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Callos_DeTerran
2011-05-30, 11:05 AM
For people who have seen my other new thread, yes, this is directly related to Daikaiju Dynasties (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=201194). This is, ideally, a thread for those who have some knowledge of biology and how animals affect their environment.

My question is, how does a Colossal creature, the largest creature type that D&D goes to pre-epic, affect the environment around them? These are ungodly big creatures, and usually are carnivorous in D&D. Would they keep extremely vast 'territories' and just stay on the move to avoid depleting the food in just one area? Same goes for Colossal herbivores, do they just muscle out the competition for food since they are, undoubtedly, much bigger then most others of their kind or do they develop a niche eating are (like giraffes) to get the food no other animal can get to? So on and so forth along this line of thought. Is it just a Lensman Arms race? Other animals in the area have to become deadlier/bigger/smarter in order to compete with the Colossal creatures?

Does anyone have any ideas, suggestions, or knowledge on this subject?

Yora
2011-05-30, 11:31 AM
Out of curiosity I've looked up some numbers and going by weight estimates for size categories, the blue whale is about the only creature on earth ever to reach colossal size. Other whales and even the largest dinosaurs were only gargantuan size at the most,

nyarlathotep
2011-05-30, 12:00 PM
Blue whales, the bigger mesosaurs, and truly gigantic dinosaurs would be gargantuan size I don't think anything living has ever gotten to colossal size in real life.

Solaris
2011-05-30, 12:34 PM
For, say, dragons that could help explain why they don't build civilizations. After a certain point, an area simply cannot feed more than one or two of them.

Callos_DeTerran
2011-05-30, 01:19 PM
Out of curiosity I've looked up some numbers and going by weight estimates for size categories, the blue whale is about the only creature on earth ever to reach colossal size. Other whales and even the largest dinosaurs were only gargantuan size at the most,

Which is actually really neat to know, seriously cause now I have a soft limit for 'normal' creatures in that setting, but it doesn't help deal with colossal creatures.

Solaris
2011-05-30, 01:22 PM
Which is actually really neat to know, seriously cause now I have a soft limit for 'normal' creatures in that setting, but it doesn't help deal with colossal creatures.

Extrapolation. Look at what blue whales do. They need to eat almost constantly, and they eat one of the richest food sources out there.

Seb Wiers
2011-05-30, 01:46 PM
Magic. Most creatures larger than large-sized have a "metabolism" that taps into primal, arcane, psionic, or divine energy to sustain the creature (and stengthen their bones enough to get around that pesky square/cube law, etc). Heck, even some medium or smaller creatures have this- do you really think a Dragonborn eats enough food to provide fuel for his flame breath?

That being the case, their dietary needs follow magical rules, not normal ones. A colossal dragon might get a weeks worth of nutrition from eating a single elf maiden, but hardly any nutrition at all from eating a team of oxen. Explains a lot, eh?

Knaight
2011-05-30, 01:50 PM
I don't think anything living has ever gotten to colossal size in real life.

Some flora certainly has. The largest Redwoods for one, not to mention the various species of "trees" that are basically entire groves or small forests. Then there are coral reefs.

Concerning animals, ocean dwelling colossal creatures are the easiest to handle. Presumably they would be highly mobile, eat primarily plankton or hunt for other extremely large creatures, and be extremely rare, requiring a huge amount of biomass to support. Land based creatures are a little more complex, though given that the square cube law is already being violated with glee by necessity magic is a better excuse.

Vknight
2011-05-30, 01:51 PM
I think the example from 'Toriko' of the super herbivore is perfect. If it is a group of creatures the damage will be immense to the ecosystem. If one creature the damage will still be severe but not as great.
Creatures of that size could eat away all a continents vegetation

Solaris
2011-05-30, 01:53 PM
Magic. Most creatures larger than large-sized have a "metabolism" that taps into primal, arcane, psionic, or divine energy to sustain the creature (and stengthen their bones enough to get around that pesky square/cube law, etc). Heck, even some medium or smaller creatures have this- do you really think a Dragonborn eats enough food to provide fuel for his flame breath?

A colossal dragon might get a weeks worth of nutrition from eating a single elf maiden. Explains a lot, eh?

Could be that the dragon prefers humanoids (which are more work) because magically they're much more efficient food - the dragon's not feeding on the elf-maid's body, the dragon's feeding on her potential.

SamBurke
2011-05-30, 01:55 PM
Magic... Do you really think a Dragonborn eats enough food to provide fuel for his flame breath?


Actually, yes. Give them a gland of some sort of chemical (not strong in chemistry) that ignites upon touching air, give them a way to manufacture it, and one muscle to shoot it. Simple, easy, and SCIENTIFIC!

Zaydos
2011-05-30, 01:59 PM
Actually, yes. Give them a gland of some sort of chemical (not strong in chemistry) that ignites upon touching air, give them a way to manufacture it, and one muscle to shoot it. Simple, easy, and SCIENTIFIC!

They breathe lightning and ice though.

Also dragons can subsist on a mineral diet; there's some heavy amounts of magic in their digestive capabilities (the Draconomicon even gives a name to the organ that converts their weird diet into energy).

SamBurke
2011-05-30, 02:01 PM
I was talking about if you were creating them in real life.

As to making the Chromatic DnD Dragons... Chlorine wouldn't be hard, ice could be done (Liquid nitrogen), and Lightning would merely require the user to have some sort of metal. Build up friction, or have that much electric energy in the dragon's body (they are pretty big)... It's highly implausible, but workable without magic.

ThePhantom
2011-05-30, 02:03 PM
A classic example of a colossal creature is the Tarrasque. When its awake, it goes and eats everything in its path. The rest of the time, it goes dormant, to let the food supply regenerate. And there's only one, which with its traits makes sense, as two of them would eat too much for both to survive.

Knaight
2011-05-30, 02:15 PM
A classic example of a colossal creature is the Tarrasque. When its awake, it goes and eats everything in its path. The rest of the time, it goes dormant, to let the food supply regenerate. And there's only one, which with its traits makes sense, as two of them would eat too much for both to survive.

Its a large animal, but if one assumes even an earth sized planet, there is a lot of area in which to live and eat, and a lot of energy going into plants and such if it is even remotely livable.

Seb Wiers
2011-05-30, 02:22 PM
Actually, yes. Give them a gland of some sort of chemical (not strong in chemistry) that ignites upon touching air, give them a way to manufacture it, and one muscle to shoot it. Simple, easy, and SCIENTIFIC!

I'm not saying a natural creature can't produce flaming liquid; they can, and in some cases (sort of) do. (See the bombaredier beetle, or simple fermentation of grain into alcohol by yeast.)

I'm saying, to produce that much flaming liquid (they can use breath weapon every 10 minutes or so) they would have to ingest a HUGE amount of calories. Because that's how calories are measured- in terms of how much energy food releases when you burn it.
I'm talking the equivalent of drinking a five gallon barrel of oil each day, so some such.
Big environmental effects cost a lot of energy to produce via mundane methods. Ergo, breath weapons draw on magical power sources.

@ Solaris- yeah, that was exactly the point I was tying to make. :P

Spiryt
2011-05-30, 02:58 PM
I'm not saying a natural creature can't produce flaming liquid; they can, and in some cases (sort of) do. (See the bombaredier beetle, or simple fermentation of grain into alcohol by yeast.)

I'm saying, to produce that much flaming liquid (they can use breath weapon every 10 minutes or so) they would have to ingest a HUGE amount of calories. Because that's how calories are measured- in terms of how much energy food releases when you burn it.
I'm talking the equivalent of drinking a five gallon barrel of oil each day, so some such.
Big environmental effects cost a lot of energy to produce via mundane methods. Ergo, breath weapons draw on magical power sources.

@ Solaris- yeah, that was exactly the point I was tying to make. :P

Meh, 5kg of Nutella every morning, and they're ready. :smalltongue:

SamBurke
2011-05-30, 03:02 PM
I'm saying, to produce that much flaming liquid (they can use breath weapon every 10 minutes or so) they would have to ingest a HUGE amount of calories.

But they aren't burning calories. They're squirting a liquid which bursts into fire. Also, do PCs or NPCs actually use this every 10 minutes? They do lots of talking, sleeping, eating, walking around, etc. And Dragons especially do lots of sleeping.

nyarlathotep
2011-05-30, 03:08 PM
But they aren't burning calories. They're squirting a liquid which bursts into fire. Also, do PCs or NPCs actually use this every 10 minutes? They do lots of talking, sleeping, eating, walking around, etc. And Dragons especially do lots of sleeping.

At the risk of killing billions of catgirls, you have to have potential energy to combust at all and you would be burning calories by investing them in the liquid your body produces.

SamBurke
2011-05-30, 03:10 PM
The idea was oxygen-ignited, so you wouldn't need to combust. Though, I'm not entirely sure if such an element exists, but, as mentioned before, there's always something similar to the bombadier beetle.

Necroticplague
2011-05-30, 03:42 PM
The idea was oxygen-ignited, so you wouldn't need to combust. Though, I'm not entirely sure if such an element exists, but, as mentioned before, there's always something similar to the bombadier beetle.

Yes, the element does exist. Its called hydrogen. My personal theory behind red dragons was that they had an organ between their lungs and their mouth that produced hydrogen, so to breath fire, the simply spewed hydrogen gas, which ignites on contact with air. Hydrogen is also lighter than air, so it helps them fly.

Shadowknight12
2011-05-30, 04:46 PM
As I see it, there are two "easy" ways of handling colossal creatures. Give them their own continent where everything is sized to their needs (humongous, sequoya-like trees are prevalent, along with Gargantuan or Colossal herbivores to feed from that, etc), or you make them extremely rare. You give them gigantic territories and let them roam far and wide so that they don't upset the ecosystem too much.

Of course, you have alternative ways of solving this issue. You have the Tarrasque solution that has been mentioned before, the "it's magic" explanation, the "differential metabolism" theory, etc.

Solaris
2011-05-30, 04:53 PM
I was talking about if you were creating them in real life.

As to making the Chromatic DnD Dragons... Chlorine wouldn't be hard, ice could be done (Liquid nitrogen), and Lightning would merely require the user to have some sort of metal. Build up friction, or have that much electric energy in the dragon's body (they are pretty big)... It's highly implausible, but workable without magic.

Oh boy, we got us a biology major here. Chlorine gas is doable. Generating liquid nitrogen requires huge amounts of energy. Don't believe me? Your body's calorie requirements go up in hotter temperatures because you're actively cooling yourself down. It doesn't magically come into existence cold (it's all around you - recall our atmosphere is some seventy percent nitrogen), so it requires energy to cool down. Generating the friction required to spark a lightning bolt would require excessive effort on behalf of the dragon. See, ol' boy was completely right in that every speck of energy that goes into the breath weapon must come from the creature's metabolism. You can't make energy out of nothing. It has to come from somewhere.


Yes, the element does exist. Its called hydrogen. My personal theory behind red dragons was that they had an organ between their lungs and their mouth that produced hydrogen, so to breath fire, the simply spewed hydrogen gas, which ignites on contact with air. Hydrogen is also lighter than air, so it helps them fly.

It does what? Since when? Holy crap, reality changed when I wasn't looking! Quick, do cold objects still sink? The world's still flat, right? We're not suddenly orbiting around the sun, are we?
Research (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrophoricity) is the best way to not have me call you out on things even I know are wrong. A lot of compounds involving hydrogen are pyrophoric, but hydrogen itself is not. It just has a low spark point.

Seb Wiers
2011-05-30, 05:53 PM
But they aren't burning calories. They're squirting a liquid which bursts into fire.
And where does that liquid come from? If they aren't directly ingesting it (a pretty big energy intake in its own right, since it amounts to drinking Greek fire, which obviously contains tons of chemical energy / calories) then they need to produce it. Producing combustible fuels takes energy (or feed stocks which contain stored energy, like coal or oil)- that's basic physics & chemistry. You don't get something from nothing.


Also, do PCs or NPCs actually use this every 10 minutes? They do lots of talking, sleeping, eating, walking around, etc. And Dragons especially do lots of sleeping.
They typically don't, but the rules imply they CAN. My fire-breath dragonborn actually uses his breath a fair bit in downtime to amuse small children, light his pipe, warm rocks for putting in his bedroll, and the like. He likes to show off how "dragony" he is, and the rules allow it.
Dragons probably do a lot of sleeping partly BECAUSE of the drain producing the energy released by their breath weapon places on them. The smarter ones probably conserve that energy by not using it so much, and therefore have more energy to devote to plotting and scheming. (But hey, my character has an Int of 8 and a Con of 20, so he's all "flame ON"!)

Of the breath weapons, some are pretty believable, some possible in an alternate form. In order of decreasing probability:
1) Acid. Totally do-able; almost all creatures produce acid as part of the digestive process. It would be metabolically expensive to produce large quantities of it and spew it around, but possible. Worth noting that Bombardier Beetles basically store acid and mix it with another material in a gland when they want to spray; the resulting mixture gets very hot (not uncommon when you put acid on something) and releases gas (also not uncommon); the pressure of the gas shoots boiling acid at the target.
2) Poison. Also seen in nature, though not as chlorine gas. I'm betting an aeresolized toxic compound of chlorine would be good enough.
4) Fire- some sort of organically produced Greek fire (likely a blend of phosphorus and oils) sprayed out by a gland is kinda possible, given you can meet the dietary requirements. Add some heat from a bombardier beetle style co-axial spray, and yeah, you could get fire.
5) Electricity. Can be produced using clusters specialized cells that stack ion transport effects to build up a charge; that's what electric eels do.
However, blasting it out as a breath weapon is... not how electricity works. An aura or touch attack would be more realistic.
6) Cold. This is a tough one. Liquid nitrogen can't be produced via biological process. Maybe liquid carbon dioxide could, if the creature had a high pressure vessel as an internal organ. Or maybe the creature produces a natural equivalent of freon, and sprays the enemy down with that; the evaporating oragno-freon cools the target, just like when a crook wants to bust open a lock using air conditioner refill.

Note that all of the above impose a pretty large metabolic demand on the user; chemical synthesis of any sort is energy intensive. That's one reason poisonous creatures tend to be stupid; they don't have the metabolic energy left for large brains. (They also don't so much need them to survive, of course...)

Zaydos
2011-05-30, 06:04 PM
The old stand-by for scientific dragons (by which I mean something in the movie The Flight of Dragons that the Discovery channel/Animal Planet later used) has them eat a substance rich in hydrogen gas and store the gas in a special bladder that they use to fly. When they use fire breath they expel a portion of this gas and light it with an electric spark generating organ in the roof of their mouth.

Seb Wiers
2011-05-30, 06:20 PM
The old stand-by for scientific dragons (by which I mean something in the movie The Flight of Dragons that the Discovery channel/Animal Planet later used) has them eat a substance rich in hydrogen gas and store the gas in a special bladder that they use to fly. When they use fire breath they expel a portion of this gas and light it with an electric spark generating organ in the roof of their mouth.

For it to actually help them fly, it would have to be stored in very large, very fragile bladders. You'd have something more like an airborn jellyfish than a dragon.

For "realism", I like Terry Pratchet's dragons. The only (non magical) one that could fly pointed his spear-like tail out straight, and breathed hard. He took off like a rocket, flying backwords at super-sonic speed. He ate coal, and had a mouth lined with organic silicates (to withstand the heat of his breath).

jseah
2011-05-30, 06:28 PM
A flammable liquid combined with Iron Sulphide (pyrophoric material).
Heck, Iron-Sulphur clusters exist in your mitochrondria and ethanol is a common biological product.
Gonna take alot of genetic engineering to get it though.


Chlorine, like you say, is easy and deadly (1000ppm lethal to humans). So is cyanide (270ppm kills humans).
Got to have some way of not making it kill the dragon as well though. Which isn't really that simple since the aforementioned Iron-Sulphur cluster in mitochrondria gets royally messed up when exposed to cyanide (it sticks and doesn't come off)
You can take that away, but that means dragons stop needing to breathe. (and have to eat alot more. A good side effect is that anaerobic respiration can be used to produce ethanol)


Lightning is only really viable underwater. Electric Eels and the Manta Ray do use electric organs and biobatteries. It's not going to jump air gaps however. You'll need kilovolts to jump even a few centimeters.
The dragon could spit some kind of electrolyte solution to form a conducting path through the air, even then, it's not going to be deadly.

Zaydos
2011-05-31, 01:19 AM
Enough on dragon breath weapons, back to the actual subject.

It depends upon how much you want their diet to be magic dependant. If 80% of their intake is magic that makes a big difference. In D&D halflings eat 1/4th as much as a human (horses eat 3 times as much) so expanding that progression a colossal creature would only eat 256 times as much as a human (or 81 if we went with the lower horse increase). I don't really think these numbers are realistic, but going with the logic of the system these creatures would eat as much as 256 humans (or 64 horses). So look at the range of say a tiger and multiply the area by 64, or 27 (you have two choices for progression). At that point it eats as much from that area as a single tiger would (which means they can have overlapping territories).

Biologically sound? Not really. D&D looks at the square-cube law and laughs in general. Caloric requirements to breathe fire and fly? It ignores them.

hamishspence
2011-05-31, 04:35 AM
Blue whales, the bigger mesosaurs, and truly gigantic dinosaurs would be gargantuan size I don't think anything living has ever gotten to colossal size in real life.

There are a few dinosaurs estimated (based on very limited information) to approach 125 tons (the minimum for Colossal.)

The blue whale and bowhead both commonly exceed this.

If using the "length to base of tail" (rather than length to tip of tail) that's normal for quadrupeds, the blue whale may reach the 64 ft minimum, and several dinosaurs may, too.

Amphicoelias- using the absolute maximum estimates (135 short tons, 200 ft long)- is the best example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphicoelias

most of the other big sauropods that approach that nose to base of tail length, are going to be too light.

Mind you- given that Colossal base size starts at 30x30 ft- they might be very cramped on a 20x20 ft gargantuan base if statted that way.

SirDalyus
2011-06-01, 03:12 PM
For "realism", I like Terry Pratchet's dragons. The only (non magical) one that could fly pointed his spear-like tail out straight, and breathed hard. He took off like a rocket, flying backwords at super-sonic speed. He ate coal, and had a mouth lined with organic silicates (to withstand the heat of his breath).
In the discworld series all swamp dragons could fly and breath fire. The one you thinking of, Errol , was special as he hovered like a rocket. The reason the dragonsl could breath fire was their diet of hydrocarbons and alkanols, along with thier abilty to change their digestive system with latent magic to extract as much flammable material as possible. The big dragon that turned up in guards, guards was interesting, as to breath fire it let out a cloud of finely crushed coal soaked in ethanol, and used an electric spark to light it. Would that be viable in a real life scene?

JonestheSpy
2011-06-01, 03:42 PM
Hmm, impact on environment?

Probably something like this. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ln8-Y-fIbqM)

DoomHat
2011-06-01, 03:58 PM
I think you're all missing the important point, in that, the tradition of Colossal monsters has always been that each is a wholly unique entity.
Especially for the original posters purposes. There is a King Kong, but no kong genome. The question of how Kong's island can maintain a breeding population of colossal apes is never broached. Why? Because there is only one King Kong. Part of the Kaiju appeal is that each creature in the line up is a singular legendary thing.
Which of these creates a greater atmosphere of awe and wonder:
"God help us, it's Godzilla!"
-or-
"God help us, it's a godzilla!"

So in response to you question, it should vary from one Kaiju to the next, based on their personal legend.
Godzilla is driven by its passionate hatred for humankind and possibly, hunger for radioactive material. Kong breaks dinosaurs for sport, but leaves the local human village be, so long as they offer him antiquate sacrifice. Scylla and Charybdis are cursed nymphs who take out their shame on any who dare sail the Strait of Messina. Gamera is friend to all children. And so on, and so forth.

Knaight
2011-06-01, 06:00 PM
And where does that liquid come from? If they aren't directly ingesting it (a pretty big energy intake in its own right, since it amounts to drinking Greek fire, which obviously contains tons of chemical energy / calories) then they need to produce it. Producing combustible fuels takes energy (or feed stocks which contain stored energy, like coal or oil)- that's basic physics & chemistry. You don't get something from nothing.

The obvious solution here is octane drinking dragons. Or even pentane drinking dragons. The energy that has as a combustible is immense, and can certainly cover periodic blasts of fire.

Jjeinn-tae
2011-06-01, 09:34 PM
The obvious solution here is octane drinking dragons. Or even pentane drinking dragons. The energy that has as a combustible is immense, and can certainly cover periodic blasts of fire.

Or bypass the liquid all-together. Have them be aquatic, with a throat capable of cavitation, a la the Pistol Shrimp (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistol_shrimp). I assume being larger would cause lower heat, but that shrimp can snap and create a bubble of an estimate 5,500 Celsius.

Yanagi
2011-06-02, 02:10 AM
How much a Colossal thing impacts the environment is going to depend on its metabolism, activity cycle and diet: how fast does it burn calories; how much does it exert itself and thus burn more calories; and what does it eat (or magically absorb) to sustain that activity level. Environmental impact increases in direct proportion to higher metabolism and higher activity levels. Diet is tricky, because ecosystems are so variable, but a good rule of thumb would be the lower on the food chain the Colossal beast is getting its calories, the faster and more directly it will impact the environment by its consumption.

Trickier is the figuring the degree to which such a creature might input back: does it have predators; what's its longevity; how much does it urinate and defecate (no, seriously, that's a big deal) or otherwise excrete; potentially being magical, does it rot normally when dead.

One idea that deserves its own post is whether something that big isn't going to have it's own ecosystem of symbiotes, parasites, commensial, and opportunistic species.

---

The hazard from a Colossal herbivore is the simplest to model, but also has the sharpest, faster effect. A Colossal herbivore stripping the greenery out of an area is going to disrupt all other herbivorous animals in the region it's foraging--not just fellow grazers like cows and deer, but potentially anything that eats seeds, sucks sap, collects pollen, or chews on roots. Plants are often adapted to use the things that eat them/eat parts of them as pollenators and seed-dispersers--one big critter doing all the munching nullifies that adaptative utility, so that's more stress on the system (unless said creature just happens to scatter its poop everywhere). Population drop amongst herbivores--through migration, attrition, and/or slowed reproduction-- is going to ripple upwards to predators and scavengers, as well as effect necrophagous (corpse-eating, like fungi and corpse beetles) and corprophagous (solid-waste consumers...fungi, but also plants that seed in dung and some insects/arthopods).

Worse case, a Colossal herbivore could short-term de-green an area, undercutting the food chain, stripping the ecosystem's habitat diversity; de-greening also means more soil erosion, altered water flow, and geological collapse of slopes. So even though an area might recover, it would be just a bit more marginal. Honestly I have a hard time imagining something Colossal delicately nipping off grass tips like a cow, but I guess if it only ate certain plants, or certain parts of plants, then it wouldn't totally deplete things like I described, but it would still transform the ecosystem radically.

For example, if a Colossal tree-eater swept through hilly forested area:

Anything that relied on tree fruits, seeds, sap, bark, or leaves--even if only for part of the seasonal year--would have to move or die. Any species living in the canopy, on the boughs, or in the tree proper would lack a habitat. Suddenly there'd be no more leaf mold on the forest floor...another habitat and food source gone...decreasing both soil nutrition and moisture retention. If the trees were eaten roots and all, topsoil could just wash away (or, in a dry time, be blown away).

So the result wouldn't be any uninhabitted wasteland, but it would be transformed.

---

A Colossal carnivore is going to put stress on a system, too, but it would show up in a different patterns, with much depending on how broad it's range of prey is and how effective it is at hunting varying prey types. The more any other predator species range of prey overlaps with those of the Colossal one, the more likely they're going to experience stress and a population drop, one way or another. Those with prey options outside the Colossal one's range are going to do better...though on a longer time-span their shifted reliance may affect the species they're now focusing on.

I would wonder if size wouldn't become an issue--species (and maybe individuals) so small that the Colossal predator doesn't go after them would prosper as competition from bigger animals in the same niche. So instead of a veldt with gazelles and antelopes and elephants hunted by lions and leopards, there's voles and hyraxes and wee little duikers hunted by jackals and cheetahs. It would also be interesting is if it were at all feasible or advantageous for another predatory species--say a social one, like lions--to challenge the Colossal predator: not necessarily to kill it and "win," but to open opportunities to hunt or even to steal already-downed prey.

I won't go into detail, but in the long term the viable adaptations compensating for one massive predator would be very odd...like camoflauge being adaptive if it blends with the ground surface's colors and textures, or the development of a crouch-and-freeze reflex to minimize the shadow's visibility from overhead.

---

Magic takes the above issue with Colossal creatures and bends or breaks it in a variety of ways.

1. The creature does need as much food as its size and activity superficially dictate: magic somehow sustains it.
2. The creature subsists wholly or partially on a novel diet that sets it outside the normal food chain of the region it dwells in.
3. The creature's forage range is massively extended by abilities such as teleportation, plane shifting, or magically-augmented flight, cutting its degree of pressure on any one place.
4. The creature's magical nature has a direct remediatory effect on the ecosystem it's effecting (stuff grows back faster magically).
5. The creature has sapience enough to gauge its impact on its surroundings and alter its behavior.
6. The creature's impact is lessened because it operates on a fantastical active-versus-resting cycle, having years-long periods of hibernation, dormancy, or inactivity.
7. The creature's impact is lessened because its appearance is dictated by mystical or supernatural phenomena of great rarity, such as "...it only appears during an eclipse."

hamishspence
2011-06-02, 05:56 AM
If these creatures have all been around long enough- it's possible other life will adapt to them.

Plants with roots that go deep enough to survive the ravages of a colossal herbivore- and even rely on it to spread their seeds.

Sebastrd
2011-06-02, 08:35 AM
Impressive dissertation on colossal biology/ecology

I doubt you'll get a better response than that, OP. Thank your lucky stars and get back to work.

Welknair
2011-06-02, 09:00 AM
My two cp: Has anyone seen a special on tv titled something like 'What if Dragons were Real"? Among other things, it stipulated means for nonmagical dragon flight and fire. Namely, they have a special organ that fills with a combustible gas which is also bouyant. This, combined with bird-like bones allows for flight. This gas can also be expelled and then ignited by the dragon grinding its teach together after having eaten some flint. This means that there is an inverse relationship between the flight time of a dragon and how much fire they can breathe. Sadly, this is not how D&D dragons work. In truth, I believe that breath weapons are indeed magically fueled. Everyone knows that dragons have plenty of magical energy, why waste time trying to naturally manufacture it when you can just use a bit of your inborn awesomeness to spew fire, ice, chlorine, lightning or the like every few rounds?

And Yanagi put it very well.

Yanagi
2011-06-02, 03:57 PM
I was thinking more about the evolution side of things:

In terms of a long-term evolutionary arc...or maybe not-so long term, because magic seems to encourage Lamarckian adaption...the effect of the Colossal creature would be the opposite of a Lensman arms race: the option of fighting back is the most risky adaptive line...what's going to really thrive adaptations that manuever around the Giant in the Ecosystem.

Stay the heck out of its way: sneakiness may lack dignity, but in real-life ecosystems it pays to be able to duck and weave around the apex species. Beta species with mixed strategies for foraging--baboons, coyotes, jackals--do very well for themselves.

- It's a good thing to be a plant or animal below the notice or concern of the Colossal being's appetite. Depending on how fine that good-size/bad-size distinction is, you might see a long-term development of adaptive dwarfism...pygmy elephants, pygmy lions, dwarf baobabs, bonsai banyans. Species that are already below notice are going to thrive, whether that be grasses taking over where trees were or herbivorous lagomorphs taking over where gazelles were.

- It's good to operate on a different schedule than the Colossal being: if it's a diurnal hunter, nocturnal species that go to ground during the day are going to do better. If the Colossal critter is more/less active through the seasonal cycle, it's adaptive if your species's reproductive phase--particularly if they mass to mate--matches the Colossal thing's slow/low period.

- If the Colossal creature really is the dominant predator, camoflauge and concealment adaptations will bend such that same-ecosystem species "specializing" in hiding from something really big thing will be benefit. This could actually long-term produce an entire "stealth ecosystem" of camoflauged/concealed prey species pursued by camoflauged/concealed predators.

- Finally, one big predator is going to change the social defense behaviors of social animals. Lookout behaviors are going to be very different when the predator is larger than a McMansion. Defense-in-depth--males on the outside, females and juveniles forming a center--is suddenly a lot less relevant. For that matter...fast dispersal becomes a less viable tactic with a predator with such vast reach. Maybe the new strategy would involve something like adult males holding ground or running a decoy while females and juveniles ran flat out.

- Magical "adaptation" really opens up the sneaky options: invisibility, "blink" teleports, dispacer-beast-like diversions enhance concealment; while divination and any sense-enhancing abilities increase the chance of spotting the Colossus quickly and escaping more efficiently.

Ruthlessly exploit its presence. A Colossus is likely to become an ecosystem...because of its literal mass and factual domination of resources, there's whole series of niches built around siphoning off just a bit of the calories/resources it takes up.

- Start with the bonanza a Colossal beast opens to ticks, fleas, lice, mosquitos, mites...even lichens and fungi patches...which in turn leads to openings for "cleaner" species like cattle egrets...which in turn leads to predation of cleaner species...etc. I don't want to think about internal parasites...(squick).

- Colossal excrement would be a ecosystem resource, with each discrete, deposit causing a detritovore swarm...in the ocean there's actually a distinct ecological ripple based around whale defecation...which causes a plankton boom, etc, etc, circle of life. Given how much there might be--(sorry, gross!)--corprophagy would be adaptive for larger and larger species...sort of the advanced version of the dog getting in the cat box. Scat distribution would also be a way for plants to distribute.

- In a similar vein there'd be a giant scavenging niche based around any remainder/leavings, herbivorous or carnivorous--the obvious example being vulture/hyena type behavior, but also weirdness like herbivores exploiting the little branches and leaves that drop as a Colossal herbivore eats whole trees...sort of, hyena-pandas.

- The final--and weirdest--option is piranha-like predation: taking a meaty chunk out of the Colossal critter and then cheesing it. I'm not sure there's a proper name for this, but it's a behavior that can be observed every once in a while: piranhas versus larger fish in the Amazon (thanks River Monsters), sharks taking a bite off a whale. On land, I could see a hyena or other bite-and-rip species developing this.

Magical abilities like psychic parasitism and life-energy siphoning add new dimensions to exploitation/parasitism, while things like restorative magic (healing, remove disease), telepathy/empathy create new and more complex mutualisms. A Colossal being with regeneration equals a carnivore cornucopia....

Another option is to adapt in ways that deter the specific act of predation. By deterance I mean adaptations that: make an organism unpalatable or inedible [chile peppers, arrow frogs]; make an organism harder to kill or take a bite out of [honey badger, porcupine]; or reflexively counter the attack to create an opening to escape or scare of the predator [bombadier beetles; puffer fish].

These types of adaptation are very contextual, a lot would depend on how a given Colossus foraged/hunted and ate. Something that swallows stuff whole indiscriminately is likely pretty casual about a few prickly bits to chew through; something that large would need a big dose of anything toxic to actually stop it eating; something that strong wouldn't be deter by thrashing about or natural armor. Basically, deterants that would deter a Colossus would have to be extravagant and purpose-built, which makes them the outside bet in the adaptation race.

Nonetheless, you could go wild building radically over-specialized critters--ruminants witha domed back brimming with spikes and nodules; cacti with thorns the size of pikes; toxic slothes that sweat poison (they have to be sloths...it takes a lot of energy to both brew poison in the body, and more energy to continually not be poisoned). Magic makes radical deterents more feasible and more radical: poison without the metabolic albatross to wear; a "blink when injured" reflex; quills that can be shot with the force of an arrow; a twitch defense that that creates a electrical aura; natural armor so impenetrable it's a viable tactic to curl up and wait until you pass all the way through....