Capital "A" Animals

I'm working on something, and it made me think about how Animals are in relation to their animal brethren.

• Do they have the same birthrate as animals?
• Do they have the same extended lifespan as their naked ape cousins?
• Do animals benefit the amazing healing factor as Animals and Humans?

Animal Birthrate
It's not stated anywhere that Animals have the same birthrate as their lowercase brethren. I for one think that once the spark of intelligence strikes them, they become much like Humans, and their birthrates drop as much. Humans have a 1/500th the birthrate of normal humans. Animals would experience the same drop. What does that mean then? Let's take Chickens.

A chicken can lay around 300 eggs a year. So for a Chicken, that would mean a reduction to 2 eggs every two years, right? No, chickens lay eggs in a clutch of 5 to 8 at a time. So it's worse. Let's say the average is 6 eggs in a clutch. That's 50 clutches a year. Ah, so a Chicken will produce a clutch of eggs once every 10 years. And since the rate chickens become Chickens is only 10%, chances are that none of the resulting chicks will become Chicks.

But, if you have a 20 or so chickens that you get fertilized about twice a year, you'll get 160 clutches of chicks. That's on average 1,040 eggs, so you'll get 104 Chicks out of that batch. That's a lot of Chickens. They would have their own colonies. It also means when you see population numbers for an Environ, that's the Human population. Now, these numbers are for farm raised chickens. Feral chickens take about 3 months to raise their brood, so expect them to have no more than 3 to 4 clutches a year. Still, that's a lot of Chickens. Ethical chicken egg farms don't fertilize their chickens because of that. And they source their chickens from ethical breeders. Ethical in that they raise the chicks as though they might become Chicks.

And that's just chickens. What about the other fast breeders, like mice and rats? Yeah, lots of Animals are out there.

Lifespan
This one is pretty much a given. Capital "A" Animals get the extended lifespan, living for a very long time. Their lowercase relatives, not so much. Whatever makes them Animals, also extends their lifespan.

The Healing Factor
The final question is whether or not animals benefit from the same Healing Factor that Animals gain?

My answer is no. And not because it would make animals a nuisance, but no, because some folks would take unethical advantage of that. See that prize hog over there? We've pulled 12 prize hams off of him so far. That kind of ethics. And we all know there there are people who would do it to. They would find out how much of the pig could be cut off before you kill it, and just stop shy of that.

So, no, animals don't have the healing factor, but Animals do.

More thoughts about this later.

Would it be more interesting if the Animals didn't live that much longer?  Like in the 25-30 year range?  S. Andrew Swann did some books about a modified Bengal Tiger named Nohar rajastan.  I think he was created for the military and had to be freed after a decade of service or so? 

The perspective of most Animals would be very different if they aged much quicker then the humans around them, which would make for some interesting moments.  Waiting on some deal that won't pay off for 5 years is a HUGE deal when you are 15 years old and halfway through your lifespan. 

Considering that people age 1 year per 100 years, most animals have short lifespans. A mouse would live about 300 years. A chicken about 800 to 1,000 years I believe. So they do have shorter lifespans, but not on the same order as what you're suggesting. And then there's the question "What makes people so much better that they get a longer lifespan?" and that would be a valid question. Great Apes live about 40 to 50 years, that's 4,000 to 5,000 years if they age at the same rate as humans, and humans aren't that much different from them. Why are they special and not their Ape cousins?

For one thing it would be ignored by most GMs and Players, so I wouldn't impose a really short lifespan on Animals.

Giving them really short life spans on a world where all life spans are extended would be unreasonable. While I don't believe they should have human lifespans I do think that having roughly 50-75 yrs per real year would be reasonable. The 100 for 1 humans get is one of their few real advantages.

I see your point, but I will argue that humans really shouldn't be the special people. If a furry, say a cat person, not a Cat, but a humanoid cat person, shows up, do they only get 75 to 1 or do they get 100 to 1? I know a few people that would argue for the 100 to 1 ratio.

For all intents and purposes, how long they live won't come into play in game. It's really flavor text for the game. Its not like the PCs will run into a guy that looks like he's in his 90's or something...

Why not?  Is there some rule that makes people always look young 😼?

now I need to add an elder somewhere in the material I am working on 😎

All humans in the HH are Humans (unless we find some that aren't.)  Animals should be under the same rules as Humans.  1/100.

There would be a lot of Animals born to littering species, but the Animals would be as infertile as Humans are.  Animals that normally lay eggs whether they are fertilized or not will lay the same number of eggs, but only a few will develop an embryo.  Chicken prenatal care will feature candling in place of an ultrasound.

An interesting plot hook.  What do you do with a colony of Rats or Rabbits looking to book passage because they want to set up their own homeland?  Or Pigs who want Humans to mediate with Wolves in order to set up a DMZ?