is both hard and sharp.
