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Message: <blockquote data-quote="prosfilaes" data-source="post: 3671497" data-attributes="member: 40166">I think that's completely backwards. Never underestimate the power of exponential growth. If an elf has her first child at 200, and has a child a year for the next 200 years, there will be 201 elves. If a human has her first child at 20 (and her children at 20, etc.) and each woman has four children, after 200 year, there will be on the order of 2^10, or 1000 female humans. That's rough back of the envelope numbers, but even then the humans are raising relatively small families and the elves are trying to raise dozens of children at once.For a different approach, look at the endangered and non-endangered species. Large mammals, with long lifespans, are almost all endangered, even thought I don't know one of them that is tied to one plant or one narrow environment. We can fill all the grocery stores in the US with shelves of tuna with minimal worries, but we have to worry about the dolphins caught as a side effect of tuna fishing.I think most fantasy RPGs have it exactly right; short-lived orcs can rebuild their population quickly, like rabbits, but one good attack on elves can leave them trying to rebuild their population for centuries.</blockquote>