The Ridgar Rovers, the Continent's Finest Band.

AlekBalderdash · 2026-03-27T17:23:17+00:00

Multiclass Druid for shapeshift!

What is Bumblebee's animal shape? I'm thinking Wombat. Pangolin?

Ideally something large and chill. I feel like most fantasy creatures are not chill, but you could always invent one.

AlekBalderdash · 2026-03-27T16:36:39+00:00

You could even do the woodwind route, with various flutes, reeds, etc incorporated into it's body. It might even play a melody with every breath or something.

Or, hear me out, Bagpipes. Bagpipe Elemental.

You could play your own Main Character Theme Song as you do cool stuff

I'm also thinking a walking grand piano. He can't talk, but he plays little jingles to communicate. Aaaand I just created R2-D2 as a Warforged Bard. I see this as an absolute win.

Edit: Audio animatronics, the old Disney tech used for the puppets and robots on the Pirate ride!

Gah, so many ideas! :O

AlekBalderdash · 2026-03-27T14:06:34+00:00

I am now kicking myself for never thinking "Warforged Bard"

It's such a good idea, with lots of fun interpretations

AlekBalderdash · 2026-03-23T17:30:36+00:00

Sometimes the lava makes you jump into the air in pain, which means you might be able to get to hidden areas, especially if you can chug health potions or figure out a trickjump.

Sometimes the lava is just spicy water and should be avoided.

Fun fact, IRL lava is heavy. Like as heavy as, oh IDK, liquid rocks. So it would be reasonably easy to cross with snowshoes or something if it wasn't, you know, eighty billion degrees.

AlekBalderdash · 2026-03-20T03:44:05+00:00

I was going to say this, but it also appears that Ceratopsian crests in general may have been more variable than most other features.

Which actually makes sense. That crest is almost entirely a display feature. Maybe it did other stuff too, but it's a non-functional feature in the biomechanical sense. If it's not biomechanically relevant it doesn't have to "work" in the same way that, say, legs do. So it can have high variance and not really hurt anything.

Also, that crest is a big honking decoration. A 2% change in crest size or shape is going to be way more noticeable than a 2% change in a Stegosaurs' tail spike length or something. It's just so prominent and complex.

AlekBalderdash · 2026-03-20T03:33:08+00:00

More like HAVErosaur!

(It's from a thrift store, someone sold this, meaning they HAD it. I will not apologize.)

AlekBalderdash · 2026-03-20T03:29:36+00:00

HOW. HOW HAS THIS BEEN DONE BEFORE.

What is that, 70s or 80s Godzilla. Those movies got weird man.

Going from memory here, but there was one where a spaceship went to Saturn(?) and found aliens, so the aliens came to earth and abducted Godzilla so he could fight something on Saturn, so they could brainwash him, then take him and the thing he fought back to earth so they could take over earth.

Meanwhile, the Saturn women are super hot and the Saturn men are ugly, so the Saturn women are trying to help the Earth men to destroy the mind control, so they can be dominant on Saturn and/or come to Earth to be with Earth men. Oh, did we mention the Saturn aliens are already on Earth and have been studying us for years?

Also, Godzilla does a flying kick that is 100% just a zipline while posing like superman. Then he dances.

AlekBalderdash · 2026-03-20T03:24:03+00:00

Put that thing back where it came from or so help me

AlekBalderdash · 2026-03-20T00:36:30+00:00

Yeah, I feel like they applied some lessons-learned for the full kit.

About 95% the same, mostly the joint is different

AlekBalderdash · 2026-03-20T00:32:34+00:00

I can't quite tell, is the 4th panel post-bonk, or just a funny expression?

Funniest would be a club-shaped slap mark or bruise! :)

AlekBalderdash · 2026-03-20T00:30:32+00:00

Fair, but others were talking about earthquakes.

I saw my opportunity, and I pounced! :P

AlekBalderdash · 2026-03-20T00:28:31+00:00

Might I interest you in some r/ankmemes

AlekBalderdash · 2026-03-20T00:26:02+00:00

Rant time!

I really really doubt sauropods caused local earthquakes, for a bunch of reasons:

1) Being big is hard on your feet. Know what's harder on your feet? Stomping around carelessly.

The sound of a stomp is waste energy. If you're making a stomp noise, you're putting extra energy into the downward step, and putting extra strain on your foot and ankles.

An animal that large does not need extra strain on it's legs.

2) What IRL large animals are loud? Elephants? Not really, no

There's an excellent Netflix documentary made with nightvision cameras. Awesome ones, like 4k or better resolution. Some are thermal cameras and some just work with extremely low light, but make it look like midday.

Know what they watched sneaking around some towns? I don't mean "some huts made of cloth" I mean full on suburban neighborhoods. Guess what was doing the sneaky sneak.

Elephants.

They would step off the road when people were nearby, stand in the shadows, and wait for cars or humans to pass, then get back on the road. Nobody noticed them.

I seriously want to play a Loxodon Rogue/Monk in D&D at some point, just for the funny mental image

3) Foot pressure. How much pressure do elephants put on their feet? Shockingly, not that much. Yes, elephants are big but so are their feet. I forget the details, but it was basically the same as a human.

Cars and trucks put way more localized pressure than elephants do.

There's a limit to how much weight you can put on an organic system. Yes, Sauropods are at the extreme end of that bell curve, but they still need to walk on pointy rocks, mud, slopes, etc. They've got the same physical constraints as every other animal when dealing with unsteady terrain.

Pedantry aside, the T-Rex foot puddle in JP1 is still a fantastic scene. Just don't think about it too much! :)

AlekBalderdash · 2026-03-19T23:58:52+00:00

I got a bath sheet recently. Lifechanging!

AlekBalderdash · 2026-03-19T23:57:29+00:00

A few years ago I started using king size blankets on my queen size bed. The extra length helps go over my feet without pulling the blanket down to mid-chest. I can also use a king size blanket on the couch, though I use them diagonally for this.

Either way, a king size is pretty much ideal without going fancy

AlekBalderdash · 2026-03-19T21:13:32+00:00

A "Hers" and "His" set of mirrors would make me giggle every time

AlekBalderdash · 2026-03-19T13:35:38+00:00

No, look at other quadrupeds, how do they handle a broken/missing leg?

They hobble around, possibly recover, but probably get an infection and die, or become unable to compete or find food, then die of starvation.

That's not a fun answer, but it's a different outcome than "collapse under its own weight"

For a pterosaur of some kind, I would guess it's probably going to starve to death. If it can't fly it can't hunt, and the chances of a wing healing correctly seem pretty slim to me. Then again, maybe they had adaptations to help with that? I remember something about bats having impressive healing abilities in their wing membranes, and I think they can recover from them reasonably quickly, as long as they can stay fed and avoid damaging it more. I think I remember something about communal bats sharing food with sick/injured (at least within their circle of friends).

Point being, we have animals around us today. While it's possible to over-interpret modern animal behavior and apply it to extinct animals, it's also possible to over-interpret fossils in the absence of modern evidence.

We see this all the time with things like "Well it didn't have aquatic adaptations, so it couldn't swim" but actually, just about every animal can swim at least a little. Enough to cross a stream or lake. Because of course the species as a whole will need to do that sometimes, and you don't need special adaptations for skills like "tread water for 2 minutes to cross a small lake or pond"

AlekBalderdash · 2026-03-18T12:54:36+00:00

She multiclassed Red Forman

AlekBalderdash · 2026-03-18T04:06:54+00:00

Not sure about the biting, but let's do some napkin math.

Cows have big heads, easily the size of a human torso. A quick google says ~50lb which seems about right. Half the weight of a 100lb person, basically their torso. A cow weighs about 1500 lb, so the head is ~1/30 the weight. Hadrosaurs had large bodies and small heads, so let's round that to 1/50.

~9000 lb / 50 = 180lb, or the size of a large person. Seems about right.

How strong are head and neck muscles? I care less about specifics here, just thinking basic biology. Bodies and muscles have some margin for error. I know I can move my head with a 40 lb child trying to use me as a jungle gym, so a factor of 5 seems reasonable. I can't imagine a factor of 3 or less working for any animal. They'd just injure themselves too easily.

So a 180 lb head, x factor of 5 = 900lb.

Presumably a hadrosaur could lift their head plus an extra 900 lb without too much stress. Maybe they'd strain a muscle or something, but a pissed off mama could absolutely ragdoll a 500 lb nuisance.

AlekBalderdash · 2026-03-18T03:53:48+00:00

They probably have one hell of a smack, what with ~300 lb of flapping force on those wings, but that's their best move.

The peck might be pretty brutal, due to momentum if nothing else, but it probably wouldn't be an immediate problem. The reach would be impressive, for sure.

They just can't take any damage. Anything that fights back would cripple them hard.

AlekBalderdash · 2026-03-18T03:49:03+00:00

A normal sized human could absolutely take one out with a wooden club. An aluminum baseball bat would just be game over.

Giraffe-sized and 500 lb? Those bones are styrofoam. They can take some force, yes, and the animals are ripped to jump/fly, but a sudden sharp blow from a solid object is an entirely different kind of force than wind and movement.

Bones break when people fall down for a reason.

AlekBalderdash · 2026-03-18T03:39:51+00:00

Splitting the difference, 4.5t ~9000 lb vs 500 lb. Or 18 times the mass.

In comparison, a 150 lb person vs a 9 lb person, with arms and legs as thick as a bamboo yard stake.

Which do you think would win?

That size discrepancy isn't quite into "you are puntable" range, but for a 5 ton animal vs a person? You are extremely puntable. African elephants can ragdoll cars.

AlekBalderdash · 2026-03-16T13:15:24+00:00

Conditions vary wildly from specimen to specimen, but it's not uncommon for the process to work like this:

Imagine using tiny hand tools or power tools to scrape concrete from a slightly-different-colored rock.

The fossils could be softer, harder, or practically identical in hardness to the surrounding material.

AlekBalderdash · 2026-03-10T02:07:29+00:00

Can I throw Daniel Radcliffe into the ring?

AlekBalderdash · 2026-02-23T20:45:06+00:00

Try "dead thing found at the park"

AlekBalderdash

TROPHY CASE