Variants for animal-based monsters

[TigerT20]

There are quite a number of monsters in D&D that pull from animals. Gnolls, lycanthropes, minotaurs, satyrs, grungs, the list goes on and on.

However, very very few will fit into all environments and worlds, meaning using them can cause them to stick out a bit - if you use gnolls in a tundra or grungs in a desert without reason, at least one player will have some questions to ask. So I've made this thread to ask; what variants have you used, or could see yourself using? Do you make any changes to the creature when you change them (ie replacing Rampage with flight for vulture gnolls)?

[Hellpyre]

I'd usually use different monsters. Feel free to use the stat-block and refluff the enemies, by all means, but why try to shoehorn in specific thematics if they don't fit. Or have the original monster, displaced from its usual environment by a bigger, scarier beast.

[JackPhoenix]

I've been using gnoll stat blocks for Warhammer beastmen, with the bite being replaced by horn gore.

[TigerT20]

I'd usually use different monsters. Feel free to use the stat-block and refluff the enemies, by all means, but why try to shoehorn in specific thematics if they don't fit. Or have the original monster, displaced from its usual environment by a bigger, scarier beast.

The issue stems from the fact that I'm about to DM a game in a very different region to most, and wanted to actually let the animals of that region actually infuence it's monsters. Then I decided that rather than make it all about me, I'd open up the thread to everyone.

So for example, why are people in Not-Australia turning into werewolves and not weredingos? Especially if that's the entire focus of the campaign, and there isn't any Not-Europe for wolves to even live in? But then shouldn't the stats needs some tweaking, to represent the difference between wolves and dingos?

I don't see what you mean by this being shoehorning in specific thematics. For my example in the op, I used another scavenger rather than say, a mouse. How are vultures that much more themaically different from hyenas? The entire point of the thread was to find the thematic animals in different enviroments.