Multi-Species Worlds in Fantasy: a Thought Excercise

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Multi-Species Worlds in Fantasy: a Thought Excercise

Post by Formless »

Cross-posting this from SFDebris' forum.

So this is sort of a world building exercise combined with a conundrum. As any fan of High Fantasy knows, it is the norm in fantasy worlds to have humans coexist with multiple fantasy creatures we usually call races, but are really completely different species from humans. Halflings, dwarves, elves, orcs, and usually quite a few more than that. Hell, if you want a ridiculously extreme case, look at D&D and Pathfinder: according to the SRD, there are no less than 37 different sentient races all living on Golarian! Now, true, some of them are tied to the elemental planes and several are explicitly described as "uncommon", but that's an amazing level of diversity when you stop and think about it. Even Science Fiction sometimes does this, although usually not to the same extreme; you'll get about 2 different sentient species appearing on the same planet and that's it. Usually.

Here's the conundrum. A couple weeks ago while looking for information on Pathfinder's catfolk race (art, player builds, the 3.5 race equivalent, etc.) I randomly came across a thread on some forum which wasn't really related except insofar as it involved catgirls. Because search engines and false positives. Anyway, it was a silly sounding worldbuilding thread, but I only saw about the eleventh page and where it was completely derailed because apparently a bunch of people started a debate over whether an obligate carnivore race could possible compete evolutionarily with humans due to us being omnivores. I had no bones in that fight (except insofar as I thought people were being too harsh on the OP) and it sounded like people had long since past the point of listening to one another, but that was kind of disappointing because I realized that there was indeed an interesting question embedded in the ridiculous argument that literally spawned over catgirls in a fantasy setting. How do these extraordinarily diverse settings in fantasy worlds actually evolve without one or more of the sentient races on them going extinct *? I mean, I don't think anyone knows for sure why humans are the lone hominin species left on Earth, but can such a situation really occur where multiple species manage to climb their way up to the iron age without one single species dominating or even eradicating the rest? And what are the factors that make it more or less likely? Does diet really matter that much, as the people in that aforementioned thread seemed to think? Do geographic, anatomical, and ecological factors matter?

Lets imagine for the sake of argument a world with the following:

Humans: here to be used as a baseline and because there seems to be an expectation by some people that humans can outcompete any other contenders. I'd like to test that hypothesis.

Halflings: because short races seem to be popular. I should note that if people out there are gamers and want some ideas on how halflings are different from humans, you can if you like look at Pathfinder's description of them (but I wouldn't suggest using the game's statistics and mechanics as a crutch for the sake of discussion. It is a game, after all). * Assume for a moment that they are less inclined to a nomadic lifestyle than humans and live about 50% longer than us on average.

* If you like you can assume dwarves are a subculture of halflings, but I'm trying to avoid races that are commonly ascribed a magical origin like elves, as that complicates the logic of the thought experiment and adds variables that I don't think anyone can fully account for.

Catfolk: because they were both directly and indirectly the inspiration for this thread. Again, see Pathfinder's description of them. Note that Pathfinder originally commissioned this rather humanoid depiction of catfolk (basically a very very limber catgirl), and the later panther headed version they used in the Advanced Race Guide is not what I'm using here. I'm not even sure a snout allows you to drink fluids properly, let alone speak human language. But anyway. Nothing specifically says that they are obligate carnivores, only that they have predatory instincts, so we'll just assume that they are similar to chimpanzees in that regard. However...

Goblins: according to Pathfinder, goblins are definitely carnivorous, and that should make for an interesting bit to throw in the mix (especially given what I've already talked about). In fact, they don't even have a problem eating the flesh of other sapient races. They don't live as long as humans on average, and they are short, but in fiction they always seem to be extremely numerous. I'd like to see if you guys think such a stereotypical "villain" race could in fact coexist in the long term with the others.

Merfolk: Here is where I deviate from the "everything is taken from Pathfinder" pattern by stealing instead from Magic: the Gathering and saying they are amphibious like the merfolk of Mercadia, Theros, and Zendikar. Note that they can survive in the oceans. The question here is, basically, whether the ecology has a significant impact on the species' survival when other sentient races come into contact with them.

And lastly, in case real life geography had anything to do with Homo Sapien's success over its competitors, I'll take that out of the equation by saying this world has the geography of Venus if Venus had oceans and a habitable surface. Nice neutral setting for a fantasy discussion, I think.

Assume that all five evolved naturally and that all of their civilizations/societies started in the stone age.

So now that we have a relatively "normal" fantasy setup to ground the discussion in, how do you think such a situation could lead to all five races achieving iron age technology if they have to coexist with the other four? Do you think one or more of them will go extinct in the process? Do you think they could even reach modern technology if given enough time to develop? Do you think humans will inevitably dominate the other four because Humanity Fuck Yeah? Whatever conclusions you all have, I'd like to hear them.
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Re: Multi-Species Worlds in Fantasy: a Thought Excercise

Post by Jub »

In the normal fantasy setting, such as Pathfinder or D&D, most races have some sort of protective racial god as well as several other neutral gods to keep things in balance. Thus, things are artificially made to stay balanced with ups and downs for each race, but gods stepping in to prevent extinction.
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Re: Multi-Species Worlds in Fantasy: a Thought Excercise

Post by Simon_Jester »

Hm. I'm going to assume each species' magical advantages mostly cancel each other out, unless otherwise noted...

MERFOLK

Merfolk have the huge advantage of a secure ecological niche no other species is competing for. They would probably survive and thrive in an Iron Age world IF they can find secure places to live and breed where other races can't get at them.

Merfolk would have a serious problem if they're at war with humans and aren't capable of living underwater (and breeding there, raising kids there, etc.), because if they have to live on beaches like seals, they're vulnerable to getting clubbed like seals.

Conversely, if merfolk can survive underwater (e.g. have gills), humans lack the ability to bring a war to them on any consistent, permanent basis. Conversely, merfolk lack the ability to bring a war to the humans because even if they can breathe air and survive on land, they're not going to be very effective at climbing hills and working their way through underbrush to chase after humans far from a beach.

Therefore, while merfolk and humans could compete for things like fishing rights in coastal waters, in a real sense neither could ever realistically drive the other out of an entire area using Iron Age technology.

On the other hand, it is debatable whether the merfolk would ever develop advanced technology, and if they did it might evolve along entirely different lines (i.e. cultivation of plant and animal species modified by magical genetic enhancement). Underwater, fire doesn't burn, metals cannot be smelted and corrode quickly, and stoneworking is... possible, but difficult unless you have an animal that can crawl across the bottom of the ocean to move heavy stone blocks, without suffocating due to lack of water flowing over its gills.

Merfolk, basically, would be living in a realm and ecosystem that is just different than anything the other races experience, and would be prime candidates to survive because they can recuse themselves from competition for resources on land.

HALFLINGS

Halflings, because they are physically smaller and weaker than normal humans, don't sound like they'd do very well, except perhaps on a small scale living in isolated areas such as islands. Aside from that you'd expect them to be systematically pushed out of any niche they occupy or any desirable land.

Make the halflings physically larger (e.g. traditional depictions of 'dwarves,') and this is less of an issue.

One way to explain halflings' survival, inspired both by your "less nomadic" comment and your reference to dwarves, is if halflings invented agriculture, and other advanced technology. If they are the ones who build the biggest cities (made larger in numbers by the fact that you can feed more halflings with the same amount of grain). If they retain technological advantages which make them competitive in war with humans who are "wild and free" and tend to be more nomadic, more primitive, and/or more prone to living in frontier areas where their greater physical strength allows them to compete with the really big nasty monsters.

CATFOLK

If catfolk aren't obligate carnivores, they can probably survive anywhere and in any way that humans survive. From a quick skim of the Pathfinder description, they can do everything humans can do roughly as well as humans do. And they have some physical advantages (night vision) that would matter quite a bit in certain environments. So they'd probably do fine. They're described as a tribal people, though, which suggests that they will not develop advanced technology on their own, and may over time become vulnerable to enemies who have advanced technology.

So you'd be most likely to see them in the kinds of environment that, historically, continued to support a hunter-gatherer presence despite close proximity to farming societies. Dense forest or jungle is usually best for this, especially in areas where large domesticable herd animals and beasts of burden do not thrive or do not exist.

However, in such an environment, they might well outcompete anatomically ordinary humans. This suggests that they would more or less have to originate on separate continents, or the catfolk would probably have outcompeted humans back in prehistoric times.

GOBLINS

If goblins are obligate carnivores AND breed faster and outpopulate humans, they're probably the least survivable race so far, simply because their population totals will be subject to horrific killer boom-bust cycles. There just isn't enough meat in a realistic ecosystem to support huge swarms of obligate carnivores, especially carnivores whose life cycle is such that they breed rapidly in good times and then starve when droughts kill off much of the local game population.

They'd have to have emerged in an environment with a very stable supply of food to eat, and one where their fast maturation and breeding rate was an advantage (say, greater risks of death by disease? I don't know).
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Re: Multi-Species Worlds in Fantasy: a Thought Excercise

Post by The Romulan Republic »

Frankly, things always get tricky, in my opinion, when you bring genuine deities into a setting. I'd be more interested in seeing a fantasy series where the fantasy elements were more downplayed/realistic, and the existence of any gods was left ambiguous.

Of course, at some point, if you downplay the supernatural, it becomes ambiguous weather something is fantasy or science fiction/alternate history.

As to Formless's setting and questions:

I would answer that yes, it is possible for multiple technological species to thrive in the same world. And yes, diet, anatomy, ecology, and geography will all effect how well each one does.

As for specifics pertaining to this setting:

Well, it'll obviously depend partly on who starts out where, what environment and resources they have, but I can see humans doing fairly well regardless. We're adaptable, and reproduce fairly quickly. None of the others has an obvious leg up on us as far as I see, and if Merpeople are primarily aquatic, then they won't be really competing with anyone else (more on that later).

Goblins are going to be a problem for everyone else. They're predatory and supposedly numerous, though that seems almost a contradiction (its my understanding that predatory species are generally rare compared to prey species for reasons that should be obvious). I could see the less flexible diet of the goblins being a problem, as is the fact that they'll almost certainly be competing with everyone else for food, and probably hunting other sapients or at least their livestock as well.

I can see them running out of food and being hunted down by everyone else.

Merfolk... probably do pretty well, all other factors being equal. They have access to an environment no one else really does, at least not to the same extent. Less competition for resources. And I can see them setting up some lucrative trade with everyone, trading stuff from the bottom of the sea only they can access readily to the land folk.

Halflings. Just little humans for the most part. I could see other tribes of humans discriminating against them based on appearance, and vice versa, but I don't see them as necessarily being hugely disadvantaged. Though longer lives likely means slower reproduction, and a preference for staying put means they'll fair worse if something disastrous happens to their homeland. Less adaptable. I don't think they fair too well.

Catfolk. Another more predatory land based species, but not dependent on predation, and quite different from humans. Probably emerge as the most common rivals/enemies of humans/halflings (besides other humans/halflings, anyway).

And of course, I imagine it wouldn't be "this species allied with or at war with that species" as fantasy sometimes portrays it, but that their'd be internal conflict within species and cooperation between members of different species.

Edit: In summary, my preliminary guess is that humans, merpeople, and cat people excel, merpeople don't clash as much with the others, and goblins and halflings end up marginalized or extinct.
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Re: Multi-Species Worlds in Fantasy: a Thought Excercise

Post by Formless »

FYI, I imagine there being physical variation in the halfling population. I didn't want to include explicit dwarves because a) the difference between a dwarf and a hobbit seems to be 90% culture and one foot of height and b) Dwarves in most fantasy settings are inevitably magical in nature or origin, like elves though a bit less so.

And yeah, I kind of want to eliminate the magical explanations like "their gods are protecting them" for how they are able to coexist. If they have magic, assume they all have it so its effects basically cancel out. I know that a lot of fantasy worlds get around the question I'm asking by resorting to a creation myth that is literally true and allows all societies to completely skip the stone age, but that's kind of a cheat if we stop and look long term. A cheat I would willingly use in my own fiction, but a cheat nonetheless.



Does anyone think that merfolk might enjoy the benefits of bronze technology longer than the other races due to bronze ability to survive immersion in water without completely corroding to shit?
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Re: Multi-Species Worlds in Fantasy: a Thought Excercise

Post by The Romulan Republic »

I'm more wondering how a primarily aquatic civilization would even develop advanced metal working.
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Re: Multi-Species Worlds in Fantasy: a Thought Excercise

Post by Formless »

Well, they can come up on land for extended periods of time, where they could do manufacturing and trade. Of course, in Magic's Theros setting merfolk do have to keep their gills moist and periodically return to the sea for this reason. I haven't seen anything to suggest or deny that Zendikari merfolk have to do the same, but its kind of irrelevant there because the few civilizations on Zendikar that aren't forced to live a nomadic lifestyle due to the Roil (a gravitational effect that uproots the geology with all the predictability of the weather) are apparently coastal to begin with.

Then again, the Zendikari seem to love coral based technology, and Theros is based on a late Bronze age early Iron age society (ancient Greece).

And IIRC the mercadian merfolk cheated and used magic to grant themselves legs while on land. But they were one of the setting's elite cultures... the other being goblins. Phyrexian influenced goblins, but still goblins. :lol:
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Re: Multi-Species Worlds in Fantasy: a Thought Excercise

Post by The Romulan Republic »

One thing I'm wondering is how the different species' biology would affect their military tactics and weapons/armour.

I mean obviously, warfare for a merman in the ocean is going to be radically different from a human soldier on land, but even between the more land-based factions, I imagine their'd be differences.

And what about fighting mermen in the sea if you're a land-based power? Would the ships of land-based powers be equipped with nets and harpoons by default?

Halflings have less physical size and presumably strength. Would they favour spears or ranged weapons over weapons like axes and swords?

Cats tend to be more nocturnal and have excellent eyesight, correct? Would the cat people tend to favour night raids and ambushes?

Would the more numerous goblins tend to default to the usual horde of canon fodder tactics, or would they show greater cunning as a naturally predatory species?
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Re: Multi-Species Worlds in Fantasy: a Thought Excercise

Post by Broomstick »

Formless wrote:Does anyone think that merfolk might enjoy the benefits of bronze technology longer than the other races due to bronze ability to survive immersion in water without completely corroding to shit?
The Romulan Republic wrote:I'm more wondering how a primarily aquatic civilization would even develop advanced metal working.
Trade?

Other than, of course, magic. Seems to me that by Iron Age tech levels folks are going to have trade networks. There's no practical reasons NOT to trade with other species, particularly if each trade partner has access to resources the others don't, or can more easily obtain resources.

More to the point with the OP's questions, here is my take:

Humans: well, yeah, we know they're adaptable if they're like the humans we know and are. There is actually precedent on Earth for multiple varieties of homo species co-existing. In some instance, one species seemed to be vegetarian/plant food specialists and another more omnivorous (presumably) and thus the two, while in the same area, were nonetheless in slightly different ecological niches which would reduce direct competition and make co-existence for long periods more plausible. In other instances, such as Sapiens vs. Neanderthal in Europe, we're not quite sure why one survived and the other didn't (although it's now clear that, regardless of actual relations between the two, some sexual exchange took place – that doesn't mean anyone was friends). Was it the changing ecology? Disease? One group out-breeding the other? Deliberate extermination? We may never know. Seems to me that the only way you could have two omnivorous human species is to have them evolve on separate continents first, then come into contact with each other.

Halflings: humans themselves demonstrate that you don't need to be the biggest, strongest, fastest, toothiest beast to dominate the planet. Assuming comparable intelligence and capabilities to humans, halflings should be in the running for survival. Living longer might be an advantage if it allows their women to produce as many or more children over a lifetime than a human woman. Having humans and halflings evolve on separate continents would also increase the chances of each group being able to survive contact with the other. If halfling individuals require less food than human individuals that could impact survival rates in times of famine. If halflings are better at working in groups and have less interpersonal conflict than humans that could become an enormous advantage that could easily off-set humans being bigger and stronger. If, however, halflings are more like African folks referred to as “pygmies”, small tribes of short-statured hunter-gatherers surronded by islands of agriculturist humans there's a high probability of the little folks being wiped out. If halflings expand their population first and have a numerical advantage that can also offset human strength and size advantages. If halflings are better socially organized, more numerous, and have better tech when the two groups meet they might even wipe out humans or drive them into marginal niches.

Catfolk: as you note, diet matters. If they're still somewhat omnivorous but leaning towards carnivores they might do just fine (Neanderthals were possibly this sort – not that we can know for sure, but there is some evidence they ate a lot of meat). In fact, largely carnivorous catfolk living next to largely vegetarian humans might work out given the two groups are in different eco-niches and not competing for the same food. However, aggressive or highly territorial catfolk next to aggressive and/or territorial humans utilizing almost exactly the same resources will most likely mean a war of extermination, probably extending over several generations. This is another instance where evolving on separate continents makes the most sense, but what happens when the two groups meet could become catastrophic – if they aren't well matched in tech one group could steamroll the other.

Goblins: if they breed like rabbits they could be hard to exterminate, but that's not what we usually see with carnivores. Based on the description give they seem more like over-sized rats than anything else, a group of species, it should be noted, that have thrived in close proximity to humans for a long, long time. It sounds like goblins are not going to have any sort of tech or social-construct advantage, what's going to enable their survival is being incredibly fecund and extreme omnivores. By iron age tech levels the others species listed are going to be able to exterminate these guys in civilized areas, if not entirely.

The only way goblin survival would work in my mind is if these guys didn't have a problem with eating carrion, or were mostly carrion/garbage eaters. Then contact between them and others becomes more often the goblins scavenging garbage heaps and the dead rather than direct confrontation. If the goblins stay shy, avoid living/healthy people for the most part, there becomes less incentive for others to take the effort to completely exterminate them. If there's a war on between two other species then you find goblins hanging out near battles to munch on the dying and dead afterwards. Conceivably, you could have a group of goblins in agreement with a major city to remove refuse from the streets and industry - the goblins get food with minimal effort and the city stays clean - but that would depend on goblins being able to keep agreements. In that case, though, there would be ample opportunities for stores and incidents involving friction between goblins and urban dwellers, and you'd no doubt have issues with goblins breeding up to numbers that can't be sustained in a particular area.

Merfolk: they live in a different “world” than the land based races. Each side can retreat when necessary, so there will probably be conflicts (maybe to the extent that traveling the oceans can become extremely hazardous for land-based races, which might be why there was so little contact between continents different sapient species evolve and survive) but I can't see either side wiping out the other.
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Re: Multi-Species Worlds in Fantasy: a Thought Excercise

Post by Simon_Jester »

Formless wrote:FYI, I imagine there being physical variation in the halfling population. I didn't want to include explicit dwarves because a) the difference between a dwarf and a hobbit seems to be 90% culture and one foot of height and b) Dwarves in most fantasy settings are inevitably magical in nature or origin, like elves though a bit less so.
I've seen exceptions to that, but you're not wrong on the whole. Although in the context of your scenario, that extra foot of height is a major asset, because people five feet tall are much more likely to be able to fight back effectively against invading settlers of a different species than people four feet tall.
And yeah, I kind of want to eliminate the magical explanations like "their gods are protecting them" for how they are able to coexist. If they have magic, assume they all have it so its effects basically cancel out. I know that a lot of fantasy worlds get around the question I'm asking by resorting to a creation myth that is literally true and allows all societies to completely skip the stone age, but that's kind of a cheat if we stop and look long term. A cheat I would willingly use in my own fiction, but a cheat nonetheless.
Another variation of this, though, is that gods are empowered by worship and fill certain niches just like living species do. This produces a fairly natural process by which species emerging in different places or times can have protective or tutelary deities- think something like the way gods are portrayed in Pratchett's Discworld setting.

The "gods of the hill-folk" have a strong incentive to keep the hill-folk from being eradicated. The "gods of the forest-folk" have relatively little incentive to conquer the hills. Thus, the hill-folk tend to keep their hills, and the forest-folk tend to keep their forests. It's a stabilizing force that turns an unstable equilibrium (numerous competing intelligent species that use the same resources) into a stable one (if any one species is getting beaten up too badly, it starts getting disproportionate divine aid).
Does anyone think that merfolk might enjoy the benefits of bronze technology longer than the other races due to bronze ability to survive immersion in water without completely corroding to shit?
Not all bronzes can actually do that. Normal copper-tin bronze corrodes in seawater like everything else. Some specific copper alloys are highly corrosion-resistant, but they usually employ exotic metals (e.g. manganese) that historically were unknown and possibly unworkable in the Iron Age.
The Romulan Republic wrote:Halflings have less physical size and presumably strength. Would they favour spears or ranged weapons over weapons like axes and swords?
Probably, but muscle-powered ranged weapons are also problematic for them. A shootout with bows and arrows favors the six-foot guy with the big pectoral muscles and arms over the four-foot guy without them. Again, this is why I see traditional dwarves as more viable than traditional halflings; dwarves are closer to humans in stature, and are often portrayed as having broad, muscular physiques that tend to cancel out the disadvantage in physical strength.
Cats tend to be more nocturnal and have excellent eyesight, correct? Would the cat people tend to favour night raids and ambushes?
Bet on it, especially if their dominant cultures are tribal hunter-gatherer types. They may not actually have a concept of warfare significantly different from their concept of hunting.
Would the more numerous goblins tend to default to the usual horde of canon fodder tactics, or would they show greater cunning as a naturally predatory species?
If, as Formless suggested, they're fast-breeding obligate carnivores, then at the tip of their population boom-bust cycle they'd have massive surplus population. This makes cannon fodder tactics likely because so many aggressive young goblins are out there with basically nothing to live for and not much hope of surviving the winter if they don't conquer the neighbors.

Hm.... one way to make goblins more interesting and viable is if they CAN live on vegetable matter, but tend to be feeble, sluggish, and infertile without it. As in, they react less well to a vegetarian diet than humans. Thus, they can survive eating mushrooms and whatnot. But only meat makes goblins strong, so goblins may well be willing to take great risks to procure meat, including the meat of other intelligent species.
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Re: Multi-Species Worlds in Fantasy: a Thought Excercise

Post by Purple »

Given the scenario I could very well see the halflings evolving into dwarves over the course of history both culturally and biologically. If they get pushed out of good farmlands by stronger taller species early in their history there would be an evolutionary drive for them to grow stronger and tougher and a cultural drive for them to find land that works for them. Thus we could well see a sort of south american style Dwarf culture where we have dwarves living on mountains making terrace farms and mountain top fortresses. So like Aztec Dwarves.
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Re: Multi-Species Worlds in Fantasy: a Thought Excercise

Post by Zixinus »

A quick advantages-disadvantages compared to human. It's hard to judge because all of these species are fairly familiar. All comparisons to humans:

Halflings: just small humans with longer lifespans.
+ Longer life allows greater payoff in investment made during life, productive longer. It also means that if reproduction is equal to humans, they reproduce faster because less people die of old age.
+ Shorter size requires less energy.
+ No intrinsic social barrier with humans.
- Less nomadic may means less tendency for herding and greater interest in plants. Maybe a species more oriented towards vegetarianism?
-Short size a significant disadvantage in warfare due to reach. This can be compensated only so much. Another question is how much does this affect their capability to work? Certain crafts required significant body-power pre-industrialization.
Conclusion: have no advantage in fighting a regular human army. In peace-time, there is a notable danger of being dominated in competition by regular humans, especially if targeted with pogroms. However, they could survive as large minorities with strong communities.

Catfolk: furry humans with strong predatory tendencies. The big if is how predatory/territorial tendencies are expressed and whether would it target humans.
+ Improved night vision would allow for nightly warfare that regular humans cannot match.
+ Fur would help reduce dependency on clothing?
+ Claws make them naturally armed, even if it is only relatively minor advantage over weapons.
- Predatory nature and tendencies with strong differences in anatomy may easily make them targets for discrimination. This is a significant social barrier, but not one that cannot be overcome.
- Preference for meat may make them unsuited for certain lifestyles that lack it.
- Tribal and territorial nature may prevent or hinder them from making advanced organizations. This is a huge problem if you want to do something like armies with them.
Conclusion: my first guess is nomadic people like gypsies, traders and herds-people. This works well with their tribal nature and somewhat to their hunting/predatory sense. It might be possible for themselves to partially integrate to larger human societies.

Goblins: a more wild, short-lived, ugly version of humans. Pathfinder's description of them mentions that they will eat anything, they merely prefer the taste of humans.
+ Pretty much nothing as far as I can figure out?
- Over-aggressive, will cause fights where none are strictly necessary.
- Short lifespan greatly limits the accommodation of experience, such as craftsmen or leaders and so on.
- Short stature is a disadvantage in a fight.
- More rapid reproduction forces aggressive expansion even if it is not a good strategy. This makes them overdependent on booms and may take time away that could be used for advanced education.
- Preference or willingness for meat of other sentients will cause conflict with them.
Conclusions: Difficult to imagine long-term survival, at best on the edges of more productive species whose food surplus they might consume. Their negative tendencies will make them a prime target for genocide.

Merfolk: the most changed species of them all, for they can live in a different environment. If they can do everything they need to live underwater they actually would have many adaptions, such as how would they be able to talk? Note that I am assuming that just because they can live in water they can live on land too, if they want and do normal human things there too.
+ Can make use of environments that regular humans can't.
+ Can live in environments that humans cannot or have limited access (ocean-bottom). Note that just because they can live there does not mean that they should or that it can produce enough food for them.
+ Water and civilization can easily mix, allowing dominance in such areas. If a merfolk civilization with boats arise, they can dominate sea-trade and any boat will go only by their will or be drilled in the night.
- Different appearance compounded by the fact of coming from a different environment.
- Are going to be upset by fishing nets and almost guaranteed to have a dispute of humans making use of water.
Conclusion: Would dominate or on-par with humans revolving around water, especially oceans but also lakes, rivers. There they may have a future of their own. On land they would be equal or negatively set up. A big problem is that the environments most rich in sea life are actually shallow areas that provide the ground with sunlight. Areas where humans can dive fairy well and will also fight to have.
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Re: Multi-Species Worlds in Fantasy: a Thought Excercise

Post by Simon_Jester »

Human divers are not a good match for merfolk adapted to life underwater. A merfolk could, if nothing else, just grab a human diver, entangle them such that they cannot swim back to the surface quickly, and wait for them to drown.
Purple wrote:Given the scenario I could very well see the halflings evolving into dwarves over the course of history both culturally and biologically. If they get pushed out of good farmlands by stronger taller species early in their history there would be an evolutionary drive for them to grow stronger and tougher and a cultural drive for them to find land that works for them. Thus we could well see a sort of south american style Dwarf culture where we have dwarves living on mountains making terrace farms and mountain top fortresses. So like Aztec Dwarves.
Evolution takes place on very long timescales; I would expect such a process to wipe out halfling breeding populations before it turned them into recognizably different creatures of significantly greater stature.

Again, I think the more credible route for explaining halfling success (and yes, this goes against the traditional Tolkein portrayal) is if halflings' more sociable, settled behavior makes them more civilized than humans, more efficient at using agriculture and technology to support large, well organized populations. Halflings support teeming cities that make humans uncomfortable, and not just because of the low ceilings; humans tend to be hearty frontier folk by comparison, who seem to need more space and land to live in, but whose physical robustness lets them live in less... comfortably secured... parts of the Earth.

Then you'd have still other species (like the OP's catfolk) who take things to a further extreme, living in areas where cultivation is impossible and where being nomadic is a necessary defense against enemies or natural disasters.
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Re: Multi-Species Worlds in Fantasy: a Thought Excercise

Post by Purple »

Simon_Jester wrote:Evolution takes place on very long timescales; I would expect such a process to wipe out halfling breeding populations before it turned them into recognizably different creatures of significantly greater stature.
I assumed this was something that would be happening all around the world on evolutionary scales. So like millions of years. That way by the time they reach the stone age we should already see some sort of dwarf.

In fact dwarves might be an evolutionary offshoot of the halfling race originating in places where they did not win out against humans as you describe leading to both existing at once.
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Re: Multi-Species Worlds in Fantasy: a Thought Excercise

Post by Sea Skimmer »

The only way this would work is if factors existed which severely curbed the total populations of all sentient tool users, more or less leaving enough space in the world for each species to defend its own niche of territory without being constantly encroached on. Otherwise constant warfare would very quickly decide matters at an early point in tool using evolution, provided the weaker species ever even lasted that long which seems unlikely if you had say Dwarves against humans. A certain amount of balance could be attributed to differing breeding rates, but that would never matter once a bigger species had the spear (very important since a smaller creature simply could not wield a comparable one). Its just far too easy and plausible to hack down a weaker enemy at a 15:1 ratio at that point, then burn down where they live. The bow and arrow would make this even worse.

This actually seems pretty compatible with typical high fantasy settings in which the wildlife is psycodangerous, conditions generally harsh and perhaps less then natural environmental factors like magic storms exist though. If long distance travel is hampered by say, sea monsters eat all ships, so much the better. But if you want dozens of species just evolving on top of each other for long pre industrial periods, that's totally implausible.
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Re: Multi-Species Worlds in Fantasy: a Thought Excercise

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Hostile mer-people making sea travel between continents extremely difficult to near impossible might serve to be sufficiently isolating for the other races to evolve.
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Re: Multi-Species Worlds in Fantasy: a Thought Excercise

Post by Simon_Jester »

Sea Skimmer wrote:The only way this would work is if factors existed which severely curbed the total populations of all sentient tool users, more or less leaving enough space in the world for each species to defend its own niche of territory without being constantly encroached on. Otherwise constant warfare would very quickly decide matters at an early point in tool using evolution, provided the weaker species ever even lasted that long which seems unlikely if you had say Dwarves against humans.
I'd say, halflings against humans yes, dwarves against humans maybe because it depends on what you think a 'dwarf' looks like. Dwarves that are just 25% smaller than humans in all directions would get their asses kicked, dwarves who just happen to be short and broad and muscular and burly might be able to handle themselves pretty well in that sense. At least, to handle themselves long enough for a conflict between emerging species to persist over long periods of time.

But yes, incompatible humanoid species of basically the same physical size competing for the same resources are likely to end up, on a timescale of no more than a few centuries, with one species getting pushed out of the contested territory. Either they flee to another place, or they get killed off.

A few possible explanations for this NOT happening:
1) The usual "the world was created recently, as in within young-earth-creationist timescales" explanation. Or at least "all extant sentient species were created recently."
2) Divine protection that prevents any one species from gaining a decisive advantage- the equivalent of nuclear powers using their nuclear deterrent to discourage anyone from invading them.
3) As discussed, species evolving separately on different continents, or across other terrain obstacles that permit each group to have its own 'homeland.' This, however, requires that all intelligent species evolve more or less simultaneously, which is incredibly unlikely in real life... unless you circle back to (1).
4) Species emerging in such radically different niches that they're not really competing directly for resources, and/or can retreat to places that rival species cannot follow. Merfolk have this advantage compared to anyone who doesn't swim as well as they do, for instance.

One way I just thought of to achieve (4) is radical size disparity. Humanoids much larger than human don't necessarily work out very well. They need a LOT of food, so population levels are low; exterminating them may be very costly in casualties, but a humanoid race willing to pay in blood to kill off the giants in a given area gains a lot of benefit from doing so.

Humanoids radically smaller than human (e.g. pixies) might actually do rather well. They're so small they can live off of resources humans don't need or even perceive (i.e. beetle steaks and flower pollen), so small they can be difficult for enemies to eradicate from a given area because they're just plain hard to find and kill. Thus they might well end up seen as a tolerated nuisance, or possibly even in a commensal relationship if they keep vermin down.
But if you want dozens of species just evolving on top of each other for long pre industrial periods, that's totally implausible.
Yeah; at that point you need divine intervention holding the system in equilibrium.

To be fair, a LOT of fantasy settings work with the idea that intelligent species rise and fall on a semi-regular basis, but they mostly use that to play with the "cycle of barbarism, civilization, and decadence" tropes.
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Re: Multi-Species Worlds in Fantasy: a Thought Excercise

Post by NecronLord »

While it's related to the 'magical origins' an awful lot of things in Pathfinder, I think merfolk included, have a common origin in the magic/genetic engineering of the Aboleths. Enough that there's a famous picture posted of the Paizo design studio having a flow-chart of 'Did the Aboleths create it' -> 'Yes' - 'No, they Didn't' because eventually they decided they needed to stop it coming up so often as the background of whatever creature:

Image

The original filename was: 'That's what the aboleth want you to think.'

Needless to say, evolution need not apply to any species created by the evil magical plecos, while survivability may still matter, that may be only over a long term during which the evil magical plecos might spawn all manner of new things, with mages around, the rate at which new intelligent species are created might well exceed the rate at which they die out. And many intrinsic problems of intelligent design are solved by the plecos being both evil, and limited in power/skill.

The Jack Vance fantasies from which D&D wizards originally come has all manner of mage-created creatures; I remember one set of books, Mercades Lackey's Gryphon trilogy IIRC, where creating your own intelligent species was required to be considered an archmage.
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Re: Multi-Species Worlds in Fantasy: a Thought Excercise

Post by Zixinus »

A thought: what if the planet in question is not the original evolutionary environment for humans? But instead, by limited divine intervention or other force, a population was brought there? In the case of Venus you have large island-continents separated from each other and thus give suitable isolation.
Human divers are not a good match for merfolk adapted to life underwater. A merfolk could, if nothing else, just grab a human diver, entangle them such that they cannot swim back to the surface quickly, and wait for them to drown.
Yes, but that advantage is not as great as in, say, an ocean. Unlike an ocean, a diver can still reach the bottom quickly and thus reach merfolk hiding there. I am assuming that merfolk will use the land as well as the underwater area. A large number of humans who dedicate themselves to getting these areas for their own gain can at least temporarily wage war on merfolk and hold the territory.
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Re: Multi-Species Worlds in Fantasy: a Thought Excercise

Post by Formless »

Necronlord: two things

1. The merfolk here are based on M:tG, not Pathfinder. I explicitly stated this in the OP. I think Pathfinder goes with the traditional "has a damn tail" merfolk depiction who cannot come on land. These merfolk can come on land.

2. No... just please no. This is about species survival over long periods, not about origin stories. Origin stories are (mostly) irrelevant to the central questions I'm asking. I thought I already made that clear. Everyone could have been created by the powers of Q and you would still potentially have a problem over tens of thousands of years if these people promptly take their advanced (but stone age, remember?) technology and wipe each other out. Genocidal campaigns could be done quick enough by an efficient and practiced enemy that aboleths or whomever is introducing new species stop being able to do anything about it until they wipe out the race responsible for ruining their experiment(s). So... yeah. Its about as useless to talk about it in those terms as to talk about divine intervention like Jub did on first instinct. Its not just that its a cheat, its that it doesn't solve the issue in the long term.
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Re: Multi-Species Worlds in Fantasy: a Thought Excercise

Post by Broomstick »

The only way long-term multiple species survive is if
1) They don't compete directly for essential resources
2) There is some benefit to their mutual cooperation

That's why mer + any other race listed listed is the combination more likely to survive side by side long term. They can live in different areas, exploit different resources (even with some overlap), and because different resources are accessible to each group there is a reason for trade instead of war.

If you put species on different continents they can certainly evolve independently, but it is unlikely the tech will advance in tandem for both parties (certainly didn't between Europe and the Americas even with the same species on both continents) so when the two parties meet there will be a tendency for one to try to take what the other has. The loser might be wiped out, or might be enslaved (I'm presuming these are true species and no interbreeding will occur).

If you had a cat people that, for example, inhabited extremely cold/arctic/tundra areas and a tropical human or halfling that might work, with each group living in different biomes so they are not directly competing for living space, if the cats are obligate carnivores or largely so, and the halfling/human are largely vegetarian they won't be competing directly for food. You'll have border skirmishes, and possibly some trade as well.

If the environment is harsh enough that no one can breed up to massive numbers that might also prevent genocide. If there's a common enemy two groups might join forces long term.

Jim Butcher's Alera Codex actually shows some of this - Humans and Canim are based on separate continents. The Humans and Marat live in different circumstances so they aren't in direct competition. Everyone joins forces against the Vord. It's pretty clear, though, that if the Vord hadn't been around the Canim had a good chance of wiping out both Human and Marat.
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Re: Multi-Species Worlds in Fantasy: a Thought Excercise

Post by NecronLord »

Formless wrote:Necronlord: two things

1. The merfolk here are based on M:tG, not Pathfinder. I explicitly stated this in the OP. I think Pathfinder goes with the traditional "has a damn tail" merfolk depiction who cannot come on land. These merfolk can come on land.

2. No... just please no.
Err, no, you asked two questions. Pay attention to your own thread. Let's look at your OP:
How do these extraordinarily diverse settings [Ed: You mentioned Pathfinder as your example] in fantasy worlds actually evolve without one or more of the sentient races on them going extinct *? I mean, I don't think anyone knows for sure why humans are the lone hominin species left on Earth, but can such a situation really occur where multiple species manage to climb their way up to the iron age without one single species dominating or even eradicating the rest? And what are the factors that make it more or less likely? Does diet really matter that much, as the people in that aforementioned thread seemed to think? Do geographic, anatomical, and ecological factors matter?



* If you like you can assume dwarves are a subculture of halflings, but I'm trying to avoid races that are commonly ascribed a magical origin like elves, as that complicates the logic of the thought experiment and adds variables that I don't think anyone can fully account for.
Answer is, the examples you cite, they do not evolve subject to the law of natural selection.

You go on to conjunct this with your secondary question which is:
Assume that all five evolved naturally and that all of their civilizations/societies started in the stone age.
But your first premise is how do these things come about via evolution? They don't. Almost everything in a high fantasy world in most cases and certainly in your example case, doesn't arrive via evolution. In some high fantasy settings - looking at you, Tolkienian orcs - goblins do indeed die off and get driven into caves when they have no magical overlord to sustain them.

I certainly see nothing wrong with answering one question in your OP - 'how do these settings evolve' without necessarily giving a comprehensive answer to every point. If you want such a comprehensive answer, feel free to ask and I'll answer with respect to your world, but generally I see the question of survivability, sans magical gods and deep sea illusionist plecos, as relates to Pathfinder, fundamentally inapplicable to the setting mentioned because the races/species in that setting have never had to endure conditions without their malevolent fishy/godly overlords, so the answer to 'why don't they die off' is 'they're domesticated.' They do not need to endure the wild any more than our chickens do :- once a dominant species evolves sapience, it can apply artificial selection, where survivability is equal to the desires of the dominant species, which in most fantasy worlds, is gods.
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Re: Multi-Species Worlds in Fantasy: a Thought Excercise

Post by Simon_Jester »

Zixinus wrote:
Human divers are not a good match for merfolk adapted to life underwater. A merfolk could, if nothing else, just grab a human diver, entangle them such that they cannot swim back to the surface quickly, and wait for them to drown.
Yes, but that advantage is not as great as in, say, an ocean. Unlike an ocean, a diver can still reach the bottom quickly and thus reach merfolk hiding there.
Yeah, but the casualty ratio for divers doing so while opposed by merfolk who are even semi-capable of fighting back is going to be horrific.
I am assuming that merfolk will use the land as well as the underwater area. A large number of humans who dedicate themselves to getting these areas for their own gain can at least temporarily wage war on merfolk and hold the territory.
If the merfolk have significant land-based holdings they are vulnerable on those holdings, yes. I always imagine any land-based holdings of merfolk being like the coastal waters of a maritime human society- they may be claimed, they may be important to the economy, but as a rule no one lives there, and in most cases being denied access to those territories is only an inconvenience.

Hm. Merfolk need antiship weapons badly- either sea monsters they've tamed, or some kind of device or agent that can eat holes in a hull.
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Re: Multi-Species Worlds in Fantasy: a Thought Excercise

Post by NecronLord »

To develop the point on artificial selection from above a bit more thoroughly, natural selection bred the several varieties of wolf. Artificial selection bred everything from the Irish Wolf Hound and the Great Dane to the Chihuahua and Scots Terrier, and dozens of other breeds alongside, or the Broccoli example here. Given that many humanoids in fantasy settings can interbreed, they can reasonably be assumed to have a recent common ancestor, just like our dogs do. Artificial selection is entirely likely to create a whole raft of competing breeds from the same common ancestor with differences ranging from the cosmetic to the profound.

This doesn’t mean that natural selection is not true, or not a law of science in fantasy worlds, and I’m not going ‘ooga booga science should not apply because it’s fantasy’ artificial selection is as real as natural selection, and part of our understanding of evolution, and is the correct example for understanding many fantasy worlds.

Now if something arointed or killed all the gods/aboleths/etc, then natural selection would take over, and many breeds might indeed become extinct, but that's not really the case with most fantasy worlds.
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Re: Multi-Species Worlds in Fantasy: a Thought Excercise

Post by Formless »

Necronlord, do you have a problem with grammar and context? The reason I used the word "evolution" in that statement was specifically to exclude magical explanations (something people do all the time here). They are explicitly not what I'm asking about, and I clarified that they weren't what I was asking about several posts before you showed up. Also, contextually, I used Pathfinder as an example, not as the sole setting I am asking about. You treated the thread as a Pathfinder thread when it is actually a generic High Fantasy thread-- that's why my first objection was to point out that the Merfolk I'm using were pulled from Magic: the Gathering.

You are interpreting my question in a way that is fundamentally incorrect, and you appear to be cherry picking my statements in the OP to support that interpretation. That's kind of annoying, 'cause that's the kind of thing that tends to hijack threads even when done in good faith. This thread was inspired by one that got derailed, after all...
Necronlord wrote:If you want such a comprehensive answer, feel free to ask and I'll answer with respect to your world,
Yes, please do. I have nothing wrong with your points about artificial selection, its just... well, nothing I am unaware of. Wouldn't artificially selected races tend to be selected to have specialized purposes? That's one problem I see with that idea. Fantasy races tend to have their niches and schticks, but they are nonetheless usually generalists.
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