On the Origin of Monsters

[Marius Delphus]

It hit me as I was driving to work one morning: why should we ever saddle D&D PCs with the "innocent orc" scenario in the first place? Conan doesn't have to worry about that sort of thing. The Fellowship of the Ring certainly didn't have a problem with it.

So what if we suppose that most "monster" races have no gestation, birth, juvenile period, etc.; instead, let’s create them from various other processes, including:

• Acts of evil (for example, every time a person attacks in anger, an orc is born; every time a person steals something important, a goblin is born)
• Magical or semi-magical "manufacture" such as seen in Middle Earth (for example, kobolds and draconians are all "dragon by-products")
• Spontaneous generation from dreams (for example, every time a child has a nightmare about being eaten, an ogre is born)
• Arrival from the planes (for example, certain large "predator" monsters like ankhegs simply pop into the world singly from "elsewhere" from time to time)

Creatures like this wouldn't really need biological processes or procreation as we know them—they'd literally be embodiments of evil thoughts or suchlike. They'd eat not because they have to, but because they enjoy the taste of terror (also meat). They'd exist only as a blight on the world, contributing little if anything but reaching out and taking whatever they can because they must—it's their nature.

Really big monsters come from the most terrible events (open war, famine, genocide, etc.). Perhaps they even have names like the Punic War Dragon or some such. What would it take to make a tarrasque...?

The idea’s not a finished one. But it could neatly solve the "humanoid women and children" problem, for starters, as well as adding more "mythical" overtones to a world—more fantasy can hardly be a bad thing, right?


Random Associated Thoughts

Do the people in the world know that their actions can cause certain monsters to come into existence?

I picture a very strange and complex relationship between what people believe, as far as folklore and myth, and what is real. For example, let's take an old superstition about sleep paralysis: that it's a visitation by an unfriendly spirit (a demon, a ghost, bug-eyed aliens, whatever). In a fantasy world, this might be literally true (except perhaps for the bug-eyed aliens)... but what if it's true partly because people believe it is? What if their fears about unfriendly spirits actually help bring them forth?

So people in general might believe that monsters are born in the far-away darkness whenever they do "X," but they have no proof of it, despite its being true anyway, but it's true partly because they think it might be true! So they develop superstitions around the idea -- whenever somebody does "X," you need to respond by doing "Y": throw salt over your shoulder, knock on wood to distract the evil spirits, make a warding gesture against the evil eye, pray to a Good deity to keep the night demons away... whatever.

It would take some serious (in-character) research, however, to come up with the truth of the matter... and certainly some of the "common" superstitions would be revealed as false, but just as many would be revealed as merely scratching the surface of a slightly more horrible reality.

Therefore, very few people actually know. And those who do tend to hide, or at least hide what they know. On the arcane side, maybe a lonely tower turns out to be a great place to hole up when suddenly you find that you know too much. On the divine side, higher-level priests will have a lot of knowledge they simply don't discuss—but they do make much of the implications. Maybe they even craft a set of Commandments that guide the faithful away from dangerous behavior or thoughts.

For the rest, the common folk, some suspect, but most simply take things on faith.


How often do monsters come into being?

Just often enough to keep the PCs busy, of course.


Can monsters (or animals) spawn monsters through aggressive acts, or is this a unique feature of PC races?

Only "true races" have this "ability." Just what is a "true race," and what the implications of that are, will have been something that was worked out Long Ago, by Higher Authorities.

(Now, dragons may be the only monsters who have worked out how to "truly" reproduce—we don't want to deprive ourselves of "dragon egg" adventures, after all—but let's say that that alone doesn't make them a "true race." What about a scenario where a dragon has worked out what it takes to be the progenitor of a "true race"? What kinds of things would dragons' dreams spawn? Call in some heroes!)


Does killing monsters spawn more monsters?

In general, slaying monsters, in and of itself, is not an Evil act. But imagine someone like an evil queen fomenting war because she knows it'll generate a bunch of new orcs (whom she can hire and use to bolster her army) and maybe a pack or two of manticores. (Suppose she has also clearly worked out how to keep for herself some energy that results from the evil rituals she performs in not-so-secret—maybe this would be the same energy that births monsters?)

So it's less about who's affected than it is about what's happening (unless you're slaying monsters, which generally gets you off the hook)—war generally fuels the cause of capital-E Evil, which births monsters.


Does this work only for violent or Evil creatures?

Well, everyone knows a fairy is born the first time a baby laughs….


Does the monster created depend on the race of the "person responsible"?

Perhaps each race is the source of a different "palette" of monsters... elves create forest nightmares, dwarves create underground horrors, etc.



Brainstorming and futher ideas welcome!

 

[Raven Crowking]

It hit me as I was driving to work one morning: why should we ever saddle D&D PCs with the "innocent orc" scenario in the first place? Conan doesn't have to worry about that sort of thing.

The Tower of the Elephant springs immediately to mind.

The Fellowship of the Ring certainly didn't have a problem with it.

What to do with Gollum springs immediately to mind.

The rest of the post is interesting, and you can certainly run a world that way. I like the idea that certain monsters are drawn to areas steeped in certain types of evil. Also, spontaneous undead arise from certain actions/personality types.

RC

 

[Reynard]

There's lots of interesting stuff in there. Very cool. But I want to address one particular aspect of it:

Do the people in the world know that their actions can cause certain monsters to come into existence?

I picture a very strange and complex relationship between what people believe, as far as folklore and myth, and what is real. For example, let's take an old superstition about sleep paralysis: that it's a visitation by an unfriendly spirit (a demon, a ghost, bug-eyed aliens, whatever). In a fantasy world, this might be literally true (except perhaps for the bug-eyed aliens)... but what if it's true partly because people believe it is? What if their fears about unfriendly spirits actually help bring them forth?

So people in general might believe that monsters are born in the far-away darkness whenever they do "X," but they have no proof of it, despite its being true anyway, but it's true partly because they think it might be true! So they develop superstitions around the idea -- whenever somebody does "X," you need to respond by doing "Y": throw salt over your shoulder, knock on wood to distract the evil spirits, make a warding gesture against the evil eye, pray to a Good deity to keep the night demons away... whatever.

Magical thinking is, generally, performed by the ignorant (whether on an individual or cultural level; people used to believe frogs emerged whole from swamp mud, and not that long ago, for example). What you have proposed here is a world in which magical thinking actually described reality -- in which case, it is no longer magical thinking. The learned would agree with the ignorant on this, and that creates a situation heretofore never seen on Earth.

Think about this for a moment -- as it relates to the origins of these monsters, there is no gap between the studied wizard and the rube farmer. Beating a child creates xvarts. Fact. Maybe the scholars have measured the amount of fear and/or pain a child must undergo to create a xvart, and perhaps they have figured out how close and in what environs said xvart is likely to appear, but these re just details, differences in degree of knowledge, not kind.

I'm not saying this is a good thing or a bad thing; it just is. It's like a sci-fi setting where everyone has cybernetic limbs, but certain people have better ones. As far as summoning is concerned, everyone is a wizard.

And if that is the case, how long before some warlord captures [innocent type x] and does [horrible thing y] to them in order to create [terrible monstrosity z].

I'd read that book.

 

[TheHand]

I think with the right, mythic, "faerie-tale" setting this idea could really add a lot of flavor! Years ago, I'd wanted to do something like this for a campaign once, but unfortunately that group fell apart.

You might be curious to check out C.S. Friedman's "Coldfire Trilogy", which explores a similar concept for the presence of monsters (and magic).

 

[Marius Delphus]

Reynard: I actually imagine a gap in knowledge such that the studied wizard (and the evil warlord who's decided to put the knowledge into practice) has learned that x+y=z, whereas your standard superstitious commoner knows only that x+y=one of a set of bad results which might include z.

But what if the common folk do know that x+y=z, as you propose? Very interesting, and thanks!