theme for a fantasy campaign

[Anders]

Originally Posted by whswhs

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

Bill Stoddard

They could easily have hunted them to extinction.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by whswhs

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

This suggests to me that circumstances are such that a modest amount of beating-up-other-males gets you a lot of extra matings. Which suggests in its turn that women are a concentrated asset whom it is easy to control access to, like cows in a herd or seals on a restricted beach. At least during the mating season.

I guess you're not terribly bothered by the evolutionary biology. We're like this 'cause we're seal-people, not because its an evolutionarily stable strategy for our genes.

I'm going to have to think carefully about the anthropology and social economics.

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.

Why? Is there are biological reason? Are elves supposed to be like something the way selkies seem to be? Is it some sort of thematic reason having to do with the slow maturation of forest trees?

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.

Hyaena-people, right?

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.

Naked mole-rats? Ants? Why? Is it the burrows?

Do these people swarm? Do they send out princesses and princes on nuptial prospecting journeys?

I guess we're not worrying about the biology here. The psychology is going to be very strange, though. Do you want dwarves to be playable?

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

I'd like an idea what you are shooting for. This is going to make these people weird, and give some of them deeply un-humanlike motivations. How is it connected to your theme? Do you have players who are going to enjoy getting into some deeply alien mindsets? And what sort of intellectual tools are they going to attempt that with?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Brett

Do these people swarm? Do they send out princesses and princes on nuptial prospecting journeys?

That is an awesome image. I think I need to steal that for something, somehow, somewhen.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

That is an awesome image. I think I need to steal that for something, somehow, somewhen.

I can see a dwarvish prince (fertile male) bachelor showing up at an unrelated hive with ore samples and an affidavit, and negotiating with the queen about what guarantees of good faith he gets before he tells her surveyors where his claim is, and which princess he gets if his find is confirmed to be as described. With half an hour to concentrate I could probably come up with a convincing account of what happens in a dwarvish gold rush. But I'm having a bit of trouble putting myself in the shoes of a dwarvish sterile worker.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Brett

But I'm having a bit of trouble putting myself in the shoes of a dwarvish sterile worker.

Asexuality isn't unknown in human psychology. I'm not sure it's that problematical here. In this case I'd expect Greed and Workaholic in the template.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Asexuality isn't unknown in human psychology.

It isn't, true. But I suspect that human asexuality is a poor model for the motivations of a sterile worker in a eusocial species. The sterile worker doesn't abstain from reproduction, she does it by proxy. The relationship between a worker bee and a queen bee is halfway towards the relationship between a stomach and a sex organ.

Asexual humans are not (that I know of) particularly motivated to get their sisters laid. A worker bee is all about keeping her sister pregnant and getting her nieces and nephews married. She's not uninterested in sex except for herself.

I'm not sure it's that problematical here. In this case I'd expect Greed and Workaholic in the template.

Coming at this from a standpoint in evolutionary biology or the ethology of eusocial animals such as ants and bees, I think Selfless and Sense of Duty might be more expected than Greed.

I don't know much about naked mole rats. And I can't help sharing Richard Dawkins' view that we are missing something very important in our description of them. He suggests that they might have an unrecognised furry form that travels on the surface to mate with non-relatives and found new nests.

I seem to recall that naked mole rats live on tubers that are so large as to be uneatable by a single pair of rats, which they discover rarely, sporadically, and with much labour. That's a reasonable analogue for dwarves finding ore bodies, I suppose. I might look the rats up when I find out what whswhs' purpose is for the funky sociobiology.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by whswhs

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.

The sterile workers are of both sexes? Are they permanently sterile, or is their fertility suppressed by the proximity of the breeders? How are senescent breeders replaced? What happens if the queen dies? How are new colonies established?

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by whswhs

No, actually, that's very much along the lines I was envisioning, though more elaborated. Though I think it would take sturdier material than I envision being used for beaver lodges to stand off a military threat from men or trolls. But halflings might very well develop brickmaking early on.

I definitely would like the halflings to be the pioneers of grain agriculture. On the other hand, the deliberate manufacture of fertile soil by plowing, irrigating, and fertilizing, in areas further away from river valleys, may be a pursuit that attracts both some men and some halflings; the need for draft animals will tend to favor men. Elves might cultivate root crops but I don't see them as having the right kind of habitat for grains.

I thought of borrowing your idea about raising fungus cultures underground as something for halflings to do in their burrows, to supplement their aboveground farming. It seems less obviously workable for dwarves, who are going to tunnel mainly through stone, though I could imagine dwarves learning the technique of fungiculture from halflings.

While the hobbits of the Shire may have abandoned most boating, their kindred among whom Smeagol was born seem to have been comfortable with it, and Deagol was a good swimmer when he found the One Ring and was murdered for it.

Bill Stoddard

Have you thought of useing the Czech folklore name for small fay that live in rivers and swamps, Vodniks or Vodyanoy? Given that these hobbits/halflings are more beaver/otter than rabbit-like (there's a good deal of evidence, especally in the earlier editions of the Hobbit, that Tolkien originally saw the Hobbits as rabbit-like enough to be seen as and mistaken for rabbits), the frog-like aspects of Vodniks might not be to anoying. And besides, you can always make frog-like qualities a human myth to justify bigotry.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by whswhs

All of that works pretty well, yes. It occurs to me that both trolls and dwarves are going to have a physique with compact bodies and short limbs; perhaps they're comparatively close kin. Though a dwarf woman bearing a half-troll child would probably die.

I was initially envisioning trolls as sexually dimorphic, with the females larger than the males. This goes with a pattern where the young are raised mainly by the females, and the males drop in but don't stay.

But I also wanted the females to be the main magic workers. So it occurred to me that originally large female trolls might have undergone evolution for smaller body size without reduction in brain size. This would make for relatively higher intelligence and more retentive memory. And it might substitute for large size in making female trolls more capable and thus able to care for young unaided.

Males may tend to be nomadic, and thus likely to turn up in other species' territories, especially in lowlands not far from mountains; this would be somewhat consistent with the three trolls in The Hobbit, who seemingly came down from the Trollshaws, and I could imagine male trolls forming small gangs for mutual protection.

One task that is performed by creatures with high strength but limited endurance is plowing. Oxen apparently cannot be worked for a full day; five hours is their limit. Of course, you can feed oxen on hay; they don't need meat. On the other hand, trolls might be useful where a draft animal that understands spoken instructions is needed. Or perhaps they might be recruited to help clear new ground. What do you think?

Bill Stoddard

I think it's good. Traditionally seasonal labor needed for plowing and harvesting was seen as unrulely, violent, and a potenial threat. Many of the things a community might say of trolls. You could propably raid real world folklore for the various customs used to keep the hired hands in line/content. And the scary troll could be named Captain Swing.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by whswhs

There might be small populations in Poland or its analogs. My understanding is that Poland was dominated by cavalrymen who made it the terror of Europe for a while. Though that might have been dependent on more advanced technology.

Bill Stoddard

Besides, we all know you like the Riders of Rohan. A human horse culture will need to be part of this setting, even if it isn't Tolkien's Anglo-Saxon cavalry/vikings.