A Couple Things I Need To Get Off My Chest

[Tequila Sunrise]

Deserts are NOT inherently hot. Deserts lack moisture, which has the effect of making the desert easily changed by other climate factors. So deserts near the equator are hot, but deserts near the poles are cold. Temperate deserts are hot during the day and cold at night. Just once, I’d like to see tropical monsters/spells/whatever be the focus of the fire-based theme instead of the desert. I’m sick of the usual ‘venomous amazonian snake women who wear garishly bright bikini tops’ tropical theme and the ‘burn baby, burn!’ desert theme.

Water is NOT inherently cold. Water has the second highest specific heat capacity of any known compound, which means that cold water takes a lot of heat to boil while hot water takes a lot of coldness to freeze. That’s why [unheated] pools are cold during the day but warm at night. Water is the earth’s moderating agent; it keeps the temperature relatively constant. That’s why desert temperatures are so extreme; because they lack water. Water has a few other peculiarities, but they’re not really relevant to this little rant.

TS

 

[Scribble]

Yeah... chalk it up there with one of the bazillion other D&D oddisms.

I think it's because D&D, among other things tends to base it's "reality" on the iconic imagery of a thing.

The iconic image of a desert tends to be arabian nights style, so Deserts in D&D seem to be all arabian nights style. Iconic jungles are "lost world" type places with hidden overgrown cities, and lost tribes and stuff... so that's how they show up in D&D.

 

[Rechan]

Just once, I’d like to see tropical monsters/spells/whatever be the focus of the fire-based theme instead of the desert.

IIRC, the "Razor Coast" setting that Nick Logue is cooking up, the inland Jungle has a huge volcano which is the throne of the Goddess of Fire and Wrack.

My campaign is set on a jungle continent (or rather, most of it is jungle), and I had some genasi fire-worshipers who venerated the volcano there.

amazonian snake women

Wait wait, what? Rarely do I see bikini-clad snake women. The aforementioned snake people in my campaign actually are settled in the desert. But, jungles naturally have a lot of venomous things there.

My jungles are filled with cannibals, harpies (who, to be fair, are descendants of cursed amazons), Demogorgon's mechanations, shifter primitives, aranea, sahuagin, and lost civilizations. I try to look for inspiration everywhere, from Vietnam and the Phillipines, to Polynesia.

 

[Rechan]

Yeah... chalk it up there with one of the bazillion other D&D oddisms.

I think it's because D&D, among other things tends to base it's "reality" on the iconic imagery of a thing.

The iconic image of a desert tends to be arabian nights style, so Deserts in D&D seem to be all arabian nights style. Iconic jungles are "lost world" type places with hidden overgrown cities, and lost tribes and stuff... so that's how they show up in D&D.

Not to mention the necessary "Grid filling".

Blue dragons live in the desert and breathe lightning because... everything else was taken.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Any particular product setting off this rant or has steam been building for a long time?

 

[kitsune9]

Deserts are NOT inherently hot. Deserts lack moisture, which has the effect of making the desert easily changed by other climate factors. So deserts near the equator are hot, but deserts near the poles are cold. Temperate deserts are hot during the day and cold at night. Just once, I’d like to see tropical monsters/spells/whatever be the focus of the fire-based theme instead of the desert. I’m sick of the usual ‘venomous amazonian snake women who wear garishly bright bikini tops’ tropical theme and the ‘burn baby, burn!’ desert theme.

Water is NOT inherently cold. Water has the second highest specific heat capacity of any known compound, which means that cold water takes a lot of heat to boil while hot water takes a lot of coldness to freeze. That’s why [unheated] pools are cold during the day but warm at night. Water is the earth’s moderating agent; it keeps the temperature relatively constant. That’s why desert temperatures are so extreme; because they lack water. Water has a few other peculiarities, but they’re not really relevant to this little rant.

TS

Noted for the campaign.

 

[Roger]

I think Traveller (in every edition) avoids these two problems.


Cheers,
Roger

 

[Wik]

Henh. the desert thing really annoys me, too. I even saw the misconception on a BBC Documentary a while ago... talking about how it must have felt for some refugees from the middle east moving to iceland. I forget the exact quote, but it was along the lines of "a person moving from the natural heat of a desert to a frozen arctic." The irony, of course, being that much of the arctic is actually a desert.

(not sure about Iceland, though, but the way she said it annoyed me).

In fact, aren't some parts of the ocean technically deserts, since the only defining characteristic of a desert is the amount of precipitation it receives?

So, yeah, I feel your pain, bruthah!

regarding water - that's something that I don't really see in my games... but then, here in the Pacific Northwest, we can see water go from being freezing cold during the day to seemingly much warmer during the night quite often.

 

[Fifth Element]

Is it okay if deserts are hot in my campaign world? Because that's how I want them to be.

I mean the hot sandy arabian-type deserts, not the "technically a desert by the dictionary definition of the word but not a desert in the sense that most people mean when they use the word" places.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Go Nick Logue and Traveller, then!

Wait wait, what? Rarely do I see bikini-clad snake women.

Heh, okay, that was just me thinking about a few different illustrations at once: 3e's rainbow servant, 2e's tabaxi and the ever-pervasive yuan-ti. And the venom is just because everything from the jungle seems to be venomous. Which is the one thing that seems realistic; a lot of RL poisonous creepy crawlies seem to live in the tropics.

Any particular product setting off this rant or has steam been building for a long time?

It's been building for a while. Earth science was 9th grade, so that's...about ten years.

Henh. the desert thing really annoys me, too. I even saw the misconception on a BBC Documentary a while ago... talking about how it must have felt for some refugees from the middle east moving to iceland. I forget the exact quote, but it was along the lines of "a person moving from the natural heat of a desert to a frozen arctic." The irony, of course, being that much of the arctic is actually a desert.

That's really sad. Iceland and Greenland are actually misnomers. Iceland is actually fairly warm for most of the year, but the first Europeans to land there happened to land in winter. Greenland is cold for most of the year, but the same Europeans happened to land there in summer.

Is it okay if deserts are hot in my campaign world? Because that's how I want them to be.

NO! If you're not with us, you're against us! Viva la revolucion!

TS