Where do monsters come from?

[DragonLancer]

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)

Thats pretty much my take on it. The ecology of the game world accepts the existence of these creatures because they have always been there. Perhaps theres fewer large animal predators than in the real world to compensate...etc.

Also, my view is that until you use a monster, it doesn't exist in the game world. Simple enough.

 

[Yair]

Civilized areas in my games typically have no monsters in them. Occasionally monsters will awaken/be created/revealed, such as undead after a horrendous death or by evil clerics, demons summoned by mad cultists, dopplegangers running a political scam, or so on. But most adventuers in civilized lands focus on NPCs, not monsters.

Some areas are "wild", untamed by civilization. This includes the underdark, high mountains, certain forests and marshes, and so on. Some very powerful monsters also coexist with civilization - like a dragon that gets tribute, or the forest-faeries that gets a virgin sacrifice every year. My characters usually seek out such places, they go out of civilization and enter dangerous lands.

More prosaicly, most monsters (and races) in my current world were created by the elves or summoned from other planes of existence. The "native" monsters are things like dire animals or monstrous insects, assasin vines, and humans. Goblinoids, aberrations, monstrous humanoids, constructs, and so on were created through necromancy by the elves from this stock with the odd extraplanar specimen. The elves themselves, as well as the dwarves, are extraplanar in origin.
This limits the variety of encounters in the campaign to some degree, but not overly so as I can put any peg into the square hole if I push hard enough. It does allow me to sleep at night while having a fairly normal D&D world and assortment of PC races.

 

[The_Gneech]

The world is a big and dangerous place ... the settlements of man are small enclaves surrounded by vast, deadly wilderness. People travel --when they travel at all, which is rare-- in caravans or along the King's Road because that's the only way they have a chance to survive!

Stay off the moors, or the hag will get you!

Stay out of the mountains, for they're infested with goblins!

Stay away from Skull Island, it's haunted!

Bolt your door at night, and get back to the village before dark, or we'll be lucky to find your remains by dawn!

Where do monsters come from? Who would be insane enough to go out there and find out?

-The Gneech

 

[TerraDave]

Underdark (or equivelent): evil humaniods or equivelent, aberations, many others

Fey realm (reachable through the etheral or shadow planes): fey, magic beasts, others

Wild lands: dire animals, fey, magical beasts, plants, giants, monstrous humaniods some others

Population Centers: undead, shapeshifters, tolerated humaniods, "domesticated" or enslaved creatures and pretty much anything in the sewers, catacombs, forgotten basements of Temples and Castles...

Other Planes: elementals, outsiders, pretty much anything

 

[TerraDave]

The world is a big and dangerous place ... the settlements of man are small enclaves surrounded by vast, deadly wilderness. People travel --when they travel at all, which is rare-- in caravans or along the King's Road because that's the only way they have a chance to survive!

Stay off the moors, or the hag will get you!

Stay out of the mountains, for they're infested with goblins!

Stay away from Skull Island, it's haunted!

Bolt your door at night, and get back to the village before dark, or we'll be lucky to find your remains by dawn!

Where do monsters come from? Who would be insane enough to go out there and find out?

-The Gneech

YES. The DMG implies a world with very small--but relatively rich--population centers scattered over large areas. Plenty of space for creatures, and a potential source of treasure.

If your world has a more realistic medieval population (the centres remain small--with major exceptions--but there may be many of them close to each other), political instability, also highly realistic, can help . The warriors are needed to fight other warriors, large lands are left unsettled for fear of both monsters and the marauding "lords". And certain creatures are actually cutilivated to use against potential enemies.

 

[Toben the Many]

I just use the medieval model. In the Middle Ages, there was civilization and society, but people really believed there were monster and demons out there in the night. The reason they believed these things were because there was still alot of wilderness in the world - areas that were untamed or unsettled.

Also, it was believed that many monsters could hide during the day. Some believed that monsters "went back to the spirit world," while others believed such beasts lived underground.

Basically, I just imagine if all the legends and fairy tales of the Middle Ages were true and go from there.

 

[The_Universe]

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

Damn! That's what I was going to say!

But seriously, most monsters in my last campaign were either outsiders, undead, creatures spawned through directed breeding programs, or corrupted humanoids. In a couple of instances, I used creatures "left over" from previous wars and battles that had been used as living (or constructed, in the case of a few golem-like creatures) siege engines and war machines.

A few monsters were "commonplace" but if they were, they were integrated in some way into the social/economic structure of the world.

 

[Vraille Darkfang]

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

And there are some very interesting Permanent Illusions crafted by the Monster Geographic Society detailing just that.

I find the one titled "The Dragon Inter-Species Mating Series Part XCXVIII: Red Dragon and Kobold" especially captivating. I watch it at least 3-6 times a day.

 

[Spell]

you can also go the rifts and gurps fantasy (soon-ish to be gurps banestorm) route:
the cataclysm has opened a dimensional portal where the gnolls, ogres, goblins, [your humanoid monster of the week here] came from. they're all from different dimensions.
the portal can either be still open, or closed, or it might open now and then when "the stars are right", as you deem appropriate.

 

[francisca]

How do you explain the prevalence of monsters in your campaign?

Depends. In Greyhawk, I don't. It's fantasy, afterall.

On the other hand, I did have a fairly sound ecological basis for all of the critters in my homebrew I ran for a couple years. It took a lot of time, and the diversity of creatures wasn't what it is for Greyhawk, Mystara, or FR, for instance. There was a certain amount of satisfaction involved in going through this exercise, but I am not sure it was worth the time and effort, in my case.

So today, I don't bother trying to explain. You are confronted by a half-ogre kobold fighter, because I (the DM), say so. My players are cool with this, and have no trouble suspending disbelief.