The Ferric Hills

The Ferric Hills

So named after the Ferropine, iron bark trees which grow on rocky knolls. The region has unique weather: electric rain. Charged raindrops electrify anything metallic, discharging large amounts of energy. While this is dangerous for an adventuring party (a full plated knight caught in electric rain would be completely fried), the flora and fauna of the Ferric Hills have adapted.

Ferropine

These grey, iron-bark trees grow in clusters atop barren hillocks at their highest points. They are functionally plant-based lightning rods, and draw lightning to them during electric rain storms. They flower during storms, blossoming beautiful rust-red buds. These flowers fetch quite the price; salves made from ferropine buds can infuse objects with electric potential but harvesting them is hazardous.

When lightning hits a ferropine, it is discharged throughout the tree. Ferropines convert most of this energy into sugar via electrosynthesis. The remaining energy is dissipated into the root system, which blasts residual charge into the rocky soil. Given enough time, this energy will charge a rock sufficiently to cause it to “think” (much like how modern computers are thinking rocks). Thus, a stone elemental is born. The stone elemental will tunnel out of the hill, leaving a vacant cave below the root system. The ferropine roots continue to grow here, often creating impassable mesh-like barriers in the tunnels. Kilkalar birds frequently use these caves as nesting sites, their magnetic feathers allowing them to bypass the root barrier.  

From Scavengers Reign

Kilkalar Birds

Kilkalars are large, flightless birds with a flat, shovel-shaped head and an inverted ribcage that sticks out of its back. They scoop up prey with their head, throwing them into its ribcage, which closes tight and prevents escape. With prey captured, the birds then run into their nest, where they use the electric discharge of ferropine roots to kill and cook their prey. Eating cooked meat has given these birds unusually high intelligence (for a bird at least). Kilkalars have an extremely high tolerance to electricity when grounded.

Their black, magnetic feathers are of meager value in the market but make for reliable compasses (their tips always point north). In large quantities (i.e. a coat of feathers), they repel other ferrous objects, such as ferropine roots. Attempts to domesticate Kilkalar birds as mounts or as prisoner transport systems have largely failed due to the creature’s extreme reliance on ferropines; few farmers want lightning rods in their fields.

HD 2, AC as chain, ATK: Beak 1d3 or Scoop: DEX save to avoid or be trapped in the Kilkalar’s ribcage.

Stone Elemental

Boulders made animate. They wander the Ferric Hills as gentle giants, as they have no natural predators. Watcher lizards frequently ride Stone Elementals, as Elementals are both ideal sunspots and relatively safe transit.

HD 5, AC as plate, ATK: Slam 1d10

 

Voltic Leech

A small parasite, with ochre-white skin. Its circular mouth wriggles into its host’s flesh and attaches. The leech drains the electricity from its host, rapidly de-energizing it. Maybe useful if you’re about to be struck by lightning, but recovering from a voltic leech’s attachment requires long bed rest and plenty of electrolytes. (Blue Gatorade is basically a potion in real life, right?) Commonly found under the feathers of Kilkalar Birds.

 

Watcher Lizards

Appearance as a monitor lizard but with a third eye on their tail. Always watching, always alert, this third eye can see through all types of magic and other mundane forms of trickery, like disguises. (Some scholars argue that Watcher Lizards detect the soul or spirit of a thing, which cannot be disguised. Others retort that this cannot be the case as first, animals don’t have souls and secondly, why would a dumb lizard be granted such a gift?) This tail adaptation is the only reason these lizards survive; Watcher lizards are supremely lazy and love sunbathing.

Their tails can be brewed into potions of True Seeing.

 

Woolwhorl

An ovine with large swirls in its wool. Staring at its swirling patterns for long enough first causes headache, then confusion, then unconsciousness. This effect is amplified in herds or during electric rain storms: the static in the air causes their wool to stand on end, making their patterns larger. When attacked, Woolwhorls will just stand there and wait for their hypnotic swirls to take effect. Their predators frequently turn on each other in confusion, though solo hunters, like the Kilkalar Birds, have no issue.

Due to their disorientating pattern, most farmers prefer regular sheep, though Woolwhorl’s excrement makes for superior fertilizer.   

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Post Script 

There's been a lot of very cool blog posts (here and here) on creating realistic ecosystems / food chains. Having another system with logic to it gives players another puzzle they can figure out and exploit; if the animals can survive in this dangerous landscape, so can they. Additionally, if these creatures have some resource (magnetic feathers, eyeballs for potions), players might pay more attention to the environment. 

I've also just finished watching Scavenger's Reign, which I've liberally stolen from. Highly recommend.