Simhatas

[Dracogryff]

Y'know, the Lunar book is so wonderfully vague on these beauties. I've been thinking about them a lot lately, and idly been trying to figure out, if someone were to try the whole breeding them back into specialized lines thing, what would their abilities do for each exalt? Would it be generic to the type, like all the dragonblooded type simhatas have this special ability, or more specific, or possibly both?


I'm fairly certain the Dragonblooded ones, whether or not they have extra bonuses for each element would be immune to anima flux, bue beyond that, I'm beginning to have some difficulty. Like, what would a Sidereal mount be able to do? Or a Solar one, even?


Mayhap if one goes with the each caste gets bonuses, a Dawn bonus would be either upping the difficulty on their anima banner effect (+2 or such) or something. Twilight's drop the cost of their spells by a certain amount when mounted, maybe.


Any ideas, suggestions, comments? I've got a character idea about a DB looking into this rumor and am hoping to find some better ideas for showing my GM.


On a side note, if anyone knows of a place where Simhatas are more accurately described in detail, I'd love to hear about it. Been trying to draw a decent pic of them for forever. And they had better have paws or something....clawed hooves are an anatomical impossibility. Feh. :?

 

[Andrew02]

Personally, I'd model them along the lines of Marukani horses, and just make the bloodlines based on what they would be used for, and where. Northern simhata would resist cold better (maybe shaggier hides), be hardier, able to go longer without food and water, and have bigger claws to get around on icey slopes and whatnot.


Bloodlines purely for battle might have better soak, more health levels, better attack stats, and take better to combat training in addition to obviating the need for certain Ride-related rolls on the part of the rider except in cases of stunts or extreme maneuvers.


Jungle/forest simhata  for the East would be able to go through the canopy with a rider just as well as it could go on the forest floor. They could have hides that could adopt new patterns of spots or stripes as need be to aid in camouflage and stealth.


I'd imagine there would be bloodlines for anything Exalts might want, as they later came to have the luxury of breeding purely for things like appearances or a group of traits that are not neccessarily beneficial for a battle mount but nevertheless just plain pleasant to have (sweat glands that produced perfume, maybe).

 

[Persell]

Any ideas, suggestions, comments? I've got a character idea about a DB looking into this rumor and am hoping to find some better ideas for showing my GM.

There was a series of books a LONG time ago by Mary H Herbert (Dark Horse, Lightning's Daughter, City of Sorcerers) detailing a 'sorcerer's familiar' type of specially bred horses, who could bond with their riders, protecting them from harmful magic and sharing a telepathic bond. They were also seen as 'regal' by normal horses, allowing them some measure of control.


Being specific to DBs though, I would imagine they would each be immune to their rider's anima banners (and maybe if they were elementally bred would indeed enhance it?) and could certainly have a pool of peripheral essence they could grant to their riders (recovering at the same rate as the DBs). Essentially I would give them the same powers as the anima banner of the element they are bred from/with, immunity to fire damage or being able to survive underwater etc, after all, they would need to be able to follow their riders wherever they went. Think of the riding stunts available when your air aspected Simhata can leap across entire chasms! Your trusty steed bursts in to flames when you do, doubling the terrifying power of the fire dragon in combat! I'll stop before getting any more carried away. Thanks though, I'd quite like to implement this aspect in to my fledgling game too

 

[Viragos]

Some thoughts I had when I tried to figure out the different breeds.


Solar: ??


Lunar: Increased Str to handle its masters war form, and possibly one more point of Valor so if the Lunar looks really creepy (aka Terrifying Besital Visage) his horse aint freaking out.


Sideral: again ??


Dragon-Blooded: Immunity to anima flux as well as immunity to fear caused by natural events (aka fires, earthquakes what have you) mostly because fire DB's tend to start lots of these.


My 2 cents

 

[Umni]

I have nothing to add to this but I had a question. I was wondering, what background would I have to get in order to get a Simhatta?

 

[Persell]

what background would I have to get in order to get a Simhatta?

Many backgrounds could do it. The thing about backgrounds is, they're very specific to the character, and pretty much anything the ST allows can happen with them. So if the character bought the Simhata, they would obtain it with Resources. It might be a Familiar. It might be gifted them by their Patron, or assigned to them by the organisation that gives them Backing.