Originally Posted by whswhs (Post 1570524)

What if they have horses, but there are no large mobile animals that can usefully be hunted on horseback? Or is this massively unlikely?

Bill Stoddard

Originally Posted by whswhs (Post 1570555)

Selkie males are substantially larger than females, and tend toward polygynous relationships from which the younger bachelors are excluded.

Originally Posted by Brett (Post 1570596)

Do these people swarm? Do they send out princesses and princes on nuptial prospecting journeys?

Originally Posted by sir_pudding (Post 1570598)

That is an awesome image. I think I need to steal that for something, somehow, somewhen.

Originally Posted by Brett (Post 1570636)

But I'm having a bit of trouble putting myself in the shoes of a dwarvish sterile worker.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding (Post 1570637)

Asexuality isn't unknown in human psychology.

Originally Posted by whswhs (Post 1570555)

Dwarf females are definitely larger than males, and one female will bear multiple children, most of whom are sterile workers; they are of both sexes but hard to tell apart. Fertile dwarf males are comparatively small.

Originally Posted by whswhs (Post 1570344)

No, actually, that's very much along the lines I was envisioning, though more elaborated. Though I think it would take sturdier material than I envision being used for beaver lodges to stand off a military threat from men or trolls. But halflings might very well develop brickmaking early on.

I definitely would like the halflings to be the pioneers of grain agriculture. On the other hand, the deliberate manufacture of fertile soil by plowing, irrigating, and fertilizing, in areas further away from river valleys, may be a pursuit that attracts both some men and some halflings; the need for draft animals will tend to favor men. Elves might cultivate root crops but I don't see them as having the right kind of habitat for grains.

I thought of borrowing your idea about raising fungus cultures underground as something for halflings to do in their burrows, to supplement their aboveground farming. It seems less obviously workable for dwarves, who are going to tunnel mainly through stone, though I could imagine dwarves learning the technique of fungiculture from halflings.

While the hobbits of the Shire may have abandoned most boating, their kindred among whom Smeagol was born seem to have been comfortable with it, and Deagol was a good swimmer when he found the One Ring and was murdered for it.

Bill Stoddard

Originally Posted by whswhs (Post 1570376)

All of that works pretty well, yes. It occurs to me that both trolls and dwarves are going to have a physique with compact bodies and short limbs; perhaps they're comparatively close kin. Though a dwarf woman bearing a half-troll child would probably die.

I was initially envisioning trolls as sexually dimorphic, with the females larger than the males. This goes with a pattern where the young are raised mainly by the females, and the males drop in but don't stay.

But I also wanted the females to be the main magic workers. So it occurred to me that originally large female trolls might have undergone evolution for smaller body size without reduction in brain size. This would make for relatively higher intelligence and more retentive memory. And it might substitute for large size in making female trolls more capable and thus able to care for young unaided.

Males may tend to be nomadic, and thus likely to turn up in other species' territories, especially in lowlands not far from mountains; this would be somewhat consistent with the three trolls in The Hobbit, who seemingly came down from the Trollshaws, and I could imagine male trolls forming small gangs for mutual protection.

One task that is performed by creatures with high strength but limited endurance is plowing. Oxen apparently cannot be worked for a full day; five hours is their limit. Of course, you can feed oxen on hay; they don't need meat. On the other hand, trolls might be useful where a draft animal that understands spoken instructions is needed. Or perhaps they might be recruited to help clear new ground. What do you think?

Bill Stoddard

Originally Posted by whswhs (Post 1570435)

There might be small populations in Poland or its analogs. My understanding is that Poland was dominated by cavalrymen who made it the terror of Europe for a while. Though that might have been dependent on more advanced technology.

Bill Stoddard