Devil Beast
The name comes from the horns: long, wickedly curved, and often streaked with the dried remnants of whatever they last gored. The Devil Beast is a massive herd animal that roams the prairies and grasslands of Mountaina and Sweet Grass Country in numbers large enough to darken the horizon. They are herbivores. They eat grass and scrub and the tough root-plants that grow on the open plains. They have killed more people than most predators in the region, and they do it without meaning to.
A Devil Beast stampede is one of the most destructive forces in the wasteland. The herds travel in enormous groups across open terrain, and when something spooks them, every beast in the herd moves at once. The ground shakes. Dust clouds rise high enough to be visible for miles. Small trading posts, caravan camps, and roadside settlements that sit in the path of a stampede simply cease to exist. Prairie settlements have learned to build lookout towers for exactly this reason: the dust cloud of an approaching herd gives just enough warning for a desperate evacuation, assuming anyone is watching. War-mongers have learned to exploit this by deliberately driving herds through enemy territory, turning the beasts into a weapon that costs nothing and leaves nothing standing.
Despite the danger, Devil Beasts are deeply woven into wasteland life. A single animal, properly butchered, yields enough meat to feed more than a dozen people. Natural One tribes send their young out to tame or capture one as a rite of passage, though the rite produces more funerals than successes. The rare individual who manages to break a Devil Beast to saddle earns a reputation that travels farther than the beast itself. Taming one is considered a feat reserved for the most intelligent and hardy warriors. Surviving the attempt is considered an achievement in its own right.
A Devil Beast stampede is one of the most destructive forces in the wasteland. The herds travel in enormous groups across open terrain, and when something spooks them, every beast in the herd moves at once. The ground shakes. Dust clouds rise high enough to be visible for miles. Small trading posts, caravan camps, and roadside settlements that sit in the path of a stampede simply cease to exist. Prairie settlements have learned to build lookout towers for exactly this reason: the dust cloud of an approaching herd gives just enough warning for a desperate evacuation, assuming anyone is watching. War-mongers have learned to exploit this by deliberately driving herds through enemy territory, turning the beasts into a weapon that costs nothing and leaves nothing standing.
Despite the danger, Devil Beasts are deeply woven into wasteland life. A single animal, properly butchered, yields enough meat to feed more than a dozen people. Natural One tribes send their young out to tame or capture one as a rite of passage, though the rite produces more funerals than successes. The rare individual who manages to break a Devil Beast to saddle earns a reputation that travels farther than the beast itself. Taming one is considered a feat reserved for the most intelligent and hardy warriors. Surviving the attempt is considered an achievement in its own right.
