how does a culture recover from an apocalyptic event?

[fusangite]

90+% of society destroyed?

There is no longer a society.

Even the Black Death didn't hit a culture that deeply...

The death rate from European disease in Mesoamerica was pretty close to 90% -- and that was only half of the cataclysm. Add onto that a simultaneous invasion and attempted destruction of all written records. If Nahua society can continue to exist after epidemics and forced labour kill 80-90% of its inhabitants, contemporaneously with a 300-year occupation and large-scal e religious conversion, I think one can easily make a case for survival.

Isn't this the standard D&D setting already?

I'm inclined to agree.

Roman Empire - Fall of~ - Early Dark Ages - Later Dark Ages - Medieval -DnD standard

I think D&D is more the way that people in the High Middle Ages saw people in the Early Middle Ages (what you call "Dark Ages"); the original Arthurian romances were all written from this point of view. Because medievals were not interested in historical fidelity the way were are, these stories were a weird hodgepodge of early and late medieval things.

I think some of your statements are a bit historically problematic but they are bang-on in terms of the literature and myth that these ideas have generated.

It was Ibn Khaldun who first noticed and codified the theory of the rise and fall of civilizations (or rather, one should say, in modern written history, he was the first we know of to have done it). The theory is that all societies pass through the following phases:

Savagery
Barbarism
Civilization
Decadence
Collapse

I'm not sure that "notice" is the correct term here. Certainly, the theory that the "progress" of a civilization is primarily linked to endogenous rather than exogenous factors has remained popular at the level of popular history up to authors like Oswald Spengler in the 20th century. But most historians now tend to link the majority of crises of civilization to ecological, biological or external demographic factors. A huge demographic disaster can wreck a civilization regardless of whether it is going through a time of perceived decline or a perceived rise.

Fortunately, in the world of gaming, these two things can be linked: the hubris or decadence of a society might anger a particular god -- an agricultural or weather god, for instance. A god might also attack an arrogant or hubristic kingdom with war or plague.

People in the culture will reevaluate social arrangements, especially since every worker is now valuable (this is similar to what happened after the Black Death). We in th West tend to have these fantasies about people turning on each other and becomeing savage jerks, but this doesn't actually happen to often.

This is a very important point. As I mentioned in my first post, demographic collapse tends to cause a high level of per-capita wealth and a labour shortage. Among other things, this tends to lead to an increase in technology, even if coupled with a simultaneous decline in science. But this is just one manifestation -- the point is that society will tend to value activities that require smaller inputs of labour, even if they require larger inputs of capital. Thus, pastoralism will often replace agriculture as land becomes more abundant and agricultural labour more rare.

Because of the way that D&D magic in many ways resembles tech, in a world where there is magic, one of the immediate effects of the demographic collapse will be an increasing reliance on spellcasters.

Now onto my stuff:

One thing you need to consider is how long did the cataclysm itself last. The strange darkening of the sun that affected Europe in 540 "lasted" for about a year; but the extremely wet summers and springs lasted for another 30 years; and the climate did not fully recover for another 400 years. It also seems to have triggered ecological conditions for a plague epidemic that hit Europe shortly thereafter but then continued to reappear in smaller epidemics for about 200 years. On the other hand, the Black Death was about 5 years long.

So, you might want to ask yourself how long the cataclysm takes to unfold, how many aftershocks it had and what permanent effects it may have left behind.

Another thing to consider is that because customs often act to curtail birth rates when a population is at a higher level, when populations decrease dramatically, often customs change resulting in higher growth rates. This can make a huge difference given that human growth patterns are exponential rather than linear. Thus, the new societies might allow for polygamy, early marriage and an end to sexual abstinence before weaning.

There are two other major factors concerning culture loss. Oral tradition cultures tend to be much harder-hit by major demographic collapse -- even if the old are not especially susceptible to the catastrophe, a specialized oral society can be severely harmed by even small demographic crises. The other factor is how urban the society is -- while a community of 50 suffering a 90% loss would cease to function, a community of 500,000 would not. Even in catastrophes that have a significantly higher initial death rate in urban centres the rural areas are often hit harder. One could argue that the early Middle Ages were different in Greek Europe than in Roman Europe because the population of Constantinople was large enough to survive the collapse relatively intact whereas no centre in the West, by that point, was.

 

[jayaint]

Questions:

Was there some kind of fallout, taint, or other lingering effect to the 90%-reduction event?

Was it confined to a certain geographic region, or was it continent/planet-wide?

Did it affect all species or just bi-pedal humanoid and larger races ?

Thread starter mentioned that there are no gods, but that doesn't mean that a scared and threatened populace of survivors wouldn't create some, or elevate some hero/saint/etc to godliness??


Basically... any segment of the population that is still represented after the event, would be subjected to "survival of the fittest". As a previous poster mentioned, royalty, merchants, and other high-end-abstract users-of-society would have no place in the new world unless they were willing to strip off the purple robes and get busy re-planting and re-building. Not to say that a "natural born leader" wouldn't rise to the top of his/her little huddled mass, just that someone who took their position for granted based on faith or "concept" would be fertilizer unless they were willing to change.

Other races would certainly be better suited for the re-growth and rebuilding process. As mentioned, kobolds and goblins (if they exist in your world) would radically spread with their surperior numbers. However, one need to look no further than "Races of Destiny" to see how some races just seem to rise to the point of prominence and have the ability to assert their will. I feel that cleverness and adaptibility would eventually win out and return the gaming-setting to a percentage-based-status-quo.

The biggest problem (I believe) to the world at large during this time would be the intelligent monsters of GREAT power, and the small raiding bands who maintain some kind of martial intelligence, or magical prowess. Pre-90%-event, even small towns could hire on adventurers or local guilds to help with protection or retrieval of stolen goods. Post-90%-event, the huddled masses would be subject to any group or creature that came across them and something to gain from terrorizing them.

blah blah blah... i'll come back to it.

 

[fusangite]

If we ignore monsters, the likely rulers will be kobolds. The reason is their magical apitude and high rate of reproduction. Long lived races live gnomes, dwarves, ogres and elves will fall eventually to kobold numbers.

I always assumed these races limited their birthrates through social control, not that they had some kind of biological impairment in reproducing. I always assumed that elves, etc. had long reproductive lives and chose to limit their birthrates through cultural mechanisms. So, in fact, I think one could make the reverse argument -- that if these cultures were to throw out their social controls on reproduction, their numbers might increase more dramatically.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I always assumed these races limited their birthrates through social control, not that they had some kind of biological impairment in reproducing. I always assumed that elves, etc. had long reproductive lives and chose to limit their birthrates through cultural mechanisms. So, in fact, I think one could make the reverse argument -- that if these cultures were to throw out their social controls on reproduction, their numbers might increase more dramatically.

The limits would be more on what the enviroment can support, in the real world prey animals make up about 80% of all animals and 20% would be predators, man had to switch for survival as he was starting to move beyond this (note: there are some different thoughts on this) number, becoming farmer and herders. The 80/20 number appears to be constant through history where man was not involved.

 

[DMH]

I always assumed these races limited their birthrates through social control, not that they had some kind of biological impairment in reproducing. I always assumed that elves, etc. had long reproductive lives and chose to limit their birthrates through cultural mechanisms. So, in fact, I think one could make the reverse argument -- that if these cultures were to throw out their social controls on reproduction, their numbers might increase more dramatically.

The article had the lifespans proportionate to humans. That means an elf is in diapers (sp) for 10-12 years.

And even if that wasn't so, the short generation time and multiplication effect is still going to give the shorter lived races the advantage. When does an elf or dwarf become sexually active? If it is anything over 10 years, then goblins will have higher numbers. Kobolds have such a greater advantage over goblins because they are egg layers (more offspring with less energy from the mother).

 

[Hand of Evil]

The article had the lifespans proportionate to humans. That means an elf is in diapers (sp) for 10-12 years.

And even if that wasn't so, the short generation time and multiplication effect is still going to give the shorter lived races the advantage. When does an elf or dwarf become sexually active? If it is anything over 10 years, then goblins will have higher numbers. Kobolds have such a greater advantage over goblins because they are egg layers (more offspring with less energy from the mother).

Another real world referance, mammals with about the same life span have about the same coming of age and carring lenght. Which in a fantasy world could still apply.

 

[Voadam]

The thousand years makes the apocalypse almost irrelevant. Perhaps the slower population growth races like elves are still hurting but how many generations of human and orc expansion and repopulation are we talking about? The apocalypse will throw down the old power order but a new one will have popped up long since.

The cultures would be wildly different from thousands of years before even without an apocalypse. Ancient Egypt survived for more than a thousand years, a few religions have stuck around for a long haul, but there has been great changes in culture and politics continuosly and most things just do not last that long. Even comparing the continuing tradition religions now to a thousand years ago you get significant differences.

 

[fusangite]

I always assumed these races limited their birthrates through social control, not that they had some kind of biological impairment in reproducing. I always assumed that elves, etc. had long reproductive lives and chose to limit their birthrates through cultural mechanisms. So, in fact, I think one could make the reverse argument -- that if these cultures were to throw out their social controls on reproduction, their numbers might increase more dramatically.

The limits would be more on what the enviroment can support, in the real world prey animals make up about 80% of all animals and 20% would be predators, man had to switch for survival as he was starting to move beyond this (note: there are some different thoughts on this) number, becoming farmer and herders. The 80/20 number appears to be constant through history where man was not involved.

How are these things different? Cultures, be they hunter-gatherer, agrarian or industrial tend to establish customs to limit their birthrates so as to avoid population sizes the ecosystem cannot support. Furthermore, as there have existed almost exclusively vegetarian societies such as the Nahuas and almost exclusively carnivorous societies such as the Inuit, I think your predatorrey ratios are a bit of a red herring.

The article had the lifespans proportionate to humans. That means an elf is in diapers (sp) for 10-12 years.

And even if that wasn't so, the short generation time and multiplication effect is still going to give the shorter lived races the advantage. When does an elf or dwarf become sexually active? If it is anything over 10 years, then goblins will have higher numbers. Kobolds have such a greater advantage over goblins because they are egg layers (more offspring with less energy from the mother).

Another key factor is the maximum number of births per adult female lifetime; this will be conditioned by gestation periods, social taboos, life expectancy, probability of death in childbirth and maximum child-bearing age.

For instance, if an elf woman has the same gestation period as a human but has 110 years of reproductive life vs. 30, obviously that's a significant difference.

One more thing:

Now that I'm noting the direction the debate is going, perhaps a better question to ask is this: what sort of demographic crisis would leave such a long and traumatic memory that stretches over centuries?

 

[DMH]

For instance, if an elf woman has the same gestation period as a human but has 110 years of reproductive life vs. 30, obviously that's a significant difference.

Not really in terms of total numbers. The human woman's great granddaughters will be having children by the time the elf is done having hers. 5 generations have past and that provides the multiplication factor that gives the humans the edge.

Perhaps the slower population growth races like elves are still hurting

Why would they even be around any more? The faster breeding races will go to war with them over space and will win due to numbers. An elven wizard can only fling so many spells before he runs out and is overwhelmed by suicidal shock troops (say 1000 War 6 plus 50 Sorc 1-3 kobolds vs a typical elven village).

Another reason kobolds have an advantage is their reptilian nature- they need less food than a mammal of similar size. Personally I would require them 1/6th the daily requirement for a human and also give them penalities for cold weather. But how many wars at that technology level are fought during the cold months? And if they ally with goblins, then there is no time of year best to fight them.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Any number of traumatic events can leave a nasty centuries long memory.

Or even a lack of memory, recall Herodotus running into the gap in Egyptian history that accounts for the Hyksos invasion.

It seems a highly variable factor. I think a lot of it depends on what means the society uses to memorialize it and what actually gets left behind either in the records of other cultures or in physical, linguistic, or biological remains.

For instance, the Arthurian legends are a better record than they are a record of the trauma. You could make the same argument of the Trojan war. On the other hand, I don't know that there was all that much native memory of the great North American plagues at all. At least by the time you get out to the central regions everyones lifestyle has changed so much that it's not even apparent why it would be relevant.

On a point of curiosity, it was my understanding that the major plagues hit meso-America well after the invasions. Where are the Nahuas?

And on a point of relevance, given the age spans in the PHB and assuming that those ages mean the same thing for fertility that they do for us, then I would put the dwarves as the most demographically robust race. They get the most generations per single lifestyle, far more than humans, and age the most gracefully given the bonus to constitution so you're looking at a species that has a far more effective older population than any other which tends to be the most succesful model.

Loads of kids and few adults is a real strain. Loads of adults and few kids has different pressures and is a real burden. By the Dwarven model you have plenty of adult children having their own children even as you are still having children. Lots of adults and lots of kids spread nicely apart. Even if you take in the common assumption that demi-humans don't have lots of children at once where people and other things do, I think that this model has greater strengths.

Particularly for a militaristic culture, if they have any sense of extended family at all, and all the emphasis on clans seems to support that, then you've really reduced your chances of poorly cared for orphans with such a model.