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<blockquote data-quote="Cleon" data-source="post: 5981248" data-attributes="member: 57383"><p><span style="font-size: 18px"><strong>Monsters of the Deep</strong></span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: 15px"><strong>The big nine</strong></span></p><p>These are the creatures Heuvelmans describes in his massive volume <em>In the Wake of the Sea Serpents</em>. The average length for all sea serpents is on the order of 60’-100’, although larger specimens are certainly possible. Heuvelmans points out that the wake a swimming creature leaves behind it may be mistaken for part of its body (hence the title of his book), resulting in exaggerated lengths given by witnesses. He also pointed out, however, that animals can grow to very great size when buoyed up by water, and that the serpentine form most of the creatures in this article have distributes weight very evenly. Thus, a serpentine creature 250’ long (one of the largest sizes reported) would weigh no more than a bulky blue whale 113’ long (the record for this species). As a final note of caution, none of the air-breathing animals described below spouts like a modern whale. They stick only their head or part of it above the surface to breathe, making a mockery of skeptics’ claims that they would be seen more often.</p><p></p><p><strong>Super eel:</strong> This is just what it sounds like: an enormous eel. There may be more than one species, as some have blunt heads, some pointed; some are reddish, some are blue or blackish-brown on top and white underneath, while still others are speckled (the speckled ones seem confined to the Mediterranean). Most seem built on the order of a greatly enlarged conger or moray eel. They are all different from the other “sea serpents” Heuvelmans describes due to the fact that we know they exist.</p><p></p><p>In 1930, the Danish oceanographer and biologist Dr. Anton Bruun was conducting a marine survey in the South Atlantic; one which included trawling the depths to see what lived down there. Among the specimens he brought back up was an elver (an eel larvae) six feet long. Normal elvers are only a few inches long at most, yet they can grow into 6’ eels. Extrapolating from this, Dr. Bruun calculated that this elver might grow into an eel anywhere from 108-180’ in length! A more conservative approach, assuming a slower growth rate, still suggests an eel 50’ in length. To top this off, he brought the eel larvae up in the exact vicinity of one of the most famous sea serpent sightings of all time: that of the S.S. Daedalus in 1848. The drawings and descriptions of this creature are far more like an eel than anything else: an interesting coincidence, at the very least. The last I heard, Bruun’s specimen was still preserved in alcohol at the Charlottenlund Marine Biological Laboratory, on the very outskirts of Copenhagen.</p><p></p><p>For AD&D® game purposes, the super-eel should be treated as a giant eel, but one 50, 108, or 180’ in length. Its swimming speed should be reduced to 8 and 7 for the last two versions, while the HD for the three specimens would be boosted to 9, 13, and 18, respectively. THAC0 for them is 11, 7, and 5. XP value is 975, 3,000, and 10,000 for the largest! Damage/Attack is 4-16, 3-18, and 5-20, while AC and all other stats are the same.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Cleon, post: 5981248, member: 57383"] [SIZE="5"][B]Monsters of the Deep[/B][/SIZE] [SIZE="4"][B]The big nine[/B][/SIZE] These are the creatures Heuvelmans describes in his massive volume [I]In the Wake of the Sea Serpents[/I]. The average length for all sea serpents is on the order of 60’-100’, although larger specimens are certainly possible. Heuvelmans points out that the wake a swimming creature leaves behind it may be mistaken for part of its body (hence the title of his book), resulting in exaggerated lengths given by witnesses. He also pointed out, however, that animals can grow to very great size when buoyed up by water, and that the serpentine form most of the creatures in this article have distributes weight very evenly. Thus, a serpentine creature 250’ long (one of the largest sizes reported) would weigh no more than a bulky blue whale 113’ long (the record for this species). As a final note of caution, none of the air-breathing animals described below spouts like a modern whale. They stick only their head or part of it above the surface to breathe, making a mockery of skeptics’ claims that they would be seen more often. [B]Super eel:[/B] This is just what it sounds like: an enormous eel. There may be more than one species, as some have blunt heads, some pointed; some are reddish, some are blue or blackish-brown on top and white underneath, while still others are speckled (the speckled ones seem confined to the Mediterranean). Most seem built on the order of a greatly enlarged conger or moray eel. They are all different from the other “sea serpents” Heuvelmans describes due to the fact that we know they exist. In 1930, the Danish oceanographer and biologist Dr. Anton Bruun was conducting a marine survey in the South Atlantic; one which included trawling the depths to see what lived down there. Among the specimens he brought back up was an elver (an eel larvae) six feet long. Normal elvers are only a few inches long at most, yet they can grow into 6’ eels. Extrapolating from this, Dr. Bruun calculated that this elver might grow into an eel anywhere from 108-180’ in length! A more conservative approach, assuming a slower growth rate, still suggests an eel 50’ in length. To top this off, he brought the eel larvae up in the exact vicinity of one of the most famous sea serpent sightings of all time: that of the S.S. Daedalus in 1848. The drawings and descriptions of this creature are far more like an eel than anything else: an interesting coincidence, at the very least. The last I heard, Bruun’s specimen was still preserved in alcohol at the Charlottenlund Marine Biological Laboratory, on the very outskirts of Copenhagen. For AD&D® game purposes, the super-eel should be treated as a giant eel, but one 50, 108, or 180’ in length. Its swimming speed should be reduced to 8 and 7 for the last two versions, while the HD for the three specimens would be boosted to 9, 13, and 18, respectively. THAC0 for them is 11, 7, and 5. XP value is 975, 3,000, and 10,000 for the largest! Damage/Attack is 4-16, 3-18, and 5-20, while AC and all other stats are the same. [/QUOTE]
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