Re: Pirates - Was: Places: Dragon Rock Map

> >
> > Are you suggesting that these actually produce
> food from nowhere,
> > as long as they are fed? Or, do they just have
> very high
> > efficiency metabolisms?
> >
> > So, they don't produce any waste at all?
>
> Pogs sound fun. Don't forget that they will not be
> able to transform food into other pogs
> with 100% efficiency. Firstly it is impossible to
> absorb everything that you eat. Secondly
> just being alive burns up energy so you can't use
> all of it to produce more pogs. I think
> that a bone would have to be *very* big in order to
> be turned into 10 baby pogs.
>

Pogs eat anything, including waste.  I never thought
of their own, but sure, why not?  They eat everything
else's waste.  That is why they are used in waste pits
in large cities, and why they were created.  They even
eat glass and thin metal, such as tin cans (like a
goat).  They probably don't start on their own waste
until evrything else to eat is gone, though.
Remember, they are half dog, and dogs eat their own
waste.

As long as they are fed something they will continue
to breed.  They aren't caniballistic, though.  I think
I said they were in that first email, but they're not.
If too many of them breed in an enclosed space they
just stop breeding for a while.

Just picture the tribbles, from star trek, only they
look different.  Pogs aren't all cutesy like tribbles,
but they are roughly based on them.  You can say they
have a good metabolism, but the main point is that
they eat anything and everything, so you can feed them
whatever is laying around and you'll end up with a lot
of them.  If food gets scarce, they still bred, just
not as fast.  The only thing that slows down their
breeding is too many of them confined in a small
space.  If food is more scarce, they just end up
looking sickly and smaller when they are born.

As foor using them as a food source, pogs don't taste
very good.  They taste a lot like whatever they're
eating, so make your own conclusions.  They're more
popular as food sources among really poor people,
goblins and kobolds.  The more desparate or uncaring
the diner is, the more likely they will eat a pog.
It's like eating a rat or a maggot.  I guess if you
cooked them right ...

As for metabolic efficiency, think of the infinity
vine.  It's able to grow exponentially just from
sunlight.  Pogs are magical creations, and they have
mutated over time as they have broken into mage's
stashes and eaten spell scrolls and magical potions,
etc., so they are even more magical now than they were
when they were first created.  And they were first
created for the sole purpose of waste disposal, so
they were designed to eat anything and to breed out of
control as long as a food source (anything) was
present.  They don't like hunting for their food or
catching it, though, so you generally don't have to
worry about them being predatory and eating large
living creatures.

As for how to contain them, they don't eat dirt so you
can keep them in earthen pits.  They do eat rocks, but
not dirt.  You can also keep them in magically treated
barrels on ships.  They'll eat normal barrels.  The
spell used to make a barrel pog-proof is a special
kind of earth-based magic that makes the wood of the
barrel taste like dirt.  It was developed by goblin
shamans.  They'll nibble on the barrel, but when they
taste that grainy dirt feeling in their mouths they
stop chewing on it.

There are legends about pogs getting loose on goblin
ships and eating the goblins in thier sleep, but so
far these stories are unconfirmed and are usually told
in the form of a joke that is meant to be
condescending towards goblins.  Goblins get no
respect.

- Coyote

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