Ogthar

Canon

Quest for the Ruby Sunstone

Statuette of Ogthar of Poseidos found by Arthur Denison in the World Beneath in 1867. He is depicted as half human and half ceratopsian, with a leaf-shaped frill, seated on a lotus throne and holding a golden sunstone.
Ogthar
Species	Human (typically depicted as a demisaurian)
Gender	Male
Status	Deceased
Occupation	Emperor of Poseidos
Home	Poseidos, later the World Beneath
Mentions	Dinotopia: The World Beneath, Dinotopia: First Flight, Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara

Ogthar was the last Emperor or King of Poseidos during the Age of Heroes, 4,000 years ago. Ogthar’s reign saw a considerable increase in technological advancement as the Poseidians perfected their sunstone-driven machines. Throughout his reign, Ogthar worked to perfect the technology further, creating strutters so advanced that he deemed the dinosaurs to be obsolete and banished them from Poseidos.

Ogthar’s arrogance and sense of superiority went so far that his regime began to hunt down and slaughter dinosaurs for food, reserved for consumption by the Poseidian elite. The Poseidians invaded the mainland and extended their rule through Dinotopia, displacing humans and dinosaurs alike while threatening all of the old ways of the island. Though Ogthar secured an alliance with the Chandaran Empire by marrying its ruler, Queen Almestra, relations between the two empires soured since Chandara was home to the largest population of dinosaurs on the island and the Poseidians had agreed that no harm would come to the dinosaurs.

The extensive mining operations beneath Poseidos eventually doomed the capital, which sank beneath the sea in the final days of the Age of Heroes, leading to the collapse of its empire. Ogthar fled into the World Beneath, along with some of his loyal ministers, where he survived for some time and attempted to create new laboratories. In the centuries following his death, Ogthar’s dark deeds were forgotten and he was remembered as a legendary demisaurian king of vast wisdon. Legends told of how he discovered the sunstones and brought metallic beasts to life with them. Prior to the rediscovery of Poseidian artifacts in 1867, it was widely believed by the Dinotopians that Ogthar and Poseidos had never existed at all or were just mere fantasy.

Reign

Rule

The approximate extent of the Empire of Poseidos in the reign of Ogthar

Ogthar was a member of the Demisaurian Brotherhood, a group of Poseidian high officials who sought to cultivate the power of the saurian mind. His royal attire included a headdress based on the horns and frills of a ceratopsian dinosaur. Dinosaurs served as royal advisors in Poseidos during Ogthar’s early reign, but were at some point banned from the city by him, replaced with strutters and skimmers for transportation purposes.

Ogthar took personal credit for the creation of the strutters, at one point announcing during a circus event, which included dinosaurs, that his newest creation, a massive insect-like strutter, would make the dinosaurs “obsolete”, before unleashing it and almost killing a performing Megaraptor. Ogthar’s reign saw Poseidos threaten all of the old ways of Dinotopia, with his invasion of the mainland forcing people and dinosaurs away from their homes, while the Poseidians organized campaigns to hunt down and kill dinosaurs for food.

In order to extract more sunstones, Ogthar developed the Barge Canal system in the World Beneath and the Golgorra Catacombs.

Relations with Chandara

Bust of Almestra, Queen of Chandara and wife of Ogthar

Ogthar married Almestra, the Queen of Chandara, creating an alliance between the two empires. In exchange for providing Chandara with sunstones and gold, Almestra allowed the creation of strutter bases at Neoknossos and Mujo Doon, while giving the Poseidians permission to deploy their "fish fleet" in Silver Bay. To commemorate their union, Ogthar constructed the Ebulon, a group of twelve colossal statues, the largest of which represented the demisaurian Amon-Ceratops, a half-human and half-ceratopsian figure.

Despite their alliance, the two empires disagreed on numerous views, most importantly the Poseidians harassing and killing the dinosaurs. The Chandaran Empire’s capital, Chandara, housed Dinotopia’s largest population of both humans and dinosaurs. At one point, a Chandaran ambassador complained to Ogthar that the Poseidians had not upheld their side of the agreement as they had slaughtered dinosaurs for food when they were never to be harmed. Unsympathetic, Ogthar commanded the ambassador to accept the will of Poseidos, promising to "crush any human or saurian vermin" who tried to take control of the power that rightfully belonged to their masters.

Fall of Poseidos

The ground beneath the city of Poseidos was hollowed out over the years because of extensive mining and, unbeknownst to the city’s visionary architects, empty volcanic caverns already made these foundations weak. The city managed to stay standing despite the hollowed out ground beneath it due to great pillars in the Golgorra Catacombs. Eventually, these pillars gave way and parts of Poseidos began to collapse. Over the course of just two weeks, the city was destroyed as seawater filled the streets and it sank to the bottom of Sapphire Bay, marking the end of the Age of Heroes. Thousands died in the catastrophe, but many managed to reach the safety of the mainland on ships or with the aid of sea creatures, with mainlanders helping in the rescue efforts. Most of them fled to the city of Prosperine, located across the ocean.

As the city sank, Ogthar led some survivors, mostly his loyal ministers, into the World Beneath, taking many of Poseidos’s royal treasures, and a small fleet of strutters, with him. Among these treasures was the Ruby Sunstone, possessing great power, recently discovered prior to the city’s collapse. Ogthar and his followers lived for as long as they could underground, attempting to rebuild their laboratories in the World Beneath.

Eventually, the Poseidians underground were divided by strife. Some of them (not including Ogthar himself) chose to leave the World Beneath, making a new life for themselves in the Rainy Basin, where they constructed the Palace of Kings. The royal treasury, including the Ruby Sunstone, was given over to the tyrannosaurs in exchange for safe passage through the Rainy Basin.

Legacy

The treasures of Poseidos, including a massive golden statue of Ogthar, holding the Ruby Sunstone.

By the time of Arthur Denison’s arrival and travels in Dinotopia in the 19th century, Ogthar, Poseidos, and the sunstones had been forgotten as historical fact, fading into legend. Though ancient scrolls writing of Poseidos survived, they were seen as fantasy and not fact. By this point, Ogthar was seen as a legendary king who was half-human and half-dinosaur. Nallab, assistant librarian of Waterfall City, stated in 1867, shortly before the rediscovery of the sunstones and the strutters, that “Dinotopia has no half-human kings and no metal monsters and no Poseidos”.

Statues and depictions discovered by Arthur Denison, Oriana Nascava, and Bix in the World Beneath in 1867 depict Ogthar as an “anthroceratops”, half-human and half-ceratopsian, a legendary race of demisaurians renowned for their wisdom. According to legend, he journeyed into “the place deep in the earth where the sun goes to sleep at night”, where he “reached into the sun’s bed” and plucked out several shining stones, including a ruby-coloured one of great power. Ogthar brought the stones to Poseidos, where they brought the “light of day” to the streets of his beloved city. He also brought back a nest of golden eggs, which hatched into giant metallic creatures who wore the shining stones as jewels, bringing them to life.

The legends told that the sea grew angry with Ogthar due to the unnecessary light and noise coming from his city and rose up in wrath, drowning the city. Supposedly, Ogthar rescued the shining stones, giving them in trust to another king, alongside a great treasure.

Behind the scenes

• In addition to Ogthar of Poseidos, the name Ogthar is also given to a half-human, half-dinosaur deity in Dinotopian mythology.As Ogthar of Poseidos had also become a legendary figure by the 19th century, it's unclear if the deity and the king are separate figures.

Non-canon appearance

• In the Dinotopia miniseries (2002), Cyrus Crabb, David Scott, and Karl Scott journey to the World Beneath where they discover a statue of Ogthar, depicting him as half-human and half-ceratopsian. While David saw it as a symbol for perfect harmony between man and dinosaur, Cyrus merely dismisses it as "mucky", saying: "Once a scaly, always a scaly" ("scaly" being an insult in Dinotopia, referring to dinosaurs as cold-blooded reptiles). Ogthar is portrayed as a Dinotopian god in the miniseries, with great temples built in his honor, and a native Dinotopian swear (as said by Zippeau) "Oh good Lord Ogthar".
• The main antagonist of the animated children's film Dinotopia: Quest for the Ruby Sunstone (2005), is an immortal human warmonger in Triceratops-like body armor who shared his name with Ogthar. He sought to conquer Dinotopia through the aid of the Ruby Sunstone, which endowed him with ancient knowledge and power at the cost of his own sanity. For this goal, he built several weaponized strutters and intended to create thralls out of mutated dinosaurs with the same Sunstone only to be foiled by the protagonists.