But anyway, since now we've seen the incredible power of flying units, have we reconsidered the order in which we want our beasties?
For me: Not really. Most of our combat for the forseeable future is underground, so shard dragons are still priority number 1.
Number 2 though should probably be something aerial: preferrably dragons, for the breath weapon, but Griffons or Eagles would also work.
And since we have an option for intrigue training, I have come up with some new potential beasties:
Beast number 1: Ulgu Yak
Yak (Large) + Naturally Attuned to Wind (Ulgu)
Penalty -2
Yak naturally produce wool, meat and milk, and are natural beasts of burden.
When attuned to Ulgu, the Yak starts emitting what more academically inclined dwarfs have started to call a SEP field, which makes the Yak itself very hard to notice.
Due to this field, herding these Yaks is a difficult, yet relatively safe endeavour: beastmen, greenskins and orks typically don't have the mental strength to overcome the SEP field produced by a herd. Unfortunately, this protection also affects the shepherd: it takes a very sharp witted herdsdwarf to keep an eye on such a herd without losing track of the animals, or even time itself. The Sep makes Ulgu yaks less suitable as beasts of burden than their strength would imply.
Fortunately enough, dwarfs are magic resistant enough for it to be possible.
The meat and the milk produced by these Yaks is a mild intoxicant, with the happy side effect that excessive consumption does not result in hangovers. The meat has to be dried to be consumed safely by dwarfs, as fresh meat infused with magic causes joint stiffness (and probably eventually petrification).
Similarly, the milk has to be fermented before consumption by dwarfs: the fermentation process has to be long enough for the noxious magic to dissipate.
The most useful product of Ulgu-yaks, however, is their wool, as it retains the full power of the SEP field for about a decade, before it starts to fade: Cloaks made from this wool turn the wearer effectively invisible.
When the SEP field starts to weaken, the cloak is retired from active military service, usually dyed in clan colors and worn as a regular garment.
Beast number 2: Hysh Doggos
This actually started as a meme, Ulgu sheep need Hysh sheepdogs, but then I decided to flesh it out more for it to be actually useful.
Being large, naturally intelligent dogs, specifically bred for guard duty, they have Intelligence as an innate property. (you could possibly also swing a limited Bred for war here, as a matter of training)
Large dog (Medium) + Hysh Attunement + Longevity (because dwarfs won't trust them to guard anything if they die after 15 years)
Penalty -4
A breed of Large guard dogs imported from Cathay after trade relations became a more regular thing. (Think Tibetan mastiff).
Their attunement to Hysh lets them sniff out chaos corruption and dark magic, and their bites are baneful to undead and demons.
For obvious reasons they are extremely popular among the Ulgu-yak shepherds, as they are not affected by the SEP field.
Would be pretty cool things to make... if we had unlimited build slots.
any feedback?
