Animal Training

Animal Training lets a character tame and teach any wild or domestic animal, along with certain semi-intelligent monsters such as hippogriffs, rocs, griffons, winged horses and hippocampi. A trainer can never work with a creature of higher level than themselves, which is why most prefer to start with young animals.

Training begins with a taming period while the creature gets used to its handler: 18 weeks plus the animal's level for domestic or docile beasts, 24 plus level for wild animals and 30 plus level for monsters, less one week for each point of the trainer's Charisma. At the end a 95% roll is made. Success means the creature knows the trainer's voice and comes when called; failure allows one more try the following week, and a second failure marks the creature as untrainable. After that, a trained beast can learn simple orders such as stay, attack or fetch, one new command per month. At least 4 hours a day must go into training, and missing more than 2 days in a week wastes that week.

A trained animal or monster sells for at least 100 GP per level, and each extra command it knows usually doubles its value. It costs 1,000 XP, with 1-3 months of tutoring for non-Harlequins.