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Pinjata
2015-06-04, 06:02 AM
Imagine a generic DnD world. Half are seas, other half shattered continents with rivers, lakes, mountains, large and lush forests. Only inhabitants are animals and unintelligent magical beast.

Then first race appears. In a small lagoon, ifrst aboleths arise. Soon they expand, splinter into different families, factions, empires, they enslave some of the land-dvellers. What would their expansion be like? What sort of skils/powers/magic we could expect for them to expand? How interested would they be in dryland? Would they go tothe depths or just stick to coastal waters?

After a millenia or two dragons appear. They appear on dry land, in the environment they are connected to. Not really empire-builders but relevant powers never the less. They form sort of proto-kingdoms - small regions, controlled by them. All hoard wealth, some hoard magical powers too, some seek trade, some knowledge. Would there be interaction among aboleth and newcomers? What sort?

Another millenia passes. In the deep forests, among the shadows of the trees, first elves appear. Definitely an empire builders, but generally good-aligned. I'd expect for bad dragons to seek help of aboleths to intervene in the "affairs of the land" and good dragons to cooperate with non-evil and environment-loving elves.

More time passes, antoher thousand years. Out of a great mountain ridge, dwarves appear. They fear the dragons, but greed and love for trade is a common trade. Xpansion, mining, cutting large swaths of forests - all these things start The Great Conflict - millenia long string of wars, skirmishes, ceasefires and truces with several Elven Empires, strewn over largest parts of Continents. I do not see how aboleths would care about them.

Giants form up some city-states. Their kingdoms are small and rather isolated.

Humans appear. Strange and volatile, unable to maintain stability, able to be manipulated, but cunning, they are used by pretty much any of the other four Powers in the World. They establish citiy-states, then kingdoms, then two empires, constantly wrecked with instability.

Orcs appear. Splendid, violent henchmen, brave enough to enter dwarven fortress-cities, to mercilessly oblierate elves and to sack human lands. Evil dragons like them, good dragons oppose them, many hire them for their ferocity and strenght. These are followed by last empire-building race, bugbears. In constrant to Orcs, Bugbear are violent, cunning and exceptionally disciplined. Best contestor for greatest empire there ever was.

What do you think of this concept? Any thought are welcome.

Khedrac
2015-06-04, 06:50 AM
Surprisingly, to me, a lot of what you are proposing just doesn't work...


Imagine a generic DnD world. Half are seas, other half shattered continents with rivers, lakes, mountains, large and lush forests. Only inhabitants are animals and unintelligent magical beast.
Good start.

Then first race appears. In a small lagoon, ifrst aboleths arise. Soon they expand, splinter into different families, factions, empires, they enslave some of the land-dvellers. What would their expansion be like? What sort of skils/powers/magic we could expect for them to expand? How interested would they be in dryland? Would they go tothe depths or just stick to coastal waters?
Who are they enslaving? If they are the first sentient race then they can domesticate but not enslave.
As for where they go - that depends on what you see them doing with their domesticated animals.

After a millenia or two dragons appear. They appear on dry land, in the environment they are connected to. Not really empire-builders but relevant powers never the less. They form sort of proto-kingdoms - small regions, controlled by them. All hoard wealth, some hoard magical powers too, some seek trade, some knowledge. Would there be interaction among aboleth and newcomers? What sort?
Where is the "wealth" coming from? Wealth is usually defined by a society and there only society so far is the Aboleths'. As an aquatic race it is unlikely that the aboleths will make anything metal. There my be some jewellery and art analogs, but would it be interesting to a dragon?
Why are the dragons keeping secret? - again, there is no-one to be secret from inland.
I can see some dragons wanting servants to herd animals for them, but as postulated they would have to do it themselves.

Another millenia passes. In the deep forests, among the shadows of the trees, first elves appear. Definitely an empire builders, but generally good-aligned. I'd expect for bad dragons to seek help of aboleths to intervene in the "affairs of the land" and good dragons to cooperate with non-evil and environment-loving elves.
Unless they develop a long way away from the aboleths and dragons they are going to start out as slaves and chattals of the others.
Even the good dragons are likely to see them as interlopers, albeit potentially useful ones.

More time passes, antoher thousand years. Out of a great mountain ridge, dwarves appear. They fear the dragons, but greed and love for trade is a common trade. Xpansion, mining, cutting large swaths of forests - all these things start The Great Conflict - millenia long string of wars, skirmishes, ceasefires and truces with several Elven Empires, strewn over largest parts of Continents. I do not see how aboleths would care about them.
Just what do the dragons have to trade (other than continued existence)?

Giants form up some city-states. Their kingdoms are small and rather isolated.
OK, with the problem that they are likely to be where the dragons already are.

Humans appear. Strange and volatile, unable to maintain stability, able to be manipulated, but cunning, they are used by pretty much any of the other four Powers in the World. They establish citiy-states, then kingdoms, then two empires, constantly wrecked with instability.

Orcs appear. Splendid, violent henchmen, brave enough to enter dwarven fortress-cities, to mercilessly oblierate elves and to sack human lands. Evil dragons like them, good dragons oppose them, many hire them for their ferocity and strenght. These are followed by last empire-building race, bugbears. In constrant to Orcs, Bugbear are violent, cunning and exceptionally disciplined. Best contestor for greatest empire there ever was.
The problems all latecomers have is there not already being someone in the place where they would otherwise develop.
Given an empty space then yes, but those tend to be rare if you leave a sapient race alone for a few millennia.

Sorry for the demolition job, I do have a number of constructive ideas but they depend on which way you would want to re-order things.

One possibility is that some (or most) of these races have come through from other worlds.
Other continents can work too, but need to be careful.

Also perhaps the first race or 2 is what the aboleths enslaved and the dragons dominated. The rise of the elves might have been what wiped them out (disease?)
Then the elves have not finished expanding (which is slow for elves) by the time humans and orcs etc. appear.

Also how long do you envisage elves and dragons living? Your entire timeline is only about 7,000 years. If a race has an average generation of 500 years (historians use 20 for humans) that is only 14 generations. If you start with a population of a few hundred at the dawn of the race, you will only have a single large town (if that) numbers-wise after 14 generations.

For the elves to dwarves, at only 1,000 years even for humans we are talking tribes and small settlements not empires and cities.

Maglubiyet
2015-06-04, 07:27 AM
Sounds good, except for maybe the timescale. Id put it at tens or hundreds of thousands of years between some of them. Where are the new races coming from? Other worlds/planes? Are they creations of the existing races? Naturally arising?

One thing that's always bothered me about this sequence, which is similar to the Forgotten Realms', is that most of the aboleths' abilities are wasted if they don't have lesser intelligent races to enslave. Maybe they lived a peaceful idyllic existence before the new races and only developed their abilities in response to the newcomers?

Also, without the industry of humanoid miners and craftsmen, what wealth were the dragons hoarding? Did they dig raw ore out the ground themselves then melt it into slag?

EDIT: ninja'ed by Khedrac, who made a much better argument!

Khedrac
2015-06-04, 08:37 AM
EDIT: ninja'ed by Khedrac, who made a much better argument!
Given how long that took to type, how on <insert world of your campaign here> did I manage to swordsage you?

One idea I quite like is that most of the races are much the same age, the order given above is the order in which they emerged as players on the world stage. Prior to each emergence, they are there but pretty much feral except where enslaved/whatevered by another race.

One interesting point in HG Wells' history of the world is that the ancient kingdom of Sargon the Great (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargon_of_Akkad) (24th century BC citystate) is actually about the mid-point of human city-dwelling despite it being one of the earliest entries in recorded history.
Being exploited as slaves gives any race a great incentive to do something and free themselves (even if it doesn't always work).

veti
2015-06-04, 03:16 PM
Who are they enslaving? If they are the first sentient race then they can domesticate but not enslave.

Each other? Humans do it all the time.


Where is the "wealth" coming from? Wealth is usually defined by a society and there only society so far is the Aboleths'. As an aquatic race it is unlikely that the aboleths will make anything metal. There my be some jewellery and art analogs, but would it be interesting to a dragon?
Why are the dragons keeping secret? - again, there is no-one to be secret from inland.

Again, you're forgetting "each other". Humans keep secrets from each other - why shouldn't dragons? As for wealth, the aboleths might have generated all kinds of hoardable stuff, including gold (which lasts pretty well even in seawater).


The problems all latecomers have is there not already being someone in the place where they would otherwise develop.
Given an empty space then yes, but those tend to be rare if you leave a sapient race alone for a few millennia.

This is a problem, yes. To make it work, you have to assume that each race, for some reason, sticks fairly firmly to its own niche. Aboleths will occupy pretty much all the aquatic territory, with the possible exception of any lakes/inland seas and related systems that are completely cut off from the main body of their world. Dragons like mountains. Elves live in forests, and seldom venture outside them. Dwarves... are going to be in trouble with the dragons, which may be why they evolve underground.

When humans appear... they'll spread as far as they can, including crowding elves and dwarves out of their established niches in some places. Cue conflict and resentment. However, the aboleths might keep them away from the seas. In which case, the humans will be pretty much stuck on one continent, and there may be plenty of room on other continents for orcs to appear and establish independently.

I'm also troubled by the timescales, though. Are these races simply created by the gods, out of nothing? Or is there some sort of evolutionary, growing process, so that by the time the first thing that can clearly be called "human" grows up, it already has an extended family and knows who its parents and grandparents are?

Remember demographics. For elves, 1000 years is about 6, 7 generations, or ~150 years to us. If they start off with, say, 5000 elves spontaneously created out of tree bark or whatever it is, then even at the most generous assumptions - low mortality, zero significant occurrences of disease, famine or war - then after 1000 years there are still going to be well under 1 million of them. They're not going to spread very far in that time. Humans would get further, but remember that in our world it took thousands of years for them to spread out of Africa into Europe and Asia, and many thousands more to make it across oceans. And if the oceans were no-go areas to humans (because aboleths), then isolated, unpopulated islands and continents could remain that way pretty much indefinitely.

Hawkstar
2015-06-04, 03:34 PM
Imagine a generic DnD world. Half are seas, other half shattered continents with rivers, lakes, mountains, large and lush forests. Only inhabitants are animals and unintelligent magical beast.

Then first race appears. In a small lagoon, ifrst aboleths arise. Soon they expand, splinter into different families, factions, empires, they enslave some of the land-dvellers. What would their expansion be like? What sort of skils/powers/magic we could expect for them to expand? How interested would they be in dryland? Would they go tothe depths or just stick to coastal waters?Okay... why are the aboleths coming after the creation of the world? . They should be the absolute first thing ever - hell, even before the Seas and Continents are separated.

Pinjata
2015-06-05, 07:10 AM
Allrighty guys, splendid work (as usual). Here is the edited version also with giants being moved before the dragons and stopped just when we need to reconsider how would aboleth interact with Fire Giant Empire.

Imagine a generic DnD world. Half are seas, other half shattered continents with rivers, lakes, mountains, large and lush forests. Only inhabitants are animals and unintelligent magical beast.

Then first race appears. In a small lagoon, first aboleths arise. Soon they expand, splinter into different families, factions, underwater empires. Dryland is pretty uninteresting to them. All of relevance is happening in the shallow seas. Great cities, great empires, great aboleth heroes.

Ten thousand years later, giants appear. Some stay in clans, some stay in families, some even roam the lands alone. All but fire giants. Fire giants dig and build and till the fields and use pack beasts. First wars start. Only true opposition to Fire giant empire are cloud giants and others of the kind. Eventually, Fire giant empire stretches over most of known world, but time takes its toll. Empire falls into two, three, six parts, is reunited, splintered in kingdoms again. This is also the reason kingdoms of other giants survive and are not absorbed by Fire giants' Empire. Firm Fire giant empire could take all dryland.

Question is: Would and if so, how, Fire Giants interact with Aboleth?

Khedrac
2015-06-05, 12:01 PM
Allrighty guys, splendid work (as usual). Here is the edited version also with giants being moved before the dragons and stopped just when we need to reconsider how would aboleth interact with Fire Giant Empire.

Imagine a generic DnD world. Half are seas, other half shattered continents with rivers, lakes, mountains, large and lush forests. Only inhabitants are animals and unintelligent magical beast.

Then first race appears. In a small lagoon, first aboleths arise. Soon they expand, splinter into different families, factions, underwater empires. Dryland is pretty uninteresting to them. All of relevance is happening in the shallow seas. Great cities, great empires, great aboleth heroes.

Ten thousand years later, giants appear. Some stay in clans, some stay in families, some even roam the lands alone. All but fire giants. Fire giants dig and build and till the fields and use pack beasts. First wars start. Only true opposition to Fire giant empire are cloud giants and others of the kind. Eventually, Fire giant empire stretches over most of known world, but time takes its toll. Empire falls into two, three, six parts, is reunited, splintered in kingdoms again. This is also the reason kingdoms of other giants survive and are not absorbed by Fire giants' Empire. Firm Fire giant empire could take all dryland.
Interesting.

Question is: Would and if so, how, Fire Giants interact with Aboleth?
Probably very little interaction! Aboleths are strictly aquatic and Fire giants (of all giants) have the least to do with wet places.

I can see aboleths enslaving other giants that wander too near aboleth strongholds, but the fire giants I don't see (except perhaps odd individuals/groups) going near them. Similarly the few aboleths that actually go near fire giant lands (where we are probably talking quite small watercourses) might cause a bit of trouble, but one aboleth v. a fire giant community will probably die or be chased away - possibly spawning stories of dangerous monsters in the water.
The two groups could go quite a long time regarding each other as myths (I means civilised slaves? - Come off it, surface dwellers are not capable of that sort of co-operation.)

Pinjata
2015-06-07, 08:33 AM
Ok. So so far we have this:


Imagine a generic DnD world. Half are seas, other half shattered continents with rivers, lakes, mountains, large and lush forests. Only inhabitants are animals and unintelligent magical beast.

Then first race appears. In a small lagoon, first aboleths arise. Soon they expand, splinter into different families, factions, underwater empires. Dryland is pretty uninteresting to them. All of relevance is happening in the shallow seas. Great cities, great empires, great aboleth heroes.

Ten thousand years later, giants appear. Some stay in clans, some stay in families, some even roam the lands alone. All but fire giants. Fire giants dig and build and till the fields and use pack beasts. First wars start. Only true opposition to Fire giant empire are cloud giants and others of the kind. Eventually, Fire giant empire stretches over most of known world, but time takes its toll. Empire falls into two, three, six parts, is reunited, splintered in kingdoms again. This is also the reason kingdoms of other giants survive and are not absorbed by Fire giants' Empire. Firm Fire giant empire could take all dryland.

As for aboleth, there is really little interaction with Fire Giant Empire at any point. As far as each other go, they are "mythical boogeymen". Adventurers of each kind know the other species is real, but these rumors are taken with a large amount of doubt in any "civilised" (Fire Gian or aboleth) region.

So. Next, Tiamat pops into the World, spreading thousands of Dragon Acorns over the world, rapidly followed by Bahamut, who does the same in turn. Tiamat spawns chromatic dragons, Bahamut metallic. Spawned creatures, even if many, are not much more then a small licards with wings and peppery brath. It takes hundreds of years for dragons to reach any global significance. And even then - most dragons are not interested in empires and stuff. Some even emulate giants' families - they became jarls, clan leaders, being strong, wise and long living. Some become advisors to giant kings, some even take a job of tax-men. They organize imperial tax collecting and build some magnificent palaces from their share.

What do you guys think? :P

Ettina
2015-06-07, 09:01 AM
Who are they enslaving? If they are the first sentient race then they can domesticate but not enslave.

Going from Int 2 free-willed creature to a mindless servant is still a pretty drastic change. (I say as my cat and dog argue loudly in the background.)

Pinjata
2015-06-09, 05:36 AM
So ... next on the list would be elves ... Let's say they are "planted" in the deep forests. Their first real competitors are green dragons, nasty creatures. But forest elves should not be much of an empire builders. But we could expect, after a while, for elves to start building kingdoms - carving out pieces of Fire Giants empire that got abandoned, poorly mantained or rebelious. I still see Fire Giant empire as dominant force, just now it is dotted with some dragon Client kingdoms, a few major forests got taken over by elves and there are two or three struggling elven kingdoms. Do aboleth come into the equasion at this point? How?

And if we roll the time on three or four millenia and include really expansionist elves, pron on getting as much magical power as they can - I guess we could say an era of Elven empires could come into being? enormous Elven empires taking over most of known world, except for Fire giants' Heartland and some other strongholds?

Blake Hannon
2015-06-09, 08:04 AM
So ... next on the list would be elves ... Let's say they are "planted" in the deep forests. Their first real competitors are green dragons, nasty creatures. But forest elves should not be much of an empire builders. But we could expect, after a while, for elves to start building kingdoms - carving out pieces of Fire Giants empire that got abandoned, poorly mantained or rebelious. I still see Fire Giant empire as dominant force, just now it is dotted with some dragon Client kingdoms, a few major forests got taken over by elves and there are two or three struggling elven kingdoms. Do aboleth come into the equasion at this point? How?

And if we roll the time on three or four millenia and include really expansionist elves, pron on getting as much magical power as they can - I guess we could say an era of Elven empires could come into being? enormous Elven empires taking over most of known world, except for Fire giants' Heartland and some other strongholds?

All the competition between dragons, elves, and fire giants pushes the other giant types (and some weaker dragons) toward the coasts. These newcomers begin fishing and developing the coasts on a large scale, which infuriates the aboleth who have long seen these resources as their own.

Pinjata
2015-06-11, 03:56 AM
All the competition between dragons, elves, and fire giants pushes the other giant types (and some weaker dragons) toward the coasts. These newcomers begin fishing and developing the coasts on a large scale, which infuriates the aboleth who have long seen these resources as their own.
This is a really cool idea. I guess ableth would deem coasts as their own ... Hmmm probably from the start. So I guess first conflict would start with Fire giants? Since Fire Giant Empire is deemed highly expansionist, especially in his first era.

Also, what magic beasts/animals would be cool for aboleth to enslave?

Ettina
2015-06-14, 01:59 PM
This is a really cool idea. I guess ableth would deem coasts as their own ... Hmmm probably from the start. So I guess first conflict would start with Fire giants? Since Fire Giant Empire is deemed highly expansionist, especially in his first era.

Also, what magic beasts/animals would be cool for aboleth to enslave?

Orcas, giant squid, and so forth?

Arbane
2015-06-15, 04:38 PM
Going to have any of the other water-dwelling races show up?