Yes, it's a messed up situation when they give you a combat animal - it certainly doesn't get by on its looks - yet diminish its full potential through some nonsense regarding food...or lack of it for far more gold than you can earn with the beast.
This may be why the Bane became one of those must-have popular fighting beasts that now sits idle in most stables. That "peckish" message is infuriating. Yes, it gets all excited and marvelously happy when you feed it one of those Dragon energy bars (the insipidly named Tasty Treat) but that's largely a strength potion. It allegedly gives the dragon twenty minutes of 5% more power with what they call a five minute cool down period. Yeah, as if fighting were like going to the gym or playing sports.
If that early Monday/late Friday conjured up name and thing didn't only come from treasure chests and, perhaps, drops (though I doubt anyone would be "Wonderfully Happy" finding something called a Tasty Treat drop into their backpack), were simply an inexpensive NPC provisioner or player cook item, okay. Nope, it goes for a very high price. Given its source, it should.
My guess is that 99% of them are among the junk items left behind when you rummage through the culmination of that fool's errand commonly called the Treasure Hunt. Unless you have this knowledge of their use (and who, except a few, does), own a Bane, and think it's worth the time while you're digging through looking for those one or two things truly worth the effort, it's left to sit and rot....much like the Bane Dragon....well...with UO animals they go into stasis.
Yes, I find the matter annoying. What should have been an interesting and useful creature is now rarely seen where I go (Chesapeake and Lake Austin) even in those vanity parking lots people call Luna Bank.
The Dread is better but unavailable new. Stats be damned, the Blaze Cu is going for five hundred dollars on the gray market. Any good Cu of any color a more useful and versatile choice, plus it has the advantage of not being a reptile and the chronic stupidly and fickleness that can accompany nearly all of them, save the often over-matched, been keenly intelligent, Hiryu. If only they didn't cut their stats by nearly two thirds when tamed (I've lored some at nearly 1500 hit points) the Bane would go the way of the Ki-Rin or the Fire Steed.
Magnificent vision too. Sometimes if feels a if merely a leaf or twig blocks the view of some reptile pets. All a Hiryu needs a bare glimpse of the enemy to attack, plus they possess a splendidly animated physique.....not this twitching stick nonsense you have with Banes and Swampy Dragons.
But I digress. If not for the the unimaginatively named Greater Dragon, the pet situation would be far more interesting, tasty treats or a stew full of rocks notwithstanding. After all, is there a any more absurd sight in the game than a player walking around with a GD in tow like a construction worker leading around a bulldozer on foot. I laugh whenever I see it. I feel silly whenever I do it.
Jonathan