Dinosaurs

The word dinosaur comes from Greek for "terrible lizard." These reptiles descend from early forms called thecodonts and split into two orders based on hip shape. The lizard-hipped saurischians include every meat eater, while the bird-hipped ornithischians include all the armored and horned kinds. Pterosaurs, the flying reptiles, are close relatives, and a handful of huge, primitive fish and turtles are grouped with them for their size and ferocity.

Time behaves oddly where magic is strong, so species that lived ages apart may be found side by side on an alternate world, an isolated continent or a strange plane. Few natural creatures an adventurer meets are larger. Some are dull and camouflaged, others brightly colored, and plenty bristle with teeth. Even the gentle-looking ones can be deadly simply because of their bulk or their appetite.

Big carnosaurs pin their prey with their claws and crush it in their jaws. The smaller meat eaters often run in packs, either springing ambushes or chasing a target down until it drops, and their teeth are just as keen as their larger cousins'. Plant eaters rely on armor plating or sheer mass, but they can still trample, rear up and stamp down, or swing a heavy tail. Stegosaurs, ankylosaurs and ceratopians are especially quick to defend themselves.

No dinosaur is smarter than a horse or a dog, and some sauropods have brains the size of a walnut despite their enormous bodies. Hunger rules them. Predators are savage and insatiable. Herbivores eat constantly, ignore whatever seems neither edible nor threatening, and panic at anything that looks dangerous. A meat eater keeps chasing until its quarry is clearly beyond reach. A herd fleeing a big hunter can stampede in any direction, sweeping along or crushing whatever stands in its path, with the smaller, slower and weaker creatures killed. Large sea species may capsize boats to get at the morsels aboard or pluck sailors right off the deck.

Plant eaters need lush vegetation and the meat eaters need plant eaters, so both cluster where food is plentiful. Jungles and swamps suit them best, but woodlands and grassy plains work too. Only deserts, frozen wastes and lofty peaks are off limits.

Most dinosaurs live alone, though many herbivores, ornithopods and ceratopians in particular, move in herds, and some smaller carnosaurs hunt in packs. Like other reptiles they lay eggs and leave them. A hatchling immediately goes looking for food, and that drive never leaves it. One animal might wander thousands of miles following the seasons, while another never leaves a patch a few hundred yards across. Some are territorial and attack intruders on sight.

A dinosaur needs no more special handling in a campaign than any other monster. Nobody truly knows why they vanished from some worlds; where that never happened, the giants still roam, forever searching for their next meal.