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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dr Simon" data-source="post: 1706987" data-attributes="member: 21938">When you say "In the Real World", do you mean in a modern setting or in a historic setting? Also, which D&D creatures would you use? Many are based on myth and folklore (so you would expect to find a Minotaur under the palace on Crete, for example) but a lot of them are made up, or greatly modified versions of mythological creatures (the minotaur, for example, which is a singular beast in the myth of Theseus, becomes a whole race of creatures).If you want some sort of verisimilitude I would head back to the source myths themselves (and you could include the "myths" of Tolkien if you like...) to find out how people interacted with fantasy creatures. The *main* theme, however, seems to be that fantasy creatures live alongside but mostly unseen by normal mortals. This would work in any setting, and would be the best idea, I think, for a modern setting. It's the sort of theme for Neverwhere, Buffy etc. Who's to say it's not true, either. According to the Rough Guide, about 80% of Icelanders believe in "little folk" (elves, dwarves etc.), and building projects are often checked to see that they don't offend the local fae. Not dissimilar to feng shui, really!Where would you find them? As to that, you only need to discover the original source myths. Elves and dwarves live in Scandinavia. Minotaurs, medusas and pegasi would be found around Greece and the Mediterranean. There aren't many African, Asian, American or Oceanic mythical creatures in core D&D, as I recall. If you were playing a Euro-centric ancient world game you could echo Herodotus and have the wierder fantasy races living in Africa, India and far Asia. Halflings ought to inhabit the rolling hills of the British Isles, of course. If you want their true inspirational home it should be Staffordshire, although I think they'd be quite at home in my native Chiltern Hills.As for the Gygax/Arneson et al. beasties, like the Beholder, Rust Monsters and Drow, you could either leave them out entirely, make them extra-planar, or singular, or as I said above, put them in whichever part of the world is a long, long way from your central area.One final thought. The game Ars Magica is set in 12th century Europe, but one where working magic exists, and works in the fashion that people of the time thought that it would. The mundane world also overlaps with the worlds of the Divine and the Infernal, as well as the realm of Faerie. There are areas where the realms are much closer together and one might expect to directly experience powers and entities from these realms (a great cathedral, a dell in the woods, a temple of dark rites). Each realm has different reasons for interacting - faeries like fun and mischief, the infernal wants souls and the divine is loathe to interfere with free will, but might aid innocents.</blockquote>

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