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BOC World Building: The Animals of Beware of Chicken, Farm Edition
🕑 Added 2024-03-11 02:24:07 +0000 UTCThe Animals of Beware of Chicken:
Big D/Bi De: Common Chicken, Northern subspecies.
Nobody knows how chickens came to be with man, just like nobody knows how dogs came to be dogs; But where men are, the chicken is by their side.
Technically speaking, Big D’s species has been named the Crimson Phoenix Chicken; Characterized by bright red feathers, a jade green tail, and a patch of blue on the wings. They are the most common bird in the entire continent. Despite their use for meat and eggs, they are considered handsome birds, and many villages have contests, seeing which birds can have the longest wattles or most fanciful combs… but the red feathers are considered a must. The white and black variant chickens are considered substandard, and are not very popular. They average around 2.3 feet tall, and weigh about two pounds.
Big D cleaves quite closely to his ancestors. He is indeed, a classic Crimson Phoenix Chicken; However, Bi De is far more cold resilient than his more southerly kin. His crest is slightly shorter, along with his wattles, to better handle heat loss, and his plumage is denser.
Otherwise? He was simply a chicken. A prime rooster to be sure, a magnificent cock… but just a bird.
Now, however, he has surpassed his former self in every way, as his Qi has interacted with his body. His Spurs are an inch longer. His wattles and comb have grown slightly, and are a stunning scarlet. The patterns on his red feathers have some yellow and orange, making it look like each feather is a separate flame; his green tail sparkles with more beauty than jade, and his blue wings are iridescent. He is 2.5 feet tall standing straight and nearly four pounds.
Ri Zu: City Rat, ????? subspecies.
Ri Zu’s kind has developed alongside humanity, and the fact that this world is a world of cultivation.
This has manifested in a quite high poison tolerance, far exceeding most earth rats. However, that is largely the extent of their adaptations. A rat is a rat; though Ri Zu does display some small adaptations for a life at high altitude, and a marked resistance to cold.
City Rats come in a myriad amount of colours; The most common is black, but they can be grey, brown, or silver. They average around 7 inches long excluding their tail, and weigh about a pound, though some monsters have been recorded as being three feet long, and nearly twelve pounds.
Ri Zu herself is quite small even as far as City Rats are concerned; She is five inches long, excluding her tail, and less than a pound. Her initial growth was stunted by the starvation conditions she was subjected to, but she considers herself small, and thus any body refinement will keep her quite tiny, in addition to her wishing to be of a similar height to her Master and adoptive sister, Meiling.
Chunky and Peppa: Rust Boar/North Wind Swine
Both Chunky and Peppa’s lines actually come from around the Azure Hills, from North Wind Village. There, in desperation from their domestic pigs being laid low by the challenges of winter their swine were bred with the native Rust Boars. The coupling was a gamble—for the Rust Boars were notoriously ill-tempered, and had a habit of slaying humans—to the point that great hunts have been called repeatedly across the centuries to cull their numbers. This was to the point where the Rust Boar is a rare sight these days.
However, the gamble did pay off—the new, much more cold resistant breed remained relatively docile, and in times of true strife and cold could even grow the thick, shaggy coat of their sires.
These days, that is exceedingly rare, unless a boar escapes and goes feral.
An average sow is 4 and a half feet long, and about two feet tall at the shoulder.
A boar is about five long, and two and a half feet at the shoulder.
Peppa is as close to average as a female pig gets, with soft pink skin. The bristles these pigs normally grow are fine hairs that are as soft as silk. Peppa is around four hundred pounds.
Chunky, when not using his powers, is four feet at the shoulder, and nearly 7 feet long. Hes a gargantuan specimen of porcine bulk, and weighs over a ton. His tusks are two feet long.
Chunky’s largest recorded size topped out at twenty feet at the shoulder, and fourty-five feet long, while his smallest size was one foot at the shoulder, and two feet in length.
Tigu: Goldgrass Steppe Tiger-Cat
While Jin and Meiling merely think Tigu is a cute, stripy house cat, Tigu’s kind is quite storied.
The people of Goldgrass Steppe used to worship the great Goldgrass Tiger—massive creatures that were close to Spirit Beasts, and hit six feet tall at the shoulder. These Apex predators still ply the vast grasslands today, hunting similarly sized yaks.
The Tiger-Cat was something made from focused breeding from the nobility, so they could have palmtop tigers to protect them. Indeed, the Tiger Cat was first envisioned as a guardian… but this eventually failed. It was a cat. What were they expecting? It simply looked at the nobles that tried to command it as fools.
But perhaps.. Maybe they didn’t have the right touch?
Still, it was a beautiful species, and their tiger-like appearances were in great fashion for several centuries. Shiyun of the Heavenly Path, that most powerful diviner, was said to have such a beast as her companion.
Tiger Cats were relatively small creatures, at eighteen inches long, and Tigu is of average size—but her stripes are much more pronounced, and she looks near-completely like a tiger in her cat form.
Washy: Common Azure Hills Carp.
Bottom feeders though they are, they make up an important part of the ecosystem. Intensely hardy creatures, they can survive freezing, being out of water for over an hour, and quite a few other things that would kill a less robust fish.They are related heavily to Koi, and are indeed thought to be escaped Koi that were introduced to the rivers.
They are a dull brown or grey in colour, their mouths open on the bottom of their heads, and they have long whiskers. They also have a row of larger, thicker “armor” scales along their sides.
An average carp can grow to around a foot and a half long, and about five pounds with truly large specimens hitting 3 feet.
Washy himself is about 2 feet long and he weighs nearly fifteen pounds; he is large and fat, but unremarkable otherwise.
Yin: ????? Rabbit. (Lunar Rabbit)
Yin was born a Spirit Beast, in a hidden realm that exists in the moon’s reflection in bodies of water. Lunar Rabbits populate this place, with most living in a giant mansion, and serving the so called Queen of the Moon. The rabbits are actually noted as being mild tempered and quite helpful creatures… but Yin is little like her kin in temeprment. All who examined her decreed that she would die of her condition—an unfortunate case of Yang Energy, and Yin’s own fury and attitude as she lashed out at the pity, and some of the mocking, got her exiled, until she was found by Miantiao.
Most Lunar Rabbits are quite small, being about a foot long. Yin is slightly larger than her sisters, but otherwise looks about the same with her beautiful silver fur.
Miantiao: Azure Hills Jade Snake.
A common snake endemic to the hills; the Jade Snake is roughly equivalent to a garter snake. It is non-venomous and an ambush hunter of rats and other vermin; but they also eat eggs. Thus, they are tolerated around the outskirts of farms, and in the fields, but are chased out of any coops that they enter. Most farmers are ambivalent about them, but they are considered quite handsome beasts.
Miantiao is about average size, being ~30 inches long, and quite thin. He can be mistaken for some sort of arm-band or other ornamentation.
Huo Ten: Azure Hills Golden Snub-nosed Monkey
A monkey endemic to the Azure Hills, and found nowhere else. They are a strange looking creature: their faces are powder blue, and they basically have no noses, instead just two holes in the face for breathing. Their fur is a deep gold colour, and both incredibly soft and incredibly beautiful.
The monkeys are herbivorous, for the most part, though in times of hardship will eat meat if forced to.
An average male specimen like Huo Ten would be about ~3 feet tall.
Babe: Northern Azure Ox
Another endemic breed to the Azure Hills, though one whose history has been lost. The males of the breed are all called oxen, even if they are not castrated.
In any case, they have thick, shaggy fur, particularly on their head. It can grow in such amounts it obscures the cow’s eyes. They are extremely cold resistant, and have great endurance… but they cannot work further south than their northerly climes, lest they begin to get overheated. They can tolerate a few hot days, but a constant thirty degrees for weeks is liable to kill them—or drive them mad.
They work best in the winter, with the cold cooling their muscles. And though this method of using them means they go through a lot of food, the sheer amount of power these oxen have is staggering, with some scholars starting they have double the strength of their southern cousins...though this is likely hyperbole.
During early spring plows farmers are known to store buckets of snow the best they can to dump on their work-beasts to simulate the perfect conditions. This need to cool their muscles also leads them frequently into rivers, where they are known to laze if given half a chance.
They have not the biggest horns, though they more than make up for this with dexterity. They are also considered quite smart creatures, and only a fool mistreats his ox—lest he be gored and trampled.
An Azure ox is a valuable, if expensive in terms of food, work beast. It is very good at its job.
Babe is 5 feet tall at the shoulder, six and a half feet long, and weighs 1500 pounds.
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Just some stuff about what exactly everybody is—at elast the animals.
Comments
Munirah Hutchinson
I'm looking at Big D's breed's physical stats and they are waaaaay too light weight for being meat and laying birds. They should average around 4 pounds live weight for a heritage breed, if not heavier for a more northern breed.
Grappleshot
I'd imagine Yin one day saying hello or something to her old home being part of the future chapters. That along with the origins of Big D's bloodline, and possibly tie to the great cuckoo's triumph to explain the descent of power when going human. Then also possibly the carp that swam up the waterfall becoming a dragon origin.
Munirah Hutchinson
Bees! Where's Vajra?
Truedragon5374
Its nice to finally know where Yin came from. I was wondering how she got down from the friggin Moon! Even in Xianxia land that is a BIG leap. Unless you rode a lunar moth or something... But yeah i like the hidden realm thing better. Hey Farmer! Is the Moon Queen a real heavenly being, like the Yellow Emperor? Or is she just the most powerful matriarch of the rabbits?
Truedragon5374
Has anyone else realized that Wa Shi and Liu Xianghua might be distantly related? Xianghua is directly descended from the Lord of the Lake, a dragon who apparently liked to take human form to "sire" many human children who served him. But he was also a Carp, likely he jumped over the Dragon Gate like Wa Shi eventually did. He seemed to be fairly hedonistic and frankly it wouldn't surprise me if he fertilized many carp eggs in his time. So while Xianghua might be hundreds of human generations descended from the Lake Dragon, and Wa Shi might be thousands of fish generations descended, it is very possible they share the Lake Dragon's bloodline.
Randall Brynsvold
There's a mundane breed called Indio Gigante which has roosters that can stretch to more than 3 feet and weigh more than 10 pounds. They're not known for their plumage, though, and they certainly don't have classic chicken proportions.
Randall Brynsvold
If Paul Bunyan paid a visit, Chunky would have to step up his game to accompany him, or else teach Babe the size-changing trick. The Babe at the Trees of Mystery near Klamath, California is maybe 25+ feet at the shoulders (35 feet at the tips of the horns). https://treesofmystery.net/welcome/paul-bunyan-and-babe/
KnightRider007
Babe is an *Azure* Ox, you say? Uh huh. Shocking, would never have imagined... :D
dapple26
Second!
BlueMage_VT
Me not knowing anything about animals lol. Very informative!
Old Dog
Thank you for the backgrounds.
Demian Buckle
Thank you for the Chapter, I love info dumps.
Casualfarmer
welcome to canada, where we measure height and weight in imperial and temperature in metric.
Alex Rahr
Feet, pounds, then Babe can't take thirty+ degrees on a regular basis - I assume that's Celsius?
Andrew Denton
Rooting UP the mountains.
CrimsonEclipse
Bee
SamHawke
Jin did in fact notice it, it was a si gle sentence mention
Casualfarmer
its northern ontario. They regularly get 5+feet of snow, it drops down to -20 often, and has days of -40. Meiling specifically used to hate winter with a passion because of how many people died during it, but now.... she kind of likes it, because Jin has made it a wonderful magical time instead of the shitty thing it used to be for her. Jin's roads, and cleaing them improved travel, and lots more medicine is being grown.
KnightRider007
Hadn’t really struck me through the story, but Hong Yaowu must apparently be located in quite extreme conditions - every line of livestock is specifically noted to be bred for cold resistance.
Stostri
What about Vajra?
Story Time Compass
Blame the Aunties, lol
StarBat
Jin is collecting his own version of the 12 zodiac animals. No one really noticed this. Not even himself. Suddenly boom. New realm with new zodiac animal guardians. All because some dude wanted to play Stardew Moon simulator in xianxia 😆
Justin Barnett
Phoenix’s are creatures of death and rebirth. A cycle. And bi de is starting to master the power of the sun. He might become a phoenix one day.
Zach Cooper
Lol washy is 3x heavier than the average carp that is crazy
Raraki Kraken
Sweet Jesus!! Big D is enormous!!! I guess I shouldn't be too surprised, it is just... The chickens 'round here are way smaller.
Featherweight
Oh, love the insight on how some hidden realms function from Yin’s entire. Makes me wonder what a door way to the peach grove might look like. Maybe a tree grown from those peaches? hmmhmmm. Edit* Also love that Tigu is a literal teacup Tiger.
Critical Hit
Peppa is 400 pounds, and Babe is 500 pounds? She's quite the big pig. Really thought Babe would be significantly heavier than her. Chunky obviously being the biggest animal on the farm makes sense. Looking forward to seeing Chunky grow stronger and eventually rooting around the mountains themselves.
Spencer Miller
It occurs to me that Crimson Pheonix is a red bird. Are we sure the imperial bloodline isn’t descended from a spirit beast rooster like Bi De?
Lanter
Its funny how we get common, common, common, Cat, common and then Yin has the surprising background of born Spirit Beast, and then we get back to common common hahaha. Noice
Jehru
Is it bad that I want Rizzo's species to be Persona non Rata.
WarStrider72
Thanks for the addendum boss!
swishmcfish
Huh. Sounds like Babe's Species might have had potential Spirit Beast Ancestors.
Just A Dude
First!
