how does a culture recover from an apocalyptic event?

[Voadam]

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.

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Only assuming the elf woman's children don't reproduce as well. It is not inconceivable for an elf child to be the same age as another offspring from his grandparents or great grandparents.

 

[Felikeries]

The playing aspects i've found often result with this sort of event,wether planned or not,as the return to harsh adventurimng or the result of certain quests.....a form of DM,Player style that has the death of species and the devestation of lands.....

Recovery is no single minded truth,the return of a creature (simple minded) may be humorous,the advent of a mediun powerstrein of anthropomorphs as great power holders,the use of shivalrous beasts as oxen.......these are what happen

Though language,infedelity,posessions,religion,territory may be a braoder goal,the players with their antics about the situation may really lead to answers for the DM concerning thses issues

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

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.

I do think Kobolds are underappreciated.

But I don't totally buy the numbers argument. 'Faster breeding' is often balanced against shortened lifespan on the one hand, and on the other you need a number of other advantages to make numbers really count. You need to feed and coordinate people properly to make them really effective and that gets harder as you get higher numbers particularly if they are expanding numbers. And, as above, faster breeding also means higher strain.

Elves don't have those issues, and, at least in a DnD environment, longer lifespan probably means higher aggregate levels in the society. A huge advantage given that it really aggravates the diminishing return on higher numbers.

 

[DMH]

Only assuming the elf woman's children don't reproduce as well. It is not inconceivable for an elf child to be the same age as another offspring from his grandparents or great grandparents.

That is assuming elves and humans have the same generation time. I am with Hand of Evil in believing that is not so. I use the 1st ed. age tables (where elves can live over 2000 years and gnomes over 1000) and use 150 years as a generation for elves.

 

[fusangite]

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

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.

The first major plague hit Tenochtitlan during the half-year period between when the Mexica first repeled Cortes and when he returned and successfully took the city. It is estimated, based in part on records made by the Mexica themselves that over 50% of the population of Tenochtitlan perished during that period. The plagues began to wrack Mesoamerica within months of the European arrival. However, there were successive waves of different epidemics up to the end of the 17th century, at which point the indigenous population reached its nadir. Interestingly, the smallpox epidemic that hit the northwest coast in the 18th century arrived via trade with areas to the south, prior to the arrival of any Europeans in the region. Much the same was the case in various areas of North America -- epidemics were more likely to rush ahead of the invasion than to dawdle behind it.

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.

 

[DMH]

But I don't totally buy the numbers argument. (snip) And, as above, faster breeding also means higher strain.

Kobolds are small and reptilian and thus need less food than pretty much everyone else. They are naturally sorcerers and that doesn't need training of the usual sort and for the warriors, wood sucks as armor, but is better than nothing.

Elves don't have those issues, and, at least in a DnD environment, longer lifespan probably means higher aggregate levels in the society. A huge advantage given that it really aggravates the diminishing return on higher numbers.

Remember this is after 90% of both populations have been erraticated by something.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

That is assuming elves and humans have the same generation time. I am with Hand of Evil in believing that is not so. I use the 1st ed. age tables (where elves can live over 2000 years and gnomes over 1000) and use 150 years as a generation for elves.

Actually I don't think it bears that assumption. I don't have the 1ed tables in front of me but unless old age makes up a far higher portion of the Elves' lifecycle than it does for any other race, and I mean HUGELY higher, than as an Elfen nuclear family you are still going to be easily capable of producing two or three generations of other nuclear families while you are still a functioning and productive member of society even with the 150 year generation cycle.

Tolkien compensated for this by arguing that Elves have a very limited fuse for being interested in sex. Once they have one or two kids Tolkien elves remain faithful to each other but turn their sex drive into a zeal for scholarly pursuits or some other interest, which in its own right is probably a huge advantage, but that doesn't change the fact the Legolas's Dad, Grandad, and Great Grandad, are all of them fully functional immortal badassess.

Course Tolkien is bad for demographics since most of the info on generations, outside of Hobbits, is based on royal geneaologies and in Tolkien, as in the real world, those are explicitly skewed and wrong. So that Elf royal families tend to have fewer children later and Numenorean ones get killed off at an extremely high rate.

Still I think that Arwen's family line is pretty well going to turn into a fully indepedent population within a few lifetimes. Nearly an independent species, particular given the magical potency and social desireability of the line.

 

[DMH]

Actually I don't think it bears that assumption. I don't have the 1ed tables in front of me but unless old age makes up a far higher portion of the Elves' lifecycle than it does for any other race, and I mean HUGELY higher, than as an Elfen nuclear family you are still going to be easily capable of producing two or three generations of other nuclear families while you are still a functioning and productive member of society even with the 150 year generation cycle.

So there should be more dogs than mice because dogs have a longer lifespan and dogs breed at the same time their offspring do? In my example, 10 human generations pass for every elven one. That does make a huge difference in the reproductive potential. Also remember that if an elf dies, that has a much larger impact than if a human dies on total numbers down the line.

I use the grey elf line- young adult 150-250, adult 251-650, middle aged 651-1000, old 1001-1500, venerable 1501-2000 (and then there are the variables that can push it above 2400).

 

[fusangite]

People seem to be talking at cross purposes about various growth models, sort of comparing apples and oranges. Frankly, I don't think there are enough known variables to do the math; there is no consensus here on the amount of time it takes for any non-human species to reach sexual maturity, the gestation period of any non-human species, the lifespan of any species before menopause, etc.

Still, to those who propose that kobold populations would swamp other humanoid populations if everybody's population were divided by 10, please explain why this wouldn't happen without the demographic disaster. The relative sizes and growth rates of the populations are identical with or without the disaster in your model as far as I can tell.

 

[DMH]

Still, to those who propose that kobold populations would swamp other humanoid populations if everybody's population were divided by 10,

So far that is me.

please explain why this wouldn't happen without the demographic disaster. The relative sizes and growth rates of the populations are identical with or without the disaster in your model as far as I can tell.

There is a lot more pressure from the other races. Humans kill kobolds and goblins by the metric ton and yet they are still around because of their ability to breed so fast. When that pressure disappears then the fast breeders will fill all the available space before the other races. There will be so many that they will be able to kill their compeditors with numbers alone. And kobolds have the greater advantage because of their innate magic wielding abilities.