I think that, from my own personal list, that Gorgans, Chimeras, Slepnairs, and perhapes a few "true" african ex. (None pony) animals with graspers, such as Girraffes and 'phants. Because, realy, what could be worse for a fort that a gigantic mammal with tusks, two weapons ( one in mouth, one in trunk), and high weapon skill? A elephant never skill rusts, after all.
On the other hoof, a good amount of mammels could be given graspers. Rhinos and Camels, anyone?
I'm surprised nobody thought of Okapi yet. Zebra civ nobility perhaps?
Or maybe give it absurdly powerful magic (lots of graspers?) and make it a semi-megabeast that's armed with dozens of weapons. Or just make it bigger...
Indeed, this is nice. Zebra Emperers ( or should it be Czar?) are good where they are, but the Okapi sounds like a nice idea. We could give it several magical "syndromes", like shooting "lightning" or throwing bolts of frost. They dont even have to be larger than real life, seeing as they could fit the sadly little seen " sage" race, being skilled in most things and having powers unknown to anything else. Naturaly, this makes the prospect of one visiting your fortress the stuff of nightmares.
The hippogriffs idea does sort of imply the possibility of having twisted crossbreeds, like sphinx/gorlak pony hybrids, or slippy buffalo. Ent ponies(and other things) are another possibility, maybe make them non-sentient, non-tameable but with valuable fruit and wood.
Sweet Celestia, Ent Buffalo!
Manticores are part of the new lion civ, right? They would have made nice semi-megabeasts if that wasn't the case. Perhaps a feral version would work though. Same with griffons.
Also, I have a better term for them. How do Primal Manticores/Griffons/Alicorns (There were once two sisters who ruled the night and the day)/ex. sound?
These are the sort of things that myths and stories were made about, not those silly old degenerates that have to band together to survive!
