Help me out. PoL. Why don't small towns get overrun?

[jaer]

I think the smaller points of light make perfect sense. A city might be akind to a brazier in the darkness; a town is like a lanter; a hamlet, a candle. When the breeze blows through the darkness, which winks out first? The candle, surely, but that does not mean all candles go out in a breeze, or that candles don't relight elsewhere.

It is not that smaller and larger points of light do not exist; it is that inbetween these lights is the darkness that is ready and willing to consume them...but the darkness is not necessarly actively trying to consume the light. It just happens.

The small hamlet of farms started up when there was a lumbering project decades ago. The trees fell, the town grew, the locals profitted. And then, as they got more into the forest, the creatures there were too much. The hamlet wasn't destroyed, but the forest was too dangerous to lumber. The project stopped, the money stopped. Most people moved away, and now only a few families remain. They work together to eek out a living in their farms and with thier livestock. They fight, when they need to, but in general, not much bothers the little settlement. They just know not to go into the forest, especially not alone and never at night. Orcs have been seen there, and strange fey creatures, amongst other things: the savage men who can walk in wolf form!

The wollfmen get daring when food is scarse. Normally they stay in the woods, but during winter, they have been known to nab people in town at night, so wondering the streets alone after dark is dangerous in winter. A few times over the years there have been actual attacks, where in the night the wolfmen came and battered down the door of a house and dragged off some or all of the family within. But this has happened so rarely over the years, and only during the longest, harshest winter.

Other than that, the people of the town have nothing to worry about. The orcs have no reason to attack the humans outright. They are not in conflict over resources, but the orcs will fight any who come close to their home; they will defend the bounds of the village and might, for fun, kill anyone they thought would make for easy sport. But they see no need or wisdom in attacking the town. If anything, doing so would weaken them more, and they would not have no protection from the werewolves or the fey in the forest.

The werewolves are a small pack. They live as they will and have no reason to attack the orcs or the town save for food. Most of the year, food is plentiful (which includes orc and townfolk alike if they are easy prey). During winter, they are willing to risk sneaking in to either the civilized town or the orc encampments to steal away an easy meal, but they will only assault some home in force when the need is dire. They know that plaguing either place often will result in an active hunt for their extinction, so it is in their best interest to limit the number of townfolk and orcs that are killed.

Their are many adventure hooks to be had here, but this small community could exit for decades without being over-run, the candle that weathers the gentle breeze that constantly blows around it. Or it could disappear in a single night to either of the forces around it.

I see no reason that small communities and hamlets cannot exit without being overrun because the things in the darkness don't necessarily have a need to over-run them. or even plague them at all. There is no need to think that every orc settlement is out to destroy every other civilized settlement around it.

Sure, there are ways such people can be put in direct conflict, but I fail to see why it should be assumed that the darkness between the points of light is actively and continually trying to swallow up those lit places. Just because it is dangerous to travel the road from one town to the next, it doesn't always mean that the towns themselves are in danger.

 

[Ydars]

I don't think the "monsters are herding humans like sheep" argument is very satisfactory because I don't want to create a situation where all PoLs are in the thrall of monsters. Sure, it will be fun as the exception, but not as a general rule.

I think if monsters were behind the fate of most then PoLs they wouldn't be PoLs any more; they would be camps full of slaves. Oh I know we can hand wave and say " perhaps they are hiding from other monsters" or "it is like the matrix, they want everyone to be happy so they don't rebel" but I just don't like it as a general explanation.

What else can we come up with? I think some of the important points are distance; many monsters will have a territory and will not stray out of it if they have everything they need. Since the world is vast and empty, most PoLs will be OK as long as they stay small enough not to be noticed.

Of course, a monster might happen across them once very ten years, and then they are in big trouble, but this would not be an everyday event.

I also think, that most big monsters would have an easier time dominating monsterous humanoids rather than humans because these creatures respect the "force is right" philsophy and are also inherently evil whereas humans just don't do as they are told. These creatures are in it for the long game and they know that whilst humans are down and out now they may grow in power, as has happened many times before and it is unwise to anger them.

Humans have a social group feeling, because at core we are essentially good creatures, even though we are capable of evil. If we see another group of humans or even animals being exploited, our gut feeling is to rescue them. Monsters don't have any such fellow feeling and so if orcs find out that others of their kind are enslaved, they probably have a good laugh. All in all, it is safer to get orcs to do your work than humans as they are too busy trying to kill each other to rebel. Humans will always stand together.

 

[Ydars]

My bad Guys; my blood is still boiling from reading another thread! I should have read the post before commenting. I should have also not relied upon memory for the date of the Jurassic Period either

 

[Nightson]

Humans aren't a very good source of food, if anything the monsters would just have the humans grow food for them. Sustainable, plentiful, and nutritious. The general rule however should be that deer don't shoot back so the orcs eat them instead.

 

[Ydars]

How about if the monsters themselves have something else to worry about?

What if, since the fall of the great Empires of the World, the Fey Kings and Formorians are sending their Wyld Hunts to slay big monsters as trophies and for sport? Each Lord would want a Dragon's skull to adorn his palace in the Fey-Wild and so they would continually try and outdo each other, slaying larger and larger monsters

Humans might sometimes be hunted but generally the Feys hunt only "big game" and hence these "poor creatures" have to be subtle and hide all the time.

This could explain why some monsters hide behind PoLs and pull the strings from off screen. I still don't like the idea that every PoL is protected by monsters, but as someone said; if the big monsters are having to keep a low profile then humans only have monsterous humanoids to worry about.

Eventually humans will have to worry about the Fey because they regard everything in the real world as their property and have no more regard for us than we have for ants.

 

[Zinovia]

Just get 25 villagers together for a raid on the big monster. Sure, they'll probably wipe a few times working out the strategy, but eventually they'll kill it, spend their DKP on the phat lewtz it dropped, and post a screenshot on their guild website.

I don't see a problem with points of light being a believable setting. I agree with what others have said here; much of human history (and prehistory) can be considered to be PoL. Communities were often fairly isolated, but would band together to defend themselves if they could. Most of the time it worked, but sometimes a marauding band would show up and demand tribute, or even attack your village outright.

What do monsters want? Food mostly. Even intelligent ones like orcs. Finding food has always been the primary occupation of pretty much all animals including humans. Nowadays most of us just go about it in a more roundabout way.

The ecology of a given area can support only so many large predators. By their nature they have to range widely and have extensive territories. They may travel, following their prey. More intelligent creatures would likely be hunter-gatherers, or even engage in limited agriculture. Perhaps the orcs raid the villages whenever they need more slaves to work the fields for them, as well as material goods they don't feel like manufacturing for themselves. But why kill the villagers altogether? Then there would be no fine goods to plunder, no new slaves to grow food for them, and they might become desperate enough to fight back.

That outpost of dwarven miners who set up a small town near a rich gold vein may indeed be weak enough to be taken out by any number of creatures. They knew there would be some danger in settling there, but the rewards were worth the risk. The palisade they built around their town has been enough to keep back most problems, and the guard wolves trained by an enterprising animal handler do a great job in patrolling the area. Sure, that dragon gave them a bit of trouble, but they were able to buy it off with some gold ingots and a couple of tender rams.

I think that PoL works better for a D&D setting then the more typical late medieval European style campaign. There's more scope for young adventurers, and less hand-waving about why the King's army doesn't just wipe out the bands of marauding goblins once and for all rather than leaving it up to these unknown adventurers.

 

[Derren]

I don't see a problem with points of light being a believable setting. I agree with what others have said here; much of human history (and prehistory) can be considered to be PoL. Communities were often fairly isolated, but would band together to defend themselves if they could. Most of the time it worked, but sometimes a marauding band would show up and demand tribute, or even attack your village outright.

Except that in D&D the world around the PoL is a lot darker then it was in the real world. In real life, humans are the most advanced species on the planet, in D&D they are not. At best they are tied, at worst they are quite a bit farther away from the top.

 

[Arnwyn]

Does every community have to be a reinforced settlement with walls, a strong militia, etc.? Is there no room for simple hamlets with a couple run-down cottages?

No, I don't think there is room for such hamlets. The PoL is a fairly distinct style with little room for much else, AFAIC.

Answer Number 2.

This question is meaningless. The world exists as a backdrop to a plotline. Asking what happens to villages when the player characters are not around is like asking who fought Sauron's orcish hordes during massive sieges at Helm's Gate in the years before Legolas and Gimli were born. No one did.

My players do.

 

[lukelightning]

Knowing my gaming buddies, there is a chance the party will help overrun the PoLs.

Ah, takes me back. What do we do after cleaning out the Caves of Chaos? Sack the Keep on the Borderlands, of course!

 

[DM_Blake]

Here's another thing to consider.

Starting with 3e, leveling became much easier. If anyone recalls the olden days of yore where a fighter needed 2,000 xp to get to level 2, and each orc he killed was worth 15xp, he would have had to solo-kill 134 orcs to get to 2nd level. But in 3e, that number comes down to 26 orcs.

Meaning it is 5x easier to level in 3e than it was in 2e.

I took this to mean that NPCs would also be somewhat higher level.

Consider that a fresh new recruit joins the city guard. Swing shift, patrolling with a crew of other guardsmen, vigilantly looking out for criminal activity, as well as breaking up bar fights, questioning suspcious people, etc.

A couple dozen encounters later he will be level 2. Those encounters might be breaking up brawls, or simply interrogating somoene lurkin in a dark alley late at night. This fresh-faced recruit could be a level 2 watchman within a busy week, or a slow month. Level 3 won't take much longer. Level 4 is probably doable within 1 year from the day he enlisted.

And his veteran sergeant who has been in the city watch for 25 years, is probably 10th level or higher.

Looking at how easily 3e characters could level gave me some insight to adjust NPCs in my world.

Now we go to 4e, where level 30 is the new level 20 soft-cap. Does it still take just as long (which is not very long at all) to go up each level, or is leveling even faster so we can hit 30 levels in the time it used to take to reach 20th in 3e?

Either way, following this logic, your average town/hammlet/village isn't really defended by level 1 NPCs and heroes. Sure, the young defenders start at level 1, but the veterans are significantly stronger.

This is probably even more true in PoL, where these isolated villages face nearly constant danger from the shadow realm.

In 3e Forgotten Realms, a farm village might fend off the occasional wandering troll, or a rare incursion by some goblins or orcs, maybe a sheep-stealing griffon from time to time. The village militia are only infrequently called upon to protect the village. With infrequent encounters, leveling is slow - even if it only takes a dozen encounters to gain a level, if it takes 2 years to have those dozen encounters, it will take 2 years for new defenders to reach level 2.

But in 4e PoL, it's reasonable to assume village militia may be called upon to protect the village daily, or nearly daily, or at least weekly. Those defenders will level faster and attain higher level in a reasonable time.

I don't personally see a conflict with having a village of 100 or so poplation sporting a minute-man type militia consisting of a few long-time veterans around 10th level or so, most of the militia being mid-range semi-veterans in the 4-9 range, and a handful of new members in the 1-3 range.