Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Deinonychus & Elasmosaurus

The terrors in Jurassic Park may have been called velociraptors, but any real dino-lover will tell you they were deinonychuses.  Meanwhile, elasmosaurs are your go-to monsters for Lost World lakes and fantasy Loch Nesses.

A party of wood elves follows the tracks of a large flightless bird, collecting iridescent feathers along the way.  They are stunned when they discover a feathered deinonychus instead, which then takes a turn hunting them.

The presence of impossibly large water beasts in highland lochs, while rare, is still too common to be mere chance.  Most are water orms, aquatic relatives of the linnorms whose fey-touched magical talents aid them in travel and in escaping detection.  But some are elasmosaurs and plesiosaurs, true relics from another age.  Here the fey are more directly responsible: gangs of korreds, ancient in the ways of stone, tarn, and turf, who know how to call the reptiles across time through the thin places in the world with their droning pipes.

An undine druid guards the only passable ford in a stretch of jungle cataracts.  His elasmosaurus companion awes both the local lizardfolk, who call the reptile the Wise River Mother, and the neighboring human headhunters, who have named the water man and his beast taboo to hunt.

Pathfinder Bestiary 84

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