how does a culture recover from an apocalyptic event?

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

In Earth's history the hunter-gather peoples have been pushed out by those with agriculture. Why? Because people who farm have more food and thus a higher population. More people means more soldiers.

But you haven't introduced the greatest variable in the whole conflict- magic. There are kobold sorcerers that are in the high teens in level, but their numbers are smaller than the elven wizards of comparable power. But then there maybe more low level spell casters among the kobolds than the elves (relating to the increased survival of spell casting beings over their relatives).

The first point here is a bit sophistic. It's true that the hunter-gatherer model was very slowly defeated or suborned by that of agriculture, but agriculture did pretty poorly against nomads until fairly recently. Numbers were never on the nomads side, but it was only when technology finally shifted to favor agriculturalists that nomads lost their effective superiority.

On the second point, I'd be open to argument on this, but from my perspective it's the number and quality of high levels that makes the real difference. Low level arcane casters are probably a poor investment for a culture except that they have the chance to turn high level or multi-class.

Plus, arcane magic is really only a tipping point variable when you get more developed. I wanna know who the dominant divine forces will be after the fall.

I'd take cleric and druid post-apocalyptic cultures over sorceror and wizard ones any day.

So let's see:
Lizardmen - particularly if they clutch
Centaurs - I don't know much about their breeding habits, but they are the perfect nomads and a lot of range is going to be open to them after the disaster. If they do, in fact, move in herds they probably do all right.
Dwarves - the good demographics are nice as are the superior fortifications and resistance to disease.

 

[Harmon]

A thousand years and 90%.

Doesn't the population double like every 25 yrs? Okay, consider that the first hundred years infant fatality would be over 60% (lets say 2/3rds) so that means only a third of doubling through that time.

Someone want to help with the math on the idea I am spitting out here? Please, my math skills are greatly lacking.

So whats the population? About back to where it started I would guess. Would anyone really remember it? Seems like an excuse to make a change to the magic in the campaign to me, but hay that could be a cool back story.

Now you make it a shorter time and say that non civilized races (okay, non PC races) were uneffected, and that could make things really interesting.

 

[Andor]

Well, to address the original question of how a culture will adapt after a recovery, there is absolutly no way to know for certain. And the reason is.... heros.

Not neccesarilly leveled PC heroes though they might be, but the people in the time of the cataclysm who help the refugees organize and survive. These leaders are going to cast long shadows over the future history of their peoples. Their methods, their beliefs, and (if they have one) adventuring class will heavily influence the shape of the new society that is born from the ashes of the old world.

So who those leaders are is going to make a great deal of difference.

However generically speaking for the first few hundred years after the event you are likely to see (Especially given the way a DnD world works) a feudal economy and probably feudal politics. It is simply more efficient for these little societies to place a portion of their resources into supporting a small elite military (IE: PC classed heros) for defense and attack than to raise standing armies or depend on highly ineffective militias.

Which means less than you'd think 2000 years later if our own history is any guide.

-Andor

 

[fusangite]

mmadsen,

Thanks for doing the math on this.

You're using more favourable stats for kobolds and bugbears than you should. Use the average stats for the races not the warrior stats. Remember: kobold warrior stats in the MM are based on rolls of 13,11,12,10,9,8; the test case should be 10.5 across the board which, after the modifications, would come out to 6.5,12.5,8.5,10.5,10.5,10.5.

DMH,

I think you're working with a lot of fallacies.

1. I don't think that in most campaign worlds, there are thousands of adventurers pouring into monstrous humanoids' lands every year functioning as the principal check on their populations.

2. The historical and literary records do not show that land hunger is the primary motivation for war. Your model assumes that war varies directly with population density. But, in fact, as I have already stated, when there have been significant ie. greater than 50% drops in population, people have actually responded by going to war more. As I mentioned, in every significant demographic collapse we know of, some populations have responded by becoming signficantly more warlike. This is not surprising because land hunger is not what drives war -- it drives migration. Migration sometimes results in war; war is sometimes caused by migration but more often than not, things other than migration cause war. Furthermore, depending on the type of disaster we are talking about, people's response to the disaster may be to relocate.

3. Kobolds are not notorious raiders -- they are evil, cruel and cowardly but according to the MM, they rarely attack anything more than 10 miles outside their territory.

4. The Monster Manual does not posit the same high birth rate for kobolds that Dragon does. According to the MM, there is a very high adult to child ratio.

5. Surely the offensive value in combat of a kobold must have some statistical relevance. Otherwise, bacteria or ants or whatever would win because they multiply even faster. So you cannot argue that the number of hit points and damage per attack are "irrelevant."

6. Similar alignments are not the only factor in an alliance. Creatures of opposing alignments could still coordinate their activities if there existed an imminent, mutual deadly threat.

In Earth's history the hunter-gather peoples have been pushed out by those with agriculture. Why? Because people who farm have more food and thus a higher population. More people means more soldiers.

This is a grossly simplistic argument there have been various contests at various times between agricultural civilizations and other types of civilizations such as pastoral and hunter-gatherer groups. Sometimes the agriculturalists lose these contests.

The times when agriculturalists are most likely to lose these contests is when there has been a demographic collapse. In the Americas, demographic collapse caused a general increase in the territory occupied by hunter-gatherer peoples at the expense of agriculturalists.

Similar things took place in the 6th century when agrarian societies were replaced by pastoral societies after a demographic collapse. Then there is the case of pastoralist Norse Greenlanders whose lands was conquerered by hunter-gatherers in the 14th century.

But you haven't introduced the greatest variable in the whole conflict- magic.

Whoa there! I thought you said the most important factor was numbers. If you now acknowledge that superior force and offensive power may be the most important factor, you need to show how sorcerors are somehow a more offensively powerful class than any other. As I understand it, 3.5 is balanced so that every class is equally powerful. So, why would a race whose favoured class is fighter be less powerful than one whose favoured class is sorceror?

Finally, you cite some statistics indicating that it takes 21 times longer for an elf to become capable of combat or reproduction than a kobold. Again, I must ask, how has the world as it exists now come into being if kobolds populations grow so absurdly quickly? You still have not show why conditions will be different if all populations decline by an equal proportion. The populations' relative strenghts after the disaster will all be equal to what they were before. The only argument you have presented is that somehow the disaster will inaugurate a period of peace; but you have come up with no evidence that this will be the case.

It would be nice if we could find out what caused this cataclysm and then it would be easier to determine the results.

I agree. Perhaps the original poster could give us a sense of things.

 

[DMH]

I am to consede (sp) to most of your points.

1. I don't think that in most campaign worlds, there are thousands of adventurers pouring into monstrous humanoids' lands every year functioning as the principal check on their populations.

Must be the 1st editionist in me. I have always thought of adventurers as the main monster control.

4. The Monster Manual does not posit the same high birth rate for kobolds that Dragon does. According to the MM, there is a very high adult to child ratio.

This has been a problem since the first edition and the article address that. But if they have such a low birth rate and a short life span, how can they exist at all? See below for my points on this.

5. Surely the offensive value in combat of a kobold must have some statistical relevance. Otherwise, bacteria or ants or whatever would win because they multiply even faster. So you cannot argue that the number of hit points and damage per attack are "irrelevant."

Checks and balances. Ants are controlled by predators and parasites (inc other ants). Bacteria are different since they are on a different scale (simple things like a minor change in temperature or pH can kill them).

Whoa there! I thought you said the most important factor was numbers. If you now acknowledge that superior force and offensive power may be the most important factor, you need to show how sorcerors are somehow a more offensively powerful class than any other. As I understand it, 3.5 is balanced so that every class is equally powerful. So, why would a race whose favoured class is fighter be less powerful than one whose favoured class is sorceror?

Since when does variable=important? Magic (and with it alchemy) can be the tipping point because it can defeat physics and change battle field conditions. Dig doesn't seem that powerful, yet if used to create pits, can stop the charge of anything, thus making cavalry useless. But it can also be squandered and be utterly useless if the spell selection is poor.

Anyways my arguement isn't one fighter vs one sorcerer. It is one fighter vs 100 warriors and one sorcerer. And if the kobolds have time on their side, they are mechanical thinking people and might be crossbow wielders.

Finally, you cite some statistics indicating that it takes 21 times longer for an elf to become capable of combat or reproduction than a kobold. Again, I must ask, how has the world as it exists now come into being if kobolds populations grow so absurdly quickly?

Beacuse they are killed in huge numbers. Kobolds are considered snacks and pests by pretty much everyone else. The only way they can survive at all is their reproductive potential.

You still have not show why conditions will be different if all populations decline by an equal proportion. The populations' relative strenghts after the disaster will all be equal to what they were before. The only argument you have presented is that somehow the disaster will inaugurate a period of peace; but you have come up with no evidence that this will be the case.

You don't have to have peace to breed. As long as they can keep a few of their number safe, those will rebreed the army in the blink of an eye of an elf.

All the yellow jacket wasps in New Zealand are descended from a solitary queen.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I see kobold as becoming a numerous race but not a dominate one, they just are not smart enough or wise enough but I do see how they could be seen saving civilzation. A lot of what if here but because of their nature and birth rate, they make it and for a very brief time they are the dominate life form, the other races would become slaves and or food but soon that would turn because a smart human/elf/dwarf/gnome would change something, kobolds would then face a role change until they are pushed out. What is left but the race that took over and what do we have, a civilzation based on trap building and underground building...

I don't know, seems to me that this may be what has already happened in D&D!

 

[reanjr]

Start with a "standard" D&D society.
Introduce something that decimates 90+% of the population (of all races) across the board.
Fast forward a couple thousand years.

What will the world be like? What level of technology will be available? How much of the past will be remembered?

I'm being intentionally vague because I want some brainstorm-esque responses. When developing campaigns, one of the biggest difficulties I have is envisioning how a culture will respond to some major event.

As for impact (discluding the butterfly effect), I'd say pretty minimal. It's difficult to think of individuals from BCE that directly impact the modern day. Christ is the only one I can think of and it's arguable that the Christian faith is morally very similar to that of the Jews and so what kind of impact it might have had that wouldn't have happened without Christianity is questionable.

10% population just means that that 10% will prosper wildly for several generations until the population has boomed and begins to regulate itself through war, famine, etc.

As for technology, it is possible that the progress may be set back a few years, but significantly? Doubt it. Maybe a few breakthroughs of the past 100 years would happen 100 years later. Over a couple thousand years, though, this isn't that much of a difference. Also remember that many technological advancements are made through natural events that occur. Those natural events will still occur and be interpreted by younger generations who can learn from them, even if they are 50 years behind what the other set of people would have had technologically.

As for past remembrance, I think it's hard to say. It's one of those things that is very dependent upon who was wiped out and how advanced technology was at the time of the apocalypse. For instance, if an apocalypse happened today on Earth, very little information would be completely lost since we have so many duplicates of information. This would hold true since the invention and proliferation of the printing press.

Even before then, if the most advanced knowledge of the time is all compiled in one place (Library of Alexandria is a good example) and nothing happens to the library or its caretakers (this is where the example's relevance crumbles) knowledge may still be maintained fairly well.

I'd say this is all a matter of preference. Without history being written down (perhaps the apocalypes happens when very few people are literate and there are lots of languages; many languages would die out and writing might be a fairly lost art) at the time, the apocalypse will likely end up in most any modern day religion as a creation story or parable (the Deluge, for instance, may have ocurred in some shape or form as there are many world religions who share the same story)

I really think a couple thousand years is too long to make an impact. Fantasy campaigns often have a tendency to write histories back to hundreds of thousands of years or even millions (Eberron). This makes little sense. Modern day man didn't even appear until 200,000 years ago (and this is a large estimate). Civilization of any sort recognizable by you and I didn't appear until a few thousand years ago (5k?). Two thousand years is a very, very, very long time.

I think 200 years would be a better timeframe for post-apocalypse. Just long enough that everyone around back then and their grandchildren are dead.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Just want to say this is a great thread!

 

[DMH]

I see kobold as becoming a numerous race but not a dominate one, they just are not smart enough or wise enough but I do see how they could be seen saving civilzation.

That all depends on if the DM uses weakness from inbreeding (which the longer lived races are going to take a beating with) and if the kobolds and goblins go on the offensive. And kobolds are just as smart as humans.

What I envision is the dwarves, gnomes and elves (and possibly the giants if they were affected) wiped out and then orcs and hobgoblins will build up enough to bring the smaller races to their knees and then humans and what allies they have left will bring back the balance to what it was in the first place (sans the older races of course). So the surviving core races would be human, halfling, half-elf and half-orc.

But that only works if all the non-humanoid monsters are discluded. The evil dragons might take the opportunity to kill off all the humanoids to protect themselves in the future. Illithids might freak out (or die out) since their food supply and hosts are almost gone. Elves could survive very well if they fell back and let the fey and plants do their fighting for a few centuries. If giants were not affected, they suddenly have a lot of land they can move into and will muck up any attempts to reclaim that land. They are a worse variable than magic.

 

[DMH]

Short bows that are battle effective are actually a pretty sophsiticated technology, and heavily outclassed by the Elvish longbows regardless.

That is true. Since kobolds are mechanically minded (since all of them are trap builders*), why can't they have crossbows? If they do, there should be a lot left from those who died and they can be kept in good shape for many years.

*All, not some, of them have the bonus to trapmaking. So it stand to reason they have some innate ability with simple machines that humans don't.