Beasts of Burden

The other half of the bestiary: the creatures the Kingdom milks, herds, harnesses, saddles, shears, and rides. For the ones that eat you instead, see Monsters.

The Scale

Identical to the ladder on the Monsters page, reproduced here for use at the table. A Faerie is three inches tall and Medium; the world runs at 24×, so one in-world foot is about half a real inch.

Size In-world Real-world
Fine up to 6 in up to ¼ in (6 mm)
Diminutive 6 in – 1 ft ¼ – ½ in (6 – 12 mm)
Tiny 1 – 2 ft ½ – 1 in (12 – 25 mm)
Small 2 – 4 ft 1 – 2 in (25 – 50 mm)
Medium 4 – 8 ft 2 – 4 in (50 – 100 mm)
Large 8 – 16 ft 4 – 8 in (10 – 20 cm)
Huge 16 – 32 ft 8 – 16 in (20 – 40 cm)
Gargantuan 32 – 64 ft 16 – 32 in (40 – 80 cm)
Colossal 64 ft and up 32 in and up (80 cm+)

Docile and Domesticated

Sorted small to large. "Bred" sizes exceed wild ones — Kingdom stock has been selected for bulk for a very long time.

Size Creature Real size Use
Fine Aphid 2 mm The cattle. Milked for honeydew; the Kingdom's oldest and largest herds.
Fine Springtail 2 mm Compost stock. Turns leaf litter into soil; kept in pits beneath every settlement.
Fine Thrips 2 mm Pollen-gatherers, worked in swarms over a single flowerhead.
Fine Booklouse 2 mm Archive vermin, tolerated and half-tamed. Eat the mold, not the page.
Fine Dust mite 1 mm Groomers. Kept on livestock hides and, discreetly, on noble ones.
Diminutive Silverfish 12 mm Scribes' companions and pantry stock. Docile to the point of listlessness.
Diminutive Mealworm, grub 12 mm Meat. The staple protein of every province that can't afford better.
Diminutive Woodlouse (young) 8 mm Weaned pillbug stock; kept in nursery pens.
Tiny Pillbug 15–18 mm The herd animal. Meat, armor plate, and a slow, patient temperament. Bred stock reaches Small.
Tiny Honeybee 13 mm Honey, wax, and the courier post. Kept in the Kingdom's oldest guild hives.
Tiny Cricket 20 mm Song and meat. Every Heartland farmstead keeps a singing stall.
Tiny Silkworm 20 mm Thread. The entire Faerie textile economy sits on this one animal.
Tiny Snail, lesser 20 mm Slow haulage over short distances. Shell harvested for lamps and cups.
Tiny Bumblebee (young) 20 mm Trainee flight stock, ridden by children and couriers-in-training.
Small Bumblebee 25 mm Air freight and the winged post. Placid, tireless, and warm to sit on.
Small Grasshopper 40 mm Courier mount. Fifty-foot bounds; the fastest legal way across open meadow.
Small Cicada 40 mm Signal-beast and meat. Bred for volume; a hedge-tower keeps three.
Small Garden snail 35 mm Draft. The ox of the Faerie Kingdom, and the reason nothing arrives on time.
Small Stag beetle 50 mm Armored draft and, in the Ninefold, ceremonial jousting. Bad-tempered but tractable.
Small Slug 50 mm Field labor and rendering stock. Nobody's favorite.
Medium Dung beetle, scarab 30–50 mm Sanitation. The Eternal City would drown in a month without them.
Medium Hornworm caterpillar 80 mm The pig. Meat, fat, and hide, and it eats what nothing else will.
Medium Moth, lesser 40 mm body Night flight. Slower than a bee, quieter, and it does not mind the dark.
Medium Rhinoceros beetle 60 mm Heavy draft. Pulls the nectar wagons of the Nine Roads.
Medium Butterfly 50 mm body Show and ceremony. Ruinously expensive, structurally useless, universally coveted.
Medium Goliath beetle 100 mm Plow team. One beetle turns a field a Faerie crew would need a season for.
Large Earthworm 15 cm Tiller and tunnel-freight. The Deep Hollows' entire transit system.
Large Millipede 10–15 cm Caravan freight — a living wagon train, loaded segment by segment.
Large Hercules beetle 17 cm Heavy haulage and siege work. Lifts many times a loaded cart.
Large Vole 10 cm Herd stock in the northern provinces. Wool-warm pelt, poor temper, good milk.
Large Mouse 8–10 cm body The horse. Saddle, harness, and cavalry. Everything you know about horses applies.
Large Atlas moth 25 cm span The air-carriage. Silent, enormous, and flown only at night.
Huge Chipmunk 15 cm + tail Scout mount. Fast, arboreal, and constitutionally incapable of standing still.
Huge Giant snail 20 cm The true ox. Hauls stone. The shell is quarried after death, and it is a house.
Huge Squirrel 25 cm Canopy cavalry. Greenmantle's entire military doctrine is built on these.
Huge Box turtle 15 cm Mobile fortification. Slow enough to be a fortification.
Huge Giant millipede 30 cm Freight train. Thirty feet of cargo capacity and a placid disposition.
Huge Pigeon, dove 30–35 cm The long post, and passenger flight between provinces. Homes unerringly.
Gargantuan Tortoise 40 cm Moving ground. Villages are built on the largest; they cross a province a lifetime.
Gargantuan Rabbit 40–50 cm Draft cattle and, for those who can afford them, heavy cavalry.
Gargantuan Groundhog, marmot 50 cm Earthworks. One digs a fortification in a day. Stubborn, and knows its worth.
Gargantuan Duck 50–60 cm Water barge. The Manywaters runs on ducks and will not hear otherwise.
Colossal Tortoise, greater 60–80 cm Wandering settlement. Some carry shrines. Some have carried them for centuries.
Colossal Hare 60–75 cm The heaviest cavalry the Kingdom fields. Ruinous to keep, decisive when used.
Colossal Swan 1.2 m State transport. The Queen's barge is a swan and the swan has an opinion about it.
Colossal Deer 1.5–1.8 m Not domesticated. Simply harmless, and vast — a wandering mountain that grazes.
Colossal Sheep, goat, cow, horse 1 – 2.5 m Human stock. To a Faerie these are geography with a pulse, and mostly a hazard.

Running Them

See Also