3.5 Island Ecology

[Borntoolate]

First of all, hi! *waves* Long time reader of the comics, lately discovered the forums when searching world building stuff, thought I'd register today and I have my first question/discussion

I'm currently DMing a campaign in a Homebrew lowish magic/dark ages setting. I have a lot of the 'big' stuff sorted (geography, story arch for the campaign, ect) sorted and we're about 3 sessions into play at the moment, nearing the end of the first 'mini-module'.

For the next section of the game, I wanted to introduce something new. I have some experienced players and some new players (50/50 mix), and to date the adventures have been pretty stock D&D fare- a defend-the-farm, a dungeon crawl, and now the party (with npc assistance) is taking on an old fort occupied by some goblins and (not that they've discovered this yet) their Nemisis, the Big Arch Evil Dude who will be the antagonist for this campaign.

At the end of this adventure, they'll be sent off from their small, isolated town up north through the inland sea (think something like the Med, but more open to the sea on the western side and with some large islands in the middle) to the city of Shipstead, a city to the north built on trade + fishing. Along the journey they'll be hit by the Dread Pirate Klak-Klak, their ship attacked and they most likely taken prisoner.


WHICH finally brings me to my question: I'm building a nice little island for the Pirates to be based on. Aside from the 30-odd pirates + some slaves (gotta have a slave girl or 3, otherwise what's the point of pirating?), the island will be devoid of intelligent life. But if the party escapes and DOESN'T take a boat, I'd like them to have more than an empty island to deal with.

Geographically there is an old volcano on the south-eastern corner, from which a ridge line extends north. The eastern side drops sharply to cliffs, the western slopes more gently. There is a beach about 1.5k long on the western shore, which ends in a section of mangroves/mouth of a small estuary up which the pirates row their longboats. The pirates have made their hope up the estuary at the fresh-water line, after which it becomes too narrow to row. The estuary itself ends in a fairly placid lagoon, formed by a sandbar some 600 meters out. The sandbar is traversal by the shallow-draft longships the pirates use only at high tide, at low tide the bar is exposed and too waterlogged to allow portage over it.

So, what kind of D&D monsters fit my island's ecology? What do you all think of the island itself? Should I break out the scanner and publish the map for anyone who wants to transplant it?

:D

BTL.

[Haldir]

Plants, insects, and reptilian animal monsters are the way I would lean, since sometimes plants get less play than other monster types. It'd be helpful if we could know the parties level and composition, so we could give some 3.5 specific recommendations.

For a more horror feel, some haunted-forest type monsters would work well. Dryads, non-humanoid druids, fey, and other nature-spirits could also be hiding on the Island, unbeknownst to even the pirates.

Additionally, I love the "Most Dangerous Game" feel that your potential Island adventure would have.

Edit- I just had another thought that would work out awesome, put a shapechanger in the Island with them, trying to slowly turn them against each other/into shapechanger food.

[Borntoolate]

I want the island to be a little more natural, not sure on the shape changer

I had some thinking, and ddecided to base it a bit on the islands around indonesia; some saltwater crocodiles (albeit small ones, living more off turtles and fish) in the mangroves, and as one traverses higher up the island; MONITORS!

Nothing says 'don't go into the woods alone' like a 6 foot long, highly aggressive fast scaly ambush predator! Wild pigs and the like would also serve as the natural prey for these beasts :D

As to plant types.... hmm, have to have a look at that one.


Party as it stands at the moment is 6 players, all level 3 or only a few hundred xp away from it. They'll be lvl 3 when they hit the island. 1 sorcerer, 1 cleric, 3 fighters and a barbarian.

[Haldir]

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/assassinVine.htm
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/fungus.htm
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/swarm.htm
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/giantWasp.htm

Just some quick recommendations for you. I'd definitely go with something insect-like if you want to emulate tropical environments, as insects and the diseases they carry tend to be some of the biggest ecological issues of these areas.

[Everyl]

I don't have any specific monster advice, but in general, don't forget to account for animals that live on the island but hunt elsewhere. There would probably be lots of sea birds nesting along the coast, plus land-based predators that feed on therm. Other species might migrate through on their way to more distant lands. In a fantasy setting, there are probably be fantasy creatures that could fill these niches and also be potentially dangerous (or valuable) to adventurers, but I don't have the familiarity with 3.5e monsters it would take to say just what.

[Hexalan]

Local geography is very important for a small ecosystem like an island, much more so than in other settings. Because it is cut off from the rest of the world, the fewer ecological niches are as filled as they can be. Wildlife will be very prevalent and very adapted to their surroundings, and will be found everywhere. Small disruptions on life (like the PC's kill a pack of wolves) can have huge repercussions (deer population expands with no natural predators, devours all vegetation, deer-feeding parasites grow, spreading disease, everything dies, etc.) which come to bit the PC's in the butt later on.

Consider plants. The volcano likely provides lots of good soil, and plants are less reliant on other organisms to keep them alive.

The volcano might have some interesting things in it too. Subterranean burrowers in the long-frozen lava-tunnels, quasi-fire-elementals in the depths of the magma core, etc.

[Draconi Redfir]

for an interesting take on the island, i would say maybe try to focus on either only one kingdom of animals (mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds, etc) and have them just eat one another, or perhaps have the food chain flipped around a bit to make things more interesting, for example have a species of giant insect be the dominant predictor, feeding on birds and mammals and anything else it can get it's claws on.

while you might not finish it by the time this island comes around in your game, I’d recommend looking up a book called "Fracture" at some point, it's set around an island made up entirely of crustaceans, relatives to lobsters and shrimp and the like, all of them predatory to some extent, feeding on one another constantly in huge feeding frenzy swarms, and only surviving as a species due to huge numbers and being born pregnant. The only thing stopping them from taking over the planet is a severe salt allergy, preventing them from entering the ocean surrounding the island. It also has some plants on it that are really animals that just look like plants, but that might be pushing it.

hmmm... actually, an island of Aberrations might be interesting to see, the most-intelligent lifeforms on it could be Chokers, which aren't all that smart to begin with, just collecting random doodads and treasures that look cool to them in tiny nooks and crannies in trees and caves. aside from that throw in some darkmantles, some gricks, have a very thick treeline create a "roof" over the island to make it suitably dark to suit them, throw in some ooze piles, and either have the lot of them carnivorously feed on one another or find/homebrew/house rule a few of them as herbivores. perhaps there could be tree-hugging oozes which feed on sunlight or leaves in the tree branches, other aberrations eat the ooze that drips off of them, and others eat those, and so on. make it interesting and have fun with it!

[Serpentine]

Island ecology can be a lot of fun. They're like their own little evolutionary laboratories, with some really weird stuff. Some examples of relatively common evolutionary quirks:
- Miniaturisation. For some reason, you can get really small versions of things, like tiny little elephants. How about those monitor lizards are actually miniature dragons?
- An explosion of biodiversity from just one species. The classic example of that is Darwin's finches on Galapagos, where a bunch of one species of finch were blown onto the island and then split in dramatic ways to fill a bunch of shiny new niches. I can't think of any particular D&D monsters to play with that... But basically you'd take a thing, and split it in weird ways. ...Ooo! How about a whole lot of super-specialised unicorns? :smallbiggrin:
- Weirdly unique species. Things like marine iguanas, the only ocean-going lizard in the world. Maaaaaybe... the island could be infested with stirges that live on the salt that's excreted by the mangrove trees. That sorta thing. I think stirges should totally be on there anyway.

[Draconi Redfir]

- An explosion of biodiversity from just one species. The classic example of that is Darwin's finches on Galapagos, where a bunch of one species of finch were blown onto the island and then split in dramatic ways to fill a bunch of shiny new niches. I can't think of any particular D&D monsters to play with that... But basically you'd take a thing, and split it in weird ways. ...Ooo! How about a whole lot of super-specialised unicorns? :smallbiggrin:

they wouldn't fit in his island as he said no sentiant races, but a good example of this could be Goblinoids. Say only Hobgoblins existed at first on a smal lchain of islands, then some moved south and became goblins, some moved north and became bugbears, some goblins then became nilbogs and Norkers while a few of the bugbears grew into a species of Yetii, and some hobgoblins in the meanwhile maybe had annother group splinter off somewhere wich branched out into humans, dwarves, and elves.

could be a pretty interesting setting in on itself actually:smalltongue:

[sktarq]

A few things.
On average Small animals get larger-see things like the Baleric Rabbits and Certain South Pacific Rats for example
Large animals get smaller - see the various mini pachyderms (Cyriot, Cretan, and Sardinian Strait-Tusked Elephants, Sicilian Mastadon, Channel and Wendel Island Mammoth (one wooly one not).
Mammals USUALLY get smaller
Reptiles and bird USUALLY get bigger (see giant tortoises (a classic but poor example as they used to live on continents as well but died out mostly in the last 10K years), Moas, Monitor Lizards, Giant Swans, Elephant Bird (Rukhs), Giant Hawaiian Geese......
Wikipedia has pretty good articles on Island Gigantism and such

Also reskins for fun. Use the standard 3.5 Raptor but reskin it a unique giant flightless crow cassowary cross and your players will fear for their characters. Replace the basic idea of pigs as your baseline prey species and describe them as mini rhinos. Throw in an odd colour, basic template and/or an unexpected movement or environment effect. Climbing crocodile -they existed in new Caladonia until people showed up-And the Cuban Croc can run on land better than the others and was regularly found far away from water.
Finally just because it has no sentient Life now doesn't mean that it never did. Undead - either from old shipwrecks, other pirates burying treasure, Lost cultures, Inteligent mummy looking for a place to be alone after tomb was destroyed, Wizard seeking solitude could all leave such things.