DnD Ecology:Second Tier Predators

[Tonguez]

I was wondering in a 'DnD world' where 'monsters' like say Gryphons occupy the top predator status what happens to all the second tier predators like Lions and Wolves etc.

In other words if you have a particular territory in which the Wilderbeast are killed and eaten by a mated pair of Gryphons do Lions etc still exist?

Are they merely scavengers (ie occupy a new niche) or do they go extinct?

(we'll assume Dragons in this scenario are abberant and only rarely impact the ecosystem)

 

[Vaxalon]

What happens to secondary predators in OUR world?

Look at Africa, for example...

Lions, cheetahs, wild dogs, hyenas, and any number of other predators all live in similar circumstances.

Do the wild dogs starve when the lions hunt? Sometimes. More often they move somewhere that there aren't any lions.

This could be the start of a whole campaign.

The PC's live in a sleepy little village on the edge of the frontier.

Suddenly they're being overrun by hungry wolves.

It turns out that the wolves have left their usual hunting grounds because they were pushed out by dire lions.

The dire lions were pushed out of THEIR hunting grounds by griffons.

The griffons were pushed out by a dragon.

As the PC's get tougher, tougher stuff starts coming through.

 

[DWARF]

Since I'm such a big Bio geek I always wondered about things like this myself.
The way I "fixed" the problem was to adjust the fundamental forces in the world as follows;

There is a rule where when an organism ingests food, it can extract about 10% of the energy in that food. This means that it takes roughly 2000 lbs of deer to make 200 lbs of Mountain Lion.

In my campaign world, I changed that to be about 16%. Thus, plants and other producers get more energy from the sun. This means there are more plants per given area. Then, more plants mean more herbivores can be there to eat it but each herbivore needs to eat less food to survive, since it gets more from each mouthful than their earthly versions. Then, predators not only have more to eat, they themselves can survive on less, thus, more predators. So what do gryphons and dragons eat? Predators of course. Why settle for wildebeast when you can dine on Dire Bear?

Simple calcualtions work like this;
1.6 times the energy in the land via producers
1.6 times the primary consumers due to eating less vegetation each.
1.6 times the predators due to eating less meat.
That leaves 4 times as many predators given the same amount of vegetation compared to earth biology.

So not only is there 4 times as much consumable energy in the predators, that translates into 6.5 times as much when you consider that the dragons and such don't have to eat as much food as well.

Remember, the only reason nothing predates on Tigers is not because tigers are bad-ass, it's because there isn't enough energy there to warrant an entire species devoted to tigers. Subtly changing the fundamental rules of biology can change that and allow for much steeper food chains...

 

[RangerWickett]

In my world, I have a minimal number of monsters. Those that do exist are created by mages, usually are sterile, and are simply designed to guard things.

I have Dragons, and giant Kraken, and a few stray giant eagles, plus giant land worms. But they all roam over wide territories, so they aren't a huge impact.

I don't have soul-sucking undead. In fact, the only undead that reproduce in my world are vampires, and they've got that picky 'sunlight' issue. Then there are elementals, which don't spread beyond places of magical power, and various constructs and animated undead, but again, none of them reproduce.

So my ecosystems are rather normal. I have nifty terrain, but fairly standard critters. There are a large supply of biomancers who create weird critters that might populate limited areas right now (like these strange insect monsters one guy has a thing for), but most aren't viable creatures.

The only place I do have exotic stuff is in the Taranost, sorta like an Underdark.

 

[LGodamus]

Well IMC , dragons' internal furnance , the one that powers their breath weapon, also causes them to be extremely efficient converting 95% of everything they eat into power. Many magical and not so magical beasts also have something similar even if its not so potent. I also like to allow creatures such as giants to be about 150% more efficient than they should be. It solves lots of problems.

 

[DWARF]

Sorry, double posted an hour after I left... hmm...

 

[A'koss]

Cool thread...

Dwarf, interesting little tidbits there, I'll be sure to pick that brain of yours when it comes time to finalize my campaign's ecology...

Ranger Wicket, it's nice to see people actually taking the time to make a workable ecology for their worlds rather than just throwing every monster they can find into the mix.

My campaign has it's own unique species of animals, many of which have an "early mammal" feel to them. There are a large number that would be considered "monsters" by today's standards but they are still considered "animals" as they have no supernatural or magical abilities. They differ in that the most successful of these have evolved with a level of intelligence not seen in the animals of our world. The dominant species have unusually complex socieites and social structures. They possess intelligence scores generally ranging from 3-8 and are essentially only limited only by their biology. They've effectively driven human settlements into remote locales (cities and villages built into cliff-sides, towering pinnacles of rock, underground, atop isolated mesas, plateaus and islands). It's "safe" enough to roam around if you know what you're doing, but large groups tend attract large preditors.

For the longest time there were very few real monsters other than giants and giant-kin, a few linnorms, giant avian creatures (birds, rocs) and a few others. But that has changed in the last 200 years or so with the appearance of the Dark Briar. This is how monsters are created in my setting.

This magical infestion appears randomly throughout the world and is actually an extension of the true Dark Briar which was created by the Norse goddess Hela in her prison-home. It has now reached Midgard where it grows rapidly where it springs up. When large enough, the Briar can lash out of it's own volition and entangle an animal (or person!) that has strayed to near to it. The venom from Briar's magically sharp thorns paralyze the victim and slowly twist the poor creature's mind and body.

The creature is first released apparantly none the worse for wear, but will now be addicted to the Briar's venom and will willingly return to the Briar's embrace for more. Eventually, the Briar mutates the animal (or if large enough - several animals) into larger and eventually twisted supernatural abominations of their former selves. This allows me to control the number and power of the monsters I want to introduce into the world. A lot of the monsters will appear as primal versions of monsters we already know and love. Kill the Briar where it crops up and you can control the monster population.


A'koss.

 

[Trickstergod]

Well, this is why I don't use so many monsters, and often enough, when I do, they tend to be humanoids of some nature, anyway.

And in those few instances I run a game in a dungeon-like setting, it's rarely populated with anything that needs food. The last time I used something dungeon-like, it was populated with all kinds of elementals, and before that, I ran the original Ravenloft adventure tuned up to 3rd edition, which is mainly a lot of undead in Strahd's castle.

While not overly knowledgeable in ecology and biology, I try to keep at least some superficial idea of "realism." I can accept spells and magic items and giants, but the idea that predators can outnumber their food sources...well. I was twitching during the last Harry Potter movie when I saw all those spiders in the forest. The only thing I could think was, "What in the world are they all eating to sustain that many?"

 

[Sarellion]

I don´t use many monsters. there are dragons, some werecreatures, fey, created animals and a lot of intelligent races.

The dragons get most of their nourishment from the magical energies which they convert into energy for themselves. In the time a dragon seems to sleep he accesses the magical flows of the world to regain energy. They hunt mostly for minerals and other elements you need. They also have a effective conversion of the energy you can gain from the stuff they eat.

Giants also have more efficient food digestion than normal.

There are a lot of races because of two ancient races who brought them to their world to learn at their knees and fight in their wars.

 

[Heretic Apostate]

In the gameworld I someday hope to set up, all the dragons and giants and so on are the creatures of storybooks. Giants? Some peasants must have seen some "ogres," and become carried away. Dragons would be the size of tigers to horses, not bigger than 747s. And so on.

Of course, in this world, there'd be an unholy admixture of 3E/d20, GURPS, and Alternity. Half realism, half cinematic, absolutely no epic.

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http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/downloads

Check out the above page, it has two free accessories that might be helpful. They are the appendices for Elminster's Ecology, which attempts to put the ecology in perspective.