Dire wolf size

[HamsterKun]

Just curious; how big do you envision dire wolves in D&D?

[Kaptin Keen]

Just curious; how big do you envision dire wolves in D&D?

Horse sized? At 800 pounds, it's massive. By comparison, a tiger weighs around 600.

[HouseRules]

Is it large? Remember that an 8 foot cube fits into a 5 foot square. Yes, 8 foot < 5 foot in 3E. A medium size object with 8-foot for length, width, and height fits into a 5-foot square.

Each edition gives different values, so you have to give parameters such as which editions they exist in.

Dire Bears are smaller than Polar Bears in 2E, but the other way around in 3E.

In 3E, Dire Wolves are 9 feet long and 800 pounds. 9 feet > 8 feet, thus they are Large size category.

[LordEntrails]

To me, they range in size, from about 200 pounds, with mythical versions up to 1000 pounds. So, most are very very large wolves, then you get some of the older or more remote breeds the size of a lion/tiger. And finally their are a pack or two somewhere that are as tall as horses, but much thicker.

And, by nature they are not evil, I see then in the more neutral-good-chaotic-unaligned spectrum. But, depends highly upon their interactions with other intelligent species in their environment.

[Man_Over_Game]

About the size of a small bear. Slightly bigger than the ones in Game of Thrones.

[Segev]

They're about the size of a horse. So their snouts are probably about level with a grown man's eyebrows, to just high enough for him to walk under and only brush his hair against the fur beneath their chins. Their shoulders about level with his chin, to just over his head.

Is it large? Remember that an 8 foot cube fits into a 5 foot square. Yes, 8 foot < 5 foot in 3E. A medium size object with 8-foot for length, width, and height fits into a 5-foot square.

...where are you getting this from?

[hamishspence]

Possibly use the proportions of a 100 pound canine - wolf or one of the more wolf-like breeds, then double all lengths.

[HamsterKun]

I for some reason picture direwolves ranging in size between the size of a large horse and that of a small elephant (i.e. Moro from Princess Mononoke), but that’s just me.

[hamishspence]

Thrym Hounds from Monster Manual V fill the "Huge wolf" niche - though they're magical beasts, not animals:

Spoiler: Thrym Hound

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[HamsterKun]

Thrym Hounds from Monster Manual V fill the "Huge wolf" niche - though they're magical beasts, not animals:

Spoiler: Thrym Hound

Show

I’d be willing to make a Huge wolf that’s an animal as homebrew. #RangersBestFriend

[Tinkerer]

I for some reason picture direwolves ranging in size between the size of a large horse and that of a small elephant (i.e. Moro from Princess Mononoke), but that’s just me.

That's quite a bit larger than I'd guess them at lol. Given their weight I'd estimate them at aproximately donkey height. Now a beefed up Dire Wolf on the other hand...

[HamsterKun]

That's quite a bit larger than I'd guess them at lol. Given their weight I'd estimate them at aproximately donkey height. Now a beefed up Dire Wolf on the other hand...

Continue on

[Pauly]

Horse sized? At 800 pounds, it's massive. By comparison, a tiger weighs around 600.

Not that big a difference,

8 cubed is 512
9 cubed is 729.

Also predators tend to grow length first, then thicken. The difference between a 10 foot crocodile and a 15 foot crocodile isn’t the extra 5 feet of length, it’s the massive increase in girth.

A Dire wolf, even at 450 kgs, is no taller than a man. Excluding tail probably no more than 2 to 2.5 meters long.

[hamishspence]

9 ft long - but it's not clear if that includes tail.

Given that the length given for lions is "up to 8 ft long" (which is consistent with it not including tail) I would speculate that typical quadruped lengths given in the MM are "without tail" - so a dire wolf is 9 ft to base of tail (2.74m).

[HouseRules]

2E: 7 to 12 feet long
3E: upto 9 feet long.
4E: need to look it up
5E: need to look it up

2E Size Category and longest dimension
S upto 3 feet
M upto 7 feet
L upto 12 feet

3E Size Category and longest dimension
F upto 0.5 feet
D upto 1 feet
T upto 2 feet
S upto 4 feet
M upto 8 feet
L upto 16 feet
H upto 32 feet
G upto 64 feet
C upto 128 feet

[some guy]

I can't picture fantasy dire wolves being Large anymore after learning real world dire wolves weren't that large.*

Spoiler: size comparison

Show

It's probably the first time megafauna have spoiled something for me. To be fair, they could take down ground sloths amd mastodons, so they're still metal.

*Edit: I guess Game of Thrones also helped, the dire wolves in that world are more in line with megafauna than fantasy dire wolves. Which fits, as there is a lot more megafauna in that world. No spoilers, please.

[hamishspence]

I got the impression that GoT direwolves were a lot bigger than real dire wolves - as well as GoT mammoths being a lot bigger than real Columbian mammoths. Did anyone do a detailed size analysis?
EDIT: apparently according to the producers, their mammoths were 22 ft high at the head:

https://gameofthrones.fandom.com/wiki/Mammoths

For comparison, the biggest real elephant, Palaeoloxodon namadicus, was about 17 ft high. And steppe mammoths (very close in size to the Colombian mammoth) were around 15 ft high.

[some guy]

I got the impression that GoT direwolves were a lot bigger than real dire wolves - as well as GoT mammoths being a lot bigger than real Columbian mammoths. Did anyone do a detailed size analysis?

GoT dire wolves used to be bigger than real ones, but in the tv series they're only seen when they're relatively small. So yeah, my earlier post was wrong about the size, but the GoT tv series still cemented my view of dire wolves not being Large.

A size analysis of them and mammoths would be pretty rad. Edit: oh, dang GoT mammoths are pretty big.

[HouseRules]

While the maximum size of Dire Wolves are Large Size category, most of the Dire Wolves are Medium Size category. They tend to be the largest Medium Size creatures.

[hamishspence]

A size analysis of them and mammoths would be pretty rad. Edit: oh, dang GoT mammoths are pretty big.

Harry-the-Fox's work on deviantart, has some of the best "prehistoric animal compared to human" size charts around.

For elephant-type creatures, he's done the steppe mammoth, two species of Deinotherium, a mastodon species, Palaeoloxodon (biggest elephant ever) and regular African elephants (average adult, and largest recorded adult).

[Lord Torath]

SyFy Wire recently had a piece on a prehistoric warg/dire wolf. 8 feet long, 4 ft at the shoulder, and 3300 lbs. But reading closely reveals it was more cat-like than dog-like.

[a_flemish_guy]

sort of like the wolf at the beginning of 300 if the child was an adult

[Spore]

SyFy Wire recently had a piece on a prehistoric warg/dire wolf. 8 feet long, 4 ft at the shoulder, and 3300 lbs. But reading closely reveals it was more cat-like than dog-like.

Cat-like as in "felis" instead of "canis" or catlike in phenotype?

[Lord Torath]

Cat-like as in "felis" instead of "canis" or catlike in phenotype?

Where do Hyenas fit on the felis-canis spectrum? Looks like they are calling it a hyainailourine hyaenodont.

A Bayesian phylogenetic analysis recovers Simbakubwa as the sister taxon of a clade of large-bodied Miocene hyainailourines that includes Hyainailouros and Megistotherium.

[hamishspence]

Hyenas are genetically closer to cats, but their ecological niche, phenotype, etc may be closer to dogs.

This creature isn't genetically close to either - but I could see it being described as "filling the hyena ecological niche".

[Anonymouswizard]

In the world I'm currently designing Dire Wolves are about one and a half times the length of normal wolves (and have roughly the same build). They're also being out competed in many areas due to requiring more food, and their increased aggressiveness makes it more likely for nearby villages to hunt them.

[SaurOps]

I can't picture fantasy dire wolves being Large anymore after learning real world dire wolves weren't that large.*

Spoiler: size comparison

Show

It's probably the first time megafauna have spoiled something for me. To be fair, they could take down ground sloths amd mastodons, so they're still metal.

*Edit: I guess Game of Thrones also helped, the dire wolves in that world are more in line with megafauna than fantasy dire wolves. Which fits, as there is a lot more megafauna in that world. No spoilers, please.

The 1e MM also had them as the actual megafauna size, listed as Size M, with worgs as Size L. They shared the same stat block, with differences separated by slashes and parentheses. The Monstrous Compendium entry for 2e seemed to transpose the size of the worg and dire wolf, so the size discrepancy between them from 2e on and real life could likely have been to a simple editing error.

[CharonsHelper]

SyFy Wire recently had a piece on a prehistoric warg/dire wolf. 8 feet long, 4 ft at the shoulder, and 3300 lbs. But reading closely reveals it was more cat-like than dog-like.

I believe that the largest prehistoric canine was the epicyon haydeni - which was bigger than the dire wolf, but only (lol) about 170kg (370lb). Which would still probably make them medium category in D&D terms - though near the cusp.

The bear dog (amphicyon) was about 8ft though (can't see weight on wiki - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphicyon) but I don't THINK that they actually count as canine?

In the world I'm currently designing Dire Wolves are about one and a half times the length of normal wolves (and have roughly the same build). They're also being out competed in many areas due to requiring more food, and their increased aggressiveness makes it more likely for nearby villages to hunt them.

You might want to check this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVh6EkYwIGU) - it's the tier list of ice age animals and explains how many of them were wiped out by early humans.

Plus - it's highly amusing. (Dire wolves were rated as B tier.)

[FabulousFizban]

bigger than a tiger, smaller than a horse. their shoulder to your shoulder.

a winter wolf is full on mononoke

[VoxRationis]

Where do Hyenas fit on the felis-canis spectrum? Looks like they are calling it a hyainailourine hyaenodont.

Hyenas are genetically closer to cats, but their ecological niche, phenotype, etc may be closer to dogs.

This creature isn't genetically close to either - but I could see it being described as "filling the hyena ecological niche".

Yeah, note that the scientific paper describes it as under Creodonta, making it equally (and quite distantly) related to cats, dogs, and hyenas.

I think of dire wolves as per Canis dirus as being a wholly separate animal from D&D dire wolves, which I believe are large in 3.5, where "dire" is a fairly standardized pseudo-template that makes the creature a size category or two larger than its normal equivalent.