Re: theme for a fantasy campaign
 

Working (as opposed to resting) metabolic rate is heavily influenced by the actual amount of work done, which means that the metabolic multiplier for a given critter is rather similar to the productivity multiplier for the critter. Due to the metabolic costs of sapience the work/metabolism ratio for intelligent creatures probably favors larger lifeforms, but it may not vary by a lot.

Significantly more important here is the cost of food. A meat-eater can generally maintain a higher metabolism (and work rate) than a plant-eater, and a plant-eater eating high value foods such as seeds does better than one eating low value foods such as grasses, but that tends to be compensated for by the much higher availability of the less concentrated foods. The big advantage of grains is that grasses produce large amounts of concentrated food (seeds) relative to their overall production. This makes desert and tundra even lower value than their gross primary production implies, as concentrated food sources are generally meats, and also produces problems for forests, which put a great deal of energy into production of relatively indigestible twigs and leaves.

Re: theme for a fantasy campaign
 

This is all carbon incorporated into living tissue. It's not all utilizable by humans, and how much is utilizable varies from habitat to habitat.

Bill Stoddard

Re: Selkies
 

Balinese kecak singing (which featured in the Akira movie soundtrack) and Inuit throat singing (which Bjork used on her album Medulla) are good examples of breath control singing (well, apart from every other type of singing.)

Re: theme for a fantasy campaign
 

So I was thinking about the selkies. When compared to a humanoid a seal or whale have really short limbs and subsequently much more of their mass in the body, making them easier to insulate. Is it possible to insulate a humanoid to the degree of a seal and retain mobility of the limbs? Would the super thick fur of a sea otter do any better?

Re: theme for a fantasy campaign
 

For something that retains its insulation value when wet and actually occurs in nature, probably not, at least not for typical seal terrain (which moderately cold; averaging low 50s water temperature); for a human, appropriate insulation is a quite thick wetsuit or a drysuit, and I'm pretty sure neoprene outperforms blubber.

Re: theme for a fantasy campaign
 

This may seem somewhat from left field, but, stylistically, if you're going with something as traditional as terrain based demihumans, I'd give a new weird or postmodern slant to the sexuality. I'd say that as female dwarves age, they are more likely to have homosexual sons who then have a shamanistic role and run the racial creche. It's much more along existing homanid patterns than sterile workers. I'd then have a group with more bonobo sexuality, probably Elves, that are frugivores. For group I'd use forced copulation. Perhaps with vagina dentata. Another should have seasonal oestrus like P. troglodytes. And the scavengers have hyena sexuality, which is it's own bag of boo.

I can't believe you have Odum's book. I spent several weekends at his cabin in the woods here, sadly after his death. If you know that much ecology, you can work out how different terrain types result in different mating systems - there are plenty of papers about. You can even do the equations for different strategies, via something like the hawk dove game, etc. At one point I was planning on running something like that as an agent based model through Rouge, but then I went to prison so that didn't happen.

Re: theme for a fantasy campaign
 

In the sentence "For group I'd use forced copulation," I'm not sure what species "group" refers to.

In going for a eusocial species I'm already going outside of normal hominid or even primate patterns. And I'm not sure why it would be advantageous for an older female dwarf with a big family to have homosexual sons, but not for a younger female dwarf with a small family. Clarify?

I'm wanting not to have to derive the mathematical population genetics myself. I've been exposed to it, but the last class I took in it was in 1971. That's why I've been picking you guys' brains and especially Brett's.

I don't actually own Odum. I have a university library that has his book. It's a splendid resource and I'd like to have the spare money to buy a copy someday.

Bill Stoddard

Re: theme for a fantasy campaign
 

For one* group, typo. By which I would guess one of the more robust species, trolls or ghouls, or add something else, like on a different continent or minor biome. I believe that orangutans use forced copulation, but this may be due to their near extinction. That's pretty distasteful, thus the vagina dentata. But then you're wondering off a cliff with weird sexuality, which can be squicky, a la Wreaththu.

On thinking about it, it makes more sense for the first born sons to be nonreproductive, if they are to care for their nieces and nephews. Or be mates to the mountain kami. IMHO, gay dwarves lack the squick factor.

Re: theme for a fantasy campaign
 

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Re: theme for a fantasy campaign
 

I think dolphins are very big on forced copulations. And blowhole sex.