What Does "Canonical" Mean

One of the key distinctions in this setting is between "canonical" and "non-canonical" islands. What does this distinction mean?

Canonical

A canonical island is one which is guaranteed to be supported in any official DINO-PIRATES OF NINJA ISLAND material. That is, anything we here at Scratch Factory produce for this setting will assume all canonical islands exist. So you can use canonical material in your games or other media you might wish to produce, and be confident that it will mesh with any official products (or other products that likewise stick to canonical material).

Canonical material is meant to be free of conflicts -- if X is true for one canonical island, it is true for all canonical islands. Well, pretty much.

Canonical material will also maintain that specific DINO-PIRATES OF NINJA ISLAND "thinginess" that makes this whole setup so charming and whimsical. If you're wondering how DINO-PIRATES OF NINJA ISLAND was conceived, it's the canonical material that will tell you.

You may not care about this, in which case, you can safely ignore "canonicity".

This does not imply that canonical stuff is better than non-canonical stuff. While quality is certainly one of the criteria for canonicity, that doesn't mean that all great stuff can be made canon.

A list of canonical islands

Non-Canonical

Stuff that is not canonical is not guaranteed to be free of conflict from canonical material. So if you wish to make use of non-canonical islands, be aware that you may run into conflicts with other material.

Non-canonical material may also be thematically or conceptually at odds with other stuff. Islands that feature, for example, historical or fictional characters from other sources, or with talking animals, or other such stuff that doesn't really fit in with the DINO-PIRATES idiom, will be non-canonical.

Again, these islands may be fantastic, and fit well into your game, and you should use them if you like them, but they may not fit in with other islands.

A list of non-canonical islands

How Do I Get My Island Canonized?

If you've created an island and think it ought to be made part of the DINO-PIRATES OF NINJA ISLAND canon, write to the administrator and make the suggestion.

But make sure your island fits with the characteristics of a canonical DINO-PIRATES OF NINJA ISLAND island: