Origins of Dinosaurs

I’m just posting this here because I don’t have anyone to share my ideas with and it probably won’t ever come up in one of my games but I’ve been rereading Keith’s recent articles about the Talenta plains and I don’t think Keith ever explains why there are dinosaurs in the Talenta plains. He said “aren’t widespread elsewhere on Khorvaire.” So it got me thinking: why are dinosaurs mostly found mostly in the plains?

So here is my idea: dinosaurs are dragons… or once were.

The dragon civilization of the Talenta plains were wiped out by argonnessen, but not only did Argonnessen curse the land, they punished the survivors. Keith has said that the power of Argonnessen is so advanced that it would be "alien" to the Five Nations. So like the Qu from “All Tomorrows” the dragons from Argonnessen warped the ancient dragons to forms that were nearly unrecognizable, into mindless beasts. They have lost all intelligence and semblance of their draconic heritage. Its why they're reptiles but they're changed so much that they're no longer a "dragon" type of creature. We already know that magebreeding are the origins of a number of creatures and races on Eberron, this is a form of that.

In fact I was also think about the halflings as well. They are a bit out of place in Khorvaires history. Goblinoids, orcs, lizardfolk, and other monstrous races… then halflings. Gnomes come from thelanis but halflings don’t seem to have the same origin. So maybe the draconic civilization created them as pets, either from goblinoids or from transported humans from sarlona, Argonnessen has a myriad of humanoids taken from around the world this civilization could have done the same.

Argonnessen cursed the remaining dragons of this civilization to become beasts of burden for a race of humanoids they created. Not exactly original since it is basically the lizard herders from “all tomorrows” but I think it really fits into eberron as well as a bit of horror into the plains.