It stalks around in forests. It hunts and devours humans. It

>>49880994

The real world is full of animals straight out of monster manuals, anon.

>the "Oh My" Trinity
>saltwater crocodiles
>the Top Four sharks (whites, tigers, bulls, and hammerheads)
>African elephants
>hippopotamus
>those Australian sea snails that sting you to death

>>49880994

A monster is something abnormal, while there are terrible animals out there that's just what they are in the end. Animals.

>>49881500

Man eaters are often considered monsters.

>>49881500
The point of this thread went right over your head huh?

>>49881515

Peasants believe a lot of things.

>>49880994
>It cannot be defeated by an unarmed man.
False.

>>49881699
U wot m8? How can an unarmed man reasonably overpower a tiger?

>>49881084
Cone Shells.

>>49880994
>It cannot be defeated by an unarmed man.
which is completely irrelevant

humanity as a species is build entirely around the usage of tools, our intelligence allows us to build them, our hands allow us to manipulate them, our sight makes them accurate and deadly

to demand a man fight without a weapon is to demand a shark fight on land

>>49880994
Depends a bit on setting with the first one in particular, but I'd say one of the following makes an animal a monster: 1) Magical traits; 2) Is not driven by survival, but instead kills for the sake of killing; 3) Unnatural origin - alien, magical, or otherwise.

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>>49881699

>>49881930
By finger fucking it. At least that's what /k/ told me.

>>49880994
>tigers will go extinct within your lifetime

>>49881930
Mas Oyama could probably punch its skull in.

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>>49882002
...Are we the real monsters?

>>49882158

Wasn't that a deer?

>>49882187

Good, tigers are fucking viscious. I bet people think hippos are harmless as well.

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>>49882262
Yes, deer is also on the long list of many animals that /k/ molested at some point. IIRC they even have a "cat is fine too" story. It ain't pretty.

>>49881930
The same way an unarmed man kills a bear with his teeth.

>>49882333
Truly /k/ is such a magical realm, that it even surpasses /tg/

>>49882333
>/k/ goddamn it is Monday night for goodness sake

Gets me every time. This whole place is Discworld cosmology, only replace turtles with degenerates.

>Welsh street signs

Even capcha is getting barmy.

>>49882499
>>49882549
If it wasn't k, I'd say that the old "hunting with napalm rounds" greentext was total bullshit. But with k, that's just Wednesday

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>>49880994
I consider deadly animals to be a subset of monsters. In a universe that contains both, the real-life animals we know would get lumped in with fantasy creatures like rocs and owlbears and such.

Pic not related, just wanted an excuse to post it.

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>>49882834

Once you've known enough veterans and/or rednecks in life, /k/ stories become surprisingly believable. I know a guy right now who's working out how to build a roman ballista with leaf springs so he can launch molotov cocktail spears at the skunks on his farm...

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>>49880994
>What separates animal and monster?
The answer lies in the Ghost and the Darkness.

True story of a pair of lions that killed roughly 34 people.
They transcended the space between animal and monster, even the only difference in the end was in perception.

What were prehistoric human's preditors?

>>49882290
>He doesn't want to devour Tiger burgers In a glorious capitalistic system, with a side order of rhino ribs.

Lo and behold, I have found the King of Plebs.

>>49883422
Now I want to make a setting where some of the standard wildlife animals get small tweaks that are considered normal. Like wolves getting a lesser version of the werewolves resistance to things that are silver, or sharks resisting electricity because it's related to their sixth sense.

A monster is any creature that goes out of its way to destroy the lives of people. Put the creature an equal distance between a person and a more plentiful source of food. If it goes for the person, it's probably a monster. Now put that person behind a few spike covered flaming walls. If it still goes for them it is definitely a monster.

>>49885032
Actually, the king of plebs would be someone willing to pay premium in order to eat awful food just because it's made form rare ingredients.

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>>49881084

Fucking missed one my dude.

There is a creature of the deep forests, a clawed murderer of men.

We don't know what our ancestors called the demon because its real name invoked power, so they nicknamed it "Rkto, the horrible one."

Years passed, language changed. Now we no longer remember what our ancestors called it before "the horrible one" - but we know that the monster is today named "Arkto" and none dare speak that name, for it calls to a dark power. Instead, we nickname it "Beron, the brown one."

Centuries go by. Language changes. And Claude-Étienne Minié has finally given us the power to reliably kill the sons of that ancient monster. Our ancestors called it their word for "Beron" and because we finally have the murderous power to defeat it, we no longer fear their word for the "brown one", the "bear."

Fucking bears man.

Fucking. Bears.

Pic re-god-damn-lated.

>>49885798

I'm not even fucking kidding, the nickname redirection game for bears went on for literally millenia. For many words, we can trace the history of that word back to Proto-Indo-European, five thousand five hundred years ago.

But when you trace "bear" back, you get redirection after redirection until you FINALLy land in P-I-E and the original name was...

Just another fucking nickname. The real name of the bear has been hidden in history, never written down, because if you did then you fucking died. Do not conjure by the true name of the brown demon, it will fucking murder you.

Except we've probably stopped. "Bear" sounds like the real name of the animal and our post-minié firearms mean we are powerful enough that we haven't felt the need to adopt a new term for the beast, we no longer fear it.

Haha just kidding we've redirected again, because the beast we have nicknamed "Grizzly" is fucking terrifying.

>>49880994
>animal
A wholly natural inhabitant of the world.
>monster
An altered animal, an outsider.

>>49880994
Funnily enough, my druid turned into a tiger and then a brown bear in combat yesterday

>>49881930
Four legged animals have a problem in the fact that their necks are extremely vulnerable to guillotines.

Provided you're strong enough and could endure getting scratched to shit, it wouldn't be impossible to cut the tiger's blood/air supply and kill them that way.

>>49882499
>that guy who shoved his shotgun up his arse and had to call paramedics
>he had to explain his sister later in the hospital

It's an arbitrary distinction, but I think real world relatives of adjustment to humans is a fair categorisation.

Tigers rarely eat humans, and it's a product of bizarre rearing or extreme conditions of hunger, sickness, etc. Even then, they're cautious and I've read they won't attack when they think they're being watched, which is why some rural Indian construction efforts had employees paint eyes on the back of their helmets, or wear masks on the back of their heads.

>>49882333
pretty good stuff
time to masturbate

>>49882333
>IIRC they even have a "cat is fine too" story.

Well, we do too, technically, although it happened so long ago I don't even remember the name of the tripfag.

>>49885875
Campaign plot hook: an evil wizard or druid is seeking to discover the lost true name of bear to summon the Great Brown One, the Ur-Bear, and crush civilization under a tide of fur and claws.

>>49885798
>>49885875
No dude don't kill bears they are the fat and fuzzy protectors of the forest

>>49884965
Everything.

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>>49886183

Fun fact: "Arctic Circle" doesn't mean "Going north is cold."

It's ALSO super cold but the MOST RELEVANT FACT of going north is that you eventually come to a circle that is named "Caution: The Country of the Horrible One."

Arctic, of Arctos: Latin for "Horrible."

Antactica, Anti-arctic, is the opposite direction of Bear Country. The furthest away you can get from The Horrible One.

Fucking BEARS man.

Human figure added for scale.

The separation of animal and monster comes from identification.
A tiger would be considered a monster to any who haven't seen it before or haven't named it.
For example the beast/boar in Lord of the Flies.

In any fantasy type setting more dangerous creatures will likely be called beasts rather than monsters since they'll know how to identify and name them.
if you don't know what the creature or animal does and it capable of it remains a monster.

Basically mystery makes the monster.

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>>49886247

>Hello! "Man-killer," they call me. From out of the forest I strike, fearing neither man nor beast! Fully grown I am 11 feet long, I am a third of a metric ton of claws, muscle, camouflage and murderous fury. Legends tell of my rage and the local humans put my face on Rakshasa, their greatest conception of evil.
-A Tiger

>Lol I could crush your entire head between my jaws
-A Bear.

>>49886247

Not a very good scale if we can't tell how tall that human is meant to be.

>>49886296
>Not a very good scale if we can't tell how tall that human is meant to be.

...human-sized mate.

Obviously that was done by eye but about 5'6".

>>49885951
An animal that can literally lift a human off the ground in its mouth like a human lifts a shopping bag using it's neck muscles.

You think you can choke it..

I doubt you could choke a pitbull. Forget a lion/tiger.

>>49886247
Just so we're clear, Polar Bears are on a whole different level from other bears.

They're both larger and more aggressive than Grizzly bears, and will actively hunt humans as opposed to how Grizzly bears avoid them.

>>49885951
You're underestimating how strong and flexible tigers are.

I mean, they can just reach up and claw your arms where they go around the front of their neck, with their hind feet if necessary.

>>49886316

i no

Although what I'm hearing is that there is evidence of a polar/grizzly crossbreed thriving in northern Canada so I'm happy to report there's two oceans and three land-masses between me and Canada.

>>49886352

>The hybrids demonstrated behavior more similar to polar bears than grizzlies. They stomped toys similar to how polar bears break ice, and hurled bags to the side "as polar bears may hurl prey". Grizzlies given the same bags do not demonstrate this hurling behavior.

nooope

>>49886364

>Hi!
>I look like the relatively peaceful Grizzly
>joke's on you
>if I see you I am going to charge like a polar bear!"

Fuck

That

Noise

>>49885875
It gets worse when they interbreed with the great white northern one. Grolar bears will fuck shit up.

>>49886388

>Forest camouflage like a grizzly
>polar bear hunting behavior

nooooope

>Many attacks by brown bears are the result of surprising the animal, which is not the case with the polar bear. Polar bears are stealth hunters, and the victim is often unaware of the bear's presence until the attack is underway. Whereas brown bears often maul a person and then leave, polar bear attacks are more likely to be predatory and are almost always fatal.

>Michio Hoshino, a Japanese wildlife photographer, was once pursued briefly by a hungry male polar bear in northern Alaska. According to Hoshino, the bear started running but Hoshino made it to his truck. The bear was able to reach the truck and tore one of the doors off the truck before Hoshino was able to drive off.

>>49880994

Magic and/or intelligence. Creatures that cannot exist without a supernatural power source (as a species, not necessarily immediately suffering in an anti-magic field) or creatures that have human-like intelligence and possibly speech despite body of an animal are classified as monsters.

Fun fact: Ancient Greeks didn't believe tigers were real, and thought they were an Asian fable/folkore monster.

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>>49886273
Is...is that a lion between the bear and the tiger?

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>>49886352
Here's a 'fun' thought

Polar bears are very close to regular, grizzly, and kodiak brown bears.
So close that not only can they produce offspring, said offspring is fertile, with both types of bear and with hybrids.
They're one of the few hybrids to exist in nature, thanks to the overlapping natural ranges of the bears.
Polar bears' habitat is shrinking, and despite being the "sea bear" most are born on land anyway
It seems likely that as their habitat shrinks polar bears will move back to land on a more full-scale basis

So we're likely to get a lot more hybrids in future.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursid_hybrid#Brown_bear.2Fpolar_bear_hybrids


>>49882413
>>49881930
Reasonably? No.
But it is possible

>>49886106
>Tigers rarely eat humans, and it's a product of bizarre rearing or extreme conditions of hunger, sickness, etc.

Tigers rarely eat humans because humans are too good at killing tigers so now that they fear us. But to this day, tiger is one of the very few predators that might hunt humans for food even despite not being in desperate circumstances.

>>49881699

No, true. Even a man armed only with melee weapons stands very little chance. Recorded tiger attacks where a tiger actually managed to get to a human have about 99% fatality rate.

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>>49886460
Yeah, they legit are.

Got rescued from a drug dealer's basement in 2001, they were all cubs, and they've just grown up together at the Noah's Ark wildlife sanctuary in Georgia.

Their names are Baloo the bear, Leo the lion and Shere Khan the tiger, because of course they are

>>49885951
It is possible for a strong man who doesn't lose his shit upon the initial pounce and doesn't go into shock due to pain from being clawed (plenty of assumptions here) to kill a leopard with bare hands, by choking, gouging out his eyes, etc. It is a long shot (even with a knife your chances are pretty poor), but it is possible. A man who knows that a leopard is coming and is not surprised by a big cat suddenly falling on his back even might have decent chances.

It is possible if not to kill a bear bare-handed, then to escape from his claws and survive.

IIRC, there is no record of a man killing a tiger or a lion with bare hands. Or with a weapon smaller than a spear, in fact. Unlike a leopard, biggest of cats are far more massive than you, they can easily lift you using just their neck muscles, and unlike a bear they are really fast and have a habit of going right for your vitals.

>>49886273
Amur tigers routinely hunt bears for food, though.

>>49886576
Not grizzlies. They hunt a much smaller species.

In my setting, a monster:

a) it's born in an "unnatural way" (ie. it doesn't reproduce in an obviously sexual way)
b) dies in an "unnatural way" (ie. requires exceptional conditions or force to die)

Any of the two above are enough. Other markers are that monsters:
c) it "uses the art under it's own covenant". It may or may not exhibit magic powers and speak while lacking humanoid form and society
d) It "breaks the binding thread": It may or may not be intensely aggressive and expel regular fauna from their domains, including acting as parasites in regular sentient and civilized societies.
e) It "follows odious or ruinous powers" If sentient, it may or may not deal with the Dark Powers or the God of Bloodthirsty Beasts (as the latter is opposed to the Forces of Continuity of life).
f) It "abandoned the counternance". If it looked like something that you know is an animal or a sentient race, but not anymore, most probably it's now a monster.

It's imperfect, but it's enough to make fun stuff in game, such as seeing what characters do after unscrupulous people declaring certain sorts of semi-humanoids as monsters to make hunting them legal for gold and glory.

Also, dung beetles are monsters.

>>49886614
I just checked him up on that - it surprised me too - but it's a mixed thing

Asian black bears are small, and they do get eaten by tigers, but they prefer the larger Asian Brown Bear - which is only slightly smaller than a Kodiak - as it's easier to hunt.
It's a mixed thing, because large tigers will often ambush sub-adult bears and females, but large bears often steal tiger kills.

Wolves, incidentally, get so rekt by tigers that hunters are encouraged to not kill tigers and let them control wolf population, as they do such a good job of it

>>49886493
>PartyBalance.jpg

>>49886463
It is also possible to win the lottery every time you enter it for your entire lifespan of 120 years.

>>49886559
>It is possible if not to kill a bear bare-handed, then to escape from his claws and survive.

There was, I believe, a man who killed a big predator (probably a grizzly?) by, once bitten, shoving his hand into its throat until it choked.

WHAT KIND OF FUCKING ADRENALIN must you be on to (1) actually fight back against a bear and (2) win

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>>49886717

>>49886427
Ancient greeks didn't believe that horseback riders were real, so they thought they were centaurs.
They aren't a good measuring stick for "Wow, these are so incredible that X thought they weren't real!"

>>49885951
I really, really hope you have a chance to try this some day. We'll all get a good laugh at your funeral.

>>49886795
>Ancient greeks didn't believe that horseback riders were real, so they thought they were centaurs.
That's not really in the same ball park. We have credible Greek historians who believed tigers were fables, where as by the Achaean period horse riding had become common enough that the training of horses was a regular epithet for multiple characters seen throughout the Illiad.

>>49885951
We are also tetrapods, anon.
And we have even less going on for us when it comes to combat prowess.

Just fight like a civilized human, with high caliber and from a distance. Just hope it isn't cub raising season and get clever girl'd by the mate of the one you are stalking
The tiger is hardly fighting fair himself, he ambushes and has physical power you won't attain in your life. Fair combat is a myth, fight to win, if you must.

>>49886827
Show a random person in the streets a pencil drawing of an assassin/pelican spider.

Try to convince them that it is a real animal.
Just because it's description make it seem like a fantasy creature, doesn't make it fearsome.

Under you previous logic, platypi are horrible beings capable of incredible destruction because even after bringing a taxidermed specimen, people thought it was just a prank.

Being unbelievable is hardly a testament to the animal deadlyness

>>49885798
>Fucking missed one my dude.
You don't know what the Oh My trinity are? Bears are included.

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>What makes a monster?
A monster doesn't know when to stop. You can't blame them though. It's within their nature.

>>49886311
>5'6"
>human sized
MANLETS

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>>49887105
Wouldn't including females into that scew the average heavily?

>>49886904
>You don't know what the Oh My trinity are? Bears are included.

I didn't until I googled it, no.

>>49887105
>>5'6"
>>human sized
>MANLETS

That's actually pretty tall for a woman Anon.

Or did you forget about the gender you never meet?

>>49881084
Those Australian ANYTHING will probably sting you to death. The snails, the funnel-web spiders in downtown Sydney, even the MAMMALS will sting you. That's assuming you don't get eaten by a salty or carried away by a riptide. It's a hellscape, and living there is a fitting punishment for all their crimes.

>>49883754
Those kinds of animals, that attain a name and an almost mythical status from killing humans, make a pretty great base for concepts for low-fantasy campaigns or encounters. Being explorers in so.e previously unvisited jungle, being stalked by something that every few nights so far has claimed one of your men. Being 'monster hunters' tasked with ridding a village of a creature that has decimated its livestock and in its hunger has moved on to devouring the townspeople seemingly at will. If you gwt the atmosphere right it can be amazing, really hits that primal fear.

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>>49885798
Having seen both in the wild i have to say I'd much rather be in the area with a brown/kodiak bear than a hungry polar bear. Not that either would be good, mind you.

>>49885798
>the "Oh My" trinity
>missed bears

Oh my you're dumb.

>>49880994
The difference between a monster and an animal is if humans can control/kill it or not. We can now kill and capture tigers so they're not monsters. To a caveman being attacked by a mountain lion that lion is a monster because the caveman cannot kill/capture it.

>>49887842

Have you considered: Get fucked faggot. This was a great thread until you came along.

>>49883754
Fucking Africa man.

If you want inspiration for how to blur animal and monster, look there. Another example is a nile crocodile called Gustave, who is believed to have single handedly killed over 300 humans.

>>49887889
>being this bumwrecked

>>49880994

>Step 1: Cast any spell that only works on animals, such as speak with animals
>Step 2: There is no step 2

Clearly there is some sort of divine sorting algorithm that decrees what counts as an animal and what does not. That or clear physiological differences.

But seriously, it's probably categorized by origin, intelligence, magical abilities if any, and whether a less monstrous animal cousin exists such as a house cat to a tiger

>>49887818
Most kinds of bears are omnivorous and actually get most of their food from plants, fish, and the like, only relatively rarely hunting larger animals.
Polar bears are fully carnivorous, and unlike practically every other predator lack the aversion for unknown things.

Most predators are naturally cautious and will avoid engaging things they don't understand, because they might get injured which would screw them up. That's why they usually only attack humans if no other option is available (ie. they're injured and unable to hunt normally, or starving).
Polar bears, on the other hand, know with absolute certainty that they're the baddest motherfuckers around, and no animal in their native environment can pose a threat to them (seals are not known for their combat prowess), so they see no reason to fear the weird two-legged creatures that are smaller than them and probably edible.

That's why if you go to Spetzbergen or somewhere you're required to carry a rifle while out in the wilderness. The bears tend to learn their lesson once you fire a few rounds in their direction, although I still wouldn't want to take my chances against a particularly persistent one.

>>49881084
>brazilian wandering spider
clearly just lazy work by some writer who wanted to take advantage of arachnophobia. didn't even do anything creative, just took all the worst shit a spider could have and cranked it up to max

>>49887930
Also he's pretty bulletproof - he's got scars from being shot, at least, but they didn't kill him.

>>49880994
Paint eyes on the back of your head and you're pretty much safe from them.

They aren't complex creatures.

>>49887930
>>49888399
That fucking thing has a legit claim to being one of the most prolific serial killers in recorded history.

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>>49885951
>extremely vulnerable to guillotines
Pic related. Try again.

>>49885798
Never thought bear's claws are so fucking huge.

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>>49885798
>>49887370

>he hasn't seen Wizard of Oz

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>>49887889

A man can kill most animals if they have a head start.
They outsprint us, but our ability to just keep running like a coward while throwing rocks is strong.

>>49888881
The bitch is still alive and killing by the way. Last sighting was just a year ago.

>>49886106
Tigers absolutely hate bikes. If you ride a bike from town to town and happen on a tiger's way, you're dead wether it eats you or not.

>>49883432
It's already been done years ago, the guy even wrote a book about it called "Catapult!"

>>49890314
Humans in RPGs should have a massive stamina bonus instead of being "average".

>>49886559
A grizzly can fathomably understand you're pissing yourself and just wanna go, because they don't hunt humans and we share enough body language cues to let it know we're inoffensive and rethreating.
A polar bear or a tiger? Fuck you weird alien shit that entered my land, you're dead.

>>49880994
I usually define a "Monster" by whether or not they have magic in their DNA

Monsters can only exist in context to other creatures. What is horrifying/aggressive towards one society could be cute/passive to another.

Animals on the other hand are just biological taxonomy. Anything that falls within that sector of life would be classified as an animal.

>>49889182
What if an elephant guillotines another elephant?

>>49886559

With bears there's also the problem that they have very flexible front paws. They can just reach around their back and grab you.

I don't know how tigers compare though. If they are anything like dogs, they won't be able to get their front paws to their back. Chances are they are really good at wriggling though.

>>49890314
>>49890501
>Falling for this meme
It's not true, you know.

>>49890625
But it is. In our native environment we've got most animals beat stamina wise, bar wolves and horses, and even then only when in colder climates. Except camels, they've go us beat by a mile.

>>49890625
Bears cant even go downhill, anon.

>>49890621
It's a cat, it's skeleton is made for madness and it's muscles promote it.

>>49890625
Even old people can run marathons with a bit of training.

Just because people these days are lazy doesn't mean humans aren't capable of having great stamina when they actually are required to move about a little bit.

Look at those kids in Gambia or wherever the fuck who have to run 15 miles to school every day.

>>49888310
Brazilian Wandering Spiders are naturally timid to humans though.

They see a Human stomping through the jungle and they usually go "Nope" And do their funny Spider run away.

>>49888271
You forget the Walrus. The only land animal the Polar Bear doesn't predate on.

>>49890416
It's not like there's much that can kill him at this point, provided somebody doesn't bring along an anti-tank rifle (considering how many bulletmarks he has on his hide, I doubt anything less can do more than scratch him).

Crocodiles are one of those animals that are negligbly senescent. In other words, they don't really grow old in the same way people do, and could live practically forever if something doesn't kill them. Most crocs die very young when they're near the bottom of the foodchain, and the law of statistics says even the ones that make to adulthood eventually get unlucky and get kicked in the head by an atelop or piss off a hippo (pissing off a hippo is nature's equivalent of "rocks fall, everybody dies"). Gustave's a croc that's gotten very lucky and managed to live long enough to reach epic levels in crocodile, and at this point there really isn't much left in his natural enviroment that could kill him. He's probably over a century old at this point, and could live for another, getting bigger and meaner the whole time.

>>49886660
And that is Also Ironic Because the Tiger population Was boosted across the world because of the decline of the Dire Wolf and the Bearcat.

Fun fact, We're the first Primate Alpha Predator.

>>49886674
Paladin
Barbarian
Fighter

>>49890758
Not true for Tigers actually. They're not the most Nible of cats because they're so muscular.

Also Tigers have an amazingly fragile wretch reflex and sense of smell.

In theory, You can deter a tiger by throwing shit at it's face.

>>49890967
A guy in my country killed a brown bear by jamming his folded arm down its throat until it choked to death. That's some manly shit right there.

>>49880994
Moose are fucking lethal

>>49890885
All the while fucking crocodile bitches and passing on his hardcore murderer genes.

>>49880994
the word Dire

>>49882245

Basically every "monster" suggested in this thread is on the endangered species list and only still exists because of humans investing millions of man-hours and dollars trying to avoid accidentally wiping them out. And even that might not have been enough in some cases.

So I'd say yes.

>>49880994
>What separates animal and monster?
Generally, a category in it's Monster Manual entry.

If there's rules for it, it's a possible encounter. I have no problems throwing tigers at low-level PCs, or dinosaurs at mid-high level ones.
And yes, my fantasy settings have dinosaurs in. I refuse to build worlds that don't interest my inner 8 year old.

>>49887930
Gustave is only 6-7 meters long
Saltwater Crocodiles exceed 10
Granted, he maight have killed an adult hippo before, so he is badass

>>49887370
Lol nigga average women are like 5'10 these days you have to be AT LEAST 6'0 to be even considered a man

>>49890625
It's true, but there's doubts about whether it was how early man hunted. In simple terms just related to the statement and not the implications though, yeah, humans are one of the best endurance runners in the animal kingdom.

>>49887676
Australia is basically that continent where the weakest creature starts off at Challenge Rating 8 and everyone bitches about how it's unrealistic for human beings to survive there.

>>49880994
>What separates animal and monster?

Whether you fear it, or it fears you

>>49891183
American lardasses who call themselves women are 5'10", slavs and nigras too. The rest of the world is still filled with petite feminine pixies ready to be defiled.

>>49891250
Whether humans partook in endurance hunting is up for debate. We "could", but we don't know if we did. Feeding on carrior and then chucking spears is far better than killrunning some beast under the sun.
That we have monstrous amounts of endurance and are extremely energy efficient is a fact.

>>49884965
* predators
Big cats, wolves, bears, other species of hominids.
What we didn't wipe out to extinction, we tamed and domesticated.

This is why housecats are so standoffish. Their ancestors used to eat yours, and, deep down, they remember it. And so do you at some dep, primal level.
Anyone without an inherent fear of cats in trees died off early.
The same with any cat that didn't know to avoid monkeys.

>>49891396
There's a tribe in africa that still does it.

It's very inefficient to just walk a deer to death. It's a lot faster if you stick a spear into it first, then chase it while it bleeds out.
We killed the mammoths by stampeding them off cliffs and feasting on the ready-butchered meat.

>>49891183
You probably should sit down and redo high school maths all over again.

Or leave your room more often, whichever you prefer, really.

In game terminology the difference between animal and monster is supernatural abilities. That term is kind of a bullshit cop-out though as certain things like regeneration or maybe even fire breathing can be explained as natural phenomena.

>>49891616
No, no. I mean, before we started using weapons to hunt. Apparently, that's the point where it is theorized humans (or protohumans) hunted by endurance.

>>49891559
Cats behave the way they do because of how little domestication they've gone through and their natural social structure.
They don't think you are his prey, they think they are the leader of this group due to the way humans behave.

>Oh, you hide your excrement from me in that water contraption? That means I am the top cat
>You bring me food? As you should, servant
>You can't even hunt, eh runt? Psh, have a dead mouse, so you can get better

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>>49890885
I did not know the "negligibly senescent" thing, that's pretty damn cool.
And kind of terrifying, but then I don't intend to ever go within a few hundred miles of where he lives

Certainly helps to show what sort of stuff you need to be made of for your species, or at least Order, to be successful for more than 80 million years. Some of those prehistoric crocs though, fuck an anti-tank rifle, I'd want a whole damn tank. Porosus is the saltwater crocodile

Still not up there with sharks though, their ancestors didn't just live at the same time as the dinosaurs, they predate them

>>49891898
Where does me regularly chasing them out of the house with a broom fall on the cat leadership scale?

>>49892247
Bothersome lesser creature that can kill me

>>49884965
Skeeters. And diarrhea.

>>49882245
Under rated post

>>49892265
I hope it eventually understands that if i catch it spraying, i will chase it away.

>>49892369
There are two way a creature can understand punishment
>Oh shit, i got in trouble for doing X! Better not do it again
and
>Oh shit, i got in trouble for doing X! Better be more careful next time

It all depends on your cat's behavious

>>49880994
Monsters are just animals that haven't been proven to exist, because no man lives to tell the tale.

>>49891898
>they think they are the leader of this group due to the way humans behave.

Maybe if you're bad at cat ownership. My cats knew humans were boss, but they attacked because that's what cats do.
Still got them trained to come when called, show up for mealtimes, stay off the table, and sleep in designated spots, though.

>>49892137
Crocs still come in that size. They don't stop growing, you see. Ever. They grow until the day they die, and nobody knows what their natural lifespan is because they die before they reach it.
Hippos are far more dangerous than crocs, so any croc big enough that it needs to eat hippos tends to die from hippo bite, or starve.
A notable exception is Gustave, a legendary crocodile identified by the many bullet craters in his hide. He eats humans; easier to catch than hippos, and not as dangerous since he's big enough and has a hide thick enough to shrug off AK fire.

>>49891559
>>49891898
>they think they are the leader of this group due to the way humans behave.

It's not how it works for that species of cat though. They form breeding packs of females who pool their time and resources into raising the litters, there's no formal leadership structure or group hunting and the male is an orbiter who will be chased off by his adult daughters.

A human adding food to their table's another member of the pack, bringing home kill's them doing their part.

>>49880994
>not being able to kill a tiger with your bare hands
>laughingwhores.bmp

>>49892643
>nobody knows what their natural lifespan is because they die before they reach it.

What bullshit are you spouting? You can find their natural lifespans on fucking Wikipedia.

>>49884965
eagles. It's suggested that the reason babies get quiet to those hanging planes is because they are reacting to a potential flying predator

>>49890748
I want more facts like this.

>>49893197
If you teach abee a trick, it will teach the trick to other members of the hive

>>49892643
Cats know who's the boss because the leader is bold enough to shit in the open and not cover it.
"Beta" cats shit but cover it as to not draw the ire of the "alpha".

You flushing your shit in the toilet is the equivalent and bowing in front of a rando and calling him milord. The guy is going to think you believe him to be your superior

You see those comics, jokes, whatever where the human shits on the cat's litterbox and the cat goes ballistic? Turns out those are pretty true to life, except the cat is not stupid enough to think it can take you on

You probably corrected their behavior until they understood what you wanted from them and that it was easier to submit to your demans

>>49892786
I meant that in the broadest possible way. I know cat's social structure is nothing like dogs, but humans trigger many of the "i am a very useless member of the group" flags

Also, cats respect hunters. If they don't see you hunt that chicken then they won't think you killed it. Which is why some owners wake up with a feline gift of dead bird or dying mouse.
That's the way the cat says "worry not, for i shall teach you to hunt, my dumb friend"

>>49893262
So how do your theories hold up now that scientists have proven that alpha and beta shit objectively false?

>>49893262
Cats were never allowed into the bathroom with a person there, though. Far as they knew, humans didn't shit.
When they got a litterbox due to no cat flap, it was put in the bathroom and their shit got dumped into the toilet and flushed ASAP.

>>49891349
So wasps are monsters?

>>49893192
Eagles are kind of the natural enemy of pretty much anything. Even bears and wolves respect eagles. Sure, and eagle might seem tiny compared to a bear, but you don't want to know what several pounds of pissed off bird slamming talons-first into your head at terminal velocity will do to you. The force of the impact is enough to crack even a bear's skull.

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IIRC some Gurkha was accosted by a tiger while going back to his home village, with only a knife to defend himself with

He came home with a tigerskin coat

There's another one I read about a Shaolin monk who slew a tiger solo with his ultimate technique

>>49893286
Wasps, hornets, and yellowjackets are monsters by all measures in my opinion. They have zero reason for ever actually attacking you rather than pure fury and pleasure of causing pain.

>>49893262
>Also, cats respect hunters. If they don't see you hunt that chicken then they won't think you killed it. Which is why some owners wake up with a feline gift of dead bird or dying mouse.
>That's the way the cat says "worry not, for i shall teach you to hunt, my dumb friend"
This part is true, at least. Bringing you murder-presents is the exact same thing as what mother cats do to their kittens, bringign them dead prey to let them practice their hunting skills. You can usually get them to stop by dropping a dead mouse on their bed (and thereby proving that you can hunt).

>people bad mouthing hornets again
Hornets are amazing if you care not for pain. They kill fucking all the pest species.

>>49893262
Not only that dogs can at least see what humans actually are, but cats tend to see humans has large cats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLb9EIiSyG8

>>49893313
>some Gurkha

Yeah, but that's a gurka. You can't measure them by normal human standards. They have a whole lot of badass crammed into that manlet frame.
I've worked with a couple, and presently work with a whole load of their kids and grandkids because of the whole extended family thing they do.
Said thing got explained to me a while back. They have big families, and they keep track of all the relations, and so you end up with like 50 people with the same surname all living in one area.
And there are different sub-groups within that that don't like each other. They're racist as fuck to each other sometimes, or at least the old people are.

>>49882290
I don't think anyone thinks that.
Why do you think we should only protect harmless animals?

>>49893271
I put alpha and beta between quotes for a reason.

Those two contructs might not be relevant anymore, but the idea behind them is good enough to explain concepts due to the meaning they hold in the minds of most people.

Like Freud's theories. If i say that some person is "acting on their Id" will you tell me how that term is obsolete in psychology, or will you understand what i mean?

>>49893282
Dude, cats have a good sense of smeel, they know you shit.
Flushing the cat shit instead of letting it stink might be the reson why they don't feel like they own the place.

>>49893465
They certainly owned everything outside the house. Neighbours were always complaining about cat shit on lawns, or cats/small dogs being victimised by them. Or thefts of bacon.
That seems to be what happens when your cat is twice the size of most normal cats.

>>49882290
Tigers are beautiful, though.

>>49892643
Can you give source on the "crocodiles living forever" cause everything I find when looking for it says that it's a myth.

>>49893502
They don't live forever, they just don't die of old age in the wild because something kills them first.

>>49890824
>Brazilian Wandering Spiders

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/kent/7599561.stm

The Co-op in Wayfield Road, Chatham, Kent had to be closed on Monday while the RSPCA dealt with the spider.

It was only after it was taken away to be put down that staff discovered the 1.5in-long spider, which is thought to have travelled in the fruit packaging from Colombia, had a painful and potentially lethal bite.

>to be put down
UK PLS

>>49880994
And it's penis counts as artifact worth making a fake ones. Beast or monster, humans will find a way to kill it and turn into food, artifacts and status items.

>>49880994
Animal = Natural
Monster = Supernatural

Tigers don't heal sword wounds before your very eyes.
Bears don't fly.
Lions don't breathe fire.

>>49893517
Well can you give me source for that then cause I find no proof of that.

>>49890967
could you beat a tiger with some tape?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqk9emjtTQ4

>>49893502
Reptiles don't get older and weaker, as some anon said before.
That's a mammal thing, mostly. Each cell is shittier than the one before it, until you end up withering away.
Insects also do this, but good luck finding an insect dying of old age in the wild.

Reptiles, while also subject to this withering away rule, suffer from it much less. Instead of growing older they keep growing "adulter" until they can no longer support themselves and something fails
They can no longer hunt enough food to not starve, their organs become too big, that kind of stuff.
The thing with reptiles is that their methabolism is so slow that it could take decades before the animal starts showing these symptoms of old age.

>>49893501
Intersting.

That they are. They look majestic.

>>49893335
if a wasp or hornet has ever attacked you you probably deserved it.
Venom is precious they won't waste it for no reason.

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>>49893713
Finally allied I see.

>>49893777
Wasps are the reason we aren't up to the neck in spiders.
I can tolerate them.

>>49880994
more of a beast than a monster

>>49893656
Again, source?
Cause I don't find any scientific backing of that claim.

>>49893814
Anon, if you're afraid of pain why do you hate spiders more than wasps when they are basically harmles and it's far more likely to be stung by a wasp than a spider

>>49886189
Smokey pls go.

>>49890885
>yfw he's actually Sobek

>>49893964
I am not afraid of pain. Well, i am but, y'know. that's not the issue.
I just don't like spiders. Everything about them is feels wrong. Except jumping spiders, there is nothing wrong with those killing machines.

At least wasps look cool.

>>49894538
I remember hearing from an animator that to make a spider move so it actually looks like a spider, you have to insert a slight asynchronism into the leg movements. If the legs move as four neat pairs it doesn't look right, they have to be slightly out of time. I think that's part of the reason people find spiders creepy.

>>49885875

The "rktos" name for bear is the source of the words "arctic" (place of bears), ursus/ursine, Welsh Arth (whence Arthur), and the Indian shape shifting demon Rakshasa.

But I thought rktos meant bear - it is an epithet? Source? Pokorny doesn't indicate this.

> Greek arktos and Latin ursus retain the PIE root word for "bear" (*rtko; see Arctic), but it is believed to have been ritually replaced in the northern branches because of hunters' taboo on names of wild animals (compare the Irish equivalent "the good calf," Welsh "honey-pig," Lithuanian "the licker," Russian medved "honey-eater"). Others connect the Germanic word with Latin ferus "wild," as if it meant "the wild animal (par excellence) of the northern woods."

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>>49880994
Being unnatural and outside the established order. Dinosaurs can kill lots of different monsters, but they are natural. A skeleton will at best annoy a hippo, but they are unnatural.

In real life, it was also a sentence on medieval scandinavian law. Being an outlaw made you a monster, unhuman and killing you wasn't a crime anymore.

A researcher proposed this "worgen" status was the basis for the warg and werewolf myths in the 70s, but I believe it has been dismissed since then.

I used the idea of punishing criminals by lawful curses? Once turned into beasts, they were fair game for adventurers.

>>49890885
>>49892137
Fun fact: lobsters are another senescent animal. There could be you-sized lobsters in the dark ocean floor.

>>49890996
Source please, that's too cool to be true.

>>49886352
>there's two oceans and three land-masses between me and Canada

Good, I think that's probably enough

>>49891062
Underrated post.

>>49893502
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=219YybX66MY#t=55m50s

>>49881500
So, to be sure, direbears/wolves/etc are normal animals? What if Aboleths and Beholders were common all over the world? They wouldn't be monsters of any sort?

Many species in OUR world are on the verge of extinction; are they then monsters? At what point did they stop being animals and become 'monsters'?

Moreover, I'm just going by what the average person might consider normal: i.e what they can usually expect to encounter living their daily lives.

What does 'abnormal' mean? What is 'normal'?

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>>49880994
>What separates animal and monster?

In our world: if it actually exists/existed in our world

In "obligatory standard D&D setting": it is part of the natural order of the prime-material plane, rather than drawing power from other planes, as measurable by a druid's ability or inability to work it's nature magic with it.

In a not-bullshit homebrew setting: literally nothing

Monsters are inherently magical and (in most cases) ecologically destructive.

>>49882333
We are just going to ignore this when it comes to bugbears, ogres, kobolds, and what not?

>>49880994
animals are real

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>>49891012
>ctrl-F Moose
>1 result

You people know nothing.

>>49880994
A certain level of malevolence.

>>49892137
I love that human silhouette.

>"Hi, I am here too!"