How could the Tarrasque still possibly be alive?

[Celebrim]

A thought came to me that I didn't want to insert into the Tarrasque or Legendary monsters threads so as not to thread-jack, but has been irking me since seeing the Tarrasque preview. Let me explain it thusly: Imagine the tarrasque rampaging through the country side, killing everything in sight. Let's say the tarrasque enters an established nation like, I don't know, Cormyr and continues doing what it does best...So what say you? How would you rationalize the existence of such a creature? Would you keep it in some far off wilderness region? Or perhaps contained in some mountain valley? Or do you just hand wave logic and let the thing rampage through Cormyr?

Simply, Cormyr and King Azoun don't exist in my game. More to the point, 10th level is extremely high level in my game. The world isn't crawling with veritable superheroes in every small village as it is in FR as written. In the FR, 10th level is a guy who runs a bar who is semi-famous among the locals. In my game, 10th level is someone of international renown. There are few enough wizards for example above 10th level, that each could reasonably know the nom de plume of every other wizard above 10th level across an area the size of Europe. Certainly, the community of wizards capable of casting 9th levels spells is so small, that every such wizard could conceivably know of every other wizard of equal stature by name and reputation throughout the entire world. In general, one area of the world only has such an archmage come to the fore every couple of generations. Such archmages as do exist are at no ones beck and call. No one troubles them, and they tend to keep their heads down for fear of attracting unfavorable divine attention.

So under these conditions, if a truly legendary monster of the stature of the Tarrasque goes on a rampage as it is prone to do every 1000 years or so, there really isn't the expectation that anyone will be able to do anything about it save flee before it. There aren't large numbers of powerful individuals at the disposal of anyone. For example, in my current game, the most powerful king within 400 miles of the PC's is the Hurin of Talernga. He's 8th level and built on less points than my PC's. His most powerful subjects include a 6th level paladin, a 10th level fighter, and a 14th level expert. Until recently he had the services of a 10th level wizard, now dead. Within the city, the most powerful character (other than the BBEG) is the Matriarch of the Church of Aymyra, a 14th level cleric who at age 65 has no physical ability score above 8 and whom, if just one of the PC's got the jump on her would likely be killed. In a very real sense, the PC's though only 6th and 7th level are collectively among the most powerful forces not just in the city, but in the whole region. This is one of reasons that politically important individuals pay some attention to them and defer to their judgment in some cases.

Whereas, in the FR you can be a company of 15th level individuals who saved the world yesterday and be treated as nobodies.

The PCs presently have no hope of fighting truly legendary monsters. Even a moderate sized dragon is probably beyond them. Collectively, the NPCs probably could deal with a moderate dragon, but only at great cost. Great Wyrms migrating to an inhabited region on the other hand can be civilization ending events, as it might be centuries before heroes came along that were the match for it. Younger dragons tend to lair in uninhabited regions. Older dragons tend to lair in uninhabited regions because there are dragons there.

When you have something like the FR, were every city of 10000 or more can assemble a team of heroes the match for the Justice League, and there are actually large military formations of minimum 6th level fighters, then yes the demographics don't match the idea that there are unique monsters that represent significant threats. I personally don't feel such demographics support the world as simulation. They are useful primary for providing the world as game board, so that the PCs can reach high levels while not threatening the stability of the game world. It's really the PnP equivalent of the merchants and guards in Ultima IV being among the most dangerous foes the player could take on and quite capable of facing pretty much any challenge than the player can undertake. It ensures that the player of the game is channeled into dealing with the threats he is supposed to, rather than story/game/setting breaking decisions to challenge the non-monsters NPCs. Don't like that the player is cheating the merchant? The merchant is actually a 10th level wizard! Don't like that the players are abusing the laws and customs of the city? The captain of the city watch is actually a 7' tall 20th level fighter who duel wields vorpal longswords! Now peons, go kill those goblins for me. I'm too busy. Etc.

 

[Zaukrie]

Cool, an anti FR rant. Love those.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Simply, Cormyr and King Azoun don't exist in my game. More to the point, 10th level is extremely high level in my game.

In AD&D 1E, a sixth-level wizard was "unthinkably high level".

 

[ephemeron]

Yeah, the idea of the Tarrasque is that it's extremely difficult to kill it, and even harder to keep it from getting better afterward.

This works better/is easier to pull off in settings with less powerful magic in the hands of the good guys than in ones in which epic-level wizards are all over the place.

Or maybe high-magic settings are a good place for a riff on the original legend, in which the monster is invulnerable to attacks until the right person renders it harmless.

 

[tomBitonti]

My take would be that in FR, it would be killed, but in most game worlds (say, Greyhawk, Eberron), the army would go up against it and be demolished. Or, in a maelstrom of dust and rubble, champions face the creature, and it falls into a cloud of dust (along with several of the champions); when the dust clears, the creature is gone, having burrowed deep underground. Or, it was defeated, but it's carcass remained, and was sealed away, then lost to history. Only to be reborn if its sealed vault is located and breached and its carcass is brought to life by the sacrifice of a 1000 innocents.

Pathfinder has several such creatures (see below).

Really, the appearance of any would be a campaign shattering event, and would be given unique circumstances per the GM. In your campaign, the Tarrasque is an active menace, or is a creature of distant and uncertain legend, or is merely an invention of storytellers, as you see fit.

Golarion has the Tarrasque as one of several Spawn of Rovagug (see http://pathfinder.wikia.com/wiki/Spawn_of_Rovagug and http://pathfinder.wikia.com/wiki/Rovagug), with these notable examples:

Ulunat, a collosal beetle, whose shed carapace lies in the Osiran capital of Sothis. From http://pathfinder.wikia.com/wiki/Ulunat:

"The carapace in Sothis is remarkably intact, showing no signs of being involved in a titanic battle, and has not weathered at all in the eighty-five centuries it has lain in the sun. There is a folktale in Sothis that states that the beast is not dead; its conquerors only managed to put it into a deep sleep."

The Tarrasque, sealed away in a hidden cavern beneath Avistan. http://pathfinder.wikia.com/wiki/Tarrasque, in particular:

"Of all the mighty Spawn of Rovagug, many regard the great Tarrasque as the most likely candidate for a return to life in some dark future age; obsession with the fell deeds and unstoppable might of the Tarrasque is common enough among the uneducated masses of the Inner Sea region and arrogant wizards the world over are intrigued to the point of madness by the godlike potential inherent in somehow harnessing the dread thing. A dozen attempts have been made over the last century alone to uncover the tomb of the Armageddon Engine, though most have discovered nothing or resulted in the searchers meeting unfortunate ends."

Volnagur, a winged beast.

Xotani (the Firebleeder), having a grave in the Garundi kingdom of Katapesh, http://pathfinder.wikia.com/wiki/Xotani:

"Xotani the Firebleeder was a destructive Spawn of Rovagug who laid waste to large parts of northern Garund before finally being defeated in 2104 AR in the Brazen Peaks of Katapesh.[1]"

Chemnosit (the Monarch Worm).

Such excellent names!

Thx!

TomB

 

[JRRNeiklot]

In AD&D 1E, a sixth-level wizard was "unthinkably high level".

What do you mean "was?"

 

[pemerton]

In AD&D 1E, a sixth-level wizard was "unthinkably high level".

I'm not sure if you're being ironic or not, but Gygax was. Here is the full passage (DMG p 39), for the benefit of those who might have taken you literally:

Inform those players who have opted for the magic-user profession that they have just complete a course of apprenticeship with a master who was of unthinkably high level (at least 6th!). Having been a relatively apt pupoil, worked diligently, and mad every effort to please, master . . . was kind anough to prepare a special present for the character before he or she goes out into the world . . . At this juncture request the plyaer to ready a piece of paper . . . Intsruct the player to entitle the page "FIRST LEVEL SPELLS KNOWN".​

In other words, Gygax is characterising a 6th level magic-user as being of "unthinkably high level" from the in-character perspecitve of a 1st level MU being played by a new player.

The very same page also has the example of Halfdan the Necromancer (10th level player-character magic-user) trying to learn a spell from the Magician (6th level) henchmen of a 10th level fighter companion. And page 103 has the example of a fighter entering a town to seek aid from a high level magic-user, the wizard (ie 11th level+) Llewellyn ap_Owen, who has as a henchman the warlock (ie 7th level MU) Tregillish Mul.

Page 191 has a city encounter table, in which 1% of encounters will be with MUs of level 7 to 12. And pages 175ff have dungeon encounter tables, in which 5 to 10% (depending on level) of encounters will be with NPCs, who will be of level 1 to 4 if on that level of the dungeon or monster, or otherwise of level 6 to 12 (or even level 13 if on the 16th or deeper dungeon level). Once you are below the 4th dungeon level, the chance for NPCs to be higher level, if they are rolled, is between 20% (5th level) and 80% (16th level or below); it reached 50% on the 7th dungeon level. And the typical NPC party has around an 80% chance of having an MU in it.

The DMG has no instructions on the frequency of wandering monsters in a dungeon, but 1 in 6 per 2 turns (20 minutes) was the suggestion in Moldvay Basic. That means there is a reasonably good chance of meeting an MU higher than 6th level if you spend 40-odd hours exploring dungeon levels below the 4th.

Page 182 explains that 1 in 20 encounters in the unihabited wilderness will be with fortresses, whose rulers, around 6% of the time (depending somewhat on the nature of the fortress) will be either MUs of 11th to 14th level or Illusionists of 10th to 13th level. The encounter chance in the uninhabited wildernesss is 1 in 10, with an average of around 4 checks per day (per p 47). So that's one of those high level MU/Illusionists every 1 in 800 days of travel or so, or in otherwords just a little more often than one in every 3 years of trekking. (Hence, presumably, the tendency of questing knights to encounter castles ruled by dangerous enchantresses.)

Between the chances of randomly bumping into MUs above 6th, and the lengthy example on page 103 of seeking out such an MU, I don't think that a 6th level MU in 1st ed AD&D was actually of unthinkably high level.

(And I haven't factored in ecounters with bandits (around a 50% chance of a MU of level 7 to 10 ), nor pirates and merchants (around a 25% chance of a MU of level 6 to 8), nor nomads and dervishes (around a 50% chance of a MU of level 7 or 8 for dervishes and 5 to 8 for nomads).)

 

[Celebrim]

I'm not sure if you're being ironic or not, but Gygax was. Here is the full passage (DMG p 39), for the benefit of those who might have taken you literally:

Beautifully researched, but also pretty completely irrelevant. The point of Gygax's aside was simply to convey that 6th level was a somebody who would normally be considered of fantastic power. While there is a certain irony to this comment in that quite clearly 6th level is thinkable, Gygax's small exaggeration is most certainly setting indirectly expectations about what is high level. None of your examples really touch on my point about demographics setting expectations about what is possible for NPCs to accomplish. Gygax may be using a certain amount of irony, but the rest of his demographics suggest that characters about 10th level are rare and characters above 15th level are world shaking figures occurring in countable numbers. With demographics that suggest that high level adventuring types are usually 7-8th level characters, there is no expectation that the ruler can simply overcome and dispatch a CR 20+ creature.

FR doesn't have such demographics which provokes a very reasonable question from the OP. If King Azoun and his courtiers are 20th level characters and command the allegiance of many similarly high level characters, how is something like the Tarrasque not already slain through methods at least as efficient as any party of similar level PC's commanding the resources of great nations would manage?

One answer is that it is just a game and thus questions like the posters are over thinking it. The demographics of the world are meant to make for good gameplay (as for example the high level guards of Ultima IV protected its gameplay), and not to simulate an internally consistent reality.

Another valid answer is that the Tarrasque knows to avoid all areas where it would be more than a nuisance so as to not get slapped down by the vastly superior prowess of the dominate human life forms. This is the OP's idea that perhaps the Tarrasque is confined to some remote mountain valley where it doesn't trouble anyone. Umbran's answer that maybe the Tarrasque just runs away before it gets spanked is a variation on this idea.

And finally, there is the answer that if the game is meant to have an internally consistent reality, and the Tarrasque exists, and the Tarrasque is meant to be truly feared and menacing, then it can't be the case that 'King Azoun' or his like and (especially that entire army of wizards he has) exist in any great numbers, for if they did this would indeed render the reality internally inconsistent.

 

[Manbearcat]

One answer is that it is just a game and thus questions like the posters are over thinking it. The demographics of the world are meant to make for good gameplay (as for example the high level guards of Ultima IV protected its gameplay), and not to simulate an internally consistent reality.

Another valid answer is that the Tarrasque knows to avoid all areas where it would be more than a nuisance so as to not get slapped down by the vastly superior prowess of the dominate human life forms. This is the OP's idea that perhaps the Tarrasque is confined to some remote mountain valley where it doesn't trouble anyone. Umbran's answer that maybe the Tarrasque just runs away before it gets spanked is a variation on this idea.

And finally, there is the answer that if the game is meant to have an internally consistent reality, and the Tarrasque exists, and the Tarrasque is meant to be truly feared and menacing, then it can't be the case that 'King Azoun' or his like and (especially that entire army of wizards he has) exist in any great numbers, for if they did this would indeed render the reality internally inconsistent.

There is a fourth possibility:

The sheer number of moving parts and non-interfacing modes/minds of creative input involved in these projects overburden any quality control mechanisms in place which would serve to maintain the coherency and internal consistency of the implied setting.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

I think even in FR it's pretty freaking difficult to get enough high-level characters together to take on a cr30 threat.

Also, can't the tarrasque burrow underground if it's getting pelted from the air or something?