Animal Life (sage field)
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Animal life is a sage field available to druids, providing familiarity with animals — complex, boned and muscular creatures whose bodies pump blood. Knowledge is gained concerning animal origins, ranges, habits and instincts. Through the study of animals in their environment, characters may anticipate movement, discover means of communication, make use of the resources animals provide, and apply knowledge of anatomy and function to zoological development and practical design.
Animals represent a broad class of living creatures whose behaviour, needs and limitations follow consistent patterns, regardless of where they are found. Whether wild, domesticated, trained or under the control of others, animals act according to instinct, conditioning and circumstance. Knowledge of animal life enables the character to recognise these patterns, judge how an animal is likely to respond, and understand the extent to which its actions are natural or imposed. This understanding applies equally in wilderness, settlement or dungeon, wherever such creatures are present.
The field includes the following sage studies:
- Amphibians & Reptiles: the study of scaly, cold-blooded, egg-laying creatures, including those that pass between water and land and those that dwell wholly upon the earth, characterised by their dependence upon heat and their often deliberate, measured movement.
- Birds: the study of feathered, winged, warm-blooded creatures, known for flight, keen senses and territorial behaviour, identified by their beaks, hollow bones and capacity for swift, directed movement through the air.
- Bugs & Spiders: the study of small, many-legged, hard-bodied creatures, including insects and arachnids, noted for rapid reproduction, varied forms and specialised means of attack or defence such as biting, stinging, web-spinning or burrowing.
- Golems: the study of constructed, creature-like forms animated through artifice, composed of uniform natural substances such as flesh, stone, clay, wood or metal, whose behaviour follows imposed purpose rather than instinct.
- Mammals: the study of warm-blooded, furred or haired creatures that bear live young, marked by adaptability, varied diet and complex behaviour, including many of the larger land-dwelling beasts and, in part, humanoid forms.
- Sea Life:the study of creatures dwelling within water, whether salt or fresh, characterised by their means of swimming, breathing and navigating submerged environments, and by forms adapted to pressure, current and depth.
- Slime Moulds:the study of amorphous, mutable growths and jellied creatures, including oozes, moulds and puddings, defined by their slow movement, corrosive or consuming nature and resistance to ordinary bodily harm.
Although some creatures examined in these studies are not strictly "animals" and may be regarded as monsters, they exhibit patterns of behaviour akin to animals; they move, react, pursue, withdraw and persist according to recognisable conditions. Their actions may be governed by instinct, conditioning or imposed purpose, yet in all cases they present as entities whose behaviour can be observed, anticipated and understood. For this reason, their study is more suitably placed alongside traditional animals than within the study of plant life, which concerns growth, rootedness and passive change rather than directed action.
