Reason for Fantasy Biodiversity

[Vlos]

I would have to answer because of gods and magic.

Gods created the primary sentient beings in their images. Thus you have the main races of beings, elves, dwarves, humans. Where as here on earth, despite all the different religions or versions of it, its really all for the most part "human" gods.

The other sentient creatures were created by those beings from the magic wielded by them. Either directly or indirectly. Magic creatures created by crazed mages, or normal creatures created by warped wildzones where magic has been touched either from an old artifact or other power magic item (possibly a magic battle or other magic disruption).

Just some thoughts...

 

[Umbran]

Because, frankly, species are competitive. Whoever got there first would wipe out anybody challenging that dominance. Assuming they got there around the same time, then they would fight it out until one side won.

That assumes that someone else got "there". Note how traditionally the D&D races are frequently associated with particular terrain types? If nobody else ever tried to settle that terrain, the native race will remain unchallenged.

It also assumes that the contact happens between cultures who allow that competition to occur. A sentient people can choose to cooperate, rather than destroy.

In addition, as noted, the paucity of sentient species on Earth may very well be a recent thing, so that our current state may be a bit misleading. It is important to note that one data point does not in any way mark a trend - you cannot generalize that our situation is the most likely one just because it happened once to us.

If you look at other (non-sentient) species, you will often see multiple species filling similar niches side by side:

Example 1: The African savannahs hold several herding, grass-eating herbivore species, herds side by side or even intermingled.

Example 2: In the Americas, there are several different species of canines - in the same forest you can find foxes, coyotes, and wolves. They hunt slightly different prey, and thus manage to avoid direct competition.

The two are slightly different cases, each of which might be a suitable analog to your arrangement.

 

[the Jester]

I'll assume that you're asking an honest question and not just baiting. Given my new understanding of the word "sentience," I can say that I do believe there are animals that are sentient. What I have yet to see is any evidence that there are other species that are self-aware, with the possible exception of closely-related primate species.

No, not baiting- I am quite serious. I am convinced that a great many other species are far more intelligent and self-aware than we believe. (Dolphins and whales, anyone? ...and yes, dolphins are a pc option imc...)

As to the issue of competition- I think that various races can compete for the same resources without necessarily ending up with one of them extinct. Maybe this whole issue of competition is why there are elven kingdoms, human nations, dwarven areas, etc. Maybe it is the root cause of the elf-orc hatred and other interhumanoid conflicts: ancient, prehistoric competition for the "sweet spot" that is full of good water, fertile soil, etc.

 

[francisca]

Just curious...how do you explain the existence of multiple species of sentient humanoids in your campaign world?

In my homebrew, as a general rule, the various humanoids are xenophobic. Up until the recent past (500 years), it was a hardscrabble exisitence for all of them, populations were small, and the amount of land was enormous. In the past 500 years, the weather has been fabulous, populations have exploded, and the humanoid races are now infringing on each other's turf.

 

[DreadPirateMurphy]

A couple of ideas have occured to me that might result in some neat campaign options:

1) An advanced race (spellweavers come to mind, but it could be others) sets up a world with multiple portal stones. Rather than take you to other planes, however, the portal stones actually create mirror dimensions based on the current prime. These mirrors can be tweaked in various ways based on the design of the stone to alter the environment slightly or drastically. The advanced race then sets up different species in different mirrors. The world could be a type of zoological laboratory and preserve, or even a type of factory farm, if you want to get nasty -- or all of the above. The precurser race disappears for whatever reason, and the portal stones start failing. When that happens, the inhabitants of that alternate reality are sucked into the prime. That could be a disaster for whatever civilization was on that mirror, but enough would survive to continue the species. Lots of interesting ramifications for this setting.

2) Magic itself is not particularly mutagenic, but viruses exist in the world, and some of them can be highly mutagenic. A particular plague might result in dramatic mutations, and every civilization might have draconian laws for stopping its spread. The net result, however, is that the world has tons of variant species, all diverging form normal creatures based on the spread of the disease. This could get complicated, but it also allows for some interesting scenarios.

3) One or more supreme beings try to form order from raw chaos to create the world. In the process, they create the world, but go mad from the influence of the pure chaos-stuff. The least mad realize what is happening and start a war that wipes out all of the creators but leaves the world a total mess. Set the campaing thousands of years later, and have the current crop of deities all be ascended mortals. The ultimate goal of the campaign could be stopping a rogue god from tapping into the same font of chaos that wiped out the original pantheon (perfect for a god like Tharizdun from Greyhawk).

4) The prime is infinite. Infinite space allows for infinite resources, and infinite room for independently evolved species. It also means there is always an unexplored frontier no matter how far your adventurers go. Of course, you run the risk of having to draw really big maps...

Anyway, these are just some ideas. Any other interesting concepts (or opinions on these)?

 

[Voadam]

Created by Gods, Gruumsh made the orcs, Moradin the elves, etc.

Created deliberately as servitor races by others, such as one of the lizard races in Mythic Races that was made by a wizard to be warrior servitors, draconians in Dragonlance, Trollocs in WoT, or warforged in Eberron.

Created by Divine curses on an existing race so you get drow from elves.

Created by magical effects on an existing race, Graygem hits gnomes, you get tinker gnomes, dwarves, and Kender.

Invasion, illithids come from elsewhere originally.

Summoned in by divine overlord to create an interesting mix in Oathbound.

Raw Chaos in action in the world.

Unexplained or unknown, care to investigate Mr. PC?

 

[Agent Oracle]

Experimentation by arcane practicioners. (Owlbears, chymera, etc.)

 

[radferth]

Why haven't humans in my fantasy world killed off all the other sentient races? I use the same excuse I use to explain whay there are "good" countries when few, if any, have ever existed in real world history: a D&D fantasy world is a rough neighborhood. Humans and other sentient races are more likely to cooperate than in the real world because they have more reason to (dragons, evil demi-gods, giants, to name a few). Also keep in mind that it is not like our ancestors had some evil genius plan to wipe out the neandrathals, it just kind of happened over time. Change up some of the variables, or just use a shorter timeline if your world is more mythologically created, and neandrathals are still around in "medieval" times.

In any case, I would assume that this issue is probably two or three levels of realism deeper than most folks worry about in a fantasy game. I have enough trouble figuring why country x hasn't wiped out country y 5 years ago to worry about why species x didn't wipe out species y 15,000 years ago.

 

[WayneLigon]

I usually use a combination of diefic fiat (Love that phrase), and gateways to other worlds, with the occassional 'mad wizard' origin thrown in, but then I don't use all the sentient races given in the various monster books. Diefic fiat means of course that there never was an ecological niche that the various sentient races had to fill: they simply woke up much as they are now. IE, the Elves do not have a more primitive ancestor.

In the desert campaign I run sometimes, the various humanoids were created by the previous human empire as a series of slave races. They combined human and dwarf a lot of times, with various animal features and sometimes Elven blood to manufacture most of the now-savage humanoids (which explains why everythng and it's cousin can see in the dark).

A few things, mostly sentient abberations like Mind Flayers and Aboleths, actually originate off-world and came here through planar travel.