Sandy said dinosaurs were hard to exterminate: I really don't think so. All you need is to make dinosaur omelette en vogue, and the beasts will have all but disappeared within a generation or two. Remember the problems the Bolo folk of Prax has to keep their beasts alive? Authored by a certain S.P., I believe...
Sandy mentioned the dentition of the saurians - if we had found only fossilized pandas, we would have classified them as carnivores, if I remember some Geo article correctly.
Pam Carlson on saurians (and exotic nutrition):
Quoting someone else:
> Lets face it, if trolls can get by on air and rocks should they have to, I
> don't think we should be applying 20th century science to the situation.
Hmm, I've written a pseudo-scientific rationalisation for this fact for my alternate Glorantha/Earth universe. Not all types of rock are digestible. IMO Trolls prefer porous limestone, or sedimental rock, for the included organic material. (I have done some scientific work on this for a while...) Limestone is soluble in even mild acids given some mechanical aid (like the rock gizzard).
> Sandy:
>>The fun factor in seeing a dinosaur plow a field is so great we should be
>>knocking our brains out thinking of ways to make it _more_ possible.
> How about smaller ceratopsians - say three ton ones? That's 1.5 draft
> horses, and still pretty impressive, especially w/ horns.
I'd propose claw-footed two-legged specimen which could tear open the ground they walk as well as draw a plow. My main objections were to brontosaurians or stegosaurians in plantation areas.
Triceratops are special breeds involving dragonewts, if I remember correctly, and were designed for combat uses on Glorantha. And KoS states (in one of Argrath's blood lines) that Arene Thunderqueen once sent a herd of these beasts to tear down a fortification in a tribal war.
One reason why I oppose Lunars to use them is that the (more EWF friendly) Manirian Theyalans use them in war - there ought to be a difference. (The Lunars adopt these tactics in Dragon Pass, where earth shakers are common, though, at least in the later stages of the wars between Tarsh and Sartar.)
> If they could digest wood, they could eat plant waste: rice leaves and
> barley stalks. And you don't have to feed 'em much in the winter - maybe
> they could "hibernate" w/ special magics? (I know - later dinosaurs were
> probably warm blooded, but this ain't Earth).
No. Here both dragonewts and dinosaurs descended from them probably are at least somewhat warm blooded.
But the image of dinosaurs feeding on large quantities of vegetable matter and farting like hell could make Kalikos' ice-breaking quest smell totally different... <g>
> And the Lodrili dyke and dam
> builders could use aquatic dinosaurs for underwater construction. Too
> Flintstone-esque?
For my campaign, definitely yes, but they rhyme well with Toonquest/Glorantha style games.
I feel that around Dragon Pass, roving dinosaur herds are as bad news for the farmers as are hailstorms in harvesttime. Some earth cultists may possess magics to scare the beasts away, but I doubt that Command spells are common. Most saurians in Dragon Pass, which has still a high residual of EWF magics, seem to be untamed.
> I agree w/ Sandy - dinosaurs stay around locally. (Or else we'd have seen
> them w/ the Lunar Army in Prax & Sartar.) Ah-ha! A use for those ancient
> Pelorian earth cults - dinosaur controlling. It would give them some
> importance within Dara Happa.
Dinosaur warding, rather - IMO. BTW, on some dinosaurs Command <species> might need Extension 3 to start to work...
> And if you think a Naverian priestess is
> going to approve of some _man_ hauling off her sacred plow animal to go to
> _war_ somewhere far away....
The Lunars employ priestesses in special regiments (like the Crater Makers), so that argument won't hold for long.
Doug Thayer
> Once again I stray far outside my actual area(s) of experience, but wouldn't
> a triceratops have a lower ground pressure (i.e weight to foot area) than
> oxen? The pictures of triceratops I have seen have nice big round feet,
> while oxen have (relatively) small hooves. If the dinosaur actually had
> comparable or lower g/p, it shouldn't do too much damage to the field.
The triceratops would have about twice the mass of an elephant. And ancient oxen weren't nearly as big as modern milk cows, think of Galloway cattle rather than Holstein Black-and-Whites or Texan Longhorns.
> Of course, it would have larger footprints, covering a greater area of
> the field, although it would be dragging a plow behind it, tending to turn
> up the earth...
Nope. In the (too long) iron plow thread we were informed that ancient plows didn't turn the soil, but merely ripped open furrows into it.
> I can think of many limitations as to why the lunar army wouldn't take them
> into the field. Perhaps the dinosaurs are most active (and useful) during
> the warmest parts of the year, while the army tends to campaign when it is
> somewhat cooler (wouldn't you if you had to march around wearing an oven).
No. I think that the Lunar (standing) army is so effective because it can attack its barbarian neighbours during harvest time - even if they get beaten in the fields, the neighbours will starve in the following winters.
> Perhaps the dinosaurs are somewhat like the Praxian lion; anachronistic,
> and sustained only by extraordinary efforts of a cult -- the cult of Gazzam?
> (with rune spells such as Warm Egg, and the ever-useful Speak Gazzam skill?)
and restricted to the western lands of the Pelorian bowl? I can't imagine worse than a herd of brontosaurians feeding off well-irrigated rice paddies. Maize fields won't be too productive after a cursory visit of these beasts, either, and while there is a lot of otherwise useless plant matter after the harvest, the rest of the year the beasts would be a damn costly nuisance in the over-populated regions of Peloria.
Smaller dinosaurs might be less problematic, and even useful in hauling heavy stuff. They could also complement the paupers' diet with proteins. I imagine dinosaur steak to be as tasty and soft as grilled sea-gull or rhino leather...
However, Dara Happa uses clay bricks for building, and has little use for hauling rocks or timber. Maybe the Oslir river barges are pulled by saurians? They could feed on the weeds growing in the sluggish river, and wouldn't have a chance to cross the dams built by the Lodrili servants of the Yelmite lords, wading through the mud of the river.
BTW Dara Happan rice: This could (and should) be different from Kralori and Vor(u)maini rice, IMO. Maybe golden of colour, to celebrate the sky?
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