how does a culture recover from an apocalyptic event?

[DMH]

I forgot the other advantage kobolds have over elves- they burrow well. All they have to do to really annoy the elves is to kill the trees from below and maybe even set them up to fall. The tree dwellers go splat and the kobolds have a nice big pile of wood to live in.

Lets crunch some numbers now. I will use the 3.X young adult age of an elf (110 years) and 7 years for the kobold. And, for the sake of arguement, they have the same % increase.

Starting with 100 of each:
Year.............Number Elves...............Number kobolds
1.................100............................100

7..................100...........................175

14................100............................306

21................100............................536

28................100............................938

112..............175............................773,938 (with some rounding)

[I have no idea why the chart is screwed up]

(I did a similar thing with the seedkin from Penumbra Fantasy Bestiary and at day 150, there were more than 25 million of them using just the average number of offspring and brreding time).

So how does the 100 elves survive against the onslaught of over a half million kobolds?

Also now that kobolds can gain levels, why should they be any weaker (in game terms) than an elf of equal level?

 

[fusangite]

I forgot the other advantage kobolds have over elves- they burrow well.

No they don't. They have no burrow movement rate.

So how does the 100 elves survive against the onslaught of over a half million kobolds?

First of all, I can't make sense of your math. What assumptions does it make about infant mortality, parent mortality, gestation period, life span, fertility span, etc.?

Secondly, as I keep asking you: why doesn't this happen even without a demographic collapse? If the relative populations are the same before and after the demographic collapse, why doesn't this swamping happen irrespective of the collapse? What special conditions are created by the cataclysm that enable this that did not exist before?

Thirdly, there is obviously something wrong with the dragon magazine article that you are citing. The Monster Manual clearly states that only 17% of a kobold population is composed of non-combatant young whereas they comprise 20% of an elf population.

Just for the heck of it, here are a bunch of things you are not considering:
- in response to demographic collapse, there tends to be a significant increase in the ratio of domestic animals to people in a society; perhaps this might play a role in the elves being non-marginal
- elves and kobolds are not competing against eachother in the absence of exogenous factors; it's like you've designed one of those microeconomics exercises where there are only two products in the world: guns and butter
- if kobolds reproduce at such a phenomenal rate and yet have only a 17% non-adult population, it is likely that they experience very high infant mortality rates
- the most direct competitors of the kobolds are likely the entities with which they compete for resources; their primary competiotn would not be with elves but, more likely, with other creatures suffering from light blindness
- is everyone else in the world completely dense? Who on earth would sit around watching half a million kobolds hatch while twiddling their thumbs?
- why not apply your model to winter wolves, worgs, troglodytes, lizardfolk, sahuagin or formians -- all intelligent species with equally or more efficient reproductive cycles. (According to the monster manual, the non-adult lizardfolk population is 37.5%)

 

[DMH]

No they don't. They have no burrow movement rate.

Kobolds live underground and are "good miners". They should be able to cause a collapse and destroy a chunk of forest (like say the elven city).

First of all, I can't make sense of your math. What assumptions does it make about infant mortality, parent mortality, gestation period, life span, fertility span, etc.?

No to all of those except lifespan which doesn't come into play since neither have reached it.
(250 years for kobolds) So to come up with a better answer, reduce the kobold number by 15%. Does that have a massive effect on the end result?

Secondly, as I keep asking you: why doesn't this happen even without a demographic collapse?

And I answered in post 75- they are killed in great numbers by just about everything.

Thirdly, there is obviously something wrong with the dragon magazine article that you are citing. The Monster Manual clearly states that only 17% of a kobold population is composed of non-combatant young whereas they comprise 20% of an elf population.

Again in post 75, I said I concured with the article that the number given in the MM (both editions) is STUPID and WRONG. They can not have such a low birthrate at that level of mortality. They would have been wiped out long ago.

Just for the heck of it, here are a bunch of things you are not considering:
- in response to demographic collapse, there tends to be a significant increase in the ratio of domestic animals to people in a society; perhaps this might play a role in the elves being non-marginal

I never said elves were marginal. You forget again that we are talking about after 90% of the population is obliterated.

- elves and kobolds are not competing against eachother in the absence of exogenous factors; it's like you've designed one of those microeconomics exercises where there are only two products in the world: guns and butter

Or one where the rapidly growing power notices a threat to itself and take proactive measures to deal with it.

- is everyone else in the world completely dense? Who on earth would sit around watching half a million kobolds hatch while twiddling their thumbs?

I didn't say they all survived. I was just using the numbers to show how the kobolds can outstrip the elves (and everyone else) in numbers.

- why not apply your model to winter wolves, worgs, troglodytes, lizardfolk, sahuagin or formians -- all intelligent species with equally or more efficient reproductive cycles. (According to the monster manual, the non-adult lizardfolk population is 37.5%)

1) they don't breed as fast. 2) winter wolves are not a "race" 3) Sahuagin are in the same boat as the kuo-toa (they are fish and can't stay on land very long) and 4) Formians are outsiders, probably were not affected by the cataclysm and should not be considered.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Nahua refers to the language group of which the Mexica (chief member state in the Aztec confederacy) are part; there are 12 million native Nahua speakers today.

You make an interesting case regarding the dwarves but doesn't their gender balance handicap them? It seems like species where the females outnumber the males would likely have the highest reproductive capacity.

Ya know, I just saw this.

hmm, my knowledge of the meso-american plagues is primarily limited to the death of the giant Franciscan mission stations, but none of that was in the Valley of Mexico. So I assume they got wiped out by the last set.

Interestingly, the NE American plagues did occur before Europeans came in to colonize, but Europeans did know about it. Squanto had been to Europe and apparently came back to find his people wiped out by the plague. The Pilgrims knew about the plagues and used it as part of their before hand justification for the settlement. There's some pretty incredible stuff from the European side trying to figure out what happened and why. Interesting that you say smallpox, last I heard there was a fair amount of debate over this with a party that favored flu as well given the way it hit the local demographics.

I really don't know that the gender balance is cannon for 3.5 dwarves and to be fair we don't really know what he gender balance in Tolkien is either. We just know that other people don't know what it is.

I'm tempted to assume that the gender balance already favors females and that in general women survive natural disasters at a higher rate then men, but I really couldn't say for certain given that it is a different species and that we don't know what the disaster precisely was. Some diseases, AIDS comes to mind, affecting women at a far higher rate than men. Statistically speaking.

There is a fair amount of flavor that Dwarves have twins at a higher rate than most peoples and they do seem to have large nuclear family sizes. So the gender ratio might be balanced by higher rates of birth fertility and recovery.

An excessive population of males might work to the Dwarves favor. A good population to use in risky activities while proven productive units are kept out of harms way.

 

[fusangite]

And I answered in post 75- they are killed in great numbers by just about everything.

And I am asking for the third or fourth time: why is this different after the cataclysm?

Again in post 75, I said I concured with the article that the number given in the MM (both editions) is STUPID and WRONG. They can not have such a low birthrate at that level of mortality. They would have been wiped out long ago.

So, the rules are wrong, and an article which anticipates that any world which suffers a cataclysm will automatically be dominated by kobolds is right? Given that nearly every game world has suffered a cataclysm in the past and is not dominated by kobolds, perhaps it is the article (or at least your interpretation thereof) that is incorrect.

Or one where the rapidly growing power notices a threat to itself and take proactive measures to deal with it.

Why is this a unique feature of these kobolds? Isn't this a feature every intelligent race would have? Given that this is a feature that other races also have, why would the kobolds be allowed to multiply in the geometric way you describe?

I didn't say they all survived. I was just using the numbers to show how the kobolds can outstrip the elves (and everyone else) in numbers.

Well, certainly if you remove all factors causing mortality, the entity with the fastest birth rate will win. But you have yet to demonstrate that any (never mind all) factors causing mortality have been removed or reduced as a result of the cataclysm.

1) they don't breed as fast.

How do you know? Did the article tell you that? We know that Troglodytes, Lizardfolk and Kobolds all share the characteristic of reproducing by laying eggs. Based on what evidence do you assert that the contents of a kobold egg grow and mature most rapidly?

2) winter wolves are not a "race"

So, even though they have a higher intelligence than orcs, because they are not humanoid, your model doesn't include them? Why not? Are only humanoids involved in this putative struggle for existence?

3) Sahuagin are in the same boat as the kuo-toa (they are fish and can't stay on land very long)

So, in an earth-like world, they would be limited to a mere three quarters of the total surface (or nearly triple the habitat for which the monstrous humanoids are competing)? How would that cause them to grow more slowly?

 

[mmadsen]

And I am asking for the third or fourth time: why is this different after the cataclysm?

After a cataclysm that eliminates most of the population (and most competitors, but not most food supplies), a rapidly reproducing species can quickly flourish. Once resources are constrained, rapid reproduction no longer pays off.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Yeah, but if you're Kobolds.

And there's suddenly lots of empty land. Assuming that active expansion is something Kobolds like to do.

Why are you going after the Elves?

It's sort of a waste of your resources.

But let's get beyond this numbers game, what would the post-apocalyptic Kobold dominated world look like?

 

[fusangite]

There's some pretty incredible stuff from the European side trying to figure out what happened and why. Interesting that you say smallpox, last I heard there was a fair amount of debate over this with a party that favored flu as well given the way it hit the local demographics.

Influenza, tuberculosis, smallpox were all significant factors. As nearly all European diseases that were passed to humans from domestic animals were new to the region, in most regions all took their toll. While scholarly opinion remains divided on the specifics of which disease can be correlated to which epidemic, in part because a disease sometimes manifests differently in a virgin soil population than in a population in which it is endemic, it is highly unlikely there will ever be conclusive proof. That stated, I believe there remains a general consensus that smallpox was likely the first, TB was likely 100+ years later and a few other details.

There is a fair amount of flavor that Dwarves have twins at a higher rate than most peoples and they do seem to have large nuclear family sizes. So the gender ratio might be balanced by higher rates of birth fertility and recovery.

Not to sound like DMH here but the number of children the average adult woman delivers over the course of her repoductive lifetime outstrips all other factors when it comes to growth.

My view is that dwarves would hold their own or expand more because their rates of mortality would be much lower amongst both adults and children. I sort of imagine that dwarf infant mortality would be much lower than that of other species.

 

[DMH]

And I am asking for the third or fourth time: why is this different after the cataclysm?

Because the people who were killing them are gone. Why would adventurers kill them when survival is much more at stake? Human and kobold survivors are not going to automatically live near each other.

So, the rules are wrong, and an article which anticipates that any world which suffers a cataclysm will automatically be dominated by kobolds is right?

Okay lets look at it a different way. Kobolds are grass and elves are oaks. When fire burns down the forest, which is going to colonize first? Which is going to dominate the landscape? If a few of the oaks survive, there is a chance they can revive their community (unless a 3rd party, like squirrels, eats all the acorns). And grass is known to weaken tree roots.

If I could cut and paste a few lines from the article, I would.

Why is this a unique feature of these kobolds? Isn't this a feature every intelligent race would have? Given that this is a feature that other races also have, why would the kobolds be allowed to multiply in the geometric way you describe?

90% of the humans and allies are dead. That means there is a lot of open land for anyone who can control it. If the kobolds take a chunk far away from the surviving human (and ally) communities, who is going to travel to the kobold to kill them? Wouldn't they be more worried about keeping themselves and their kin alive than going out to kill a threat they don't even know exists?

How do you know? Did the article tell you that? We know that Troglodytes, Lizardfolk and Kobolds all share the characteristic of reproducing by laying eggs. Based on what evidence do you assert that the contents of a kobold egg grow and mature most rapidly?

Yes. The other lizard peoples are larger and take more time to get to adult size.

So, even though they have a higher intelligence than orcs, because they are not humanoid, your model doesn't include them? Why not? Are only humanoids involved in this putative struggle for existence?

Post 79. I already mentioned monsters and how they would alter the dynamics of the situation.

So, in an earth-like world, they would be limited to a mere three quarters of the total surface (or nearly triple the habitat for which the monstrous humanoids are competing)? How would that cause them to grow more slowly?

I thought we were talking about surface land competition. Of course they would be affected and their lifestyle (using Sea Devils as the basis) would make regaining their numbers that much harder since they have a high mutation rate and kill the mutant infants.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

My view is that dwarves would hold their own or expand more because their rates of mortality would be much lower amongst both adults and children. I sort of imagine that dwarf infant mortality would be much lower than that of other species.

Ah, but if the generational demographics also favor dwarves?

I would have thought that lifespan was at least as important. Aren't the industrial demographic shifts brought on more by the increased likelihood of people living through a generational cycle than anything else?