Riftborn buffalo
- Riftborn buffalos migrate between alternate realities in search of new pastures. Their herds number in the tens of thousands, thus requiring frequent relocations. A stampede of such a herd can shatter the local reality, opening a temporary portal to the next dimension over. In a year, they will have come a full circle through a hundred different dimensions.
- The rifts close within several hours, but that leaves enough time for brave explorers to gather samples from another dimension. A smart researcher will hire a band of adventurers to get them safely through the rift and back again before it closes. A stupid researcher will surely be in need of rescuing for a fat reward.
- Riftborn buffalo dung is dried and then burned as the cheapest form of teleportation interference. Research implies that this property of the dung ensures that the herd doesn't backtrack and that the rifts destabilize and close on their own, covering the herd's backs against predators. It also means that royal chambers or treasury smelling of burnt buffalo dung is a rather common occurrence.
- There is no grazing land in the windswept wastes of N'gzul, but the herd must cross through to get to the lush plains of Shadarkeem. N'gzul hunters wait for the day when the sky starts to rumble and crack, and then kill many of the buffalos, providing a midwinter feast for their tribes. If the herd got delayed or diverted to another dimension, the tribes might not all survive till spring.
- A lost, lonesome buffalo cannot hope to pierce reality at will, but it still has a way to find its way back to the herd. The buffalos can sniff out places of weakened reality and then attempt to crash through there, even on their own. Sometimes, people will capture a riftborn buffalo for this very reason, releasing it when they need to find a way between planes, or detect a weak point where an incursion might be waiting to happen.
- An elderly or injured buffalo will spend its last strength to perform a dying plane shift to a dimension not normally visited by the herd. The so-called Buffalo Graveyard, a dead world with pitch black skies and mountains of buffalo bones. The bones are a prized alchemical ingredient, but that is not the main draw and concern here. When the herd is attacked, a wounded buffalo will sometimes carry out a suicide bullrush to drag an attacker with them to the Graveyard. Who or what might have ended up in this lost place?
There are persistent rumors of a creature described in lurid tales, a Bone-Gnawer, or Bladetongue, a pale, skeletal thing that lives in the Buffalo Graveyard that feeds on the flesh of dead Riftborn Buffalo by piercing their bones and drinking the marrow from within. These creature's behavior, intelligence and appearance varies from tale to tale, though they are always pale and said to have powerful jaws and/or a tongue tipped with a sharpened tip.
ReplyDeleteDespite the popularity of these stories, no proof of such a creature has ever been found. In this scholar's opinion, it is a lurid tale for the dreadfuls, meant to sell a few more issues with no substance behind it.