Intelligent Beings

[Scott Christian]

Out of curiosity, in your D&D campaigns (or any fantasy where the world is somewhat contained inside a few continents), how many intelligent creatures do you have?

I ask because for some reason I have a hard time reconciling the fact that in say, Forgotten Realms, has hundreds of intelligent creatures, all with their own culture. It just sparks the improbable to me. I've played in campaigns that have many, and I enjoy them. But, there's always something in the back of my mind that's says, "really..."

Thanks.

 

[Celebrim]

I think you are going to have to define 'intelligent' and 'creature' to get any sort of real answer to your question, other than some variation of 'lots'.

 

[Arilyn]

It does seem implausible, but then I think there are a lot of gods in Forgotten Realms, all wanting their own worshippers.

 

[John Dallman]

The number of different intelligent species in a D&D setting is just implausible. I solved that for my homebrew world by having almost all of them originate in different worlds, and having come to the game world fairly recently, in the last few centuries. I've seen this approach used a few times for rationalised fantasy settings.

A friend's homebrew world has a different solution: there's one native species, the dragons, who made almost all the other species for various purposes. Elves for artistic creativity, dwarves for practical creativity, and so on. Different dragons had different ideas, which is why the structure is somewhat untidy. Gnomes were a variant on dwarves that tasted nicer.

 

[Derren]

Having hundreds of different cultures isn't all that unrealistic.
The amount if intelligent creatures is highly improbable, but most high fantasy games want ti have nothing to do with evolution and instead base their world on creationism. Thus the more gods there are the more races exist.

 

[Morrus]

I ask because for some reason I have a hard time reconciling the fact that in say, Forgotten Realms, has hundreds of intelligent creatures, all with their own culture. It just sparks the improbable to me.

I think pretty much everything about the Forgotten Realms is improbable. Wizards, dragons, beholders. It feels a bit strange to me to pluck 'number of intelligent creatures' out of that world as the improbable factor.

 

[Nagol]

Out of curiosity, in your D&D campaigns (or any fantasy where the world is somewhat contained inside a few continents), how many intelligent creatures do you have?

I ask because for some reason I have a hard time reconciling the fact that in say, Forgotten Realms, has hundreds of intelligent creatures, all with their own culture. It just sparks the improbable to me. I've played in campaigns that have many, and I enjoy them. But, there's always something in the back of my mind that's says, "really..."

Thanks.

I just figure for D&D intelligence is so strongly linked to species survival that even species that look like inanimate objects will tend to develop it. Sort of like how detecting and discrimination of electromagnetic waves (i.e. some form of sight) has spread through most of the species on Earth.

Cultures are less improbable. If you start with one homogenous culture and then wall off 3 same-sized villages from each other for 3 generations their cultures will have diverged. Multiple cultures means limited contact either because of external factors or because of preference.

 

[MGibster]

How many intelligent creatures do we get from Greek myths? Centaurs, dryads, titans, harpies, various giants, lamian centaurs, gorgons, icthyocentaurs, satyrs, sirens, and sphinxes and I'm sure there's more. And that's not even getting into intelligent beings that are unique. And, hell, they could all talk to one another and shared the same Gods. I honestly don't worry about realism when reading Greek myths and I don't worry about it when playing D&D.

My only problem with races in D&D is that I don't feel as though they all belong in every campaign. How many different kind of dwarfs do I really need? Will Goliaths fit into my campaign?

 

[Celebrim]

Remember, in the animist view of the world everything is acted on by internal rather than external forces. Everything has its nature not because there is an external, universal, knowable law, but because everything is animated by a distinct spirit of its own will.

As such, even the rocks are intelligent. Every tree, every spring, every body of water, every meadow in every field, every cloud you see in the sky, and every wind that blows them - all intelligent.

Viewed this way, it's not the least bit surprising that the world should be filled innumerable sorts of intelligent beings.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I’m not sure it actually is improbable. It’s entirely possible that if we ever find planets with life outside our own, we will find ourselves to be outliers in this regard.

But also, think about how many Earth species are very close to our own intelligence.

Now, imagine that all the different Homo sapiens that once’s existed couldn’t all breed with each other, and had external help in surviving long enough to make it to recorded history.

We didn’t kill them off. The ones not killed by environment and geography and disease didn’t die, they became part of a whole that is now the modern human.

Now, extrapolate that out to the notion of such a genesis happening on every continent, with some happening several times on the same continent, in response to a greater evolutionary pressure toward tool use and complex cooperation, and outside influences keeping them from being whipped out by famine and disease.

It’s only improbable in the sense of all fantasy being improbable.