This feels odd but I have to ask.

[Vincent Stefan]

This game contains many interesting creatures and so forth. However I have been wondering as of late. Is there also normal creatures in this game that are just exceptionally big. That is normal animals that have some how been enlarged to Monmouth proportions.

Example.

A raven a person could ride like a horse? (Yes I used a Raven as a example)
Or a Rat that could be large enough to eat a horse?

I have searched for the answer to these questions and have found myself coming up empty.

[Whisper]

This might be because you've only been looking for creatures that have writeups already. Not all beasts have their own little blurb (although they should!). For example, Demios has giant spiders that produce world-famous spidersilk. They're large enough to be ridden, and in fact Demios has spider races at the annual Dragon Festival. I'm also in the process of creating giant owlish creatures, like those huuuuuuuge eagles from Lord of the Rings.

You should ask around your city/cities, poke some GMs and see if they know anything. Or start an adventure thread and find out IC.

[Duvel]

As a rule of the thumb I'd say that abnormally large creatures would need a write up to verify their existence though.

[Tarot]

For Huge creatures, there is the Square-Cube law, even though it is universally ignored in fiction (or bypassed with some random techno-babble or the foolproof 'it's magic!' method.) Basically, the strength of a joint increases with the square of the size, but the mass increases with the cube - much faster. This means a giant spider needs to have a bodily structure that isn't just a big replica of a normal spider, or else its thin legs would just collapse under its weight. I generally assume giant spiders and other creatures that are a lot bigger than their normal counterparts to have special features allowing them to function. That makes them much more complex than regular arachnids - a different creature type altogether. Same goes for the Roc compared to regular birds. In realistic terms, just shooting a beam to enlarge a small animal would typically result in something barely able to move.

That said, mods have ample freedom in what they can give out, and if you look around you will see a few unique mounts and pets. In a fantasy world, most things can be justified, but as with everything else, it comes down to realism, common sense and fairness.

[Dr Genesis]

er....I would think any Giant spider would just come out looking like a Tarantula. The basics are the same with them as would be the case with the larger variety.



Note the difference from a normal spider, the Tarantula (above) has more solid, flat feet. Unlike the smaller spider(bellow) who only needs to glide on the top of it's leg points.



or one could go with something like this (bottom), which suggests that the creature is more or less a ball with 8 legs spaced just so, so that it can walk balanced. However, the loss of any leg, would down even this type of monster. Yet a Tarantula type spider could continue on without one or two of it's legs...Depending on spacing and position.

[Immael Kha'Serith]

Ooh, biology! I love it. Ahem...

It is true that the beast would likely need a more complex anatomy to support itself. Leg joints only being the half of it, with increased mass comes a larger circulatory system, respiratory system, digestive tract etc etc. So first off.

A giant spider will need a heart, or probably three or four. The current arachnid system relies mainly on osmosis and active difusion, as well as channels in the body, to move nutrients and such around. Having grown larger, the system would be too inefficieint, and the creature would need a blood medium to move oxygen and other cellular requirements to their destinations.

A giant spider will need lungs. Again, the current system would not function in a larger being. Hence when the spider drops from it's web, the last breath will be its, not yours.

It will need muscles, and a brain to control them. Not some uber genius mind you, but a rudimentary brain to control things like the heart, lungs, musculo skeletal structre and so on.

It will need a sturdy skeleton. An exoskeleton or endo skeleton, depending on the spider the bone will have to be dense, or the chitinous carapace damn thick.

It will need tonnes of food. Even if it eats the same way as a normal spider, if it is big enough for a human to ride, it would need a couple cows worth of food a day.

Plus all the other support systems a modern body utilises to survive. These things would be my professor's wet dream to study.