Alright so there are all sorts of MYTHICAL beasts on Nirn, like dragons, trolls, giants, and what not but could there be or have been REAL world reptiles like dinosaurs? I kinda imagine brontosauruses in valenwood eating leaves off the tropical trees, or pterodactyls in the skies. I know there is no evidence regarding dinosaurs I'm just wondering if you guys think there could be. I think it would be kinda cool

Sotha Sil's animunculi look like dinosaurs, but I've never heard any mention of them in Tamriel or elsewhere.

Could? Theoretically yes. But I'd rather not. Dinosaurs in fantasy just strike me as weird*

*With the exception of Dinotopia, 'cause it's Dinotopia.

The lizardmen in Arena were probably at close second to being dinosaurs.

Well in the oceans, yes. I can see large predatory seamonsters in TES. There are lots of dinos in D&D. I've never played it and never would, but I loved reading D&D magazines until they canceled it. It was a seriously interesting piece of a fiction.

Speaking of D&D there was some planet scape PC game I can't remember the name of. It's supposed to be awesome, but I never got around to playing it. Anyone know what it's called?

Well Morrowind does have cliff racers, those things always reminded me of pterodactyls.

(Assuming this isn't sarcasm.) The game is Planescape: Torment, and it's a masterpiece. Chris Avellone is a wonderful writer.

Yeah! That's what I was thinking of! Did Avellone do Fallout? The name sounds awfully familiar.

He worked on Fallout 2, don't know about 1...

Well... time to grope blindly at Dosbox again. I don't wanna pass up playing this game.

TES is so much cooler without dinosaurs.

I can imagine dinosaurs being in Valenwood, Blackmarsh or Akavir.

dragons are just the mythical record of man's previous knowledge of dinosaurs. Whether man lived the same time I think I'll leave that argument to someone else but...

Dragons are massive reptiles that lay eggs. All nations across the globe have record of them as the creatures bigger than the creature we see today..... hardly can be complete coincidence. The ancient world must have had some knowledge we just mistake as pure fiction.

Well, there's Clannfears.

Well, there's mammoths. So, where are my giant ground sloths?

Also, this is super pedantic and should be ignored, but I thought the scientific community agreed that dinos weren't reptiles? They're something else entirely? Or maybe I'm misremembering something. Anyway, dinos in this setting kind of feels game-breaking. But I wouldn't be upset to see dinos in the Black Marsh, Mokele-mbembe style.

ok. but then ancient legends never actually prove that dragons were reptiles either. Maybe we should re word it that dragons are exceptionally large reptile / lizard looking egg laying creatures, much the same way dinosaurs were also exceptionally large reptile / lizard looking egg laying creatures, lol

Also, Ken Rolston. Man who made Paranoia great, and who's responsible for Morrowind (Oblivion to a lesser extent too). Art is incistuous.

lol no. Upright ape-men did not live at the same time as non-avian dinosaurs. I can't believe someone is actually suggesting that mythological dragons were real.


Dinosaurs (including birds) are still a branch on the reptile tree, but most, if not all of them, are believed to be warm blooded. They are reptiles, but they're not lizards, crocodiles, turtles, or snakes. According to phylogenetics, you can't grow out of your family. As for the topic at hand; it would feel a little weird to see a T-Rex trying to eat Dovahkiin, or Neravarine seeing a herd of grazing Triceratops, but there are real animals in TES, and Cliffracers are reminiscent of flying reptiles that lived around the time of the dinosaurs, so who knows.

There is a creature in the sea near Black Marsh called a Sea-Drake that has been described as looking like a plesiosaur. The Moamer are also known to tame Sea-Serpents which could very well be a parallel to a Dinosuar species.

There's sabre-toothed cats and wooly mammoths, so I don't see why other extinct animals couldn't exist.

There's also plenty of dinosaur-like creatures in TES, as others have said. Kagouti, Guars, Cliff Racers, Fabricants, Sea Drakes, Clannfears, Daedroths...

It would depend on the species, and I can imagine dinos being in if they were altered in some way to make them different creatures. We have the Clannfear, and I highly doubt that all lesser Daedra are around the same size as a human. For all we know, there are a million different types of lesser Daedra and some could be spiky, magical reptiles loosely based on a dino speciies.

Cliff racers, guars, kagoutis, alits, clannfears, daedroths, durzogs and verminous fabricants. I would call those dinosaurs.

Clanfear, Daedroth, Cliff Racers, Argonians, and Dragons.

There, you have your dinosaurs.

But they aren't really dinosuars, they just resemble what we think they would have looked like. I believe the topic starter was referring to a species of dinosuars naturally roaming the wilds and fitting into this world.