Monster Migrations

In one Gamma World ruleset, the forest would migrate with the seasons.

Wish more games/GMs would take this into account. I always "grouped" orcs into one family, babies orcs were goblins born fully developed to live and fend for themselves, after a few years the formed into orcs/hobgoblins and later into bugbears. Bullets are grubs. Dragons migrate and that is why people built underground and what happened to the last race.

Eltab said:

In one Gamma World ruleset, the forest would migrate with the seasons.

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Reminds me of Fangorn's huorns. Or, more recently, Matt Riggsby wrote a great Pyramid article called The Magic Desert (Pyramid 3/68) that featured "striding tamarisk" groves where the trees would slowly follow water sources. I included this idea in an adventure a few years ago where a powerful druid lived in the grove and was able to cause it to move around the desert. It was a fun tidbit.

Hand of Evil said:

Wish more games/GMs would take this into account. I always "grouped" orcs into one family, babies orcs were goblins born fully developed to live and fend for themselves, after a few years the formed into orcs/hobgoblins and later into bugbears. Bullets are grubs.

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I agree that metamorphosis is another great ecological concept to mine for fantasy games. To my mind, it gets a bit more play than migrations, perhaps because it has an element of horror to it. Honestly, we often raise monarchs with our kids, and the whole egg-caterpillar-chrysalis-butterfly thing still boggles my mind. There's a lot to play with there if you add fantasy elements of larger than life creatures or sentience. I am curious about what your bulettes become when they mature.

uzirath said:

I am curious about what your bulettes become when they mature.

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Tarrasque

I'm reminded of Eberron, which had planes coming into overlap in various places at various times, tied to the rotation of the planets. So I could even see that being part of extra-planar migration and just one more type of season. "Och, getting that time every three years for the Fire Plane to get close, better get some barrels of water ready, and make sure no fire-critters wander into the barn."

Also things like samon swimming upstream to spawn, you don't want to live anywhere near the spawning grounds of (insert monster here).

Lackofname said:

I'm reminded of Eberron, which had planes coming into overlap in various places at various times, tied to the rotation of the planets. So I could even see that being part of extra-planar migration and just one more type of season. "Och, getting that time every three years for the Fire Plane to get close, better get some barrels of water ready, and make sure no fire-critters wander into the barn."

Also things like samon swimming upstream to spawn, you don't want to live anywhere near the spawning grounds of (insert monster here).

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Exactly. Salmon are a great example since they travel so far. Other creatures might normally live deep underground, but need to come to the surface to breed/lay eggs/gorge themselves every so often.

Your mention of Eberron and the planets reminded me, too, of the Dragonriders of Pern novels by Anne McCaffrey with the "thread" falling from the Red Star every 250 years.