I found this little nugget in the 2nd edition Monstrous Manual last night in the Myconid entry: "Given population pressures in the underworld," we are told, conflicts between humans and myconids are only like to increase.
"Given population pressures in the underworld." There's a lot in that sentence. It makes the underworld sound like Macau, or Bangladesh, or London: a teeming, densely-populated hive-like place where even space itself is at a premium - as though myconids, sverfneblin, derro, drow and the rest are not only constantly at war over resources but just over physical room in which to live. Ethnic cleansing and genocide would be the natural reactions of such peoples in that context: every war one of extermination or at least of expulsion.
In the modern age it's also quite hard to read that sentence and not immediately think about the other consequences of "population pressures" - environmental degradation, pollution, and the endangering or extinction of animal species. Cave or tunnel collapses due to over-mining or over-burrowing? Cavern-warming brought about by extensive mining causing geothermal leakages? Discharges of noxious gases from over-eager excavation projects? The gradual extermination of carrion crawlers, hook horrors or cave fishers, leading to knock-on effects on the ecosystem such as overabundance of russet mold, oozes, or puddings?
I always lean backwards and forwards on the question of whether to adopt a romanticist or classicist approach to the dungeon ecology. On the one hand, dungeon-as-mythic-underworld is more thematically interesting. On the other: well, let's face it, it's fun to think about the consequences of applying at least a half-coherent logic to happenings Down Below.
Really? Environmental degradation and species extinctions?
ReplyDeleteI've always liked settings that explore human (or in this case humanoid) impact on fantasy environments, Nausicaa being one of my favorite Ghibli films, for example. I would find the Drow/Derro much less boring if they were tribes of gas-mask wearing scavengers crawling around the ruins of an underground Pompeii; a civilization destroyed by a subterranean pyroclastic eruption.
ReplyDeleteFor a Sci-fi version, a space-age Earth that has to deal with the ramifications of orbital debris.
I recently realized that the underlying conflict of my setting, between living in small areas made suitable for farming by the gods or allowing wizards to drive put pesky spirits and micro-manage the environment with magic, is ultimately a disagreement of sustainability. There are undead infested wastelands from earlier attempts to fine-tune nature all over the place, but wizards are asuring everyone that they fixed those problems and it only keeps happening to other wizards whose magic isn't as advanced as theirs.
DeleteI agree, Slick, although I also think non-human impacts on fantasy environments would be an interesting area to explore. What impact would a dragon have on the local area?
DeleteMy intuitive response is more something like Mad Max. There are very few people and creatures around and more space than anyone could ever need, but resources are so damn scarce that it's never enough.
ReplyDeleteThat's an Underdark game that I could get behind. PC's could find a lot of steady pay dealing with this stuff from either side. Exterminating nuisance species such as mentioned carrion crawlers etc., or trying to preserve the last colony of them in the area. A dig for living space collapses, but reveals an ancient tomb full of some new breed of fungus that grows to infest half the area like the Andromeda Plague or something.
ReplyDeleteHmmm . . .
Sounds like a job for underdark druids...
DeleteWith the underearth, environmental degredation makes me think of the water supply, esp in tandem with the art and maps in the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide. Any place that loses its water, or has the water contaminated, is dying or dead. Droughts and floods on the surface can mitigate or exacerbate this but if cities below are channeling it away from wild caves, the inhabitants of those caves will come calling sooner than later. And then there is the real world issue of mining cause massive pollution problems for the water table and some surface waters. Remember the orange river in Native American lands last year? That was because mine waste ended up spilled into it.
ReplyDeleteOf course there are alternate food webs. Dragon had an article in the late 2e era on underdark creatures that included an edible plant that reproduced explosively when exposed to great amounts of heat and later another article on how to build food webs that included a mineral eating worm. Both provide very different, say fantastic, ways of populating the depths and thus change what environmental degredation means. This is the part I like about designing fantasy worlds- change an aspect of the biosphere and see what ripples out as a result.
The environmental side-effects of industry from the surface to the underworld, and vise versa, are good reasons for the party to be hired and sent down there. It's also a plausible excuse for the denizens of the underworld to start waging war on the surface world.
DeleteYour comment about the underdark being a hive-like city reminds me of a thought I had a while back. Deep subterranean civilizations would build with stone, which degrades much more slowly than common surface materials like wood, thatch, and mud. Furthermore, the lack of weather would mean stone architecture would erode very slowly. Thus, there might be vast, artificial labyrinths that were initially built millions of years ago and have been continuously inhabited by many different races and cultures since then.
ReplyDeleteI imagine degenerate orcs squatting in corridors covered from floor to ceiling with the paintings, carvings and graffiti of a hundred dead civilizations. In another district a mated pair of calcinated cancer bears lie upon a midden heap. In a distant cell, a trilobite knight waits to strike down trespassers.
Yeah, it's a really interesting point and a good sensible reason for the existence of the "megadungeon", really.
DeleteI love having conflict between stuff that makes sense and stuff that exists just because it is cool. I'm all about that post hoc reasoning, but I should definitely leave a lot of it up to mystery as well. Sometimes things don't have to make sense, and that is ok. If a player calls me out on it, I can easily just say "wow, that *is* strange isn't it? I wonder if you guys will find out the answer..."
ReplyDeleteThen again, classicist-style dungeons become easier the more explanation that you have. It's self-explanatory. But romantic dungeons are easier because you can just go "Blargh! Things!"
It is interesting and challenging!
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DeleteHuh. I never read your "Two Towers" post previously. I tend to think of myself as a "romanticist," but most of my designs are done in the style of the "classicist." However, I don't think it's the reasons you cite...I just feel that, with regard to a game like D&D, the more justification I can provide for my modeling of "reality" (internal logic), the less pushback I'm likely to receive from disbelieving players.
ReplyDeleteThat, AND I just don't have the imagination and vision to be a great romanticist designer.
Hmmm
ReplyDeleteImagine an artefact of old, that created grain in great quantity. This artefact was stolen and lost.
The thieves stole it via an underground route and lost it down a crevasse or somesuch. And there it has been, pouring grain down for centuries, filling a great cavern.
Until the fungi-men found it, and started multiplying, and multiplying, and multiplying. The mountain of rotting grain is all gone, and the amount coming from above is insufficient. They are starving. But the grain is coming from above... there most be even more on the surface!
A fungal population explosion seems ... possible... if the circumstances are right.
Forget funguses - what about oozes or slimes, or jellies?
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