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Ayrik
Great Reader
Canada
7974 Posts |
 Posted - 07 Sep 2011 : 21:25:49
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A world with one race divided into 100 different nations, tribes, religions, ethnicities, and cultures all competing for the same resources seems equally unrealistic and unsustainable, and yet it's exactly what we have. Surely given time a few peoples must emerge as dominant and eliminate or absorb most of the others? Yet no matter how much time passes on our world the number of peoples inhabiting it just seems to keep diversifying and inflating.
I don't see much of an issue with multiple races either, although I do feel that D&D typically has far too many to seem at all natural. True, the Realms sidesteps the issue somewhat by claiming many races (and deities) on Toril originated in the Feywild or outer planes or Spelljamming worlds or Oerth or Earth or wherever.
A more subtle argument for supporting many sophonts in the Realms is that it is a magic-rich world. It seems to me that magic fundamentally opposes or reverses entropy: or, to say it another way, the natural tendency of magic is for simple things to automatically form themselves into intelligent and complex constructs. Countless forms of life spontaneously emerge (the presence of life is expected) in our entropic world whenever conditions are right ... I postulate that countless magic-using (and therefore intelligent) forms of life might also be expected to emerge in a magically negentropic world whenever conditions are right.
[Edit]
Incidentally, more recent studies suggest that homo neanderthalsis wasn't the victim of genocide at the hands of our ancestors, even though they do share an overlap spanning much of Europe and roughly 15,000-25,000 years of prehistory. Comparisons between neanderthal and modern human genomes show that many human populations contain neanderthal DNA, and computerized facial reconstructions show that they weren't as different or monstrous as we used to think.. Homo neanderthalsis is now grouped within the archaic homo sapiens family taxon (by the geneticists, anyways), which is to say that they're one of several species we now understand collectively evolved into modern homo sapiens sapiens.
The presence of half-elves, half-dwarves (and by extension, possibly half-gnomes and half-halflings), half-orcs, half-giants, dragonborn, genasi, tieflings, aasimar, and pretty much anything else which is sentient and can procreate with humans ... it makes me wonder if in the distant future the Realms will be populated by a single sophont species, a sort of homo signum uniformis which includes trace DNA from every possible progenitor species. Not broken rough-hewn chimeric throwbacks like mongrelmen, but instead the result of gradual interbreeding across thousands of thousands of generations. |
[/Ayrik] |
Edited by - Ayrik on 07 Sep 2011 22:02:57 |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36782 Posts |
Posted - 07 Sep 2011 : 21:31:35
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quote:
Originally posted by Markustay
In fantasy, normally, races enter the picture (even in the distant past) at different points; why would an intelligent species that is dominant ALLOW another intelligent species to 'horn in on' their pie?
That's the rub: in most fantasy settings, you don't have that happen -- you have a small group over here, and then another group comes in over there and expands to over here. It's not like elves are controlling every square foot of a large expanse and then allow themselves to be overrun by humans, it's that the elves control this specific area, humans move into a nearby area, and then expand. By the time humans and elves bump into each other, there's too many humans for the elves to do anything about. |
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
Posted - 08 Sep 2011 : 05:46:48
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Yeah, I get that, but D&D (and by extension FR) has way too many races, IMHO. A few might be able to get along, but eventually you would have a 'World War' situation with everyone taking sides. Some fantasy settings - including the one I am working on - build off that premise; that THE war happened in the recent past (Eberron and Iron Kingdoms both have this). Even the LotR lead to that (although that 'final war' was circumvented somewhat).
quote:
Originally posted by Ayrik
A more subtle argument for supporting many sophonts in the Realms is that it is a magic-rich world. It seems to me that magic fundamentally opposes or reverses entropy: or, to say it another way, the natural tendency of magic is for simple things to automatically form themselves into intelligent and complex constructs. Countless forms of life spontaneously emerge (the presence of life is expected) in our entropic world whenever conditions are right ... I postulate that countless magic-using (and therefore intelligent) forms of life might also be expected to emerge in a magically negentropic world whenever conditions are right.
Magic as some form of 'Chaos radiation'? Interesting... I think Marvel Comics uses something akin to that.
Magical Radiation (Faerzress?) as a mutation agents works. In my setting, I will be using bloodlines extensively, with every supernatural trait traceable back to something else. I use something called morphic blood (derived from my one, extremely varied, aberration race) to account for cross-breedability: not everything can crossbreed, but nearly all races have members with some of that morphic blood, to allow for rule-breaking 'halfies' (which is a very useful tool for the DM who wants to keep things reigned in). Think of it as the Yuan-ti breeding programs taken to epic levels.
quote:
Originally posted by Ayrik
The presence of half-elves, half-dwarves (and by extension, possibly half-gnomes and half-halflings), half-orcs, half-giants, dragonborn, genasi, tieflings, aasimar, and pretty much anything else which is sentient and can procreate with humans ... it makes me wonder if in the distant future the Realms will be populated by a single sophont species, a sort of homo signum uniformis which includes trace DNA from every possible progenitor species. Not broken rough-hewn chimeric throwbacks like mongrelmen, but instead the result of gradual interbreeding across thousands of thousands of generations.
I think Athas/Dark Sun had a race like that (sorry, no sources to look that up), and I believe there were also Spelljammer and Planescape variants as well. A race with traits from all other races (although on Athas, supposedly all races derived from Halflings, which is very weird, but Dark Sun was always a setting that stepped way out of the box). |
"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone
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Shemmy
Senior Scribe
USA
492 Posts |
Posted - 08 Sep 2011 : 06:48:48
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quote:
Originally posted by Markustay
We are the only organism (aside from cancer) that destroys its own environment.
It's not an exclusive club. Pretty much any organism will attempt to exploit its environment and reproduce as much as possible, with only a lack of resources and predation being limitations on this. In the lack of such, population crest and subsequent collapse are what control their numbers.
For instance deer populations after the removal of predation by wolves in the US. The ravage forest underbrush, reproduce like crazy, and then they starve to death in massive numbers. Ultimately they can kill forests by eating saplings and disturbing the flora balance in a major way (this is a looming problem for redwood forests).
Algae blooms are similar, and just about any species will success itself into oblivion at the expense of its environment, given the right conditions. Humanity is not very special in the grand scheme of things, we're just capable of more abstract musing on the ramifications of our own hyper success, and hopefully able to prevent any eventual collapse.
*steps off the biologist soapbox* |
Shemeska the Marauder, King of the Crosstrade; voted #1 best Arcanaloth in Sigil two hundred years running by the people who know what's best for them; chant broker; prospective Sigil council member next election; and official travel agent for Chamada Holiday specials LLC.
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Marc
Senior Scribe
657 Posts |
Posted - 08 Sep 2011 : 07:05:40
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| Athas had the pyreen, Planescape I don't think so. Most worlds are humanocentric also cause humans is the only race you can roleplay in truth. Even a human from Kara-Tur has an alien way of thinking, or often happens that the PC's have too modern beliefs. I doubt Droaam or Many Arrows would last long. |
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Thoughts on Golarion
