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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Brother MacLaren" data-source="post: 4004941" data-attributes="member: 15999">Because you can have one or a few medusae exist as cursed individuals.  If you have the dinosaurs existing as a sustainable population, as animals filling an ecological niche, they're going to have much more of an impact.  On ecology: many D&D worlds are heavily over-populated with predators, so I find worlds with at least a nominal amount of attention to ecology more compelling.A thoqqua is an extra-planar creature and, yeah, you're right, it should be treated as something incredibly strange and bizarre the first time it is encountered.  For me, it would really come down to how the introduction was handled in the game. For example, suppose that I'm playing a PC in a Conan-type game.  A new PC shows up riding a dinosaur.My PC draws his sword and shouts "Gods below!  A demon!  And a conjurer who controls him!"Option 1: the other player responds in character.  "Peace, I beg you.  I am a traveler from the distant lands across the sea.  My friend here is no demon but a poor dumb beast.  He protects me, but he means you no harm."The DM chimes in: "You've heard legends of strange lands across the sea where lizards walk on two legs and pull carts.  Up until now, you thought they were myths.  The creature looks at you curiously.  Its feet are like those of a bird, and its tongue like that of a snake."Option 2: Player responds out of character.  "Huh?  This is my new druid.  He's got a Fleshraker dinosaur."The DM shrugs and says "It's allowed."I respond "Yeah, but, riding dinosaurs?"The DM responds, "It's in the MM3.  There's all kinds of weird stuff in the world, you know."No attempt to explain where it came from, no playing up its alien-ness, no response to the player.  The player in my example (and I don't know what the OP's player did, but this is what I would do) tried to engage with the setting as he understood it to be, and tried to react to the strangeness of this creature.  And was met with indifference.  When the exotic becomes taken for granted, the sense of wonder is lost and a great deal of the fun is lost along with it.</blockquote>

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