Oddly, just last night I was scratching out the "Giant Hogs" entry in my OD&D encounter tables (actually Sup-I) as being too ridiculous for me -- and then I run into this article on the proliferation of actual "Radioactive Boars" today in Germany, here (a long-term effect from the Chernobyl meltdown). So perhaps that's inspiration if you run a post-nuke flavored campaign.
EDIT: I'm just talking about them being so common deep in dungeons, not that I'd avoid using them in general.
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Gotta say--even non-radioactive boar are pretty frightening, and they can get huge. Heroes fighting boar runs back to Odysseus, at least. My vote is to un-scratch that entry. Giant boar ftw.
ReplyDeleteWhat is ridiculous about a giant boar entry on a random encounter table? Real life boars can be way in excess of 1000 pounds and can be quite mean-tempered. Much scarier to me than a brown bear, but then I grew up in Alaska and got to know the bears pretty well.
ReplyDeleteYeah. Boars feature in a lot of mythologies. Japan, for one. (See Princess Mononoke). Even big ol' hawgs can be really dangerous.
ReplyDeleteAs for the radioactive boars, especially for a post-apocalypse campagin, all I say to that is "Hello, orcs!"
Not to mention, boars won't hesitate to eat human flesh. I wouldn't call any encounter that can result in a character being eaten as ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteMy only problem is with boars being common in dungeons -- specifically 10% of all 3rd-level encounters per the LBBs. (OD&D Vol-3, p. 10).
ReplyDeleteOutside I'm a huge fan, keep them in the wilderness lists. But in the dungeon I'd rather use that slot for giant spiders (missing from the LBBs) or other lurky-crawly stuff.
Same with giant weasels.
I figure the prevalence of Giant Hogs is a relic of the Castle Greyhawk dungeon, which had a whole level infested with the things and their Wereboar wranglers.
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ReplyDeleteOh, okay, that makes sense. Forest critters down three levels in a catacomb are kinda out of place.
Since this is a quibblefest, however, I'd say I have an easier time believing a burrowing critter like a weasel in a deeper part of the dungeon over a hog.
I agree that dungeon weasels ping me as somewhat less wrong than hogs. But I still don't want a big weasel-fest (10% of all monsters) down there!
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