theme for a fantasy campaign

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Brett

We have what now?

• Humans eat game such as antelope, zebra, gnu, and bison, mutton and chevre, beef, blood, milk, cheese, and yoghurt. Some have picked up wheat, barley, millet, sorghum, pork and maybe geese or ducks from the halflings.
• Halflings eat wheat, barley, rice, millet, taro, tapioca, sago, maize(?), waterlilly-root, water-chestnut, bamboo shoots, fish, pork, waterfowl, eggs, and maybe beef or buffalo, besides strange things called "vegetables".
• Ogretrolls eat seal, whale, reindeer, elk, aurochs, mammoth, pork, beef, yak, chevre, milk, ham, cheese, smoked beef, chicken, and under strenuous protest oats.
• Elves eat venison and pork, acorns, beechnuts, macadamias, hazels, walnuts, filberts, chestnuts, brazils, small and medium game including squirrels, fowl, and monkeys, besides probably tree fruit such as apples/pears and peaches/plums, oranges, loquats, mangoes, mangosteens, durian etc. etc.
• Dwarves eat potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, mutton and chevon, probably pork, and anything that they can get in trade.
• Selkies eat fish, shellfish, and crustaceans, eggs, sea-birds, the larger types of whales?
• Ghuls eat carrion, lizards, the seeds and fruit of desert plants when they can get them, dates(?)

Does anyone eat rabbits? How about guinea pigs?

Bill Stoddard

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Does anyone eat rabbits?

Well, they are grass-eaters: they don't flourish in forests, swamps, or marshes. Which makes them game for humans. Maybe ghuls.

How about guinea pigs?

Halflings or dwarves, I guess. They are the kind of domesticate you can breed and fatten in a burrow.

[Agemegos]

I forgot bananas and plantains, which are crops of the tropical elves, and sugarcane, which is a crop of tropical halflings. Also, vetches and pulses.

Ogretrolls and selkies, lacking starchy and sugary foods, are probably physiologically unaccustomed to and very susceptible to alcohol. Whereas halflings would probably die of dysentery if they didn't ferment every drop they drank into beer. Elves I think make wine, cider, and perry where they can, fermenting other fruit juices where they don't have grapes and pomes. Could they make beer out of some low-fat nut such as a chestnut, and what on Earth would it be like?

Amongst humans the farmers probably drink beer; the pastoralists have kumis at best and are probably susceptible to alcohol.

The race and peoples who don't drink alcohol most likely have other intoxicants: hallucinogenic mushrooms for the trolls; cannabis, poppy-juice, kava, kif, poisonous toads, etc. etc.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Brett

Ogretrolls and selkies, lacking starchy and sugary foods, are probably physiologically unaccustomed to and very susceptible to alcohol. Whereas halflings would probably die of dysentery if they didn't ferment every drop they drank into beer. Elves I think make wine, cider, and perry where they can, fermenting other fruit juices where they don't have grapes and pomes. Could they make beer out of some low-fat nut such as a chestnut, and what on Earth would it be like?

Tropical elves very likely drink palm wine. Perhaps they could come up with a technique for producing it that doesn't kill the palm, or perhaps they don't worry about it as long as they can make room for a new one. Tolkien makes much of "treeherds," but shepherds don't necessarily grieve at killing a single sheep.

Incidentally, I want to note that I've now stored a large share of your posts (and a couple by other people) in a file on my own computer, so that if my players buy this campaign I don't have to search old threads. The discussion will be invaluable.

Bill Stoddard

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Brett

I'm sorry, I was unclear. I meant to say that a mounted-hunter way of life might persist rather than developing into herding — not because horses are unsuitable to eat, but because bison and deer are unsuitable to herd.

That is:

• if humans have neither a ridable nor a herdable animal they remain cursorial hunters;
• if they have a herdable animal but not a ridable one, they become graziers, sedentary or migratory depending on whether their pastures are perennial or seasonal;
• if they have a ridable animal but not a herdable one they become mounted hunters, because horses are more awesome to ride than to eat;
• if they have both they become super-awesome mounted nomads, woo-hoo!

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

I still don't see who makes the wine and olive oil. Probably the elves, since it looks as though establishing long-lived plantation crops is their schtick.

Certainly the elves are the most logical to cultivate olives; in a Mediterranean area it's a common tree. I'll have to review Risk and Survival in Ancient Greece to see what other crops are available. Vines are possible for elves, certainly, but I could also see them as something halflings might grow. The grape seemingly was first domesticated in the Near East, probably along rivers, as it requires 700 mm of water from rain or irrigation. And the Bible has "under your own vine and your own fig tree."

As to ghouls, another option for them might be "firestick farming." Set fire to trees on the edge of your desert and you have a lot of dead animals to eat, and a period of high primary productivity while herbs recolonize the emptied land.

Bill Stoddard

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Tropical elves very likely drink palm wine. Perhaps they could come up with a technique for producing it that doesn't kill the palm

In Bali they (Balinese people, not elves) tap sap from a coconut-palm by nocking the stem of a bunch of flowers—which doesn't kill the tree. This they ferment to make a drink called "tuak", which in turn they distil to make a spirit called "arrack".

This is related to the process for making coconut sugar.

or perhaps they don't worry about it as long as they can make room for a new one. Tolkien makes much of "treeherds," but shepherds don't necessarily grieve at killing a single sheep.

Just so. Tolkien is sentimental about trees. Shepherds are seldom sentimental about sheep.

I would expect elves to clear trees of species that they didn't value ,to replace them with food-producing trees; manage forests for timber and woodlands for wood; and practice coppicing, pollarding, pruning, grafting, air-grafting, girdling and so forth. If they don't maximise production their children starve. If their children are in no danger of starving, then their population will grow until food is short.

A managed forest or woodland can be beautiful and wonderful, just like the intensely-managed rural landscape that Tolkien loved and (I think) similarly mistook for Nature.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by whswhs

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

Then I guess you herd horses for food.

Or is this massively unlikely?

I can't think why it should be. The distribution of domesticable medium-sized herbivores indicated by Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel seems to have no pattern to it, any more than does the distribution of large-seeded grasses.

Certainly the elves are the most logical to cultivate olives; in a Mediterranean area it's a common tree. I'll have to review Risk and Survival in Ancient Greece to see what other crops are available. Vines are possible for elves, certainly, but I could also see them as something halflings might grow. The grape seemingly was first domesticated in the Near East, probably along rivers, as it requires 700 mm of water from rain or irrigation. And the Bible has "under your own vine and your own fig tree."

Yes, but on the other hand a lot of that area was originally forested and would not have been deforested if the elves got into it before the goats. And I think that in connection with your theme here both grafting and the planting of plantations look like Elvish Art, while tilling and cultivation of annual crops are emerging as the halfing schtick.

As to ghouls, another option for them might be "firestick farming." Set fire to trees on the edge of your desert and you have a lot of dead animals to eat, and a period of high primary productivity while herbs recolonize the emptied land.

I don't suppose that you have read The Future Eaters, by Tim Flannery? Flannery suggests that the Ur-Aborigines who colonise Australia about 56,000 years ago accidentally converted 90% of Australia from dry woodland to desert and semi-desert. It wasn't because of their firestick farming; lightning, for example, starts enough fires in Australia to keep the fuel load near equilibrium. What they did was to kill and eat the herbivores (supporting a human population explosion), which allowed the fuel load to rise from 1–2 tonnes per hectare (which won't support fire hot enough to kill trees and buried seeds) to 10–20 tonnes per hectare (which will support sterilising wildfire). The reason that nearly all of the vegetation in mainland Australia is fire-tolerant is that the fire-tolerant stuff radiated and spread into vacant niches after the entire continent burned down ca. 54,000 years ago. Flannery speculates that the human population may have fallen from about half a million to about 80 thousand in the aftermath of than event.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Brett

Then I guess you herd horses for food.

Or maybe you just hunt the wild horses.

Bill Stoddard

[whswhs]

Checking an online Anglo-Saxon lexicon, I find that the most straightforward word for "boat" seems to be bát. Combining that with bytla, "builder," and wearing it down phonologically seems likely to give "babbit." Sinclair Lewis, call your office.

Bill Stoddard

[whswhs]

On another track:

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

Man males are modestly larger than females, and have imperfectly monogamous relationships. Halfling males and females are similar.

Elf males and females are much the same size. They lead long lives and have comparatively low fertility; much of their sexual activity is a social bonding mechanism.

Troll males and females are much the same size, but females have bigger brains and higher intelligence.

Ghoul females are modestly larger than males and tend to become leaders of ghoul bands through greater aggression.

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.

This is all just a preliminary guess and subject to change if anyone comes up with a better fancy.

Bill Stoddard