Revenge of Appendix Three: Giant Nether Hamsters

Continuing with more filler posts until the WoD alpha gets rolling again! This time we have another of my old “Revenge of Appendix Three” posts reposted here. I particularly enjoyed writing this one. The original text after the jump.

The all-purpose, powerful and dangerous beast, a fruit of long years of extensive magical and zoological research. Ladies and gentlemen, I present you:

GIANT NETHER HAMSTERS

When the gnomes started preparing for the expedition to the White Lady, the general consensus was that Gnomeregan needs a powerful beast that could help their forces and serve gnome hunters, as some special senses of an animal can’t be replicated by technology yet. Gnomish council spent weeks on conferences how to choose that beast. They finally decided that such a beast must be the most durable, ferocious and cunning animal they can possibly find on Azeroth. And then they started breeding hamsters anyway.

Light only knows why or who approved the hamster breeding programs, but it happened. After extensive breeding, several variants of a creature termed “giant nether hamster” were produced. The most common was a brown bear-sized, fragile, timid creature whose only real advantage was its powerful teeth. Once the rockets were ready to launch and the mistake was discovered it was too late and the High Tinker decided to go on with the plan. Soon after the landing, numerous ranches were planted on the moon’s surface. Since then, the gnomes researched into every possible use for the giant nether hamsters – whether as beasts of burden, combat pets, mounts or even source of food.

Giant nether hamsters were since found out to be a good energy source. By putting them in a wheel, they can produce tremendous power by simply running inside it. Unfortunately, huge amounts of food they consume provide some logicistical issues. Nevertheless, gnomes have since taken quite a liking to those weird and unusual beasts and used them extensively. Unfortunately, natives of the White Lady were not very keen on the idea of those cute creatures being “enslaved” by the gnomes and tried turning them against their masters numerous times.

NOTABLE POWERS:
Cute Charm: Giant nether hamsters have learned humanoids have certain weakness for them and abuse this fact. This spell works like Tame Beast, except in reverse – if the spell finishes channeling, the humanoid is mind controlled and directed away from the beast.
Monstrous Bite: The bite of GNH’s teeth is almost as powerful as devilsaur’s, reducing healing received by the target.

NOTABLE BREEDS:
Ridable Giant Nether Hamster: This sturdy variety of a GNH can occasionally burst into speeds twice as fast as any regular ground mount, but becomes barely controllable during the stretch.
Sabertooth Giant Nether Hamster: This particular hamster’s front teeth are even bigger than usual and can be used for terrible, terrible damage.
Invisible Giant Nether Hamster: These GNHs are permanently invisible and can be targeted only by Area of Effect spells.
Armor Plated Giant Nether Hamster: This breed sports a rhino-like plated skin which greatly increases its endurance.
Carnivorous Flying Giant Nether Hamster: This particular breed possesses bat-like wings and a taste for humanoid meat.
Two-Headed Fel-corrupted Bombardier Giant Nether Hamster: These GNHs can attack twice as fast as normal, quickly regenerate their wounds and can belch loudly enough to stun everyone around them.
Fire-breathing Phase Doppleganger Giant Nether Hamster: Definitely to be avoided. This rare breed can not only breathe fire for massive damage, it can also phase in and out of material plane to sneak up on its enemies.
Tyrannohamsterus Rex: This immense GNH has absolutely no attacks whatsoever, unless it runs in fright and steps on someone. Any display of magic, fire, bright light, loud noise, etc., frightens this beast, which then crashes through all terrain features for miles in its panic to escape.
Wooly Rupert: Raid boss level beast. This unique individual was bred with almost all of the abilities possessed by the aforementioned breeds. It was said to be originally very timid and kept in personal custody by High Tinker Mekkatorque but after the betrayal of Tinkmaster Geargrind it was abducted from the Gnome-Dome and delivered to the ruined Titanic tower Geagrind is using as his base of operations. Light only knows what foul experiments is he performing on the poor beast to further enhance it as a guardian against enemies trying to penetrate his sanctum.
Miniature Giant Nether Hamster: Identical to a regular hamster, this small breed has been favored as a companion pet by their breeders.

AS HUNTER PETS:
Giant Nether Hamsters are tamable by hunters as Rodents, which are a Cunning family and possess a following skill:
Cute Charm: Charms the target, preventing all actions for up to 30 seconds. Any damage caused will break the effect. Can only be used against humanoids.