Is This How Elves Live?

[mmadsen]

The elves' long lifespans should help them here - as they live so long, their numbers will increase slowly, allowing them the tiem to adapt to the increasing numbers.

Well, more accurately, their long lifespans work against them, but their slow maturity works for them -- so they should be in the same boat as pre-modern humans, who could not help but grow their population until conditions were miserable enough that deaths matched births.

Or elves could maintain a high standard of living -- largely determined by the ratio of food-bearing land to food-consuming mouths -- via contraception. Dark elves could maintain theirs via infanticide.

Incremental improvements in their management of their food supply will solve their issues, whereas a short-lived and fecund race like orcs (or for that matter, relatively speaking, humans) will experience population explosions that will tax their immediate surroundings, forcing them to expand their terrritory and come into conflict with other races or cultures.

The elves would have to improve their "crop" yields at a faster rate than their population growth, which would imply constant progress, or negligible reproduction, which seems unnatural, or high mortality from something. (Hmm... What does "sailing to the west" really mean?)

 

[mmadsen]

In my own campaign, the dwarves trade for the resources they need. They have the gold, the silver, and the gems, and they use it to buy the things they can't grow themselves.

It certainly makes sense that the dwarves would have a near-monopoly on valuable things coming out of the ground -- but that implies a not-so-reclusive existence. On the other hand, precious metals and stones are value-dense and non-perishable, so they wouldn't need to be on a major trade route with regular caravans visiting.

I suppose if you want to more directly use the Jomon as an template for underdark dwarves, you could have your dwarves living on the edges of a vast underground lake or river that teems with fish. Rare lichens might be very high in nutritional value.

Are there any real-world analogs to this? Does anything grow in deep, deep caves?

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

It certainly makes sense that the dwarves would have a near-monopoly on valuable things coming out of the ground -- but that implies a not-so-reclusive existence. On the other hand, precious metals and stones are value-dense and non-perishable, so they wouldn't need to be on a major trade route with regular caravans visiting.

My dwarves are not so reclusive and more lawful neutral than standard. They had an expansive kingdom some time ago and made use of slaves (some human but primarily goblin - hence the goblin hate for dwarves) and tributary realms. Now, their tributary kingdoms have mostly revolted, and the dwarven kingdom itself has split into three (one of which has been taken over by the obligatory dragon). Now, rather than their previous feudal methods, they've moved into the beginnings of a financial kingdom, becoming financiers.

Are there any real-world analogs to this? Does anything grow in deep, deep caves?

I can't think of anything. Or at least not enough to support a civilization; but I don't mind making that much of a leap.

 

[Tonguez]

Are there any real-world analogs to this? Does anything grow in deep, deep caves?

You get microorganisms and crustacenas in deep caves, but generally food is scarce in real caves and insufficeint to support large creatures. However the deepsea does set some precedent with organisms that survive by Chemosynthesis.

It is possible (in fact probable) that in damp geothermally active sections of the underdark the underdark chemosynthetic organisms have evolved which are able to support the underdark ecology. I would suppose the existence of rivers, even seas full of nutrient rich chemosynthetic slime flowing through the underdark and providing habitat replete with giant tubeworms, giant protozoan oozes, enormous molluscs and abberant crustaceans (even Aboleths).

Dwarfs having evolved to process these sulfur rich foods would have a very different metabolism to humans (and terrible flatulence)

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Dwarfs having evolved to process these sulfur rich foods would have a very different metabolism to humans (and terrible flatulence)

Well, one could assume that's why they so often have charisma penalties.

On the other hand, maybe they cultivate critters/fungi/plants that process that stuff for them and eliminate the sulfur along with the (more) toxic byproducts. Giant tubeworms process the chemosynthetic sludge and excrete the vast bulk of the unfriendly chemicals. Dwarves catch the worms, grind them up, and feed them to their pigs (or whatever other omnivorous livestock you want your Dwarves to cultivate). I suppose we could also use a fungal intermediary, with the fungus consuming sulfur to power phosphorescence or something, and retaining an unusual amount of nutrients, and then we have Dwarves with their fungus-sniffing pigs in the caves.

By the time the Dwarves eat the resulting pork, you've got barely more than the typical amount of sulfur for such a diet.