Fighting a dragon or a beholder is a blast—but deep down, we all know they’re make-believe.

Dinosaurs, though? Dinosaurs were real.

They stomped through our childhood imaginations long before we picked up our first d20, and seeing one in a D&D campaign lights up that six-year-old part of us that still knows: dinosaurs are awesome. And the fact that they are extinct shouldn’t keep us from appreciating these magnificent monsters from our own distant past.

Among them, the triceratops is always in the top five. And why wouldn’t it be? It’s huge, has that massive shield behind its neck, and three giant horns that say, “Yes I’m a herbivore, but if you come for me, you’re gonna get stabbed.”

Those features tell us a lot about how we can use a triceratops in our games. Put on your English Teacher Hat for a second and give the triceratops some symbolic significance; I’d say it is a symbol of Defiant Defense. It’s not an aggressor like the T-Rex or an ambusher like the Pteranodon (and I know – the Pteranodon is not a dinosaur, it’s a pterosaur, but they all have the same vibe). It’s a defender, and I think that is a great way to approach putting them into your campaign: a defender of others against those who would do them harm.

Once you have that idea in mind, there are any number of ways you could use these for-the-moment gentle giants.

For example, your Players are bushwhacking their way through your ancient jungle in search of a sacred grove, a place untouched by human hands. While your grove could have some very potent magical defenses, there’s nothing quite so direct as having several ten-ton tanks charging at whoever has taken one step too many. And if these are sacred guardians, what happens when your players kill them? That might make entry into this Grove even harder, so finding a way to subdue or misdirect these creatures becomes an additional challenge.

Maybe this kind of defense isn’t a magical or instinctual one. Let’s have a community of Druids, all defending their lands against the intrusion of civilization and its relentless hunger for “progress.” These druids could have trained Triceratopses, war-barded and ensigiled for greater defense and at the command of some very clever war-druids. These war-druids and their armored behemoths tear up equipment, scare off workers, and make life relentlessly difficult for miners, loggers, and the vanguard of civilization’s so-called progress.

Your campaign might involve the breakdown of barriers between worlds and times, and having a stampede of Triceratopses would be great for that. A shimmering breach in the universe appears in the middle of Waterdeep. People gather about to watch. They’re not scared – this is Waterdeep, for Torm’s sake. Weird stuff happens here all the time.

And then the ground shakes. A thundering of massive feet echoes out from the rift, and then dozens – hundreds – of ancient, armored monsters come pouring out, crushing everything in their path. Whom can your party rescue, if anyone? What can they protect? How can they stop this stampede, and what do they do with these monsters when they’ve all calmed down a bit and are just wandering the city, looking for food? I imagine some citizens will try hunting them down. A few might try to make money off them in some way. The army might work on armoring them up and taking them to battle. And there has to be at least one gang of filthy street urchins that manages to befriend a Triceratops and ride it around the city, a dozen kids clinging to its back.

Having these amazing creatures in your adventure opens up a world of possibilities, but there are some other options. If you really want to use these dinosaurs as symbolic objects, you can abstract them to the point where they don’t even appear in your game. Not in the flesh, anyway.

A small nation has fallen in war, and its larger neighbor is sending garrisons to enforce peace on its citizens. A small rebel group stands up in defiance, and they latch on the idea of these ancient beasts–beasts which none of them have probably ever seen. They tag garrison outposts and government buildings with this image, tattoo it upon their flesh, and declare that they will not be subdued. That even people of peace cannot be pushed around. Drop your players into that conflict. Maybe they’re hired by the Resistance to sabotage garrisons. Maybe they’re working for the occupying forces. Either way, the triceratops sigil is everywhere—spray-painted on walls, etched into stolen gear, tattooed onto rebel skin. And with every encounter, its meaning deepens.

Alternatively, crime in your city has gotten bad. The local magistrates are on the take, the city leaders are either lazy or incompetent, and it’s not safe for people to walk around at night. That’s when a group of concerned citizens decide that enough is enough. They decide to take matters into their own hands and become guardians of their city. They go from neighborhood to neighborhood, breaking up crimes where they see them and looking for ways to force the government to take action. One of them remembers a dog-eared children’s book from long ago. A book of strange, wonderful creatures—maybe real, maybe myth. One beast stood out: powerful, resolute, impossible to push around. And a symbol was born.

And maybe the Three-Pronged Crew needs the assistance of some adventurers like your players.

The Triceratops, and dinosaurs in general, are great as monsters, sure. But without magical abilities or fire breath, they aren’t going to make themselves terribly memorable if they only appear in combat. To bring dinosaurs to life—and to make your inner six-year-old grin—you’ve got to ask what these creatures mean. The triceratops offers more than brute force. It’s a question in monster form: What’s worth protecting?

And how far will you go to defend it?