Where do monsters come from?

[Phaedrus]

I'm working on a campaign based on the Greyhawk world, with its cosmology and history, but fast-forwarded a few hundred years after an apocalyptic event that largely wipes the continent clean.

I've always had a problem with explaining (justifying) numerous monsters wandering around in medieval-style kingdoms. Farmer out plowing the field, ____ comes running out of the trees and eats him. Seems to me the kingdom's military would have cleaned things up before the farmers moved in.

So I'm building a campaign where the world is just coming out of a dark age where all the monsters have had a few hundred years to run loose without any humans (etc) hunting them. I think I've settled on a city being gated in from a doomed world by a dying goddess and dropped in the Valley of the Mage. From there the inhabitants have to rebuid their civilization and tame this "new" world. Basically I'm trying to get a plausible world/backstory combined with a wild world where the players are all alone (I plan on using Fields of Blood to let players chart the growth of their city into a kingdom).

I say all that to ask this:

How do you explain the prevalence of monsters in your campaign?
Why does your world tolerate the presence of beasties that threaten social stability, etc.?
How does civilization--kings, cities, feudalism, trade, travel--exist alongside marauding monsters?

(And if anyone has a suggestion on what my apocalyptic, continent-cleansing event should be, I'm definitely soliciting input)

 

[Shade]

That's why I like outsiders best. They aren't from around these parts.

Some monsters have good explanations from whence they came (mind flayers, githyanki, etc.) Others take some serious suspension of disbelief.

Honestly, I have a much bigger problem explaining how so many humanoids can all inhabit the same world than the number of roving monsters. Perhaps said roving monsters help keep the populations low?

 

[Breakstone]

There are a number of ways to explain it. Often, looking at the old myths in which the monsters originated can help. Let's look at some Greek Myths. I see a few different explanations:

1) Cursed- The monster was once human, or from human origin, but has been cursed into a monstrous form. In a way, you could think of the Minotaur as a Cursed monster. His mother, the wife of King Minos, was cursed into falling in love with a golden bull. After she, er, consumated her love, she gave birth to a man with the head of a bull- the Minotaur.

2) Elemental- Many monsters are tied into the creation of the world itself. Titans, Gorgons, Dryads, and other such mythical monsters are all tied to the Creation Myths.

3) Unique- Some monsters are one of a kind. Medusa, Chimera, and other monsters like these are simply the only of their kind- that is, until they're killed by the hero!


In my campaigns, if I really wanted to explain it all, I'd say that Magical Influence has a lot to do with it. That Giant Beetle in the dungeon was just a normal beetle influenced by wild magics that course through the earth. The pride of Displacer Beasts roaming the wildlands were likewise influenced by magic, only enough were changed to create an entire species.

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

I'm currently working with a similar basis for a campaign. Monsters have had a lot of time to run amok, and humans are barely starting to make their place.

Shade's comment about humanoids was also a factor when I started to think about my campaign, and I've resolved it thusly:
There are 7 players races (5 human subraces, Allendils (mystical/mysterious telepath race that live among the humans), and Shaldiths (more savage but peaceful race that also live with the humans, but sometimes as slaves)), 1 major aboriginal enemy race (Hisskins, modified Yuan-tis), and 1 minor, unknown, super-enemy race (weird humanoids from who knows where). Apart from that, there are roving, savage, out of control barbaric tribes (mixed tribes of creatures with orc/bugbear/ogre/hill giant stats with the half-troll template), and that's basically it for "societies". No dozens of competing humanoid races in the world. You got your "good" guys (Humans, Allendils, Shaldiths), the major opponents (Hisskins), the super-freaky, super-intelligent alien world enemies, and the chaotic barbarians.

Humans (et al.) live in fortified, independant citadels, around which land has been somewhat cleaned up, but further away, you're likely to be eaten by many things with bigm nasty pointy teeth. Hisskins form small, secret villages, hidden from all. The other race, rare are those who even fathom their existence, and the barbarians lay waste to anything in their way.

As for monsters / beasts, they've had centuries, if not millenias to populate the land. Some sort of ecology has established itself. I certainly won't throw every monster from the MMI-III in the mix, but if you make a careful choice, I'm pretty sure you can come up with a somewhat plausible "food chain".

AR

 

[JEL]

See, when a daddy monster and a mommy monster love each other very much...

 

[Tonguez]

I either go the just another animal route or the 'mortal spirits' route. Of course some things (like Zombies) have a built in rationale (they are not-suppose-to-be)

1. Just another animal means that things like Griffons, Otyugh and Dragons are a normal part of the ecosystem that some how fit and which the ecosystem has adapted to cope with (ie as compared to humans the monster is just a meaner lion/bear/wolf)

2. 'mortal spirits' means that monsters are generally outsiders/fae/Magical/not-of-this-world so Insectoid goblins are worshipped as minor dieties, Displacer Beasts are fae creatures and Gibbering Mouthers are 'spawned of nightmares'

A few other things to remember:
1. Limit your monster palette (ie you don't have to use everything)
2. Consider your ecology (how does it all fit?)
3. Unique monsters are good
4. Templates can give your limited palette infinite variety
5. Islands allow different habitats with entrely different monster palettes (ie you can addother monsters as the PCs explore)

 

[Wombat]

See, when a daddy monster and a mommy monster love each other very much...

Always the classics

In my current campaign there are only a very few types of monsters, most of them being dangerous animals, large carnivores. Other than that the opponents they face come in two broad flavours -- other characters and the undead. There are no intelligent foes other than those who can become characters ("limited" to seven races), some of whom later become the undead.

I find facing PCs with NPCs is just as challenging as any monsterfest, plus there is something of a "personal stake" when NPCs get away. It's not just "We didn't kill all the monsters." It's more like, "#%$@, one of them got away! Now they know where we are!" I like making them sweat a bit that way.

Oh, and there are a couple of unique monsters the group has only heard rumours about, but those are special...

 

[VirgilCaine]

In general, IMC civilization does keep them in check. Every few years there are coordinated Purges where cave entrances are collapsed and wildernesses are cleared out by the army/mercenaries/adventurers/clerics/mages/everybody else.

In a city the monsters will be those who can blend in with the locals (Aranea) or who are very stealthy (Phase Spiders, Ethereal Filchers)--or clerics of evil deities.

 

[Pierce_Inverarity]

This has always bothered me a little bit too.

IMC the settled areas don't have a lot of monsters (they do have viscious and evil NPC's though...). It's the fringes of civilization where the monsters are. And, as mentioned above, I use a limited palette of monsters (be sure to let Rangers PC's know this so they don't pick a useless favored enemy). Another quirk of my world, is that there are varieties of plants and herbivores that grow quickly and reproduce with fecundity thereby providing plenty of prey for the monster predators. Which has led to an interesting "monster". The Vulgar Jack Rabbit reproduces and matures so quickly that they can overrun a farm in the matter of a few weeks. You've never lived until you've unleashed a swarm of rabbits on a group of hapless characters.

 

[Tauric]

This has always bothered me a little bit too.

IMC the settled areas don't have a lot of monsters (they do have viscious and evil NPC's though...). It's the fringes of civilization where the monsters are. And, as mentioned above, I use a limited palette of monsters (be sure to let Rangers PC's know this so they don't pick a useless favored enemy).

Diito.

Another quirk of my world, is that there are varieties of plants and herbivores that grow quickly and reproduce with fecundity thereby providing plenty of prey for the monster predators. Which has led to an interesting "monster". The Vulgar Jack Rabbit reproduces and matures so quickly that they can overrun a farm in the matter of a few weeks. You've never lived until you've unleashed a swarm of rabbits on a group of hapless characters.

This I'll have to try, if you don't mind.