AN EXTENSION

 MY PRIEVIOUS POST, AND BY EXTENSION, EVERY INSULT CONTAINED THERIN AND THEROUT, ARE FURTHERMORE TO BE DIRECTED AT LE DUM DUM'S PALACE.

COME ON, YOU LACKADASICAL TWIDDLE-TWADDLER! HAVE AT YE! RETURN MY SERVE!

A MOST SERIOUS AND GRIM CHALLENGE

 UPON THE HONOR OF ALL NINETY-TWO OF MY ONE-EARED ANCESTORS, I NOW CHALLENGE THE OWNER OF ALL THESE TEDIOUS THINGS, BE HE NOT A CRAVEN AND WORTHLESS FOOL, TO THE MOST HOLY AND PRECIOUS OF GAMES, TO A GREAT AND ALMIGHTY WAR OF IMAGE PING PONG.

THOU KNOWEST THE RULES WELESTHTST ENOUGH ALREADY, AND SO I GIVE THOUST MINE SERVE!

WHAT, GOOD SER, HEREBY THISETH DEPICTION SHALL BE CREATED OF?

Vytrius, who is Beautiful and Mad

Vytrius

Vytrius is a town, and it is also a person. 

The town is composed of four parts, and I am going to talk about all of them sequentially, and then the person.

The City

Vytrius is an old city, and a prosperous one. It is one of the most stable places in the world, and its borders have remained almost unchanged for the past few hundred years. This is due almost entirely to its patron, who is powerful enough to scare off most incursions, but has no particular interest in expansion. The combination of posing no particular threat to anyone and everyone knowing exactly who lives there is quite effective.

The fourth circle of Vytrius is unassuming. It isn't technically part of the city proper and sits outside its walls, but most say it belongs there. You'll primarily find caravans, mercenaries, and most anyone else you'd see in a trading square. You might wonder why it sits outside the walls, but the answer quickly becomes obvious.

The third circle of Vytrius is where the actual city begins. 

Nothing ugly is allowed within the walls. No ugly people are permitted entrance. No items deemed ugly, no matter how valuable, are allowed into the city. 
Any contraband is taken, destroyed, and its owner is fined. Anyone found in the city who are not up to its standards are imprisoned and executed.

The guard are professionals, specially trained to judge books by their covers, and are often called upon to serve as judges during competitions, pageants, or petty disputes.

Besides that, the city itself is quite wonderful. The people are made friendly and generous by their comfortable lives, and the guard is largely ceremonial. More attention is paid to their appearance than actual combat readiness.

Nothing dull is allowed into the second circle of Vytrius.

Where the third circle is lively and warm, the second circle is often eerily quiet. It's simply more convenient to live outside the second circle, without having to worry about losing anything deemed "dull". Most of those who do live here spend most of the time in the third circle, and only reside where they do because the prices are cheaper.

Of the communities which exist entirely within the second circle, most of them have a frustratingly high opinion of themselves. They're stereotypical gated communities, except they aren't nearly as rich or beautiful as they'd like to think.

The first circle of Vytrius is not technically a circle. Instead, it is the original citadel that the rest of the city is built around.

Nothing that is not beautiful is allowed within the first circle.

The Person

To talk more about the first circle, I need to talk about who sits at its center - Vytrius.

Vytrius is a Swarmborne, at least one thousand years of age. Unlike most Swarmborne, who inhabit the bodies of convenient and numerous vermin, Vytrius has become a cloud of butterflies.

Most commonly, they appear as a swarm of butterflies in the vague outline of a man. They communicate almost entirely by telepathy, which is probably for the better - Those few that have heard their voice have described the combination of countless tiny sounds as terrifying, at best.

It is Vytrius who constructed the original citadel, Vytrius who decreed that nothing ugly was to approach them, and Vytrius who will emerge to defend the city when it is threatened.

Vytrius is also the reason for the city's legendary bureaucracy. The bureaucracy of the first circle, where many citizens earn their livelihood, has a double purpose - It keeps other people away from Vytrius, and it keeps Vytrius away from other people.

The first purpose is simple. Vytrius is quite reclusive, and really does not like disturbances to... Whatever it is they are doing in their tower.  The second purpose is a bit more obscure, but it goes like this: 
Almost everyone considers Vytrius quite mad, and a thousand year old madman with the magical power they possess isn't something anyone wants around very much. To this end, the bureaucracy was constructed so that any action Vytrius might take, they have to first wade through the miles of red tape that anyone else would endure if they wanted an audience. 
Vytrius does this voluntarily. While they are not technically ruler of the city, no one is under the illusion that they couldn't enforce their will, if they wished it. Vytrius simply obeys these rules because he thinks them to be beautiful.

And so the bureaucracy of Vytrius is an eternal balancing act. They must be keep the lord pleased with them, while simultaneously limiting his mobility. They must make sure nothing in the city rouses the lord to anger, while maintaining the almost-normalcy they've managed to create. It is not an enviable task.

Besides the bureaucracy, the first circle is a very strange place. There are rooms entirely filled with living butterflies, rooms whose walls are covered with dead butterflies, each in pristine condition, as part of Vytrius's ongoing quest to collect one of each type of butterfly that exists. There are rooms filled with illusions of butterflies, rooms filled with paintings of butterflies, the occasional butterfly-like monstrosity traversing the hallways, and that's on top of all the guards and traps Vytrius has set up to preserve his privacy and protect his collection. Really, you should always stick to the rooms the bureaucracy has cataloged.

Might make for a cool dungeon, though. Maybe even a mega-dungeon.

The Outside

At this moment, the peace of Vytrius is the most fragile it has been in years. 

Northwards, the Church of Ilysy's recent expansion shows no signs of stopping, and it seems the next place to go would be southwards, bringing them dangerously close to the city.

The city may not have been conquered before, but it is far from invincible. It's just that most would-be invaders reason that the risk of "Angry Ancient Mage of Unknown Power" isn't worth the reward of "One Pretty Nice City". 

Will the Church break this record? It is unlike them to tolerate a magic user this powerful in their territory, but the reward such an invasion would pose seems... Underwhelming.

From the hills, rumors spread that druids have begun to gather, plotting gods know what - Quite possibly invasion. 

That being said, the motivation that drives large groups of druids to actions is arcane. No one is ever quite certain why they do what they do, and if they are plotting to overthrow the city, then why now, and not hundreds of years ago?

The answers, as always, are frustratingly obscure.

Other Liches

I'M GOING TO LIVE FOREVER!

There are more ways to immortality than just undeath, you know. Spellcasters have been trying to extend their lives since time immemorial, and they've come up with a fair few more methods and just "Become a Spooky Scary Skeleton Man".

(\\Digression - I say spellcaster, but it really means anyone. It's a ritual, and like all rituals, it's theoretically possible for anyone powerful enough to preform it, its just that most fighters and the like don't have the resources or the inclination to do the research and preparation necessary to make it happen, while that is kind of a spellcaster's whole job.)

The Worm That Walks

You're probably already aware of the Worm that Walks, but for those of you who aren't, here's the gist -

Lichdom isn't the only path towards immortality, nor are necromancers the only ones who ever seek to escape death. When an exceptionally powerful spellcaster decides that they want to preserve themselves forever, they have a whole myriad of ways to do so. I'll definitely write a post about some of the more interesting ones sometime, but that's not right now. Anyway, our future Worm that Walks decides hey, you know what's better than become immortal as a person? Becoming immortal as a bunch of fucking worms! So this individual, who is doubtlessly both sane and extremely intelligent, does some ritual left unspecified so you can come up with it, and then a bunch of worms eat his corpse, and then he takes over all the worm's minds and now he's a bunch of worms. Also, he can incorporate new worms into the mix so he doesn't die when all the original get old. 

"Worm that Walks" is a stupid name, and also an innaccurate one. I'm going to call them "Swarmborne". While still stupid, this name is at least accurate, because they don't have to be composed of specifically worms. As long as the mix is homogeneous, they can use basically any creatures, as long as they're small enough. Ants, roaches, locusts, there are even rare examples of rats, and at least one giant has transformed himself into a pack of wolves. Worms are just the most commonly used ones because worms are common, versatile, and hardy.

Transmetallics

Oh look, another thing I built off of a concept stolen from, apparently, the only blog I know.

Transmetallics are people who pursue the immortality of metal. Metal isn't technically immortal, of course, but they figure they can patch up the damaged parts and be good as new.

Theoretically, there are as many different types of transmetallics as there are metals, but most of them are steel, because steel is both strong and easily found. The dream of every transmetallic is to turn themselves into pure adamantium, but this is not something that's ever been done before. Most people would say it is either impossible or close enough to impossible that it isn't worth trying, which is why most people aren't transmetallics.

The minority who transform into mercury are almost always driven mad. It's rather hard to hold on to a coherent identity when you've just made yourself liquid at room temperature.

Burners

You know the drill.

Burners are people who link their souls to a furnace. If the flame in that furnace ever goes out, the Burner dies. As a consequence, they tend to burn a lot of things, hence the name. The flames in these furnaces consume well more fuel than they have any right to, and the requirement just gets higher the longer a Burner's life is sustained. Sustaining life takes a lot of energy, man.

The longer a Burner lives, the less they look like a human, and the more they look like a walking piece of charcoal. They can become very combustible, but because they're totally immune to fire, it tends to be a lot more dangerous to other people than it is to them. 

If you wanted to be horrible, you could have them look like an actual burn victim, but that is so genuinely horrific and disgusting to me I will not set foot anywhere near it.

The size of a Soul-Furnace varies drastically. A bigger flame means more power, but also more fuel, and a higher risk of getting noticed and being heroically slain by adventurers, or possibly just having their heads bashed in by some very angry druids.

Chainers

Chainers are people who siphon off the immortality of naturally immortal (or very long lived) creatures they manage to imprison. Most commonly, those creatures are dragons.

Despite the rituals needed being the simplest of all the immortals, Chainers are by far the rarest.

This is because only an idiot thinks they can tie up a dragon and leach immortality from it without it, breaking out and eating you, one of its friends breaking it out and eating you, or one of its enemies breaking it out and eating you.

A Few Things people miss about Druids (Alternatively - Blood Makes the Grass Grow, KILL KILL KILL!)

 Inspired by the legendary Goblin Punch article. 

Have you noticed I take inspiration from that blog a lot? Because I take inspiration from that blog a lot.

It's a fucking good blog, what the fuck are you doing reading this nonsense instead of Goblin Punch?

What the fuck even is a Druid?

No, seriously. Everyone has a picture in their head of what druids are like, but no one ever discusses what a druid is. They're "people possessed by the spirits of nature"? That makes sense, but like... How does one become possessed by the spirits of nature? What exactly does that entail? From the perspective of what we call nature, there is no such thing as "nature". A tree does not view itself as part of a forest. A forest does not view itself as part of an ecosystem. The Arctic does not think it is a desert, and would probably be offended by the implication. 

It's the paradox of druids. The idea of "nature" is artificial. Druids would be people possessed by the fundamentally unnatural spirits of nature, and that just doesn't make any fucking sense.

In the 2nd A&D Player's Handbook, the Druid is listed as a subtype of Cleric. This is how druids are most conventionally played.

But at the same time, priests of nature gods also exist alongside druids? How does that work? What's the difference between a druid and a nature-priest? And why is it specifically priests of nature that get special treatments, and not any of the other domains?

I have chosen to resolve this problem by throwing everything about what druids are out the window, and coming up with something new.

This is what the fuck a Druid even is

Druids are worshipers of concepts. They do not worship a god with the nature domain, nor do they worship an embodiment of nature. Druids cut out the middle man, and directly worship the abstract idea of nature.

If we're on the same wavelength, you may have noticed that this definition works for any concept, not just nature. That's because not every druid worships nature. Most do, because nature is an incredibly prevalent part of our lives, but the definition of "druid" applies to any concept-worshiper. 

Now that we understand what a druid even is, we can move on to actually talking about them.

Druids are like anarchists - No one can agree what the fuck they're doing

Every single druid has a different idea of what "nature" is. Many of these definitions have similarities, and druids with similar definitions very often join together to form circles, but no two understandings are quite the same - And that's only addressing the druids who worship "nature". Many druids worship more specific things that might still fall under the category of nature, like "tundra", "fire", or "panthers", but there are also the druids that worship unnatural ideas, like "swords", "chiseled rock", or the even general idea of "civilization". 

The numbers of unnatural druids tend to stay on the low end, both because most other druids hate them with a passion, and because becoming a druid needs a certain irrational passion, one that's rarely found in the comparatively sterile world of "civilized peoples". It's very difficult to be so inspired by the idea of math that you gain magical powers, but it isn't impossible.

Even putting the unnatural druids aside, huge variances still exist. A druid of the desert will struggle to find common ground with a druid of the forest, and even more so with a druid of the river. This only gets worse the more niche you go - Druids of dormice would probably have a more productive conversation with a brick wall than they would with druids of the west wind. 

A Few Weird Subtypes of Natural Druids

Wild Druids, also known as primal druids, are the ones described in the article that inspired this whole thing. They are deeply passionate, deeply violent, and by the standards of society, deeply mad.

Blood Druids are sometimes mistaken for them, but they're not the same. Blood druids have no such ideas about "Destroying Symbolic Thought", or any common ideas at all. Blood Druid is a general term for druids primarily concerned with violence. Not druids who concern themselves with the natural cycle as a whole, but specifically the part where they get to kill a lot of people. These include druids who worship blood as a concept, druids of predation, druids of invasive species, druids of the shrike, and those idiots who think that nature means "No Rules, Kill Everyone".

Possibly the most unique of the natural druids are druids of the city. Not the unnatural construction of the city, but the ecosystems and that exist within them. They've gained a reputation as some of the cleverest people in the world, and it's for a good reason. Managing to survive within an inhospitable environment, whether the attacks of their unfriendly brothers, and endure the constant threat of further development outright destroying what little nature you can find requires a quick hand and a quicker wit. 

("You should stat them out as a class or subclass", someone probably says. Maybe I will eventually, but I'm much better at throwing out ideas than I am balancing things, sorry.)

Druids kill other druids a lot

Arguments over definition can, predictably, lead to vicious druidic infighting. Out of all the holy wars on the face of the world, the druidic ones might be the worst. Have you ever seen the kind old hermit who lives in the woods have his brains bashed out by a half-naked stranger who speaks only in screams? What about that nice woman who cares for the pigeons being burnt alive by the fire that red-haired wanderer is shooting out of his hands? Ever watched wacky uncle order a flock of goshawks to rip out a man's liver?

 Druids can always recognize other druids, and since no self-respecting druid would ever think to form a proper army, battles start the second one lock eyes on another, and ends when one of them is dead. It's always safer to stay away from anyone you think might be a druid, lest you get caught up in the crossfire.

Not every druid is at war with every other druid at all times, of course. Circles form truces, ally to deal with larger threats, and sometimes it's safer just to pretend you didn't notice your enemy was nearby. 

It's a lot like the world of espionage, but with more murder, and also trees.

Wrapping things up

I've listed a lot of types of druids here, some of which are very niche. These aren't examples of druids that actually exist, they're examples of druids who might exist. Everything I've said here is possible, but none of it is certain.

I may have accidentally given the impression that druids are commonplace in this article. They aren't. It takes a very rare kind of person to be a druid. Druids don't have detailed notes like wizards, natural power like sorcerers, or even doctrines to follow the same way clerics do. The best they've got is a mentor who'll probably end up spending more time forcing them to figure out their own solutions than actually helping. There are no certification exams that declare you a druid, no easy way to measure power. You don't choose to be a druid, you are called to become one. Some sudden spark of insight that forces you to rethink your life, giving in to that nagging doubt that's always been needling at the back of your head, being confronted head-on with the true horror of environmental destruction - These are the kind of things that put people on the path to druidry. 

There is only one thing that you can say without doubt about all druids, and it is that each and every druid is utterly and completely unique.

Pseudo-Cosmology and the Atheist-Priests

No dinosaurs today, I'm afraid. That was my big opening bit, and while I'll be putting in just as much work to the rest as I did into that one, I doubt it'll end up as high quality. Whole situation is tragic, really. If only I wasn't an idiot.

 Before I get into any real writing, I should pause a minute to talk a little about the cosmology of the world, or at least the lack of it. 

I call it psuedo-cosmology, but in all honesty, it's just a regular cosmology, but I like the name. Psuedo-cosmology. It sounds interesting when you say it, a lot more interesting than when it's explained.

Because that all sounds dreadfully boring, I'll also talk a little about a small priesthood at the end, because to do anything else would probably lose me what few readers I have.

The Cosmology, or Lack-Thereof

Most of my writings take place on one world, because I've been running that world in various shapes for my D&D group for years. I enjoy worldbuilding, but I enjoy even more watching people actually interact with the world, discover things about it, and change the way its run. Besides the fact that I do my best to build things in a way that's slightly alien and non-traditional, the world has one other quirk that I should probably disclose at the beginning.

One thing that's always frustrated me about roleplaying games is how the great spiritual mysteries are always spelled out for you. Where do we go when we die? We go to the Seven Heavens, or possibly the Nine Hells, and I can confirm this for absolute fact because I've been to both myself. How was the world made? The overgod did it, and I can confirm this for absolute fact because I've talked to them. How and why did life begin? The gods made it, and yet again, I can confirm this for absolute fact because I've talked to them.

This fucking sucks. It's boring. It stifles your ability to make interesting cultures. It stops you from making interesting characters. I once played a barbarian who believed that mortal spirits were imprisoned on the world in a cycle of reincarnation, until they eventually proved themselves virtuous enough to ascend to a higher plane of being, and that it was thus the most moral thing to do to kill a sinner now and give them another chance at redemption, instead of letting them waste their time in this life. That character was fun, and had unique interactions with the world and the party, and he's probably my second favorite character of all time. I keep bringing him back whenever I need an idea on short notice. 

The entire time I've played that character, I've always been bothered by the fact that as a player, I know for a fact that he's wrong. His entire worldview is bullshit, and whenever there's any sort of theological discussion, everyone else can just ignore anything he might believe because their gods speak to them one-on-one. 

So, I've decided to do away with cosmology. No one knows where you go when you die. No one knows how life started. No one knows any of that shit. A lot of people have a lot of very firmly held beliefs about it, and it's quite obvious that the clerics are getting power from somewhere, but on one could conclusively tell you where that is.

Combine this with the idea of foreign angels. For that matter, you can insert foreign devils, and foreign demons, and foreign functions-like-angels. For an example of that, look at the dinosaurs that headline this blog. Everything becomes so much more wonderfully confusing. The beliefs of every religion are true, but maybe not as true as they think. There are definitely dwarf-gods out there, and dwarf-demons, but are those gods really the gods who forged reality itself? Are the angels really even angels, or are they just a different, more beautiful kind of demon whose purpose is to convert people to the worship of the wicked dwarf-gods instead of the true rulers of creation, elf-gods? Where do we go when we die? Who made the universe? Why and how did life come into existence? Plenty of people will say they know these things, but you can't be certain. They could be wrong. They could be lying. It's wonderful.

Almost every religion in the world tells you that their gods are the true rulers of everything, and that all the other gods are simply demonic deceivers. This is by far the most common view,  but it's not the only one. One of the more interesting groups who break with this view are the infamous atheist-priests

Atheist-priests aren't actually atheists. They're called atheist-priests because although they always wear the clothing and bear the mannerisms of priests, there aren't any recordings of them actually doing any of the important things priests do, like offering spiritual wisdom, giving sermons, or preforming sacraments. 

This is because of the god the atheist-priests worship. This god has no name, as this god refuses to be named. The atheist-priests call this deity "The Great Abstainer".

Atheist-priests are all very devout believers who go out of their way to practice their faith at all times. They hate it when people call them atheist-priests, and they would love to go yell at you about how you're an idiot and they're not anything close to atheists, but they know to do so would violate the sacred doctrines. But they really want to. Sometimes they decide that maybe they can just sin a little bit today, and then they'll berate you and whack you with the walking sticks they carry everywhere, because you are an idiot and probably deserve it for all the lack of abstaining you do, you filthy sinner. 

Great atheist-priests are known to abstain from food or drink, and their starvation is venerated. Even greater atheist-priests abstain from food, drink, and death itself. They are venerated from abstaining even from the inevitable cessation of life. The priests believe that the more things they abstain from, the closer they come to their god. The end-goal is to abstain from all things, and ascend to become one with the Great Abstainer.

Side note - The Great Abstainer abstains from using pronouns. Refer to the Great Abstanier only as the Great Abstainer, or the atheist-priests will judge your sin harsh enough that they cease abstaining to beat you with their wooden walking sticks and yell at you.

This is the most common action taken by the atheist-priests. People annoy them enough, through disrespect or grievous sin, that they cease abstaining long enough to beat you with their wooden walking sticks and yell at you. They often travel in packs, and their wrath is simultaneously hilarious to witness and mildly horrifying to receive.

The atheist-priests are begrudgingly tolerated almost everywhere in the world. They don't do much harm, nor do they attempt to convert the populace to their wicked ways, and it is really hard to scare them away from going somewhere. You can outlaw everything about them, and they will just abstain from acknowledging those laws or being afraid of the punishment. 

They aren't common, but you'll probably meet at least one in your life. It's gotten to the point that some people say that atheist-priests emerge fully-formed from rocks, because there's no way a group this niche could have so many members. Most rational people reject this idea, because it is ridiculous, but so are a lot of other things. Still, it's probably false.

But enough with the digression. I initially mentioned them because of their unique view on the world's cosmology, and so I'll get back to that.

Their view is not so dissimilar from what you might think, as a reader. The Great Abstainer is the highest and greatest god, of course, but the Great Abstainer is not the ruler of reality. After all, the Great Abstainer abstains from all rulership. In his stead, the other gods have come forth. In the eyes of an atheist-priest, reality is governed by hordes of squabbling children with unfathomable power. It's quite similar to the material world, which is ruled by similar but different and weaker squabbling children with unfathomable power. 

Is it much surprise they take pleasure in beating idiots with a stick every now and again?

The Dinosaurs and Their God (AKA "Dinosaurs Attack Heaven")

 Largely inspired by (read - stolen from) this wonderful article by Goblin Punch.

Pre-Exposition Exposition

So.

The dinosaurs.

Most of the bits you know are still the same. Prehistoric animals, massive and scaly, wiped out in a mass extinction, their bones still litter the countryside, all that good stuff. You can fill in the blanks I don't cover, you know what a bloody dinosaur is, which means that I can skip right on to the actually interesting bits, the stuff you don't already know.

Animals have their own form of worship, and their own gods. These gods are often not the anthropomorphic figures we find familiar, nor is the animal's worship composed of rhythmic chants and holy sacraments. Most animals wouldn't be smart enough to come up with that kind of stuff, anyway. 

No, the worship of animals manifest in their actions. When a rabbit freezes in fear from an onrushing threat, it is sending up a fragment of an almost-prayer to its little rabbit god. When a wolf seizes that rabbit in its jaws and tears it apart, that wolf is offering up an almost-prayer to its lupine god. So it is that gods can emerge, even when there are no intelligent beings around to build them temples and sing their praises, and so it was with the dinosaurs. The dinosaurs had their own gods, and very many of them.

Beast-gods don't tend to amount to much of anything. They are more intelligent than beasts, but far from masterminds. For the most part, they simply exist in the background, unknown to almost all intelligent creature. 

And so it was for the vast majority of dinosaur-gods. They were content to do nothing much in particular, and soak up the almost-prayer they were provided. The problems arose when one god in particular started wanting more.

The Ancient Times

Tyrus Ferox began existence as an ordinary beast-god, but they would not remain so. Through some unknown means, a higher level of intelligence was awoken within them, and alongside that intelligence came a lust for power. Ferox began a divine campaign against the other beast-gods, killing them and absorbing any forms of almost-worship they possessed into himself. The other beast-gods were not prepared for this. They were used to the violence that comes when a predator preys upon weaker beings, but this was something entirely different. For Ferox, this was not a battle for survival or reproduction, but a war.

This would be what most people of our world might call the end-Triassic extinction.

And so it came about that Tyrus Ferox became sole lord over the dinosaurs. It took time for the world to return to as it was before the war, but time has always been a resource Ferox possessed in abundance. The world would be rebuilt, greater than it was before, and united under one god's rule. 

This should have been enough for Ferox, but it wasn't. They leaned down upon the world and bestowed a few of his chosen with intelligence to match his own, and in his name they constructed an empire. This, too, should have been enough for Ferox, but it wasn't. Ferox went beyond the bounds of dinosaurs, enslaving all living things upon the world to the will of his and his children. Nothing, not land, nor skies, nor sea was free from his control. 

There were pockets of resistance, of course. Deep ocean trenches that the land-dwelling dinosaurs could not enter. Great mountains, confident that they would outlast any empire, who refused to bow. Small pockets of non-saurian animals, guarded by mysterious protectors. But Ferox knew these would fall, in time. It did not satisfy them.

Ferox was, by any standard of measurement, a god, but they were not the god. They had not ordered the world, and they did not know who placed the sun in the sky, or separated land from sea, or first gave rise to life itself. (In truth, these questions still vex learned men to this day. No one is quite sure, though there are myriad religions who would be absolutely delighted to inform you.) 

Not knowing these things had never bothered them, but now they had nothing better to do but consider these questions. They began to eat at Ferox, and the great beast slowly came to a realization, and then became filled with a great conviction.

They would find these creators, wherever they hid, and they would conquer them. Then and only then, thought Ferox, could they truly be content.

Another era went by, and the dominion of Ferox grew grander still. It was at the very height of this civilization that the master plan of Tyrus Ferox went into effect.

The creators, Ferox thought, must have been hiding in the Heavens, and so to find them, Ferox must assault the Heavens. So began a great construction, and a great genocide. The empire built machines of ancient wood, of enchanted alloys, and most horribly of all, out of the flesh and bone of their pterosaur slaves. To this day, the few surviving pterosaurs have not let their rage die out. If you value your life, never call one of them a dinosaur.

The invasion commenced on the anniversary of the day Ferox slew the last of his rival dinosaur-gods. It must have been a horrible sight, armies of dinosaurs ascending towards the sky, perched atop machines of wood and bone and flesh. Ferox stood at their very head, incarnate in a physical form, their smile made all the more horrible by their blood-stained teeth.

It is said that it rained fire and blood for a full year, and that by the time it was over, the sun was obscured by ash, and the earthly empire of Tyrus Ferox was no more. Some creatures survived, through luck or miracle, but the dinosaurs had been rendered utterly extinct.

But this was not the end of Tyrus Ferox, far from it. No one knows what occurred within the Heavens, but it is clear that Ferox survived, alongside the remnants of his army. They returned, but not to the world they had left. Instead, they found a scarred and blasted landscape, filled with the corpses of their kin. But this was not the end of their suffering, for it was at this moment that Ferox realized an even more terrible truth - They and their army had returned not to the present, but to the past. As his worshipers and their civilization had become artifacts of a bygone era, so had Ferox himself fallen a few steps behind the present. 

And so, that is the fate of Tyrus Ferox and his armies. They are condemned to roam the past, forever chasing after the present, but never arriving. Ferox would like nothing more than to destroy the usurpers who have sprung up in his place, but as long as he remains locked behind the world, he cannot harm even the weakest of beings.

The Modern Day

It would be all well and good if everything ended there, with Ferox and his legion forever safely out of reach, but there are those who might see his return. Dinosaur-Clerics seek to see the return of Ferox, and while they are mostly composed of the more reptilian races, some mammals are still among their ranks. These dinosaur-cults mostly exist hidden in the wilderness, because almost all more mainstream religions hate them, and will kill them on sight. This is partially by the dinosaur-cults habit of preforming ritual humanoid sacrifices by suffocating their victims within artificial tar pits.

While Ferox cannot directly interfere with the present, they can still grant spells as any normal god might.

Imprisonment has changed Ferox, or at the very least changed how they are worship. The old Tyrus Ferox is worshiped under the name "Tyrus Ferox, Wild Lord of Ages Past", but several new aspects have also emerged. When worshiped as "Tyrus Ferox, Ageless Lord of the Eternal Tar-Pits", more emphasis is placed on their imprisonment, and the physical remains of dinosaurs that exist today. As "Tyrus Ferox, Paradox Lord of the Infinite Boneyard",  more credit is given to their control over time. Finally, the newly emerged avian heresy worships "Tyrus Ferox, Feathered Lord of Endless Grace". They are both the biggest departure from the original, and the most socially accepted, due to having (publicly) toned down or eliminated many of the faith's less socially acceptable practices. They are also notable for claiming that it is not reptiles, but avians which are the true successors to Ferox, and that the dinosaurs had not scales, but feathers.

Worshipers of the Wild Lord call upon dinosaurs to assist them in the same way other religions call upon angels or fiends, and worshipers of the Feathered Lord do the same, with a different coat of paint. Faithful of the Paradox Lord instead summon up psuedo-imaginary dinosaurs, species which might have existed, had past events run a different course. On some rare occasions, they even manage to summon up dinosaurs which are fully corporeal, but have still never existed. Ageless Lord devotees tend to favor servants who are still fossilized, and have a penchant for creating tar-zombies.

These sects hate each other, and each insists that the others are nothing but heretical nonsense.

Even within the sects, goals differ from group to group. Many are content to just get by while worshiping their god. Some have half-formed plans to form their own armies and conquer the world to bring about another epoch of dinosaurs. Some plot in secret to break the barrier separating Ferox from the rest of the world, bring them once more into the present, where legions of dinosaurs shall remake the world in their image.

How do I use this?

Ferox and his dinosaur hordes might make an interesting alternative to the traditional "BBEG wants to unseal an Ancient Evil/Open a portal to the Abyss" story. Demons and Lovecraftian horrors have been done to death, but have you ever seen the world threatened by unending hordes of dinosaurs? 

Dinosaur-tech can make for interesting loot. I don't have any hard aesthetic guidelines to give you, but think something like weapons and armor built out of multicolored rocks, petrified wood, and the fossilized bones of ancient creatures. Plus, any magic that isn't designed to be used by humanoids can make for interesting moments.

Ferox seems pretty evil in this post, and they are often warlike and angry, but they aren't entirely evil. Sure, they do want to destroy or enslave the modern-day world in order to usher in a new era of dinosaur-kind, but if you left your house for a work trip only to return and find it infested with vermin, I expect you'd have quite the same reaction. And sure, they might be a god of war and violence, but they preside over the gentle contemplation of herbivores just as much they do the carnivore's pursuit of prey, just as much the love a mother has for her eggs as the vicious cunning a raptor uses to down a larger animal. How evil even is predation, anyway? It's not as if the modern world is filled with vegetarians. You might use Ferox as a god worshiped by a PC, if they wanted something unusual.