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Letums Gate
2011-01-28, 02:51 AM
Hello Playground I have a serious problem. I am runing a game of 3.5 in a custom world however, my players pointed out my world would not work and I am not sure what to do becuse we wind up fighting over it. Basicly the world has undergone a massive boom in dragon population fallowing a war in wich they were almost whiped out and now there are simply to meny of them. basicly they fight about the amount of food needed and the amount of weath needed to sustain them. The world is low magic and moving more to tecnolagy think steam punk style so I dont know what to do. I am new to DMing so what do you sugjest?

AslanCross
2011-01-28, 03:01 AM
If it's a feeding issue:
If it's a recent boom, that likely means most of the dragon population is young. They won't be much larger than big cats, and as such, will not require so much food. It's not a glut of freight train-sized behemoths who need to eat an elephant every other day. Also, Draconomicon describes the metabolisms of dragons as highly efficient blast furnaces. They can eat even inorganic matter and get nutrition from it.

As for wealth: Dragons don't need it to live, but it IS an obsession. What the dragons could do is seek objects of wealth that THEY believe are valuable given the current situation. Dragons who run metal production plants will enslave humanoids to mine coal and ore for them. Dragons who value rare magic might be stealthy hunters, or order their minions to hunt for magical tomes. Dragons who prize inventions could pillage the homes of inventors, or maybe even plagiarize them. They don't necessarily need to have heaping piles of gold.

Crossblade
2011-01-28, 03:01 AM
Dragons can eat anything... including rocks. Forget where it states it, but it's somewhere. Likely Draconomicon if anywhere.
Secondly, Dragons are inherently magic, that's why their breath weapon doesn't work in an anti-magic field. The biology of a dragon IS in Draconomicon, that section also explains how such a big creature can fly with disproportionate wings.


That said, low magic or not, dragons being magic can help sustain themselves by turning magic into energy, thus reducing the amount of food needed... in theory.

That's just my take on it.

Letums Gate
2011-01-28, 03:05 AM
I'm not exactly sure what the issue is.

If it's a feeding issue:
If it's a recent boom, that likely means most of the dragon population is young. They won't be much larger than big cats, and as such, will not require so much food. It's not a glut of freight train-sized behemoths who need to eat an elephant every other day. Also, Draconomicon describes the metabolisms of dragons as highly efficient blast furnaces. They can eat even inorganic matter and get nutrition from it.

I should be a little more clear I think. Recent as in the past 1000 years or so.

AslanCross
2011-01-28, 03:08 AM
1000 years makes it a bit more problematic, as that means you could have high numbers of ancient dragons around. Many of them could have ended dying out, or very powerful dragons could have gained ascendancy by killing off the younger ones.

How'd their population boom anyway?

dsmiles
2011-01-28, 03:08 AM
Dragons can eat anything... including rocks. Forget where it states it, but it's somewhere. Likely Draconomicon if anywhere.
Secondly, Dragons are inherently magic, that's why their breath weapon doesn't work in an anti-magic field. The biology of a dragon IS in Draconomicon, that section also explains how such a big creature can fly with disproportionate wings.


That said, low magic or not, dragons being magic can help sustain themselves by turning magic into energy, thus reducing the amount of food needed... in theory.

That's just my take on it.

I'll take Draconomicon for $100, Alex. It's in there.

As far as a sustainable population, it doesn't really matter how many dragons there are in the world currently. The population boom will end as territories shrink. Dragons aren't animals, they're intelligent creatures. When they realize that there's not enough land mass to sustain territories for all of them, they will start infighting and breed less. So, there could be millions of dragons in the world right now, but eventually, the population will bring itself back under control.

EDIT: Ninja'd. 1000 years, while not very long to a the dragon species as a whole (evolution-wise), is still quite a while to individual dragons. There would be feuds over territory, and probably quite a few deaths, resulting in a more controlled population by now.

Letums Gate
2011-01-28, 03:19 AM
1000 years makes it a bit more problematic, as that means you could have high numbers of ancient dragons around. Many of them could have ended dying out, or very powerful dragons could have gained ascendancy by killing off the younger ones.

How'd their population boom anyway?

The story so far is that these orbs came to the planet from metores from space and they could be used to controll dragons. However they sucked up abeaent magical energy around them as they stayed on the planet for longer they grew stronger soon half dragons and even sorcerers could be fully domanated with no free will. A gnome wanted all the orbs and used his own orb to attack the other owners sending leigions of white dragons at them wich almost lead them to exstinction affter the war the orbs were lost and only two or three years latter dragons started having massive amounts of young hatching 20 or so eggs a clutch. Now they have banded together to try and stop that kind of thing ever happening again the reds even have a small nation ruled over by a new red dragon who calls himself king and kills any one who says otherwise bullying other reds into his controll. Now the white orb has reservised and all dragons are franticly searching for it.

JeminiZero
2011-01-28, 03:26 AM
Possible solution: The oceans. Some dragons are water breathing, and pack swim speed. This is a region of the planet that is normally not extensively used by low-tech human populations.

Thus these water capable dragons could have built up undersea settlements that live off seafood, and which do not intrude on the land dwelling human(oid) nations. You could say that the ocean:land ratio for your world is much higher than our earth, maybe only 1% land and 99% sea. Hence the "small world" that your players percieve, is only a the proverbial tip of a much larger iceberg.

And of course, there the fluff that dragons live off stones.

Letums Gate
2011-01-28, 03:55 AM
Possible solution: The oceans. Some dragons are water breathing, and pack swim speed. This is a region of the planet that is normally not extensively used by low-tech human populations.

Thus these water capable dragons could have built up undersea settlements that live off seafood, and which do not intrude on the land dwelling human(oid) nations. You could say that the ocean:land ratio for your world is much higher than our earth, maybe only 1% land and 99% sea. Hence the "small world" that your players percieve, is only a the proverbial tip of a much larger iceberg.

And of course, there the fluff that dragons live off stones.

The problem with that Jemini is that I allready made a map for the game and the land to watter ratio is infact slightly higher then on earth. *sigh* I should know better then to give them a map simply becuse thats the first thing they buy.

dsmiles
2011-01-28, 03:57 AM
If the surface is mapped, does that necessarily mean that the underground is? For all they know, your continents could only be a mile or two thick with pillars of stone descending the rest of the way to the bottom of the oceans.

MarkusWolfe
2011-01-28, 11:15 AM
Do you have only chromatic dragons in this world, or metallics too? if there are metallics, remove them. Now, there is only one solution: In order to save the world, your PCs must commit CHROMATIC DRAGON GENOCIDE.

Tyndmyr
2011-01-28, 11:31 AM
Hello Playground I have a serious problem. I am runing a game of 3.5 in a custom world however, my players pointed out my world would not work and I am not sure what to do becuse we wind up fighting over it. Basicly the world has undergone a massive boom in dragon population fallowing a war in wich they were almost whiped out and now there are simply to meny of them. basicly they fight about the amount of food needed and the amount of weath needed to sustain them. The world is low magic and moving more to tecnolagy think steam punk style so I dont know what to do. I am new to DMing so what do you sugjest?

I suggest corrected spelling. Now that that's out of the way, I'll point out that while boom/bust cycles due to food happen a lot in short-lived animals, they're not really a thing with ridiculously long lived creatures, and yes, if it's a recent boom, the dragons will almost invariably be small. 1000 years isn't recent. There's really no reason why a boom wouldn't self-correct by now as the dragons fight for wealth, territory and/or food.

Also, "massive dragon population" and "low magic" do not traditionally mesh well, seeing as how dragons are natural casters.

Most dragons do not traditionally live in water. Even those that do are more of a "on/under the shore" type beasties. Things that live wholly in the water are mostly unhelpful anyhow unless it's an underwater adventure.

I'd have to agree with your players. As it currently stands, the world does not make sense. What is your world like, and what are your major goals for this world?