Why does Bloodfeast have T. rex hands??

[Harbinger]

This has been eating away at me for years. Rich correctly draws Allosaurus with a tall, narrow allosauroid skull rather than the wide, robust tyrannosaurid skull, but to my horror he gives it two-fingered T. rex hands rather than the correct three-fingered hands found in Allosaurus. I was hoping that when Bloodfeast finally returned to his Allosaurus form in the new art style he would have the correct number of fingers, but today Rich cruelly dashed my hopes against the rocks of grim reality. The only question is: why?

Are these creatures some sort of owlbear-esque hybrid of Tyrannosaurus and Allosaurus created by a wizard? Did Tarquin mutilate the poor animals because he thought the two fingers were more iconic? Or did Rich do this just to hurt me?

(/j) in case anyone thinks I'm actually upset about this

[hroþila]

If 3 OotS humanoid fingers = 5 real-world humanoid fingers,
then 2 OotS allosaur fingers = 3 real-world allosaur fingers

I'm not joking in the slightest

[Errorname]

Roy makes a point of calling out that the Empire of Blood uses a Brontosaurus, which was not recognized as a valid taxon at the time, so to some extent the dinosaurs in OOTS are meant to be somewhat anachronistic or inaccurate. They're dinosaurs as depicted in a tabletop monster manual supplement, essentially.

So I just assumed that either the two fingered allosaur was deliberately incorrect, or Rich just drew it from memory and didn't check because getting details wrong didn't actually matter.

[Tubercular Ox]

This has been eating away at me for years. Rich correctly draws Allosaurus with a tall, narrow allosauroid skull rather than the wide, robust tyrannosaurid skull, but to my horror he gives it two-fingered T. rex hands rather than the correct three-fingered hands found in Allosaurus. I was hoping that when Bloodfeast finally returned to his Allosaurus form in the new art style he would have the correct number of fingers, but today Rich cruelly dashed my hopes against the rocks of grim reality. The only question is: why?

Are these creatures some sort of owlbear-esque hybrid of Tyrannosaurus and Allosaurus created by a wizard? Did Tarquin mutilate the poor animals because he thought the two fingers were more iconic? Or did Rich do this just to hurt me?

He's luring you into the forum so that I can ask how common it is for dinosaurs to have more or less than one temporal fenestra. As of May 2020 it's relevant to the comic since Rich has Miron tell a temporal fenestra joke in the calendar.

[Errorname]

If 3 OotS humanoid fingers = 5 real-world humanoid fingers,
then 2 OotS allosaur fingers = 3 real-world allosaur fingers

I'm not joking in the slightest

Just checked, and the Deinonychus have the correct number of fingers

[Kish]

THE BETTER TO CLAW YOU WITH, MY DEAR DRAGON.n

[KorvinStarmast]

THE BETTER TO CLAW YOU WITH, MY DEAR DRAGON.n

This is the correct answer.

Harbinger, are you going to ask about noses next, or the size of Roy's feet?

[Peelee]

THE BETTER TO CLAW YOU WITH, MY DEAR DRAGON.

I feel attacked.

[The MunchKING]

I feel attacked.

Not as much as you're going to when they land those claw attacks.

[Murk]

If 3 OotS humanoid fingers = 5 real-world humanoid fingers,
then 2 OotS allosaur fingers = 3 real-world allosaur fingers

I'm not joking in the slightest

Does that mean that if we ever were to see an OotS T-Rex, it would only have one finger?

[Lord Torath]

Does that mean that if we ever were to see an OotS T-Rex, it would only have one finger?

Naturally. Guess which one!

[KorvinStarmast]

Naturally. Guess which one!

Rexxy's expressive digit ...

[Harbinger]

This is the correct answer.

Harbinger, are you going to ask about noses next, or the size of Roy's feet?

Noses? What are those?

[137beth]

Noses? What are those?

A nose is a thing invented by this ex-cop for his webcomic.

[Precure]

I don't think Rich really know the difference.

[Errorname]

I don't think Rich really know the difference.

It's called Allosaurus and got the general skull shape right, it's clearly recognizable as what it's supposed to be, it's just the details aren't all correct.

[Ramza00]

forget about his little arms with cute little hands. I am trying to figure out what size Bloodfeast was?

thinking 🤔 💭 in Pathfinder T-Rex is Gargantuan, but in 3.5 it is Huge. And in PF the animal companion form of a T-Rex is Large or Medium depending on the level. Wait Bloodfeast is an Allosaurus *me throws up my books and dice into the air giving up*

P.S. I know OOTS is 3.5 ish, emphasis on the ish part. That’s the joke 🙃

[Peelee]

I believe you mean "why do T. Rexes have Bloodfeast hands?"

[Gurgeh]

Bloodfeast's way too large for an Allosaurus - really, he's larger than even a T-Rex ought to be. Put it in the realm of artistic licence (and general-purpose D&D dinosaurs being kickass monsters first and genuine representations of extinct creatures a distant second).

[137beth]

It's called Allosaurus and got the general skull shape right, it's clearly recognizable as what it's supposed to be, it's just the details aren't all correct.

I think it is correct: OOTSverse Allosauruses actually look like that.

[Errorname]

I think it is correct: OOTSverse Allosauruses actually look like that.

Yeah, as mentioned it's not common for dinosaurs in tabletop games to be proper paleoart quality, and the dinosaurs in OOTS are clearly deliberately dated in ways which reflect that like with the featherless raptors and the Brontosaurus. I don't know if the two fingers is intentionally inaccurate, but it doesn't really matter, it fits the intended vibe well enough.

[Timy]

How do we know it is an alosaurus or a T Rex ? Or another sort of dinosaure ?
We are in a DnD setting. There are statted dinosaures in the different MM but I don't have anyone of them to check and the SRD didn't answer my querry.

So how do we know which kind of dinosaure is bloodfeast ?

Edit: I am not speaking to the 3rd era nerds but to the DD nerds.

[brian 333]

Roy makes a point of calling out that the Empire of Blood uses a Brontosaurus, which was not recognized as a valid taxon at the time, so to some extent the dinosaurs in OOTS are meant to be somewhat anachronistic or inaccurate. They're dinosaurs as depicted in a tabletop monster manual supplement, essentially.

So I just assumed that either the two fingered allosaur was deliberately incorrect, or Rich just drew it from memory and didn't check because getting details wrong didn't actually matter.

Back when the first AD&D Monster Manual came out, Allosaurus and T.Rex were thought to be the same creature evolving from an earlier stage to a more modern one, and T.Rex walked upright. It was in the decade after that that it was first proposed they were not slow-moving reptiles which survived by scavenging, but fast running carnivores which had many qualities we now associate with birds.

But Monster Manual dinosaurs are fun, and not meant to be realistic.

[Peelee]

How do we know it is an alosaurus or a T Rex ?

Panel 4 tells us so.

[Lord Torath]

I mean, if you want to be picky, Real World^TM T-Rex had four-foot-long jaws. Bloodfeast the Extreme-inator's appear to be around 10-12 feet long (assuming Roy is roughly 6 feet tall). So Tarquin's allosaurus breeding program obviously grows them big.

[Errorname]

Back when the first AD&D Monster Manual came out, Allosaurus and T.Rex were thought to be the same creature evolving from an earlier stage to a more modern one, and T.Rex walked upright. It was in the decade after that that it was first proposed they were not slow-moving reptiles which survived by scavenging, but fast running carnivores which had many qualities we now associate with birds.

The Dinosaur renaissance started in the late 1960s, 1964 was when Deinonychus was described and really kicked things into gear, and while at the time Tyrannosaurus and Allosaurus were thought to be more closely related than they are, they were still recognized as distinct taxa and the relevant detail of 'how many fingers' was known for both animals.

Either way, OOTS is meant to be 3.5e, so a post-Dinosaur Renaissance and post-Jurassic Park model of pop culture dinosaurs is appropriate.

[Synesthesy]

But.....
What is this "paleontology" you are speaking about? Here in the western continent, we never heard of that. Just as we never heard of a country called "Japan".

[albertonykus]

He's luring you into the forum so that I can ask how common it is for dinosaurs to have more or less than one temporal fenestra. As of May 2020 it's relevant to the comic since Rich has Miron tell a temporal fenestra joke in the calendar.

Dinosaurs typically have two temporal fenestrae on either side of the skull (so four in total).

Naturally. Guess which one!

In real life at least, the two fingers of T. rex are equivalent to our thumb and pointer finger (probably—there's a complicated scientific debate involving finger identity in meat-eating dinosaurs), so in all likelihood that wouldn't be possible. In OotSverse, of course, all bets are off.

[Darth Paul]

For the same reason Goblins are 6' tall. The current world (as with all the previous worlds) was built by a committee of bickering gods. Somebody decided that Allosaurs should have 10-foot jaws and 2-fingered hands. Why? Same reason there are ninjas and samurai and dirigibles, all in the same generally-medieval setting.

That's the Watsonian reason, anyway. What Doylist explanation there might be is purely something the Giant did as an artistic choice, and since I have no clue what might have influenced it, I'm not going to eat up page space guessing....

[Jasdoif]

Roy makes a point of calling out that the Empire of Blood uses a Brontosaurus, which was not recognized as a valid taxon at the time, so to some extent the dinosaurs in OOTS are meant to be somewhat anachronistic or inaccurate. They're dinosaurs as depicted in a tabletop monster manual supplement, essentially.

So I just assumed that either the two fingered allosaur was deliberately incorrect, or Rich just drew it from memory and didn't check because getting details wrong didn't actually matter.

Fun fact: The allosaurus appears in Monster Manual II; where it's described as having three fingers on its forelimbs, but depicted with only two.