Dealing with monsters in a low-magic world.

[kroot]

Hey y'all. I'm in the process of building a world largely based on medeival eastern europe (Slavic tribes, Magyars, Byzantines, Greeks, etc). The world is fairly low-magic. Sorcerers are highly uncommon, being a rare genetic trait often found among nobility. Wizardry takes decades of study and often results in insanity. Clerics have little power beyond their oratory as the gods are largely love raftian in that they barely notice our world.
But I still want to incorporate monsters from Eastern European mythology like Gorgons, forest giants, slavic dragons, etc. I also want to incorporate undead somewhere that rise from battlefields as a metaphor for the horror of war or whatever.

My question here is in a world that is very much a low Magic medeival world of mud and ****, how would these tribes and kingdoms deal with monsters? I don't wanna just make a monster hunting organization a la witcher or grey wardens but I'm ok with some sort of faction.
Any ideas? Bonus points for basing answer off of some sort of Eastern European history or mythology!

[Gwaednerth]

Well, I don't know much about Eastern European mythology, but more Western mythology is rife with dragon slayers, etc. who are just extremely talented warriors. Think Beowulf or the various Arthurian knights who pursued the Questing Beast.

[Seraph777s]

You could always go with the church. Some variant of exorcists, priests that hold some limited magical power. Holy ground, blessed objects (relics, chrism, holy water), prayer based spells. Based on eastern orthodoxy. Maybe a baba yaga witch. Maybe a variant of gypsy culture where they fight monsters anywhere they go.

[Mechalich]

If the world if truly low magic, then that should largely apply to the monsters as well. As a result, trained warriors with proper equipment should be able to defeat monsters with appropriate tricks and deployment. So dealing with monsters means getting together the knights/thanes/etc. and their men-at-arms and going out to pound the local monster in the face. A solid example is the first dragon encounter in Skyrim, where you get together with a bunch of guards and shoot arrows at the dragon until it dies.

[LudicSavant]

It really depends on the monsters. Some creatures just can't be destroyed without magic. Incorporeal creatures in 3.5e, for instance, are explicitly immune to all nonmagical attack forms, and would either have to be dealt with by other means (such as cutting deals, or luring them away, or whatever), or by employing some of that rare magic (such as having an organization with access to ghost touch weapons).

It also depends on how common the monsters are. If powerful giants are running around all the time, for instance, your setting might turn into something like Attack on Titan. If there's only one Nemean Lion roaming the countryside, it's the sort of thing that can be dealt with by a lone hero.

[VoxRationis]

I'm not too terribly familiar with Balkan folklore, but you should pull anything used for "warding" from such folklore. Just like how in other places, people might use salt, silver, cold iron, what have you to ward away evil spirits, some thing or combination of things should prove effective at, if not outright harming a monster, at least encouraging it to leave a place alone.

Holy water, holy symbols, and iconography should also be effective. Whether the gods exist or provide the holy power is irrelevant—perhaps those things are "holy" because they repel monsters, rather than vice versa. People didn't want their chapels and shrines to be defiled, so they warded them with those things, and now they are associated with divinity.

Edit: Also, keep in mind the above post's advice on monster abilities and immunities. I don't know what system you're using, but you should carefully vet and edit each monster to make sure it's not impossible to kill or impossible to defend against. Creatures with immunity or near-immunity to weapon damage should be rarities, and they should have fairly glaring weaknesses to compensate, weaknesses that aren't necessarily that hard to come by (D&D trolls and fire being the classic example). Most monsters should have one or two tricks, but be vulnerable to good old-fashioned spears, swords, and arrows.

[Frozen_Feet]

Let me lay out some categories:

1) Fantastic but not magical. This covers any monster not found on Earth but lacking overt supernatural powers & being vulnerable to cold hard steel. The relevant sub-categories are:

1.1) Big & Nasty. Basically analogous to a man-eating tiger or a raging elephant. A settelement will try to keep these away with fences, get rid of them with traps or arm a hunting party to take them out.

1.2) Rival peoples. Goblins living in hills or elves in the woods for example. If these live in terrain no-one wants, they are avoided. If they cause misfortune but people can't fight back, they're bribed with tributes. If they're bening, they're traded with. If they're belliggerent and live where we want to live, then it's war time.

2) Invulnerable but reclusive. Krakens, sea serpents, hermit wizards or the like. Things which cannot be gotten rid of, but which are limited in their territory or motivation so that they don't or can't threaten existence of civilization. Life shapes itself around them and they're left alone, maybe targets of token worship.

3) Magical but can be dealt without magic. Werevolves, trolls, vampires. Creatures with overt supernatural powers but with weaknesses exploitable by non-magical folks. A caste of specialist (exorcists, witch-doctors, etc.) will form in more civilized areas and people will pay handsomely for their services to get rid of creatures like this when they are suspected to be around. People will also stock up with common protections. F.ex. if vampires are around, everyone will carry crosses and wild roses.

4) Magical but can't be dealt without magic. These are the most troublesome. Once more, a caste of specialists will form. However, fraud is common, and helpless settlements are prone to being destroyed or subverted. People will resort to worship and bribery to avert wrath of these creatures. Depending on how large scale and hostile these are, life will take an apocalyptic turn when they're around.

5) Natural disasters incarnate. Gods, demonic invasions, angels. In a low-tech, low-magic setting, some things you simply cannot deal with. You accept your demise, kneel before Zod or run away.

[LudicSavant]

Also, keep in mind the above post's advice on monster abilities and immunities. I don't know what system you're using, but you should carefully vet and edit each monster to make sure it's not impossible to kill or impossible to defend against. Creatures with immunity or near-immunity to weapon damage should be rarities, and they should have fairly glaring weaknesses to compensate, weaknesses that aren't necessarily that hard to come by (D&D trolls and fire being the classic example). Most monsters should have one or two tricks, but be vulnerable to good old-fashioned spears, swords, and arrows.

I'll add that monsters literally invulnerable to all but a few super-rare heroes aren't necessarily an intractable problem for a setting. Many ghost stories include ghosts that simply cannot be harmed by any means, for example. There's also the case of simply avoiding the creature's limited sphere of influence, or just treating it like a natural disaster, or negotiating with or manipulating the creature so that it won't harm you and yours too much. Powerful monsters might even keep other powerful monsters in check.

I mean, let's take the biggest, baddest thing around in many fantasy settings: a dragon. A dragon may not tend to be incorporeal, but it's often so powerful that only a rare superheroic character or something can defeat them (perhaps as rare as a powerful wizard in a low-magic world). A classic way of a kingdom dealing with a dragon is to just suck it up and live with 'em.

The dragon will burn a few of your homes now and then to make sure you keep fearing it and sending it tribute wagons. They might kidnap the occasional princess for you to ransom back. But the dragon doesn't want to destroy your society. Your society gives them piles of gold to sleep on! It just wants you to effectively pay it taxes without all the bother of actually governing your weird little ape society. The dragon's a burden, but it's usually not an existential threat.

In some ways it might even be a bit like a mob protection racket. Consider the way it plays out in the indie strategy game "Hoard." Players certainly terrorize the kingdoms and shake them down for loot to sleep on, but will actively defend their territory from other dragon players because they want to make sure the local kingdom is fearing and sacrificing to them instead of anyone else (not to mention having any more of the town's resources destroyed than is necessary to inspire tribute). This could also apply to other creatures. The mind flayers might not be moving in because they don't want to have to deal with the local dragon.

[Mechalich]

Dragons tend to work as large, nigh-invincible monsters because they sleep a lot though. Many other monsters cannot, as canonically designed, simply stand aside so effectively. Mind Flayers, for instance, have to consume brains (mind flayer brain consumption is canonically posited at 1 per month, which is serious math fail that turns a mind flayer village into a continent de-populating scourge in short order). Certain other big monsters also need to eat a lot - like giants - or are driven to consume souls (Devourers and certain other undead) or have hard-wired ideological imperatives (most outsiders). So you have to be careful to make sure the big dangerous monsters have good reasons to sit around on their mounds of treasure and not bother people with too much regularity, or that they are content to claim desolate wilderness areas where men are not meant to go and thereby don't disrupt society in an active way.



The dragon will burn a few of your homes now and then to make sure you keep fearing it and sending it tribute wagons. They might kidnap the occasional princess for you to ransom back. But the dragon doesn't want to destroy your society. Your society gives them piles of gold to sleep on! It just wants you to effectively pay it taxes without all the bother of actually governing your weird little ape society. The dragon's a burden, but it's usually not an existential threat.

It occurs to me to be curious about the economic effects of this sort of thing. Countries paying tribute is of course nothing new, but usually they pay tribute to other people and therefore the money still circulates through the overall economy (it was even possible, under certain arbitrage conditions, for countries to actually net a profit of the tribute they paid barbarians), but what happens when a country is regularly taking pretty much all economic surplus and effectively dumping it into a cave for decades or centuries? Presumably this stunts growth something fierce, and makes the overall fate of the kingdom extremely precarious in the face of disasters, but I suspect there ought to be secondary effects. For example, you need cash to raise armies, so if every kingdom is paying the lion's share of their economic surplus to dragons, does this enforce a Pax Draconica because nobody has any money to fight wars?

[LudicSavant]

Many other monsters cannot, as canonically designed Well yeah. Obviously your standard kingdom can't deal with the Tyranids without making some edits to how Tyranids work. But then again, they can't deal with the WH40k Orks either.

The implementation of the monster matters a lot.


It occurs to me to be curious about the economic effects of this sort of thing. Countries paying tribute is of course nothing new, but usually they pay tribute to other people and therefore the money still circulates through the overall economy (it was even possible, under certain arbitrage conditions, for countries to actually net a profit of the tribute they paid barbarians), but what happens when a country is regularly taking pretty much all economic surplus and effectively dumping it into a cave for decades or centuries? Presumably this stunts growth something fierce, and makes the overall fate of the kingdom extremely precarious in the face of disasters, but I suspect there ought to be secondary effects. For example, you need cash to raise armies, so if every kingdom is paying the lion's share of their economic surplus to dragons, does this enforce a Pax Draconica because nobody has any money to fight wars?

Interesting questions, and I'd be curious to see them explored further in settings. Given that dragons are (in many cases) pretty clever, I'm sure they'd figure out a proper amount of pressure to exert for their protection racket without making it collapse.

In the past, I've used the power vacuum created by adventurers slaying a dragon as a plot point in campaigns. :smallsmile:

[Tvtyrant]

It occurs to me to be curious about the economic effects of this sort of thing. Countries paying tribute is of course nothing new, but usually they pay tribute to other people and therefore the money still circulates through the overall economy (it was even possible, under certain arbitrage conditions, for countries to actually net a profit of the tribute they paid barbarians), but what happens when a country is regularly taking pretty much all economic surplus and effectively dumping it into a cave for decades or centuries? Presumably this stunts growth something fierce, and makes the overall fate of the kingdom extremely precarious in the face of disasters, but I suspect there ought to be secondary effects. For example, you need cash to raise armies, so if every kingdom is paying the lion's share of their economic surplus to dragons, does this enforce a Pax Draconica because nobody has any money to fight wars?

As long as you aren't using the gold for your own currency, it would simply be an over extension of mining. Society deals with putting too much effort into monuments and other none-contributory projects, I don't think it would be that big a deal as long as the dragon doesn't demand an impossible amount of gold annually.

[LudicSavant]

As long as you aren't using the gold for your own currency, it would simply be an over extension of mining. Society deals with putting too much effort into monuments and other none-contributory projects, I don't think it would be that big a deal as long as the dragon doesn't demand an impossible amount of gold annually.

Yeah. I mean, just look at the kind of resources we actually throw into caves for centuries for the benefit of the real life equivalent of dragons. I'm talking about pyramids, tombs full of terra cotta warriors, etc.

[kroot]

Almost all of your replies have been super helpful! Just for clarification I'm using the Burning Wheel system, not d&d.
I've created three factions capable of dealing with monsters so far:
1. The Karavar, less an organization than a loose network of information and sanctuary. It refers to the nomadic Elven Caravans who travel the world in search of magic and freedom.
Because these folk often cling to ancient tomes of arcane secrets they tend to often have wizards among them. The caravans are sometimes hired to fight off local monsters like trolls or undead; though the fear of these magical beasts also extends to the Elves themselves. Many accuse them of causing the attacks of magical beasts so they can rescue their victims for gold.
The Karavar are regarded almost entirely as swindlers, magicians, and thieves and are thus legally forbidden to enter most cities.
(I thought this up from Seraph's suggestion of incorporating monster-fighting romani. I think they work without dampening the tone of the world.)

2. The Black Synod, Chosen by the Patriarch himself, this vigil of eighteen Templars are considered honorary saints. They are men and women trained extensively in combat, philosophy, arcane thought, demonology, monsterology, alchemy, and history.
These warriors of faith are entrusted with magical relics, artifacts of holy value and charged with the defense of the faith from otherworldly evil. They do not fight mortal men; only undead, demons, and beasts.
(Ye olde templars, this was suggested a lot but VaxRationis really hooked me on the idea. They're very powerful but their small numbers and inability to fight mortal evil makes them balanced.)

3. The Free Riders, A famous mercenary company of rogue knights and lancers. They are known to be efficient and deadly, however they are also known to never fight in international wars; only fighting on behalf of common folk.
This oft puts them at odds with feudal rulers who abuse their subjects, however it also faces them up against Giants, witches, and even Dragons.
(I thought up this while rereading the third asoiaf book, being inspired by the Brotherhood, but Mechalich definitely helped. These guys are the most mundane of the monster hunters but they work because they're not necessarily concerned with a big picture.)