Creation or Evolution?

[painandgreed]

Unless acted upon by magic, my D&D world is similar to the real world and thus is ruled by evolution. Magic has produced some creationism such as in magical races like the Fey who were created. Usually this is due to the gods but sometimes it is spontanious or due to outside influences.

 

[Fieari]

My homebrew world was created by one god, destroyed by another, reconstructed by yet another, and then a bunch of other deities took up residence and began lording it over the yokels. These other deities may actually themselves believe in evolution, and often tell their devotees that, but in this world, it's not true in the slightest. Microevolution may occur, but there are far more magical influences that cause changes than mere chance and survival of the fittest.

 

[Gez]

Both, of course. Sometimes some entity (a god, a powerful wizard or druid, etc.) will create a new race of creature from scratch. (Most of the times, however, it's just by modifying an existing one or even several.) But once created, the race evolves naturally, albeit slowly. Natural selection works, even if tampered with (druids and racial gods will tend to do what they can to prevent evolution from altering select species too much).

 

[Psionicist]

In our campaign all new characters suddenly appear out of nowhere, usually but not always in a tavern. So I don't think we use evolution in our game.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

It's worth noting that macroevolution is simply the accumulation of enough microevolutionary changes to be able to call something a different species. From a natural selection standpoint, if you've got one, you've automatically got the other.

I remain unconvinced that accumulated microevolutionary changes have ever, or will ever create a new species.

 

[Nifft]

Is there a God of Evolution? Maybe in the F'n Realms?

-- N

 

[SineTheGuy]

I think DnD tends to have a generally more complicated model. I think most settings have creation in the beginning, so all races are probably decendents of original races. Then many are created later by gods or mages. There's normal natural selection, and magically enhanced mutation, too.

But half-breeds suggest that certain laws of genetics don't apply, because I don't think a dragon and a human could breed in the real world. That definately puts a curve on evolution.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

Is there a God of Evolution? Maybe in the F'n Realms?

-- N

That'd be pretty cool. Some of the aberration gods probably qualify; I'll check Lords of Madness later.

And of course, there's Tzeentch.