Collaborative Exploration - Asking the Stars

Beyond messing around with this and doing a whole lot of reading I've not delved too far into collaborative RPGs, but so far the two biggest elements I enjoy that feel under-supported are Exploration and Challenge.

It's tough, because I've spent so long trying to work out how best to support those elements in a traditional one-GM many-players structure, so I've always felt they were innately tied together.

Maybe they don't have to be. With things like Ironsworn I'm certainly seeing a growth of support for these two areas.

So how would I encourage a feeling of exploration in a collaborative game?

The games where I've felt a real sense of exploration have had a few things in common:

1. Mystery: What's around that corner? Can I get into that tower on the horizon? Why is this town abandoned?
2. Obstacles: You can't just decide you want to go into a dungeon and hit a button. Maybe you have to ask around, maybe they're all hidden, maybe they only open at certain times of day.
3. Spectacle: Seeing things that you couldn't have imagined yourself. 

See, when you have a dedicated GM it's easy, right? For Mystery they have the answers all hidden away, for Obstacles their entire job is to challenge you just enough, and for Spectacle they spent all week prepping this awesome place for you to explore or bought a pre-made adventure with amazing artwork.

But I think we can get a taste of that if we throw ourselves fully into the ideas of Fate,  Integrity, and Co-Deduction.

Let's revisit those three ingredients that support Exploration.

1. Mystery is supported by Fate. We're going to rely on random chance to at least give us the spark of ideas or answer key questions. Playing with minimal rolling is great, but use the dice rolls at your disposal to let things go in unexpected directions. 
2. Obstacles are supported by Integrity. If all signs point to this place being guarded by well-equipped elites then give them the appropriate mechanical backing. Deep down, do you think the diplomat will fall for your ruse? Sure, you can roll, but maybe it's just a bad idea and you need to think of something smarter.
3. Spectacle is supported by Co-Deduction. If you bounce an idea back and forth enough times you'll come up with something that neither of you would have created alone. 

A key thing to remember is that this isn't about simulating what it's like to play with a GM. It's a different type of play that maintains some of the same feeling.

So if you're playing a collaborative game with two players, see if this is useful.

The Watcher (secrets/truth)

The Unknown

When you enter an unknown situation, you will co-create new truths using one or two methods, or a combination of both.

Pursue the Truth

• Ask the other player a Deductive Question about the current situation. See below for what makes a Deductive Question.
• Instead of answering yourself you can roll a single d20 and Ask the Stars for an answer.
• Continue back and forth until the truth begins to take form. The players use these truths to explain the situation.

Deductive Questions

• Closed: with “yes or no” answers.
• Exploratory: not trying to reach an immediate conclusion.
• Interesting: Both yes and no lead to interesting places.

Ask the Stars

• Each player rolls a d20, the brighter die for the Symbol and the darker die for its Position. 
• A die may also be rolled for a more straightforward yes/no answer.
• This may create more questions than answers, so players can choose to Pursue the Truth to hone down the results.

Recording Truths

• When a truth is agreed on it should be recorded. This may be on a character sheet, map, or general notes.
• Some truths are recorded as seeds before they fully develop when the time is right.
• Truths are not permanent and can be rewritten as they change.

Symbols and Positions

• Symbols and Positions are used by the stars to communicate truths.
• Their meanings depend entirely on the context and no interpretation is incorrect if it feels right.
• Literal interpretations are just as valid as symbolic, so a blade can represent division, but also “just a blade"

ASK THE STARS
d20	Answer	Symbol	Position
1	NO	The Reptile (instinct/fear)	Distant (future/distance)
2		The Hawk (knowledge/elitism)	Entombed (the past/patience)
3		The Lost (chance/travel)	Shadowed (intimacy/dependency)
4		The Painter (creation/illusion)	Seated (the present/calm)
5		The Statue (stillness/preservation)	Shielded (strength/burden)
6		The Glutton (pleasure/excess)	Bowed (charity/mercy)
7		The Enemy (opposition/argument)	Aflame (change/violence)
8		The Mask (beauty/shame)	Bright (honesty/pride)
9	MOSTLY NOT	The Flock (freedom/nature)	Open (faith/trust)
10		The Blade (separation/capture)	Veiled (ignorance/acceptance)
11		The Voyager (hardship/struggle)	Nested (home/hunger)
12	MOSTLY	The Watcher (secrets/truth)	Alone (isolation/autonomy)
13		The Elder (wisdom/manipulation)	Drifting (ease/submission)
14	YES	The Child (innocence/learning)	Crowned (ambition/ruin)
15		The Spear (direction/desire)	Reflected (introspection/vanity)
16		The Council (tradition/cycles)	Feasting (plenty/decay)
17		The Speaker (authority/law)	Caged (promises/safety)
18		The Legion (purpose/unity)	Afloat (resting/uncontrolled)
19		The Hand (agency/action)	Upright (prestige/sanctity)
20		The Mind (thought/inaction)	Rooted (resilience/growth)

The Elder (wisdom/manipulation)

Sample Readings

Reading a Character

• The Lost (chance/travel), Veiled (ignorance/acceptance)
• We lean into the combination of chance and acceptance, somebody who completely submits to the whims of fate.
• A wanderer without a ship, hitch-hiking their way at the whims of strangers.

Reading a Location

• The Glutton (pleasure/excess), Bright (honesty/pride).
• Excess and pride suggest a flaunting of wealth. A glutton with no shame.
• Maybe a grand mansion-style orbital station where visitors are welcome to bask, but not indulge.

Reading an Attack

• The Reptile (instinct/fear), Open (faith/trust)
• Let’s take these images very literally, an open set of crocodile-like jaws. 
• The attacker lunges and grabs you, dragging you down into the mud below. They pull a blade and try to press it against your throat, their weight pressing the air from your lungs. 
• You can stray from the standard type of reading as you grow more confident.

Chaining Details

• Here we’ll use the Answer and Position columns to ask, “Is this Outpost abandoned?” 
• We get Yes, Feasting (plenty/decay)
• It’s abandoned, and both sides of Feasting fit well. Let’s repeat with the question “Has it been abandoned for long?” this time with a Symbol to help. 
• We get No, The Spear (direction/desire)
• The outpost was abandoned suddenly and urgently, taking only the bare minimum with them. There are plentiful supplies, but why were they in such a hurry? Let’s roll one more Symbol/Position combination for a clue. 
• We get The Flock (freedom/nature), Shadowed (intimacy/dependency).
• Checking through the ship’s logs, some sort of parasite was spreading through the population, and leaving was the only option.

The Child (innocence/learning)

Notes

Obviously there's a long history of RPGs using Tarot cards as an oracle for generating ideas, but here the use of a table to generate combinations is deliberate. You certainly use two decks of cards for this, but I still feel like the act of throwing the bones feels more appropriate here. 

You could straight-up replace the symbols and positions with tarot cards if that's your thing, but I found some of them too focused, some of them too vague. A lot of their meanings are centred around seeking advice, and felt like it was worth creating a distinct set of sparks for the specific purpose of generating game content. 

Philosophies of Bastionland

Alignment in D&D is pretty dumb. Planescape is the one good thing that has risen out of that mess.

So Bastionland doesn't have Alignment as a thing you write down on your character sheet. It certainly doesn't have mechanics for how your character should respond to ethical dilemmas. That's on you.

The closest thing you'll find are Philosophies, which bump up against the old idea of aligning yourself to one side of the great cosmic conflict, but here the conflict spans from the distant stars to the depths of the Underground and runs through the very gutters of Bastion.



So you might meet somebody that's acting in a very particular way, and find out that it's down to their particular Philosophy on life. Sometimes this takes a religious appearance, sometimes it's part of their cultural upbringing, and sometimes it's something new they've latched onto after reading a very persuasive magazine article. Generally it's not about faith, though. Having a Philosophy isn't about claiming to know the truth, it's about what sort of questions you ask yourself.

The key thing is that nobody is really defined by their Philosophy. They're more than that. It doesn't make them utterly predictable AIs to manipulate, and they still have other stuff going on in their life. Use it like a condiment rather than the main ingredient. Throw it onto that character you created that would benefit from a little extra going on beneath the surface.

Generally there are the "big three" Philosophy groups: Humanists, Alienists, and Machinists, then a bunch of others. As you might have guessed, people with very similar Philosophies are often much more hostile to each other than those with wildly different worldviews.

Naturally, their tenets can be broken down into three bullet points each, usually a declarative statement, a question, and then a call to action that arose from this line of thinking.

Any similarity to real Philosophies, even those that share the same name, is unintentional.

Humanists
Generally these look at the human condition and often put humanity up on something of a pedestal, but ask "why are we so special?".

Modernists

We are living in the cultural and technological peak of humanity. 

Will the future really be better than this?

Embrace everything about this modern age and try to keep things this way!

Baztiurds

Bastion is the greatest city to ever exist, and great things can only be built on great foundations.

Are perhaps the foundations better than the actual city?

Embrace our city's past, even the bits we can't verify!

 
Masticists

Chewing a piece of gum can help you focus on a task, or think something over.

How can we use this to make the whole world a happier place?

Give everything your full focus and make sure you keep plenty of gum!

Alienists
The stars might be the most obvious place to look for answers, and it all escalated when we started seeing Aliens setting up shop in Bastion.

Gazers

We spent centuries staring at the stars, asking questions, and then the Aliens came.

Where else could we look for answers?

Ask questions in unlikely places, look for patterns, and let yourself gaze!

Hosts

Aliens are not necessarily better than us, but they're more advanced in specific ways.

What could we learn from them if we offer ourselves in return?

Make Bastion a haven for Aliens of all types, that we might learn their secrets!

Utopians

Aliens come to Bastion from the Living Stars, but they often return after a short time.

Can we assume their homes are superior to ours?

Find a way to the stars to find a better life for humanity!

Machinists
The Underground seems to break all the rules, and Machines are innately tied to it. There must be something that can be exploited there, especially if you've gotten accustomed to making and controlling machinery.

Servers

Machinery has made our lives better, and now Machines are making more Machines.

With the Machines having surpassed us, why bother trying to understand anything ourselves?

Obey anything that comes out of a Machine!

Underminers

The machines appear to have the secrets to how the Underground works.

We can break down normal machinery, so why not the capital-M Machines?

Break down anything necessary to try and better understand the world!

Pilgrimists

Machines seem to challenge those that travel the Underground and observe the results.

They must be doing this for a reason. Doesn't every Machine have a purpose?

Undertake every challenge with glee, and bring challenge to others' lives!

Others
Outside the big three there are plenty of other people asking the big questions.

Mockerists

Mockeries seem to be enjoying their fake life a lot more than true living beings.

Would we all be happier if we lived a more theatrical life?

Make the whole world a stage and resist any sort of authenticity!

Fallacists

Mockeries and Fallacies are convincing imitations of life.

How can we be sure that anything is real?

Sow as much uncertainty and misinformation as you can, so that we might hit critical-mass and loop around to true enlightenment!

Bestiarists

Practically every type of animal has found a way to live in Bastion.

If animals are taking over our world, should we not look to their world for conquest?

Take everything you can from animals, from their servitude to lifestyle tips!

Collaborative Bastionland

Getting a group in the same room isn't as easy as it used to be.

There's nothing stopping you playing Electric Bastionland one-on-one, but how about an alternative for if you want to play with two people sat on the same side of the table?

Traditional one-on-one gaming. 

Ohh yeah, now we're talking. Let's do this!

Collaborative Bastionland

This game uses the same rules as Electric Bastionland with the following additions.

The Companion

Both players create their own character as normal. A third character is created: the Companion. They are part of the group, but are controlled by whichever player currently holds the Baton.

The Baton

Pick an object that is otherwise useless at the table to be the Baton, ideally some sort of stick. If you have a real Conductor's Baton then you're playing at maximum effectiveness.

Whichever player has the Baton acts as the Conductor. They describe the world, answer questions, call for rolls, and act on behalf of any non-player characters, including the Companion.

The Baton is passed between the players at intervals that feel right. As a rough guide pass the Baton when you think "hm, should I pass the Baton?" and in general don't refuse the Baton being passed to you.

You can still have your character act while you hold the Baton, but if you're taking the lead on an action then it's a good idea to pass the Baton.

I won't make hard rules for this, just do what feels right and discuss it between yourselves if it feels wrong.

Agendas

In addition to normal character creation, each player has two Agendas. It's important that these are secret, and that both players have different Agendas, so write them out on cards or scraps of paper before randomly assigning two to each player.

1. Laugh at Danger.
2. Get Answers.
3. Build a Reputation. 
4. Indulge your Senses. 
5. Change the World.
6. Establish Order.

The player keeps one Agenda next to their character and places the other next to the Companion's sheet. The player will be aiming to fulfil these Agendas for their character or the Companion respectively.

Remember these must both be kept secret and players should resist asking the other player about their Agenda or talking about their own. If you just tell each other then you're robbing yourselves of the fun.

At the end of the session each player reveals their agendas. Argue over who achieved theirs the best, that player gets MVP. If it feels like a tie then surely you can agree that one of the Companion's Agendas was more fully achieved, right? Think of that like the tie breaker. That player gets MVP. 

So yeah, you can kinda win at this. It's cooperative, but there's a silly little competition happening alongside the game to give things a little edge.



Laying the Foundations

Go to the Mapping Bastion (p252) section of the book (or Deep Country or the Underground if you prefer) and work through the process together to create a Borough on a big sheet of paper. Pass the Baton between each of the steps.

Keep it broad here, just names and loose ideas to be fleshed out once you start proper play. Make good use of the Spark Tables and don't go above two words for any single element of the world.

Go to "Random Game Inspiration" (p241) and roll on the Spark Tables. Use this as inspiration for a piece of Treasure and its current location/holder and the time-pressure that applies.

Put the Treasure at one end of the map and yourselves at the furthest possible point.

Describing the World

The world is discovered as the player with the Baton answers questions or makes new declarations. Make good use of the content in the "Understanding Bastion" and "Conducting Bastion" sections, especially the Spark Tables and Touchstones.

Add details to your map as they are discovered.

Combat and Danger

This should all work fine as normal. Remember the principles in the Conducting the Game section (p242). Be honest, fair, and confident. If your character is the only one in mortal danger then it's a good idea to pass the Baton.



So this replaces the Conductor right? Why not use this all the time?

The type of game this method produces is definitely going to be different than a traditional game with a full table and single Conductor. The challenge element is probably going to feel lower, as you don't have a fully neutral arbiter, or even a neutral uncaring world to go up against. It's pushing up more against those collaborative worldbuilding games, and I think it's only going to work if you play with somebody you trust.

Think of it as a different way to explore the same Bastionland.

d6 Bastionane Beverage Establishments

While there are bits of Bastion that are what you'd imagine as industrial, residential, commercial, or civic districts, it's important to remember Bastion's Triple Rule.

And as everything has multiple purposes, one of them is most likely to feel out of place. Even in the quietest bits of the city there's something going on if you stop and take a look around.

A common theme is finding that a seemingly unrelated establishment is also operating as a bar.

When the players stop and look around to find a bar, roll d6 for a Bastionane Beverage Establishment

1: Soggy Little Sparks

• Crumbly sandstone building patched up with colourfully painted wooden boards.
• Destitute children use shoddy tools to fix electrical equipment in between shaking sweet cocktails over ice.
• They work for a pittance, have alarming street-smarts, but occasionally splash water onto the electronics with disastrous results.

2: No-Frock-Alley Theatre

• Radical art collective that allow anybody to join in their improvised theatre as long as they strip and burn their clothes right there and then.
• Cast members are entitled to use any of the props piled up this alley for their act.
• This includes a well-stocked bar, so most people are just using it as a booze-buffet.

3: New Textual Cafe

• An exclusive new service where visitors can sit at a television and view electronic text, calling in to the Bastion Broadcast Office to add their own messages, all while sipping overpriced coffee.
• It's mostly crude poetry, dirty jokes, and bad fantasy literature.
• There's a hidden code that lets you order discretely-served but devastatingly-potent drinks from the cafe staff. 

4: Leviathan Milk Thumper

• A huge pumping station connects to pipes deep in the underground, connected to a Deep Leviathan to extract its milk.
• The milk is three ways:
• Raw (£2, ultra-nourishing, but pretty foul)
• Thumped (£4, sent back through the pipes, where ferments into a sour, cloudy beverage)
• Double-Thumped (£12, sent back into the "long pipes" where it returns as a clear spirit, which grants visions of the Underground to those that drink it and doubles as a powerful catalyst for many chemical processes)
• There are rumours of the mystical effects of "Triple Thumped" leviathan milk, but the staff assure you that they do not serve this version.

5: Ghost Bombers Spritz Bar

• When it comes to ghosts in Bastion, it isn't that there's no proof, it's more that nobody agrees on what constitutes proof of ghosts when there are so many weird holographic machines, immaterial aliens, and even Mock Ghosts creating confusion.
• This office serves clients that want to get rid of whatever ghost-like being is intruding on their property. They get the client to sign an extensive waiver and then deploy "Ghost Bombs" (actually just bombs) on the property. When only rubble remains the being has usually left as well.
• Their Customer Complaints department also serves as a bar serving ghost-themed spritzes, and is popular enough that drinkers will often just fabricate a complaint so that they can go and drink there.

6: The Geologitastic Roadshow

• A sprawling road-train that operates as a mobile museum, nay, carnival of geology.
• Visitors are admitted to the front of the train and must enjoy each exhibit-carriage in full before moving to the next. After around two hours they will reach the Caboose Bar, which has an extensive range of beers from across the city, all served in Stone Steins which the bartender will go to great lengths to educate you on.
• You can stay in the bar as long as you like, but the roadshow is always moving on, so when you leave you'll be in a completely different Borough. 

Bastionland Broadcasting

I'm making a tentative dip into Twitch this week with a deep dive into Electric Bastionland. I'll go through the book one spread at a time to discuss the decisions behind the design, how things changed over the course of development, and the lessons that were learned.

The stream will be live at 9pm BST, Tuesday 21st April over at twitch.tv/bastionland

d50 Birds of Bastion

You all liked d100 Horses?

Roll d50 to find which weird bird is around here.

Arnold, this is a challenge. Make this up to d100. Our Horses need avian companionship.

Unless noted, assume 3hp, STR 5 and a peck too small to do any real harm.

1. Medician Crane: Waist-high black crane with a scalpel-sharp bill (d4) and adhesive spit. Cultivated by the rich and sent into poor areas to administer ineffective surgery. 
2. Protobird: Knee-high dinosaur-thing with yapping jaws (d6). Forced to live on rooftops among its feathered cousins. Hates what it has become. 
3. Legal Eagle: Fat grey eagle. Enforces only unwritten rules, mostly through squawking but can use its Talons (d6) if ignored.
4. Coalman's Parrot: Dull yellow, with a taste for spicy and picante foods. Traditionally taken as pets by miners and fed mustard in exchange for limited conversation.
5. Steam Penguin: Incredibly tough little things that hang around steam-vents before hunting down large fish as part of a ruthlessly effective pack. 
6. Major Falcon: Huge red bird of prey that seems utterly ineffective at hunting anything living in Bastion. A few environmental organisations work tirelessly to set up fake prey for the few surviving specimens to hunt, as they will not accept charity food.
7. Unnamed Goose: A breed of goose known for malicious behaviour, leading to it being stripped of its former name, which is now stricken from all archives. 
8. Cog Crow: Clever golden-eyed blackbirds, bred to collect any loose machine-parts and take them to a single pile in Bastion. Nobody knows who bred them for this purpose, but nobody is laying claim to the scrap heap.
9. Hangman's Flamingo: Dark grey and silent, they hang from their feet in condemned buildings and covered alleyways, picking off spiders and rats, and giving trespassers a nasty fright.
10. Kestrellion: Small, white cloaked bird of prey that seems to have limited control over inferior birds. Will often sit at a vantage point and cause pigeons and gulls to fly straight into a dog or pony, before swooping in and delivering the killing blow to the weakened prey.
11. Sire of the Spires: Dove-like bird with distinctive grey/white triangle markings. No being can bring themselves to willingly harm these birds, and their growing population seems to favour temple roofs for their nests. 
12. Steward's Condor: Especially large, muscular breed of this already huge bird. Can glide, but not really able to take-off anymore. Bred as intimidating guard pets, they actually have a very gentle manner.
13. Mammoth Mynah: Horse-sized bird-of-burden known for imitating its owner in the most unflattering light. 
14. Mortar Pecker: Quick little red birds with a steely beak. Can be seen swarming over old buildings, gathering mortar from the brickwork to use in their sturdy nests. Can cause a building to collapse if left undeterred. 
15. Clubber Kite: Graceful, hovering bird of prey that has mastered the art of dropping rocks onto their prey. In Bastion they have adapted to dropping rocks on the heads of unaware street-food enthusiasts and scooping up the fallen kebabs and rice-balls. 
16. Limb Vulture: Stooped, flightless, and barely able to hold the weight of its huge, chomping beak. Will approach an already weakened victim before attempting to tear off a single limb to feed on. 
17. Bleeding Dove: Deep red with black eyes and beak. Bred for releasing at funerals as a more sombre alternative to white doves.
18. Reid's Heron: Unkempt black feathers and distinctive blue eyes. To attract mates, the males gather rough cuts of metal and scrape them together to create an atonal cacophony. The loudest and most unpleasant is the most successful at attracting a female.
19. Parallelican: A clumsy sea-bird that simultaneously exists above and below the surface. The airborn version scouts for fish while the underwater version scoops them up in its gaping maw. 
20. Patched Bucket-Head: A great crested sea-duck occasionally seen in Bastion's harbours. Stories tell of these ducks helping sailors to bail out water from sinking ships with their deep, broad bills. There's no record of this actually happening, but crews will often throw some scraps to them if they're seen at sea.
21. Green Owl: Always covered in a thick layer of moss, which they have adapted to cultivate as a means of camouflage. Always seen in pairs, tending to each others coats, which doubles as a secondary source of nutrition.
22. Immortal Canary: An unremarkable-looking variety of small yellow bird. They are completely immune to toxins and diseases, require no food or water, and don't even seem to age. If they do not suffer a violet death at the claws of a cat they could theoretically live forever. Nobody has yet managed to harness this ability, but they still fetch a vast price for those interested in such things.
23. Widow's Hoser: Fat, blue, trumpet-billed thing with a mournful cry. Often seen in cemeteries rummaging for grubs in the fresh earth. 
24. Trap Weaver: Bright yellow birds that craft elaborate nests out of twisted vegetation. This specific variety have adapted their nests to function as traps, springing shut when an intruder enters and suffocating them under the pressure.
25. Pink Egret: Long-legged beach-bird that each guard their own rock-pool aggressively. They cultivate their own food supply in their pool, even heading out to sea to bring in specific prey to breed. 
26. Hossbird: Cheery little blue bird with a distinctive, syncopated song. Horses in particular seem amused by them, so they often form a sort of symbiotic relationship where the bird cleans mites from the horse's main in return for a song.
27. Electro Grackle: Glistening indigo bird that seems attracted to large buildups of electromagnetism, often building their nests around pylons or generators. 
28. Coualing: Tiny beige birds, barely thumb-length, with black mask-like markings around their eyes. Descend on other bird's nests in packs to feed on their eggs and young and even tear apart the nest for materials. 
29. Linton's Partridge: Tragic-looking game bird. Formerly the official emblem of a luxurious boroughs. After one of these birds accidentally killed the mayor during a civil ceremony they were banished, but now these formerly pampered birds are usually seen begging for scraps.
30. Fairy-Rat: Resembles a colourful feathered rat, barely capable of frantic flight. Children believe that feeding it sweets will yield wishes, but all they have is a bacteria-ridden bite that tends to cause fevered delusions. 
31. Gutter Gull: Dirty white gulls that waddle through the gutters of Bastion, getting fat on spilled gravy and drunk on discarded beer, after which they usually become aggressive.
32. Creeper Finch: A wingless, four-legged little bird that excels at climbing walls and sneaking into open windows, raiding homes for scraps of bred or fruit.
33. Cowbird: Stubborn little owl that fights off any attackers with its deceptively sharp horns (d6). Always seems to build its nest in warm, cosy locations, where they annoy the existing residents with a low, constant, mooing hoot.
34. Lone Starling: Small black bird with a sharp bill. Instinct seems to draw them together, but they do nothing but squabble loudly, making them a real pest to be around. 
35. Caw Hen: Bright red chicken with strong talons allowing it to haul its flightless body up to perch on branches. Their eggs are delicious, with large buttery yolks, but the hen seems content to lay them straight from the branch to smash on the floor, so they are often carefully stalked, with a net ready to catch. 
36. Lobster Pigeon: Your standard grey vermin-bird, but this variety hides a grey-blue carapace under its feathers. It can't fly for long, but birds of prey hoping for an easy meal are usually deterred by its toughness.
37. Death Quail: Pale little flightless birds kept as pets by the fashionable. In day they enter a sleep so deep that they appear completely dead, but at night they are full of life, eagerly hopping about and gathering loose seeds, fruit, or carrion. 
38. Catterrail: Secretive little brown bird, flightless but with a keen beak it uses to catch mice and small rats. Rarely seen but appear to swarm out of the woodwork to deter any cats from entering their territory.
39. Gobbling Hawk: A ridiculous wattled head on a majestic golden body. This bird of prey casts a broad shadow, descending on dogs and even small donkeys to tear them apart in a gobbling frenzy.
40. Under-Turkey: A rare breed that makes its home primarily in the Underground. Smaller than a traditional turkey, but sporting a peacock-like spectrum of colours. They always know the way to the surface, and scurry towards there in case of danger. 
41. Robber's Duck: Black-headed duck with an iridescent body and golden bill. If placed in an unfamiliar location (such as a bank) they start to repeat a quacking snore noise, which causes other creatures (including humans) to get a sudden urge to sleep. 
42. Billy-Burra: Crooked little grey bird that bounds after large snails, spiders, and small lizards with its crunching beak. They all respond to their name (Billy) if called, so are often kept as pets and called out to deal with unpleasant creepy-crawlies in the house.
43. Sparroc: Fat, football-sized sparrow that seems to have eaten its way out of the food chain. Gorges on bread and especially pastry if it can find some discarded in the street. Predators look at them like somebody might look, over-faced, at a mountainous plate of mashed potato, before suddenly losing their appetite.
44. Toucawary: Huge blue sabre-billed birds known for their dramatic fights, which are part flyby-joust and part treetop-swordfight. Certain aristocratic families would keep a single Toucawary as their champion to fight against those of other families to settle minor disputes.
45. Faux Raven: Appears to be a normal raven at first, but these green-feathered birds have taken to dying their plumage in industrial waste to mimic a raven's appearance. Real ravens are too smart to fall for this, but let them stay nearby as a more tempting target to would-be predators.
46. Flighted Emu: They said it couldn't be done, but this gangly-legged bird has been bred with wings broad enough to fly, and a barrel-like chest to power them. Unfortunately, they only live a matter of months before their lungs give out.  
47. Oilbird: Tiny, needle-nosed hovering bird known for carefully lifting oil-caps from vehicles and machinery to feed on the engine oil within, which they eat exclusively to feed their ultra-high metabolisms. 
48. Wagging Warbler: Plump little gold and grey birds that have a thumping, rhythmic song. If startled they can combine their bassy thumps to produce a noise loud enough to shatter nearby glass and cause temporary deafness.
49. Pipebird: Slender kingfisher-like bird that wedges itself snugly into a pipe or a gutter, waiting for bugs to pass by before snatching them up. Considered one of the greatest causes of flooding and leaks in Bastion. 
50. Magnificent Bustard: Nobody has ever agreed on an emblematic animal for Bastion, but this strutting white fowl, with its golden moustache-like protrusion and bright red eyes was a good candidate. Unfortunately it was also delicious, so was hunted to extinction, or at least you thought so until you saw this one...