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Worlds of Design: Consistent Fantasy Ecologies
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<blockquote data-quote="Edgar Ironpelt" data-source="post: 9534173" data-attributes="member: 32075"><p>I shamelessly invoke magic for my various and sundry fantasy settings. Magical worlds have deep magical effects beyond allowing spell-casting and the use of supernatural abilities. And those magical effects can be different in different places. Dragons, for example, might be limited to certain mountain ranges because those mountains are magically dragon-friendly. Similarly, elf-forests might be the only place elves can maintain their population, because of the elf-friendly magic there, with elven settlements elsewhere being population sinks, and the elven populations there either dying out or being dependent on immigration from the elf-forests.</p><p></p><p>I do try to keep the number of sapient species limited, usually with limited success. Likewise the number of large fierce creatures. (See: <em>Why Big Fierce Animals Are Rare: An Ecologist's Perspective</em> by Paul A. Colinvaux)</p><p></p><p>I tend to make food abundant, with population growth being limited more by those magical effects than by food shortages.</p><p></p><p>I prefer cosmopolitan cultures to species segregation, even though I will use the latter because it sometimes makes sense. Although even with "Forest-Lands of the Elves," "Kingdoms of the Dwarves" etc. I try to have multiple examples, with the different elf-lands, dwarf-kingdoms etc. being different from each other.</p><p></p><p>In my D&D worlds, I have Dwarves and Gnomes as a single species for biological purposes, even if they count as two different ones for magic and game mechanics. So the various dwarf-kingdoms and gnome-settlements are actually dwarf/gnome kingdoms and settlements. This has also affected the language: Dwarven is Gnomish spoken with a dwarven accent and Gnomish is Dwarven spoken with a gnomish accent, and depending on where he or she grew up, a dwarf might speak gnomish as his native tongue, or a gnome might natively speak dwarven.</p><p></p><p>I went full-out with cosmopolitan cultures in my old game-world of Etan. Elves, orcs, and lizardmen in the Million Kingdoms have more in common with each other than with those Northern Barbarians with whom they share a species. I've invoked that shameless magic for this. When the gods of the various species all died, they laid dying curses of barrenness on the species of their enemies. The overall result is the "Curse of Djerassi," named after the wizard who studied it and worked out a counter.</p><p></p><p>The counter is fertility magic in the form of fertility charms, and creating a fertility charm for yourself requires the aid of friends who are not of your species. So the mundane "humankin" species who were willing to do the cosmopolitan thing survived, and the clannish & isolationist species (like halflings/hobbits) died out.</p><p></p><p>I once joked that the ecology of Middle Earth runs on sheep. Sheep are super-abundant in most places, with trolls, orcs, eagles, and to a great extent dwarves living off of mutton as a staple food. And Mirkwood was such a notorious, dangerous "food desert" because sheep don't do well there.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Edgar Ironpelt, post: 9534173, member: 32075"] I shamelessly invoke magic for my various and sundry fantasy settings. Magical worlds have deep magical effects beyond allowing spell-casting and the use of supernatural abilities. And those magical effects can be different in different places. Dragons, for example, might be limited to certain mountain ranges because those mountains are magically dragon-friendly. Similarly, elf-forests might be the only place elves can maintain their population, because of the elf-friendly magic there, with elven settlements elsewhere being population sinks, and the elven populations there either dying out or being dependent on immigration from the elf-forests. I do try to keep the number of sapient species limited, usually with limited success. Likewise the number of large fierce creatures. (See: [I]Why Big Fierce Animals Are Rare: An Ecologist's Perspective[/I] by Paul A. Colinvaux) I tend to make food abundant, with population growth being limited more by those magical effects than by food shortages. I prefer cosmopolitan cultures to species segregation, even though I will use the latter because it sometimes makes sense. Although even with "Forest-Lands of the Elves," "Kingdoms of the Dwarves" etc. I try to have multiple examples, with the different elf-lands, dwarf-kingdoms etc. being different from each other. In my D&D worlds, I have Dwarves and Gnomes as a single species for biological purposes, even if they count as two different ones for magic and game mechanics. So the various dwarf-kingdoms and gnome-settlements are actually dwarf/gnome kingdoms and settlements. This has also affected the language: Dwarven is Gnomish spoken with a dwarven accent and Gnomish is Dwarven spoken with a gnomish accent, and depending on where he or she grew up, a dwarf might speak gnomish as his native tongue, or a gnome might natively speak dwarven. I went full-out with cosmopolitan cultures in my old game-world of Etan. Elves, orcs, and lizardmen in the Million Kingdoms have more in common with each other than with those Northern Barbarians with whom they share a species. I've invoked that shameless magic for this. When the gods of the various species all died, they laid dying curses of barrenness on the species of their enemies. The overall result is the "Curse of Djerassi," named after the wizard who studied it and worked out a counter. The counter is fertility magic in the form of fertility charms, and creating a fertility charm for yourself requires the aid of friends who are not of your species. So the mundane "humankin" species who were willing to do the cosmopolitan thing survived, and the clannish & isolationist species (like halflings/hobbits) died out. I once joked that the ecology of Middle Earth runs on sheep. Sheep are super-abundant in most places, with trolls, orcs, eagles, and to a great extent dwarves living off of mutton as a staple food. And Mirkwood was such a notorious, dangerous "food desert" because sheep don't do well there. [/QUOTE]
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