Dextyr,
Thanks for the questions! These are asked a lot so it's great to answer them in the forum where everyone can see and access the answers.
How much more adept at manipulating objects are talking animals than regular animals?
They have more adeptness in that they have more human-like reasoning in their ability to manipulate things. However, they are entirely bound by their physical forms. For instance, Dextyr is a dog. So, she would not be able to manipulate cooking gear or weaponry and would wear little to no clothing (probably none). BUT if the need arose, she could probably very rudimentarily cook something for like, a dying human friend who needed a meal. If this were to happen it might not be super sanitary because she does not have dexterous (pardon the pun) paws-- so for instance she would probably have to drag a piece of meat into the fire by her mouth in order to cook it. There should be few to no cases in which this is necessary. Off the top of my head, the only example of a human-like quality a dog might need is the ability to put on and wear a pack. This you CAN do, but even so I would discourage it if possible because most dogs don't have any NEED for a pack since they can easily hunt food at any time and don't generally need money or clothes or candles (in fact they couldn't use a candle even if they did need one). Petria, who is a letter-carrier for Cair Paravel, probably does wear a pack because she has no other good way of carrying letters about.
Other animals are much more dexterous and their human reasoning skills can make them able to do far more human tasks. Otters, Bears, Badgers, Monkeys, Mice, Squirrels-- anything that regularly stands up on its hind legs in the wild is probably going to be able to do some more human things than it would normally. This is especially true for animals that have something resembling an opposable thumb. For instance, in the books, Mice can wield swords and sometimes wear pieces of clothing. They are largely an exception, however, and we usually go to the quote from Trufflehunter in Prince Caspian which reads "The Badger could have had the same [gifts of armor and weapons] if he had liked, but he said he was a beast, he was, and if his claws and teeth could not keep his skin whole, it wasn't worth keeping". Essentially we think of it like this: beasts are practical creatures. Though they now have self-awareness and others-awareness, they still continue to serve the general function they were made to. So, a beast with claws will use its claws. A beast with teeth will use its teeth. A beast with horn and hooves will use horn and hooves. The dexterous beasts might eat cooked food, since that precedent is set by the Beavers, but they don't need to, and probably don't eat cooked food very often without human guests.
Would a talking animal ever keep a non-talking animal as a pet?
No. Again, this is mostly a practicality issues. In the middle ages, pets were kept to become food, to scare away threats, and to eat mice. Talking Beasts don't raise livestock, they can handle threats on their own or rely on their Beast friends to help (in Lantern Waste the weaker Beasts rely on the help of the Wolves and Unicorns for instance), and they probably don't mind mice!
How does a talking animal's life span compare to that of a regular animal?
This is a LONG debated topic of discussion, probably from the beginning of the MUCK's existence. The problem is that some Real World beasts live as long as humans already, whereas others live only two or three years on average.
There have been several proposed solutions to this. The most thorough are a bit of a headache and the least thorough don't make sense on a large scale. I will give you the two that
I find easiest, but please know that not all staff agrees on what is best and not all players follow either of these rules. I feel strongly enough in favor of them that I am willing to recommend them, however.
The practical/simple answer:
The length of life works like dexterity. That is to say, now that Beasts are civilized and reasoning, they don't suddenly gain magical extended life properties. However, they do tend to live out to their potential life lengths, in the same way that as medicine has advanced, humans live out closer to our potential life length. So, if the average life-span of a Real World Wolf is 10 years, but they sometimes live up to 18 years in the Real World, then the average life span of a Wolf in Narnia might be 18 years.
The humanoid answer:
The previous answer was very practical, but in the Magician's Nephew it's clear that animals DO get some human characteristics (large animals get a little smaller, small animals get larger-- all changing size to be somewhat closer to humans). It would make sense, then, for Talking Beasts to have a more human-like age, then, too. Certainly, Reepicheep was an adult when Prince Caspian was a boy and still alive and extremely active 4 years later in Voyage of the Dawn Treader, despite the fact that the RECORD for mouse life-length is 7 years, with most mice, even as pampered pets, only living up to age 5. The simplest solution that I have heard to this conundrum is this: take the average lifespan (in captivity if possible) of your animal, and double it. If the doubled number goes above the age of 60 (which is slightly under the human average), stop it there.
Wild People (fauns, centaurs, dryads, etc) ages are a whole other can of sardines that perhaps we will open at a later date....
Posted: Fri Sep 30, 2011 7:02 pm