Eagle details (physical traits and capability)

[Miskord]

NO, no, don't de-tail an eagle! Leave my tailfeathers alone, dagnabit! ^^

Anyhoo ... SI files are great, but lack specificity. I had a conversation last night with RP staff, as the new MOTD was created in regard to reasonable IC travel times when I mentioned this character's first RP had transitioned from Cair Paravel to Aren Head. I know details are being worked out, but I was hoping to see some input from fellow eagle players to hopefully come up with standards for eagle dimensions and capabilities that aren't well specified in the SI files, so we're on the same page.

How long should flying between Cair Paravel and Aren Head take, on average? It would not be exactly the same day to day ... head wind or tail wind can make a great deal of difference, and of course foul weather can seriously douse range as then there is not only hostile wind but the weight of waterlogged feathers that can severely curtail range (and forget about hunting!). I would like to have a notion of reasonable flight times ... because I portray him as having an injured wing that will never fully heal, Miskord's flight times will be likely a bit longer than average, but it would really help to have a notion of baseline average travel time to go off, and we could all be on the same consistent page when scenes make such transitions. Flight times between Cair Paravel and Bergdale would also be good to figure, since several of us (Miskord included) have taken up residence in Bergdale.

Size and strength are other details I hope to see more specific detail on. Based on discussions thus far with Emilia (RP staff) and Farflight (fellow eagle), about man-sized (1.7-2.0 meters) seems reasonable which would be double a "real" eagle's stature of around 1 meter, so -- if that proposed standard is acceptable -- a Narnian eagle would reasonably be about the same height as an adult son of Adam and could see eye to eye with King Peter but would look up (if standing on the ground) to a centaur. I don't know an exact formula, but realistically, wingspans scale faster than height; that is, double the height would demand, realistically, more than double the wingspan; I don't really have a solid notion though of how much more than double. Real goldens have a wingspan of around two meters, plus or minus a third of a meter; a doubling would be a wingspan of four meters (more than thirteen feet), plus or minus two thirds of a meter; it may actually need to be quadrupled (7-9 meters, or 23-29 1/2 feet!).

Unfortunately, its not a direct translation 1:1 of size:strength, and strength is another matter ... how much could an average eagle reasonably lift? A dwarf? An adult son of Adam? Having a common specific standard baseline will help keep RP on the same page, adjusting for character specifics (Miskord would likely be below average for the burden he could carry, for instance).

Hopefully there's someone out there with smarts to work out how large wingspan and how strength scales with standing height.

Oh, and a hint some might not be aware of: among eagles, females are larger than males, and could probably lift more.

Thanks all for helping iron these things out, and thanks staff for working hard to work out details.

~~~

EDIT on 5-13-2012 - To help differentiate from the Council thread, I added specificity to the thread title

[Farflight]

Well, after a few minutes browsing Wikipedia about various species of Eagles and crunching some numbers It seems a average, (or at least median) ratio of Eagle wingspan to height is 1:2.5 Granted it ranges from around 2.3 to nearly 2.8, it seems to remain the same regardless of the size of the eagle. So I'd propose that we adopt that as a standard wingspan. Multiply your height by 2.5.
So a 6 foot eagle would have a height of 18 feet?
Hows that sound?

[Antheia]

I'm not totally sure what your discussion with Emilia entailed (hehe), but I should mention that the size of Eagles is based off the size of Owls in the books. Owls were able to carry children on their backs. I think a raptor bird would still generally be at least somewhat smaller than a human in body size. The wings would of course, still be huge. ^_^ Emilia or another staff member can contradict me on this, but it's probably important to remember that while they can carry children (in an emergency, although it didn't see TOO hard for the Owls), there's no evidence that they can carry a full-grown human.

[Petraverd]

As far as travel times - well, that's what borders are meant to represent. One border cross means approximately a day's travel. So going by foot, a trip to Cair Paravel from the Lantern waste would be about three days by the shortest route - the Upper Plains, the Lower Plains, then Eastern Narnia.

River borders and aerial borders (I think, not being a flier I've never really verified for myself) are only 'partial' borders, so in those instances, /two/ can be crossed to represent a day's travel. So for a flier, a trip from the waste to Cair Paravel would take two days rather than three - a flight to the Lower Plains in one day, and then complete the trip to Eastern Narnia the next.

Long story short, go by the borders. You cross one border, whether it's one 'full' border or two 'partial' borders, you've gone a day's travel.

As far as size and such, the only canonical example of a Narnian eagle, Farsight, is noted in LB to have occasionally spent some of his travel time perched on Puzzle's back - apparently not uncomfortably, either. That's something to keep in mind as well.

[Miskord]

Weight is another story. An eagle standing as tall as a man would weigh a lot less than a man, as eagles are built for flight, with smaller, hollow bones and the like. Real eagles stand as tall as a wolf and, while granted they aren't as big in overall volume, only weigh about one-tenth as much.

[Antheia]

True, but something the height of a man standing on the back of a donkey would be awkwardly top-heavy (or would serve like a sail).

[Lydia]

Keep in mind that some of this is already coded into the game. For each species, there are unique limits to how many heavy objects can be carried at once and how many bulky objects can be carried at once. Size, strength (for combat), and stamina are also different from species to species. With a few exceptions, it's reasonable to let this sort of thing guide your RP. Do you get "you can't lift that" or "your arms are full" messages when you try to pick something up? That can be a pretty good indicator of how much weight your character can carry for RP purposes. How about size? Are you unable to fit through small holes into shelters and homplaces? That would indicate that you're pretty big. Are you getting messages that say your character needs to rest when traveling? That's about as far as you can travel. Code does have its limits, so it's good to balance this out with common sense, but if you're looking for guidelines, it's a resource you can make use of, not just an annoying spam mechanism.

For what it's worth, eagles on NarniaMUCK are in the same size category as fauns, leopards, and apes. They're slightly bigger than dwarves, owls, dogs, and pigs. They're slightly smaller than humans, marsh wiggles, and wolves.

[Miskord]

Its not exacting. For one thing, eagles have no arms. For another, does it properly grant greater strength capacity to female eagles than males, to prime-of-life eagles over older, injured ones? Miskord would have less strength than Starsoar because she is female (and female eagles are larger and have more strength), and further because he is older and injured. If the MUCK coded systems really do take these things into consideration, I am genuinely impressed, but it still helps to know, as a player, what is reasonable for my character.

I am not fully comfortable with coded systems supplanting roleplay poses, and especially not for having a good idea in my head, as a player, the practical characteristics and limitations of my character. I do not consider the MUCK informing me that a character has entered the room I am in, for instance, to be an actual pose-in; I only regard a player actually posing their character into a scene to be a proper pose-in I can then pose my character reacting to. For another example, I never know when other players will be available to log on and roleplay, so I could be doing things such as practicing combat on targets in the Arena (which had been ICly suggested to Miskord by Skarlieth to regain his rusted skills) when another character logs on for a good potential for RP in Bergdale, Great Woods or somewhere a bit far; I honestly don't feel qualms about using MUCK commands to exit the arena, take off and pass through exits much more quickly to their location than would be ICly reasonable; if I did incorporate the activity (such as target practice in the arena) into the actual RP, I would of course make mention of the duration and exertion from the travel (or possibly explain it as something he ICly had done the day before).

[Miskord]

Also, curious question as Miskord ICly plans to attend an upcoming festival in Bergdale ... would an Eagle ever have a preference for prepared food, such as perhaps fish prepared with a certain herb or spice?

[Lydia]

Flexibility is going to be key here. RP isn't a science, so just like coded limitations don't cover every possible scenario, neither will a set of rules that are implemented purely through RP. The best way to come up with good, realistic RP is to use the coded limitations that the game provides and then apply your own research and common sense when putting them into practice.

What I'm trying to say is that it doesn't really need to be exacting. A lot of these specifics will wind up being idiosyncrasies, so how much an injured wing will affect flight or whether your character likes fish prepared with rosemary or thyme is not something that anyone else can really tell you, and it won't necessarily apply to the next character. No one is going to be upset if you say that your character took five hours to fly somewhere when it should really have been six. The big picture is what matters for good story arcs.