Guardians of the Green and other eco-nuts.

[Rhun]

I've not seen the book in question, but let's consider this: Lord of the Rings. What did Saruman and Sauron do? They and their orc/goblin armies destroyed the forests and lands all around. Now, D&D is nothing if not based partially off of LotR. So in that vein, yes, the forests need to be protected against all those that may destroy them.


And also, excellent post!

 

[Doug McCrae]

So why are all these protectors of the wilderness needed, and who are they protecting it from?

D&D is anachronistic. Modern environmentalism doesn't make much sense in a medieval world. But then D&D is much more a reflection of the present than the past. Hence the concepts that are a big deal these days such as terrorism, religious fundamentalism, feminism and environmentalism.

 

[trancejeremy]

I think it really depends on the campaign world. Isn't Eberron fairly civilized? Magic trains and such?

And for that matter, even medieval level civilizations were pretty much enough to cover most of Western Europe - England and France anyway. I think only a few woods were around, for the king to hunt in and such. Those places might have protectors. Like Herne the Hunter in Robin of Sherwood.

 

[Gold Roger]

Of course, your post assumes that the forests are chock full with beasties, while most villages have some low level characters at best. That's certainly not true to everyones D&D game.

Admitedly it's often used as baseline asumption by designers. But don't get me started on how that doesn't really make sense anyway.

 

[Rel]

I urge those posting in this thread not to drag real world political issues into the discussion. Thank you.

 

[Andor]

I think it really depends on the campaign world. Isn't Eberron fairly civilized? Magic trains and such?

And for that matter, even medieval level civilizations were pretty much enough to cover most of Western Europe - England and France anyway. I think only a few woods were around, for the king to hunt in and such. Those places might have protectors. Like Herne the Hunter in Robin of Sherwood.

RE Eberron: Sorta. Eberron has commonplace magic, but it's not industrialized. The lightning rail serves as a train, but each one is still an individually enchanted one off piece of craftsmanship. However in eberron there are several 'Green' organizations. They were originally lined up not against humanity, but against extraplanar threats, primarily Xoriat. These days there is a selection to chose from only a couple of which are anti-humanity.

Re Medieval civ. Sure, but the forests were dark and scary and full of wolves and aurochs. And D&D <> Medieval life. The real world doesn't have goblins, kobolds, giants, displacer beasts, worg, warg, winter wolves, cranium rats, giant owls, dire platypi or dragons.

 

[Phlebas]

It depends upon your setting i suppose, but the 'average' cvilised land would have enough low-level characters with weapons/skills/spells enough to drive off / kill most low level predators. And smart enough to run away / hire higher level characters to deal with nastier denizens. Unless you have a very wierd eco-system you're not going to have a large number of predators in any one area - and so civilization inexorably advances. Its all to do with organisation (& use of fire).

If you want to have significant wilderness in your setting (because as lots of people have pointed out there wasn't a lot of true wilderness left in europe by the medieval times) then it makes sense for the wilderness to have some powerful protectors....

Plus in flavour terms, druids make for interesting allies / foes with their own agenda. Theirs only so many evil cults attempting to destroy the world....

 

[WayneLigon]

The forests are full of things which are faster, stronger, tougher, smarter, and more vicious than man. A standard midlevel forest encounter can easily destroy a small village. Any logger who dares to venture into the woods risks being killed by half the monster manual(s). Hell, some of the trees can kill you. Hell wasps, grey renders, dire badgers, cranky moose, half-dragon lions and ankehgs. Mankind in D&D should mustly be huddled behind nice safe walls, and only venture out in large parties.

I never consider that the encounter tables and such apply to anyone but the adventurers. Unless there is an ongoing problem, such as a Hag has moved into the area and is calling monsters to her in order to drive out the normal people, most people probably live their lives next to a large forest and never have to worry about anything other than CR1/2 critters, or starving wolves, or things like that.

I think it's been pointed out many times that you really can't take what the adventurers face and turn that around to the normal course of events that occur in the daily lives of normal people. A single ankheg is a menace to an entire community; you might get one every ten years or so until some lucky farm lad kills it, and then decides to leave the village to seek his fortune with a sword in the wider world.

So, there's a great need for organizations that protect the green. Also, they're there to make sure that mankind doesn't get out of hand in the first place and start chopping away at the forests to build massive roads or dams or such. They also protect people from the more horrific aberrations out there, such as werebeasts.

It also more accurately mirrors modern fantasy novels. Untouched virgin wilderness == Good.

 

[Faraer]

Certainly a major theme of the Forgotten Realms is the rise of tree-clearing, crop-growing, city-building humanity, which comes in conflict with the elves (as in the early history of both Cormyr and the Dales) and other human ways of relating to the land, as represented by followers of Silvanus and other druidic gods.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

However, in D&D mankind in not a giant astride the world casually destroying whole forests through mere inattention. Men are weaklings who stand a good chance of losing a fight with an angry squirrel. The forests are full of things which are faster, stronger, tougher, smarter, and more vicious than man. A standard midlevel forest encounter can easily destroy a small village. Any logger who dares to venture into the woods risks being killed by half the monster manual(s). Hell, some of the trees can kill you. Hell wasps, grey renders, dire badgers, cranky moose, half-dragon lions and ankehgs. Mankind in D&D should mustly be huddled behind nice safe walls, and only venture out in large parties.

I know where you're coming from, it's something that always hit me as strange too. But it's basically the result of writing from the precedent of existing settings. The implied standard settings are Grayhawk & to a lesser extent FR and those were designed to mimic a pseudo-medieval feel where there were lots of humans and the wilderness was pushed back and constrained to remote areas. Personally I've never really liked that I prefer a more archaic feel so I use late Neolithic to early Bronze Age population density figures. And yes I figure the random encounter charts DO apply to everybody, that's why there aren't any commoners or other NPC classes, they're too weak for such a brutal setting. Instead all races start with 3 racial HD and gain class or further racial class levels from there with a roughly 3rd-9th level spread for average members of the population.

So why are all these protectors of the wilderness needed, and who are they protecting it from?

In the context of FR or Greyhawk it would make sense, but honestly I prefer a setting where the humanoid races are afraid of the omnipresent wilds surrounding their bubbles of civilization rather than the other way around.