theme for a fantasy campaign

[Xplo]

For the dwarves, I had this idea of making most of them hibernate. In desperate times, maybe they can eat the manifest bodies of the earth spirits, who are able to survive a certain amount of depopulation without blighting the land. This would also contribute to the scarcity of mined goods, and establish a reserve of living dwarves in case of war or other disaster.

Originally Posted by Sunrunners_Fire

I believe the answer is: human blood doesn't contain enough sugar. We've used cows blood and whatnot as part of a refining step for certain alcohols as the blood grabs on to some of the bits we don't want, causing them to precipitate out ... but thats' a different thing that fermenting the blood itself.

What about hyperglycemic blood? 600 mg/dl levels are not uncommon in diabetics, I understand, and I found one story of a person who briefly had 5600 mg/dl and survived (thanks to treatment, of course).

Also, I suspect we've just invented a new Batman villain together, and a particularly goofy one too. The rest of y'all can thank/curse us later.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by whswhs

It seems to me that the early development of selkies [stranden] as a species has a problem if the females stay on shore with the young and the males go out to sea: What sort of male-female cooperation is there going to be? Indeed, is there going to be any? Men go out to hunt, but they only stay away for a short time, and then come back, bringing high-value nutrients and useful industrial materials to women. I can't readily see a stable cooperative relationship existing if the men go away for long journeys and only show up occasionally. There needs to be a form of durable and portable wealth to make that functional, I think—that is, trade needs to have emerged first.

Before then, there may be a considerable separation between males and females, but the males are still going to want to come on shore to rest, and to provide the females with their catch.

I'd also note that if the males take, later, to going on long voyages to trade or whale, the females will be left alone. To keep up their protein and calorie intake, they may need to develop their own fishing customs. And if their fishing grounds are valuable, they may have to fight for them, against men or halflings or even trolls who want to muscle in.

In the primitive stage of stranden society the men are only undertaking day trips anyway, and are at hand to exploit resources near the shore. But whether the men are near or far, a girl with no children yet is not confined to the shore at all, and a woman whose youngest child is old enough not to need close supervision only needs to return to shore a few times per day. Even a woman who needs to be within a shout and a short sprint of a child than might at any time toddle into trouble fish with a handline or net a tidal waterway. Then too, such women as whose babes are no longer at the breast can form crèches, freeing up some for hours-long fishing and shellfish-diving. That gives women's shore communities both onshore and offshore food resources that might need to be defended. I briefly mentioned their military circumstances in post #179.

Men fetch nutrients from further afield, in general at least as rich or richer, and perhaps crucially diverse. The biological problem for men is to convert those riches into reproductive success. The two most obvious and ethologically most common strategies are (1) to invest those nutrients in getting more matings (make more related infants) and (2) to feed them to related children and their mothers (increase the survival-to-adulthood rate among related infants).

1(a) The men could invest their catches in the bulk and strength to out-fight other men, and the fat reserves to closely supervise women in a compact harem during a restricted mating season, but only if the women had a limited mating season and were forced to cluster during it. But the women haven't and aren't.

1(b) They could give food etc. to women who mated with them, without longer-term commitment. In this case the reproductive interest of the man is to detect when a woman is are fertile and to monopolise her affections through her fertile period. The reproductive interest of a woman is to mate during her actual fertile period with a man whose inheritable characteristics suggest that other women will want to mate with his sons (the "sexy son" strategy), while at other times convincing rich men that she is fertile and will conceive children with them if amply bribed (the "gold-digger" strategy). This sort of behaviour is not unknown to ethology — I can think of spiders that do this — but it is probably not adequate to the high degree of dependency of a woman raising a voracious and slow-maturing human child.

2(a) Men could give food to their mothers while their mothers were still fertile, or to their sisters. In these circumstances it is in their evolutionary interests that their mothers be faithful to their fathers, but whether their sisters are faithful to anyone doesn't matter to them. This leads to the avuncular pattern of society, in which the supervision of women's sexual behaviour is lax.

2(b) Men could create a lasting arrangement with one or more women, in which the woman undertakes sexually faithful, and the man provides nutrients to her and her children. In such circumstances the woman has an evolutionary interest in making the man concentrate his resources on her children and not dilute them among multiple baby-mothers, unless the provision is so ample that her children are glutted and the other women in question are close relatives. She also has an evolutionary interest is accepting his support while sneaking matings with the likely fathers of sexy sons. And an interest in convincing him that she is not doing this: costly displays of fidelity and attachment may be involved. The man has an evolutionary interest in spreading his resources among as many children as they will support (which might involve multiple mothers) and in perhaps sneaking some matings with women whose children other men will support, also, in preventing his women from bearing children to other men. In this situation his father and brothers are potential rivals: they want to promote him only into reproductive opportunities that they can't have themselves. His allies are his mother and grandmothers, his sisters, and his children. This produces the patrilineal pattern of society in which women are supervised (in the absence of their husbands) by their mothers-in-law.

3. Men have other strategies such as the "sneaky ****er" that do not involve providing resources, and therefore do not answer the question "how does a man convert surplus resources into increased reproductive success". I'll mention them here anyway as a prolepsis. And they do complicate the strategies above.


In short, it looks a lot like any hunter-gather society in which the men undertaking overnight or multiple-day hunting trips. And it may develop into something like the fishing and whaling communities of New England etc.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Xplo

What about hyperglycemic blood?

I was thinking more of diabetics' urine.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Brett

In the primitive stage of stranden society the men are only undertaking day trips anyway, and are at hand to exploit resources near the shore. But whether the men are near or far, a girl with no children yet is not confined to the shore at all, and a woman whose youngest child is old enough not to need close supervision only needs to return to shore a few times per day. Even a woman who needs to be within a shout and a short sprint of a child than might at any time toddle into trouble fish with a handline or net a tidal waterway. Then too, such women as whose babes are no longer at the breast can form crèches, freeing up some for hours-long fishing and shellfish-diving. That gives women's shore communities both onshore and offshore food resources that might need to be defended. I briefly mentioned their military circumstances in post #179.

Men fetch nutrients from further afield, in general at least as rich or richer, and perhaps crucially diverse. The biological problem for men is to convert those riches into reproductive success. The two most obvious and ethologically most common strategies are (1) to invest those nutrients in getting more matings (make more related infants) and (2) to feed them to related children and their mothers (increase the survival-to-adulthood rate among related infants).

1(a) The men could invest their catches in the bulk and strength to out-fight other men, and the fat reserves to closely supervise women in a compact harem during a restricted mating season, but only if the women had a limited mating season and were forced to cluster during it. But the women haven't and aren't.

I have the impression that gorillas are polygynous and have pronounced sexual dimorphism. Do they have a limited mating season, and if so, is there a compelling reason that the stranden can't? It's not jumping out at me, but that may just be because I'm not ingenious enough to work it out. Or do they have polygyny without restricted mating seasons?

1(b) They could give food etc. to women who mated with them, without longer-term commitment. In this case the reproductive interest of the man is to detect when a woman is are fertile and to monopolise her affections through her fertile period. The reproductive interest of a woman is to mate during her actual fertile period with a man whose inheritable characteristics suggest that other women will want to mate with his sons (the "sexy son" strategy), while at other times convincing rich men that she is fertile and will conceive children with them if amply bribed (the "gold-digger" strategy). This sort of behaviour is not unknown to ethology — I can think of spiders that do this — but it is probably not adequate to the high degree of dependency of a woman raising a voracious and slow-maturing human child.

Not for this species, anyway. It's what I was considering for the troll analogs, with the females being originally stronger than the males and later equally strong and smarter.

2(a) Men could give food to their mothers while their mothers were still fertile, or to their sisters. In these circumstances it is in their evolutionary interests that their mothers be faithful to their fathers, but whether their sisters are faithful to anyone doesn't matter to them. This leads to the avuncular pattern of society, in which the supervision of women's sexual behaviour is lax.

That general pattern is one I'm familiar with and might like to explore in more detail. And it's going to lead to matrilineages and political alliances based on them, which will be more stable when, later on, the men are far away at sea.

* Does it imply anything about relative male and female body size?

* It seems as if males don't gain meaningful power over their mothers until they're old enough to participate in hunting and bringing home food. But by then most of their brothers (and sisters) will already be born, won't they? So male social control of older women's sexuality is going to have less of a payoff. I suppose if a man knows who his father is, he might be unhappy if his mother took up with another man, perhaps unhappy enough to go a-viking. . . .

2(b) Men could create a lasting arrangement with one or more women, in which the woman undertakes sexually faithful, and the man provides nutrients to her and her children. In such circumstances the woman has an evolutionary interest in making the man concentrate his resources on her children and not dilute them among multiple baby-mothers, unless the provision is so ample that her children are glutted and the other women in question are close relatives. She also has an evolutionary interest is accepting his support while sneaking matings with the likely fathers of sexy sons. And an interest in convincing him that she is not doing this: costly displays of fidelity and attachment may be involved. The man has an evolutionary interest in spreading his resources among as many children as they will support (which might involve multiple mothers) and in perhaps sneaking some matings with women whose children other men will support, also, in preventing his women from bearing children to other men. In this situation his father and brothers are potential rivals: they want to promote him only into reproductive opportunities that they can't have themselves. His allies are his mother and grandmothers, his sisters, and his children. This produces the patrilineal pattern of society in which women are supervised (in the absence of their husbands) by their mothers-in-law.

The most common pattern among men, and therefore less interesting because less exotic. Though I wouldn't flatly rule it out, if 2a has problems.

3. Men have other strategies such as the "sneaky ****er" that do not involve providing resources, and therefore do not answer the question "how does a man convert surplus resources into increased reproductive success". I'll mention them here anyway as a prolepsis. And they do complicate the strategies above.


In short, it looks a lot like any hunter-gather society in which the men undertaking overnight or multiple-day hunting trips. And it may develop into something like the fishing and whaling communities of New England etc.

One thing that occurs to me is that men are probably going to do more diving than women. Deep diving is high-risk, and men can be spared; and it gives access to more resources, and enables men to provide more usefully. Perhaps displays of good lung capacity, via singing, may be a useful form of sexual advertising. "Have my kids and your sons will be good providers!" I'd like to have musical ability be a common trait; it's so often attributed to merfolk and sirens and the like. A bit of sexual selection for vocalization riding on top of natural selection for breath control might fit.

Bill Stoddard

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I have the impression that gorillas are polygynous and have pronounced sexual dimorphism. Do they have a limited mating season, and if so, is there a compelling reason that the stranden can't? It's not jumping out at me, but that may just be because I'm not ingenious enough to work it out. Or do they have polygyny without restricted mating seasons?

I don't think they have restricted mating seasons, but what they do have is males in constant propinquity with their harems: male and female gorillas gather the same food in the same places and almost the same way. Stranden can't do that because the women can't take their babies along on the activity that gives them a niche in which to survive competition with the brocmen.

Now, if stranden women had a relatively short breeding season in which they hung together in groups, then men could contest for reproductive access to those groups, in something like the way that bull seals and bulls and stallions contest for reproductive control of herds. But they would have to supervise those groups constantly, which means no going off for fishing and diving trips. They could manage by stacking on the weight during the off season and running on reserves through the mating season. But they can't keep that up for very long, hence the need for a short season.

The problem is that stranden women don't face any of the incentives that keep mares, cows, and seal-cows together, nor (at least globally) the incentives that give them a co-ordinated breeding season. And it doesn't seem to be in the the women's reproductive interest to be controlled that way. The closest I can come in men displaying like larks or birds-of-paradise, and the women choosing among them. Now, if women only bonked one man per breeding season, or the men could tell which children were theirs that might be followed up with resource provision….

That general pattern is one I'm familiar with and might like to explore in more detail. And it's going to lead to matrilineages and political alliances based on them, which will be more stable when, later on, the men are far away at sea.

* Does it imply anything about relative male and female body size?

It implies a great freedom of women to choose they fathers of their children, with the "sexy son" strategy producing arbitrary selective pressures on men. I think elephant cows prefer large bulls, but the result at the moment is not dimorphism by both sexes getting larger in African national parks where the counter-pressures have been relieved.

* It seems as if males don't gain meaningful power over their mothers until they're old enough to participate in hunting and bringing home food. But by then most of their brothers (and sisters) will already be born, won't they? So male social control of older women's sexuality is going to have less of a payoff. I suppose if a man knows who his father is, he might be unhappy if his mother took up with another man, perhaps unhappy enough to go a-viking. . . .

"I'll tell Daddy!"

The most common pattern among men, and therefore less interesting because less exotic. Though I wouldn't flatly rule it out, if 2a has problems.

Humans having adopted both patterns under different circumstances, the difference might be cultural rather than biological.

One thing that occurs to me is that men are probably going to do more diving than women. Deep diving is high-risk, and men can be spared; and it gives access to more resources, and enables men to provide more usefully. Perhaps displays of good lung capacity, via singing, may be a useful form of sexual advertising. "Have my kids and your sons will be good providers!" I'd like to have musical ability be a common trait; it's so often attributed to merfolk and sirens and the like. A bit of sexual selection for vocalization riding on top of natural selection for breath control might fit.

"Any note you can hold I can hold longer! I can hold any note longer than you!"

Size itself might be a useful indicator of diving ability. Big men are less susceptible to chill.

The problem, as with the elephants, is not to get both sexes enlarging.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Brett

The problem, as with the elephants, is not to get both sexes enlarging.

I don't necessarily object to both sexes being comparatively large humanoids! But I can see sexual dimorphism in the males, who do more diving, having more need for high lung capacity and good thermal insulation—neither of which need lead to their being taller, of course.

At a certain point they're going to be up against the limits of feeding those large bodies, though.

Bill Stoddard

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Brett

I was thinking more of diabetics' urine.

It has been done as a stunt.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I can see, actually, at least two ways to get hybrids:

* The heroic myth approach: Beren alone of mortal men married an elf-woman, the sons of God desired the daughters of men, and so on.

* The urban realism approach: When people start coming to the emerging halfling city-states to trade, some of them stay, and perhaps intermarry, and whether through chance, drugs, or magic, some of them have children.

I'm not sure if they'd both work in the same storyline, though. Thoughts?

Bill Stoddard

Well, as I thought about the recent arrival of human beings, I figured one of the attractive possibilities was that the most powerful spirits from each habitat brought the humans, because they realized the world needed a facilitator race that didn't really fit in, anywhere.

It wouldn't necessarily have been a deliberate decision by a particular set of "gods," either. It could have come as a manifestation of the collective subconscious recognition of the need, by the specialized races.

The hybrid notion could work the same way. The subconscious recognition that, perhaps, the people had become too specialized "charges" the spirits to make healthy hybrids more frequent. The could make the Brett's stranden trading cities havens of fertility -- which has some interesting possibilities for the discussion of dwarven reproduction issues and stranden family strategy, too.

Perhaps large stranden trading cities are seen as licentious pits of social upheaval, filled with half-breeds of all sorts, who have the disturbing tendency to be really good at stuff the more traditional folk need doing?

[whswhs]

One of the things I've been thinking about is the ways in which the various races might "sin"—that is, go down a destructive path. I'm looking for ways in which all of them might refuse cultural, ecological, and economic exchange with the others. Like my other thoughts, these are speculative and somewhat inspired by Tolkienian symbolism. However, I don't want to have any purely "evil" races like his orcs; even Tolkien was thinking better of that later in life.

* Dwarves tend to worry about hoarding and trying to have a lot of inflow and no outflow.

* Elves develop very stable societies preoccupied with rank and formal roles. and want the rest of the world to be equally stable; ideally they'd like to have massive afforestation so that as much of the world as possible can be a pleasance.

* Ghouls fall into short-term thinking, seeking maximal returns without repeat business, through stealth, theft, fraud, and occasional mobbing.

* Halflings have the characteristic problems of market economies: If you don't have formally defined property rights in something they treat it as a free good and overuse it. They also have some rent-seeking tendencies, though not as bad as elves.

* Men's failings are the state, conquest, and war; they're attracted by power.

* Selkies embody the lawlessness of the open sea, being likely to turn to viking raids.

* Trolls seek power at an individual level: Males through superior strength, females through superior magic. Trollwives are the closest the world has to the classic "wicked witch" stereotype.

Bill Stoddard

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

Perhaps large stranden trading cities are seen as licentious pits of social upheaval, filled with half-breeds of all sorts, who have the disturbing tendency to be really good at stuff the more traditional folk need doing?

Perhaps. Or perhaps you have more of that in the halfling river towns, which do more of the continental trading.

Bill Stoddard