Fantasy ecology
Jun. 19th, 2019 08:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI was reading a setting book and got vaguely annoyed again about how the whole ecology screams 'north american who is not a biology student'.
I mean I know the only reason those sections are even in there are so rangers can get lost in the wilderness and have random encounters, it's just on a worldbuilding level it strikes me as sloppy.
You can get your entire world built up from assumptions about the ecosystem. What grows where and what people need it for is your whole trade pattern. And there's sections in GURPS Space for planning whole alien species worldviews based on their biology.
But mostly in fantasy the biology trundles along in the background looking kind of generic, plus dragons.
I saw some really cool plants on tumblr the other day and thought I should include their descriptions in a setting sometime to make it sound Different and then I realised over again that there's whole millions of people who think that's just how plants look, because they look like that round their way.
Like most settings I've seen don't have marsupials. Unless the biology is the point they just kind of assume no pouch mammals. And monotremes are there none.
But if the places are legit other worlds then islands are the closest we've got to seeing how varied life can get, and Australia being Like That ought to be really helpful to the imagination.
I don't know why I'm flapping about this today, it just means I ought to read more from places other than Britain and North America.
But then it bothers me in some games there's whole dungeons where there's just carnivores and blobs. Like maybe the blobs eat something more basic than meat, but they seem to eat everything they touch and die a puddle so as food chains go they're not exactly link shaped. Everything is so far down there's definitely no photosynthesis going on. Maybe some rule book mentioms mushrooms but you seldom find them. Possibly everything eats fish. I've got one game where you can always find fish in a pond, even if the pond us lava.
... maybe everything eats magic. I mean that would make sense, probably every form of energy gets ate by something, plants eat light, maybe entire dungoens eat magic. Then it's only weird things aren't more weird.
I started watching Stargate again and am therefore remembering that any hope of a peaceful resolution between species requires an exact understanding of each others needs. Human to human diplomacy can take so many shortcuts about air and water and food and so forth. Radiation level preference doesn't even need stating. But then you get entirely new species and what they need is not immediately obvious. Goa'uld behaviour might make perfect sense, if you want to write it to, if you just make a few assumptions about goa'uld buological needs and how weird they've become as individuals since starting to contact humans. Learning from humans without a clearly articulated understanding of how species differ could make grand messes.
I get annoyed at the idea undead need exterminating because surely they're just people with a very different set of needs? Grantes ones in a different position on the food chain, sometimes, but. People.
Now I sidetracked myself and am thinking about frogs. If inventing a world, would we ever invent as many frogs as there are actual frogs? Unlikely, because there are *so many* frogs, it's so great. But no story I can think of would need all those minute distinctions. So frogs are just frogs, but really, there are *so many* frogs.
That's orobably true about fantasy rabbits too. Sure you could invent a bunch of different words for them, but if it'll hop into a snare and make good stew, you don't really need them. Same function in the story.
... now I'm wondering what goa'uld words there are for humans. I mean they've got jaffa and hok'taur, what else have they got? Use distinctions?
This is a ramvle without much purpose.
I'll go away again.
I mean I know the only reason those sections are even in there are so rangers can get lost in the wilderness and have random encounters, it's just on a worldbuilding level it strikes me as sloppy.
You can get your entire world built up from assumptions about the ecosystem. What grows where and what people need it for is your whole trade pattern. And there's sections in GURPS Space for planning whole alien species worldviews based on their biology.
But mostly in fantasy the biology trundles along in the background looking kind of generic, plus dragons.
I saw some really cool plants on tumblr the other day and thought I should include their descriptions in a setting sometime to make it sound Different and then I realised over again that there's whole millions of people who think that's just how plants look, because they look like that round their way.
Like most settings I've seen don't have marsupials. Unless the biology is the point they just kind of assume no pouch mammals. And monotremes are there none.
But if the places are legit other worlds then islands are the closest we've got to seeing how varied life can get, and Australia being Like That ought to be really helpful to the imagination.
I don't know why I'm flapping about this today, it just means I ought to read more from places other than Britain and North America.
But then it bothers me in some games there's whole dungeons where there's just carnivores and blobs. Like maybe the blobs eat something more basic than meat, but they seem to eat everything they touch and die a puddle so as food chains go they're not exactly link shaped. Everything is so far down there's definitely no photosynthesis going on. Maybe some rule book mentioms mushrooms but you seldom find them. Possibly everything eats fish. I've got one game where you can always find fish in a pond, even if the pond us lava.
... maybe everything eats magic. I mean that would make sense, probably every form of energy gets ate by something, plants eat light, maybe entire dungoens eat magic. Then it's only weird things aren't more weird.
I started watching Stargate again and am therefore remembering that any hope of a peaceful resolution between species requires an exact understanding of each others needs. Human to human diplomacy can take so many shortcuts about air and water and food and so forth. Radiation level preference doesn't even need stating. But then you get entirely new species and what they need is not immediately obvious. Goa'uld behaviour might make perfect sense, if you want to write it to, if you just make a few assumptions about goa'uld buological needs and how weird they've become as individuals since starting to contact humans. Learning from humans without a clearly articulated understanding of how species differ could make grand messes.
I get annoyed at the idea undead need exterminating because surely they're just people with a very different set of needs? Grantes ones in a different position on the food chain, sometimes, but. People.
Now I sidetracked myself and am thinking about frogs. If inventing a world, would we ever invent as many frogs as there are actual frogs? Unlikely, because there are *so many* frogs, it's so great. But no story I can think of would need all those minute distinctions. So frogs are just frogs, but really, there are *so many* frogs.
That's orobably true about fantasy rabbits too. Sure you could invent a bunch of different words for them, but if it'll hop into a snare and make good stew, you don't really need them. Same function in the story.
... now I'm wondering what goa'uld words there are for humans. I mean they've got jaffa and hok'taur, what else have they got? Use distinctions?
This is a ramvle without much purpose.
I'll go away again.