Young Writers Society

Merlin34 wrote:One thing I've noticed is that in a lot of fantasy worlds, the ordinary, non-magical animals, are all ripped directly from Earth. Rarely do I see an author make their own animals, and a made-up animal that isn't a terrifying predator (like Wargs) is almost non-existent. What about electric blue snails with wings?

THIS, so hard.

It does get troublesome if you start creating ecosystems from wholecloth, because usually you run the risk of making the ecosystem far too simple (read Orson Scott Card's "Speaker for the Dead" for a good example of this done well and justified). But making a smattering of unusual ordinary animals is good for local flavor. For instance, I usually make a substitute race for horses becaus I just don't like horses much. This is really a chance to let your imagination shine (especially in fantasy, when it doesn't have to be 100 percen logical), so it's odd that more writers don't do it.

I don't like horses either. Too darn smelly.

Carnivorous mounts are bad ideas though, since they will likely require A LOT of meat, unless they are cold-blooded. Still, cold-blooded creatures will not have too much energy, unless they have some means of getting warm.

For example, I've got these flying pteranodon-like mounts with wings like a spinosaurus' sail, so the sun can quickly and easily warm them up.

My land-mounts are like deer. A bow can be mounted on their antlers and shot straight forward, and they can eat just about anything.

In Avatar it was brilliant, they didn't have any creatures from Earth, but they did copy quite a lot from them.