Quote:
Originally Posted by martinl
Alternately, they're an opportunity to take out humans who can't be tolerated.
|
Well, that would be war.
But there's a wholly different character to a war where the sides are set by species lines. Humans may have a lot of reasons, some valid, some not, to prefer violence to talking when it comes to dealing with other humans. Orcs and goblins, however, have many of the qualities of an ecological disaster.
Humans, while far from ecologically sensible, will at least tend to breed fast during times of plentiful food and slowly during famines. And while a brutal form of birth control, it is a fact that human children are very sensitive to harsh conditions and without sufficient resources, human population will tend to stabilise due to infant mortality.
Orcs and goblins birth live young as humans do, but in litters of up to half dozen. The gestation period is shorter than with humans for both races and the young are born more capable than human young. Both orcs and goblins can eat a wider range of foodstuff than humans without getting sick, have a more robust constitution and tolerance for environmental conditions and diseases. The combined effect is that even living on the inhospitable outskirts of human lands, these races double their population every ten years or so.
If it wasn't for their warlike natures and tendency to band together into a raiding horde when the carrying capacity of their caves is exceeded, both races would have the capability to colonise all the lands left empty by humans and then start moving on to human lands. The regular invasions of thousands of warriors are seen as s scourge by the average human, but the alternative, that the creatures would instead scrounge peacefully for more resources and wait until they outnumber their civilised counterparts by hundreds to one, is far worse.