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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ydars" data-source="post: 4142349" data-attributes="member: 62992">Monsters are the real challenge to the PoL concept. It is totally possible for people to live in the harshest areas of the world, as long as they can move and are safe; I saw families of 5 raising hundreds of horses and thousands of sheep on the Mongolian steppe last Sept and the grass there is SO thin that you would think NOTHING could live there. The soil is like sand. But if you can't move and are under even occasional threat, you have a problem because you cannot put walls around whole fields. This is where we have to start to invoke magic.There are many ways of solving this problem;1) Many PoLs are on small islands in lakes or just off the shore on the sea or have another type of natural barrier that prevents monster attacks. This does mean that the PoL has to leave all land unguarded at night and there would also be a problem with animals. This would only work for a small settlement, and they would have an animal barn as the ground floor of the house whilst the people lived above. The cattle have to be ferried across to the island every morning/evening on flat raft/skiffs. This actually happened in England in the north because of constant war with the Scots. This type of stategy works only when the major food source is animal as any crops would get destroyed.2) PoLs have some sort of passive protection; I have suggested on other threads that various meta stories can explain protection of PoLs. Suppose the imperial race (whoever they were in your world) placed a magical repulsion on the stones of their buildings to keep monsters away. Now the PoLs have robbed this stone to build their hovels etc, they have clothed themselves in the same protection, sometimes without realising. The protection is not foolproof and monsters can get around this if they have some good reason to (starving or very angry) but it gives some vermisilitude to the idea that a small PoL could exist for a century or so in an isolated location. The protection radiates out to a distance and intensity that is proportional to how much stone there is in the PoL, so larger PoLs control more land. Stones could also line important trade routes, protecting a limited amount of trade.This could also lead to some interesting adventures as PCs are sent out to look for more ruins with this kind of stone. My idea is that the stone needs light to power it, so that underground stone can form dungeons containing monsters but then when it is brought to the surface, it begins to repel again.............3) Monsters are part of the enviroment. What do they do when they are not attacking PoLs? Humanoids would probably be hunter-gatherers (they have to eat as well) and humans are no longer abundant enough to be a food source. How about Goblins that follow the migration of the Elk? Similar Ecology could be invented for other monsters.Just my two penny worth</blockquote>

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