D&D General Need wheat. Too dangerous. (worldbuilding)

[MarkB]

For that, you can look at how humans deal with megafauna in the modern day!

For example, in North America the Moose eats 50lbs of vegetation a day. If you wanna keep him out of your garden you need a 6-8 foot tall sturdy wooden fence or stone wall. If it's shorter than 4 feet he'll just jump over it. Other things that keep moose away are Dogs and Chili Pepper. Just sprinkle the chili pepper on the higher leaves of a plant (Right around grazing-height for the moose, so low-leaves on a Birch tree, for example) and after the first few bites he'll move along. And dogs scare them off because wolves are pack-hunters.

Humans originally domesticated canines because it was handy having some predators working for you instead of against you. What might the humanoids of a fantasy world domesticate for similar purposes?

 

[Steampunkette]

Humans originally domesticated canines because it was handy having some predators working for you instead of against you. What might the humanoids of a fantasy world domesticate for similar purposes?

LITERALLY EVERYTHING.

Humans have domesticated (ish) cats, dogs, rats, squirrels, mice, apes, birds, hyenas, foxes, BEARS, and more. A couple dozen generations of Neotenous Breeding and most mammals and birds can be brought under heel.

Might take longer with Lizards and Snakes, granted... But here's a Service Alligator to show even that isn't impossible.

 

[Ancalagon]

LITERALLY EVERYTHING.

Humans have domesticated (ish) cats, dogs, rats, squirrels, mice, apes, birds, hyenas, foxes, BEARS, and more. A couple dozen generations of Neotenous Breeding and most mammals and birds can be brought under heel.

Might take longer with Lizards and Snakes, granted... But here's a Service Alligator to show even that isn't impossible.

I... must disagree with you on that one. For an animal to be domesticated, it has to have a number of criteria. If even one is missing, it will not succeed. MOST animals were not domesticated, despite some significant effort in some cases.

Taming however is broader, and would be even broader with speak to animal spells, not to mention all the monsters with decent intelligence scores.

 

[Ancalagon]

Not putting them in water. It'd be like having an old-fashioned icebox.

and the local hedge mage who knows ray of frost can make ice quite easily.

 

[Steampunkette]

I... must disagree with you on that one. For an animal to be domesticated, it has to have a number of criteria. If even one is missing, it will not succeed. MOST animals were not domesticated, despite some significant effort in some cases.

Taming however is broader, and would be even broader with speak to animal spells, not to mention all the monsters with decent intelligence scores.

I mean... sure. Maybe we couldn't tame Giant Spiders. But we can just cast Awaken on them and that's -practically- the same thing.

 

[MarkB]

I mean... sure. Maybe we couldn't tame Giant Spiders. But we can just cast Awaken on them and that's -practically- the same thing.

Giant spiders are canonically domesticated. Just not by humans.

 

[Steampunkette]

Giant spiders are canonically domesticated. Just not by humans.

Granted... But the Drow idea of "Domesticated" is "Doesn't eat too many drow we -care- about." so... y'know. Grain of salt on that one...

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Humans originally domesticated canines because it was handy having some predators working for you instead of against you. What might the humanoids of a fantasy world domesticate for similar purposes?

Well, kinda. We may have worked with wolves much like some wolves work with crows, with the difference being this arrangement helped lead to humans developing into modern humans and wolves into dogs.

In one world I've got, a similar relationship exists between the native humanoid species and dragons, but dragons in this world are closer to DnD's dragonels and wyverns.

When you look at races like forest gnomes, who can talk to a wide variety of animals, it's easy to imagine much wider range of symbiotic relationships with animals.

I... must disagree with you on that one. For an animal to be domesticated, it has to have a number of criteria. If even one is missing, it will not succeed. MOST animals were not domesticated, despite some significant effort in some cases.

Taming however is broader, and would be even broader with speak to animal spells, not to mention all the monsters with decent intelligence scores.

Eh, we can get close enough. American bison aren't really domesticated by a strict standard, but people still keep them. It wasn't uncommon for Medieval Scandinavians and Germanic people to have pet brown bears.

Most social animals can be made to form a symbiotic relationship with humans.

 

[cbwjm]

Just real world megafauna should work. Giant ground sloths were huge.

Or modern day moose, those things are massive

 

[MarkB]

I wonder if D&D humanoids have domesticated and bred dire wolves into canine variants. Nothing combines "chic" with "effective home defense" quite like a properly-groomed dire poodle.