How did your fantasy humans survive so far between physically superior warrior races and horrifying monsters?
Probably by being evolutionarily min-maxed to win at social games. This thread sucks.
>>92577226They are the only intelligent race that can survive on a diet of >50% grain.
>>92577226By being a generalist species with the ability have specalized individual fill in niches.My source? DND with regular and variant humans
>>92577226science
>>92577251That's an evolutionary cheat code if I ever saw oneFuck even dogs that evolved with us developed the ability to digest starch to some degree
>>92577226Well there aren't any particularly physically superior warrior races in my setting, but for the horrifying monsters generally they used magic, cunning or the good old perks of being an intelligent social species, organized numbers and specialized tools.Oh it also helps that in my setting most monsters tend to just be animals mutated by ambient magical energies or exposure to localized magical anomalies. So you only encounter the really nasty ones in certain areas. They can of course migrate out of these areas but the really strong ones tend to weaken over time when removed from the conditions that created them and there is a sharp generational drop off in power with offspring born and raised in milder conditions.If you are wondering if humans can be similarly mutated, yes but it's very rare and requires a much higher thresh hold. Higher intelligence makes creatures more likely develop magical abilities than physical mutations. So bugs tend to be the most monstrous with few magic abilities. Reptiles and fish tend to be fairly monstrous with some magic abilities. Mammals and avians tend to end up the least monstrous with a fair number of magical abilities. Though these are just guide lines and there is an element of randomness to it. Outliers like humans, whales, elephants, dolphins, octopi, parrots and crows are very hard to mutate and tend to develop some innate magic abilities and/or most commonly the ability to channel magic and spells.Plants are a bit weird. Sometimes they'll mutate, but mostly they just grow bigger and/or store the magical energies inside themselves in high concentration. The ones with high concentrations of magic make excellent crafting materials, but they tend to be eaten by herbivores who start to mutate who are in turn eaten by predator who also start to mutate so such plants of often smack dab of the middle of monstrous ecosystems.
>>92577226
>>92577315orcs aren't dumb, they're just obligate carnivores. They do very well in certain biomes, but will never be a true threat to humanity.
>>92577226Esper the Bard once made a video where he talks about there's no way humanity would survive in the Forgotten Realms, and I'm largely in agreement. "Problem with Races".
>>92577226Evolution is and always has been about trade-offs. If a race called "humans" survived to develop civilization at all, then clearly it has carved out an evolutionary niche and/or has its own superior traits.In most settings it's just greater fertility and ability to adapt to the vast majority of climates.
>>92577482Did he factor in a) humans seems to be one of the preferred race by many gods to have as worshipers and have the most gods watching out for them and b) human cities are the preferred lair type of were/steel/song-dragons (what ever the edition/setting calls them) which tend to be on-par with silver dragons? Honestly I wonder how many plots to destroy a human settle ended with "and they were suddenly attack by a type of dragon they didn't know existed, because they like to keep their existence secret, for threatening it's lair".
>>92577567>and they were suddenly attack by a type of dragon they didn't know existed, because they like to keep their existence secret, for threatening it's lair".That's Waterdeep and the Red Dragon that attacks it.He touches on racial capabilities and natal capacity, not on gods. In my own words, dragons can and do have a fuckton of children. They become fertile at like 51, females stay fertile to 801, and males to around 1,201. Just as an example. The Dragon Rage ended in 3.5 in 1373, so there's nothing stopping them from building communities anymore. Ferrous dragons in particular are Lawful Neutral and strictly hierarchical, so that's even more damning. There are other races capable of great replication. I recall a sort of insect race out of the Book of Vile Darkness that pretty much takes the cake for that. Very evil, highly organized, high reproduction.
>>92577691While I do think 3.5e fucked up by ending to dracorage, they still have a few centuries before adult dragon numbers would be anything to worry about, assuming dragons get over thousands of years of isolationist attitudes, which is a big if.The bovd race was a reference to the all devourer race that shows up in loads of sci-fi designed to basically be a campaign ending challenge and not one that actually exists in setting.Witchlight Marauders also exist, and they are even closer to Tyranids, flying around space in massive hive ships, crashing onto worlds, consuming all of the biomass while reforming into new hive ships, etc.But you don't assume they've actually landed on a planet unless it's specifically a plot point because they end all life.
>>92577691You might be thinking of Kythons, which are just "Here's rules to let you use your (old) tyranid models in D&D". Rippers, gaunts, genestealers, warriors, raveners (for some reason) and hive tyrants.
>>92577482Which video?
>>92578389The one I said, Sherlock. "The Realm Problem with Races in D&D"
By not pretending that these 'superior' races don't come with massive downsides in order to whitewash them. You want to be a strong martial culture? Sure, but we're not going to pretend that duels for dominance or honor don't fucking kill people more than 25% of the time.
Same as most settings. By being the designated protagonist/self insert race that has all sorts of convenient asspulls and bullshit protecting them like a rich parent shielding their child from consequences because a setting without humans won't be acceptable or successful.
>>92577482>>92577691>DragonsDue to the long history of the dragon rage they're not going to adjust immediately.>Variant dragonsIt's hard to say because eventually books were just adding in dragon types for the sake of adding them, and many weren't written specifically for the FR.>The fake tyranids from bovdbovd isn't canon to any setting afaik, it's mostly just a bunch of options that D&D would later pretend never existed.Also if we're talking Realms, that is a setting where back in AD&D regular goblin purges were a thing.
>>92577226By having the playing field leveled supernaturally.And by being adorable.
>>92578608No one ever explores the horrible ramifications of dwarves drinking ale like it is water. Shrunken livers, early death, ruined families, traumatised kids. How many dwarves fell in the ore smelter this week alone? Pratchett knew. Pratchett always knew.
>>92578608The only downside to a violent and stupid race that culls its own population is when more reasonable and productive races die or get injured in the collateral damage.
>>92577226>Year 0Common enemy in the elves. Humanity, satyrs, cynocephali, and drakan decided that being slave races was for pussies and genocided the elves untl they were forced to hole up in a handful of city-states.>Ancient AgeRetarded sorcerer kings duking it out reset the world to the fucking bronze age both societally and technologically by bombing each other into the dirt. Cynocephali fucked off to the far south, satyrs took the east, and drakan were put on a reservation.>"Dark" AgesWillingess to use wizards to do fucked up warcrimes on both each other and especially those scaly fucks in the Badlands.>Modern Age (Middle Ages)Much like everyone else, they have guns now, so it sorta evens out the physical disparity.
>>92577226Elves taught them civilization, science, and the most important of all: their monotheistic religion which venerates suffering.
>>92577226>How did your fantasy humans survive so far between physically superior warrior races and horrifying monsters?They fuck. A lot
I'm sick and tired of this shit, humans have all kinds of advantages. For example, sweating. Orcs, ogres and trolls can be big and strong, but can they do it at any lenght of time? Simply wearing armor would cook an ogre or troll over in summer. Humanoid animal are just that, why would they even behave like humans? Or have human intelligence? Why asume the other races are phisiological the same or think the same way? Eating is another big one, thanks to cooking all kind of vile stuff can be made edible, the majority of animals have to specialize to for example eat weeds and other plant matter with being big, dumb and smelly. Ideal for big humanoids, but you also need a lot of time and its very ineficient, meanwhile humans raise crops (another thing than seem obvious but humans have only done this in a blink) and herd. For example the amerindians than got with contact with euros and they cattle, just stole it or broke them down, the only ones than breeded they horses were the comanches and lakotas if I recall well. Making an animal to suit humans needs is another peculiar trait than the great majority of other races wouldn't necesarily copy. Comunicating is another one, humans adapt of kinds of stuff for that from light to stuff like whistling and we are curious, other ominids had the same kind of stone tools for they entire existences. We are also quite strong for our weight, we are still apes, and we are stuborn and have great endurance, wich make soldiers (being a warrior ins't the same as being a soldier).
