Ok, let me just start by saying I LOVE dinosaurs and most any other prehistoric beastie. But I have flatly stated in my homebrew that dinosaurs (though other some other ancient life forms, mostly mammals, exist). One of my players wants to explore the mythical "inner world" of our campaign setting, and he expects to see dinosaurs.
So do I go back on the houserule of no dinos or include them? The prehistoric inner world trope is pretty well established in adventure fiction. I've considered populating it with aberrations and magical beasts instead, but it wouldn't have the same flavor.
This one stumbling block is keeping me from progressing with writing the adventures for the campaign arc. Any hints or advice out there?
Ok, let me just start by saying I LOVE dinosaurs and most any other prehistoric beastie. But I have flatly stated in my homebrew that dinosaurs (though other some other ancient life forms, mostly mammals, exist). One of my players wants to explore the mythical "inner world" of our campaign setting, and he expects to see dinosaurs.
So do I go back on the houserule of no dinos or include them? The prehistoric inner world trope is pretty well established in adventure fiction. I've considered populating it with aberrations and magical beasts instead, but it wouldn't have the same flavor.
This one stumbling block is keeping me from progressing with writing the adventures for the campaign arc. Any hints or advice out there?
One of the big things about D&D and Pathfinder that I love is that you get to see all the tropes and themes of fantasy narratives and actually get the chance to interact with them yourself.
I've always found personally that when creating a game world, it is best to go with something trope based, stereotypical, or even cliched, and then adding a new twist into it to make your version of it unique. Typically this works better for players because the quirk you throw in is what makes the world memorable, rather than creating a vast in depth new kind of world where the players get lost on the details.
I say totally go for the Inner World having dinosaurs, but maybe have some sort of conflict where a bunch of them are dead due to abberations or magical beasts, and use that as a campaign hook?
You could combine the concepts.
Have dinosaurs as the bred hosts of a race of horrible mind controlling parasites. Possibly as weapons of war for battles in the underdark between all the mash up of weird and mutated creatures. The standard hosts might be more 'normal' fare...for whatever passes for that in the underdark.
That would allow you to have a world where dinosaurs could not survive on their own (and instead only survive as captive animals of a few isolated pockets), and you can add all the tentacles you want.
Having animals from an ancient past also give slight implications on the aberrations- they have been there a LONG time.
These are great ideas. Thanks!
You have to decide whether or not the inclusion of dinosaurs (or anything else for that matter) is potentially damaging to the overall concept of your world, and (if so) will that damage negatively impact the overall gaming experience for everyone involved.
It'll be mostly damaging to my self esteem (j/k) as the running joke in the campaign is I'll crack and put dinosaurs in at some point because of my love for them.. Not sure I'm ready for the razzing.. LOL
The biggest thing I'm trying to avoid is making the creatures the central focus. The idea I have ties into the nearly 25 year old background of my homebrew. In the past, much of the surface world was conquered by a psionic race of humans, though they were eventually overthrown. The ones who were't killed were exiled to distant lands and their legends say they came from "a world with no horizons and an unsetting sun" (the inner world).
One of my players is a Psion telepath, but because psionics are virtually unheard of in the land where my campaign is set, I'd like to run some adventures where the party finds clues to the ancient homeland of the race and go there; not to conquer or overthrow them, but to just better understand the PC's powers. This much I have pretty much worked out; it's just the "lay of the land and its creatures" that I'm working on.
Great ideas, guys! Keep 'em coming!
Yeah, have the dinosaurs as dumb cavalry under the control of a psionic race. That allows you to have them, but shift the view elsewhere.
Of course, this is the innerworld/underdark. Things get horribly mutated and deformed. Thus, you can then use the trope of psychics races with bodies that err on the side of 'vestigial'.
Of course, your player might not be able to relate to such a race...but then, you can pull a drow with it- these are merely the ones that refused to leave, while the best rest went to....Narnia (or whatever).
The ones that stayed (possibly out of some desire to plot revenge) found the innerworld far to harsh to even survive properly (let alone bring up an army to retake the world), and they eventually degenerated (not enough food to keep up good bodies when they mostly rely upon mind powers- took to hijacking local predators as temporary boosts; evolved from there).
After beating them down, your party can then look towards chieftains, lorekeepers, or enigmatic wall paintings to find clues on where the rest of the Psions went.
Good idea, but it's not an underdark setting. It's based on the world of Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs, a savage land populated by primitive men and ape men and terrible prehistoric beasts (even a psionic race of evolved pterosaurs), all living under a tiny sun that hangs in the center of the world. Though I do envision the underdark region being in the crust between inner and out worlds.
Still....morlocks do not usually evolve in the bright sunny hills of the countryside. They degenerate in the horrible darkness and depression of underground.
While you do not have the underdark specifically, there are a wide variety of works which use a general concept similar.
And why not? Blind albino fish make compelling images.
Though I might just be pushing my view.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
You could have them go to the "inner world" only to find it a vast devastated wasteland (including, if you wish, a deadly environment - e.g. harmful radiation). In their exploring they can come across a series of gates/portal (much like Stargate, the Elf Gates, or the Iconian Gateways). Some of these can be destroyed or just inactive and some can be windows to other harsh or extreme environments (Plane of Fire, underwater, middle of a sun, etc.). This allows you to have a gate to the dinosaur ridden plains (with an explanation as to why they are no longer in your world or never were) or anywhere else you may want to explore later (without changing your home world).
As always, just my two coppers...
-Doomn
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Why say no to dinosaurs. The Real question is scales or feathers:)
Why say no to dinosaurs. The Real question is scales or feathers:)
Why not both =)
Why say no to dinosaurs. The Real question is scales or feathers:)Why not both =)
You, you Can have both.
Well a nifty little twist would be ad Mahars from Edgar Rice Burroughs Pellucider series. For those who never read Edgar Rice Burrough novels, Mahars are intelligent, civilized some what Psionic large Pteranodon that eat people. Of course in Pathfinder I would make them fully psionic
Absolutely. I've been tinkering with making the Mahars an adversary race, but I'm just no good at monster building. I'd love to use them.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Dinosaurs + templates = your players mind blown. Priceless.
Cool idea. Dinosaurs from the lower planes with the Fiendish Template sounds fun. I could see Devils/Demons/Daemons bringing them to the material plane in preparation for an attack on the surface.
Or maybe the dino's on that world always were Fiendish and these are the last remnants. Maybe millions of years earlier the evil dino's on the surface were wiped out by an Angelic army rather than an asteroid.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Dinosaurs + templates = your players mind blown. Priceless.Cool idea. Dinosaurs from the lower planes with the Fiendish Template sounds fun. I could see Devils/Demons/Daemons bringing them to the material plane in preparation for an attack on the surface.
Or maybe the dino's on that world always were Fiendish and these are the last remnants. Maybe millions of years earlier the evil dino's on the surface were wiped out by an Angelic army rather than an asteroid.
Well If I remember right they where large size but not overly strong for their size( Heroes could beat them down easy in hand to hand combat) They where said to be very intelligent and had telepathy but where also deaf. And like most pulp bad guys lacked common sense.
So I would say +2 int and con and Minus 2 wisdom to start. On ground they are easy to hit so say +2 to hit while landed on ground and unable to fly if carrying anything but a light load. If you have Dreamscar complete Psionic hand book favorite class is any Psionic class. That's off the top of my head.For their Sathor servant class just use Orcs as they are dumb ,strong and mean.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I build my campaigns on a single premise:
"Will this be rad?"
Dinosaurs trapped in a secret underground land presided over by psychic pterasaurs, where their only allies are primitive ape-men?
The answer seems to be: Yes. This will be rad.
Make it so.
Dinosaurs + templates = your players mind blown. Priceless.Cool idea. Dinosaurs from the lower planes with the Fiendish Template sounds fun. I could see Devils/Demons/Daemons bringing them to the material plane in preparation for an attack on the surface.
Or maybe the dino's on that world always were Fiendish and these are the last remnants. Maybe millions of years earlier the evil dino's on the surface were wiped out by an Angelic army rather than an asteroid.
Well If I remember right they where large size but not overly strong for their size( Heroes could beat them down easy in hand to hand combat) They where said to be very intelligent and had telepathy but where also deaf. And like most pulp bad guys lacked common sense.
So I would say +2 int and con and Minus 2 wisdom to start. On ground they are easy to hit so say +2 to hit while landed on ground and unable to fly if carrying anything but a light load. If you have Dreamscar complete Psionic hand book favorite class is any Psionic class. That's off the top of my head.
For their Sathor servant class just use Orcs as they are dumb ,strong and mean.
Are you sure that you are responding to my post? Because even with the Fiendish template, dinosaurs aren't psionic.
If you're going to have aberrations and dinosaurs as a theme, I cannot recommend throwing in a Horrorsaurus highly enough.
If you're going to have aberrations and dinosaurs as a theme, I cannot recommend throwing in a Horrorsaurus highly enough.
Good grief! lol
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Maybe the dinosaurs ARE extinct...
But underneath the earth, where vast necromantic energies pool, dinosaur zombies and skeletons, and more horrific things wander free.
Or something.
Listen, it's really just an excuse to throw a zombie T-Rex or something at the party. And isn't that enough?
Maybe the dinosaurs ARE extinct...
But underneath the earth, where vast necromantic energies pool, dinosaur zombies and skeletons, and more horrific things wander free.
Or something.
Listen, it's really just an excuse to throw a zombie T-Rex or something at the party. And isn't that enough?
That is a cool idea. Very "Harry Dresden."
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
That is a cool idea. Very "Harry Dresden."Maybe the dinosaurs ARE extinct...
But underneath the earth, where vast necromantic energies pool, dinosaur zombies and skeletons, and more horrific things wander free.
Or something.
Listen, it's really just an excuse to throw a zombie T-Rex or something at the party. And isn't that enough?
"You ride a zombie t-rex ONE TIME and suddenly that's all anyone talks about."
- Harry Dresden, Wizard-for-hire
If you're going to have aberrations and dinosaurs as a theme, I cannot recommend throwing in a Horrorsaurus highly enough.
My bad post above yours.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If you're going to have aberrations and dinosaurs as a theme, I cannot recommend throwing in a Horrorsaurus highly enough.My bad post above yours.
at my local dollar store I picked up a number of skeleton dinosaurs awhile back. Why use a gnome skeleton for your undead when you can use a T Rex.
Undead dinosaurs!
With tentacles and telekinesis!
Or clockwork dinosaurs, so you can have FAKE dinosaurs, so you can keep your word about not using dinosaurs, but still have dinosaur fun. :-)
|
I like that "single twist" advice.
Why are there dinosaurs in the inner world, but not on the surface? Was there a catastrophe on the surface world, and are the inner world dinos the only survivors? That's kind of the cliché.
Or are the inner-world dinosaurs actually the next stage in evolution, not yet come to the surface?
Maybe the psions living in the inner world have been breeding dinos as easily-mind-controlled shock troops for a reconquest?
Maybe the inner world was created not as a sanctuary for this world, but for an entirely different world that's now been destroyed?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Now I kind of want to make xenosaurs--Alien xenomorph/dinosaur hybrids that lack eyes and use blindsense in the Underdark.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Could do something a bit backwards, rather then creatures from the past maybe some mad (insert class or profession that can create and warp life here) is trying to create new species built to survive in harshest of conditions. Saurian beasts that can compete with all but the largest of magical beasts and the world below is the perfect place to breed them and prepare for their release upon an unsuspecting surface!
Toss in the template idea or mix and match a few traits or the appearances of dinosaurs and you play them off as a new species in your world and turn the prehistoric left over thing on its head.
Good idea, but it's not an underdark setting. It's based on the world of Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs, a savage land populated by primitive men and ape men and terrible prehistoric beasts (even a psionic race of evolved pterosaurs), all living under a tiny sun that hangs in the center of the world. Though I do envision the underdark region being in the crust between inner and out worlds.
Have you read Into the Darklands? All that stuff is already down there.
Good idea, but it's not an underdark setting. It's based on the world of Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs, a savage land populated by primitive men and ape men and terrible prehistoric beasts (even a psionic race of evolved pterosaurs), all living under a tiny sun that hangs in the center of the world. Though I do envision the underdark region being in the crust between inner and out worlds.Have you read Into the Darklands? All that stuff is already down there.
Never heard of it.
Change them into Abberations and guess who evolved for underground life due to radiation? ;)
Never heard of it.Good idea, but it's not an underdark setting. It's based on the world of Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs, a savage land populated by primitive men and ape men and terrible prehistoric beasts (even a psionic race of evolved pterosaurs), all living under a tiny sun that hangs in the center of the world. Though I do envision the underdark region being in the crust between inner and out worlds.Have you read Into the Darklands? All that stuff is already down there.
Currently on sale:
Have you read Into the Darklands? All that stuff is already down there.Never heard of it.
Currently on sale:
Looks interesting. However, my very limited budget for non essential things won't let me get it. But thanks for the recommendation.
How about a race of dino-humanoids in addition to dinosaurs? The Advanced Race Guide is a freebie on the Paizo PRD, and this might fit your homebrew.
Creating a race and its iterations would lend a great deal of flavor to the Lost World motif, and give the PCs a new and interesting set of allies or adversaries - Drow? Pfft. Duergar? Nah. Worms-that-walk? Nope - Dino-folk!
You could have the psionic pteradons as true dinos, the militaristic triceratops-like humanoids, the rougish raptors, the stoic stegosauri, the monk-like allosaurs, and a generic "base" dino-type to round out the population.
Dinosaurs are fun, and it sounds like a neat twist for your game. Good luck!
If I use a reptile race, it'll be the Ophiduans from Ultimate Psionics. I've already thought of how to work them in. I think I can modify a drake into a Mahar (the psionic pterosaurs). Mixing less powerful magical beasts alongside dinosaurs (or perhaps in different regions of the inner world) will work, too.
Thanks for all the ideas, guys!
During a fairly sleepless night, it occurred to me that I could set the whole thing in a location based on the 70s children's television series "Land of the Lost", one of my favorite shows of all time. There are dinosaurs, a lost city populated by reptilian humanoids, super science, and other things that could be combined together. 20 years ago I ran an all day long game with a 16 member party through an adventure there. When the players realized what was happening I was pelted with dice... lol.
Everyone has had such great ideas that I can now incorporate more of them into the game than I had planned. This should be fun. And for anyone who isn't familiar with "Land of the Lost", it was actually pretty advanced for a kids' show, often dealing with dimensional travel and questions of morality when dealing with the setting's denizens. And my version will be based on the tv series, not the awful Will Ferrell movie version.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Two words... Exploding dinosaurs!
Advanced Bloody Fiery Skeletal Champion Tyrannosaurus CR 12
NE Gargantuan Undead
Init +8; Senses low-light vision, scent; Perception +37
AC 32, touch 10, flat-footed 28 (+4 Dex, +22 natural, –4 size)
hp 170 (18d8+72 +2d8+8) fast healing 10
DR 5/bludgeoning
Fort +10, Ref +10, Will +16
Speed 40 ft.
Melee bite +25 (4d6+28 +1d6 fire/19–20 plus grab)
Space 20 ft.; Reach 20 ft.
Special Attacks swallow whole (2d8+14, AC 17, hp 15)
Str 38, Dex 19, Con 0, Int 2, Wis 19, Cha 18
Base Atk +15; CMB +33 (+37 grapple); CMD 47
Feats Bleeding Critical, Critical Focus, Diehard, Endurance, Improved Critical (bite), Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Run, Skill Focus (Perception), Vital Strike
Skills Perception +37; Racial Modifiers +8 Perception
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Powerful Bite (Ex) A tyrannosaurus applies twice its Strength modifier to bite damage.
Deathless (Su): A bloody skeleton is destroyed when reduced to 0 hit points, but it returns to unlife 1 hour later at 1 hit point, allowing its fast healing thereafter to resume healing it. A bloody skeleton can be permanently destroyed if it is destroyed by positive energy, if it is reduced to 0 hit points in the area of a bless or hallow spell, or if its remains are sprinkled with a vial of holy water.
Fiery Aura (Ex): Creatures adjacent to a burning skeleton take 1d6 points of fire damage at the start of their turn. Anyone striking a burning skeleton with an unarmed strike or natural attack takes 1d6 points of fire damage.
Fiery Death (Su): A burning skeleton explodes into a burst of flame when it dies. Anyone adjacent to the skeleton when it is destroyed takes 10d6 points of fire damage DC 24 Reflex half damage
You could just inclide some dinos. For example either only Ornithischia (dinos with a bird hip) or Saurischia (dinos with a lizard hip).
The first are all herbivores, the latter are mixed.
You could just inclide some dinos. For example either only Ornithischia (dinos with a bird hip) or Saurischia (dinos with a lizard hip).
The first are all herbivores, the latter are mixed.
Ohyeah, knew all that from the time I was 4 years old.. lol.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
A bit of thread necromancy, but this particular subject has been on my mind a lot. I've decided to go ahead and do dinosaurs in my setting, but in a very Peter Jackson "Skull Island" sort of way, using descriptions of the creatures from the beautifully illustrated "World of Kong" book and the dinosaur stats from the Bestiaries (modified as necessary) for the beasts. The island will also be much like Skull Island in that it's covered in jungle and the ruins of a mysterious civilization dot it. Also, if we get to this place in the campaign, it'll be just as deadly as the island was in the movie.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
There's gonna be a lot of giant insects aren't there? At least one player will hate you.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
His hatred will keep me warm at night.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Why not have the inner world actually be a separate dimension rather than the literal inside of the planet? The entrance point could be somewhere underground - but only under where the Psion homelands were. Some of their temples lead deep underground to the portals - which look as though they simply lead underground. However, exploring far enough along them leads to the surface. Ala Land of the Lost there's no horizon (the plane circles back on itself) and a sun that doesn't set (stuck forever at noon in the artificial sky). Within it are more ruins of the Psionic empire, possibly pylons that might control various features, and, of course, dinosaurs.
The primitive men could be the remains of the Psions who have forgotten their civilization. The apemen could be experiments by the psionic Mahars (or whatever you're going to call them) to further devolve the Psions and make a slave race. The Mahars themselves could have come from experiments by the Psions to create another sentient race with psionic powers (one they hoped to use as psionic slaves) but something went wrong.
In any case, the dimension is filled with lots of beasts that are extinct elsewhere. Returning to the 'surface' is possible via the portals - only all the portals are stuck on "in" so the PCs have to figure a way to make the portals go "out". However, the Mahars have also been trying to figure that out for a long time, so if the PCs succeed, they may allow the Mahars the ability to invade the world.