What grows in a desert?

[LastOblivion]

I'm currently working on creating a game in which the players will be a part of a clan which has lost its home in civil war and is making a mass exodus to the south.

In the south lies a great desert. My plan was to create an adventure where its not just crash and bash. I wanted my players to help lead their clan to salvation (one of the players will be acting as the clan leader.) The idea is that much more is weighing on them then normal. Should they act poorly and inappropriately then many will suffer. They can haphazardly make enemies since it might endanger those they wish to protect. Options will be weighed and sacrifices made. And should the clan or the its leader perish then the game is over. Do not pass go, do not collect your $200s. :xykon:

But then i hit a road block, food. Feeding a couple of adventures in a desert is one thing, but a whole population?
Ive asked many people, read the books, and done my research. But even then problem does not go away. Ive i arrange a way for crops to be grown it will still take time before the crops will be ready and camels and goats can only go so far.

I want to know if anyone else has had to deal with such climates before or would know a way to feed in these numbers. Ive thought about giving them a start supply of food and water that will eventually run out. But then how long should i make such a stash last? If i dont give them enough it would kill them, if i gave them too much the pursuit of food would be meaningless

on a side note one of my players loves game breaking and claims he is only "making it fair" aka, "monks are one of the weaker classes so i need 3d6+18 to all of my mental stats at level one. I've done the math, its allowed if your a symbiote with a level adjustment of +1."
So if I'm not careful he will break the game and I will have no choice but to just drop a rock and kill them all. I've had enough of his "optimized" characters. :smallannoyed:

[Dr.Epic]

Cacti.

And cactus juice. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls-83vf6c4c):smallwink:

[Cranthis]

Magic is the number one way, depending on level. For instance, with almost any caster, water is not a problem. Food might be trickier though. There is actually alot more to eat in the desert than one might think. Desert mammals, owls, snakes etc etc. Plant life is sparse, but when it is found, it usually can be eaten. Such as cacti. Burn the pokers off, and the cactus tastes great! And is filled with water as a bonus.

[TheSummoner]

Lizards. Scorpions. Small rodents. Gigantic fantasy versions of the above.

And if they aren't afraid of facing the consequence of making a few enemies, raiding the stores of other clans.

[Palanan]

How many people are in the PCs' clan? If they're an extended family with 20-30 individuals, that's one thing; if there are thousands, it's an entirely different situation.

Also, is the clan at all familiar with the desert? Have they been living on its margins until now, or is it utterly foreign to them?

[Medic!]

Obviously, Sand Trout *Does a Monty Burns hand-rub as only an avid Dune Fan will at the mention of Sand Trout*

[Jeff the Green]

Well, first off, what kind of desert? Deserts can run from polar regions with permanent ice but little precipitation (Antarctica) to xeric forests composed of pines and oaks (Idaho) to high desert with sagebrush (Nevada) to sandy deserts (the Sahara) to lava-strewn regions with only minimal soil (Hawai'i). What resources are available will depend on the type.

Second, how long has it been a desert and how long has it been inhabited? If it wasn't always a desert and hasn't been inhabited for a very long time, there's a good chance of groundwater bubbling up from seeps and springs into oases. That's only if it was previously wet and the aquifers haven't been completely drained, though.

Finally, what's around the desert? If it's in the rain shadow of a mountain range they could skirt the desert with a little mountain climbing, which I'm guessing you don't want.

[dspeyer]

Perhaps it's a coastal desert, and you can get lots of fish just offshore if you can maintain your boats and nets.

[avr]

Trading resources found/made in the desert for food from outside has a long tradition. Salt, gold, whatever. Taxing travellers might possibly work.

In any case I'm sure they want to find or magically create an oasis where date palms or other such might be growing.

How large an area they can use and how large a clan are a couple of other variables you haven't actually mentioned yet.

[LastOblivion]

The greatest issue is the number of survivors. I was planning on having it around 100-200 and that is with a good numbers of non-combatants

options-
cacti- if there were only few and they were not staying it would be find, its just not staple enough
goats- herds are not always the easiest keep well fed and healthy at this point, but they will give milk, cheese, meat and fur.
cows- same as above, just not as smart and harder to deal with (bulls)
camels- ive heard u can milk a camel... not sure id try that though :smallconfused:
Fig- i think they can grow in harsh climates, i need to research them more
dates- great for deserts, but should i just give the players a forests of dates or make them work for it?
cannabis, aka hemp, aka marijuana- surprisingly a miracle desert crop. just learned it makes clothes, food, milk and just about anything else you need.
ashworms- can they be eaten? i think they are poisonous... you never know
regular animals- hunting is always an option, but its hard to hunt enough to feed these numbers
dire animals- will these be any less eatable?

perhaps if i give them around a week or 2 of rations remaining before they run out.

as for type of desert: They group made their way through a large canyon system until reaching the start of the desert. As such the starting location is arid and rocky. I have placed ruins to the south along one of the rock faced.(filled to the brim with bandits :smallamused:) Being as it is difficult to build on sand i though they starting rocky level would help with the starting of their base camp. Farther to the southeast is a large river. The river and its surrounding semi-fertile land separate the canyon from the dunes. At this point, Dunes = death, I will make that clear. The plan was to give them a chance at a strong base camp before things get difficult.

Goal 1: food, shelter, protection
Goal 2: rebuild and rebrith
Goal 3: make a stand

The desert country the players and their clan find themself one is one ive only refereed to in the past. (alot of my characters had come from this land before and i thought it would be fun to give the players a chance to go there for once.) The empire is ruled by a lich. But for a lich he is great ruler. As such the empire has been in a golden age for some time. The lich gives the nobles a great amount of freedom. And with freedom and wealth, clan wars are a constant threat. So the player must face their enemies on both the battlefield and the political stage.

[Killer Angel]

What is their level? even with low level magic objects, many difficulties will be easily overcome. Decanter of endless water, for example...

[Serpentine]

Research real-world desert groups, and remember that deserts aren't usually entirely empty, desolate sand-dunes. The key, most likely, will be diversity and opportunism.
Some things, off the top of my head, from the real world:
- water-holding frogs
- various plants, including but not limited to cacti, that store water, produce nectar-heavy flowers, and bear fruits. They're not necessarily rare, and in fact you can have whole forests of desert plants out there.
- roots
- lizards
- underground water
- various methods of obtaining and purifying water (e.g. weeing in a hole and using evaporation to distil fresh water from it)
- wild, nomadic animals
- insects and arachnids

[hymer]

If it is really an endless, barren, featureless desert out there, you can't live there.
So have oases where farming, hunting and getting water can happen. Have wells dug where people must congregate. Have birds that fly in from the coast to get caught (the niccce fisssh have already been mentioned by dspeyer). Have areas that are, in fact, not desert, but surrounded by it. Have high mountains where precipitation occurs too high for people to live, but where the water trickles down and creates areas where plants can grow and animals live.

[DonEsteban]

camels- ive heard u can milk a camel... not sure id try that though :smallconfused:

Why? If it's been good enough for beduins for thousands of years it'll certainly good enough for them.



ashworms- can they be eaten? i think they are poisonous... you never know
dire animals- will these be any less eatable?

Maybe it needs special treatment. Maybe the natives know how to treat it and can be talked into sharing their secrets. --> opportunity for roleplay




I have placed ruins to the south along one of the rock faced.(filled to the brim with bandits :smallamused:)

What do the bandits live off? Maybe they've stashed food. Did they rob caravans? Maybe you can take over their business. (Okay, your results may vary based on alignment.)

[Spuddles]

Manna from heaven.

[Serpentine]

If it is really an endless, barren, featureless desert out there, you can't live there.In reality, those sorts of places are extremely rare. Take one of the major archetypes for the ultimate inhospitable desert, central Australia. Here's what it looks like immediately surrounding Uluru:
http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6008/5973992676_45d8090548_z.jpg
And here's what it looks like in another part of the desert:
http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/assets/images/article/journal/6226/Simpson_Desert_flowers.jpg
And here's some of the animals that live in central Australia:
http://www.alicespringsdesertpark.com.au/kids/plants/images/desertscene.jpg

[Belril Duskwalk]

In reality, those sorts of places are extremely rare. Take one of the major archetypes for the ultimate inhospitable desert, central Australia. Here's what it looks like immediately surrounding Uluru:

This could just be me, but I really don't think of Australia when I think of ultimate inhospitable deserts (Now if we're talking about hostile animals on the other hand... THEN Australia all the way. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LandDownunder))

But for barren deserts, I think of Saudi Arabia's Empty Quarter:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/Rub_al_Khali_002.JPG/800px-Rub_al_Khali_002.JPG

[hymer]

@ Serpentine: Very true. I was merely framing my suggestions, which aren't the most deserty you could hope for.

@ Belril Duskwalk: Yeah, that is the picture of a desert from casual conversation all right. :)

[Serpentine]

It's also, as I said, pretty rare.
(you also get similar places in Australia, incidentally:)http://ih1.redbubble.net/image.6331911.4443/flat,550x550,075,f.jpg

[hoverfrog]

Anything that can be caught can be eaten. That includes arachnids and insects, rodents, birds and giant varieties of these.

Why is it a desert? Is it just geographically dry and hot? Is the land just barren and difficult to farm? Is the land under a curse? Pretty much everything alive relies on water. Some plants and animals have evolved ways to store water like the cactus or the camel while others are just extremely efficient at processing it like the sand lizard and the desert rat.

I'd advise looking at the old Dark Sun setting for ideas for flora and fauna. Though that might be a bit harsh.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by hymer
If it is really an endless, barren, featureless desert out there, you can't live there.


Originally Posted by Serpentine
In reality, those sorts of places are extremely rare.

The reality of deserts, at least on our world, is somewhere between these two statements. There are tremendous reaches of inhospitable terrain all around the planet, not "rare" by any means. They're not all as utterly barren as a windblown dune, but they're incredibly hard places to live.

The Atacama is one of the world's harshest deserts, probably the driest, and it's not a trivial area. The Namib extends further, and it's drier on average than the region around Uluru. The Gobi, the Sahara, the North American Great Basin are all immense regions, not to mention the Victoria Desert that Serpentine included.

Also, as Jeff the Green pointed out, there's a tremendous variety in the kinds of deserts around. Notice his comment about xeric forests: there's a long gradient of dry forest ecotypes, including places like the caatinga in Brazil and the Gran Chaco in Bolivia, which would certainly qualify as "desert" for the difficulty in living there. There's wildlife there, but it's not easy to find, and would be very little use in sustaining several hundred people--especially if they don't know the first thing about desert living.

So the question for the OP is, do you want to choose a particular desert type, and try to fit the game to it? Or do you want to assume a certain difficulty for the PCs, and let the desert produce just enough to provide that degree of difficulty?

One option could be a gallery forest, which is a thin fringe of green along a watercourse running through a xeric landscape. It's essentially a linear oasis, and could serve as a temporary base; but by its nature it presents tactical challenges which a classic oasis wouldn't have. This could set the scene for a major disagreement among the clan as to which approach is better: a smaller oasis with limited resources, but much easier to defend, or a gallery forest with better resources, but far less suited to withstanding a coordinated attack.
.
.

[toapat]

Sand flowers, sand trees, Sand moss, hyenas

dark sun is probably the best setting though for written desert materials

[Psyren]

It's Hot Outside, aka Sandstorm, has a couple of passages on food:


The presence of water and arable land, along with the specifics of the local terrain, determines whether people in the waste establish permanent settlements or opt for a more nomadic existence. Villages only appear and
persist where locals have access to a supply of water and suitable land for farming and grazing. Communities can only grow into towns and cities if the water and land can support such populations.
...

Nomads...remain mobile by carrying only what they need and by adjusting to the rules of the waste, rather than trying to apply their own rules to an environment that can hardly be described as accommodating. As a result, nomads in the waste possess only what they and their pack animals can carry, living in light but sturdy tents, sleeping with little more than a single mat between them and the ground, and always conserving supplies. The next source of food or water might be depleted, and the price of survival is a few more days of travel.

Although this all paints a picture of a civilization constantly on the edge of extinction, most waste-dwellers survive and even thrive. Food is plentiful for a small population, if one knows where to find it. Fruit, plant matter, and most animals (even those of the monstrous variety) are edible. Some areas provide land for crops, while others support raising livestock. Wise villagers or nomads always set aside stores of food and water for those unpredictable times when the environment is particularly unforgiving.

Note that (with the possible exception of eating monsters) none of the above relies on magical assistance.

[HalfGrammarGeek]

Mana from heaven?

[nedz]

Deserts exist due to lack of rain. You can get seasonal rains in which rivers that are normally dry run, and the desert plants flower. I suspect that Serpentine's pictures are from the rainy season. Occasionally people collect the seasonal rain behind dams built across wadis, or more commonly in cisterns. This allows for irrigation.

You can also have underground water, which either flows through underground aquifers or has been trapped for a few thousand years. Oases normally occur when this ground water breaks the surface naturally. In the Iranian desert, and also in the eastern Gobi, people have built, over many years, underground canals, Qunats, which carry the water to various wells.

Most deserts are rocky; sandy Ergs are not common, even in the Sahara and Arabian deserts.

The worst deserts are the Salt deserts because even when it rains plants cannot grow.

[Andreaz]

http://www.livingdesert.org/desert_plants.html
http://www.livingdesert.org/desert_animals.html

[Jerthanis]

In the lands that used to be where Phoenix is now, the people had massive civic projects to create canal systems to ferry and store water for irrigation. It was only when the population dipped below a certain level, where they didn't have the manpower to maintain their massive irrigation systems that they splintered and moved away.

I think that thinking about how desert societies acquire and utilize their water is a good mental practice to apply to all your worldbuilding exercises. Water is the fuel of civilization.

[ravagerofworlds]

I agree with Psyren on using Sandstorm; that section is entirely accurate.

Different climes/zones have different resources. In ecology a desert clime is typically rated as an ecologically fragile system-> it is much easier to make a large ecological footprint in a desert, disrupting the local ecology than it is say, a robust ecological system typified in fantasy settings by your elven forest. The fragility or robustness of an ecological system determines how high of a population center a clime can support before famine/event destroys the population of humanoids making houses and harvesting the landscape for foodstuffs.

You may find it useful to look up historical desert cultures such as the Anasazi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anasazi) and their neighbors, the Egyptians (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_egypt), the Achaemenid Empire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_empire), the Mongol Empire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_Empire), and the Indigenous Australians (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australians) to get an array of desert cultures and how they managed resources...

based on what Lastoblivion describes, I would assume that all the best spots in the desert are already taken, and any local tribe would be hardpressed to share with strangers, even more so with local resources so low. Which means that if Lastoblivion wants to allow the heroes' tribe to get a desert base, they need to A) raid another clan to take their stuff, B) trade for the right live from a local clan, C) settle in an abandoned site (which begs the question why it was abandoned? Balrog in your basement?)

If A, then prepare for lots of fighting. If B, prepare for lots of politics. If C, it's best to keep the rumors circulating that the abandoned site is still dangerous. Because whatever the heroes had to do to clear it out means that only mortals hold the place now, and maybe the clan that fled wants their home back.

Because population centers should be low in this environment, that means that magical equipment, goods, etc., will be limited. That's always a good thing; it gives reason to risk your life to explore ruins, or open trade with a nearby clan, join an alliance, etc. Where the heroes decide to try and make a go of it will determine who their neighbors are after all, and maybe they want to move on from their new temporary HQ when they figure out how dangerous it is to be adjacent to Clan BLANK.

The interesting thing about most early cultures on earth is... the tribal name usually translates to "The People." Many cultures do not recognize other humans as part of "The People" because they do not recognize humanity. The outsiders may walk like us and look like us, but they are not human. They are demons in disguise, or they are less than "The People." As a GM, you can have a lot of fun with this sort of xenophobia (which helps cultures in a low resource environment survive)

[Phaederkiel]

I would say baiting some boss-size monster to attack them, taking it down, and preparing it would make a damn good adventure.

Make sure that one of your guys has a high survival skill. Also profession (chief) rears his ugly head. If noone knows how to prepare the monsters hunted, they will have a problem. Craft (poison) and knowledge (nature) could be very valuable too.

[Starshade]

It would take 4 to 8 years under good conditions to get dates from a palm if you planted seeds, without watering systems, perhaps longer. Traditionally they used natural water sources for these in oases.

Prickly pear, or paddle cactus often grows like a weed everywhere it's given the chance, and it got edible fruit. Could also be grown and cultivated as well in a desert.

[ericgrau]

Most commercially grown desert produce is actually oasis horticulture. They need a good water source. At that point the list of plants available is too long to list; it's at least half of common foods.

Other desert plants are small, dead most of the year except winter and widely spaced because again the limiting factor is water. You can get expensive cactus fronds and cactus pears at certain specialty markets, and likewise native americans used various vegetation, berries and seed meal, but these are not an efficient way to feed a large number of people. Only a small number of skilled hunter-gatherers.

So basically your 3 options are: a small population, a water source or magic.

Even in a region with a dry surface some might have ground water meaning you can dig a well. This was common practice in ancient dry areas. That, a natural oasis, or a long aqueduct are pretty easy answers. So is "it's magic", but I should warn that even an everflowing bottle doesn't provide that much water for its high cost. Whatever magic this is needs to be pretty special. It could be a major plot element to protect or seize it.

[hoverfrog]

From a game perspective someone with the survival skill should be able to feed themselves on a DC 10 check from the wild. An arid land might impose a -5 circumstance penalty on the check while a desert could be -10 or even -20 if it's just sand.

SRD says for DC 10
Get along in the wild. Move up to one-half your overland speed while hunting and foraging (no food or water supplies needed). You can provide food and water for one other person for every 2 points by which your check result exceeds 10.So if 10 hunters were feeding a group of 100 they'd need to roll really well or be very skilled. Probably both.

Let's hope that the refugees are bringing plenty of food with them.