Post Prehistoric Monster Ecology Of The Partridge Creek Beast For Your Old School Campaigns

The other day I was zipping around the Internet & came across a reference to the Partridge Creek Beast, a modern day dinosaur survivor in all of places the Canadian Yukon! I've always been a fan of Cryptozoological sightings which along with the "Ecology of" articles from the pages of Dragon Magazine back in the Eighties through middle Two Thousands. The Beast appeals to me as a dungeon master on all kinds of levels from the lost world setting weirdness to the unexpected menace just waiting to be come upon by adventurers. All of the following information came from Crypid Wiki site right over here.


"The Partridge Creek Beast is said to be a living Ceratosaurus seen in the Partridge Creek area of Yukon Territory, Canada. This creature terrorized local moose and caribou herds with its powerful, muscular build and ferocious mouth, but did not significantly change the populations.
This creature is said to be 50 feet long, be 40 tons in weight, solid black in color, be bipedal, have boar-like bristly hair, sharp teeth, and a single horn on its snout. It was said to roar loudly and have an appetite for caribou. It's footprints were 5 feet long and 2 feet and 6 inches wide with claws 1 foot long. Its tail impression was 10 feet long and 16 inches wide. It resembles Ceratosaurs and other theropods."
Spotted in 1903 the beast was an interesting beast to say the least:"James Lewis Buttler and Tom Leemore were hunting moose near Clear Creek when the animals they were stalking burst away in a sudden rapid fright after having been extremely quiet. They discovered the gigantic tracks of some animal that appeared to be a tail impression. They followed it for a while, until the tracks disappeared into a deep rocky gorge. They later met Georges Dupuy, Fr. Pierre Lavagneux and five unnamed Indians who agreed to search for the monster. They were initially unsuccessful but eventually encountered it near their campsite. They observed it for about 10 minutes and had a very clear look at it."
It was spotted again in 1907 again;"Lavagneux claimed to have seen the creature again in the same area on December 24, 1907. It carried a deceased caribou in its gaping jaws and left tracks identical to the tracks recorded four years earlier.
As these are the only sightings and they took place more than a century ago, we may never know what Lavagneux and his party really encountered. Lavagneux claimed it was a Ceratosaurus, which fit the description of the beast they saw. If it is, and the creature (or at least its remains) could be found, its existence might offer solid proof that dinosaurs were warm-blooded; because a large cold-blooded reptile would have little hope of survival in the northerly climes of the Yukon." 

the Partridge Creek Beast

So how does this relate to old school gaming? Well, actually we can take the Partridge Creek Beast as a way of possibly reskinning a common monster into an unexpected setting to surprise or horrify players. Imagine coming across this beast on your way to ruin or temple in the wastelands of Hyperborea or some other sword and sorcery setting. Better yet this could be a way of incorporating in some favorite prehistoric species of monster into your old school game adventures. One of my favorite books for creating dinosaurs is Lamentations of the Flame Princess's World of the Lost .


When it comes to designing adventures and the settings where lost worlds take place  the Partridge Creek Beast is a bit of a game changer. You can use arctic and sub tundra settings as a possible campaign setting to place prehistoric creatures in within the context of a radical departure from the normal run of the mill D&D material. This sort of a setting could be imported into a more traditional campaign such as the Hallowed World or another weird world pulpy campaign. 

The idea of the isolated location with an unexpected encounter makes things interesting & more then slightly dangerous. The situation seems  to resemble a Canadian version Valley of Gwangi from Nineteen Sixty Nine.
"The Valley of Gwangi is a 1969 American western-fantasy film directed by Jim O'Connolly and written by William Bast.^[1] It stars James Franciscus and, in their final film appearances, Richard Carlson and Gila Golan. It was filmed with creature effects provided by Ray Harryhausen"

Here we have an alpha predator whose actually at the top of an adventure setting food chain perhaps guarding the ruins of some ancient temple or other important adventure location. The advantage of this sort of a game is that the focus will be on the treasure & not on the prehistoric ecology of the scenario.

The set up comes in with a quality of the unexpected as the DM unleashes the boss creature upon the players. The combination of adventure & weirdness means that the DM is going to have to populate the adventure setting with some odd monsters from across the ages of dinosaurs & Ice age mammals.


For OSR games such as Labyrinth Lord or Mutant Future these sort of Tundra or Arctic mutations are right in line for these sorts of campaigns. In The Basic Fantasy Rpg this sort of a situation is tailor made for creating a unique or an original campaign especially one set within the confines of an old school pulpy weird prehistoric Ice Age style campaign world.  All of this could tie back into 'the creature as god' of its realm and setting. A monster who is both master & god in one setting similar in fact to the 1933 King Kong film later emulated but not topped by the 2005 Peter Jackson 'King Kong' remake.

What this presents is an idea of an adventure setting as both location & perhaps domain resource, a fact that can be exploited by games such as Dark Albion or Adventurer, Conqueror, King or classic BCMI D&D. Canada is perhaps a prehistoric realm waiting to be exploited by adventurers across a campaign setting where America as a whole is a relatively unknown piece of Terra Incognito. Perhaps these types of monsters represent unbridled nature as a type of divinity or petty god waiting to eat any invaders to their worlds.



The Partridge Creek Beast offers dungeon masters unique opportunities to exploit player's perceptions and add monsters perhaps that they haven't used before. Winter Wolves coupled with ice giants make great villains for such campaigns. White Dragons, Frost Wyrms, & Frost Giants all go well together as addition apex predators such as a Remorhaz. These monsters are perfect additions to the world of The Partridge Creek Beast.

The Partridge Creek Beast legend offers a unique opportunity to add another otherworldly and unexpected element of adventure to an old school campaign. The odd & downright dangerous nature of an encounter with this beast from some ancient & unknown past will offer all kinds of adventure opportunities. Some for a DM willing to add something unique & weird to their own games!

Some Thoughts On Using Tyrannosaurus In The World Of The Lost Adventure Source Book By Rafael Chandler

I've had at least two days of thumbing through the pdf of World of The Lost By Rafael Chandler source book. There are books that start to slowly consume your imagination and World of the The Lost is one of those for me. I've always have been a lost world sort of guy and dinosaurs are something that every kid loves. World of the Lost captures a bit of my imagination and I think it's probably that striking artwork on the back cover with the Lamentations signature characters running from dear life in the early morning hours from a T.Rex. So why do I say that? Well I began to really look into dinosaurs once again and there are two articles that really caught my eye both of which have massive gaming adventure appeal.

GRAB IT RIGHT HERE!

The first of these is one reported in the New Scientist dated November fifth concerning the findings of  Dr.Rorbert T. Baker, "Sharp-eared T. rex may have stalked the night like today’s owls" by Bob Holmes 

This article concerns itself with an ear ridge bone structure that Tyrannosaurus rex had on its massive skull. Here's the interesting part according to this article; "Finally, he realized that the ridge runs from the eardrum, positioned towards the back of the skull, to the front of the dinosaur’s cheek. “The most likely explanation is that there was an ear tube – an ear trumpet, if you will – that was concentrating hearing from the front,” he says."It’s a plausible idea, says Philip Currie at the University of Alberta in Canada. But the ridge could simply have been there to reinforce the bone against pulling from muscles attached somewhere else, he says.
Try and imagine your PC's dealing with a family of T.Rex's in the middle of night or early morning within the  wilderness. This is a damn scary proposition to stay the least. But how the hell did a T.Rex get into a middle of a Nigerian lost world in the first place? Aliens, space gods, or could there have been some other explanation?

Chris Glen - Wolff EDS, Salisbury SW, Horner JR, Varricchio DJ (2009) Common Avian Infection Plagued the Tyrant Dinosaurs

The second article comes from Scientific America but originally came from the pen of  Laura Geggel, on LiveScience on March 2, 2016.  "T. rex Was Likely an Invasive Species"  The article goes on to state that T.rex was likely an invasive dinosaur species from Asia but the idea of these giants causing all kinds of problems for villages and others is very appealing. Especially fighting these bastards in the middle of the night.This is the stuff of epic legends and could be the basis for many adventures in some of the areas described in World Of The Lost. Invasive species bring all kinds of problems with them and the might T.Rex as another exploiter in the LoFP paradigm fits the themes of KHIRIMA.
These invaders might well be bring in some common diseases and parasites that could hop species and begin infecting local livestock causing disease, starvation, and worse. Fighting T.rex's might be not only a side adventure but a matter of utmost cause for alarm and issues among the peoples depicted in World of the Lost.

ScottRobertAnselmo
The eye-sockets faced mainly forwards, giving it good binocular vision (Sue specimen).

Note that all of the articles cited here are for entertainment and educational purposes, they are not an attempt to violate the work,trademark  or copyright of the publications or authors. This article has not be endorsed by the authors or designers of the Lamentations of the Flame Princess rpg neither is it attempt by the blogger to violate their copy right nor trademark either. This is the speculation and work of a rabid fan of both dinosaurs and the Lamentations game and is this author's opinion and work. 

Review & Commentary On The World Of The Lost Adventure Source Book By Rafael Chandler As Old School Campaign

What happens when your Lamentations of the Flame Princess adventurers stumble upon an African lost world setting of massive proportions? You get World of the Lost from the pen of Rafael Chandler and the warped minds of some of the OSR's premiere artists. This is an entire expansion of the LoFP system in my humble opinion. There are some pieces of great PC options from character generation expansion, new spells, equipment, regional weaponry, dark magic, techno science fantasy secrets, and more for about ten bucks! This isn't a shelf warmer its a book like Vornhiem that your going to be reaching for again and again.


GRAB IT RIGHT HERE! JUST GET IT NOW!


There are books you see as an old school gamer that you know are going to be worth waiting for and World of The Lost is one of those. This is  massive campaign resource of a book that details an a the fictional city of Khirima, in a 17th-century Nigeria. The territory depicted in the map is dominated by a large
plateau inhabited by bellowing dinosaurs and strange monsters. It is one of the must have books to get besides Carcosa in my humble opinion for Lamentations of the Flame Princess. This book enables a dungeon master from the ground up straight out of hand to create their own version of the setting. This book takes many of the 'Lost World' setting cliches and turns them on their ears. The heroes here can be anything from the native Africans to your own LoFP PC's and your going to need them. This book sports an adventure for characters levels 1-4, featuring a 200-encounter wilderness hexcrawl, a city sourcebook, a dungeon, quests, diseases, new spells, and new magic items. And that's really the start of it,  this book allows the DM to create their own version of Khirima from the ground up for cities, towns, and tons of wilderness options. All of this can be expanded up on the fantastic maps that come with this adventure sourcebook. If this is the direction that Lamentations of the Flame Princess is going to take then sign me up. Khirima (kurr-EE-mah) is the capital of a large kingdom surrounded by villages and towns for many miles. And World of the Lost has table after random table to create your own version of this setting. You're PC options are all across the table in this book with options for everyone from the fighter to the cleric and every wizard in between with an African lost world flare. Merchants, lodging, weapons, etc. is all there right off the bat as you open this book. And it all works. Don't screw with these people or you will have your PC's flesh flayed off. Seriously these are serious folks and this book covers every single aspect of their lives.


Did I happen to mention the prehistoric life forms that inhabit certain sections of everywhere in World of the Lost? Everything from Dinosaurs to Ice Age giant mammals stalks the wild and wants to eat your face off. This book is post apocalyptic primeval setting with African overtones of weirdness. This book is dense, rich, and can't be taken in on one sitting. I've been dipping into it again and again for two days running and haven't even begun to scratch the surface. This book is has a massive featuring a 200-encounter wilderness hexcrawl with detailed entries like;"The city of Akabo. By day, smoke from the fire is visible from adjacent
hexes; by night, one can see the glow from the flames. A necromancer named Henriette (now in hex 23-A) cursed the city, and the dead have risen. These undead, known as ogbanje, attacked the living, and the curse
spread to those who have been bitten. The entire city is overrun. Countless swarms of ogbanje (1d100 per swarm) wander the streets. Most survivors fled north, rather than brave the bandits and wild beasts
around the plateau. Should the adventurers enter the city, they’ll find its
layout similar to that of Khirima (Chapter 1: City can be used to flesh out details). Most of the city is ablaze, and other than a few survivors hiding from the ogbanje, Akabo belongs to the undead."
This is the level of detail that your going to get from this sourcebook and it's on par with some of the best Lamentations of the Flame Princess books. The fact that you get locals as adventuring PC's is awesome and they're detailed as human beings and with clear cut motives for helping or hindering other characters. World of  The Lost is like Robert Howard's Africa slept with Carcosa and then fused together elements of Nigerian & UFO mythology to produce this campaign setting. I feel that this is a new corner stone for the Lamentations system.

These are the sorts of adventurers your PC's might be running into in the World of the Lost

I haven't gotten to the dungeon known as 'The Temple of Ages That Are Not' this is a science fantasy dungeon on par with the Expedition to the Barrier Peaks dungeon adventure. There are elements that I won't go into here in this review but are very raw, dangerous and brutal. On par with Mr. Chandler's Slaughter Gird for style and substance and actually takes some of that style and expands upon it with a deadly dungeon grace all of its own with a sci fi fantasy twist all of its own . The pdf is fully cross listed and referenced for each and every encounter with rules, entries, and references throughout the book's digital format.
To expand upon the content of  'World Of The Lost' there are some of the most weird and deadly lifeforms besides the prehistoric dinosaurs, plants, mutated horrors that inhabit this campaign setting that I've seen in a long while. There's enough content for seven or eight campaign's worth of material.
I can't recommend this book enough! Seriously one of the best campaign and setting books for 2016 so far in my humble opinion and if your going to spend ten dollars then get this book!