DF World: Do non-humans have their own countries?

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Single species nations seem unrealistic to me unless they live in places impossible for others to survive.
Though if one species is just super suited to a region or ill-suited to others so they defend their niche with ferocity such that it's overwhelmingly them there, I could see it making sense.

Eh, Fantasy species are more like human races, and there have been plenty of nations throughout history that have been essentially made of a single race. This hasn't required them to be particularly well-adapted to their environment (at least not in a genetic sense) - rather, it's more just that most people don't want to move somewhere that everyone looks, speaks, and acts differently than what they're used to, and that the natives are not-uncommonly xenophobic. Large nations are rarely monoracial, of course, but even then other races tended to make up a rather tiny fraction of the population. Once global trade becomes significant, however, things tend to become a good deal more cosmopolitan.

[sir_pudding]

Enclaves need to have large enough populations to reproduce. There aren't going to be any high elves if they are 1:1,000,000 and evenly geographically distributed or whatever.

Also it makes sense that dwarves and coleopterans live underground and humans usually don't, or that sea-elves and merfolk don't live in the desert.

[Flyndaran]

Living fully underground sans modern tech requires very alien biology, especially if they aren't dependent on top world agriculture.
And that would follow my suggestion of living in environments hostile to other species.

[sir_pudding]

Yes, because there is a high degree of verisimilitude in the agrarian models in dungeon delving sword and sorcery.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Single species nations seem unrealistic to me unless they live in places impossible for others to survive.

Let's consider Gondor. Is it surprising that they don't have a lot of orcs, elves or even halflings living on their land? There are unrealistic aspects to that setting, but is that one of them? There's a lot about humans that elves and halflings just aren't going to like, and the orcs...well. They might actually have a small population of dwarfs, probably stereotyped into jobs as craftsmen and descended from Moria refugees but for the most part it makes sense that Gondor is pretty much an all human Kingdom, and Rohan an absolutely all human. They can barely put up with humans of another culture.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Let's consider Gondor. Is it surprising that they don't have a lot of orcs, elves or even halflings living on their land? There are unrealistic aspects to that setting, but is that one of them? There's a lot about humans that elves and halflings just aren't going to like, and the orcs...well. They might actually have a small population of dwarfs, probably stereotyped into jobs as craftsmen and descended from Moria refugees but for the most part it makes sense that Gondor is pretty much an all human Kingdom, and Rohan an absolutely all human. They can barely put up with humans of another culture.

It is surprising and probably unrealistic that they don't have hobbits. It's self-consistent, but a (humanoid!) species that inhabits a single smallish country and essentially never leaves despite there being no barrier is absurd.

Orcs are recognized as the Enemy Species at best, and depending on what origin you take might verge on being undead. Regardless, having kill-on-sight status is a good reason not to be present.

Elves and dwarves keeping to themselves as they do works well enough largely because economics are ignored. If there were motivations for things in the world other than operatic or soap-operatic ones, there would almost certainly be dwarves in a lot more places at least. Maybe elves too, though elves being immortal, scarce, and actively on their way out huddling up with their kind seems...well, not the least plausible thing, for sure.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by thulben

I tend to think of Elves as a stand in (or allegory) for Native Americans. That is, noble protectors of nature; they probably live in the forests (and most others understand the forests to be theirs). Orcs I think of like stereotypical Mongolians - tribal and nomadic. As such, they probably don't have a place you can point to and say "they live right here in this city", but there's probably an area where, if you go there, you'll probably encounter one group or another of them after a while. I'm not sure who dwarves were patterned after.

But my point is that early (hell... even contemporary) fantasy tends to paint the humanoid races with a broad stroke and the brush is "existing human cultures".

Even tribal nomads have polities around which diplomacy, war and peace, etc center so orcs might as well have countries. Being the "noble protectors of nature" of course might make elves territorial which makes them political.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

The last DF world i thought up didn't have "countries". The largest polities were still just city states. Some were very populous city states thanks to magical sources of food and water, but ruling large tracts of land was impractical. So the non-humans generally lived in their own autonomous communities or nomadic tribes.

If country necessitates "nation-state" well, it is hard to define many places that would be nation-states in real life until recently; territorial polities are better described as empires.

[khorboth]

When I'm coming up with a DF world (which I've done several times), I take one of 2 approaches to this question:

1) Dwarf-town only has Dwarves. It says so right there in the name. Why? Same reason why the goblins don't open up the poorly-locked chest and use the weapons to defend the village. Because that's how DF works.

2) I create a rich background for the world beginning with the genesis of the various races. Did they evolve? If so, was it from humans or from a common ancestor, or in parallel? If not, then were they created magically? If so, why and by whom?

From there, I can move forward in time and decide how the cultures would interact. In my most detailed world, each major race has at least one country, but most contain minorities of other races. How strong those minorities are varies depending upon the culture in those countries and regions.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

It is surprising and probably unrealistic that they don't have hobbits. It's self-consistent, but a (humanoid!) species that inhabits a single smallish country and essentially never leaves despite there being no barrier is absurd.

Eh, I don't think it's too surprising, really. Hobbits basically live in an idyllic paradise, and those few who want a bit of adventure can find plenty (for a hobbit, at least) near the outskirts of the Shire. The outside world is in far worse shape, meaning there is a barrier - with the exception of the brief period of time between the end of The Hobbit and Frodo's departure in Fellowship of the Rings, there are monsters lurking about if you go too far afield, so what right-minded hobbit is going to leave? For those very few who do, Gondor is pretty far away (by my measurement, the closest border of Gondor is over 600 miles away from Hobbiton, and that's in a straight line).

Now, why hobbits only survived in the Shire* isn't ever addressed to my knowledge, nor why the Rangers apparently thought this small, insignificant community was worth dedicating so much manpower to protecting. Honestly, with how resilient and scrappy they are shown to be - once you get them out of their comfortable homes and give them some incentive, anyway - I would have expected more to have survived.

*Smeagol's folk seemed to live outside of the Shire, and were clearly some sort of hobbit, but I don't think we ever find out just how old Gollum is - his people may well no longer exist, and if so probably haven't existed for a very long time. Or, who knows, maybe they're the ancient ancestors of the Brandybucks.