Dire animals

Let's try to make direness make sense.

Direness is obviously an infectious disease. It has a huge host range, capable of infection more or less every animal, and even some other organisms too.

However, although it does imbue its host with exceptional strength and agressiveness, it has difficulty spreading through populations. Dire animals do not breed often; they'd much rather attempt to kill one another. Therefore, there must be an alternative method of infection, some sort of latent direness. This would allow the disease to spread itself to maintain a population high enough to not constantly go extinct locally.

This latency happens because of pheromones released by the alpha dire animal, the one which is phenotypically dire. These pheromones cause the infections in other animals in the alpha's territory to stay latent.

The alpha inevitably dies, either due to the beast dying of its wounds, both self-inflicted as well as those gained in the many battles it fights, or due to malnourishment caused by the dire animal's tendency to kill just for the killing and thereby strongly reducing the available prey population in its territory. When this happens, animals with latent infections become increasingly aggressive. They start fighting one another without rhyme or reason until one of them becomes the next alpha, after which the disease in the others becomes latent once more.

>when you realize the designers have a giantess fetish

In Pathfinder at least, Direness is explained as a manifestation of Nature's wrath, hence why you see tons of Druids with them. Basically, if Nature goes 'fuck that guy in particular' some badger somewhere suddenly goes full roid rage.

It's just megafauna, user.

In my setting, dire animals are what you get when animals absorb an overflowing amount of Green Mana (for various reasons my setting uses WUBRG where white is diefic power and black is demonic power. Gods are dicks, demons are also dicks but at least they're fair) But the animal then mutates, swells in size, their body supported by the mana more than the organs. And they can become nigh on immortal, simply aging and getting larger for as long as they have a supply of green mana (naturally occuring leylines for example) and for as long as men speak their names in fear. Their power grows with legend, and a nameless wolf can grow from a starving whelp to Whitefang, Slayer of Dragons.

And it makes a lot of things a lot worse than a mere dire animal

You have an idea very similar to mine user, except instead of a disease, mine is due to a type of magically active parasite. They infect a particularly physically fit host, grow, which is actually the cause of those spiky growths and plates you see on some dire animals, Sit on the creatures adrenal and hormone centers and start magicking them right up.

>Just how exactly did this idea come about?
Dire wolves are basically prehistoric wolves. They were much bigger.

D&D generalized that to all kinds of other animals.

>Do you like them? Do you use them?
Absolutely.

>Why use a dire wolf when you have vargs or vice versa?
Worgs are intelligent. Sometimes i don't want magical breasts, and would prefer regular animals.

>And are there dire intelligent species?
Not by default, but it could be neat. Unless you count awakened animals.

>What would those be like?
Like their non dire counterparts, but bigger, and stronger.

>Sometimes i don't want magical breasts
Liar.

>...same amount of pleasure mating with humans as with their own kind.

Okay.

>Machine Apotheosis
fukken S A V E D

>Green Mana (for various reasons my setting uses WUBRG

"Grizzly" is the dire form of a bear. Great white sharks are basically dire mako sharks, except less aggressive. OP points out that alligator snappers are dire snapping turtles. Lots of dire things in the world if you recognize them. Hell, redwoods are dire pines.

I play a Dire Duergar. He's like a normal Duergar, but more Dire in demeanor.

Everything in the setting is stolen from somewhere. The question is just "where was it stolen from" and usually they don't notice what I"m ripping off.

A dire wolf is a big, aggressive wolf. A worg is an intelligent, magical version of a wolf.

Evil, too. I forgot to mention evil.

Dire animals are supposed to be bigger, primeval versions of animals. Dire wolves, cave bears, ground sloths, mammoths, etc.

Now, as for why they're depicted as animals with weird bony growths in D&D art, I could not tell you.

>it's just island gigantism
>Adventurers came up with "Dire" to make more money off their kills

>Saber toothed tigers were a sort of bear.
The ones you're thinking of are probably marsupials.

>Orks

That's a big wolf

Maybe they're basically Doomsday?

An animal that's been killed so many times it builds up a resistance to death.

If you fought it off, would you die?

It would be extremely painful.

The real question is what Dire Animals taste like compared to their regular versions.

4u

>dire pines
I'm using this in my setting.

youtube.com/watch?v=bgSurkfqXuI

more meat, but it's also tougher and contains hard, bone-like cartilage fragments.. Hides are nearly inedible no matter how much or how long you marinate them.

'Boney growths' are usually extensions of the above mentioned cartilage growths integrating into and protruding from the skin.

Something that seems to define a lot of Dire animals of the mammalian class is a fascinating adaptation in which the animal in question has a sort of controlled form of Myositis Ossificans, in which the body begins partially hardening the muscles and skin into thse seen 'boney protrusions' as some means of protection.

The truly remarkable part is that this process is apparently reversible, as dire animals living comfortably in captivity eventually loose these protrusions and hard spots.

Interesting part is that the alligator snapper is also less aggressive than the regular snapping turtle. The regular one hunts for fish, while the alligator snapper lures them in. Alligator snapper is also less likely to strike at a person, if I remember correctly. Don't push your luck all the same.

Megalodon is a dire great white

>OP points out that alligator snappers are dire snapping turtles
Well, alligator snappers grow twice as big as regular snappers, but are less aggressive and commons snappers have a lot of bony protrusions as well. I'd think of alligator snappers as more like "dire freshwater turtle" than "dire common snapper".

I have several questions.

No I'm sorry I can't let this go without explanation

I actually find myself enjoying the idea that Dire Animals are animals that spent too much time around Fey energy, or did so a lot in their breeding.

Regarding the op I love dire animals. The players wanna be badasses, but sometimes you just wanna watch your players get mauled by bears.
>Introducing Dire Bears
Now I have a legitimate statblock and book backing my bullshit why they are being jumped by the Leroy Brown of bears.

I am looking at the source, and I am speechless.

Not necessarily in disgust, this is quite a bit of work done on worldbuilding. More considerations were made for day-to-day functions than what you normally expect from, say, a dragon.

So this is transmitted via computer virus? What about machines with no electronics?
And what the fuck is an ultralight?

Interesting concept nonetheless, it would make for an nice anticipation campaign.
On a sidenote, it's not everyday that you see porn with that much effort put into the setting.

What is that from? I haven't ound good rpg maker games in a long time.

An ultralight is basically a propeller engine with some wings on top and a seat. They're neat.

>And are there dire intelligent species?

Humans are just dire halflings.

>Giants are dire Dwarves

Yeah, that's also a completely valid explanation. I just find it fun to try to make it a bit more semi-scientific.

Megafauna which is abnormally aggressive and has huge spikes of bone growing through its skin. It wouldn't survive long with that many infections.

Dunno. I'd like the idea, but the feral-ness and the aforementioned corruption-like growths suggests that it should have some black mana in there too, in my opinion.

To be fair: parasites are an infectious disease, and I don't think that some magic shouldn't be involved here. Maybe it was a failed magical experiment by some sorceror-king to create better soldiers?

> Regarding the op I love dire animals. The players wanna be badasses, but sometimes you just wanna watch your players get mauled by bears.

They're amazing. Especially in an exploratory game. Goblins? Not that scary. Hell, even mythical creatures aren't. They're too far away from what we know. However, a huge bear, insanely angry and mad by the pain caused by its own bony protusions sticking through flesh and muscle? Wewlad.

You should totally read The Waste Lands by Stephen King. How he portraits Shadrik and its territory can be a huge help in setting the scene for a dire animal.

Here's a scary thought:
Dire furries

>Dunno. I'd like the idea, but the feral-ness and the aforementioned corruption-like growths suggests that it should have some black mana in there too, in my opinion.
You don't understand the color pie at all, let alone how someone else's setting works.

The Grizzly Bear would be dwarfed by the Cave Bear though?

Yeah but cave bears are dead, so that doesn't contribute to my goal in that post of pointing out the wonder of our natural world.

What's it from? Is it porn? This level of logic applied with utter disregard for the few big problems that make it not work seems like it's the author's fetish.

That's an infantry fighting vehicle though

>What is that from? I haven't ound good rpg maker games in a long time.
Tales of Game’s Studios Presents Chef Boyardee’s Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden, Chapter 1 of the Hoopz Barkley SaGa

I love dire animals ever since I saw this stupid art for the horrid ape. Horrid was a template from Eberron that made dire animals more dire and made them drip acid from their fangs, claws, etc. Ever since then I've loved creating mad projects of twisted animal husbandry through 3.5's template system, like the horrid hippopotamus, the titanic horrid weasel, and the werehippopotamus. If I had artistic talent, I'd make something for the all 3 of those.