The Blink Mammoth, legend or fact?
Well, I can happily confirm, that not only are they a part of official Dungeons & Dragons
lore, they came from the same source as the Pink Dragon, issue 156 of Dragon Magazine,
the Blink Wooly Mammoth was created by Sharon Jenkins and originally thrived in subarctic
plains, only a few herds migrated around a huge area and it was rare to find them, they
are semi intelligent herbivores with excellent memory, keen navigation instincts and the
same sort of power of teleportation that blink dogs have, except the range seems more limited
and the targeting is both less precise and far more effective because of it.
The first wooly blink mammoths were driven almost to extinction for the tremendous value
of their tusks, the ivory is worth fifty percent more than ordinary ivory due to how dense
and heavy it is, making it much more durable, each tusk can fetch 900 gold to the right
buyer, but it was actually tribal horsemen, humans and orcs who almost live on horseback
across the endless wastes, who nearly hunted the last herds for their very best ivory tipped
recurved bows.
These days the horse lords settle for very good antler tipped bows and most blink mammoths
can be found only in exotic environments and far flung locations, often modified over many
centuries by their travels and the experiences of their herds, including the great many who
became the subject of mad wizard experimentations... and there have been quite a few, thanks to
wizards always trying to please their martial allies with ever more bizarre and dangerous
battle mounts.
It's not impossible to ride a blink mammoth and yes, they can teleport with someone riding
them, within reason, about the largest rider they could manage would be a minotaur or firbolg
character but for blink mammoths teleporting is instinctual for them, so they may attempt
to do so at the wrong moment and end up teleporting without their rider, which would be increasingly
more likely the more often they are forced to teleport in one day, a process which they
find much more tiring than the blink dogs seem to, also the blink dogs are far more
agile teleporters than the mammoths, with a shorter range and capacity, but higher number
of blinks possible over time.
Blink mammoths teleport as a reflex, they generally teleport a short distance, around
60 feet and land in an almost random location at their target destination, well they used
to, but I found the dice mechanic for that was overly complicated and let's face it,
the mammoth is trying to crush the target and they teleport every day so, it should
be a bit more accurate I think.
Anyway, here is what I came up with, its simple and intuitive I think.
Previously, each round that a blink mammoth is within 60 feet and antagonized or dangerously
startled, you would roll 1d12, on a result of 5 or higher, they teleport, you then roll
1d12 again to determine where they land, on a 1 it is in front of the creature, on 2 it
is on the left front side of the creature, on 3 the right front side of the creature,
on 4 to 8 the mammoth lands immediately behind the creature, on 9 to 12 to mammoth lands
directly on top of the creature.
Instead I just make it more of a reliable attack for the mammoth.
The creature the blink mammoth teleports on top of must make a DC15 Dexterity saving throw
for half damage; otherwise, the creature takes 4d8+7 bludgeoning damage and will be knocked
prone.
You could make it more interesting in that small creatures make the saving throw with
disadvantage on the roll, medium creatures save as per usual and large creatures save
with advantage?
Blink mammoths don't hesitate to stomp on downed creatures within range, so expect an
unconcious creature to get a deadly beat down, particularly from bull blink mammoths at the
start of breeding season when they are half out of their minds on breeding season hormones.
Blink mammoths don't really need to charge and it often takes a little time to teleport
again, so they are better suited to close combat using those impressively heavy and
very durable tusks, which are massive and have a lot more speed behind all that power
than you would expect, blink mammoths can take out reasonably sized trees if motivated.
For the most part though, they are not creatures that go out of their way to get into fights,
they just tend not to back down from one.
Migration for the herd is constant and they tend to travel between known planar portals,
in fact, they have a remarkable ability to sense or perhaps remember exactly when a magic
portal is does to become active again, due to some cosmic event, precise time of the
year, that sort of thing, if they sense a portal open near them, they will always go
to investigate it.
This can result in an unexpected rescue for planar travellers who leap through an active
portal only to run smack bang into a wall of massive furry mammoths who start to pop
out of existence and reappear again in dangerously random places, if whatever monster was chasing
you decides to chase you through that portal, the blink mammoths are most certainly going
to attack the threat, so, be careful not to harm or seem threatening to the mammoths and
you should be fine.
Just try not to get pancaked by a falling mammoth in the resulting chaos.
Mammoths never went totally extinct on the world of Toril, they have been around since
the ancient days of thunder and co-existed with humans in largely the same territory
back when the scaled folk rose to form their first great empire.
Their numbers were lowest toward the end of the elven crown wars, where the creatures
were faced with massive loss of habitat and being captured by the elven forces to be used
as war beasts and living seige weapons.
It is unknown if the blink mammoth was created by use of magic, or if they occured naturally
within the mammoth population on worlds rich with magical power.
They are very hardy creatures considering their size, they have large domed heads, small
ears and tail, thick wooly fur and other adaptations to surviving in frozen environments, the average
shoulder height is close to ten feet tall and they can weigh around six tons, so you
would think they must need to eat tons of vegetation every day, well, they are pretty
clever eaters, they will munch their way through any flowering plants such as sunflowers and
milkweeds, then graze on the most nutritious stuff they can get to easily and then work
their way down to the less nutritious woody plants, so they tend to eat very efficiently
and if they need to move on quickly, they have already gotten the best food available
in the area before moving on.
Adult blink mammoth reach breeding age by around age 12 to 15, females are able to become
pregnant once every 15 weeks or so, however they usually produce offspring once every
three or four years, the calves spend the first three months feeding on the mother's
milk, they tend feed on adult dung which contains all the microbes and fungus they need to have
a functional digestive system and have teeth though enough to start grazing next
to the adults.
The blink mammoth can live around fifty years but a generation for blink mammoths is considered
to be around 20 years.
Their habit of investigation planar portals has not just saved them from extinction, it
has made them into a truly multiversal migrating grazing mammal, there is a massive variety
of them out there, you never know where they have been or what interesting quirks they
may have picked up over time.
Oh yes, it is possible to cross breed different blink mammoths, but they can't breed with
elephants any more through natural means.
About the only predators the blink mammoths have are super predators such as humanoids
and dragons, they may have calves taken by smaller predators such as big cats, they will
most likely seek out the pack leader of the predators responsible for this murder and
take that pack leader out in an effort to disuade the other predators from trying that
again.
Most predators avoid blink mammoths like the plague though.
My name is AJ Pickett, I make videos about Dungeons & Dragons lore, as always thanks
for listening and I will be back with more for you, very soon.