Alan Shutko
Explorer
A big question is how common the threats are? People tend to defend against catastrophic losses only if they feel they're likely to happen.
For a real world example, after the big St Louis flood of 1993 receded, millions of dollars were spent building homes and commercial property in land that was underwater within recent memory. The people figure "Well, that was a hundred year flood, I'll be gone before it happens again."
As long as dragons, and attacks from fireball wielding armies, are reasonably infrequent, people will ignore their capability to do harm. Those big stone walls are great against defending against the goblin horde to the north... we don't need to worry about the off chance that a few wizards get pissed off at us. That last happened to my grandfather... I'll be long gone before it happens again.
For a real world example, after the big St Louis flood of 1993 receded, millions of dollars were spent building homes and commercial property in land that was underwater within recent memory. The people figure "Well, that was a hundred year flood, I'll be gone before it happens again."
As long as dragons, and attacks from fireball wielding armies, are reasonably infrequent, people will ignore their capability to do harm. Those big stone walls are great against defending against the goblin horde to the north... we don't need to worry about the off chance that a few wizards get pissed off at us. That last happened to my grandfather... I'll be long gone before it happens again.