Fantasy Farm Animals Inspire Ag Innovation in New Bestiary
Pearse Anderson's new bestiary has it all.
The lines that define farming get a little fuzzy in fantasy worlds. Does herding magical eels into a small, purpose-built inlet count? How about keeping spiders that till your garden?
Indie game dev and journalist Pearse Anderson tackles what makes a farm animal tick in the new bestiary “Critters & Companions: 30 Farm Animals for Your Fantasy Setting.” Anderson created 30 farm animals on air, land, and sea that can be used in tabletop games. Each is rooted in agricultural and ranching tradition.
The book is system neutral, meaning characters can be used in Dungeons and Dragons, fantasy fiction writing and other tabletop roleplaying games — also called TTRPGs. Each one can be ridden, milked, declawed, worshipped and eaten.
The project is crowdfunded on Kickstarter and nearing the end of its fundraising deadline of June 23.
The animals may not be real, but reconceptualizing farming and invigorating agricultural creativity at a time when climate change threatens crops and supply chain shortages wreak havoc is pretty timely (plus the animals just look cool).
SACP creator Lonnie sat down to chat with the Chicago-based Anderson.
Interview lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
SACP: So why farm animals?
PEARSE: A lot of my experience is primed for farm animal life. Traditionally I’m writing about eggs that are gathered or meat that is caught or the curiosities and dangers of certain animal life.
When I left my gardening job, I thought, ‘What’s something I could see myself designing?’ Animals were a continuation of testing my abilities, and this book explored a lot of sentience I hadn’t previously studied.
That’s what got us the first 30 animals.
SACP: Is tabletop gaming inaccessible?
PEARSE: Oftentimes tabletop books are digital and come in PDF form. They’re not made for screen readers, which might read the columns in the wrong order and make rules different.
There’s how the game is even played. You could play a one-page tabletop game with a low bar to access and understand the rules and expectations around improvisation.
I deal with this topic a lot, but not as much as a TTRPG accessible consultant.
SACP: Why did you want to make a bestiary that’s system neutral?
PEARSE: I’m glad I was able to make it system-neutral so that more people could play.
SACP: What was your creative process like?
PEARSE: There’s a lot of animal/human relation scholarship out there. I had this intention of reading an academic article and using that to inspire my animal of the day during a daily challenge.
For example, Hy Gief spiders are nocturnal, so if you want to till the land the Hy Gief can do that at 3 am. The divorce bear dances at divorce feasts to summarize the ending marriage to prove it was real and honest.
I learned so much about Aboriginal land management used to get eels more inland. That is land used to cultivate an animal so I consider it farming, but when people talk about farming they don’t think about that style.
SACP: Do you think art and storytelling is any less effective when inspired by guides or systems like this?
PEARSE: A lot of other storytelling is inspired by a source. A lot of fantasy is inspired by myths, like a retelling of the “Odyssey.” They can get away with that because [Homer’s epic poem] is a proven classic, but the same concept is true with tabletop games. We’re just doing the same thing with different flavors and it doesn’t invalidate either side.
I could definitely see the Croonerza, an animal in the bestiary that can parrot the voice of a king, inspiring an entire book in itself, and a writer using that as the seed. I’d be very proud of that.
SACP: What’s the publishing plan?
PEARSE: There will be a print edition around October 2022. I think we’re going to do as many copies as there are backers, plus an additional amount that can be sold in game stores. If people go into a local game store this winter, they can ask for it.
I’ve made the lore as dense as possible. If someone got this book and read about five animals and was pulled into a campaign that would still be their money’s worth, considering the amount of work and illustration and copy editing.
SACP: Why are TTRPGs getting more popular?
PEARSE: There are these niches that have built up in the tabletop world. People livestream playing an entire campaign. There’s podcasts. In Japan they have play books, which are text versions of campaigns people have played.There’s TikTok, Twitch streams — so many different points of exploration.
There are also TTRPG bundles now, like the trans rights bundle on itch.io, or the Black Lives Matter bundle. Whatever you pay supports social justice, and these massive bundles let new players explore a wide range of games they might not have individually purchased, but can now jump into on their own time.
SACP: What’s next?
PEARSE: Soon I’ll be able to design a lot more system neutral guidebooks, which I think could be really needed by the tabletop community.