#talenta plains

Camptosaurus is the most populous species in all of Talenta. While not as diverse or large as the sauropods, they make a successful living by cleaning up after them. Behind the usual gamut of high-browsers which keep the trees from taking over the plains are bison-like herds of camptosaurus browsing on the mid-level vegetation left in their wake. The long, pillar-like legs of the sauropods make bending down an exhausting challenge, so they leave quite a bit for them. Herds can be up to 15,000 members strong and current estimates place the total number alive between 20 and 30 million. While very large and robust compared to cows and deer, they rely on these numbers against the myriad carnivores of Talenta. Allosaurs and Torvosaurus normally prefer sauropods but will double-back to hunt the smaller camptosaurs if need be. Near forests Ceratosaurus will not hesitate to deliver unseen strikes. But the most regular hunters are Marshosaurus and halflings. Smaller than the ginormous sauropods but still large enough to put up a fight, camptosaurus are the primary food-source for most nomadic halflings. Since time immemorial their life-cycles have been intertwined. When the wet season comes, halflings enter a period where hunting is taboo (unless in self-defense), to allow their prey’s numbers to rise once more. Their striped hides are adapted in almost anything made of leather, from tents to saddles to scrolls. Their nature as a facultative biped has also worked its way into their traditions. When going on two legs the camptosaurus is free-game, and when on four legs (normally done to eat or drink) it is considered worse. Its meat will be forever tainted because it was killed in the coward’s position. Hunting camptosaurus is the main method of food acquisition among halflings, also leading to dietary changes. Almost all of their flesh is red meat. Because of this, halflings have an incredibly high tolerance to red meat and usually do not see the health risks associated with it. Camptosaurus is not a domesticated animal, however. Though entwined in their life and death, halflings have never taken them from their herds to breed them. To their minds, it would be an undeserving fate. Hunted wild the beasts can prove their merit in combat. Halfling animal-worship places much importance on the dignity of their bestial neighbors.

Physically similar to camptosaurus, Uteodon is marked by few, noticeable quirks that make it unique. Somewhat larger than their cousins, they possess darker, duller hides and live lonesome lives. Uteodon do not live in herds. Instead they inhabit the forest edges, making equal use of the trees and mid-growing ferns. Halflings consider them to be the camptosaurus’ evil cousin because of their other major difference: their temperament. Uteodon rely on their size and bulk to dissuade predators, but sometimes they need a little extra help understanding. They will bowl over predators in blind charges regardless of whether or not they were looking at the herbivore. Only those too nimble to escape or too large to truly knock over are spared. Which includes the Talenta riders. When hunters see a Uteodon among a herd of camptosaurus, they consider it a bad hunting day. They know it will fight the hunters if they try to hunt anything near it. Smaller camptosaurus herds actively encourage the presence of a single Uteodon in their ranks to defend the rest. Offering a bull first-dibs on any food and water is likely to make it happen. Still, they are rowdy and cantankerous; it’s just as possible they’ll be driven from a herd for accidentally killing a calf. Uteodon-Camptosaurus hybrids are uncommon. They tend to be larger, with dark bodies and dark stripes, and inherit their Uteodon parent’s temperament, but with a better social instinct.

Well, that was a bit of a pause between this and the last Talenta fauna. Anyways, if it wasn’t obvious, Camptosaurus is at the top and Uteodon is at the bottom. Both references come from Scott Hartman. The poses are kind of lazy, but in my defense I haven’t drawn in like a week due to real life complications. With these done we have all of Talenta’s ornithopods (and heterodontosaurs). Where shall we be going next? Perhaps this image contains a hint ^-^

Fruitadens is an oddity among the Talenta biota, culturally and scientifically. Outside, the smallest of the herbivorous dinosaurs looks quite similar to their neighboring fastieth. Closer examination reveals some surprising features. Unlike the very similar Nanosaurus, Fruitadens has an almost complete covering of short, quill-like plumage. Especially on its proportionally long tail. The skull narrows to the jaws, showing a carnivore-like shape, with its famous heterodont dentition. The large lower canine is visible externally and serves as a reminder of its bite. Fruitadens are generalists, hanging around the wetlands and rivers in the wet season and falling back to the forests during the dry season. Plants and small animals of all kinds are eaten by the critters, and they have displayed remarkable intelligence in working out how to break open mollusc shells to get at the soft innards. Their pelts are predominantly reddish-brown with whites and greys, made up of stiffened quills ending in points. Like cats they can manually raise their pelts to seem larger and prickly. Prickly is a good word for them. Their eyebrow ridges give them a constantly peeved look, which fits with their behavior. Fruitadens act ornery to make up for their small size. They’re still much more likely to run than fight, but there are plenty of Talenta hunters who have been bitten for little more than accidental encounters. In their frail bones is a strong bite capable of nipping off fingers. Their attitude, appearance, and habitat of the forests of Talenta have earned them a bad reputation among the halflings, who regard them the same way the average Aundairan would regard a skunk, with a bite instead of a stink. They are not entirely without merit though. Their quills are sought after by the few scholars of the Plains as, in the absence of geese and swans and the normal sort of traveling traders, their quills are the only options for pens, and they make rather sturdy ones at that.

Nanosaurus make up the majority of the small, antelope-like positions in Talenta. They are not particularly social, but do hang around larger herbivores when eating or sleeping. They are the quickest and most perceptive of the fastieth. Killing one and wearing its pelt is considered a mark of a hunter’s speed and keen eye. Nanosaurs are jumpy like deer, able to leap about 6 feet in the air and out-speed any other fastieth by a country mile. Being able to outrun predators means these fastieth live all about the plains, dry and wet season. They make their presence known by their distinctive scent, somewhat like fish oil. Nanosaurs rarely go into the forests, where their feet are not so sure as on the flat ground. The single variety that does live in forests are smaller and quieter, with stout legs and demure pelts. During the dry season they breed, markedly different from other fastieth. They dig small foxholes with their back legs. Females with their sandy pelts hide in it and puff up the long, thin feathers on their back, disguising themselves as dry plants to protect the eggs. Several subspecies exist around the plains. One prefers the hilly, mountainous terrain around the Mror Holds and is adapted for cold climates. Another, larger one is even more adapted to the cold, sometimes encroaching on the fields of Karrnath. Those that live in the forests are noted above. The final is otherwise similar to the plains subspecies but is smaller and more brightly colored, with orange and blue facial markings in the males. Most males have slate gray plumage that may look black or blue depending on the lighting. They also have white marks, but these are unrelated to dryosaur masks. Females are a monochrome sandy color. But males actually have a better chance at evading predators. Their plumage is very different from their scaly back halves, making them look like two different animals stitched together. This throws off predators. Females don’t have such luck and are more likely to be spotted and hunted outside of the breeding season. So now a third, distinct gender is appearing in the plains subspecies, with females possessing male plumage, but not the elaborate orange dressings. They get the benefit of avoiding predators, but are often overlooked during mating. To fix this they often become aggressively flirtatious with males to get the idea across.

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The idea was the male was being hunted, with a trap around its leg. Technically this is a recreation of the Jurassic Park Othnielosaurus, since Othnielosaurus and Drinker got lumped into Nanosaurus. Most of the scale and plumage references was taken from Kulindadromeus. How closely related it is to Nano is questionable, but in lieu of any other scale impressions it was the safest bet.

A small nocturnal predator of the Plains known as Ornitholestes is a rare sight. Unlike other clawfoots, this creature is only active during the night. During the wet season they leave their forested homelands to prowl around the vegetation. Given its small legs, it can creep while being completely covered. Fast getaways are unlikely, however. Talenta halflings name the creature a clawfoot, and the first toe is indeed enlarged as in others. However, further inspection shows a more primitive animal. Rather than using its talons to hunt, Ornitholestes use their large forelimbs to grab prey. Most of the time they use this for subduing flying prey that rest on the ground. If their target makes a getaway they can use the arms to snatch them out of their air. This does not work well on large animals able to break its grasp or tiny animals small enough to slip between its fingers. The toes and shaggy arms are used for climbing trees, where it eats its prey and sleeps during the day. It is neither strong nor fast enough to protect food from other predators on the plains, so it uses the “flash” forests that pop up during the wet season as hideaways. Ornitholestes is a rather cryptic species. They opt not to make the loud calls associated with other clawfoots. Communication between others of its own species is rare and unlikely. If two meet while prowling for prey they will stance on one another until the other retreats, but never actually get into combat. When caught by a predator, Ornitholestes must use their dark spotted pelage to blend in, climb a tree, or accept the inevitable. Halflings rarely encounter Ornitholestes, as they are too skittish to steal from tribe larders. They don’t figure into many stories. Traveling anthropologists have only ever found one mask made in their image, painted with bright pink colors associated with cowardice and buffoonery.

The principal dinosaurs of the plains, whether hunted and domesticated by halflings since time immemorial. All of these dinosaurs, of the medium to small, unadorned and ornithopod variety, are called fastieth.
Dryosaurs are the most famous fastieth, known for their use as steeds by the tribal halflings. Unlike Camptosaurus, Dryosaurus utilizes speed as their primary defense against predators. This, coupled with their striped tails, makes a herd of dryosaurs running zig-zaggedly across each other’s paths hard on the eyes and obscures them from predators. Dryosaurs live in relatively large, 100-150 member, horse-like herds with a small group of breeding males and many females and youngsters. Lesser males usually trail behind. These fastieth live in the wide brushy basin year-round, but can also be found in the forests. Forest dryosaurs are smaller, less social, but also faster. Despite their speed, dryosaurs are not very agile and cannot jump high. In the wild they run parallel to one another in straight lines as defense against predators.

These fastieth have been domesticated by halflings for millennia and are incredibly ingrained into their society. Wild ones are not hunted as often as camptosaurs and rarely bred due to their jumpy tendencies. Halfling religion, a mixture of animism and animal worship, contains many references to the dryosaurs and treats them like the “other half” of the hunter. They are treated with honor, and killing one, even for practical purposes, is very taboo. It’s even believed that the halfling hunting mask is specifically designed to look unthreatening and friendly to their saurian mounts. Other races find them too small to ride, but a small riders club in Zilargo, populated by gnomes, has gained in popularity ever since the Last War’s end.

Dryosaurs produce their green coloration with two different coloration systems: both yellow and blue (cyan) pigment cells. How many blue pigments they produce depends on the amount of water they drink. This means during the dry season they produce very little blue, making them yellow, while in the wet season they produce a lot of blue, making them green, and allowing them to blend in with the lush ferns. Because of this, domesticated dryosaurs range from bright green to cyan. Recent breeding has even produced pastel blue mounts. Their dark masks are harder to select for when breeding as they are an ancient trait (the exception being the piebald morph popular in Zilargo). Selecting for and against stripes is easier, as there is a lot of variation in wild dryosaurs. Normally they have light stripes on only their tail, but forest dryosaurs have dark melanin stripes.

Depicted above is a typical wild fastieth and the most common breed of domesticated fastieth used by the Talenta. As well as a piebald variant found only in cosmopolitan breeding circles in Zilargo.

The Talenta Plains are the largest remnants of a bygone era, before the proliferation of angiosperms. Flowering plants first evolved on Sarlona in conjunction with the extinction of the dinosaurs of the continent. Possibly the cause of said extinction. For a while they lived exclusively on the Eastern continent, slowly proliferating to the nearby Argonesson and Lhazaar Principalities. With the third land-bridge between Frostfell, Sarlona, and Khorvaire came an exchange of both fauna and flora. By chance flowering plants got their first foothold on Khorvaire. Especially grass. These plants spread throughout the continent and gradually faded the gymnosperms out. Mammals, being better adapted to consume angiosperms, replaced the once dominant dinosaurs. Only a handful of locations exist on Khorvaire where they can be found freely, the Talenta Plains being the largest.

Gymnosperms and their saurian consumers retain their position due to their ecological stability. And even then some angiosperms have invaded. Talenta is an interesting case, as grasses, almost omnipresent elsewhere, are completely absent. Instead the “plains” of Talenta are faux savannas made up of short ferns and terrestrial horsetail relatives. Floodplains dominant Talenta, leading to the binomial name of the nation. While enormous, larger than any other biome on the continent, they do not alone make up Talenta. To the South and East the Blade Desert sits. A narrow sea used to exist on Khorvaire millions of years ago, bounded by the Ironroot and (formerly shorter) Endwall Mountains. This sea flooded much of low-lying Talenta and Valenar. Eventually it dried up and was replaced by long prairies of ferns adapted to the salty soil. The Blade Desert facing the Endwall mountains, however, did not recover with plants. A rain-shadow effect produced a long desert where the salt never truly left. This is a lifeless land devoid of even plants, made up of dry soil and a white covering of salt. The Ironroot Mountains are a different story. They provide enormous amounts of snow melt. Water carries from these mountains, through Talenta, until it dumps into Lake Cyre. Hugging the mountains is a vast gymnosperm forest that makes the easternmost portion of Talenta. A similar forest sits on the Northwestern edge of Talenta, stretching into Karrnath and formerly Cyran territory.

Talenta’s plains are characterized by the yearly cycle of water flow from the Ironroot mountains. Wet and dry seasons are incredibly distinct, so much so that the native halflings have based their calendars around it, creating five month-long dry and wet “years”. In the dry season Talenta is similar to the savannas of Sarlona. Ferns grow short and skimp on producing chlorophyll, making the plains a wide yellow expanse. Rivers and lakes still flow, but at a much smaller rate. During this period animals make a migration around the plains to not exhaust the plant resources in one area. The foremost players are sauropods. At every step in the cycle they rid the plains of any and all mid to high growing trees. Behind them they leave bare wooden spears and the short-growing ferns, which smaller herbivores feed upon. Following the sauropods are the large carnivores. With the wet season comes the renewal of plant life all across the plains. Talenta’s odd soil composition and the presence of huge herds of dinosaurs crossing it constantly means the ground is highly changeable. Rivers rarely flow along the same path they did last wet season, snaking through the turbulent soil to make new riverbeds. Where they cannot flow they create ephemeral lakes that, depending on the ground, can become quite deep and deceptively narrow. Walking along the plains at any season, but especially the wet season, is a nightmare. Nowhere is the ground flat enough to support horses or wheels or rails. Stepping on what looks like grass could lead to a hidden hole grown over by ferns. It’s no wonder the small, light-footed halflings are the only ones who call this place home. Wet seasons usually spell a short rest to the cycle of migration, as dinosaurs start to mate, make nests, and raise their young. Once this is over the waterways dry up, all except the largest, and the migration continues. Any lakes or ponds will either evaporate or become stable and stranded, growing ever more stagnant and muck-filled. Here amphibians and hardy fish wait out the next wet season.

This way of life, characterized by the constant shifting of landmarks and cycles of water flow, have created a dichotomously chaotic and predictable environment. Animal groups extinct elsewhere thrive in Talenta, changing ever so slowly. Which isn’t to say it is not free from change. Halflings, the first humanoid species to come to Khorvaire, shook up the ecosystem quite a bit. They slotted into the migratory cycles easily, following the fastieth, dinosaurs known in Common as camptosaurs, dryosaurs, and their relatives. Any notion of hunting sauropods is the realm of Talenta myths and legends. At some point in this cycle the halflings domesticated the swift, small-bodied fastieth known as dryosaurs. These mounts are much smaller than horses but perfect for the little folk to ride and take hunting. Their three-toed, splayed feet make running across the uneven plains a breeze, and riders will leap from their saddles in tandem with the bumps of their mounts to create a rhythm. When this domestication event happened is unknown, but it may have been earlier than the first Dhakaani empires. Fastieth and other members of the Talenta menagerie figure into the beliefs of the halflings almost as easy as they figure into their daily lives. During the signing of the Treaty of Thronehold the Talenta delegation showed up with a flag bearing two footprints: one halfling and one fastieth.

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Hello! This is a continuation of that biogeography/ecology series. While DM-ing an Eberron campaign for about a year now I have written a shit-ton of stuff. Mostly to put all the information in one place so I don’t have to keep switching to the Eberron wiki in games, but also for my own ideas and world-building. And because I’m me, the dinosaurs have been a big part of that. The Talenta Plains are, I’ve decided, basically just the Morrison Formation. This, and what follows, are what I’ve written about it. Eberron originally belongs to D&D and Keith Baker.