So, this is fun: Conan and Valeria encountering a
dinosaur-like creature in the classic “Red Nails:”
Through the thicket was thrust a head of nightmare and lunacy. Grinning jaws bared rows of dripping yellow tusks; above the yawning mouth wrinkled a saurian-like snout. Huge eyes, like those of a python a thousand times magnified, stared unwinkingly at the petrified humans clinging to the rock above it. Blood smeared the scaly, flabby lips and dripped from the huge mouth. The head, bigger than that of a crocodile, was further extended on a long scaled neck on which stood up rows of serrated spikes, and after it, crushing down the briars and saplings, waddled the body of a titan, a gigantic, barrel-bellied torso on absurdly short legs. The whitish belly almost raked the ground, while the serrated backbone rose higher than Conan could have reached on tiptoe. A long spiked tail, like that of a gargantuan scorpion, trailed out behind. "Back up the crag, quick!" snapped Conan, thrusting the girl behind him. "I don't think he can climb, but he can stand on his hind legs and reach us—"
So, it’s basically a dinosaur, right? And if you can’t quite see it that way, Barry Windsor-Smith sure could. Here’s a page from his critically-acclaimed comic book adaptation of “Red Nails.”
Through the thicket was thrust a head of nightmare and lunacy. Grinning jaws bared rows of dripping yellow tusks; above the yawning mouth wrinkled a saurian-like snout. Huge eyes, like those of a python a thousand times magnified, stared unwinkingly at the petrified humans clinging to the rock above it. Blood smeared the scaly, flabby lips and dripped from the huge mouth. The head, bigger than that of a crocodile, was further extended on a long scaled neck on which stood up rows of serrated spikes, and after it, crushing down the briars and saplings, waddled the body of a titan, a gigantic, barrel-bellied torso on absurdly short legs. The whitish belly almost raked the ground, while the serrated backbone rose higher than Conan could have reached on tiptoe. A long spiked tail, like that of a gargantuan scorpion, trailed out behind. "Back up the crag, quick!" snapped Conan, thrusting the girl behind him. "I don't think he can climb, but he can stand on his hind legs and reach us—"
So, it’s basically a dinosaur, right? And if you can’t quite see it that way, Barry Windsor-Smith sure could. Here’s a page from his critically-acclaimed comic book adaptation of “Red Nails.”
click to enlarge |
I love dinosaurs. If you don’t have a favorite dinosaur, you
need to leave. I am serious. Dinosaurs are Monster Kid 101. They are a part and
parcel of fantasy and science fiction both and stories of dinosaurs (from Lost
Worlds) interacting with the humans that stumble across them are part of a sub-genre
that is literally over a hundred years old.
Dungeons & Dragons understood this, and dutifully
included stats for the most classic dinosaurs in the AD&D Monster Manual.
Here’s a very classic-looking T-Rex from
Diesel for TSR’s Monster cards from 1982 (think flash cards for AD&D monsters with only slightly better color artwork than the black and white masterpieces in the Monster Manual).
TSR also published a classic module (by Zeb Cook and Tom Moldvay, no
less), called The Isle of Dread, and it’s a classic Lost World wilderness hex crawl adventure on a
strange island full of dinosaurs and other exotic creatures right out of Jules
Verne and Arthur Conan Doyle by way of Ray Harryhausen.
Dinos in D&D. Boom. Done. Everything should be platinum.
I should be happy, right? Right? Well I can't get happy. It's physically
impossible for me to get happy.
Maybe it’s my weirdly Puritanical streak when it comes to
high and low fantasy. If we’re talking knights and wizards, I think dragons,
not dinosaurs. After all, the game is called Dungeons and Dragons, not Dungeons
& Dinosaurs. Why, then, does it not bother me when we insert Dinosaurs into
modern-day settings (Jurassic Park) or the wild west (The Valley of Gwangi) or
the Pulp era (King Kong).
Two reasons come to mind. One is that those other examples
above all make use of a Lost World, whether by natural accident or man-made
engineering. Lost Worlds have dinos, and that’s all the explanation you need.
Also, in every other instance listed above, Dinosaurs were the apex predator,
the aberration, the monster in a monsterless world. This is not true in Dungeons
and Dragons; it creates an ecology where you have to figure out why the dinos
haven’t eaten all of the monsters or vice-versa. After all, aside from the
treasure hoarding, a red dragon and a Tyrannosaurus Rex have more or less the
same diet, the same habitat, the same mannerisms, and certainly the same pants-shitting
size and scale to terrify players.
The T-Rex can’t fly, cast magic, or breathe fire. You
know, so it’s like a dragon, only...not as cool. And dinosaurs should never be not cool. Ever.
Tim Truman's cover art for The Isle of Dread reprint. |
But…stay with me now…what if there were no dragons? If
instead of dragons, your big bad was the T-Rex, that becomes your default for
the “oh, shit” moment when you realize the necromancer you’re supposed to fight
has a pet therapod.
I’m thinking of a heroic fantasy world, where sorcery is
more uncommon, and the humanoids are out in full force. The monsters of the
world have managed to tame the dinosaurs in this world to act as beasts of
burden and war mounts. It’s Dinotopia, only with Goblins and Drow. Dwarves
charging into battle on Triceratops. Orcs riding allosauruses. The Lizard folk
use Pteranodons as winged mounts. Monster armies are bad enough, but when the monster armies have conscripted dinosaurs, they become the stuff of nightmares.
Humans have none of those advantages, but maybe they are more
adept at psionic abilities, and they use massive dino-killing siege equipment,
as well as clockwork automatons scavenged from the wreckage of the last great
war. High magic has disappeared in the wake of the rise of chaos. One of the
campaign goals may be to find the source and re-awaken it to jump-start the Age
of Wonder. It would mean the death of the dinosaurs and bring magic (and
dragons) back into the world.
I would play in that game. Hell, I may have to write it.