Societies Developing Alongside Supernatural Creatures

[ThePurple]

One of the problems that I have with a lot of campaign settings is that necromancy and the undead are treated as a taboo, largely because our own culture treats people that interact with the dead in much the same way. The reaction in many campaigns to the appearance of a zombie is basically the same as what a person would have if they suddenly saw one appear in real life. This makes sense if necromancy and/or the undead starting appearing after civilization had already developed those mores around death.

This started thinking about how a society that actually developed alongside the undead would actually operate.

From the undead perspective, many undead have to prey upon the living in order to not become truly dead (whether it's blood, flesh, emotions, etc.). They can either take it by force, making the living their enemies and basically asking for them to develop methods of fighting off and killing them, or they can attempt to develop a peaceful method by which to acquire that which keeps them moving/sane, most likely by offering their something in exchange.

For example, consider vampires. They're stronger, tougher, faster, and all around better physically than the living are, not to mention possessing a plethora of potent supernatural abilities. However, they also have some very specific weaknesses that the living can easily exploit. A vampire could choose to just prowl the countryside and drain dry any living creature they find whenever they're thirsty, hoping that the living creatures don't decide to find someone to kill the vampire. Conversely, the vampire could offer its considerable physical skills to the living in the form of protection in exchange for the living people of the village freely offering a non-lethal amount of blood to the vampire on a regular basis. Honestly, assuming the vampire isn't stupid, the second option seems a lot more sensible, even for an evil creature (since they're getting what they want/need while exposing themselves to much less danger).

The same could be true for almost any intelligent undead. Wights need to consume the flesh of the living, so why not have wights provide services to the living in exchange for the right to consume their dead. They might need to be travelers, wandering from village to village since a single small village wouldn't have the necessary death rate in order to satisfy a wight, but they could basically develop a reasonably peaceful coexistence with the living.

This all hinges, of course, on two major factors: that intelligent undead need to consume something from the living and that these needs are limited in degree such that a reasonable population of living creatures could actually fill that need.

So, with that in mind, I'm basically creating the following rules for undead to operate under:

Unintelligent undead don't require anything beyond whatever animated them in the first place so none of this applies to them
All intelligent undead require some resource exclusive to living creatures
Said resource is required in on a regular basis that generally correlates with the rarity of that resource (wights only need to consume the flesh of the living at roughly the death rate of the human population within their travel capabilities)
If they do not get enough of this resource in time, they slowly degenerate, decreasing in intelligence and losing control while still possessing their various supernatural abilities, until, after a sufficient period, they become feral
This degeneration cannot be recovered from. Once lost, that intelligence and control is permanently lost


With this in mind, I extrapolated a culture with undead forming an upper class that rules over the living population in a generally benevolent manner. They're an upper class basically because they are superior to the living in most ways and can live long enough to acquire vast wealth and knowledge. They're benevolent not because they are actually of a good alignment but because, if they weren't, they would be overthrown by the significantly more populous living population.

Within this culture, different undead generally fulfill different roles.

Wights and other flesh eaters are most often merchant folk and bankers. Initially, they started as wandering merchants because the population that could supply them with sufficient corpses to fill their needs were spread over a large area and they need to eat regularly (not to mention that they tend to be rather repulsive and are not really invited to stay for long periods of time). The fact that wights are significantly more dangerous than the average living merchant also means that they were much more capable of defending themselves than the average merchant. When cities began popping up and sufficiently large numbers of living creatures were living in a small enough area, the wealthiest merchant wights became bankers, lending money both to acquire more wealth but also take flesh from living creatures that default on those loans (e.g. if you default, the banker wight is legally allowed to come over and take your arm or leg or even child). Wights do not like feral wights mainly because a feral wight eats way more than it actually needs to, reducing the available food for everyone else.

Vampires and other undead the subsist off of blood are basically knights and nobles. Initially, they joined with villages in order to provide protection from the stuff that goes bump in the night in exchange for blood and protection while they slept. Eventually, they became the oldest and wealthiest people in their villages, and, unlike most other undead, they still looked like living creatures, albeit pale ones and became nobles in that way. Vampires regard themselves as protectors and caretakers of the living, like a shepherd views his flock. They are especially wary of feral vampires because, not only do they prey upon the charges of the vampires, but they give vampires in general a bad name.

Ghosts, shadows, and most incorporeal undead live off of the emotions of the living, with positive emotions like happiness and love providing significantly more sustenance than negative emotions like fear. As such, ghosts are in the happiness business, often acting as matchmakers, event planners, and owners of brothels and drug dens. Many ghosts actually pay to be present at major events in the lives of the living while others are more than happy to basically become the "house ghost" for a family, which they serve and keep happy in order to get a constant supply of happiness. Feral ghosts resort to the traditional "scare people as much as possible" because they're not really capable of the empathy and forethought necessary to make people happy. Fear is easy to generate; happiness, not so much.

Liches and many other ascendant undead (e.g. those undead that mortals transform themselves into in order to achieve immortality or greater power) feed off of esoteric mystical energies, such as souls or magical energies, though, thankfully, they need to feed the least often of all of the undead. They often take the role of archivists, elders, and repositories of knowledge in large cities in exchange for the souls of criminals and other perpetrators of capital offenses. While a lich could feasibly live as a hermit because they don't need to feed nearly as often as other undead (one soul can last a year), they are also some of the most feared. A large city that is loyal to a lich provides an excellent power base and high level of social acceptance in exchange for the occasional bit of advice, final judgement on legal matters, protection from invaders, and anything else that an ancient superintelligent magical powerhouse could provide (within reason; you don't want to bother your city's lich with something trivial and most people probably wouldn't have access to the lich in the first place). Without a city to provide them with a degree of social legitimacy, they're liable to get adventurers coming to take care of the "wild lich" that kidnaps and sucks the soul out of innocent people. Liches very rarely go feral because they only have to eat rarely and can prepare for those times when they will need to feed. Because it takes a great deal of magic to become a lich in the first place, they also have the knowledge and ability store souls and magical energy for later consumption, allowing them to save up for a "rainy day" when they experience a windfall.

Any of the undead in question can and probably are evil in alignment, but they don't really go about abusing the living populous because it just doesn't make sense to do so. Evil isn't stupid. It's selfish and vindictive and cruel, but you can do that all of that while making sure that the humans living under and alongside you don't see you as a monster (especially if they see you as outright useful).

In this same vein, I started thinking about what cultures that developed alongside other (intelligent) supernatural creatures would look like. How would the presence of a dragon cause a civilization to develop (assuming the dragon doesn't just take over; it's important to consider that, in dragons are vastly outnumbered by living creatures and, if a dragon pissed off enough of them, they could actually put up a fight)? What about a civilization that develops alongside the fey (rather than apart from and tangential to it), oozes (someone else on this forum mentioned a campaign setting where oozes are incorporated into every day life as tooth cleaners/mouth wash, waste disposal, and all kinds of interesting mundane tasks), demons, angels, elementals, or intelligent constructs (could a mortal civilization actually develop in the presence of maruts or would the maruts simply impose their own social structure upon the mortals)?

One of the biggest things to consider is the WoD/Dresden Files view of a lot of these types of creatures wherein, individually, mortal creatures are fragile and weak, but there are a helluva lot more of them than there are of the others and, if they ever got organized and angry, they could take out any of them. Assuming that these creatures don't just hide themselves away (WoD and Dresden both took this route) and actually take part in society, what would those societies look like?

[MrZJunior]

Would litches be interested in expanding their reign to other cities? It seems like it would not advantage them much. If most other cities are protected by other litches it would be quite difficult for the mortal inhabitants of a city to conquer their neighbors. I think the most common political organization in such a scenario would be the city state.

[Nobot]

I like your ideas on the society that developed alongside the Undead. It's an approach I hadn't thought about yet!

There was also a thread on a society ruled by dragons on here (link (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?471929-I-for-one-welcome-our-new-dragon-overlords!)) that was pretty good, and I read the one on slimes as well, which sounded great.

I think one of the key issues with such societies, as well as the one with the Undead that you have come up with, is that a suppressed group (if intelligent) will eventually lash out at its overlords. Whether or not the Undead/Dragons/Fey/etc. are benevolent and really do offer a better alternative than both species being enemies, I feel it is simply in the nature of an intelligent species to not accept being suppressed for long, especially when suppressed to the extent that one part of society literally feeds on the other. This could be an interesting theme to play around with in any such world (whether it's the humans resisting the Undead or Dragons, or the intelligent slimes' (are there any?) revolt against those who would use them as toothpaste).

[LudicSavant]

iZombie explored the "Undead must eat brains to remain sentient or become permanently feral" approach, which has some interesting societal implications (though I think you can go further than they did with it, especially in a fantasy setting where this stuff is all out in the open already instead of something that just emerged on Earth).

Hiryuu did a lovely post about this for illithids a while back.


Let's talk about Illithids, this'll be fun. According to The Illithiad (shush, bear with me), a mind flayer needs one brain of a month to stay alive - that's bare minimum - and it needs to be from an intelligent creature with the ability to reason (no using Int 4 critters, the mind flayer needs meat). Smart and clever brains taste better. We are told they keep slaves for this, or make raids.

This means one mind flayer, at minimum, needs to kill 12 people a year. Now, since the brains have to be adult brains, they need a maturation period of 16-17 years or more. That means the minimum brain input a mind flayer needs to get to a given brain is about 150 brains. That's a lot of raiding or slave raising. Illithiad also says there's ~100 or more illithids in a given city or town run by them, on top of what the elder brain eats (we'll ignore it for a moment). That's 15,000 brains over the course of 16 years, which may not seem like much, but that's the bare minimum - it's like forcing your entire population to live on unseasoned instant ramen for a decade and a half. In order for your population to maintain that level of consumption, you should probably have about ten times that - you need breeders and educators (you want your brains smart, they need to be tasty) and then you need to keep up their maintenance - feeding them and pumping away their waste is a big job. You also need to house them, can't keep them in cages, it makes for horrible food.

Basically what this means is that you might have a small group of illithids in charge of a huge city-cult devoted to them and devoted to producing smart, intelligent members of the populace who might even petition to be eaten, on top of the rabble-rousers and troublemakers (this is probably why the ancient Gith had high enough numbers to stage a coup and win). Welcome to the city of mind flayers, where health care is free, education is robust and fun, but hey, don't break the law.

In my own settings I always try to put some thought into how things would develop alongside fantastical influences. I might have time to post some examples later.

[ThePurple]

Would litches be interested in expanding their reign to other cities? It seems like it would not advantage them much.

I don't really think most liches would be all that interested in expanding their power base to include other cities, mainly because I always imagine liches as being obsessed with amassing magical power and looking down on political or physical might. That's not to say that there couldn't be or have been a lich who sought to create his own empire or nation-state. The problem with that is that empires and nation-states tend to attract adventurers, especially when the undead overlords have to clamp down on civil unrest.


If most other cities are protected by other litches it would be quite difficult for the mortal inhabitants of a city to conquer their neighbors. I think the most common political organization in such a scenario would be the city state.

I agree with this, thought I don't think that most city-states would be protected by liches. Liches should be rare because it takes a lot of money, knowledge, and magical skill to become one. I could see a few cities hosting liches, and, based off of that, I could actually imagine other cities attempting to recruit liches to come to their city (whether it be a "free" lich that lives on its own or a lich that is already living in a given city and could be wooed over with the promise of more support/protection or less distractions from the community).


I think one of the key issues with such societies, as well as the one with the Undead that you have come up with, is that a suppressed group (if intelligent) will eventually lash out at its overlords. Whether or not the Undead/Dragons/Fey/etc. are benevolent and really do offer a better alternative than both species being enemies, I feel it is simply in the nature of an intelligent species to not accept being suppressed for long, especially when suppressed to the extent that one part of society literally feeds on the other.

The question then has to be asked as to what it means to be suppressed/oppressed and whether the population even views itself as being suppressed/oppressed. Serfs in medieval Europe didn't rise up largely because they didn't really view themselves as an oppressed population (we view them that way *now*, but, back then, they just accepted it as their lot in life). Political upheaval was basically the domain of those that already had large amounts of political power and generally only occurred when there was a destabilizing influence on the situation (like the death of the ruler or an invasion).

Something to think about is that, in the modern (first) world, even though a vast majority wealth and power is consolidated within a very small portion of the population that actively leverages that wealth in order to maintain it and their power base (e.g. trying to prevent movement within the social strata), there is a view that, with enough luck, work, and education, that you can actually move up in the world. If the undead rulers of city state allow for entry into the undead "upper class" (such as including rules that allow vampires to create other vampires with permission, whether as a reward for services rendered or as part of marriage; liches would also represent a method of social mobility since they're basically at the very top of the social structure and anyone can become one as long as they accumulate everything needed to become one) and people believe that they could actually benefit from it (even if, statistically, it's basically impossible) there's very little likelihood of there being a rebellion of any kind.

Happy people don't rebel. As long as the undead overlords ensure that the people are content with their lot in life and don't *feel* oppressed, their power base is basically assured.

Keep in mind, one of the fundamental aspects of this construct is that the undead do not simply prey upon the living. Wights either buy or have legal authority to claim flesh from the living due to agreements that the living willingly entered into. Vampires purchase or are freely given blood from living creatures. Ghosts basically go out of their way to make people happy in order to get what they need. Liches are probably the only undead that *could* basically prey upon the living, but their needs so rarely need to be fulfilled and their interests so isolated from the common people that they don't really have a reason to risk upsetting the status quo by doing so.

In this sense, the living aren't having anything taken away from them. They are giving something in exchange. It's just like someone who gives blood in order to get the $10 from the blood bank or when people, historically, sold bodies to medical schools for dissection. The only difference is that these exchanges are going to satisfy the needs of the undead rather than the needs of the living, and, if the living basically see the undead as just as legitimate kinds of existence rather than as monsters and abominations, there wouldn't be a problem since the living/undead divide is basically the same as any other racial divide. We can see humans, elves, dwarves, etc. all living together in a cosmopolitan city; the undead would just be another in that vast mix.


iZombie explored the "Undead must eat brains to remain sentient or become permanently feral" approach, which has some interesting societal implications (though I think you can go further than they did with it, especially in a fantasy setting where this stuff is all out in the open already instead of something that just emerged on Earth).

Is it that obvious that I've watched iZombie? Two of the major differences that I was going for were that (1) the undead are out in the open (which you mention) and (2) the undead have been around as long as civilization itself. One of the major problems I have with so many of the "incorporating supernatural creatures into society" and traditional fantasy themes is that the basically treat undead as something "other". If undead have been around as long as magic has been around, wouldn't people view undead as "normal" as magic is? Sure, if you add magic (or undead) to a world that has been mundane for the last *always*, the undead are going to be treated with fear and contempt. But what if the undead were basically just a fact of life?


Hiryuu did a lovely post about this for illithids a while back.

Illithids were one of the few creatures that have oftentimes been discussed about societally, though, one of the big problems is that illithids can't really survive alongside living creatures. Illithids can only survive *above* living creatures because the very manner in which they feed requires the consumption of living creatures that, in all likelihood, do not wish to be eaten (and they require a truly massive population in order to survive, as discussed by Hiryuu).

The question of how would a society develop if it developed *alongside* these supernatural creatures is largely what I'm interested in discussing. What would change if the abilities and needs of these creatures was basically everyday and not considered to be anything special?

The most important things to ask, of course, are what are the needs of these creatures, how/whether the living can provide them willingly (which is the problem with illithids), and what services can these creatures provide in exchange for their needs?

Something I could imagine an illithid doing is acting as a reverse insurance salesman or lender of some kind. Basically, the illithid gives you a large lump sum and you agree to be consumed in one year's time. The illithid would need to have some significant amount of income (like, they would need to be millionaires or billionaires in modern parlance) in order to be able to afford to get 12 people per year (or however many are needed) to basically sell their own lives for the entirety of their own lives, but it would be a way for them to exist alongside living creatures rather than necessitating a position above them.

The fey don't really have much in the way of detailing their actual biological needs and desires and have a massive spread of different abilities, many of which are only really useful for trickery/deceit (and, as such, don't really provide much in the way of societal benefit).

Dragons have significant needs in the sense that they have to consume an almost absurd amount of material in order to survive, which presents some logistical problems, though they generally have the benefit of being able to consume an extremely diverse variety of materials (some can even survive off of rocks, if you like that fluff). They also have very specific desires that can mesh well with mortal societies, namely, the accumulation of wealth.

Dragons could basically act as banks, lending and holding onto money and valuables for people, increasing their own wealth while still having a significant amount of it on hand (and I'm sure most dragons would just love being paid to have other peoples' valuable goods around them, since it increases their own wealth while giving them the psychological benefit of having that valuable good around). One of my favorite reinterpretations of dragons is having all of them partake in this instinctual "game" which has innumerable convoluted and strange rules, the primary scoring system of which is the value of their hoard. In this sense, dragons would basically become backbone of the entire financial system (I could even imagine them as the originators of banknotes and other physically valueless currencies in order to allow them to keep the actual items of value around while letting mortals go around spending it).

Of course, dragons are also physically and magically powerful as well as long lived and extremely intelligent. A dragon could feasibly fulfill the same role as liches do in the undead society I mentioned, acting as respected repositories of knowledge and guardians, though I think their own need to accumulate physical wealth would probably prevent them from being as "low cost" as a lich would be.

[LudicSavant]

Is it that obvious that I've watched iZombie? :)


Two of the major differences that I was going for were that (1) the undead are out in the open (which you mention) and (2) the undead have been around as long as civilization itself. One of the major problems I have with so many of the "incorporating supernatural creatures into society" and traditional fantasy themes is that the basically treat undead as something "other". If undead have been around as long as magic has been around, wouldn't people view undead as "normal" as magic is? Sure, if you add magic (or undead) to a world that has been mundane for the last *always*, the undead are going to be treated with fear and contempt. But what if the undead were basically just a fact of life?

I'm with you. I often treat undead that way.

Some examples from another setting of mine:

- A culture where a sort of zombification (though it's more like voodoo zombies than the Night of the Living Dead kind) replaces seppuku as the preferred form of ritual suicide for the warrior class. Volunteering to become a zombie means utterly sacrificing your own will to the will of the daimyo, and thus represents an ultimate act of devotion which can clear your family name of dishonor. You can find them as, say, impassive palace honor guards more stoic than any tall-hatted British soldier, decorated in finery that would make any man with a mind to complain swelter unbearably in that culture's tropical heat.

- An undead society which trades with some other cultures for "children." That is, those near death or condemned to death who can be transformed (the already dead aren't fresh enough for the process).

[MrZJunior]

I don't really think most liches would be all that interested in expanding their power base to include other cities, mainly because I always imagine liches as being obsessed with amassing magical power and looking down on political or physical might. That's not to say that there couldn't be or have been a lich who sought to create his own empire or nation-state. The problem with that is that empires and nation-states tend to attract adventurers, especially when the undead overlords have to clamp down on civil unrest.

Other litches might band together to stop Empire building litches who would upset the status quo. They would either hire adventurers to do it, or crush the Napoleon themselves.

I could see there being some unwritten rules that "civilized" litches are expected to hold to designed to keep their profitable arraignment going.


I agree with this, thought I don't think that most city-states would be protected by liches. Liches should be rare because it takes a lot of money, knowledge, and magical skill to become one. I could see a few cities hosting liches, and, based off of that, I could actually imagine other cities attempting to recruit liches to come to their city (whether it be a "free" lich that lives on its own or a lich that is already living in a given city and could be wooed over with the promise of more support/protection or less distractions from the community).

Litches would probably conspire to keep mortals from building large empires that could threaten them. It is to their advantage to have lots of little squabbling city states competing for their affectingly rather than large empires that might see them as threats. How exactly they would do this I'm not sure. Probably a lot of very long term social engineering.

[Lycanthrope13]

As much as I'm enjoying this discussion, I can't help but wonder about other creatures besides undead.

How would human settlements first emerge in forests full of nymphs and dryads?

How could halfling settlements exist anywhere, when the entire world is crawling with things that could swallow them whole? You would think that a halfling village would be a smorgasbord for a wyvern.

I just find it hard to believe that these creatures are so rare that they never caused a problem.

I would imagine that dragons control most of the trade routes, guaranteeing protection to caravans in exchange for tribute. Although that would severely cut the demand for dragon slayers.

[ThePurple]

How would human settlements first emerge in forests full of nymphs and dryads?

That would depend upon how interventionist those nymphs and dryads are as well as their attitudes towards humans consuming the resources of the forest. If nymphs and dryads are as isolationist as the traditional view, humans would probably either view the forest as haunted (killing humans that entered because they don't think any consumption of the forest's resources by humans is legitimate) or wouldn't even realize that dryads/nymphs existed until they consumed so many of the forest's resources that the dryads/nymphs felt threatened enough to actually do something (if they didn't mind humans taking *some* of those resources initially). If they're interventionist, on the other hand, I would expect the nymphs and dryads to basically teach the humans to interact with the forest in a sustainable manner, basically having human cultures near forests look a lot like the traditional view of elven forest villages that merge seamlessly with the trees.


How could halfling settlements exist anywhere, when the entire world is crawling with things that could swallow them whole? You would think that a halfling village would be a smorgasbord for a wyvern.

There are 2 aspects of this that I feel the need to bring up. First, what makes halflings any more appetizing to a large creature like a wyvern than a human, especially since the human is going to put up a similar fight (purely based on mechanics, since the average halfling is supposed to be on par with the average human in a fair fight) while being a much more substantial meal.

Secondly, for the same reason that any group of intelligent creatures could feasibly survive in a world with superpredators like dragons, wyverns, and the like, halflings probably learn to defend themselves against wyverns and other creatures. Perhaps the halfling penchant for athletic and acrobatic games is similar to the highland games, which were basically war training disguised as sports. Mayhaps halflings get good at throwing rocks because that's how they defended themselves against superpredator attacks (a rock to the eye is going to make even a hungry wyvern reconsider), just like gnomes learned to hide themselves with magic, and dwarves and elves hid in terrain where it was too hard for superpredators to prey upon them in significant amounts.

It does bring into question how you could have human cultures reminiscent of medieval Europe in a world that is exponentially more dangerous than the real world, but it's not a problem with any specific race; it's a problem with intelligent humanoids in general (Dark Sun explains this away by saying that the humanoid species basically evolved to be much more robust, dangerous, and naturally psionically gifted in order to stay alive in an *extremely* hostile world; Eberron just explains it away by saying that the superpredators we're discussing here just aren't that common so they're not that big of a deal and, when they are, adventurers come around and clean up).


I would imagine that dragons control most of the trade routes, guaranteeing protection to caravans in exchange for tribute. Although that would severely cut the demand for dragon slayers.

The problem I see with this is that it basically requires a large population of dragons cooperating on a pretty unprecedented scale, since even a single dragon wouldn't be able to protect the entirety of a given trade route (think the Silk Road, which was 6400 km) on its own. It might be able to protect a given stretch, but, unless the dragon has really low prices or the goods are *extremely* profitable, said trade routes aren't really going to make all that much money because of how many dragons they're gonna have to pay along the way (they'd still probably have to pay for guards along the way simply to protect them from dragons that might want to take rather than pay, since trade routes don't go through particularly well inhabited areas so it would be hard for cultures to muster enough people to go and fight the dragon if they did end up causing problems).

More realistically, I could imagine dragons basically *becoming* the trade routes, because they're stronger, faster, and greedier than most living creatures are and aren't bound or inhibited by terrain in the same way that land based travelers are. If a dragon saw how much money a living creature made off of a trade route, why wouldn't they attempt to do the same in order to claim all of the profit for themselves, especially if they can do it more effectively? Sure, they would have to leave their lairs for periods of time, but dragons already do that. The only difference is that, rather than leaving their lair to raid the countryside that they've already raided a hundred times before, they're going out to one city to sell their goods and another city to buy more goods to generate a larger hoard. In this sense, dragons wouldn't have much reason to raid traveling caravans because, hey, they *are* the caravans and any mortal merchants would basically be acting as middle men between the dragons who sell their goods in bulk and mortals who would want to buy in smaller, usable quantities.

This leads into the same cultural role I talked about a couple posts back where dragons become the bankers of the world, mainly because that's what extremely wealthy merchant guilds turned into: when they got enough wealth, it became more rewarding to act as moneylender and investor than it did to actually go out and risk their lives trading said goods. The oldest and wealthiest dragons would basically run banking conglomerates with their vast hoards gleaned over years of mercantile ventures while younger dragons would probably be some of their biggest customers, asking for loans in order to begin their own merchant ventures (since, if they're not raiding the countryside because they'll get taken out by dragonslayers, the money needs to come from *somewhere*). Basically, dragons would fulfill the exact same role in society as the wights I discussed in my first post (not to say that you couldn't have dragon politicians/rulers, which I can imagine would basically be the same as businesspeople who enter politics because politics is a rich man's game) though they would be in it for completely different reasons (the wights do it because accumulation of wealth and trade agreements make it easier for them to acquire food from humans whereas dragons do it because they're just straight up greedy).

Of course, in this thought experiment, you have to ask yourself why the dragons decided not to intervene in mortal culture until humans were established enough to actually begin trading between villages (which also begs the question of what did dragons hoard in the days before mortals could mint coinage and the other valuable materials that they make their hoards out of), which is always something to think about when you're dealing with creatures that are as far above mortals as dragons are.

[MrZJunior]

That would depend upon how interventionist those nymphs and dryads are as well as their attitudes towards humans consuming the resources of the forest. If nymphs and dryads are as isolationist as the traditional view, humans would probably either view the forest as haunted (killing humans that entered because they don't think any consumption of the forest's resources by humans is legitimate) or wouldn't even realize that dryads/nymphs existed until they consumed so many of the forest's resources that the dryads/nymphs felt threatened enough to actually do something (if they didn't mind humans taking *some* of those resources initially). If they're interventionist, on the other hand, I would expect the nymphs and dryads to basically teach the humans to interact with the forest in a sustainable manner, basically having human cultures near forests look a lot like the traditional view of elven forest villages that merge seamlessly with the trees.



There are 2 aspects of this that I feel the need to bring up. First, what makes halflings any more appetizing to a large creature like a wyvern than a human, especially since the human is going to put up a similar fight (purely based on mechanics, since the average halfling is supposed to be on par with the average human in a fair fight) while being a much more substantial meal.

Secondly, for the same reason that any group of intelligent creatures could feasibly survive in a world with superpredators like dragons, wyverns, and the like, halflings probably learn to defend themselves against wyverns and other creatures. Perhaps the halfling penchant for athletic and acrobatic games is similar to the highland games, which were basically war training disguised as sports. Mayhaps halflings get good at throwing rocks because that's how they defended themselves against superpredator attacks (a rock to the eye is going to make even a hungry wyvern reconsider), just like gnomes learned to hide themselves with magic, and dwarves and elves hid in terrain where it was too hard for superpredators to prey upon them in significant amounts.

It does bring into question how you could have human cultures reminiscent of medieval Europe in a world that is exponentially more dangerous than the real world, but it's not a problem with any specific race; it's a problem with intelligent humanoids in general (Dark Sun explains this away by saying that the humanoid species basically evolved to be much more robust, dangerous, and naturally psionically gifted in order to stay alive in an *extremely* hostile world; Eberron just explains it away by saying that the superpredators we're discussing here just aren't that common so they're not that big of a deal and, when they are, adventurers come around and clean up).



The problem I see with this is that it basically requires a large population of dragons cooperating on a pretty unprecedented scale, since even a single dragon wouldn't be able to protect the entirety of a given trade route (think the Silk Road, which was 6400 km) on its own. It might be able to protect a given stretch, but, unless the dragon has really low prices or the goods are *extremely* profitable, said trade routes aren't really going to make all that much money because of how many dragons they're gonna have to pay along the way (they'd still probably have to pay for guards along the way simply to protect them from dragons that might want to take rather than pay, since trade routes don't go through particularly well inhabited areas so it would be hard for cultures to muster enough people to go and fight the dragon if they did end up causing problems).

More realistically, I could imagine dragons basically *becoming* the trade routes, because they're stronger, faster, and greedier than most living creatures are and aren't bound or inhibited by terrain in the same way that land based travelers are. If a dragon saw how much money a living creature made off of a trade route, why wouldn't they attempt to do the same in order to claim all of the profit for themselves, especially if they can do it more effectively? Sure, they would have to leave their lairs for periods of time, but dragons already do that. The only difference is that, rather than leaving their lair to raid the countryside that they've already raided a hundred times before, they're going out to one city to sell their goods and another city to buy more goods to generate a larger hoard. In this sense, dragons wouldn't have much reason to raid traveling caravans because, hey, they *are* the caravans and any mortal merchants would basically be acting as middle men between the dragons who sell their goods in bulk and mortals who would want to buy in smaller, usable quantities.

This leads into the same cultural role I talked about a couple posts back where dragons become the bankers of the world, mainly because that's what extremely wealthy merchant guilds turned into: when they got enough wealth, it became more rewarding to act as moneylender and investor than it did to actually go out and risk their lives trading said goods. The oldest and wealthiest dragons would basically run banking conglomerates with their vast hoards gleaned over years of mercantile ventures while younger dragons would probably be some of their biggest customers, asking for loans in order to begin their own merchant ventures (since, if they're not raiding the countryside because they'll get taken out by dragonslayers, the money needs to come from *somewhere*). Basically, dragons would fulfill the exact same role in society as the wights I discussed in my first post (not to say that you couldn't have dragon politicians/rulers, which I can imagine would basically be the same as businesspeople who enter politics because politics is a rich man's game) though they would be in it for completely different reasons (the wights do it because accumulation of wealth and trade agreements make it easier for them to acquire food from humans whereas dragons do it because they're just straight up greedy).

Of course, in this thought experiment, you have to ask yourself why the dragons decided not to intervene in mortal culture until humans were established enough to actually begin trading between villages (which also begs the question of what did dragons hoard in the days before mortals could mint coinage and the other valuable materials that they make their hoards out of), which is always something to think about when you're dealing with creatures that are as far above mortals as dragons are.

Clearly humans and dragons were meant for each other. Can you imagine the rapturous day when a dragon saw a coin for the first time? That incredible feeling that something which he didn't even realize he was yearning for was presented to him? :smallbiggrin:

[ThePurple]

Clearly humans and dragons were meant for each other. Can you imagine the rapturous day when a dragon saw a coin for the first time? That incredible feeling that something which he didn't even realize he was yearning for was presented to him? :smallbiggrin:

I guess one of the other ways you could interpret it is that dragons initially had no hoarding or nesting instincts (e.g. creating their own lairs to stay in for long periods of time) but, instead, were driven primary by a need to dominate and compete with other dragons. In this way, dragons participated in internecine warfare between groups dominated by particular dragons, out of which the draconic flights developed. The only thing that prevented them from simply laying waste to the entire world was their incredibly low reproductive rate as well as the view of the mortal races as beneath notice, as weak and pitiful as they were (in much the same way that we view ants).

Over time, the mortal races coalesced into larger societies out of their primitive proto-cultures and developed technology (e.g. metal tools as well as bows, arrows, domesticated beasts) that made them a threat as well as an asset to the dragons (since, if a group of humans could kill one dragon, they could also be manipulated into killing *other* dragons). Seeing the capabilities of the mortal races, able to shape the world in a way that no dragon was able to (since they had claws instead of the hands needed for fine manipulation), they began to interact with the mortal cities, using their incredible physical might and flight capabilities to trade and gain wealth, so as to be able to pay mortals to fight alongside them when attacking or attacked by other dragons (e.g. dragons saw wealth accumulation purely as a means towards dominance of other dragons).

In this way did dragons insert themselves into mortal society, as merchants and bankers. Their historical need to dominate physically has been replaced by a need to dominate economically, with dragons measuring each other by the value of their hoard (which is liquid assets, which are what is needed in order to higher mortal mercenaries). Draconic culture itself has not changed appreciably (dragons still wage a kind of war and try to achieve dominance and control over other dragons); the only thing that has changed is their methods.

Some dragons, though, choose a different route to power. Rather than simply seeking to acquire the wealth needed to hire armies, they seek to develop relationships with mortals with great potential that they can cultivate. Such dragons do not care about accumulating monies and other valuables (though they still prefer to keep some on hand for those mortals that need such an impetus); they care about the relationships and loyalties of those mortals that they have coached into becoming truly powerful, for true loyalty cannot be purchased, as well as the information needed in order to make their charges more powerful, for true power can lay waste to even the largest armies of mortal men and dragons. Such dragons become great patrons, developing guilds and associations for adventurer explorers, magical academies and other centers of learning, but always are they wary of dissent within the ranks: dragons are not the only species that seeks to dominate others, and powerful mortals are known for having powerful ambition, ambition that can lead to a dead dragon.

[Lycanthrope13]

Sometimes I'm not sure if the people on this forum are crazy or brilliant. Either way, I love it. I mean, I never dreamed of dragons hiring themselves out as transportation as a means of accumulating treasure. You guys rock.

And the reason I put halflings forward is simply beause they're bite sized. But you're right, it's not fair to hate on the little guy.

[Belac93]

Sometimes I'm not sure if the people on this forum are crazy or brilliant.
Is there a difference?

Well, what about simply fantasy races? The players in one of my campaigns are not currently human, but raising 2 human children. Very interested to see how that turns out. :)

[Xalyz]

I had an idea for a setting where various races built their kingdoms around the five chromatic dragons each being centered around a different aspect of the culture eventually to the point where they become deified in that aspect. Humans used agriculture to bribe/appease/worship Black Dragons eventually creating an Egyptian-esqe society. Green Dragons were used as fonts of knowledge and had entire schools centered around them and creating great archives in their name. Blue Dragons lead legions of Hobgoblins as Generals, either against other tribes or races. Red dragons enslaved dwarf populations forcing them to make great works of art and great hoard worthy objects. White Dragons are believed to be extinct to to the setting being primarily desert, but some Halflings have made colonies around the icy tombs that the White Dragons left behind gaining unusual abilities.

[Tody Shelfungus]

In my campaign millieu supernatural is not the same as fantasy.
A supernatural society would be defined as dual world. Certain groups/organization; Fairy[Seeli & Unseeli], Draconic, Undead, Henge, and Demi-gods can enter the border ethereal and create a major hallucinatory Terrain that mirrors the real world it touches. This Material image in tainted by the nature of the creatures that inhabit it.

This Tamed or Tainted bit of the chaos sea, is bounded but infinate, leaving one edge finds you returning from the opposite edge. but even odder, the lands that this land touches does not need to be coterminous. The requirement is only that the inhabitants look to a prince or lord of their kind. this allows the seperate peices to be placed together in one land in a way of the lords choosing. The point is that inhabitants can create concealed portals in their lairs, or to their lairs, that allow entrance and exit to the Real world and the world of Tamed chaos.

As all elves can see cocealed doors, they are notorious busy bodies. even though they prefer to keep non-fairy blood persons out of their own land. Assamars and tieflings have a similar gift but only for such doors found in temples and shrines which lead to an island with mirrors of those shrines and temples that is a waystation for the spirits of the dead and minions of the lands deities.

The question about undead is what is animating them is it magic or some power with the spirit of the dead trapped within or outer spirit physical possession. There is a special order of clerics that when they call up the bodies of dead warriers to defend their cemetaries and the settlement attached they are animated by the demi-god overseeing the island of the minions, and dead spirits.

I am working on a pair of undead "race"s, which are for Player use. I require at Game Start that everyone be first level. These two undead are actually Death minions who are broken free of their Thrall to death when the Mana of magical Heroism bursts their chains.

One is a Vampyr [minor], it starts as any class, it takes damage from hours of exposure to sun, it can not heal hit points without drinking blood. This minor vampyr doesn't drain levels and really only exists because of the existance of zero levels NPCs in my campaign. Any person of heroic class can see their blood red glowing eyes, and fangs, but zero level mundanes can't. the Vampyr can fasinate, mundanes, and if an NPC is a regular donor their Con & Cha go up by two. IF this is done when the Vampyr is still in thrall to a Master the fasenated is temporaraly under suggestion to that master, not for a Free Vampyr.

The second is called a Shadow walker ghoul, it is either in thrall to a Demi-god on the island of the ships of the dead and is sent to bring in quickley the bodies of heroes who get to compete for a place as guardians of the island and ports, those losing passing beyond to the ships. Or they are in thrall to a Necromancer Prince who sends them to collect newly dead who are not under blessing and force them to battle each other for a place in the Draug Huskarls, and the losers spirit consumed by the Necromancer Lich and the... well we don't need to go there. This creature is able to use the portals in the temples and shrines, but also others in cemetaries, and old battlegrounds in the dark of night. It is able to do a form of shadow walking in current battlegrounds but may find itself fighting over control of dead. it is able to animate dead creating zombies one every three levels rounded up. But these are unable to fight the living but can be turned on the dead such as another of their own race under thrall or undead.
The Shadow walker ghoul can wrap it's self in shadows to remain hidden from mundanes, or take the form of a dead person retreived.

This a type of Super-natural interaction allows widely dispersed creatures to have a city state type culture buried in a place beyound normal mans sight. This way there is an ability to travel for the inhabitants of these areas who are serfs and yeomen of the lord or prince. but causes issues for whole parties of different types..