Any Dinotopia-like settings?

[harpy]

If dinosaurs weren't in the very beginnings of D&D they were nearly so, there is that familiar image of the party fighting the Tyrannosaurus Rex in the expert set module.

Still, in all of these years I can't think of any setting that has really integrated Dinosaurs. You might find them on an undiscovered land of the lost island, or Eberron has halflings riding velociraptors, but nothing seems to work them in like James Gurney's Dinotopia book series.

My guess is that in part, Dinosaurs just don't fit the quasi-medieval fantasy tropes, and with all of their names built off of Latin scientific terminology it creates this modern conceptual wall to properly integrate them into a fantasy setting.

"You see a huge lizard like creature with a maw larger than yourself filled with teeth?"

"Ah! What is that?"

"It's a Tyrannosaurus Rex."

"Oh"

Another problem is that all of the famous dinosaurs are really large and lethal to any low level characters, and so because of that it's difficult for your quasi-medieval setting to have castles, farms, etc if massive herbivore creatures are slurping up all of the plant life in the region, meanwhile being stalked by apex predators which would make even dragons pause.

I know I suffer from that conceptual gap. It doesn't seem right to have dinosaurs in a fantasy world, however I also know that there is a modernistic theme to their existence, despite the fact that they harken back to ages undreamt of...

So has any RPG setting gone about trying to get dinosaurs to really fit into the world, going through the trouble of thematically renaming everything, having them fit into the ecosystem, etc?

It seems as if they need a special treatment, where the author really works and making them integrated into the world rather than just being another random option in a monster manual.

 

[Piratecat]

Barsoomcore's True 20 Dinopirates of Ninja Island.

Hollow Earth Expedition.

Cadillacs and Dinosaurs (long out of print.)

And the upcoming Pathfinder adventure path "Serpent's Skull" will be dino-riffic!

 

[Trolls]

I know you mentioned Eberron, but I'm going to expand on that setting a bit. Dinosaurs there aren't spread over the whole world, but are nevertheless well integrated. Like other animals, they are limited to certain environments, with different species appearing in different places.
So they're not as common as in Dinotopia, but they do exist in a way that makes sense.

Broadly speaking, there are two distinct ecosystems in which dinosaurs are common: Eastern Khorvaire and Xen'drik.

In Eastern Khorvaire (Talenta and Q'barra) you have the smaller theropods, such as velociraptors and their relatives. In the much more dangerous and wild jungles of Q'barra, you'll probably start to see the larger species. The crutial thing, though, is that you don't have the giant herbivores and apex predators messing with the civilisation that's grown up on Khorvaire.

Then you have Xen'drik, where everything is huge. A tyrannosaurus isn't nearly as much of a problem to giants as it is to humans, and if the land can support cities full of 20ft. tall humanoids, I'm sure it can support a few herds of sauropods.

Eberron also ticks another box: it renames the dinosaurs. The names are like (but not the same as) translations of the Latin names (swordtooth titan for T-rex, clawfoot for raptors), with a few unique ones (like the Fastieth).

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Broadly speaking, there are two distinct ecosystems in which dinosaurs are common: Eastern Khorvaire and Xen'drik.

The large herbivorous Dinos can be found on Argonnessen, where they are kept by the dragons as livestock.

 

[Turtlejay]

In Dinotopia (from what I remember. . .it's been awhile) the dinosaurs are intelligent and have culture, writing, and technology. It would certainly be cool to play an intelligent dinosaur, but possibly game breaking in the same way that playing a dragon is.

Adapting MM dinosaurs to your homebrew, or altering a published setting to include them are both fine ideas, but going any further to make them like Dinotopia would take much more work, and would probably be improbable in some game systems. 3.5 could probably do it.

Piratecat, do any of the things you mentioned have dinosaurs with a humanoid culture or influence, rather than bags of XP? That might be the best place to start.

Jay

 

[Pseudonym]

Piratecat, do any of the things you mentioned have dinosaurs with a humanoid culture or influence, rather than bags of XP? That might be the best place to start.

Sauriels were in older editions of Forgotten Realms. I'm not sure how much attention was given to their culture outside from Azure Bonds, but that might provide a source of inspiration.

 

[Aran Thule]

I will have to check where it is but i remember a fair amount of information on the saurials.
If i remember there were four different types which resembled a Triceratops(mage), Stegasaurus(priest), Iguanadon(fighter), Pterdactal<sp> (rogue), have listed their prefered class.
The vale they lived in had several hundred of them so thats the nearest i can see to Dinotopia.

The expert set adventure with dinosaurs was Isle of Dread if i remember correctly.

 

[Voadam]

Broncosaurus Rex an early d20 setting by Goodman Games. Velociraptor shamen (slightly hobbled by their lack of claw manual dexterity) and T-rexes who grow ever bigger and psionically more powerful as they grow older. The pdfs are currently on sale for GM's day.

 

[Orius]

In Dinotopia (from what I remember. . .it's been awhile) the dinosaurs are intelligent and have culture, writing, and technology. It would certainly be cool to play an intelligent dinosaur, but possibly game breaking in the same way that playing a dragon is.

Sauriels were in older editions of Forgotten Realms. I'm not sure how much attention was given to their culture outside from Azure Bonds, but that might provide a source of inspiration.

This is something I've considered IMC. The only experience I've had with the Dinotopia setting is the miniseries that was on TV a while back, and I though something like that would be interesting in D&D. I'd get rid of the vegan pacifism since that kind of grates on me, as well as the scalies' elitism toward mammals. Full-blown intelligent dinosaurs were a bit over the top, but saurials scale them down pretty effectively for a D&D campaign.

 

[Leatherhead]

My guess is that in part, Dinosaurs just don't fit the quasi-medieval fantasy tropes, and with all of their names built off of Latin scientific terminology it creates this modern conceptual wall to properly integrate them into a fantasy setting.

I don't get why Latin names would throw it off. Latin names sound better than "thunderstomper behemoth" at least.

What is more likely to throw it off is the existence of dragons.