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Admiral Squish
2013-08-25, 09:48 AM
So, I just had an interesting idea for a world concept.

Some druidic order performs an epic magical ritual that awakens every animal on the planet, and furthermore, makes it such that any animal born from then on is similarly awakened.

Now, the question is what, exactly, would this effect have on the world as a whole? Either animal labor is eliminated entirely, the animals must be paid for their services, or they get kept as slaves. I suspect we'd have a lot more vegetarians, too. Then we have sentient bands of wolves wandering the forests, and skunks that are aware people are afraid of them. Maybe people start using monstrous vermin in the place of some work animals?

valadil
2013-08-25, 10:46 AM
I suspect we'd have a lot more vegetarians, too.

Does that include animals? If bird hears worm's cry for help and understands it, is he still going to eat worm? If you're assuming some humanoids take pity on newly sentient species, I'd have to assume some newly sentient species do the same as well. Seems like there'd be some food shortages until that got sorted out and I'd imagine a ton of backlash against druids whether or not it was known that they caused this.

Intriguing idea. I'd play this game.

SinsI
2013-08-25, 12:24 PM
Only animals? No Awakened Trees?

Choon
2013-08-25, 12:33 PM
I'm actually doing something similar to this, but its a natural phenomena and isn't happening all at once. It's like a disease, kinda. Some animals make it through alright and gain intelligence. Some don't and become feral, crazed beasts. If it hits a sentient being (like a human) it turns them into a nasty aberration. Its set the whole of the world on edge, making for some really good RP scenarios.

Mnemnosyne
2013-08-25, 11:02 PM
The result is either eating sentient and intelligent people becomes commonplace, or mass starvation. Of many species.

There are a lot of carnivorous animals that simply could not switch diets; their biology just doesn't support it. They would have to either kill and eat other sentient animals, or starve to death.

And even if they could all switch to being herbivores, that presents a new lack of food problem. Suddenly you've massively increased the number of herbivores out there. And removed any natural control on their populations. Populations explode, they strip the land bare of plants and any possible source of nutrition, then they starve and die off.

It would take years to coordinate a way to survive, unless the same epic ritual both altered carnivores to be herbivores and increased plant growth to the point where there was actually enough food to support the suddenly all-herbivore population.

JusticeZero
2013-08-25, 11:44 PM
Sounds like the kind of thing that only a city dweller could think up, honestly. I'm sure that there are some gods who might go for it, but people from the woods generally have a good idea that that sort of thing is pretty profoundly sadistic and destructive.

Mastikator
2013-08-26, 01:12 AM
The carnivores that can only sustain themselves on meat would start enslaving and farming other animals.

To be honest I think things would carry on as normal, except with the animals knowing that they're exploiting/being exploited.

TuggyNE
2013-08-26, 02:55 AM
Sounds like the kind of thing that only a city dweller could think up, honestly. I'm sure that there are some gods who might go for it, but people from the woods generally have a good idea that that sort of thing is pretty profoundly sadistic and destructive.

Yeah, this'd be a great thing for a cabal of blighters to pull off.

Setting aside the whole "blighters would never be powerful enough to get to Epic Spellcasting in the first place" consideration, at least.

Yuki Akuma
2013-08-26, 01:04 PM
Yeah, this'd be a great thing for a cabal of blighters to pull off.

Setting aside the whole "blighters would never be powerful enough to get to Epic Spellcasting in the first place" consideration, at least.

I dunno, enough epic levels and anyone who can cast spells can get Epic Spellcasting, eventually.

Even Paladins.

TuggyNE
2013-08-26, 06:07 PM
I dunno, enough epic levels and anyone who can cast spells can get Epic Spellcasting, eventually.

Even Paladins.

Yeah, but where are you going to find not just one Epic blighter, but a whole cabal? :smallbiggrin:

navar100
2013-08-26, 06:24 PM
The Chronicles of Narnia

Mabn
2013-08-26, 09:08 PM
throughout history people have killed each other for food literally all the time. Generally their go too response isn't "I wish I weren't sentient", so saying the animals would hate it is somewhat condescending. I think the most likely result would be for groups of animals to band together for in a localized area to protect scarce plant life from their neighbors. These bands would probably fall into a state of constant low-grade warfare to deal with population pressures with truly carnivorous creatures (which are fewer than you think) subsiding on insects carrion and enemy bands.

Doug Lampert
2013-08-26, 09:44 PM
The Chronicles of Narnia

Note that only a relative handful of animals in Narnia were speaking animals, and they tended to be larger than their natural kin and to wear clothes specifically so they wouldn't be hunted by accident.

As others have pointed out, EVERYTHING being awakened has lots of troubles, especially for predators (which the Pevensies were, remember that they were on a hunting trip when they found their way back after TLtWatW).

TuggyNE
2013-08-26, 10:17 PM
throughout history people have killed each other for food literally all the time.

Hrm. There are, indeed, a number of cannibalistic tribes, but to my knowledge most of them don't actually hunt other humans primarily for food; the eating is just a tag-on custom. In other words, they will eat someone already dead, but usually not kill them in order to eat.

Exceptions are generally for cases of extreme starvation.

Mabn
2013-08-26, 10:34 PM
Hrm. There are, indeed, a number of cannibalistic tribes, but to my knowledge most of them don't actually hunt other humans primarily for food; the eating is just a tag-on custom. In other words, they will eat someone already dead, but usually not kill them in order to eat.

Exceptions are generally for cases of extreme starvation.

I don't mean directly. There is a limited amount of food and killing someone else to take theirs is a time honored custom. If we're looking at D&Dverse even moreso.

SiuiS
2013-08-27, 02:06 AM
Does that include animals? If bird hears worm's cry for help and understands it, is he still going to eat worm? If you're assuming some humanoids take pity on newly sentient species, I'd have to assume some newly sentient species do the same as well. Seems like there'd be some food shortages until that got sorted out and I'd imagine a ton of backlash against druids whether or not it was known that they caused this.

Intriguing idea. I'd play this game.

Naw, wouldn't work. Sentient does not mean "gains human moral analogue". There are neutral (and evil, Dmittedly) humans who understand the law of the jungle as eat or be eaten; birds would just strike quicker (worms bein vermin wouldn't be affected :smalltongue:), superstitions would spring up about raptors amongst the rest of the forest, etc.

The secret of NIMH is probably closer to the truth than suddenly vegan carnivores.


We must remember, they are still animals.

Yuki Akuma
2013-08-27, 08:02 AM
Yeah, but where are you going to find not just one Epic blighter, but a whole cabal? :smallbiggrin:

You only really need one Epic Blighter - the rest can be non-Epic and still help out with the Epic spell.

awa
2013-08-27, 03:53 PM
i suspect it would be pretty brutal large herbivores like cattle that live in large groups would like systematically destroy all their competitors and predators.

animals like wolves and big cats would be forced to go after humans far more often for food because they rely on there normal prey being dumber and or less organised then they are.
humans would be in bad shape because most animals breed and mature much faster.

There are a finite amount of resources on a planet and if every animal wants human level standard of living then either we need a massive die off or a massive drop in the average standard of living.

I suspect this could be a fun setting but it would be a apocalyptic one

Segev
2013-08-27, 04:52 PM
Sounds like the kind of thing that only a city dweller could think up, honestly. I'm sure that there are some gods who might go for it, but people from the woods generally have a good idea that that sort of thing is pretty profoundly sadistic and destructive.

Or a cabal of evil druids attempting to create moral quandaries that cast any claimant to any non-evil alignment as potential hypocrites or villains.

Bonus points if an initial campaign arc is discovering this plot and having to decide if it's an evil deed that must be stopped...or if stopping it is, itself, a bad deed.

Segev
2013-08-27, 04:56 PM
As an additional thought, I just had the silly concept of bovine liches. They study magic for years, and allow themselves to be slaughtered for meat only to re-animate their own bones.

Wardog
2013-08-27, 05:34 PM
i suspect it would be pretty brutal large herbivores like cattle that live in large groups would like systematically destroy all their competitors and predators.

animals like wolves and big cats would be forced to go after humans far more often for food because they rely on there normal prey being dumber and or less organised then they are.
humans would be in bad shape because most animals breed and mature much faster.

There are a finite amount of resources on a planet and if every animal wants human level standard of living then either we need a massive die off or a massive drop in the average standard of living.

I suspect this could be a fun setting but it would be a apocalyptic one

That assumes the awakened animals get human-like desires aswell as human-like sentience.

Plus, if wolves and sheep both gained human-like intelligence, the wolves still have the advantages of speed, stealth, stamina, and sharp teeth, (while lacking opposable thumbs and the ability to make and wear armour), so I'm not sure they would necessarily abandon their normal prey for humans.


One major effect would presumably be that animals gained alignments. Pack animals would probably become "often/usually Lawful", while primary/obligate carnivores would get Usually/Always Evil respectively.

awa
2013-08-27, 06:04 PM
Sheep arnt a wolves natural prey but well go with that.
herd animals tend to live in much larger groups a wolf might be tougher then one sheep but if they all fight together the wolves will have a net loss.
not to mention the sheep want to wipe out the wolves while the wolves cant do the same or risk starvation so in a "war" the sheep have a nearly unbeatable advantage if all the wolves other prey animals agree to work together to wipe out the wolves it becomes even less fair.

And in the end the natural advantages of being a wolf is no match for the advantages of class levels.

Kid Jake
2013-08-27, 07:26 PM
I see it going very 'Animal Farm'. Only with less social commentary and more bear attacks.

johnbragg
2013-08-27, 09:42 PM
Still a cool concept, though, and if you limit it to one animal you solve the cannibalism/starvation problem.

Planet of the Squirrels? Armored Bears? Talking dogs and cats?

My pick would be racoons, because they have the manual dexterity to use tools. Now give them sentience and speech? Hoo boy.

Mabn
2013-08-27, 10:25 PM
Sheep arnt a wolves natural prey but well go with that.
herd animals tend to live in much larger groups a wolf might be tougher then one sheep but if they all fight together the wolves will have a net loss.
not to mention the sheep want to wipe out the wolves while the wolves cant do the same or risk starvation so in a "war" the sheep have a nearly unbeatable advantage if all the wolves other prey animals agree to work together to wipe out the wolves it becomes even less fair.

And in the end the natural advantages of being a wolf is no match for the advantages of class levels.

A sheep's greatest natural enemy isn't a wolf though, it's other sheep. And quite frankly any reasonably sized group of sheep can't drive wolves of their land because said wolves can run way faster and way farther a pick of anyone who strays.

awa
2013-08-27, 11:03 PM
since when are sheep a major danger to each other?

you forget the sheep are smart now they can set up patrols to make sure stragglers are few and far between. If the wolves flee a determined effort by the sheep the wolves still lose do you think the cows or the elk or the boars wont just do the same thing there is no where to run where every they go they will be hunted down and wiped out. wolves kill birds and mice as well so their are ready spies ones who that can likely can work alongside the sheep becuase they don't need to compete for food.

It will always be a numbers game and it will never be in the wolves favor if their are enough wolves in relation to prey animal to be anything but desperately fleeing for their life then they are or soon will be on the brink of starvation.

although now that i think about it one way a carnivore could survive would be as a mercenary serving a herd in it's battles with other herbivores over control of territory. particularly if the carnivore in question does not feed on it's benefactors.
Now that i think about it "smart" animals really get hurt hard by this many of them rely on being smarter then other animals as soon as every one is equally intelligent or nearly so they lose out hard. worse they are paying in calories and slow maturation for brains that the other animals are now getting for free.


edit also cubs cant run the birds and mice tell the nearest heard of large herbivores where the cubs are and either they fight and get wiped out by raw numbers or they abandon the cubs and flee and still get wiped out it just takes longer.

Rakaydos
2013-08-28, 12:00 AM
this comic may be relevant to the thread, though as they explain a bit later on, not EVERY creature is sapient, even of the same species, and sapients are expected to not eat sapiens.

http://shivae.net/vas/2002/09/08/vas-2/