What do you think about a nightingale as heartbeast for a Bjornaer Maga?
The size should be -9, I think, so the animal is smaller than -7 and should not be allowed. The reason for the limitation in HoH:MC (p. 20) is: animals smaller than size -7 are not "noble".
In my eyes, a nightingale, especially her singing, could be seen as "noble". It is the bird of love, so why not? I´m apt to allow this heartbeast.
HoH:MC states, that a storyguide can allow heartbeasts smaller than size -7, but "the Dwarf Flaw should be obligatory". Do you see a reason for this? O.K., small Bjornaers tend to have small heartbeasts, accepted... but: "obligatory"? If you have size 0, you can have heartbeasts from size -7 till size +3. The size difference is immense. Now, if your heartbeast isn´t a bird (size-7), but a small bird (size -9), you have to be a dwarf. I don´t know, if I like this rule.
Do you think I should exert my influence as storyguide, to change the size of the Bjornaer Maga to a dwarfish -2?
No problem with it being a nightingale. if you want flaws I would go for fragile constitution and small frame more than dwarf. Dwarf does not fit the concept at all. But you should be able to have a nightingale heartbeast without neither of those. What I do not see is she having positive stamina, but that is me and how I tend to see hermetic minmaxing (positive stamina and negative strength all around).
You may want to check out a thread on the exact same subject here. At the end Mark Shirley (the author of the Bjornaer chapter in HoH:MC) suggests that nightingales should be size -8 and allowed as heartbeasts, Small Frame (rather than the more extreme Dwarf) being a reasonable Flaw for the human form.
Nah, same here.I see no issues with allowing it. I guess the restriction was there to prevent what is called vermin to be taken as heartbeasts, but since a lot of birds are really small, the scale can fail there even if it is adequate for land and water animals.
Yes, thank you very much, this is nearly the same question, indeed. Now I´ve read some opinions and feel better. I´ll talk about small frame with the player, but if she doesn´t like the idea, I´ll let her take the nightingale nonetheless.