Where do monsters come from?
- Thread starter Phaedrus
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Shades of Green
Explorer
Same with my campaign - Renya is a frontier area, especially it's swamps and northern jungles. In the far more civilized areas to the south (Renya is near the equator, on the southern hemisphere), obvious, wild monsters (Orcs and some goblinoids included) are nearly extinct; most monsters are either tamed (griffins, hipogriffs, some lesser dragons), endagered species (major evil dragons, orcs, most wild things) or hiding very well in the cracks of civilization (vampires, wererats, mindflayers, abolethes and so on - anything smart enough to adapt to a semi-industrial society and hide well).Pierce_Inverarity said:
Renya is wilder, with the possibe exception of it's heavily-inhabitated shores; While the coastal area had little roaming monsters, the swamps and jungles were wild places, where the relatively savage Celiran and Human villages often had to defend themselves from Bullywug, Lizardfolk, Kao-Tua and so on raids. Civilization encrouches on these areas now; many beasts are being hunted, while others go into hiding, but some join with the Celiran-Human anti-technoloical guerillas (such as the Daughters of the Harvest).
Ofcourse, all of this does not include summoned, created or animated things - constructs, outsiders, undead and the progeny of mad wizard/scientist laboratories. When a Harvester high-level priestess casts Animate Dead (or worse), even the elite Imperial Guard will be in peril...
Gez
First Post
So, IMC.
Monsters have various origins. Some came from another world, or where modified by another plane.
But most of the "natural" monsters (i.e., non-aberrations, non-outsiders, non-undead, non-constructs) have been created by Spirits. Spirits are about the equivalent of small gods IMC. Each spirit is tied to a region and a type of creature (so they're kinda totems). For example, the Horse Spirit of the Kerchezel steppes is responsible for centaurs, unicorns, hippogriffs, pegasi, and other equine magical beasts and monstrous humanoids.
Spirits had no qualms copying the good ideas from each others, that's why you have so many chimeric creatures -- the aforementionned hippogriffs were made by the horse spirit when he copied the idea of the griffon from the cat spirit, who himself copied the idea of feathered wings from the bird spirit.
And they had no qualms about repeating their previous attempts and creating something else. Pegasi are refined hippogriffs, sphinxes are highly-advanced griffons, and so on.
Not all monsters threaten social stability. Usually, the various humanoid races (whose extreme diversity is also explained by Spirits) tame some monsters to fend other off.
The really dangerous monsters -- mostly aberrations and outsiders -- tend to come from other worlds, their impact is thus lessened by the long astral distance they have to cross.
An elite cadre of high-level arcane spellcasters, the Prime Order (which, by the way, are jealously keeping the secret of epic magic and preventing other sorcerers, wizards, wu jens and co. from discovering it without passing through their approval; they are about 40 all said, most of them not epic, and non-affiliated arcanists are all of a lower level) protects the world from these outside threats.
It doesn't make them good guys, necessarily. One of their most useful member, Ygrel, is probably the worst power-hungry selfish bastard the mortal races have spawned. But they're all aware of the menaces that threatens their own existence as well as the rest of the world.
Prime Order's second role is preventing spells of level 8, 9, and 10 (epic) from affecting the setting too dramatically. Clerics are kept under check by their gods, druids by their ideal, but arcanists have no outside compunction to "play nice" with the mundanes. The Prime Order fill this slot.
Anyway, thanks to them and to other watchers (including some "monsters" such as sphinxes or dragons), machinations by illithids, kaorti, silians, malafides, neogis, fiends, aboleths, and so on are not overwhelming. The world's still gonna be destroyed unless the PCs complete the epic quest they don't even know they'll have to do yet
but at least, for most people, the looming threats upon existence itself is invisible. It's only as the heroes progress and unravel some mysteries that they'll discover the size of that Sword of Damocles hanging over them.
So, clueless mortal societies, at large, are not aware of any real danger.
Feudalism exists, despite what magic allows for communication and travel, only because of marauding monsters. An ettin skirmish band, a sudden ankheg infestation, bulette mating season, orcish horde, goblin marauders, and the odd juvenile green dragon bully, all of these are valid reasons to keep an overall inefficient social system; because said social system, for all its political and economical shortcomings, make sure that you'll always have a nearby castle with a batch of skillfull knights that can protect you from CR 2--8 monsters.
You have knights patrolling the roads and rivers to make sure the monster population is next-to-nonexistant around trade lanes and tended fields.
Phaedrus said:
Monsters have various origins. Some came from another world, or where modified by another plane.
But most of the "natural" monsters (i.e., non-aberrations, non-outsiders, non-undead, non-constructs) have been created by Spirits. Spirits are about the equivalent of small gods IMC. Each spirit is tied to a region and a type of creature (so they're kinda totems). For example, the Horse Spirit of the Kerchezel steppes is responsible for centaurs, unicorns, hippogriffs, pegasi, and other equine magical beasts and monstrous humanoids.
Spirits had no qualms copying the good ideas from each others, that's why you have so many chimeric creatures -- the aforementionned hippogriffs were made by the horse spirit when he copied the idea of the griffon from the cat spirit, who himself copied the idea of feathered wings from the bird spirit.
And they had no qualms about repeating their previous attempts and creating something else. Pegasi are refined hippogriffs, sphinxes are highly-advanced griffons, and so on.
Phaedrus said:
Not all monsters threaten social stability. Usually, the various humanoid races (whose extreme diversity is also explained by Spirits) tame some monsters to fend other off.
The really dangerous monsters -- mostly aberrations and outsiders -- tend to come from other worlds, their impact is thus lessened by the long astral distance they have to cross.
An elite cadre of high-level arcane spellcasters, the Prime Order (which, by the way, are jealously keeping the secret of epic magic and preventing other sorcerers, wizards, wu jens and co. from discovering it without passing through their approval; they are about 40 all said, most of them not epic, and non-affiliated arcanists are all of a lower level) protects the world from these outside threats.
It doesn't make them good guys, necessarily. One of their most useful member, Ygrel, is probably the worst power-hungry selfish bastard the mortal races have spawned. But they're all aware of the menaces that threatens their own existence as well as the rest of the world.
Prime Order's second role is preventing spells of level 8, 9, and 10 (epic) from affecting the setting too dramatically. Clerics are kept under check by their gods, druids by their ideal, but arcanists have no outside compunction to "play nice" with the mundanes. The Prime Order fill this slot.
Anyway, thanks to them and to other watchers (including some "monsters" such as sphinxes or dragons), machinations by illithids, kaorti, silians, malafides, neogis, fiends, aboleths, and so on are not overwhelming. The world's still gonna be destroyed unless the PCs complete the epic quest they don't even know they'll have to do yet
but at least, for most people, the looming threats upon existence itself is invisible. It's only as the heroes progress and unravel some mysteries that they'll discover the size of that Sword of Damocles hanging over them.So, clueless mortal societies, at large, are not aware of any real danger.
Phaedrus said:
Feudalism exists, despite what magic allows for communication and travel, only because of marauding monsters. An ettin skirmish band, a sudden ankheg infestation, bulette mating season, orcish horde, goblin marauders, and the odd juvenile green dragon bully, all of these are valid reasons to keep an overall inefficient social system; because said social system, for all its political and economical shortcomings, make sure that you'll always have a nearby castle with a batch of skillfull knights that can protect you from CR 2--8 monsters.
You have knights patrolling the roads and rivers to make sure the monster population is next-to-nonexistant around trade lanes and tended fields.
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Tonguez
A suffusion of yellow
Another interesting idea is to consider how civilisation uses monsters - my gnome character Orbril Master of the Grand Circus Maximus has a herd of Giant Carnivorous Hamsters whom he has trained as a circus act, another member of the Circus Troupe was a Griffon rider.
Other ideas I've heard of is Cities using Otyugh to keep the public sewer/rubbish dump clean. Or a King who has a Grey Render wandering his castle as a personal bodyguard
DiscWorld has an interesting take too on how Undead might become upstanding citizens
Other ideas I've heard of is Cities using Otyugh to keep the public sewer/rubbish dump clean. Or a King who has a Grey Render wandering his castle as a personal bodyguard
DiscWorld has an interesting take too on how Undead might become upstanding citizens
diaglo
Adventurer
when insane wizard one gets a hair up his arse and decides to create, polymorph, or summon monster X.
when estraged cult does a ritual or rite and summons or transforms into monster Y
when neighboring kindom gets ticked at the ruler and hires mercenaries or otherwise invades using monster Z
in a world full of magic and endless imagination there are many reasons why monsters exist.
when estraged cult does a ritual or rite and summons or transforms into monster Y
when neighboring kindom gets ticked at the ruler and hires mercenaries or otherwise invades using monster Z
in a world full of magic and endless imagination there are many reasons why monsters exist.
JamesDJarvis
First Post
Settled areas shouldn't have many monsters in them because the goverments ofthe area do spend a god bit of funds keeping the area clear of them (one reason low level adventurers can get a job). However at the frontiers there will be a population of creatures that perys on theinhabitants of the settled lands that have not yet been dealt with and beyond there will be monsters yet to be encountered by civilized folk.
where'd the monsters come from in the first place?
Long ago in ancient (dare i say mythic) times a great beast sat at the border of the first kingdom and for generations ate any who dared approach it. One day a lord sent a great hero to face the great beast. During the week long battle droplets of black blood sprayed across the land posioning the earth where they landed. The great hero did slay the beast but to his horror he saw the body writhed and many horrible monsters crawled froth from within the corpse of the beast, the hero could only watch as he was weakened from battle and could not pursue then as the spread out intot the world. The hero limped bakc to his lord to warn him of the monsters and saw that the natural animals of the world that foolosihly sipped of the great beasts blood had themselves turned into monsters no worse then those that crawled from the corpse. The hero told the lord of the results of his battle with the beast and the two traveld out inot the wilderness to deal with the evils losed upon the world and pledged not to return until they were all vanquished.
where'd the monsters come from in the first place?
Long ago in ancient (dare i say mythic) times a great beast sat at the border of the first kingdom and for generations ate any who dared approach it. One day a lord sent a great hero to face the great beast. During the week long battle droplets of black blood sprayed across the land posioning the earth where they landed. The great hero did slay the beast but to his horror he saw the body writhed and many horrible monsters crawled froth from within the corpse of the beast, the hero could only watch as he was weakened from battle and could not pursue then as the spread out intot the world. The hero limped bakc to his lord to warn him of the monsters and saw that the natural animals of the world that foolosihly sipped of the great beasts blood had themselves turned into monsters no worse then those that crawled from the corpse. The hero told the lord of the results of his battle with the beast and the two traveld out inot the wilderness to deal with the evils losed upon the world and pledged not to return until they were all vanquished.
Inconsequenti-AL
Breaks Games
Have used areas like the stereotyped 'great forest' before: Huge forested area in the middle of several kingdoms. No-one in their right mind would go in there for fear of being eaten by horrible monsters. No kingdom has the resources, manpower or inclination to clear the place out. Occasionally something or a tribe of somethings emerge to slaughter helpless villagers. That's where (brave) adventurers and/or military join the story?
From a nobles POV, it's mostly peasants who get eaten and there's plenty more where they came from?
Tend to have the weirder stuff come from outside the world entirely - other planes mostly.
From a nobles POV, it's mostly peasants who get eaten and there's plenty more where they came from?
Tend to have the weirder stuff come from outside the world entirely - other planes mostly.
Actually, areas with monsters shouldn't have settlements in them.
There are just too many high CR monsters as that mankind (elfkind, etc.) would stand a chance to build any settlements. But D&D ignores this fact to make adventuring even possible, so it also ignores the "where does monster com from" question.
When you start applying logic to this question, you also have to apply logic to the "Why haven't monsters destroyed all settlements when they weren't huge metropolis". So at best, you don't.
There are just too many high CR monsters as that mankind (elfkind, etc.) would stand a chance to build any settlements. But D&D ignores this fact to make adventuring even possible, so it also ignores the "where does monster com from" question.
When you start applying logic to this question, you also have to apply logic to the "Why haven't monsters destroyed all settlements when they weren't huge metropolis". So at best, you don't.
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