VirgilCaine
First Post
Elder-Basilisk said:I don't think there's any reason that you couldn't just wipe them out. In fact, doing so would make an interesting campaign that would fit really well within the spirit of D&D but would seem pretty original. "We're the extinction committee and we're coming for the worgs first, then for the hippogriffs (we'll keep the eggs to breed mounts for cavalry--so they get to be domesticated rather than exterminated), then for dire wolves, then for the winter wolves, then for the wyverns, then for the bulettes, then for the behirs, then for the Remorhaz, then for the dragons."
On another note, you might as a DM go through the Monster Manual and pick out a few of those "big predators" that have been hunted to extinction and put in-game references to their extinction into adventures. "In those days, dire bears/dragons walked the earth." The players will be expecting to find some dire bears/dragons then hiding in an obscure valley, ready to swoop down in tremendous groups and destroy civilization because that's what happens in fantasy stories.
Good solution...Seems too powerful? Thats okay, it's extinct. The wizards killed 'em a long time ago.
That's entirely possible. If you ask why they keep coming out of the cave system, there's plenty of possibilities: an expanding empire keeps pushing more and more humanoid tribes out into the sunlit realms, the really big D&D predators (which everyone knows are worse in the GenericBigCaveSystem) are breeding too quickly and pushing them out, or perhaps, like the Goths, Visigoths, etc. they smell the blood of decadent and decaying surface civilizations in the water and have come to claim their share of the loot. (Of course that only works if the surface civilizations are actually decadent and decaying).
Well, a certain country of my campaign world wouldn't have much problem with monsters...but several other countries are nearer an actual frontier, so goblinoids, giants, and Renegade wizards can pillage all they want.
Of course, good giants keep things a bit under control, bit there isn't much stopping the hobgoblin empire or the frost giant jarls or the Renegades from raiding civilization, except the relatively barbaric border kingdoms.
The GenericBigCaveSystem fits the bill for the rest of that subsection of the continent (it's basically a big flat desert fading to plains fading south towards the sea into forest with small, scattered peaks or mountain ranges sprinkled throughout).
All those unorganized goblinoids and chagmats and orcs and drow and duergar you find rampaging on the surface (or close to the surface)? Those are escaped slaves of the underground beholder/illithid empire. You've never seen real goblin soldiers. Or real drow warriors. Or, etc.
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