The Implications of Biology in D&D

[Garthanos]

In context, Myth always trumps Physics.

See my explanation of the myth keeps them as flying mounts for those who hunt them up in the wild... not something you can buy at the corner market...and uses a valid rationale which is consistant with he rules of magic.

 

[Celebrim]

See my explanation of the myth keeps them as flying mounts for those who hunt them up in the wild... not something you can buy at the corner market...and uses a valid rationale which is consistant with he rules of magic.

I personally find your interpretation to be not inspired by myth or story, but by game. The game requires that PC's not get hippogriffs at the corner market, so they don't.

It's virtually impossible to find any mythological reference to hippogriffs that isn't them as a steed or pet of some heroic character.

If in fact it is true that they can fly only because they are empowered by freedom - which is certainly not a concept found in hippogrif myths - then they ought to lose the ability to fly shortly after someone puts a saddle on them. Do they somehow keep the "light airy spirit of freedom" while being used as a beast of burden? And conversely, if they don't loose the ability to fly solely because someone puts a saddle on them and uses them as a beast of burden, why couldn't you just ranch foals for a few years while they cultivate this spirit before breaking them for the saddle? In which case, even under your description they might be something that can be bought for the corner market.

If you really want to adhere to the myth but keep them out of the corner market, you could make hippogriffs as sterile as mules, forcing anyone that wants one to convince a griffon to mate with its favorite food.

 

[Garthanos]

If in fact it is true that they can fly only because they are empowered by freedom - which is certainly not a concept found in hippogrif myths

Magic of joy allowing one to fly is common not specific to hippogriffs but rather flight magic... presuming they lack it when raised in captivity. And may maintain it when in service of a hero, who rightly earned there service (service not being the same as slavery). A ritual to find them "in the wild" and a nature preserve for them to live on... with attractors to make them want to be there... could be done.

If you really want to adhere to the myth but keep them out of the corner market, you could make hippogriffs as sterile as mules, forcing anyone that wants one to convince a griffon to mate with its favorite food.

Yeah if I am using a standard myth for the beast they will be unique entities creatable by wizards ... and yea a wizard did it by the method you describe those are the components of the ritual.

 

[Chainsaw]

What I really despise seeing in a story or setting is the monster treated as basically a human in an unusual shape or with unusual powers, but with human desires, human motives, human methods, and human modes of behavior. That I think is the real creeping problem in D&D and modern fantasy in general. It's not merely that the monster is treated as mundane because myth assumes that monsters are mundane, albiet just over the hill there along with other fantastic beasts like giraffes, hippopotomi, and panthers. The problem is that monsters are assumed to be merely human. This is a degree of familiarity and normality that far exceeds them being merely mundane. This is the real failure of imagination.

Totally agree. This trend is symptomatic of a larger cultural problem we have these days - anthropomorphizing everything (but now I'm getting political, so I better stop).

 

[Celebrim]

Totally agree. This trend is symptomatic of a larger cultural problem we have these days - anthropomorphizing everything (but now I'm getting political, so I better stop).

Except other people; we demonize or dehumanize them. But, I'd get political too, so I'd better stop as well. Sounds like we are on the same page though.

 

[catsclaw227]

"Magic explains" is banned.

You should check out C.S. Friedman's Coldfire Trilogy. The magic (or fae, as they call it) is a very real thing. And "Magic explains" fits perfectly well in that universe!

Off-topic, though, the books are really good and they way she uses magic and fear is neat.

 

[Jack7]

Whereas I'm certainly the first to say that Monsters should not be men, I also know from long personal experience that sometimes men make the very best of monsters. I guess it just depends a lot upon why you wanna draw the line, and at what point along the frontier...


Monsters are monsters if human they're not
But humans are monsters if all that they've got
Is something a'lacking where there should be heart,
Yet human or monster can both be as smart
As whatever did spawn them when they were first bred
But that kinda something is not in the head;
It creeps up from somewhere where monsters are real
And grows as a cancer that's likely to steal
What men at their best think surely they are
So that monsters among them seem distanced a'far,
But truth of the matter is that some of them be
Both among and beyond us not trying to flee
Into that darkness where monsters are found
For Man and his Monsters have their common ground.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Thank you. You do realize, of course, that it was all just build-up for the bad pun at the end?

If you find your copy of the dwarf psych paper, I'd be interested in reading it.


RC

I realized that. The logic was still sound. Grassland living humans who raise livestock as a key element of their agriculture wouldn't raise hippogriffs. And anyone who tried wouldn't last long.

The occasional mythic one-off who shows up long enough to carry the hero around is one thing.... raising a flock of them is something else.

As for the Dwarf thing, it wasn't a paper. Just a series of posts on this very board, I think spawned from a similar thread. Mix of real psych and pop psych applied to Dwarves to generate a different-looking set of behaviors and structures than we tend to think of. The 60 foot range of Darkvision meaning that they wouldn't want those giant cavernous halls, for example. I had a whole bit on what darkness is psychologically to a human, and how that would be different for a culture that grew up without natural darkness. If I can't find it, I'll re-do it. Might be a fun writing exercise.

 

[Garthanos]

Totally agree. This trend is symptomatic of a larger cultural problem we have these days - anthropomorphizing everything (but now I'm getting political, so I better stop).

Anthropomorphizing ... is actually fairly typical characteristic of primitive "magical thinking", and nothing new or modern in any way.
Is blindly accept that "this" is different and that you cant understand it? the alternative to attempting to empathize?

 

[Garthanos]

Magic of joy allowing one to fly is common not specific to hippogriffs but rather flight magic... presuming they lack it when raised in captivity. And may maintain it when in service of a hero, who rightly earned there service (service not being the same as slavery). A ritual to find them "in the wild" and a nature preserve for them to live on... with attractors to make them want to be there... could be done.
.

You could end up buying the ritual to find one..or to create one functionally its the same. They end up being aquireable.