So I'm creating a fantasy story, in the story characters use bird-like steeds called Landhawks. Originally, I wanted them to be bipedal, but I know the Final Fantasy games use the Chocobos in the same way. Any thoughts or input?
People have to get from A to B even in stories - nobody accuses trains of being cliche. Giant emus? They might be more relatable than Chocobos since the reader knows what an emu is without needing it explaining. Plus if you need them to talk there's an established method for personifying them:- http://plaidstallions.blogspot.com/2012/01/emu-nightmares.html
Giant bipedal bird steeds aren’t so rare that people will think you’re ripping off final fantasy (Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind was the first example that sprung to my mind) if that’s what you’re worried about, and it adds some fun fantasy flare to the necessity of transportation.
Dont quote me on this, but i think the concept of riding bipedal birds came from ostrich racing (literally putting a saddle on the bird and having a jockey race them). I think they were also used to pull wagons and buggies, too. And chocobos were inspired by prehistoric birds. Its not a unique concept solely from the creation of Square Enix (or Miyazaki). If it fits your story, have at it
Episode 86 of South Park was an episode called "Simpsons Already Did It". The character Butters in his alter-ego "Professor Chaos" starts plotting to destroy the world only to realize all his evil plans have been featured on various episodes of The Simpsons and starts hallucinating, making everything he looks at look like a character from The Simpsons. By the end the characters come to the conclusion that The Simpsons have done everything so if they do something resembling a plot from The Simpsons its ok. TL/DR: Everything at this point in fantasy and science fiction has probably been thought up so having a bird-mount that resembles something in another fantasy world is ok.
Here's a thought! If I make them resemble more like prehistoric Raptors, they would be different enough.
If you want to make them raptors, go for it, but do it because you love raptors, not because you're afraid birds are too unoriginal. I'm sure if I looked hard enough, I could find raptor steeds too, but it's not like they're a cliche or anything. Most fantasy creatures are not 100 percent unique to a single story.
I'll extrapolate just in case I was too vague. I find it's handy to ask yourself who you're worried about satisfying when questions like that arise. Unless you're explicitly using the name Chocobo, it's not lawyers you're worried about. And if it's your muse that is unsatisfied in the adversarial sense, I would consider modifying said muse so that it's excited about inspiration rather than critical of it in a "ooh, you're just a copycat!" manner. To add to what every single other poster has said: James Cameron even put a nod to Hienlien in the Aliens movie. "This ain't another bug hunt, is it?" No one, well no one worth listening to, accused Cameron of ripping off (or any other pejorative you want to use) the Expires-Faster-Than-Hot-Milk-Space-Infantry™ aspect of Heinlein's Starship Troopers. It's inspiration. Embrace it whenever it's what you genuinely want.
Looks like a good start. Now give it some colourful feathers. Why not make them the real kind of dinosaur? With dinofuzz and everything? Anyway, what the others said is right: Basically no concept today is totally original. Everything has already been done. So there is no point in fretting over being 100% unique. If your bipedal birdosaur steeds are cool within your worldbuilding, then go for it!
I was looking at this picture the other day and it really disturbed me. I kind of hate it. The idea of being swallowed like a tadpole sickens me. Going down that gullet, it would be like being eaten by a giraffe. Maybe something like that that's totally different in scale?
The saddle goes like this. But you have to earn its respect by climbing to the Tentpole of the Sky in the Forbidden Mountains first.
Go crazy! As long as it fits in the universe and makes sense it works! Maybe there are more than one ways of transportation that could show how luxurious and short the trip is and maybe it could help. That's what I think could work. The idea or bird like steeds does feel a bit unoriginal, but if you think the thing works then it probably works. Ideas can reoccur lots of times and that's okay, just because the Final Fantasy games had it before doesn't mean you can't use it. Put on a twist or something that makes it different from Final Fantasy maybe. All my opinion though.
The only thing that I advise is make it logically consistent. For example: don’t be riding a flying creature. Flying animals have extraordinarily light skeletons, which means little compressive strength. I know that giant dinosaur thing that seven posted did fly, so I’ll bet if you put a humans worth of weight on its spine, it might get hurt. This means any pack carrying bird would have vestigial wings at most and have evolved on the ground for a while.
Of course, the flying steeds could have been bred or even genetically engineered to do just that. Several of Anne McCaffrey's numerous Pern novels delve into how the notional dragons were created to be partners to human beings.
