Ceratosaurus & Plesiosaurus

Ceratosaurus was always the dinosaur with a little extra—literally—with an unusual (for a theropod) horn and eye-ridges that gave it a star quality that the larger allosaurus lacked.  Small wonder then, that it’s been a staple of Saturday morning cartoons for decades.  And now it’s ready to be imported into your game, again with another little something extra (blood rage) to make it stand out.

Technically plesiosaurus isn’t a dinosaur, but why be picky?  Smaller than elasmosaurus, plesiosaurus adds a Lost World feel to aquatic encounters, from marshes to the open seas to deep underground in subterranean lakes and streams.  Pathfinder’s version, while only CR 2, is a superior ambusher that makes quick attacks and then retreats (ideally with a gobbet of adventurer flesh in its mouth).

Ceratosauruses are typically pack animals, so when Serissa found an abandoned youngling, the druid took it upon herself to raise him.  Now that the dinosaur is an adolescent, without a family group he becomes a target for bigger males who see him as a future rival.  Serissa needs adventurers who can help guard her pet until he can fend for himself or escort him to safer territory.

A deep mountain lake moves back and forth in time.  Locals know to avoid the crystal-blue loch, but a young boy new to the area goes wandering and vanishes.  Adventurers who go to rescue him risk being attacked by opportunistic plesiosauruses until they find the boy…who, due to the vagaries of time travel, is now 16 and living in the care of band of prehistoric grigs.

Seeking to get close to a rival, adventurers pose as gladiators in the Yellow Sands Arena.  The handler promises them a showstopping but secretly safe fight to help them build some notoriety.  This arrangement is a setup, though.  When the handler brings out the ceratosauruses the adventurers are to fight, he lashes the beasts with his scorpion whip to send them into a blood rage during the match.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 5 83

Styracosaurus & Velociraptor

(Image comes from the Paizo blog and is © Paizo Publishing.)

A star of dinosaur picture books for its horned frill, the styracosaurus in the Pathfinder game uses those horns in a devastating defense (up to five attacks of opportunity in a single round).  Meanwhile, the movie star velociraptor gets cut down to its paleontologically accurate size—only one-and-a-half feet tall—but with sickle-like claws and coordinated pack hunting, that’s still deadly enough when facing novice adventurers, particularly those who have never seen a dinosaur before.

Orcs love “spearshields”—their word for styracosauruses.  They goad their beasts into wherever the fighting is thickest, where the dinosaurs’ thrashing can have the most devastating effect.  Orcs paint the frills of their beasts in tribal colors, and knowledgeable adventurers can use this to figure out which tribe is currently in charge—or even to sneak through orc lands themselves, if they have a styracosaurus companion they can paint.

Velociraptors are a constant hazard in the Oni’s Tears, an archipelago favored by pirates, smugglers, spice merchants, and drug runners (the last two often being one and the same).  More than one ghost ship has turned out to be the result of a pack of velociraptors sneaking aboard and eviscerating the crew.

Drought has struck the White Eagle Desert for the third year in a row.  Now even traditionally healthy rivers are drying up.  To the rock gnome village of Mollawud, this means they are no longer protected on three sides by water.  The gnomes need help defending their homes and fields against the velociraptors that are now free to strike at them day and night.  If the adventurers instead try to help the gnomes move, they must defend them along the way against heat exhaustion, fire wolves, thylacines, bunyips, and their fever gnome kin.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 4 59

Man, you guys have gone nuts with the likes/reblogs this week.  Thanks!

I got several nice private notes from people reacting to this answer I posted two weekends back, and among the lines in one of them was the following:

I’d love for you to continue, as your posts are always fantastic inspiration for my own game, but it sounds like you’re getting a bit burned out.

To which my response was, “Oh noes!  Everyone thinks I’m burned out!”

If you read the other weekend’s post and thought that’s what I was saying, that’s my bad for leading you astray.  I am definitely *not* burned out on The Daily Bestiary—not at all; I could keep this up forever.  There’s just also all this other stuff I want to do too, and only 24 hours in a day.  It’s not a question of being burned out; it's a question of “How do I deliver the most awesome content I can and have fun doing it?”  Ideally I can do The Daily Bestiary *and* all that other stuff, but I also have to pay a mortgage and occasionally sleep, too.  So I’m just trying to figure out how to juggle all of that and still serve up the best entertainment I can, in whatever form it takes.

Which, by the way, is why you shouldn’t panic if I take chunks of the next two weeks off.  I’m hitting crunch time on several work projects and already know I’m working through the next two weekends.  (So instead of looking forward to a day off tomorrow, I’m looking forward to Day Six of a 19-day week—on the last two weekends of summer, to add insult to injury…and guess who had travel plans he had to cancel.  Sigh.)  We should be finishing up Bestiary 4 in the next two weeks, but since I can't guarantee I’ll have enough juice to post, I’ll instead use the time to catch up on some reader mail and otherwise work on my backlog.

See you in a week or two, and keep your eyes peeled in case I do any posting in the interim—I’ll keep you posted in the comments or over on Tumblr!

Dimorphodon & Diplodocus

Dimorphodon has a stupid name for an animal that should be labeled “amazing toothed toucan-pterosaur thing.”  It also makes a great animal companion.  Meanwhile, diplodocus gets the award for longest sauropod—with a 60-ft. whiplike reach to boot.

Climbing a sheer cliff, adventurers disturb a nest of dimorphodons.  Given the terrain, the flying pterosaurs have an advantage over the laden heroes.  Fortunately the flock is easily driven off so long as the adventurers don’t disturb the nest itself.  But the dimorphodons’ poisonous bites may make the rest of the climb difficult…and leave the party vulnerable to the entangling strikes of the assassin vine on the rocks above.

Dimorphodons are common pirate companions along the Wight Isles.  They're prized for being even flashier than parrots or toucans, as well as for wielding a bite whose poison can make the difference in a close fight.  It’s a buccaneer tradition to teach the dimorphodon (using the animal’s racial bonus trick) to snatch the hat off another pirate.  Doing so is a way to show you respect Wight Isle ways, and can get an outsider in good with a strange crew.

An adventuring company has been sparring with agents of the goddess of pain for months.  They are cleaning out her lushly appointed temple and gardens when the high priestess enacts the cult’s revenge.  She smashes an orb in the party’s presence and flees while the beast once trapped inside manifests.  It turns out there are whips and then there are whips…and long before the goddess became a deity of sybarites she was a far cruder orcish deity of retribution…which is why a full-sized, whip-tailed diplodocus manifests right in the middle of the city.

—Pathfinder Adventure Path #37 82–83 & Pathfinder Bestiary 4 58

Slightly more on the dimorphodon appears in Pathfinder Adventure Path #37: Souls for Smuggler's Shiv.  (I believe a few references also pop up in Animal Archive, but don’t quote me on that, since I’m at work and that book is tucked away in my nerd loft.  Which I should really post pictures of sometime.)

There’s just something about a hex map.  I don't care how gorgeous or authentically medieval the looser format of a Forgotten Realms or Golarion map is…I want my maps in 8, 24, and 40-mile hexes.  My brother used to stare at my Known World maps for hours, and he didn’t even play.  (In retrospect, I wish I hadn’t moved out right as he hit middle school.  His friends would have been awesome to GM for.)

Blogger is being cranky right now and won’t show me how I found this originally—through Bruce Heard somehow—but this map of Brun made me so happy.  And then I found this page.  If anyone needs me, I’ll be here for a while.

(Confidential to any Paizo staff who might come upon this: Hex map of one of the Golarion continents?  Like as a holiday download or a limited-run poster map?  Just a thought…)

Dimetrodon & Iguanodon

With their distinctive sails, dimetrodons are the charismatic megafauna of their clade.  (Seriously, how many other Permian animals can you name?  Okay fine, edaphosaurus; you’re very smart.)  In terms of ecological niche, think of them as crocodiles with their own HVAC systems installed.  Meanwhile, iguanodons get points for being discovered pretty much before any other dinosaur (except Megalosaurus hipsterus) and for having sweet thumb spikes.

The world tree Yggdrasil holds far more than the nine worlds.  Demirealms cling like mistletoe to its many branches.  In a swampy domain time lost to time, swamp korreds dance among the peat bogs and everglades.  They also happen to disdain outsiders even more than their highland kin.  One such korred offers to lead adventurers through the swamp.  As soon as it is close to a rock large enough to stone stride through, it unleashes a stunning laugh, attracting a hunting pack of dimetrodons who have learned such sounds promise helpless prey.

The nation of Belgroth is an unusual land where humans, kobolds, and awakened iguanodons dressed in courtly finery live in harmony.  Depending on their intelligence, the iguanodons are valued as judges, guards, and draft animals in carnivore and lizardfolk territory—all professions where a placid demeanor is useful in the course of day-to-day events, but the suggestion of a thumb spike through the eye never hurts.  Would-be thieves—including adventurers with cavalier attitudes toward breaking and entering—should be warned that iguanodons are herd animals, and that instinct to protect with violence extends to objects and buildings under their care.

Nemroth Green’s dimetrodon companion Pink has saved his life on numerous occasions.  Unfortunately, as the synapsid has grown in size (advancing from Medium to Large) it has become more aggressive.  Flashing its fuchsia sail in a mating display, the dimetrodon attacks objects it mistakes for rivals, including kite sellers’ carts, horses in brightly colored jousting caparisons, and pretty much any gnome’s hair.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 3 78

Belgroth is definitely my nod to James Gurney’s Dinotopia.  I should probably clarify I’ve never read the books.  I was a high school freshman when it came out, and I remember looking at the pictures in Waldenbooks and realizing my mind would have been beyond blown if only they’d been published 10 years earlier.

I’ve mentioned this before, but as a Belgian by accident of birth, I’m irrationally fond of the iguanodon for Belgium-related reasons.

I am indebted to today’s entry for introducing me to Dinosaurs! WTF?, a blog fighting the good fight for humanity.

I am also super-aware that I am super-behind on reader comments.  Over the long weekend, hopefully? 

As we count down toward Turkey Day, another equally beloved holiday took place this past weekend: Skanksgiving on The New Indie Canon!

With the help of WMUC alumn, former Rudie Patootie host, and ska aficionado Amanda Gaines, this Saturday we abandoned the usual indie rock, pop, and folk to serve up two hours of first, second, and third wave ska to all you hip turkeys.  Here’s the link (good through Friday, 11/28, at midnight)—this is definitely one you’re going to grab as an mp3. 

(Forgive the mic levels—I’m too loud; Amanda’s too soft—but there’s only so much we could know/do with the tech we had.)

You can find more Skamanda on Twitter at @argaines.  She’s also got a blog at rudietuesdays.wordpress.com that she is admits she hasn't updated recently, but which I secretly love because the last update features my too-soon-departed friend Josh.  Special thanks to Aaron Smith and Robert Marbury (whose just-released book on taxidermy art will make a gorgeous Christmas gift) for helping me dig up some phenomenal old-school tracks.

Triceratops & Tyrannosaurus

Image courtesy of artisticlicensetokill; see below.

These are the big ones: the two dinosaurs everyone knows (especially since they’re so often pictured dueling each other).  If dinosaurs exist in your world, it’s not a question of if the party ranger is going to want one of these as an animal companion; it’s when.

Meanwhile, though, let’s give you some excuses to sic them on your players.

The kasatha matadors of Barsca laugh at the notion of bullfighting.  These nimble, four-armed jumpers instead test their skills against enraged triceratopses.  Criminals and outsiders who wish an audience with the Saber Chief are often expected to take part as picadors.

A kapre wishes to drive adventurers away from the as-yet-unspoiled Rainbow Falls.  The wooden-faced plant entity blows smoke on the adventurers and exposes them to its confounding aura, then drives a tyrannosaurus into their midst to scatter them.

After being awakened, a tyrannosaurus uses its newfound intelligence to ensure a more reliable food supply through banditry, extortion, and mercenary work.  Its most recent contract is with Crescent Mining, a company of wereboars currently gutting the jungle east of Portage Lagoon.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 86

My original adventure seed for the tyrannosaurus was, “A tyrannosaurus has been awakened—and taught the law.”  If any of you brave readers are up for it, I would love to see your adventure seeds starring T. Rex, Esq.

Pteranodon & Stegosaurus

You cannot have a Lost World adventure that does not involve a pteranodon encounter.  Those are The Rules™.  (Said encounter will likely take place aboard ship, against a crumbly cliff face, or in the pteranodon’s nest.  Again: The Rules™.)  Obviously, a little tinkering with the stats will get you a good pterodactyl, quetzalcoatlus, etc. 

And the stegosaurus is probably most like any bull or other large dangerous ungulate—herbivorous, but you don’t want to piss it off.  Of course, given that stegosauruses make good animal companions for cantankerous druids, you might as well call them “spike beasts” and resign yourself to fighting them sooner or later.

The Impossible Canyon separates the continents of Alm and Berowar, and on Alm’s side time has stood still, creating a preserve where dinosaurs and troglodytes still roam.  The canyon cannot stop the flight of pteranodons, though, and the flying reptiles are a menace for up to 100 miles into Berowar.  Shepherds must learn to fend them off the way other farmers fend off wolves and drakes, and many a thatched roof has been ruined by a resting pteranodon.

Hobgoblins in wooded areas cannot rely on ankylosauruses like their hill and canyon-dwelling cousins—the squat beasts are too bulky and slow. Stegosauruses (“spike tails”) handle the underbrush better and do even more damage with their terrifying tail sweeps.

The nagaji of Nagarra regard pteranodons as honored spirits.  The tops of their temples feature hollows to allow pteranodons to roost, and watchful garudas sometimes send pteranodons to aid good nagaji in times of crisis.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 85

I love that even with only 50 words of room, Paizo knew it had to clarify that pteranodons are not technically dinosaurs.  Clearly they know their audience.

I’m currently reading Greg A. Vaughan’s River Into Darkness.  If you don’t have that or the Tome of Horrors, I bet a half-dragon pteranodon would make a good dragonnel.

Speaking of dinos, my last two Sundays in a row at the gym have found me watching Lost World-type movies—1975’s The Land That Time Forgot and the terrible Will Ferrell Land of the Lost.  Needless to say, I enjoyed myself immensely.

So…what on Earth do you play on the radio after the Worst Week Ever™?  A lot of Dar Williams, apparently.  Download it.

(Sometimes the feed skips, so for best results let the file load in Firefox or Chrome, Save As an mp3, and enjoy in iTunes. Link good till Friday, 4/26, at midnight.)

 

Also, hope you all had a good Record Store Day.  Mine was decent, and I had a great waiting-in-line partner…but I did not get the swirly Porno for Pyros vinyl I wanted.  Sad face.

Parasaurolophus & Tylosaurus

The parasaurolophus is one of the most distinctive species of duck-billed dinosaurs.  They will mostly leave PCs alone, but they make good companions and even mounts for certain exotic characters.  The tylosaurus is a terrifying marine mosasaur PCs would do well to avoid.

A warren of elite troglodytes appears to have a back entrance, hidden among the rocks of a subterranean beach.  Parties that attempt this route will find it guarded by a tylosaurus that surges out of the water to attack. 

The services of a witch can be attained by bringing her a dozen parasaurolophus eggs—preferably without harming the breeding stock.  To fetch them, adventurers must fend off the angry mother dinosaurs and the egg-eating wyverns that come to feast on the nests.

A saurian shaman (see Ultimate Magic) and her tylosaurus companion terrorize local villages away from a sacred spring.  Despite her aggressive demeanor, her cause is noble: she guards the life of a dying nixie queen.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 2 91

GMs beware—since tylosaurus has a land speed (and is no slower than a dwarf), your players will try to convince you that their tylosaurus companion can go into the dungeon.  They weighed 30,000 pounds.  The answer is no. 

Since parasaurolophus is a pretty standard hadrosaur, you an also use its stats for the lambeosaurus, corythosaurus, maiasaura, and saurolophus.  But not the trachodon.  That guy is taxonomically suspect. 

Also, I hear he’s a douche.

Oh!  Wikipedia tells me, “The family Hadrosauridae was first used by Edward Drinker Cope in 1869.”  I may have mentioned this before, but one of my best friends lived for several years in Cope’s old house in Philly.  There was a sign outside and everything.  I pretty much lost my s--- with excitement every time I visited.

Man, now all I want to do is search the Internet for pictures of douchey trachodons.  Seen any?

Oh (part deux)!  Tomorrow is my birthday.  Since it’s also my radio show (10–noon, U.S. Eastern), why not celebrate with your ears?

Pachycephalosaurus & Spinosaurus

Ah, pachycephalosaurus…the football player of the dinosaur kingdom. 

And ah, spinosaurus…the “Sweet Desna’s dinnerware, it’s headed straight for us!” of the dinosaur kingdom.

Actually, in the real world it’s potentially the largest carnivorous land animal ever.  Remember the spinosaurus snapping the neck of the tyrannosaurus in Jurassic Park III?  Yeah, that was pretty awesome.  Want to scare your players?  Have one “rescue” them by eating a dragon right in front of them.

While pachycephalosauruses are normally encountered in pairs, they gather in great groups during mating season, where the males butt heads together in a manner reminiscent of elk—only much, much louder.  When a fighter’s brightly polished shield and helm attracts their attention, they think he is another male come to join the joust, and they react accordingly…

Adventurers fleeing a spinosaurus take to the water to escape, only to find that the river is shallow enough for the dinosaur to follow them by walking along the riverbed.  They also find that it can hold its breath for over an hour and a half…

A nation of preserved serpentfolk—mummies, liches, and even some lucky living members roused from torpor—awake to find their once-verdant delta is now the edge of a desert ruled by feeble humans.  Determined to retake the land and irrigate it back to health, they recall from the deep past their favorite war steeds: a pack of spinosauruses.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 3 79

You can also look up how much a spinosaurus companion costs in Animal Archive.  But if you have to ask…yup, you can’t afford it.

We’ve reached the letter P!  Huzzah.  My 1e and 2e D&D fans…heck, even my 3.0/3.5 fans…please bear with me for the next week or two.  A lot of the P monsters are new names you won’t have seen in the Monster Manual.  But there’s a purple worm on its way, I promise.

Tomorrow, I have more things to say.  Also music.  I promise that, too.  But tonight, sleep.  Cool with you?  Please let that be cool with you.

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

Ankylosaurus & Brachiosaurus

These classic herbivores are good encounters on their own or in the company of humanoid companions.

A xenophobic saurian shaman (Ultimate Magic 39–40) rides an ankylosaurus and opposes intrusions into her land.  While aggressive, protecting herself and her beast is always her first priority, as evidenced by her totem transformation power of scales.

The colony of Farthest Grange seeks to be an outpost of light (and profit) on a dark jungle continent.  Unfortunately, they’ve broken ground in the path of the brachiosaurs’ annual migration, and the savage halfling herders who tend them are notoriously unsympathetic to tall folk.

Hobgoblins call ankylosaurs “armor beasts” after their plated hides, and ride them into battle as living troop breakers and siege weapons.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 83

Allosaurus & Compsognathus

Allosauruses are T. rex’s Jurassic progenitors, while Pathfinder’s compsognathuses likely owe their venomous bites to Jurassic Park.  Their ability to serve as animal companions and familiars, respectively, increases the likelihood of PCs encountering them.

Adolphus Mexartus is mounting an expedition to capture one of the famous indigo allosaurs of the Maar Jungle.  Along the way, he will have to brave disease, vampire bat swarms, and the light-displacing zebrafolk of the plains.

No one noticed the mating pair of compsognathuses sneak onto the Santa Ilsia.  Once their young hatched, the dinosaurs quickly overcame the crew.  Now a ghost ship, the Santa Ilsia and its hungry passengers are soon to float into the harbor at Fort Marcos.

Not all dinosaurs are found in lost worlds and hidden valleys.  Certain troglodyte druids raise allosaurus companions from the shell to protect their most sacred caverns.  Feeding the beasts is an effort usually left to humanoid slaves.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 2 90