theme for a fantasy campaign

[Bengt]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Not that hard. It will be more that each race is better able to survive in its natural terrain with less technology. For example, trolls, with huge bodies, can endure an arctic environment where a man would freeze.

One thought about Arctic/Polar regions is to put an amphibian race there since beyond a certain latitude all the solar converting organisms are water based.

If you mean reshaping one terrain to be like another, it will not be too easily doable with technology. But the threat of its being done with magic will be one of the themes. Men might burn down the great forests, or trolls might cover all the land with snow and ice.

Bill Stoddard

What stopping them from burning down forests with regular technology? I mean if there is a war and humans make inroads into the forest, they can cut down trees with regular axes before the inevitable counter attack. It will take much longer for trees to grow back mundanely than it took to cut them down mundanely. The elves would have to spend supernatural resources to keep up. This asymmetry could be significant over longer times.

It could be more balanced if there is a spiritual inertia that only lets land grow what is "right" on it until a long time has passed. To speed up the spiritual change could require 37 übermages in a complicated ceremony while singing elf-children is enough to make trees grow a bit faster on forestland.