Phoenix said
I don't see much need for this to be a sort of article for the site. However, since you feel other RPs miss out on these unique creatures, you should make one yourself. There are plenty of threads in this section about GMing if you're concerned about such. Furthermore, you can find someone who likes your idea and would work with you. Your best bet is to just make an Interest Check (probably in Advanced as that is where I see this fitting best) and ask there what people might find most interesting to play. I think "Authorial Advice" should be something more like "Pedestrian Accounts." Instead of making it clearly about your opinion and someone having to read "rambling," you could write it in a way that gets your opinion across, and even counter-points to make it interesting, but seems to be coming from innocents running into these creatures (and somehow surviving). Maybe key opinions of their "race" from other 'thropes.I also think "Level of Danger" could be renamed to "Lethality" as a more intense term, but that's a needless suggestion. However, I think numbers should be used instead of asterisks. Also, what do those numbers mean? Perhaps it's best to not have a scale and just to simply describe it and compare it to a few other things but in the most generalized manner as to not give it strict comparisons. I just know that numbers don't really work in PbP RPing.But going along with Cain, it'd be interesting to see such odd animals: dolphins, otters, seals, walrus, etc.Are fish not allowed? Sharks, eels, puffer fish, etc.What about reptiles? Snakes, lizards, salamanders, etc.What about avian creatures? Hawks, eagles, pigeons, hummingbirds, etc.
The issue of not having a dedicated need is one I note (as few are ever likely to read the material, valid or not regardless of opinions on either side); it was more a reaction to constantly seeing, primarily through passive observation (over a few months) that everything seemed to be strictly lycanthrope or better classified as a "true shapeshifter".
I did, however, ultimately decide to create a topic where "Zoanthrope" was its own option, using the same limitations (predatory land mammal) as I'd rather contend with what I can group together on the same level and what falls under most searches for zoanthrope and therianthrope; though I
have seen others, they're not well represented or mesh with what the typical zoanthrope lore is, while others blend more smoothly (but far from perfectly). That, and in a way, White Wolf's
Werewolf: The Apocalypse did establish quite a few of their ideas of "the changing breeds", though White Wolf's mythos is... pretty in depth and attracts (usually) a specific audience; kudos to them, however, for succeeding as they did.
Non-combatant accounts is an interesting idea and an avenue I did not immediately consider, reminding me a bit of the "Zombie Survival Guide" now that you bring up such a suggestion, and I will take that in as a very credible and novel possible addition; especially to better explain survivor's recountings and examples. On another note, I did originally toy with "Level of Danger", as it's difficult (and you're largely correct that numbers do not work well most of the time without a system in PbP) to really measure them against humans; most are based upon "lore" accounts and real world accounts, such as for felines I can speak to what I read from Jim Corbett's accounts of man-eating leopards and tigers, where some of the cats had attained disturbing and staggering amounts of successful kills.
For now I will avoid the other beasts, as that is an entire project and supplemental material on it's own; I mean, speaking of clinical lycanthropy, there are numerous other accounts of the suffering individuals "becoming" beasts - probably the most famous being Nebuchadnezzar's supposed boanthropy. Some I just have difficulty trying to put the practicality together (avians being among the most notable to me for being in the gray area).
Vixere
Captain Uni
parelaxis
Passable Writer
rush99999
Nightwing95