#baluchitherium

[twilightofthesandwiches]

Which Edition of D&D had the best design/artwork of a Baluchitherium?

First Edition

Second Edition

Voting ended onMar 12

[antiqueanimals]

Baluchitherium. Animal Ghosts. Edited by Claudia Clow. Illustrated by Walt Disney Productions. 1971.

Internet Archive

[mrmossmichael]

It's been 10 years ago since I went to the prehistoric beast event called "Ice Age Unfrozen" at Michigan Science Center in Detroit, Michigan, with my family members. Some of these guys are at least eight animatronic creatures; some were skulls, skeleton parts and even furry parts.

[dwollsadventures]

Monster Manual - Baluchitherium

You’ll see this creature or evidence of its presence before you get close. Though superficially similar to elephants, they’re closer to rhinoceroses in intelligence. Thankfully we’re small enough that they consider us like a sort of bipedal antelope rather than a predator. When startled an individual can stampede with the force of a herd of other animals. Can survive in arid regions and cross sandy deserts without issue. Do not hunt or approach if you don’t possess proper equipment.

--

One of the awkward things about the AD&D Monster Manual is that, because it was published in the 70's, some of the extinct creatures within it have shuffled names. When I was a kid, this creature was known as Indricotherium. Now it's Paraceratherium. Probably the largest mammal or mammalian monster that will feature here, but certainly not the biggest creature at all!

[michael-rosskothen]

Adult and baby Paraceratheriums

[sleepy-bebby]

Paraceratherium

Name: Paraceratherium (“para - serra - there - ium")

Classification: Mammalia (Mammal Class) - Perissodactyla [Odd-Toed Ungulates] (Order) - Paraceratheriidae (Family) - Paraceratherium (Genus)

Distribution: Eastern Europe and Asia

Paraceratherium is an extinct genus of hornless rhinoceros. It is one of the largest terrestrial mammals that has existed and lived from the early to late Oligocene epoch. The first fossils were discovered in what is now Pakistan, and remains have been found across Eurasia between China and the Balkans.

The exact size of Paraceratherium is unknown because of the incompleteness of the fossils. Some estimate that it had a shoulder height around 4.8 metres (15.7 feet), and a length of about 7.4 metres (24.3 feet). Its weight is estimated to have been about 15 to 20 tonnes (33,000 - 44,000lbs/ 13,607 - 18,144kg). The long neck supported a skull that was about 1.3 metres (4.3 ft) long. It had a nasal incision that suggests it had a prehensile upper lip or proboscis (trunk).

The Last of the Rhinoceros Titans

Paraceratherium is an extinct genus of hornless rhinoceros that has traditionally been heralded as the largest mammal ever to tromp over the Earth. It is far larger than any rhino alive today, and was an iconic member of mammal megafaunas that roamed Eurasia between about 35 and 20 million years ago. Paleontologists are slowly working on piecing together a more complete picture of the superlative mammal.

Many names:

The taxonomy of the genus and the species within has a long and complicated history. While there are articles, books, and documentaries using names such as “Indricotherium”, “Baluchitherium”, or “Pristinotherium”, it is now believed that the list of names were created by incomplete knowledge of early finds and the idiosyncratic process of applying names to extinct animals. Most modern scientists consider these genera to be junior synonyms of Paraceratherium which means "near the hornless beast" as it has priority of place as the single valid name for all the huge fossil rhinos that roamed from eastern Europe through Mongolia during the Oligocene epoch and that all the skeletons of the biggest rhinos so far known fall within the range of variation for this single genus.

Description:

The exact size of Paraceratherium is unknown because of the incompleteness of the fossils but Paraceratherium was known to be tall with a long, deep neck and a prehensile lip which would have allowed it to feed on trees and shrubs rather than graze. Revised weight estimates have moved Paraceratherium away from often cited estimates of 30 tons towards a more modest 15-20 ton range, comparable to estimates for large mammoths and other big fossil elephants. Some like Donald Prothero have proposed that, contrary to most depictions, Paraceratherium had large elephant-like ears that it used for thermoregulation. The ears of elephants enlarge the body's surface area and are filled with blood vessels, making the dissipation of excess heat easier. According to Prothero, this would have been true for Paraceratherium, as indicated by the robust bones around the ear openings. However, other palaeontologists such as Pierre-Olivier Antoine and Darren Naish have expressed scepticism towards this idea. There are no indications of the colour and skin texture of Paraceratherium because no skin impressions or mummies are known. Most life restorations show the creature's skin as thick, folded, grey, and hairless, based on modern rhinoceroses.

Theories on their cause of extinction:

Reviewing the relatively small literature on the natural history of Paraceratherium, there are many theories as to why the large rhino is thought to have gone extinct. One of them is that their simple, low-crowned teeth indicated that Paraceratherium was a high browser with a diet consisting of relatively soft tree leaves and shrubs. Later rhinoceroses were grazers, with high-crowned teeth because their diets contained grit that quickly wore down their teeth. It is though that when archaic elephants moved into Paraceratherium habitat, they changed the landscape by stripping and pushing over the trees that these huge rhinos relied on. This triggered ecological changes that caused their food source to become scarce, and along with a low birth rate, potential climate change, and threats from large predators like Hyainailurus and Amphicyon who arrived in Asia around the early Miocene, sealed their fate and pushed them into extinction.

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Gallery

[antediluvianechoes]

Indricotheres, Konstantin Flerov

It might be the last warm day of the year. The indricotheres emerge at dusk, shake their hides as the unseasonal heat wanes, and let the last of the sunlight paint their shadows across the dry plain. They’ve spent the greater part of the day lounging in the shade of walnut trees, lazily peeling bark from trunks and branches, dozing between nibblings. The trees’ drupes have all long fallen and a few still litter the ground. They’re too small to bother consuming, but they do make footpaths uncomfortable—even for feet as big as an indricothere’s—so the beasts kick the fruit out of the way to let tiny things find them and gnaw out the nuts. Leaves and bark are better.

Clouds roll in. The shadows disappear in the evening gray. A gust of wind flattens the grass, tugs tree branches, hisses through the leaves. The day’s warmth will not last the night. By the time the sky darkens, the beasts have found a new grove to browse. There will be no stars or moon this night, but indricotheres desire little in regards to ambiance. They only want to feed.

[dailycharacteroption]

Hexenhammer (Inquisitor Archetype)

Easily one of my favorite concepts in fiction is that of power with a price, particularly dark power that tempts the wielder into overextending and being consumed by it.

Few archetypes reflect this more than the hexenhammer (Named for a manual used by real-world inquisitors and witch hunters), a holy mystic who has embraced in part the dark powers of witchcraft and black magic to better fight against the foes that use them. However, doing so weighs heavily on their mind, and strains their relationship with the divine force that grants them their more contemporary power.

It’s a common trope, the notion that divine power stands at odds with primal magics makes a lot of sense given the history of their real-world inspiration, so this archetype, as much as I really, really like it, only really works in parts of your setting where the local religion rejects witchcraft, either because of the dubious nature of the patrons that grant it, actual pacts with evil beings, or the faithful rejecting all mystic power that they do not control. Regardless, these mystics blend the power of two sources together.

 Though not possessing of a true evil eye, these inquisitors do study the technique to develop a withering stare of their own, imposing all sorts of unluck with a particularly unnerving stare.

Being torn between two sources of power has unfortunate consequences, for using their witchcraft abilities, which will be detailed below, causes a minor affront to their deity, preventing them from using certain inquisitor powers until they supplicate their god.

Their keen knowledge of such arts does, however, give them a cunning understanding of how to resist various sinister spells, from curses to hexes to necromancy and so on. However, wielding those dark powers themselves does deprive them of the focus to maintain that defense.

The first dark magic they learn is in the form of harmful hexes, those that cause drowsiness, misfortune, or blight crops, but later on, they can learn to cause pain, nightmares, or retributive harm to others.

A particularly blasphemous act these inquisitors can perform is using the divine power granted by their diety to refuel the energy of their hexes, but doing so locks them out of their divine powers for much longer than normal.

Finally, these dabblers also learn the secrets of witch magic, picking up a small selection of witch spells to wield, though doing so does sap their divine abilities as normal.

Interested in a debuffing inquisitor that comes with its own free built-in internal conflict? This may be the archetype for you. Check through the witch spell list for some useful spells that suit the build you are going for. The best part, I feel, however, is that there are no specific mechanics tied to a corruption, of changing alignment or the like tied to the class itself, so all of that is roleplay based. If your build focuses on switching to witch hexes and abilities and rarely going back, the progression from that point could easily be roleplayed as a fall into black magic. Alternately, one might use those powers sparingly when they can help it, keeping the struggle alive in their hearts and minds.

 It’s also interesting to think of how they learned these powers in the first place. Perhaps they were brought up in a household of witchcraft, then adopted by the church and taught those powers they had grown up with were evil? Or maybe they are devotees to a sect focusing on witchcraft above all else, both investigating and destroying it, and spent their time learning both light and dark magic do contend with such spells?

  Riding atop massive baluchitherium and other megafauna, the cyclopes of Deghron Hills have been teaching their secrets of witchcraft and oracular power to their smaller neighbors. Ever sense the Tu’Athar Crusade, however, the cities and settlements erected to serve as waypoints for the crusaders now call for aid in “wiping out the one-eyed devils and their black magic”. Their call has been answered by a pair older priests with piercing gazes and humorless demeanors.

 Raised in the swamp, but adopted by the church that burned down her village for heresy, Jinuri was a duitiful disciple of the Blinding Light despite being an undine in a human-centric religion. However, recently she has been having visions of a watery undine woman, calling to her, guiding her towards the water-witchcraft of her heritage.

 Though witchcraft can be used for goodly purposes, it is by nature a fickle and vindictive force, and even the most kindly practitioner can lash out with terrible curses, to say nothing of the wickedness perpetuated by the truly depraved. As such, the order of the hexenhammer was created by the church of the Steel Walker to investigate witches across the land, determining which ones are a danger to the people, and turning the dark arts against those who are. Corruption abounds in the order, however, and many an innocent has been put to the blade for political reasons.