Dire Skunks
They’re getting larger by the year: three years after the Serpentfall, a fully-adult Dire Skunk is at least as big as a Great Dane, and that’s just the ones born in 1946. The ones being born now are possibly going to grow up to be as big as a pony. Dire Skunks retain many of the characteristics of their pre-Serpentfall kin, including the omnivorous diet and the spray. The spray in particular is absolutely still there.
And that turns out to be a good thing for Texans living on the edge of the High Plains. Dire Skunks, despite their names, are actually fairly amiable and even docile around people; apparently human beings simply don’t smell like ‘prey’ to them. What does smell like prey are the seemingly endless variety of mutated insect life that drifts southward from the Poisoned Lands, looking for untainted grain — or flesh — to consume. Dire Skunks relish feasting on these tainted monsters, and seem fully immune to their poison. This has encouraged a lot of farmers and ranchers to keep a few Dire Skunk dens around their property; besides their usefulness as insect predators, the fur of a Dire Skunk is a welcome thing to have, in these days of endless winter.
And, yes, certain Texan ranchers are trying to breed the largert Dire Skunks to be riding beasts. Naturally. They’re Texans, aren’t they?
Dire Skunk: uses the Dire Wolf template (Savage Worlds, pg 146) with Smarts of d6 (A) and the following Special abilities:
- Spray: a Paralysis (Vigor rolls) using the Cone Template. It also smells incredibly foul.
- Immune to Poison: this includes Serpent-taint. Do not eat of the flesh of the Dire Skunk, though.
My only relationship with skunks is a story I heard at church. The preacher had, as a boy, gotten a bow and target arrows. He and a friend found a skunk caught in a trap (I believe it was a cage of some sort). They proceeded to shoot the skunk with target arrows, which just made it mad. When they went to go home, they thought they were fine because they couldn’t smell the skunk after they left its vicinity, but they were singularly wrong. I think I heard the story, or at least fragments of it, multiple times over the years. It certainly lends itself to all sorts of morals.
The scent glands can be removed via surgery. So even a riding beast might make a certain amount of sense, assuming that the skunk can support the weight of a human.
Also, having smelled skunks in the past, “foul” isn’t exactly the word I’d use. Hideously bad, yes. Terrible, yes. But “foul” suggests rotted corruption, or similar smells. That’s not a skunk smell. Unfortunately, I can’t really think of anything that you can compare the smell to.