Halvtand

Darkhallow

I'm still here as well. Will probably get a post up within a few hours, I'm in that kind of mood. Still trying to decide what Lena is thinking about the easy-bake mirror-thingy.

The difference between animal and monster

I've personally never seen a dire wolf called a monster. Not saying it doesn't happen.
My first reaction to seeing a question like this is to simply look at a dictionary. According to dictionary.com...

1. a legendary animal combining features of animal and human form or having the forms of various animals in combination, as a centaur, griffin, or sphinx.
2. any creature so ugly or monstrous as to frighten people.
3. any animal or human grotesquely deviating from the normal shape, behavior, or character.
4. a person who excites horror by wickedness, cruelty, etc.
5. any animal or thing huge in size.
6. Biology.
an animal or plant of abnormal form or structure, as from marked malformation or the absence of certain parts or organs.
a grossly anomalous fetus or infant, especially one that is not viable.
7. anything unnatural or monstrous.

As you can see, most if not all of Antarctic Termite's points were true. The word has been around for a long time, and has gained a lot of different meanings. The one over branching detail is that monsters have the power to scare most humans.

@BrokenPromise

Yes, that is the dictionary definition. It does not answer my question at all and only helps very little. It kind of seems like you didn't actually read the question at all, only the title.
I'll go through them all to show you why they does not apply to this question.
Also, first place I looked. Most famous rpg-system in the world, a whole bunch of dire animals listed as monsters. Link: d20srd.org/indexes/monsters.htm

1. A legendary animal combining features of animal and human form or having the forms of various animals in combination.

I can see this as a subcategory of monsters. There are quite a few that seems to be some kind of mix between several other animals. However, would you really say that a sphinx or chimera is the same as a platypus? I would argue that they are different.

2. Any creature so ugly or monstrous as to frighten people.

Complete nonsense. I know lots of people who are afraid of spiders and snakes. Those two are the most common phobias in the world. Does that make spiders and snakes monsters in a fantasy setting? Because that is something I have never seen.

3. Any animal or human grotesquely deviating from the normal shape, behavior, or character.
And...
4. A person who excites horror by wickedness, cruelty, etc.
And...
6. Biology. An animal or plant of abnormal form or structure, as from marked malformation or the absence of certain parts or organs.
A grossly anomalous fetus or infant, especially one that is not viable.

So a dragon is only a monster if it doesn't have wings? Because they are supposed to look like that. These definitions leaves every type of monster out except the mutants.
Also, when people are referred to as monsters one generally talks about certain behaviour. My question is about the split between animal and monster, not society's view of correct or incorrect behaviour.
Only a small part of these definitions can be seen as relevant, the behaviour of an animal, which the gentleman below has covered in more depth.

5. Any animal or thing huge in size.

This point was addressed in the first post when I claimed that a dire wolf would be seen in the same way as we see a grizzly bear.

7. Anything unnatural or monstrous.

Have to love the “thing - something like a thing” definition. This one doesn’t work either both because the definition is restating itself, but also because of what I said in the op:

Animals are the creatures that exist in the real world and monsters are the ones that doesn't. But how about the characters in the game/book/movie? Surely, to them the difference between a wolf and a dire wolf is just size, just like between a bear and a grizzly bear. So how does one define a monster in a world where both animals and monsters are natural?

Here's what I came up with after thinking on it for a while:
A monster is any non-sentient creature that goes out of its way to menace and attack other creatures in and outside of its ecosystem for reasons that are not natural. Signs that you may be dealing with a monster are:

1. An inordinate number of the creatures kills are not consumed or used in any way.
2. The creature is actively destructive to its ecosystem and/or environment.
3. The creature demonstrates a willingness to go above and beyond what would be expected of a predator in pursuit of food, such as a willingness to scale fortified walls to kill those living within or attacking armed sentients when it is clearly strong enough to hunt for easier prey.
4. Persistence to the point of recklessness.
5. A willingness to incur injury in order to attack others.
6. A willingness to fight on even having sustained wounds that would cause a normal animal to abandon its hunt.
7. Any behavior that can be construed as "cruel" or "malicious" on the part of the creature where a rational explanation for the behavior can not be found.

@Gentlemanvaultboy

I really like this list you've made, there has been some thought put into this one. Just to boil it down, you're saying that the line between animal and monster lies not in its features or heritage, but behaviour. It’s a very interesting thought. The only one I could go against is really number two, could you elaborate on this? Also, would you say that monsters cannot be reasoned with?

Darkhallow

Lena Thornton

Name: Lena Thornton.

Age: 21.

Gender: Female.

Class/Faction: White council.

Background: Lena was not born in a happy time, but she was fortunate enough to be born in a magical family. Her mother was a wizard, loosely associated with the white council on good days. Apparently she was a pretty good wizard, but not good enough to stop a direct hit from one of the German bombers. By a stroke of luck young Lena had been with her father about two houses away when the bomb fell and was unharmed.
After that, he could not take care of his daughter anymore and had her sent away to the north like so many other children. He did manage to get hold of one of his wife’s wizard-friends who intercepted the train and made sure that the child was put in the care of someone who could bring her up properly. That someone was apparently Regan Shauna O’Bagley (yeah, Lena has no idea how that happened either).

Personality: Lena is a heavily introverted young woman, she rarely engage in small-talk or anything that doesn’t have a point. Over all, her social skills could be better, but she manages by the skin of her teeth. Her saving graces being an almost otherworldly calmness no matter what happens and the fact that she’s loyal to the death, although maybe not very obedient. She also have a very high IQ. Most people believe that IQ is in some way related to intelligence, which is wrong. What Lena excel at is seeing and understanding connections, she loves to read and has about a million tiny post-its placed in various books for reference.

Appearance: Lena is a young woman of normal height and slim build. Quite different from the other women in the Drestenverse she really has nothing that could be seen as attractive in any kind of light. She lacks curves, has dull brown eyes and dull brown hair, thin lips and dry-ish skin. She cares very little about her own appearance, shops most of her clothes in the men’s section and cuts her own hair. Makeup is out of the question.

Magic Type(s):
Alchemy - The mixing of potions. This is Lena’s real forte. There is something about her mind that makes mixing various ingredients together seem almost logical.
Thaumaturgy - The creation of magical bonds and the power to influence something big with something small.
Hydromancy - By far her weakest skill, too spontaneous and unpredictable. On the other hand, other mages seems to despise being drenched as well.

Equipment:
Weight ring (Made by Regan) - A normal metallic, smooth ring carried on her right ring finger. This ring has been infused with Regan’s terramancy. Upon activation it'll launch a gravitation spell at whatever Lena is aiming it at, effectively doubling the weight of whatever it hits.

Pentagram focal rings - An intricate design. This focus item consists of five silver rings (one on each finger of her left hand), connected by a fine silver chain between each other. When the hand is stretched out it creates a pentagram so horribly crooked and uneven that no five year old would even dare to show it to their parents. The symbol is there though, and the connections are made by the chains. The design is Lena’s own and she is quite proud of it.

Shield bracelet - A wide (about two inches) bracelet Lena keeps on her left arm. As opposed to other shield bracelets that are basically a chain with small shields on, this one resembles a hunk of metal. While it is smooth and polished, it is not adorned in any way. The bracelet is infused with a shield spell and will put up a sphere around Lena upon activation that should shield her from most ordinary attacks, although it has trouble standing up to magic as suck a small focus item tends to overheat quickly.
The bracelet used to be connected to the Pentagram rings in an attempt to create a pentacle focus. The idea was that the pentagram would technically be inside the ring of the bracelet as her hand was stuck through it. Turns out that the laws of magic are bendy enough to allow the pentagram rings, but the pentacle was too much.

Bag of mysteries - This is an entirely normal backpack. It does contain mysteries though. As an alchemist Lena is always prepared to gather materials and carrier with her a hundred zip-lock bags wherever she goes, as well as a few commonly used materials like salt, just in case.

Other: Lena hates cats, she’s more of a dog person.

Darkhallow

@Melkor Oh, right away. Sorry, I'm not used to having a char-tab yet, haha.

Heroically heroic heroes on an adventurous adventure!

The musician, eyes bulging, breathing heavy, sweat literally dripping, said nothing at all. The terror of what stood before him had overloaded his brain, he hadn't counted on anything like this to happen and he genuinely feared for his life.
Suddenly something hit Vekyzz in the back. the sudden spray of wood of varying sizes and shapes, as well as the painful imprint the object had made told the demon that it was one of the tavern's many chairs of dubious standard, this one had obviously seen better days. As Vekyzz turned his eyes on the room in order to figure out who needed a swift punch to the groin the most he caught the end of something bright blue as if wafted through the rapidly closing door. The rest of the room was filled with people too stunned to move, some perhaps thinking that they'd be safe if they just stayed perfectly still.

Outside, the goblin known as Baxxink did his best to look inside all the coaches. He was too short for some, and had to stand on his toes or jump to get even the faintest of looks. Sure, he could climb them like nothing, but his clawed hands and feet tended to leave some scuff marks and that was not the mark of a good thief. The key had broke, and some unlucky bugger would have to get a locksmith before he could get in his coach again, Baxxink only hoped that the guy was very comfortable inside the tavern still.

@Fetzen
The coachmen had been careful to remove any baggage from the roof and back of the coaches, the only place he'd find anything of value would be inside the locked compartments. He got up on the back end of one and looked inside. While there was no visible luggage, the seats in the coaches often opened up to allow people to stash stuff down there. The coach he'd chosen looked like it belonged to someone rich enough to stash some money in there, but still not rich enough to set a trap. That is a very specific kind of rich.
Baxxink drew his right arm back, curled his hand into a fist, aimed for the centre of the glass sheet and thought about it.
Glass is hard, brittle, but harder that the average fist. Breaking the glass like that, if even possible by a weak goblin, would hurt like hell and probably scar him for life and drain his blood. He jumped down and looked around, all he needed was something harder than glass, a stone, a good branch, a turtle... Something he could use and then throw away...

Heroically heroic heroes on an adventurous adventure!

And since Knighthawk hasn't replied either here or on PM he'll be counted as non-existent. We're down to two, let's make it good.

Darkhallow

Working my way through Death Masks. I listen to the books when I go to sleep, which means that sometime I can listen to the same bit several times because I just fall asleep too fast. They've put some kind of sound filter on this one to make it sound like an older, more noir recording and it kind of ruins it... I don't like change!

Darkhallow

@KiltmanBagz

Mathter, where art thou?

The difference between animal and monster

@Antarctic Termite
Supernatural fauna - This is an interesting point of view. I do believe it to be flawed however because of how broad it is. If we would take every "animal" that has a supernatural element to it and place them in the "monster" category, we'd have practically no animals. Cows are supernatural, as are pigs, goats, cats, wolves, bears, crows, doves, swans, rats and a lot of other animals. But is it fair to put them in the same category as dragons, werewolves, minotaurs and yetis?

Cultural influence - This is of course very important, all of the animals I listed above are obviously not supernatural according to the same culture, but different ones. But it also introduces the idea of monster/animal as subjective. According to the people of Madagascar the lemur is a monster, but to a Chinese person it would simply be a monkey, an animal. So far so good, but I feel that there is still a line that separates the subjective monsters of albino whales, bigger versions of known animals (grizzly bear/dire wolf/giant bat) and freaky lemurs from the objective monsters like dragons, werewolves and zombies.

Bad planning from the author - Yes, I would say that this is at least 95% of the issue. Either the author doesn't even try to, can't or stubbornly won't justify the difference. Simply going with the "natural vs supernatural". But if monsters exist in the world they have to be natural.
I like where you're going with your last point, that something has changed to introduce the monsters. That they are somehow created or brought to the world from some other plane of existence.

The difference between animal and monster

Here is a question that has been rattling around my head for a while.
Most fantasy roleplays that feature monsters also have ordinary animals. Everything from the typical farm stuff like chickens, cows and pigs to cats, dogs and snakes. Even more dangerous animals like wolves, bears and sharks may appear. But then we take a step into monster-territory, because somewhere between an ordinary wolf and the dire wolf there is an invisible line.

So I've been thinking. The line is obvious to us players and readers. Animals are the creatures that exist in the real world and monsters are the ones that doesn't. But how about the characters in the game/book/movie? Surely, to them the difference between a wolf and a dire wolf is just size, just like between a bear and a grizzly bear. So how does one define a monster in a world where both animals and monsters are natural?