Random Worldbuilding Questions (Biology, Geography, Society, etc.)

[Yora]

The MST3K Mantra: "It's just a show; I should really just relax."

But that's no reason to just make stuff up without giving any thought to how elements of a setting are supposed to work. They don't need to work exactly as in nature, but to many creators it is desirable to stick to nature for as long as it works and only starting to come up with entirely fictional explainations when it becomes actually neccessary. That way things appear more natural and can stand up under a closer second or even third look.

That's what this thread is for. Sharing knowledge on how things actually without needing to resort to "it's magic". Since this is not only relevant to people who are actually making up entire worlds or creating new creatures, but also to common GMs making adventures for their own groups, I think it's best to put it here in the General RPG-Forum and not put it far away out of sight in the Worldbuilding-Forum.
If you have a better title for this thread in mind, let me know and it can be changed.

If you have a question regarding military technology and tactics, there's the Real World Weapons or Armour Questions (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=238042) Thread. There's a lot of experts on these things, who can help you out with almost anything on this subject. For everything else, like animal biology, cave formation, agriculture, government systems, architecture, industry, or whatever else you can think of that might be relevant to making your campaigns realistic, or at least plausible, this thread is the place to go.
I would suggest to not have discussions about electronics, robotics, and space travel, because I think they have a tendency to grow into very big debates that might overshadow more minor questions that would fall to the side. The Media Discussions forum usually has very interesting threads on such subjects and I think you'll get very good answers to questions regarding these subject there.

Another suggestion is to highlight if you have a new question, so they don't get missed when they are posted in the middle of a larger discussion on something else.
And here's my start:

Question: Are there actual cases of green flames comming from the ground? I think it looks quite cool, but do things like that actually exist? The only thing remotely similar that I know is the Door to Hell (http://www.mirutadelaseda.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/P9202833-Turkmenistan-Central-Asia-Karakum-gas-crater-darvaza.jpg) in Turmenistan, which is a collapsed methane drilling project that was ignited to prevent the gas from mixing with the atmosphere. However, it is a man made gas leak, consist of only a single hole, and burns red.
Is it possible to have small green flames sprad over a large area?

[Solaris]

Question: Are there actual cases of green flames comming from the ground? I think it looks quite cool, but do things like that actually exist? The only thing remotely similar that I know is the Door to Hell (http://www.mirutadelaseda.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/P9202833-Turkmenistan-Central-Asia-Karakum-gas-crater-darvaza.jpg) in Turmenistan, which is a collapsed methane drilling project that was ignited to prevent the gas from mixing with the atmosphere. However, it is a man made gas leak, consist of only a single hole, and burns red.
Is it possible to have small green flames sprad over a large area?

Copper sulfate seems a good candidate for producing the green flames (warning, toxic). Copper carbonate seems even better, as it's not rare. Pick your favorite method of an ongoing underground fire appropriate to the setting and have at it. My personal favorite is a coal mine that caught fire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_mine_fire). There's a couple of those I know of, one in China and the other in the States.

[Fri]

I have a random question in my mind that I got a few days earlier, for anyone who have too much free time. It's neither important nor pressing.

Imagine that there's a race that evolved telepathy early. Basically, they never created spoken language, because what's in their mind, ranging from "there's a tiger behind the tree beyond that hill" to "I'm in love with you but I also love that certain other girl because she has similar hobby to mine, but I actually indeed prefer you." can be transmited instantly to another person.

What would their society looks like. And more importantly, if they ever got to modern age, what would their entertainment be, because this thing popped out of my mind when I was arguing over movies with my coworker, and I thought, how great if we could simply transmit our thought without using this imperfect language, but of course, if we don't have language, we won't have the movie that we're arguing with!

[Yora]

Now all my classes in human communication finally pay off. :smallbiggrin:

I asume they have some degree of control over what thoughts they are transmitting. Otherwise the result would probably be too alien to imagine.

Based on that, acting performances would still work, but I don't know how popular they would be. However, the actors would still have to fake the emotions they are transmitting and it needs to match their body language. Body language likely would have evolved much earlier and would still ne required for interaction with related animals.
Even with bears, dogs, and tigers, humans are able to communicate "get out of my house", "please let me go, I give up", and "I've you touch my food, I kill you", because they are all speaking only slight variations of the same body language. It's really important to avoid fights that could be avoided, while at the same time not abandoning all food and shelter to other animals who are not actually willing to risk injury for that. I also believe that sentient humanoid species can only evolve from predators. "Run away and hope you're not the slowest in the herd" is not a basis to evolve tactical planning and coordination. :smallbiggrin:

However, this would probably be limited to live performances. Recording sounds and images is probably much easier than recording and playing thought patterns. Working movie technology would have to be extremely advanced.

No idea about storytelling. If you're used to communicate in full thoughts and ideas, narration might not be very popular and it would be hard to create buildups and having the audience wait for what's coming next. It also would be very short, as a story would take only seconds or a few minutes at the most. Jokes would probably quite popular though, since you pretty much only need a punchline with no buildup at all.

I am not sure about music and dance. Both appear to be extremely closely related to verbal communiction. However, they appear before the development of complex language. If you live somewhere where there are lots of sparrows and blackbirds, you know that their singing is really extrmely repetitive, despite being called songbirds. And let's not speak of crows here. :smallbiggrin:
Some species of parrots are known to dance, apparently simply because they enjoy listening to the music, which is very different from displaying specific movements and postures in social interaction with each other.
If they developed telepathy on a later stage, then music and dance might be around. I think it would be likely to include a great deal of audience participation and spontaneous improvisation, judging and reacting to the mood of the crowd.

[Solaris]

I also believe that sentient humanoid species can only evolve from predators. "Run away and hope you're not the slowest in the herd" is not a basis to evolve tactical planning and coordination. :smallbiggrin:

Pack scavengers, really. Apex predators don't have the incentive to evolve sapient intelligence like a human, whereas scavengers who also live in packs do.

[DodgerH2O]

Ohh, I like this thread idea :) Thinking of something to ask...

So... working on a homebrew campaign setting some years ago...

Came up with a "sea" that sat near a highly volcanic area, essentially it was the crater of a massive volcano, and due to the dissolved sulfur the sea was:

A.) Incredibly smelly
B.) Slightly acidic (sulfuric acid formation)

This made it a pretty bad harbor for wooden ships, but some preliminary research shows that copper resists mild concentrations of sulfuric acid rather well, so I decided that ships (mostly pirates) sailing out of the bay were easily recognizable by the large sheets of copper nailed onto the hull of the ship. The sheets would of course corrode over time, but periodic patching or whole replacements could be done.

My question is: Just how realistic would this scenario be? Would there be uh... living creatures in the sea involved? Or would it just be this stinking, corrosive, warm dead mass of water. I've already placed human habitation on it, but humans are kinda crazy and disregard nature saying "hey, this place is not good for you" in favor of things like trade routes or resource acquisition, so that can be fudged.

[Yora]

That too. Humanoid bears and cats are much less likely than humanoid wolves, hyenas, or dolphins. Communication can only make leaps forward if you have someone to talk with.
And after that, you need large communities for technological progress. An individual can make only so many new discoveries and inventions. It's when a larg group of individuals each know and use existing technologies and share their discoveries, that progress gains speed. If one person in a cave has a good idea, but keeps it secret to have an advantage over his competitors, the invention will die with him or will be restricted from parent to child. If ideas are shared, only one individual needs to make an advancement and then everyone can work on the next one, instead of having to figure out the first step by themselves.

In short:
You need a predatory lifestyle to develop the ability to plan ahead.
And you need to live in groups to develop complex language and make technological progress.

Came up with a "sea" that sat near a highly volcanic area, essentially it was the crater of a massive volcano
You mean like a bay or a cove?

I think it does not sound that implausible. If there is only a narrow and shallow connection to the open sea and not many rivers flowing into the bay, then exchange with sea water would be quite limited and a buildup of chemicals from underwater vents quite plausible.

There is a considerable number of aquatic animals that can live quite well in conditions that are lethal to other organisms. However, these are either very tiny or native to the deep ocean floor. Since this body of water would be very shalow and next to the shore, it would be pretty much impossible for these deep sea animals to reach it, as they would have to travel through dozens of miles of water that would most likely be lethal to them.

Some plants might to rather well and maybe a few fish and amphibians, but those would probably be rather small as well.

[hamishspence]

Pack scavengers, really. Apex predators don't have the incentive to evolve sapient intelligence like a human, whereas scavengers who also live in packs do.


That too. Humanoid bears and cats are much less likely than humanoid wolves, hyenas, or dolphins.
...
In short:
You need a predatory lifestyle to develop the ability to plan ahead.
And you need to live in groups to develop complex language and make technological progress.


How about: Pack scavenger/pack apex predator. Also happens to be a cat.

Lions.

[Yora]

Of course, it just seems to be more practical to just say "cats" in generalizations than "cats, except for lions". :smallbiggrin:

[hamishspence]

True. Domestic cats seem to be much more sociable toward each other than wild ones- but as far as I know they don't actually cooperate on things.

A lot of evolution can involve something that really isn't "built for it" nonetheless specialising in something atypical. Pandas compared to other bears, for example.

Maybe some of these creatures could be something similar?

[Solaris]

How about: Pack scavenger/pack apex predator. Also happens to be a cat.

Lions.

They're actually a prime example of what I don't consider a candidate for evolving sapience. They have no need to evolve smarter because there's really no competition there.
A certain bipedal ape species used to fill that niche, the 'lesser pack predator/scavenger' niche. It kinda did evolve sapience.

Of course, a fantasy world is an entirely different story. Put a bigger, nastier predator than the lions out there and they'd have to evolve something to keep up.

[hamishspence]

Hyenas are lions' biggest competitors- and the species they most often scavenge from.

Hmm- imagine a "intelligence arms race" between hyenas and lions, that ends with them evolving into gnolls and cat folk.

[Solaris]

The problem with that being the lion just uses its bulk and strength to chase off the hyena. If anyone's starting that arms race, it'd be the hyena.

[hamishspence]

maybe. The hyenas might improve their cooperation to make it impossible for a lion group to steal their kill- then go on the offensive, stealing the lion kills, then the lions might develop the next countertechnique.

repeat for several million years.

[Geostationary]

Came up with a "sea" that sat near a highly volcanic area, essentially it was the crater of a massive volcano, and due to the dissolved sulfur the sea was:

A.) Incredibly smelly
B.) Slightly acidic (sulfuric acid formation)

This made it a pretty bad harbor for wooden ships, but some preliminary research shows that copper resists mild concentrations of sulfuric acid rather well, so I decided that ships (mostly pirates) sailing out of the bay were easily recognizable by the large sheets of copper nailed onto the hull of the ship. The sheets would of course corrode over time, but periodic patching or whole replacements could be done.

My question is: Just how realistic would this scenario be? Would there be uh... living creatures in the sea involved? Or would it just be this stinking, corrosive, warm dead mass of water. I've already placed human habitation on it, but humans are kinda crazy and disregard nature saying "hey, this place is not good for you" in favor of things like trade routes or resource acquisition, so that can be fudged.

This kind of scenario actually happens, just on a smaller scale; for examples look at certain acidic caves and geothermal hotsprings. Most of the life you'd find would be microorganisms adapted for the conditions, in addition to other small organisms- such as how salt lakes can be teeming with brine shrimp. You probably wouldn't find much in the way of fish diversity or larger fish. Filter-feeders and certain birds, such as flamingos, may also do well in such an environment.

On another note, you may want to look at the zinc anodes used on modern ships to stave off corrosion; there may be an equivalent that you can use with wooden boats.

[NichG]

I can't give you green flames, but I can give you blue. Sulfur mines are constantly aflame with blue fire. For example, the first two pictures at the following link:

http://blogs.agu.org/martianchronicles/2010/12/09/hell-on-earth-and-i/

[Lucianus]

Ohh, I like this thread idea :) Thinking of something to ask...

So... working on a homebrew campaign setting some years ago...

Came up with a "sea" that sat near a highly volcanic area, essentially it was the crater of a massive volcano, and due to the dissolved sulfur the sea was:

A.) Incredibly smelly
B.) Slightly acidic (sulfuric acid formation)

This made it a pretty bad harbor for wooden ships, but some preliminary research shows that copper resists mild concentrations of sulfuric acid rather well, so I decided that ships (mostly pirates) sailing out of the bay were easily recognizable by the large sheets of copper nailed onto the hull of the ship. The sheets would of course corrode over time, but periodic patching or whole replacements could be done.

My question is: Just how realistic would this scenario be? Would there be uh... living creatures in the sea involved? Or would it just be this stinking, corrosive, warm dead mass of water. I've already placed human habitation on it, but humans are kinda crazy and disregard nature saying "hey, this place is not good for you" in favor of things like trade routes or resource acquisition, so that can be fudged.

British warships were often armored with copper sheets due to them sealing water-tight as they corrode. Same reason there are copper roofs on a lot of old buildings like the Canadian Parliament (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Parliament_Hill,_Ottawa.jpg). It also turns a very lovely green color.

As for life in acidic waters, don't know about you, but I've always wanted to use that Acid Born template in Dungeonscape page 111! :smallbiggrin:

[Yora]

Copper roofs are so common on the baltic coasts that it never even occured to me to wonder why its used.

[J.Gellert]

I've read several times that an animal likely to have developed human-like sentience (other than primates, duh) were dinosaurs.

Meaning the little predatory ones, of course. So, uh, Kobolds?

Of course i's likely "wishful thinking", so to speak, because people love dinosaurs... :smalltongue:

Also; this thread is an excellent idea, I hope it sticks around!

[Sampi]

The sulfur-rich ecosystems in our world are all very small in a global scale, and thus do not give enough space for larger organisms to develop/adapt. But if your sea of sulfur is large enough and has been around long enough, there is no reason to not have larger creatures living in it. Eating the smaller ones that are eating the smaller ones etc.

Also, keep in mind that the sulfur makes compounds with pretty much everything and is then sedimented as sulphate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfate_minerals) and sulphide (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfide_minerals) minerals and whatnot. Thus, you need to have a constant source (a REALLY LARGE ONE if it's a large sea) of fresh sulfur coming in to the sea. Active megavolcano, for example?

Third, the sulphide minerals formed in the sea can be a very good source of various metals (copper, nickel, lead, quicksilver etc.) and thus there may be a good reason to have human habitation near this sea.

As to your question of realism: It all depends on the scale and size of your sea and the volcano involved. It's not likely to happen in our world above the size of a medium-sized lake, but this is a fantasy world, right?

(Geology degree pays off, finally.)

EDIT: Wooden hulls would be a BAD IDEA. Copper plating would help, but be expensive.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

Thread tax: Copper-bottomed boats were a wide-spread real-world innovation - they prevented fouling and drag from plants and barnacles, etc.

Calling xeno-climatologists!

I want to make a world that is further out from its star than Earth, but still warm enough to sustain humans (so that there can be more than one habitable planet in my fantasy setting).

What I've been thinking of is a slightly larger body (to capture a thicker atmosphere), with more extensive ice caps, and a habitable tropical / equatorial zone. Equatorial temperatures are quite mild compared to Earth (Florida rather than Brazil), and give over to subtropical and temperate zones rapidly as one moves towards the poles.

The poles would be extremely frigid, getting to CO2 freezing point regularly in the winter.

Are there any major flaws in these assumptions? Are there any significant issues that a bigger planet with massive ice caps would throw up?

[Yora]

That's about -80 degrees. Not that unreasonable as it sometimes gets even colder than that on earth.

Climate is one of the most complex and difficult systems known in nature (galaxy eating black holes are relatively simple compared to that), so it would probably be impossible to say what circumstances you would exactly need to get that result. But all in all, it does sound quite plausible.
Getting a sharp drop in temperature between the tropics and the arctics is a bit more difficult, but I imagine you could do something in the like of gulf streams or something like that. How about allowing ocean water to flow freely around the whole planet relatively close to the equator? On earth we have Africa and Central America which are in the way. Without them I think you could get some really crazy results. :smallbiggrin:

Is it possible to have localized greenhouse effects? Maybe have lots of volcanoes emmiting CO2 near the equator, causing the region to heat up.
Or alternatively, you have lots of volcanoes errupting ash near the poles, causing the sky to dim and block light. If you have strong subtropical air currents circling the planet, they might keep the ash from reaching the tropics, allowing for more sunlight.

Maybe a significant axial tilt? This increases the length of winter at the poles, while not doing much to the tropics. However, it also increases the length of summer, which would probably cause the two to cancel each other out, unless you have something in place that makes the planet lose heat faster than it absorbs energy from the sun.
Maybe put the planet closer to the sun, but without any meaningful greenhouse effect? That way the tropics are still comfortable but the poles will experience freakish winters.

[Yora]

Question: What are the motivations for colonization, except for natural resources and prestige?

[sol_kanar]

Question: What are the motivations for colonization, except for natural resources and prestige?

A few wild guesses:

Proselytism -> "All of those who live under the Sun must be taught of the ways of Pelor!"

Religious/political persecution -> "Here everyone hates us, but if you follow me into the wilderness, together we will find our Promised Land and live forever in peace!"

Demographic pressure -> But it kinda overlaps with "natural resources".

[Aux-Ash]

There's no simple answer to that question.

I suppose you could say trade, but that's really just the tip of the iceberg. Also worth pointing out that the purpose of colonies change over time.

Often, the goal of a colony isn't natural resources as such, but rather establishing a place through which you can trade them. Many greek colonies in the mediterranean were established to provide trade with the locals, safe harbours from greek merchants. Later expanding their purposes.
Similarily, the huge network of colonies that the portugese created consisted of a series of safe harbours through which they could "jump" their way to India. The colonies themselves intitially having little worth, but the cargo (spice) hauled through them more than made up for it.

In some cases, the goal could also be to aim at controlling the current trade passing through. Like setting up a harbour in narrow straits. (The Bosphorus, Malacca, Messina) and projecting naval power from them.

While these tie into natural resources, they should be treated as distinct from colonies intended to produce natural resources. The former is usually little more than harbours or caravanstops, the latter are usually set up as projects intended to generate a profit soon.

There's also the use of colonies to provide a buffer, such as Russia's settling of cossacks along the borders of the steppe to provide a shield towards the steppe nomad's raiding and gradually expanding.
Similarily, establishing military garrisons (with families) to provide a safeguard from attacks.

Another possibility is population control. Creating a colony in order to either funnel an unwanted population away from valuable land (note: could be done for "benevolent" reasons) or in order to establish control over and assimilate the locals. Of these I do not wish to provide examples.
Or just plain to expand into largely empty areas in order to provide more farmland for it's increasing population.

And finally... "philantropic" reasons. Out of a belief of the necessity and/or desire to educate and civilize the locals.

In short... basically any reason grounded in internal politics. And as mentioned, it was not unusual for colonies to begin as one thing and then being turned into another as they grew.

[Melayl]

Question: What are the motivations for colonization, except for natural resources and prestige?

Curiosity: The desire to explore other areas. "What's over that next rise?" "What's in those caves?" Be it scientific curiosity or simply the desire to see what else is out there, humans have long explored out of curiosity. Doing long-term and in-depth exploration is easier with a permanent base of operations nearby. And just like with American Boomtowns, people will come to provide goods and services to those doing the exploring. Eventually full-fledged towns spring up, one after another.

Ego: The feeling that the entire world belongs to you/your society/race/kingdom, and going out to put your stamp on it (ok, so it could be basically the same as prestige, I guess). European "Manifest Destiny"-types.

[Solaris]

I've read several times that an animal likely to have developed human-like sentience (other than primates, duh) were dinosaurs.

Meaning the little predatory ones, of course. So, uh, Kobolds?

Of course i's likely "wishful thinking", so to speak, because people love dinosaurs... :smalltongue:

Considering that what I've seen has indicated even the 'smart' dinosaurs were still dimmer than dogs... yes. Wishful thinking. The notion that raptors were 'smarter than primates' is one found in fiction, not really supported by the evidence. Very good senses, not so much with the problem-solving.

That said, I've always liked kobolds being descended of dinosaurs better than dragons, and I'm willing to give 'em the benefit of the doubt for coming up with smarts with a few million more years. After all, you go back early enough and we come up with some pretty dim human ancestors.

[HeadlessMermaid]

Question: What are the motivations for colonization, except for natural resources and prestige?
Aux-Ash covered most of it, I'd like to add gender imbalance: too many males and too few females in the general population. There's disagreement about the extent of this imbalance, but it's a fact that in Rome and most Greek cities, Athens included, girls were undesirable in a family (since they meant more expenses with no important rewards) while boys were desirable (since they were a source of income, plus they continued the family name). Some argue that infanticide was pretty common, though undocumented directly.

It's remarkable that even after Athens sent away a big chunk of its male population to colonize the Mediterranean, there was no shortage of men in the city, and even the Persian Wars didn't change that significantly. Only during the Peloponnesian War were there enough casualties to make that happen. Similarly, Rome had to expand its military campaigns all over the known world before there was a shortage of men, and at that point they came up with legal incentives for families to have girls (in a nutshell, tax cuts for the fathers).

In any case, having too few women meant that a lot of men couldn't produce a legal heir, and would gladly jump at the opportunity to colonize a far away place, and take wives, one way or another, from the local population. It also meant that the men left behind had now a better chance of arranging an appropriate marriage. Not a primary incentive for organizing an expedition perhaps (though it's conceivable that such a situation could produce a lot of strife in a community, which somehow had to be resolved), but certainly a factor in its success.


Curiosity: The desire to explore other areas. "What's over that next rise?" "What's in those caves?" Be it scientific curiosity or simply the desire to see what else is out there, humans have long explored out of curiosity.
I'd say that's a romantic approach, which should come last, if at all, in the list. An explorer might or might not be curious. The ones funding his expedition and the ones following afterwards are people who want to grab something, no matter how politely they phrase that.

Also note that it's a relatively recent approach, mostly used to justify and glorify things. In the ancient world, it was generally accepted that curious people simply traveled. No one felt the need to hide the fact that colonization was strictly for material purposes.

[Beleriphon]

My personal favorite is a coal mine that caught fire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_mine_fire). There's a couple of those I know of, one in China and the other in the States.

This can be completely natural as well. Burning Mountain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_Mountain) in Australia is a coal seem fire that currently speculated to have been burning around 6000 years.


My question is: Just how realistic would this scenario be? Would there be uh... living creatures in the sea involved? Or would it just be this stinking, corrosive, warm dead mass of water. I've already placed human habitation on it, but humans are kinda crazy and disregard nature saying "hey, this place is not good for you" in favor of things like trade routes or resource acquisition, so that can be fudged.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoking_Hills

This is in the Northwest Territories. Its a series of acidic pools (only a few feet deep at the deepest) but with pH levels below 2 making them functionally a weak sulphuric acid. There are elevated levels of minerals such as iron, zinc and nickel (all useful in making steel) found in the ponds. There is life, but its basically all microorganisms.

That said, if you've got a sufficiently large quantity of sulfur come up to the make the water acidic then there's no reason larger life forms wouldn't eventually start to fill in the niches one would expect. Just take some deep sea critters and move them into your cove/bay/thing as needed.

Also, as there are elevated, possibly massively elevated, dissolved minerals in the water there might be a booming industry of extracting these minerals and making steel.

[Jay R]

Question: What are the motivations for colonization, except for natural resources and prestige?

The biggest impetus to colonization historically has been "We need more room." This could be would-be farmers in a place where all the land is already farmed, to the fourth son of the fifth daughter of a nobleman, who is noble but inherits no land.

Ten thousand variations of "I don't like it here", from "I upset the king" to "the priests don't accept our religion".

Escaped slaves.

Pirates who want a safe port.

Famines back home.

Game and fish are getting scarce locally.

Forced colonization includes getting rid of undesirables, including both expelling a race or religion you don't like and transportation as a penalty for lawbreakers.

[Yora]

Question:RPGs often have quite weird deities with improbable spheres of activity. However in mythology throughout history and all of the world, there have been deities worshiped for very specialized causes.

Let's help making a list of areas of influence, that have been attributed to specific deities in the past and would for example be a "Domain" in D&D.

Dionysus, the greek god of grape harvest, wine, and ecstasy.
Kali, a hindu mother godess of death and destruction, who represents the aspect of chaos and change, as the old things have to end to allow for the creation of new things.
Hestia, the roman goddes of hearth fire, which for most of human history represents not simply a stove, but the heart and centerpiece of the community of a home, making it both the kitchen and living room, or even sleeping quarters as well.
Inari, the japanese god of rice. Which in east Asia stands for basically all agriculture and food.
Eris, the greek godess of strife. Though here I am not sure how much the lines between a worshiped deity and a "mere" manifested spirit of strife are blurred.
Skadi, norse godess of skiing. But also the goddess of winter when skiing is the only way to travel long distances, making her the godess of safe travel in a dangerous environment.

[HeadlessMermaid]

Eris, the greek godess of strife. Though here I am not sure how much the lines between a worshiped deity and a "mere" manifested spirit of strife are blurred.
The lines are indeed occasionally blurred, but not in the case of Eris. There was no temple in her honor, no city ever chose her as its matron deity, there's no invocation or hymn praising her. She only exists as a personification of discord. Other gods may send her to cause chaos among the mortals, but she never acts of her own accord - unless you count the time she sprang out of Pandora's box (though that was more "unleashing all bad things" than a bunch of divine entities acting consciously).

Now, for your question, I believe you describe portfolios rather than domains, though of course the latter can be derived from the former. Would you like me to list the relevant Greek deities, or are they too mainstream and considered known?

[J.Gellert]

Question:RPGs often have quite weird deities with improbable spheres of activity. However in mythology throughout history and all of the world, there have been deities worshiped for very specialized causes.

Let's help making a list of areas of influence, that have been attributed to specific deities in the past and would for example be a "Domain" in D&D.

Dionysus, the greek god of grape harvest, wine, and ecstasy.
Kali, a hindu mother godess of death and destruction, who represents the aspect of chaos and change, as the old things have to end to allow for the creation of new things.
Hestia, the roman goddes of hearth fire, which for most of human history represents not simply a stove, but the heart and centerpiece of the community of a home, making it both the kitchen and living room, or even sleeping quarters as well.
Inari, the japanese god of rice. Which in east Asia stands for basically all agriculture and food.
Eris, the greek godess of strife. Though here I am not sure how much the lines between a worshiped deity and a "mere" manifested spirit of strife are blurred.
Skadi, norse godess of skiing. But also the goddess of winter when skiing is the only way to travel long distances, making her the godess of safe travel in a dangerous environment.

Just correcting that Hestia is a Greek goddes (Hestia is Greek for "hearth"), the "Roman Counterpart" is Vesta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesta_(mythology))

[Inglenook]

This thread is fantastic.

My question: I know about the square-cube law and its limiting factor on animal/plant growth, but what sort of physical laws are in place to govern the size of man-made structures? Are ten-mile-high towers and multilayered dwarf cities feasible? I know anything will collapse under its own weight eventually, should it get big enough, but what measures can be taken to prevent this, and what are some architectural limitations that can't be overcome?

And it's sort of a useless skill set, but I have lots of linguistics knowledge to drop if anyone needs it. :smalleek:

[HeadlessMermaid]

And it's sort of a useless skill set, but I have lots of linguistics knowledge to drop if anyone needs it. :smalleek:
Ooh, I have a weirdly specific linguistics question (relevant with worldbuilding for equally weird reasons, never mind that).

The word "evil" in English is derived from a Germanic root, correct? Now, in Romance languages, if I'm not mistaken, the word evil is equivalent to some variation of "mal", from a Latin root: Les fleurs du mal, for example. However, in these languages "mal" also means simply "bad", which is a lot less intimidating, semantically, than evil. It doesn't carry all that baggage. You can use it to describe a bad meal, or a bad day, a life full of bad habits (mala vida (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWV2kM1laIc)), or a bad - but not Evil - person.

So, questions:
1) Is the above correct?

2) In which languages or families of languages is there a separate word for "evil" (= bad, but really really bad, the incarnation of the worst things in the world, the enemy of all that's good and pure in the world, diabolical, etc)? And in which languages does the word for "bad" fit all purposes?

3) Any idea how the word "evil" (and its direct equivalents) came to carry all that baggage? In which language or when?

[Inglenook]

Ooh, I have a weirdly specific linguistics question (relevant with worldbuilding for equally weird reasons, never mind that).

The word "evil" in English is derived from a Germanic root, correct? Now, in Romance languages, if I'm not mistaken, the word evil is equivalent to some variation of "mal", from a Latin root: Les fleurs du mal, for example. However, in these languages "mal" also means simply "bad", which is a lot less intimidating, semantically, than evil. It doesn't carry all that baggage. You can use it to describe a bad meal, or a bad day, a life full of bad habits (mala vida (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWV2kM1laIc)), or a bad - but not Evil - person.

So, questions:
1) Is the above correct?

2) In which languages or families of languages is there a separate word for "evil" (= bad, but really really bad, the incarnation of the worst things in the world, the enemy of all that's good and pure in the world, diabolical, etc)? And in which languages does the word for "bad" fit all purposes?

3) Any idea how the word "evil" (and its direct equivalents) came to carry all that baggage? In which language or when?
*breaks out my etymology dictionary*

1. Right. "Evil" does come from a Germanic root, which in turn goes back to a Proto-Indo-European (the source of most European and Indo-Aryan languages) root. "Mal", in its various forms, comes from a Latin root of uncertain origin, possibly the Avestan word for "treachery".

And while I can't speak for the meanings of "mal" in all the Romance languages, I do speak some Spanish, and "malo" can be used to mean either plain-old bad or evil, depending on context. It definitely doesn't have the automatic "morally bankrupt" connotation that "evil" does in English.

Though Spanish does have ways to make it clear you're talking about evil evil rather than just bad, I think. Normally Spanish adjectives go after the noun, and this is the basic meaning of the word, things that are objective fact. To make it clear you're referring to the morality aspect of "malo", you can move it before the noun. This also functions to intensify the adjective, I think? e.g. Un hombre malo = "a bad man". un mal hombre = "a very bad man, an evil man". At least that's how I'd distinguish the two if I wanted to be especially clear. Native speakers, feel free to correct me on this—it's the niggly bits of grammar like this that always get me.

2. I honestly can't say. :smallfrown: I think it'd be unlikely for an entire language branch/family to have separate words for "bad" and "evil"; general language families have only very broad commonalities, with the languages within being very distinct in terms of vocabulary and shades of meaning. So without being fluent in thousands of languages it's hard for to give a concrete answer. If I had to guess, I'd think it's WAY more common to express "evil" as "bad + intensifier" rather than having a separate word for it. I personally have a fondness for Dutch intensifiers, so this (webascorpus.org/whfBloodhotStonegood.pdf) might be something to look at for inspiration.

3. According to the Internet: Evil used to be used how we would use "bad, unskilled, broken" ("an evil meal", "an evil plow"). The morally-evil version didn't become the main sense until the 18th century.

[GM.Casper]

Taxation in medieval towns.
How do a city’s tax collectors go about collecting trade taxes from merchants? Specifically how did they calculate how much the trades had to pay, and how they prevented tax dodging?

[Aux-Ash]

Taxation in medieval towns.
How do a city’s tax collectors go about collecting trade taxes from merchants? Specifically how did they calculate how much the trades had to pay, and how they prevented tax dodging?

Some older city have names of certain locations that reveal how this was done. Stockholm in particular. All around inner stockholm there's a 18 locations whose name ends with "tull". These were, at the time, the only ways into the city proper. Tull means toll. Which is to say... you had to pay to enter the city with goods (and it was illegal to sell goods outside of cities).
While the names aren't that similar, I learned that in Edinburgh while I was there that the same policy applied. Toll would be collected by the various gates (such as the cowgate, through which cattle was herded.) From what I understood, same thing in Hanoi, Vietnam.

This was, contrary to popular belief, the main purpose of a city wall. It wasn't primarily so you could defend the city from attackers (though naturally, that did factor in rather heavily in how you constructed them) it was so you could tax anyone trying to get in.

I'm not entirely certain how much you had to pay. Swedish wikipedia (sources looks legit in this article) suggests 1/32 of the price of the goods being brought in. Given that prices often were fixed by the guilds, that sounds plausible to me. But I suspect that sort of thing varied from city to city.

Another common method seemed to be a tax on how much space by the road that your building occupied.

[HeadlessMermaid]

*breaks out my etymology dictionary*
Thanks, that was very helpful!


According to the Internet: Evil used to be used how we would use "bad, unskilled, broken" ("an evil meal", "an evil plow"). The morally-evil version didn't become the main sense until the 18th century.
18th century? Huh. That's... later that I expected. I believe the word "ill-" was often used in order texts like that ("ill-thought", "ill-wrought", "an ill death may you die"), meaning badly or poorly. But I've never heard the phrase "evil plow". Good to know!

[Inglenook]

No problem. As for "ill":

ill (adj.) [as in "an ill death may you die"]
c.1200, "morally evil" (other 13c. senses were "malevolent, hurtful, unfortunate, difficult"), from O.N. illr "ill, bad," of unknown origin. Not related to evil. Main modern sense of "sick, unhealthy, unwell" is first recorded mid-15c., probably related to O.N. idiom "it is bad to me." Slang inverted sense of "very good, cool" is 1980s. As a noun, "something evil," from mid-13c.

ill (adv.) [as in "ill-wrought"]
c.1200, "wickedly; with hostility;" see ill (adj.). Meaning "not well, poorly" is from c.1300. It generally has not shifted to the realm of physical sickess, as the adjective has done. Ill-fated recorded from 1710; ill-informed from 1824; ill-tempered from c.1600; ill-starred from c.1600. Generally contrasted with well, hence the useful, but now obsolete or obscure illcome (1570s), illfare (c.1300), and illth.

I just made up "evil plow" as an example for the old meaning of "evil"—I don't know if anyone actually ever said those exact words. :smalltongue:

[Shadowknight12]

Romance Languages:

The noun from which all the "mal" adjectives come from is usually what you want to use when you mean evil. In Spanish, for example, the word "maldad" means "pretty horrible evil." When you say someone is full of "maldad" I dare say it's even worse than saying someone's full of evil in English. The concept of wanting an adjective to have a specific meaning is very Anglo-Saxon, I think. In Romance language, the diversity's in the nouns, and so you structure your sentences differently to take account of this fact. If you want to say that something is evil, rather than bad, you restructure the sentence so that you use the appropriate noun ("¿Qué maldad estás haciendo?" = "What evil are you up to?", "Hay pura maldad en tu alma" = "There's pure evil in your soul"/"There's nothing but evil in your soul" (this one has two meanings depending on regionalisms), and so on). All Romance languages have this distinction, it's just not in the place you were looking for. :smalltongue:

Nitpick (Spanish native speaker here): "Un mal hombre" and "un hombre malo" both mean the same thing in Spanish ("a bad man"). Spanish does sometimes use adjective placement as a way to convey subtleties, but this is really not the norm. If you want to say "an evil man" you say "un hombre lleno de maldad" (a man full of evil) or "la maldad hecha hombre" (evil made/turned man).

Buildings and Structures:

Check out old cathedrals, castles and palaces that are still standing. Those things are heavy, made mostly of stone, and they've withstood heavy usage up until today. The key's in the materials and the builders' understanding of physics. It's very easy to have an incredibly huge and heavy building if you are good at weight distribution. That's why a lot of palaces have so many pillars and arcs, because they're really good ways to distribute weight onto specific points (that's why they're so easy to demolish as well). Venice is quite famous for this, supporting a lot of tall stone buildings onto archways and pillars below the city's canals.

Multilayered dwarven cities are certainly feasible, especially if built inside a mountain, as you can rely on the rock itself to bear a lot of the burden. Extremely high towers, on the other hand, are very vulnerable to winds and earthquakes, something for which ancient builders didn't have much in the way of prevention. You could use magic, of course, but that also lets you justify ten-mile-high towers by enchanting stone to weigh 1/100 of what it normally weighs, letting you build towers a hundred times taller with the same building technology.

[kieza]

Here are a couple relating to my setting:

The system works on the assumption that magic can convert any form of energy into any other (with a certain degree of loss depending on the conversion). The most common is kinetic->magical potential, which is used to charge up magical batteries. But I'd like to introduce other sorts of conversion used in niche processes. Converting thermal energy is pretty obvious; the area gets colder. So is electrical current: you get increased resistance on the circuit, and the energy loss becomes magic instead of heat. But what about:
-Chemical potential energy (converting the energy stored in molecular bonds)
-Gravitational potential energy
-Nuclear binding energy
-Relativistic rest potential

What's a good way for these conversions to happen?

Second question relates to goblin society. In this setting, goblins are a single species with three distinct phenotypes (goblin, hobgoblin, bugbear). Since they're all one species, any pair of goblinoids can breed, and their offspring are equally likely to be any of those three phenotypes. Goblinoid children are the same size as human children, but goblins don't get a growth spurt at puberty, and bugbears get a huge one.

And there are further complications: Rates of physical maturation differ both from humans, and between phenotypes. All three phenotypes mature intellectually around puberty (13): at that point, they're as intelligent as a 20-year old human, and up till that point, they learn much faster than humans. However, they mature emotionally at the same rate as humans, meaning they have the intellect and knowledge of an adult, coupled with the decision-making skills of a teenager. At this point, goblins are also physically mature (due to the lack of a growth spurt); hobgoblins reach full physical development at the same time as humans; and bugbears don't get their full height and bulk until they're around 25.

Now, the question: what the heck would a goblinoid society look like? Would it be caste-based, given that siblings might be of different phenotypes? Would intellectually and physically-mature goblins be allowed to contribute to society, or would they remain "children" until emotionally mature? How about bugbears, who are small and weak (by bugbear standards) until years after they're emotionally and intellectually mature?

[Shadowknight12]

Energy:

If your magic can create matter out of nothing, turning a form of energy into chemical energy is good to justify how you can make it change shape, cohesiveness, fluidity and the like, as all that is governed by molecular interactions. You can even say that magic can summon atoms but you need chemical energy to bind them together and form molecules. If your magic can't break the conservation of matter, turning something into chemical energy lets you explain why magic can make something change shape/form/physical properties. Remember that organic chemistry is based on very similar molecules, so making minute alterations on bindings (or even smaller things like chirality) can create dramatic changes on an organic substance.

Altering gravitational potential energy doesn't really have an effect on itself, it just means that things have less kinetic energy when they actually fall (remember: potential means it hasn't happened yet), so you'd lessen the damage that something would take if it fell. Since you're not changing the actual force pulling people down or gravity's acceleration, you'd have no observable effect.

Nuclear binding energy: I am not a nuclear physicist, but my basic understanding of the matter means you'd either be unbalancing the nucleus and thereby causing a nuclear reaction, or it would have no observable effect until the nucleus underwent a nuclear reaction, in which case you'd have a different energy output depending on whether you increased or decreased the nuclear binding energy.

Relativistic rest potential: That's really not my forte, sorry.

As for conversion, you simply take whichever energy you want to convert, then the one you want to obtain, and you apply the effects of diminishing one and increasing the other. If you want to turn Gravitational Potential Energy into Thermal Energy, you're causing an object to take less damage if it falls and raising the surrounding temperature.

Goblinoids:

First off, you really need to determine the dominance of the genes in charge of determining those phenotypes. I assume that all the genes that regulate the differential aspects are all coded to have the same dominance (otherwise you'd get more phenotypes), so we can sum the dominance up into one pair. On the typical Mendelian dominance system, we have AA, Aa and aa, which would correspond well with those phenotypes. You simply pick which phenotype you want to be dominant, which you want to be recessive and which you want to be heterozygous. Then, to imagine a normal prevalence in a given society, you can take black/brown/blonde hair (for AA, Aa and aa) or Brown/Hazel/Blue eyes (again, for AA, Aa and aa).

That is, of course, if you want to stick to what'd be more or less normal. It's entirely possible that goblinoid society might favour the recessive phenotype because of its combat potential (bugbear?), so it would be extremely strict regarding breeding in order to prevent the recessive phenotype from being "drowned out" and only appearing in a very small percentage.

Conversely, they could also think the recessive phenotype is worthless from an evolutionary perspective (goblins?) and actively attempt to drown it out (unknowing it's genetically impossible to make it disappear without making the heterozygous phenotype disappear as well), forbidding marriages between two recessive phenotypes.

It'd also be somewhat uncommon for families to have siblings of different phenotypes, depending on what the marriage/breeding customs are. If you marry AA with aa, all their children (without exception) will be Aa. If you marry AA with Aa, none of their children will be aa (and conversely, if you marry Aa with aa, none of their children will be AA). The most phenotypically diverse marriage would be two Aa, which would have 50% of their children as Aa, 25% as AA and 25% as aa, a stark contrast when compared to a AA/AA or aa/aa marriage, both of which would have 100% of their children as AA and aa, respectively.

There is also codominance and incomplete dominance, but those are rare (though I can expand upon them if you want).

Regarding social customs, you should keep in mind that "emotional maturity" is not something that was known in the past. In previous ages, before the advent of psychology (and the concept of adolescence), the transition between childhood and adulthood was done through rituals, not an external judgement of emotional maturity. Depending on the type of society, you could have hunting, scarification, fighting and other activities as the child bearing proof to its society that he or she was ready to be considered an adult. In the case of females, the most typical sign that one of them had "come of age" was menstruation, which is why most coming of age rituals were male-oriented. The closest thing to a judgement on emotional maturity was when elders or authorities had the power to declare children adults or not, and so they would likely recognise an absence of emotional maturity (even if they couldn't call it so) and postpone their declaration of adulthood until the child had grown wiser.

Regarding social customs on growth spurts, goblins are likely to be considered "adults" quicker, with bugbears protecting their "children" until far later in life. How this plays out depends on the society: you can have goblins make up the bulk of the work force, with bugbears being the aristocracy (and hobgoblins being the bourgeois/merchant/middle class). Or you can say that bugbears are much more talented than the other phenotypes because they have many more years of apprenticeship and training during their prolonged childhood, which leads them to acquiring greater knowledge and skills.

In short, first thing to do is to decide what type of genetic dominance you're going to have, and then decide what sort of societies goblinoids are likely to have. If you can't make up your mind, it's possible (and more realistic) to have very different types of societies according to geography. Perhaps the northern goblinoids have it easier and so their societies are more relaxed, while southern goblinoids are in constant warfare and so they have very strict social customs.

[Geostationary]

On Energy
Note that chemical energy is just a measure of the energy inherent in a given molecule's atomic bonds. An example of releasing that energy is any exothermic reaction (i.e., it gives off heat). Chemical energy would best be used in either fueling/containing energy by converting molecules into lower- or higher-energy states, respectively. It would also be useful for converting one clump of matter into another, different clump with a similar composition- such as one type of organic molecule into another. Note that in this instance, you can't convert one atom into another or anything like that without using some sort of nuclear reaction.

Nuclear binding energy, unless I'm mistaken, would allow you to cause nuclear reactions, releasing absurd quantities of energy. The downside of this is that if you don't have enough control over it, your spell is going to leak high-energy radiation. You could convert elements, but it would be rather inefficient depending on what direction you're going- you'd need to put more energy in than you'd get out if you wanted to make anything heavier than iron. You could of course fuse lighter elements to make additional energy, but that would still require an initial investment from somewhere. It really depends on how picky your magic system is about actual physics.

On Goblinoids
So, what you need to do there is go over how their heredity works. First, what you have is not a dominant/recessive scheme, but incomplete dominance resulting in multiple phenotypes. There are also some problems with what you have described if you want to assign genetic factors.


Since they're all one species, any pair of goblinoids can breed, and their offspring are equally likely to be any of those three phenotypes
So, here's the thing- this doesn't work for how you've described it. Assuming a genetic cause, parents with similar genotypes would be more likely to produce offspring with a similar genotype as well, meaning that similar parents are likely to have similar offspring, assuming they're not heterozygotes. Parents of a given type will be more likely to have a certain type of offspring.
Additionally, what you've described sounds like divergent evolution in the goblin population- it's almost certain that some of the goblin phenotypes are preferentially selected over others. This also means that you're going to find more of one phenotype than the others, such as having a larger population of bugbears than goblins and hobgoblins combined. Furthermore, it also means that your goblins will be preferentially breeding with certain types of goblins which in turn may cause their society to find a given subtype to be less desirable.

On the other hand, there are species that display a similar scheme, but only with the males. In this case, they have three different strategies for mating, resulting in three general male phenotypes, however this does not affect females. They're more or less the same throughout the population. Unfortunately I can't recall the species in question, though I believe they were a type of cuttlefish. The three strategies/phenotypes in question there were basically the traditional alpha male, the smaller sneaky male, and the male that looks like a female- interestingly, the females prefer the sneakier ones to the alpha males, but use the alpha males in a protective role.

Hopefully that all made sense. Apologies if otherwise.

There is also codominance and incomplete dominance, but those are rare
Just putting it out here, but codominance and incomplete dominance are actually pretty common; more so than traditional dominant/recessive schemes. As an example, there are several genes that go into eye color, in a scheme similar to that which determines skin color.

[kieza]

Energy:

Altering gravitational potential energy doesn't really have an effect on itself, it just means that things have less kinetic energy when they actually fall (remember: potential means it hasn't happened yet), so you'd lessen the damage that something would take if it fell. Since you're not changing the actual force pulling people down or gravity's acceleration, you'd have no observable effect.

I like this...the way that the conversions are usually performed is by establishing a field in which the appropriate energies are converted. Maybe the gravitational conversion creates a field in which, as an object falls through it, the object no longer accelerates due to gravity, and the kinetic energy it would otherwise gain becomes magical potential. This deals with my major reservation, which is that removing enough of an object's gravitational potential energy should make it float...


Goblinoids:

First off, you really need to determine the dominance of the genes in charge of determining those phenotypes. I assume that all the genes that regulate the differential aspects are all coded to have the same dominance (otherwise you'd get more phenotypes), so we can sum the dominance up into one pair. On the typical Mendelian dominance system, we have AA, Aa and aa, which would correspond well with those phenotypes. You simply pick which phenotype you want to be dominant, which you want to be recessive and which you want to be heterozygous. Then, to imagine a normal prevalence in a given society, you can take black/brown/blonde hair (for AA, Aa and aa) or Brown/Hazel/Blue eyes (again, for AA, Aa and aa).

The phenotypes aren't entirely genetically determined (maybe I'm using the term incorrectly); some individuals have a genetic predisposition towards one or more types, but any individual has the genes for all three phenotypes. Up until puberty, individuals all follow the same growth pattern. What they develop into at puberty depends upon which of a wide variety of environmental stimuli they've been exposed to. For example, undernourished children are slightly more likely (~10%) to be goblins, and children that have plentiful food are more likely to be bugbears...but you can't just forcefeed a child in order to produce a bugbear. There are lots of factors at work, including exposure to certain diseases, trace dietary nutrients, childhood injuries, degree of physical activity, etc., that have an effect on the final outcome.


It'd also be somewhat uncommon for families to have siblings of different phenotypes, depending on what the marriage/breeding customs are. If you marry AA with aa, all their children (without exception) will be Aa. If you marry AA with Aa, none of their children will be aa (and conversely, if you marry Aa with aa, none of their children will be AA). The most phenotypically diverse marriage would be two Aa, which would have 50% of their children as Aa, 25% as AA and 25% as aa, a stark contrast when compared to a AA/AA or aa/aa marriage, both of which would have 100% of their children as AA and aa, respectively.

I agree that most members of a family would likely be of the same phenotype, not for genetic reasons but because they would grow up in similar fashion. But they might not be the same phenotype as either parent...I have this vision of two tiny goblins trying to raise a family of adolescent bugbears because the environmental conditions have changed since the parents were kids.


Regarding social customs, you should keep in mind that "emotional maturity" is not something that was known in the past. In previous ages, before the advent of psychology (and the concept of adolescence), the transition between childhood and adulthood was done through rituals, not an external judgement of emotional maturity. Depending on the type of society, you could have hunting, scarification, fighting and other activities as the child bearing proof to its society that he or she was ready to be considered an adult. In the case of females, the most typical sign that one of them had "come of age" was menstruation, which is why most coming of age rituals were male-oriented. The closest thing to a judgement on emotional maturity was when elders or authorities had the power to declare children adults or not, and so they would likely recognise an absence of emotional maturity (even if they couldn't call it so) and postpone their declaration of adulthood until the child had grown wiser.

Regarding social customs on growth spurts, goblins are likely to be considered "adults" quicker, with bugbears protecting their "children" until far later in life. How this plays out depends on the society: you can have goblins make up the bulk of the work force, with bugbears being the aristocracy (and hobgoblins being the bourgeois/merchant/middle class). Or you can say that bugbears are much more talented than the other phenotypes because they have many more years of apprenticeship and training during their prolonged childhood, which leads them to acquiring greater knowledge and skills.

I've already decided on at least some tribes declaring goblins adult at puberty, leading to horribly/comically incompetent or cowardly goblin warriors...and also, because they can pick up intellectual pursuits faster, it would result in "crazy" goblin alchemists, wizards, and tinkers. Of course, these tribers would die out or learn the error of their ways pretty quickly...

[HeadlessMermaid]

Romance languages


The noun from which all the "mal" adjectives come from is usually what you want to use when you mean evil.
More info, thanks a lot!


All Romance languages have this distinction, it's just not in the place you were looking for. :smalltongue:
They do?? What about French? I was certain about French, since mal is both an adjective (archaic, now mostly replaced by mauvais - which again means simply bad, unfavorable) and a noun. And an adverb. I think the closest match of "evil, not just bad" in French is the adjective maléfique. Which, if I'm not mistaken, has too strong a connection with the occult to be used generically in the place of "evil". Feel free to correct me, native speakers!

And what about Italian?
(I imagine Portuguese is so close to Spanish so that I don't even have to ask.)

[Shadowknight12]

Just putting it out here, but codominance and incomplete dominance are actually pretty common; more so than traditional dominant/recessive schemes. As an example, there are several genes that go into eye color, in a scheme similar to that which determines skin color.

Yes, obviously, but fully codominant or incompletely dominant individual genes aren't that common (that I know of). When we take into consideration gene clusters and polygenic characteristics, then sure, it's not common to find such a group of genes that are all dominant/recessive (otherwise we'd all be quite uniform).


I like this...the way that the conversions are usually performed is by establishing a field in which the appropriate energies are converted. Maybe the gravitational conversion creates a field in which, as an object falls through it, the object no longer accelerates due to gravity, and the kinetic energy it would otherwise gain becomes magical potential. This deals with my major reservation, which is that removing enough of an object's gravitational potential energy should make it float...

The equation to calculate the kinetic energy a falling object has (that I was taught) is GPE = KE, KE = 1/2 * m * v^2, so an object that has a reduced GPE (and retains the same mass) would fall slower not because it has a reduced acceleration (since that's a constant), but because it has a reduced KE and therefore a reduced velocity.

Also, it would never make it float, it would simply make it not fall at all (if you can somehow syphon all of its GPE). The thing is, since the object's height, its mass and gravity's acceleration all remain the same, you could gain an endless source of magical energy by syphoning the GPE of absolutely everything, with the added bonus of it making objects immune to falling.

I fear this would mean the absolute supremacy of magic in your setting, unfortunately, as any mage with a lick of sense would keep up those syphoning fields at all times for constant magical replenishment.

On the other hand, this works wonders if you're using a mana system, as this handily explains mana regeneration.


The phenotypes aren't entirely genetically determined (maybe I'm using the term incorrectly); some individuals have a genetic predisposition towards one or more types, but any individual has the genes for all three phenotypes. Up until puberty, individuals all follow the same growth pattern. What they develop into at puberty depends upon which of a wide variety of environmental stimuli they've been exposed to. For example, undernourished children are slightly more likely (~10%) to be goblins, and children that have plentiful food are more likely to be bugbears...but you can't just forcefeed a child in order to produce a bugbear. There are lots of factors at work, including exposure to certain diseases, trace dietary nutrients, childhood injuries, degree of physical activity, etc., that have an effect on the final outcome.

Hm. All phenotypes are genetically determined, as a phenotype is the physical expression of a genotype.

The only way I can see your model working is to let go of genetics and focus on endocrinology (which is based on genetics, yes, but it's not as rigid). Instead of having different genotypes and phenotypes, you have simply different hormone levels (that coincidentally change exactly according to what you describe: environmental factors, diet, physical activity and so on) that determine what kind of goblinoid the child ends up being. I'd personally invent a single hormone that is in charge of regulating the hypothalamus-equivalent in goblinoids.

Prolonged low levels of the hormone allow the hypothalamus-equivalent to release constant and steady levels of all the other hormones that shape a goblinoid's development, resulting in a slow and steady growth that allows them to reach their full capabilities at the expense of time (bugbears). Prolonged high levels of the hormone result in a burst of metabolites and hormones that cause quick growth spurts and the goblinoid-equivalent of premature puberty, resulting in a creature that matures quickly, physically, but never reaches its true potential (goblins). Prolonged middling levels (or high and low peaks) of the hormone produce hobgoblins, which are in between.

The last tidbit to tie everything together culturally would be to make the hormone levels dependent, above all else (besides diet, genetic predisposition, environmental factors and so on), on stress. High levels of stress cause high levels of the hormone, which helps goblinoids to develop quickly as an evolutionary advantage. Not only does a swift growth to adulthood means quicker warrior replenishment, but a quick puberty means that they have a better chance to maintain a stable population in times of war.


I agree that most members of a family would likely be of the same phenotype, not for genetic reasons but because they would grow up in similar fashion. But they might not be the same phenotype as either parent...I have this vision of two tiny goblins trying to raise a family of adolescent bugbears because the environmental conditions have changed since the parents were kids.

Well, I suggest giving up the genetics angle and going for endocrinology, as I suggested above. The vision of the goblins raising the bugbears is trivially easy in the example I gave you above: the parents would have been raised in wartime, but their children would all have been born in times of peace.


I've already decided on at least some tribes declaring goblins adult at puberty, leading to horribly/comically incompetent or cowardly goblin warriors...and also, because they can pick up intellectual pursuits faster, it would result in "crazy" goblin alchemists, wizards, and tinkers. Of course, these tribers would die out or learn the error of their ways pretty quickly...

Well, the problem with choosing "puberty" as a threshold is that it's a continuum, not a single event, so it's somewhat unrealistic. The sole exception would be females, as they are the only ones with a clear event that indicates when they are effectively undergoing puberty. It's very, very murky in males (which is why so many primitive tribes had other adulthood thresholds).


Romance languages

More info, thanks a lot!

No prob!


They do?? What about French? I was certain about French, since mal is both an adjective (archaic, now mostly replaced by mauvais - which again means simply bad, unfavorable) and a noun. And an adverb. I think the closest match of "evil, not just bad" in French is the adjective maléfique. Which, if I'm not mistaken, has too strong a connection with the occult to be used generically in the place of "evil". Feel free to correct me, native speakers!

And what about Italian?
(I imagine Portuguese is so close to Spanish so that I don't even have to ask.)

They do!

French:

fléau: scourge, plague, evil, curse, flail, bane.
malfaisance: maleficence, evil, wrong, malignancy.

Italian:

malvagità: wickedness, evil, malice, villainy, malignity, maleficence.
malignità: malignancy, malice, malignity, evil, spite, anger.

Portuguese:

malvado (adj): evil, wicked, mean, bad, nefarious, reprobate.
prevaricação: prevarication, malfeasance, evil, forfeit, maladministration.

Spanish:

malvado (adj): evil, wicked, tough, flagitious, no-good, tacky.
maldad: evil, wickedness, badness, meanness, sinfulness, evildoing.

Romanian:

rău (adj): bad, evil, sick, wrong, ill, wicked.
nefast (adj): bad, evil, baleful, baneful, black-letter, poisonous.
dăunător (adj): injurious, bad, evil, hurtful, mischievous, maleficent.

As a note, Spanish has "nefasto" as well, with the same meaning as the Romanian equivalent, and also has "dañino", a very similar word to "dăunător", but it has more of a "harmful" connotation when applied to objects or forces and a "sadist/hurtful/enjoys causing damage" connotation when applied to people. Spanish also has "malignidad", with the same meaning as the Italian cognate. I am sure there are more nuances in the other languages, I just mention Spanish so often because it's my mother language (though I've studied the basics of Latin and all the other main Romance languages).


EDIT: I just remembered, it may not be dramatic/ominous/theatrical enough to use "malo" or its Romance equivalents, but it is used to refer to evil in daily parlance. I say this because I was just reminded of a popular song by a Spanish singer called "Malo Eres" ("You are bad"), in which such a seemingly innocuous word carries such an enormous weight because of the topic the singer is singing about (domestic abuse). Sometimes, if you know the intention behind the word, you can call someone "malo" (or any of the Romance-equivalents) and everyone will know you mean the worst of all evils.

[Ksheep]

Question:RPGs often have quite weird deities with improbable spheres of activity. However in mythology throughout history and all of the world, there have been deities worshiped for very specialized causes.

Let's help making a list of areas of influence, that have been attributed to specific deities in the past and would for example be a "Domain" in D&D.


Just look at Egyptian and Norse mythology. Granted, half the Egyptian pantheon seems to be different sun gods, depending on what era they're from, and Norse gods can be difficult to figure out what their "portfolios" are… except possibly Odin (the All-Father, God of War, Battle, Victory, Death, Wisdom, Poetry, Magic, Prophecy, and the Hunt) and Odin (God of Thunder, of Lightning, Storms, Oak Trees, Protection, Strength, Hallowing, Healing, and Fertility).

[Geostationary]

Yes, obviously, but fully codominant or incompletely dominant individual genes aren't that common (that I know of). When we take into consideration gene clusters and polygenic characteristics, then sure, it's not common to find such a group of genes that are all dominant/recessive (otherwise we'd all be quite uniform).
Ah, we're both looking at this from different scales, as a given gene's alleles may be dominant/recessive, whereas traits based on a group of genes often have more complicated schemes to determine phenotype- but I feel that this may be getting off-topic if I or we keep this up.


Hm. All phenotypes are genetically determined, as a phenotype is the physical expression of a genotype.
Actually, the phenotype is influenced by epigenetic factors too, which appear to be the basis of a lot of his variety in goblinoid phenotype. The problem with the purely hormonal idea is that hormones are genetically regulated, but it's a good explanation with environment taken into account. Basically, environment--->changes in hormone regulation--->occurrence of goblinoid subtypes. Environmental and hormonal factors could also silence genes necessary for the development of a given subtype as well, so this could explain how they differentiate without a strict dominance scheme.

To sum it up: environment affects gene regulation of hormones, causing differing subtypes to develop. For bonus points, said regulation can silence the other subtypes' genes.

[Shadowknight12]

Ah, we're both looking at this from different scales, as a given gene's alleles may be dominant/recessive, whereas traits based on a group of genes often have more complicated schemes to determine phenotype- but I feel that this may be getting off-topic if I or we keep this up.

Oh no problem, I'm sure it's all a matter of scale. I still think we shouldn't rely too much on genetics for this.


Actually, the phenotype is influenced by epigenetic factors too, which appear to be the basis of a lot of his variety in goblinoid phenotype. The problem with the purely hormonal idea is that hormones are genetically regulated, but it's a good explanation with environment taken into account. Basically, environment--->changes in hormone regulation--->occurrence of goblinoid subtypes. Environmental and hormonal factors could also silence genes necessary for the development of a given subtype as well, so this could explain how they differentiate without a strict dominance scheme.

The problem with epigenetic factors is that they're quite murky and haven't been properly studied. The most studied of them are the ones that depend on other genes, like hormones and enzymes, whether from the person themselves or from their mother in utero.

I never said hormones weren't genetically regulated, in fact I think I said quite the opposite. The thing is that hormones are far more easily altered by environmental factors than genetics. Also in case it wasn't clear, I completely abandoned the dominance scheme in favour of merely a single unified genotype with only slight genetic inclinations regarding hormone level as per what us humans have in terms of the Growth Hormone (some people are genetically inclined to produce higher levels, while others are genetically inclined to produce lower levels, but the impact genetics have on the GH when compared to environmental factors is very low).

[Yora]

Are there any mamals in which body growth is affected by social factors beyond availability of food?

Some fish and reptiles can undergo quite extreme metamorphoses even in later stages of their life. But are there any cases of individuals developing changes to their appearance because of changing social staus in mammals?
Like fur color changes or growing tusks or antlers or anything like that?

[Ksheep]

Are there any mamals in which body growth is affected by social factors beyond availability of food?

Some fish and reptiles can undergo quite extreme metamorphoses even in later stages of their life. But are there any cases of individuals developing changes to their appearance because of changing social staus in mammals?
Like fur color changes or growing tusks or antlers or anything like that?

Not that I know of. The only potential things I could think of, the patch of silver hair on male gorillas (just a sign of maturity) and antlers on deer (of which size is dependent on age and food) don't fall under what you're asking… might there be something in canines or felines?

[Jacob.Tyr]

Registered just so I could have a chance to post some ideas for the goblinoid society/development question!

Focusing off of genetics seems to be what you want to do, and not want to do as it were.

Idea: Epigenetic cause, as mentioned focusing on endocrinology and hormones

Process: Goblins give birth to varied numbers of offspring, ranging from 1-6 on average.

Impact: Goblins that develop with more siblings in the womb receive lower doses of nutrients, resulting in different hormonal and physical developments that last throughout their lives. Goblinoids that tend to give birth to larger numbered litters tend to give birth to goblins, but not as a rule. A well-fed goblinoid birthing a litter may in fact result in a litter of bugbears, while a starving mother giving birth to a single child may result in a goblin.

Genetic Tie In: Birth numbers are linked to genetics, a goblin whose parents only had litters of 4-6 will most likely give birth to 4-6 goblins. In a particularly food-rich year they may give birth to 4-6 bugbears, however. While bugbears who have, ancestrally, only produced single offspring litters, do not gain much advantage from food-rich years.

Societal tie-in: Goblins are actually the higher-caste, as a well fed goblin female is capable of producing a litter of bugbears if she came from a long line of goblins with large litters.

This can expand into a much more complex society, however, with goblinoids tracing lineages and gaining status based on how many aunts and uncles they have rather than their parents solely. This turns into a very lineage-dependent society, and allows for a lot of complexity on social structures.

Real world example:
Macaques- Their social structure is based along strict matrilines, with status being inherited from mother to daughter. Higher social status results in more access to food, better fed macaques are more prone to producing daughters which take better advantage of their mothers position, rather than sons who would inherit nothing.
Deer- While not a social factor, better fed deer tend to give birth to sons. A doe will reproduce nearly every year, and works as a safe bet for offspring. A buck which was given lots of attention and nutrients from it's mother at birth may wind up mating with every doe in a herd, while one who received less will mate with no one. Got the investment to make a good son? Make one. Otherwise produce daughters. And biology has built in handy-dandy systems to regulate this for you!

[Jacob.Tyr]

But are there any cases of individuals developing changes to their appearance because of changing social staus in mammals?
Like fur color changes or growing tusks or antlers or anything like that?

Most things of this sort that come to mind all involve testosterone, and are more linked to age and more of a cause of changing social status. Testosterone makes lions develop thicker, darker manes, becoming more aggressive, and more successful in mating and male-male combat.

One could argue that fur changes occur in some primate species, macaques come to mind, after a social status change. Higher ranking individuals receive more grooming than others, and have less parasites/cleaner fur than otherwise. This is also followed by better access to food, mates, etc.

But really to have any sort of change because of social status will be because of access to nutrients, the end goal of all social climbing in animal species. Most gains in human height over the past few centuries can almost be entirely linked to changes in diet. While some groups are genetically predisposed to being taller diet is still the major factor for growth.

[TheWombatOfDoom]

Question: What are the motivations for colonization, except for natural resources and prestige?

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Often people see a bountiful area and want it, even if it can't be supported financially by the main people. Human nature is also very curious. They want to know what is around the next bend. To say they saw what was there first. The race to the moon was along this vein, who would get there first. I've always had a desire to pick up and go that I've fantasized about often, as well as the desire to go somewhere no one else has ever been. I've discussed this with others, and they have had similar thoughts. So I think that's just part of what we are as a race.

[TheWombatOfDoom]

Oh I have a question. It kind of ties into the first question posted with the telepaths, except it doesn't branch off into the tangent that happened.

As a bit of background, the people are refered to as ancients, and they're basically human, for all tenses and purposes.

Ancients do not have a written or spoken language. They communicate by memories. This means when communicating a recount of what happened an Ancient need only transfer the memory to do so. Other more complex things can be communicated through senses, feelings, memories of object and even emotions. The Ancients with this ability can sense other Ancient’s minds in a close proximity, and custom dictates permission must be asked before one talks to (or rather enters the mind of) another Ancient. A connection can be cut off at either end in a communication at any time. Connections can be maintained once started over a long distance, but the farther from someone is the more energy it takes to send information. It takes minimal amounts of energy to communicate to someone you are in contact with or in the close vicinity of. Additionally, sleep or unconsciousness ends the link.

They can speak through normal means. Their bodies weren't always capable of speaking through thoughts. Despite the evolution of the race, they ar still able to communicate, but whatever language they used has long been forgotten. This means they can only speak in another race's language, and save speaking telepathically to their own kind and/or mate.

How does this ability affect this people as a culture compared to those that speak?

So things I'm wondering about are things like - labling a store or other objects, socialization, cause of war, Libraries would likely be memory storage areas (similar to what the trees in Avatar were), theater would instead be a broadcasted memory of perhaps an important event, or maybe even a trivial one. I have a feeling there would be a bunch of advancements in some areas, while other technologies stunted. This race can perform magic too, so keep that in mind. As you can see, I have some grasp on it, I just don't feel I've discovered the full implications of such ability.

[Yora]

It probably won't have THAT much of a dramatic impact. Still significant, but not as huge as one might expect.
After all, people will discover very early on that memories from different people about the same events don't match. So you still have to consider if you follow the conclusions based on what the person did experience. It's like having three video tapes of the same event but from different angles and different distances, and the records are not completely focused on the subject but also many other things that are not within the field of view of the other two.
And to cimplicate things further, memories are not video tapes, but fragments of data that the brain brings together in a narrative. Even pictures you clearly remember are not actual snapshots, but recreations of the scene based on the narrative stored in your brain.
In addition, you only get the raw memory, but not the entire thought pattern of the person by which the content of the memory is analyzed and interpreted. Someone sees a shadow and thinks he recognizes it as the shape of a creature he knows. People who don't know the creature will see the shadow, but it's just a blob that looks like nothing they recognize.

In that case, specialists and experts are still very important. I can give you blueprints for an aircraft, but you still would not be able to build it because you don't have the knowledge what the shapes, numbers, and lables mean, and what tools you would need and what materials you could use in place of the ones listed. Raw data is useless, it's the contecxt that makes them become information.

Take this example:
3 eggs
1kg wheat flour
1 liter lemon soda
100g strawberries

This is completely useless! Is it what someone wants to buy? Is this what currently is inside a cuppboard? Is it a recipe for a cake?
That's what people would have to face when communicating with images from memory. Also, a historian would not just ask one witness and write things down exactly as the one person remembered and call that the complete truth. You need a collection of many memories and compare them to find the meaning of certain things and events and how they are related and such things.

Regarding script, I'd expect something like you have in Chinese or Japan. You have symbols for specific objects and when you combine them they represent a concept. But you'd still need to have concensus what which combinations mean.
"Sun" + "Moon" could mean all kinds of things, but everyone has agreed that it means "Light".
Or "Sun" is also used to mean "Day" and combined with the symbol for "now" you get "Now + Sun" for "Today", in the same way that "Previous + Moon" means "Last Month".
Or "Tree + Tree + Tree" means "Forest".

It's both the beauty and the curse of such skripts that they work entirely without pronounciation. You can read whole sentences in Chinese and Japanese and understand them completely, while still not being able to pronounce them as you don't have any clue what sound is used to describe the concept and combination of symbols.

[TheWombatOfDoom]

Regarding script, I'd expect something like you have in Chinese or Japan. You have symbols for specific objects and when you combine them they represent a concept. But you'd still need to have concensus what which combinations mean.
"Sun" + "Moon" could mean all kinds of things, but everyone has agreed that it means "Light".
Or "Sun" is also used to mean "Day" and combined with the symbol for "now" you get "Now + Sun" for "Today", in the same way that "Previous + Moon" means "Last Month".
Or "Tree + Tree + Tree" means "Forest".

It's both the beauty and the curse of such skripts that they work entirely without pronounciation. You can read whole sentences in Chinese and Japanese and understand them completely, while still not being able to pronounce them as you don't have any clue what sound is used to describe the concept and combination of symbols.

I wonder how they would do names as well. Would they be named by objects like native americans? Littletooth or Hornblower or some such.

[Algerin]

Alright, so just a couple questions. I'm working on a campaign set in the far future after a nuclear war. The catch is that the nuclear war was so long ago that the enviroment has mostly restored itself and humanity is split into several(Actually quite a few) factions along North and Northern South America. The tech level is anywhere from Bronze age to Age of Exploration/Age of Sail depending on the location.

My questions are this: How long would it take the enviroment to restore itself after a nuclear exchange? Not enough to completley destroy the world but one that managed to wipe out a good 90% of the population(Mostly through radiation and fallout, as well as conventional war)?
How long would it take a group of humans with only limited means of survival be able to build up to the aforementioned tech level?

Right now I'm thinking ABOUT 5,000 years, but I feel like that's either too long or too short.

[Aux-Ash]

I recently read a number of discussions regarding this.

One very important thing to note that a nuclear detonation and a nuclear power plant meltdown are on vastly different magnitudes when it comes to fissile materials.

In a nuclear warhead you got a handful of kilograms of the stuff, in a powerplant several tons. This matters greatly when it comes to irradiating the affected areas. The halflife for most of the produced isotopes is fairly short, but there's a significant amount of it that will have halflifes of several thousand years.
In power plants this is an issue since large amounts of it is produced. But in a nuclear weapon detonation it will be a fairly small amount. This means that while the dangerous isotopes will linger, it'll "soon" be in so small amounts that it's not dangerous.

It'll take a few decades, but after that only the sites hit by multipiple megaton groundbursts will remain inhospitable.

A good example of this would be to look at the two cities that actually got hit by nuclear weapons. They're thriving today.

From what I understand, both the EMP and the Nuclear Winter are essentially myths. Or more accuratelly greatly exaggerated phenomena that's not nearly as dangerous as portrayed to be.

Thus, nature will mostly be back to normal after a few decades. The areas that sustained the worst hits (military command bunkers) will probably remain poor places to visit for a century or so before the isotopes blend into the background radiation.

As for humanity. It really depends on how many people that remains, how many people there were before and how much infrastructure and farmland that was destroyed.
But overall, the regrowth will be comparable to the time it took to reach that population figure. So using our world as an example, going from 700 million to 7 billion would take about 120 years.
If the exchange has resulted in farmland being completely destroyed, this regrowth will naturally go about much slower.

As for technology, it'll be back to an comparable level in a few decades. Just about no technology will be permanentely lost because there's going to be some people left alive that remembers the basics behind it.
Some venues might be abandoned because the infrastructure needed is lost. Fossil fuels for instance, could be abandoned due to the nuclear exchange causing a shortage never heard of before. But overall, technology will remain on the level it was. Catching up to what it would have been without an exchange would take much longer, but it would happen eventually.
Once society starts to recover after the exchange and the hit nations start to reform the technological base will recover.

I suggest reading the "Protect and Survive" threads on Alternate History.com. They're very good reading and people who worked with civil defence and nuclear war planning discuss this a lot in them.

[Ksheep]

I'd like to add two examples to this, one for nuclear fallout and one for decimation due to war.

In 1986, a nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant went critical and released nuclear contamination into much of the surrounding countryside. The nearby towns were evacuated and the forest surrounding the area was rendered inhospitable for most life… but today, just over 25 years later, there are reports that the forest has made a great recovery (http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/science/Chernobyl--My-Primeval--Teeming--Irradiated-Eden.html?page=all), and it appears that even larger animals have returned to this exclusion zone. While there has been significant impact on some species, others are thriving, which shows how resilient nature can be when faced with nuclear contamination.

The other example I'd like to point out is Eastern France. As I'm sure you know, there was large amounts of fighting in this region in both WWI and WWII, and huge swaths of forest were decimated. Large defensive lines of trenches were dug, and artillery wiped out most of the surrounding area. Despite all this, the forest has bounced back. I can't find numbers on the amount of time, but it seems that less than 100 years is easily plausible. Society, meanwhile, rebounded MUCH faster, within just a few years…

[Beleriphon]

From what I understand, both the EMP and the Nuclear Winter are essentially myths. Or more accuratelly greatly exaggerated phenomena that's not nearly as dangerous as portrayed to be.


Well, there is a pretty good sized local EMP from a nuclear weapon, and it can destroy localized electronics but we're talking at most a few miles. Nuclear winter is a real threat although it would take a full scale exchange between multiple nations to achieve any long term effects. That said Nuclear Winter is a better name for a Silver Age super-villain than an actual description of events.

If we did say have full scale nuclear war then it is quite possible to blow enough dust into the atmosphere to actual cause problems with food production. That's the real danger, no literal winter. Even a relatively small change in the amount of sunlight that reaches the surface of the Earth could cause mass famine, even if the world were more or less the same temperature.

Fallout in and of itself is an immediate and short term threat, unless you have a lot of irradiated dust that travels in the wind. The big problem with fallout is ultimately that irradiated dust can get into food supplies, or travel huge distances if the dust is launched high into the atmosphere.

5000 years would be enough that radiation short of leaking sci-fi fusion reactor would clear of radiation. Despite what Fallout would suggest radiation does not work that way. Now, that being said if you had a direct nuclear ground strike it is possible to produce an area where nothing will grow, although that area won't be very big and after 5000 years is probably going to be covered in a thick layer of top soil.

In many ways if you wanted to move to the age of sail 5000 years after some disaster you'd need to push humans back to only knowing what they knew at the time Stone Henge was being built, so some 3000 BCE. We're talking early Bronze Age here, if not before depending on region. This would literally require bombing each other back to the Stone Age.

The only thing that I can directly think of that would preclude an advancement in learning, and eventually a regression in technological levels would be loosing the ability to read and write. Those two things are key to teaching and learning skills without having somebody on hand to directly explain what they already know.

[Ksheep]

I'm wondering if a better way to go about this would be some biological agent, rather than nuclear. If a super-virulent disease were to be created that could wipe out 99% of the population and drastically reduce the life span of the survivors, then whoever is left will be scraping by for survival. They wouldn't have time to spend teaching the younger generation anything other than the basics of how to survive, which can lead to a loss of knowledge… but that's till quite a stretch.

A nuclear winter may result in something similar, but it would have to be something rather big. The Krakatoa eruption caused global cooling and a reduction of crop production worldwide… for about a year or two. The asteroid impact at the end of the Cretaceous, on the other hand, caused cooling for long enough to kill off the dinosaurs, but that required an asteroid 10 km across to impact the earth. This would be the equivalent of 100 teratonnes of TNT, whereas the entire worldwide stockpile has a yield of 5 gigatons, 1/2000th of that of the yield of said asteroid…

[Algerin]

All good answers! The main point here is not the effects of the nuclear war since it'd be so far in the past that it'd be mostly myth and legend.

I hadn't considered an asteroid or a plague, both of those might actually work better. The main reason that so much technology is lost is the conventional warfare that comes after the cataclysmic event and with a plague I can see a massive war over medicine and technology ending with only the few people that were naturally immune surviving and having to rebuild society.

However, I also want some technological holdouts(A moon colony for late game adventuring actually) and most of the gun-powder and Iron-clad ships would be from or before the event.. So then 2-300 years after the event? That would also leave most cities overrun by nature or even overgrown compleley right?

[Beleriphon]

However, I also want some technological holdouts(A moon colony for late game adventuring actually) and most of the gun-powder and Iron-clad ships would be from or before the event.. So then 2-300 years after the event? That would also leave most cities overrun by nature or even overgrown compleley right?

Anything in a Lagrange point would probably be good or of course the moon. If you want to see what stuff look like, and how fast it can degrade check out the TV show Life After People. It basically posits that if humans just up and disappeared as a species tomorrow what would happen. Inside of 100 years roads would have been broken up and likely completely overgrown by small vegetation and because of how flat and more or less level they are they would become paths for all kinds of wildlife.

If you want holds outs that would be good. Something akin to Fallout's Brotherhood of Steel.

[NichG]

Dollhouse-style meme warfare via technological devices. The only survivors were the Amish - anyone who had a technological device with a speaker on it got zombified and then died.

You'd still have to deal with the vast acceleration due to having technological artifacts to cannibalize. Even just having supplies of modern metals helps speed the construction of tools.

[awa]

naked mole rats
one of the females is a queen all other females are sterile when the queen dies a different female will become a queen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_mole_rat#Queen_and_gestation

[Aux-Ash]

Supervirulent plagues are also kind of tricky in this regard. For one, they'll leave all technology intact. Not just bits and pieces but just about everything. There'll be millions of homes with televisions, first aid kits, new papers, manuals and so on.

Secondly... the most skilled people will also be the most protected. For one the goverments will go out of their way to protect them, but also that many of these people work in locations reasonably easy to isolate. The plague will hit regular people hard, but not military personell, not powerplant engineers, not medical personell (whom will be best protected of them all)

And thirdly... it's effectivness will drop the more and faster it kills. The only way for 99% of the population to effectively get hit by anything if the incubation period is so long that 99% of the population is affected prior to the massive die off. It just isn't that feasible.

Finally... even with 99% dying off... there's still 70 million people left alive. Recovery population wise will take forever, technology wise there's enough people left to run close to anything remaining.

How about just running a big mystery instead? Noone knows why the modern world just vanished. There's bits and pieces of it hidden in the forests all over the world, but no trace of the people that built it. Even the space colonies don't know... they just lost radio contact one day a couple of generations ago.
A big advantage is that there was noone around to teach people how to read or work the machines, which means that just about every piece of technology is a irrecogniceable mystery. There's no instruction on how to use them or care for them.

[Kyberwulf]

My question is two-fold.

Does anyone know how Nobilty works? I mean a list of titles and the expected duties

Something along the lines of
King/Queen- Rules the land.
Duke/duchess-
Baron/Baroness-

I have some idea of some of the name of some of the titles. Never really sure exactly what their jobs entail. I know, I know alot of people will just say *Make up your own titles and jobs.* I just want some idea as how it mostly works. English-type kingdoms work, but I would like other regions titles and nobilties so I can add flavor to my worlds.


My second question is, does anyone know the logic of building castles and supporting towns? I have this idea for a Barony. It's located on land mass connected to the main land by a brigde. Its function is to server as a King's Port. A place the king uses to get materials and supplies quicker than his subjects. I just don't know how it would work out. The Island has two major towns the port, and the Baron's castle. One of the town is located by the Castle, I am just not sure if the Town would be INSIDE the castle walls, or outside. Which would be the better postion for the town. Also, this ties in with the first question, as I am not sure if a Baron would have such an important land holding for the king. Do you think I should make the Baron a Duke instead?

[Aux-Ash]

Let me just begin with saying that noble peerage is amazingly complex and varies from culture to culture.

Put simply, a noble is a governor with military responsibility. They are given a piece of land over which they are responsible for keeping the peace and the law, in return they are given permission to tax these lands. These taxes are then supposed to be divided between supporting the noble and his soldiers, paying tithe to their liege and taking care of their lands.

The feudal ladder works in a way that nobles swear fealty to their liege, which means they promise to serve as part of that noble's armed forces but in return that noble promises to protect them.

So a count will have a number of barons under him, these barons have sworn oaths to assist the count when he calls for them but he is responsible for protecting them and their rights. This goes all the way through the ladder up to the king (or emperor).

Put crudely, the ladder goes:
Emperor
King
Duke
Count
Baron
Lower Nobility
Free men and women, Burgers
Serfs

But as mentioned, this is a crude approximation. It is almost infinitely more complex system. But the basics of the system is that it's about delegating responisibility.
Villages will have knights (lesser nobles) protecting them, these knights are banded together under the lowest tier of high nobility (baron, freiherr, friherre, etc.).
These nobles are banded together under the mid tier (counts, graf, greve, etc.) whom in effect rule small nations with a force of several hundreds of men.
These in turn band together under the highest tier (duke, fürst, hertig, herzog, prince, jarl) whom in essence run small countries. The mightiest of dukes (or more correctly, the duke with the most might backing him) is essentially "chosen" to be the king.

Then there's all the special titles. Like Marquis (marquess, marcher lord, markis), which is a count entrusted to protect the civilised lands ("the empire") from barbarians and thus granted extra military authority.
Or emperor: "The king of kings".
Or baronet... which seems to be a lesser baron.

As mentioned above, each culture has it's own titles, responsibilites and laws regarding this. Souther France was different from Northern France. Saxon England different from Norman England. China and the Byzantine empire for instance were much more bureaucratic in it's approach. With titles being more offices of the imperial authority than inhereted warlord titles. In pre-Vasa Sweden, a lot of titles were elected. Hungary and Croatia was apparently running their own things.

Basically... if you don't want to make it too complex. Set up three tiers of nobility (and royalty above them). Give them names you find appropriate and set up a basic pyramid. Each level derives their power from the total number of men under them. There you go.

As for your second question.
A castle is a military fortification. They are always built to protect something. A river crossing. An important settlement. A safe harbour. A narrow valley. A trade route.
If a lot of trade mover through the castle, then a town will sooner or later emerge. Once it grows big enough, sooner or later someone will want to build a wall to be able to toll the goods moving in and out.

Simply put.

And yes, a baron can absolutely hold something that important for the king. The king could easily have established himself as the count of that area (it's perfectly possible to hold multiple titles).
In fact, it's probably more likely for a baron to hold that rather than a duke. Because a baron would never hold enough territory to challange the king on his own.

[Yora]

European nobolity is pure chaos. And it gets worse when europeans used the same terms for nobles they encountered in foreign societies. :smallbiggrin:

That said, I think most of the time its tradition.
Some people may now cry out in horror, but I think at least for the germanic people the whole system started with the leaders of small communities and warlords. Over time alliances between communities became more permanent and a tradition evolved that the leadership of the group would be passed down to the heir of the old leader. And all over the world, they developed different terms for these leaders.

Also, I terribly simplefy things here!
I would say basically there are three types of noble ranks:
- Hereditary sovereigns.
- Appointed officers.
- Emperors.

Hereditary sovereigns are rulers who own their land and possible even the people as their personal property. Those are for example Dukes and Kings. In the Holy Roman Empire, the title of King mostly indicated that you were really powerful, but it mostly worked like all the other Dukes and Archdukes, which also were just powerful Dukes.
On the other hand you have for example the Counts. A count is an appointed administration officer who manages parts of the realm of a higher noble like a Duke or a King. In many cases the title was passed down from father to son, since the son would also be the Counts apprentice who learned the job and all the local circumstances as he grew up, so he was the most qualified person to do it. But if the sovereign didn't like the job they did, they could be fired and someone else be appointed.
Below that, you also usually had the Knights. As a knight, you were allowed to join the club of nobles, but that didn't provide you with any political power. A knight could become very rich and powerful by managing his small piece of land well, but they could also be just as poor as any peasant.

Emperors are special, as they rule over many nominally sovereign rulers like kings and dukes, and it often also means that they rule over people from many different ethnicities. This could be a King who just was so powerful that he effectively forced the other dukes into line, like in Russia. Or it could be one of the sovereign rulers whom they elected from within their ranks to be the chairman of their allianace, as was the case with the german Emperor.
The "Emperor of Japan" is a particularly strange case, since he almost always ruled over a single people, the Japanese. However, for a very long time, he was mostly symbolic and all the local Daimyo ("Big-Landowners") did whatever the hell they wanted.

[Ksheep]

To elaborate on the castle question, a castle is a defensive structure, made to protect some point of strategic importance (resources, population, river crossing, trade route). Often times, a town is made adjacent to the castle, created to supply the castle with supplies and a work force (at least, this is the norm for England and France).

The bulk of the town will be within a town wall, with the market as the center of the town. The wall often abuts the castle, using the castle as part of the wall. Outside the wall, you will have all the farming and other such activities, although these farms will typically be fairly close to the wall so that the farmers can run into the defenses of the town wall in case of attack.

It is important to note that, often times, if the town was under siege, the townsfolk would retreat into the castle for safety, which means that the castle would typically be large enough to house the population of the surrounding town (albeit not very comfortably… think London Underground during the Blitz). Also, during a siege, many of the townsfolk would form a militia to help defend the castle, so they aren't completely useless during a siege.

[Yora]

Castles and smaller fortifications also made a big impact on controlling the surrounding area for a considerable distance.
If you want to move an army into an area protected by castles, you could easily go around them with the defenders up on the wall only being able to watch you from the distance, but it would often be a very bad idea.
Because this means that you will always have to watch your back against small groups of soldiers striking at your rear, and all supply transports to your army would have to be very heavily guarded to protect them from the soldiers that could come out of the fortress at any time. You either had to take the castle, or leave a substential force to keep them from getting out and attacking your rear. Any solution would require a lot of resources and manpower, which you would really need in the main army for the campaign. And all the soldiers in the fortress have to do is be there. They don't need to break out, just by binding the enemies resources they are doing a great job in defending their country.
Built a small fortress close to a mountain pass or river crossing, and anyone wanting to use this route has to be on the lookout for its soldiers that are in the area. And of course, it would be in a position where they know any wagons are comming way in advance.

[Xuc Xac]

It's both the beauty and the curse of such skripts that they work entirely without pronounciation. You can read whole sentences in Chinese and Japanese and understand them completely, while still not being able to pronounce them as you don't have any clue what sound is used to describe the concept and combination of symbols.

Chinese characters actually have a lot of phonetic components, but you don't need to know them to learn the meanings of the characters. Understanding those phonetic components does help to explain some of the odd combinations of characters.

A small minority of characters are purely symbolic like "sun" or "tree". A larger minority are ideograms like "'rest' is made from 'man + tree' to represent a man resting by leaning on a tree". A majority are basically equivalent to things like spelling "I love you forever" in English as "Eye heart U 4ever". For example, if you look at the numbers from 1 to 4, you'll see that "one", "two", and "three" are just one, two, or three lines. The character for "four" is 四, which is derived from a picture of a nose because the word for "four" rhymes with the word for "nostrils".

Sometimes when you see a character made by combining two simpler characters, it represents a concept by example (such as "man + tree = rest"); however, it usually means "a concept related to this symbol that rhymes with the word represented by this other symbol". For example, "water" + "tree" means "to wash yourself", because you use water to wash yourself and the verb "to wash yourself" is pronounced just like the noun "tree". "Tree" + "tree" means "small forest", but "water" + two "trees" means "to pour" because that's a liquid related word that rhymes with the word for forest.

Of course, this only makes sense in the original Chinese as spoken by the people who wrote the characters in the first place. If you use those characters for a different language like Vietnamese, Japanese, or Korean, you end up with a lot of people saying "Damn, this is confusing!" That's why Vietnamese is now written with a phonetic Latin script, Korean has a purely phonetic syllabary, and Japanese uses a phonetic syllabary to write the pronunciations of rare or unusual kanji so people will recognize the word (or at least know how to say it so they can ask "hey, what does X mean?").

[Yora]

This is pretty much an open ended question:
Can anyone tell me something about the origin of nobility and "civil offices" in "semi-civilized" societies? I'm thinking of a social structure where things are still very much contained to the villages which are connected through kinship, but rulership has already become more sophisticated than simply the biggest and meanest warrior forcing his decisions on the community? (I am exagerating, I know.)
I think probably like the very early middle ages, before the Frankish kings and where the athurian legends are based. Or "pre-raiding" Skandinavia.

I think it probably started with community-leaders establishing closer ties and more formal alliances with each other for mutual protection against other communities, and the leaders best buddy being the one who always got entrusted with the same tasks. But I'd like to know some more how things actually did happen but really no clue where to begin with. I imagine written acounts probably being nonexistent, which would make it not particularly popular for sientific research.

If you have some basics you recall, or know about specific sources that deal with these things, I'll be happy with anything anyone can tell me.

[HeadlessMermaid]

Can anyone tell me something about the origin of nobility and "civil offices" in "semi-civilized" societies?

I think this question is culture-dependent. "Semi-civilized" Scandinavians are very different from "semi-civilized" Sumerians or Navajo. Factors such as food production, trade, tech level, climate, environment etc can dramatically change the social structure.

To give a basic (and simplified) example, farming communities tend to evolve quite differently from herding communities. The farmers' basic needs are irrigation and a system for the surplus grain to circulate properly - and be put in store for times of need. That tends to lead to concentration of power and some sort of central authority very early, not to mention the effects of private/state property of land. They require organizing skills, so relevant civil offices are prone to pop up.

In contrast, herders can be a lot more isolated and independent from each other. Central authority is not needed as such, and civil offices may be completely unknown. The social structure tends to be more clan-based. Violence comes a lot easier (to protect the animals form predators and from thieves/raiders), and the equivalent of nobility may be "bravest toughest guy with a knife, or descendent of one" until very late.

And when you take into account contact with other communities (which may be peaceful or warlike), external threats of any sort, religious functions overlapping with social functions, abundance or scarcity of resources etc, things get increasingly complicated.


Personally, for all relevant subjects, I hold in high esteem two books: "The Golden Bough" by Frazer, and "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State" by Engels. They begin from different premises, they are written with a different mindset, they focus on different aspects and they often (not always) reach different conclusions. But I think that looking at things from many points of view is the best way to get the big picture.

If you're looking for something more specific, there's a nice monograph by Nora Chadwick called "The Celts", which explains institutions in early Celtic societies, and how they evolved.

Of course, when we're talking about an age before written records, a lot of things are pure conjecture. We'll probably never know for sure how exactly human society evolved in its early stages.

[awa]

often times nobles start to develop when one family starts getting really powerful. If one guy has dozens of brothers, cousins, sons and nepewes he can call on to back him up he has a lot of force to throw around.

a related aspect is wealth a powerful family has a lot of it, this wealthy can be used to get other lesser families to work with you.

intermarriage then expands the power basis as other strong but not quite as strong families want to get in on the act.

[HeadlessMermaid]

often times nobles start to develop when one family starts getting really powerful. If one guy has dozens of brothers, cousins, sons and nepewes he can call on to back him up he has a lot of force to throw around.
....That would only work if every individual is equally powerful (so more is better, with no other considerations) and if resources keep going up at the exact same rate with the population (so more people doesn't mean smaller portions for everyone). Neither is often the case. Also, families aren't necessarily at odds with each other, and "intermarriage" comes way before organized settlements anyway.

Is that a theory you picked up somewhere, perhaps referring to particular socioeconomic conditions, or era, or culture? Or a general speculation of yours?

[Yora]

Personally, for all relevant subjects, I hold in high esteem two books: "The Golden Bough" by Frazer, and "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State" by Engels. They begin from different premises, they are written with a different mindset, they focus on different aspects and they often (not always) reach different conclusions. But I think that looking at things from many points of view is the best way to get the big picture.
As someone who read a lot of 19th and 21st century antropology and sociology books, I have considerable doubt of the accuracy of 19th century writers. Especially when the purpose of the book was to support their personal political agenda. :smallamused:

[awa]

its mostly from stuff i studied in my college cutural anthropology classes.
group "leaders" in largely egalitarian societies were often leaders becuase they had a lot of male relatives they could call on. if i wasent at work i could try and dig out my old text books for more specific examples

edit since we were discusing how nobility arose i was only looking at groups with fairly simple organizastional structures. in in those situations more ussualy is better

[Yora]

I think the chance of anyone ever reading my material who would object to my portrayal of a fictional clan based society is sufficiently low. :smallbiggrin:

I think a model in which the natural tendency of economical power agregating in a few selected families merely becomes codified in tradition over time will be sufficient. Though this could have come out of the pen of Engels himself. :smalltongue:

[HeadlessMermaid]

As someone who read a lot of 19th and 21st century antropology and sociology books, I have considerable doubt of the accuracy of 19th century writers. Especially when the purpose of the book was to support their personal political agenda. :smallamused:
*shrug*
It's a valid hypothesis and a model that works. Meaning, it has no internal inconsistencies, no glaring logical fallacies, and it isn't based on wildly arbitrary assumptions (in stark contrast with, say, The White Goddess). The political affiliation is indisputable, but "agenda"? As far as I know, no one believes that it compromised his scientific integrity - he didn't fabricate evidence or anything. His anthropological model isn't a gospel (nothing is, in science), but it's a very useful paradigm to have in mind, IMO.
*shrug the second*


I think a model in which the natural tendency of economical power agregating in a few selected families merely becomes codified in tradition over time will be sufficient. Though this could have come out of the pen of Engels himself. :smalltongue:
...See? :smalltongue: :smalltongue: :smalltongue:

[Deploy]

I'm working on a setting patterned off the amazon rainforest, but beside piranha I don't actually know much about the regions fauna or flora for that matter, anybody want to point me towards aspects of the amazon that will make for an interesting setting.

[Jacob.Tyr]

I'm working on a setting patterned off the amazon rainforest, but beside piranha I don't actually know much about the regions fauna or flora for that matter, anybody want to point me towards aspects of the amazon that will make for an interesting setting.
Cordyceps Fungus. Parasitic fungus which in some cases engage in mind-control of their hosts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophiocordyceps_unilateralis

[Ksheep]

I'm working on a setting patterned off the amazon rainforest, but beside piranha I don't actually know much about the regions fauna or flora for that matter, anybody want to point me towards aspects of the amazon that will make for an interesting setting.

Oh, there are all sorts of things. Jaguar, anaconda, poison dart frog, crocodiles, vampire bat, vampire fish… and that's just the more well known "dangerous" things. Just peruse this for a while, I'm sure you can figure something out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Fauna_of_the_Amazon

[TheWombatOfDoom]

I'm working on a setting patterned off the amazon rainforest, but beside piranha I don't actually know much about the regions fauna or flora for that matter, anybody want to point me towards aspects of the amazon that will make for an interesting setting.

Umm....you kinda said this already...

[charcoalninja]

Question: Are there actual cases of green flames comming from the ground? I think it looks quite cool, but do things like that actually exist? The only thing remotely similar that I know is the Door to Hell (http://www.mirutadelaseda.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/P9202833-Turkmenistan-Central-Asia-Karakum-gas-crater-darvaza.jpg) in Turmenistan, which is a collapsed methane drilling project that was ignited to prevent the gas from mixing with the atmosphere. However, it is a man made gas leak, consist of only a single hole, and burns red.
Is it possible to have small green flames sprad over a large area?

Green fire can be made by mixing Zinc and sulphur so any zinc heavy mineral region with volcanic activity could easily be a good reason for green fire.

[Ksheep]

Question: Are there actual cases of green flames comming from the ground? I think it looks quite cool, but do things like that actually exist? The only thing remotely similar that I know is the Door to Hell (http://www.mirutadelaseda.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/P9202833-Turkmenistan-Central-Asia-Karakum-gas-crater-darvaza.jpg) in Turmenistan, which is a collapsed methane drilling project that was ignited to prevent the gas from mixing with the atmosphere. However, it is a man made gas leak, consist of only a single hole, and burns red.
Is it possible to have small green flames sprad over a large area?

Green fire can be made by mixing Zinc and sulphur so any zinc heavy mineral region with volcanic activity could easily be a good reason for green fire.

I'd say look into Will-o-the-Wisps, which is methane gas released by decomposing plants in marshes. This methane can be lit by the phosphine (PH3) and diphosphane (P2H4) contaminants which ignite when they make contact with the air. Methane burns with a blue-ish light, but with other impurities it can easily emit a green light instead.

[Yora]

How common were Iron Age Houses?

http://medieval.ucdavis.edu/TAIN/Iron%20Age%20Settlement/Iron%20Age%20House.JPG

When you look for Iron Age houses and villages online, virtually all results you get will be of exactly this type.
Is it just that there are very few finds that can be reconstructed and happen to be of this type, or was it's really that for thousands of years all over Europe virtually everyone was using exactly this type of house?

[Spiryt]

It depends on what you mean by "this type" I guess.

There was quite a lot of variety, certainly, but still obviously variety among something that will have somehow similar principles.

Scandinavian longhouses of 6th - 9th century will be different than say, Slavic ones.

[Ksheep]

How common were Iron Age Houses?

*SNIP*

When you look for Iron Age houses and villages online, virtually all results you get will be of exactly this type.
Is it just that there are very few finds that can be reconstructed and happen to be of this type, or was it's really that for thousands of years all over Europe virtually everyone was using exactly this type of house?

It all depends on what you consider to be Iron Age, and there's the fact that the Iron Age occurred at different times for different people. For Southern Europe, the Iron Age is typically seen to end either with the start of the Roman, or fall of the Roman Empire. However, Scandinavia still had a society that could be considered as Iron Age up through 1000 AD, including the Viking Age.

So, if you consider Vikings as the last major Iron Age group in Europe, then I suggest looking at their longhouses, which were often made of wood or turf:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/Stöng_Viking_Longhouse.jpg
Turf-covered Longhouse

http://www.davidbarber.org/circumambulation/denmark/oct%2018%20viking%20longhouse%202.JPG
Wooden Longhouse


However, if you discount that, then yes, one of the more common building types was the thatched roundhouse, which you have a picture of above. However, there were also stone structures, although these were typically more for fortification, such as the hill forts of Central Europe and England.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/Celtic-roundhouse-1994.jpg
Celtic Roundhouse

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Dun_Carloway.jpg
Dun Carloway, a Scottish Broch (fort), built circa 1st century BC

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Aerial_photograph_of_Maiden_Castle%2C_1935.jpg
Maiden Castle, example of a Hill Fort


I'm sure there are other examples, but you need to realize that Iron Age spans a long time, and means different things for different eras. As stated earlier, there is some debate that the Roman Empire was an Iron Age civilization, so you could include their architecture in this category, as well as Greek architecture. It may help if you narrow your search a bit…

EDIT: I should also point out that most of the Egyptian Empire falls under the "Iron Age" category. Iron tools dating back to 3000 BC were found in Egypt, meaning that their Iron Age started a good 500 years before the Great Pyramid of Giza was created, and continued until it's decline…

[Yora]

Well, main reason that I am asking is because calling them "Iron Age Houses" does seem incredibly simplistic and a gross over-generalization to me. :smallbiggrin:

[Ksheep]

Well, main reason that I am asking is because calling them "Iron Age Houses" does seem incredibly simplistic and a gross over-generalization to me. :smallbiggrin:

Yeah, a bit of a generalization. However, as roundhouses were used in the British Isles, Ireland, Spain, and Italy, and they were used in several areas that were not "civilized" by the Romans (Celts, for instance), it is the type that has the most current usage. Ergo, those that are found aren't as damaged as other dwellings, some of which are nothing more than outlines on the ground by the time they are found. Still, the fact that the Scandinavian Longhouse was used around the same time, and just as widespread, and yet is not seen as "stereotypical Iron Age House"… probably has to do with the assumption that "Vikings came after the Romans, therefore they aren't Iron Age".

[Qwertystop]

I have a random question in my mind that I got a few days earlier, for anyone who have too much free time. It's neither important nor pressing.

Imagine that there's a race that evolved telepathy early. Basically, they never created spoken language, because what's in their mind, ranging from "there's a tiger behind the tree beyond that hill" to "I'm in love with you but I also love that certain other girl because she has similar hobby to mine, but I actually indeed prefer you." can be transmited instantly to another person.

What would their society looks like. And more importantly, if they ever got to modern age, what would their entertainment be, because this thing popped out of my mind when I was arguing over movies with my coworker, and I thought, how great if we could simply transmit our thought without using this imperfect language, but of course, if we don't have language, we won't have the movie that we're arguing with!

There's a Humanx Commonwealth book (sci-fi series by Alan Dean Foster) that covers this plus a few other premises in one species. The species is underground, so they have near-vestigial eyes, and telepathy cannot lie. They evolved telepathy before a spoken language, and due to their environment, they have no other means of communication (can't write if you can't read it, and tactile systems take too much development for anyone to bother inventing them if you already have telepathy. Living in caves means you can't get to somewhere that you'd want to leave a message, since there's always someone else nearby). Criminals therefore do not exist, because everybody would know, and there's no way for someone to live on their own in that environment, especially for such a social species.

[lunar2]

Question: I'm in the beginning stages of a campaign setting. the cosmology is very simple. 1 "star" called the Source that constantly emits positive energy (with electromagnetic radiation such as light being refined forms of positive energy), 3 planets in a complex orbit around each other and the star, and a black hole called the Void that "emits" negative energy (actually absorbing normal, positive energy), including the "energies" of cold and darkness.

the three planets are a roughly earth-like planet called Thera, a minor positive dominant planet called Elysium (the complex orbit of the planets causes it to spend the majority of the time closer to the Source than to the Void) and a minor negative dominant planet called Hades (as with elysium, but it spends most of its time closer to the Void).

now, here is the question, what effects does this setup have on the development of life? i'm assuming that in an otherwise empty universe, liquid water would be much less common than on earth, so the planets will not have oceans, although they will have a few large seas where most of the water has collected. also, without any major space debris, mass extinctions would be rare or nonexistent, explaining the greater biodiversity of a D&D world compared to earth (variety of species, not number of species). but what other effects would there be?

note that because of the magical nature of the energies in space, travel between the 3 planets, even with magic, is only possible during an alignment of all 3 directly between the Source and the Void, which happens once every 5,000 years, when the bulk of Elysium and Hades shield the space between them from most of the energy, causing a "tunnel" of stable energy that teleportation spells and spelljammers can penetrate safely.

[Yora]

You can't have planets orbiting a star and each other at the same time. You need to elaborate on what you propose the planets orbit to be like?

Assuming "normal" formation of planets, water and asteroids would probably be just the same as in the solar system. The current model is that the solar system formed out of a single cloud of relatively uniform dust and gas.
If you want there to be only the two stars and the three planets on the entire plane, then the real world processes of star and planet formation don't apply at all, and you can set everything pretty much as you want to.

[lunar2]

funny, i could have sworn i read something about binary planets, planets that orbit each other, and orbit the star as a unit. although it would be extremely complex, is there anything that would absolutely prevent 3 planets from forming a similar phenomenon?

if so, then i guess they can be in separate orbits around the sun, as long as they line up every 5,000 years. the number 5,000 is itself random, but it needs to be rare enough to be a very significant occurrence, while still being common enough to have happened several times within recorded history.

scale: this is a micro universe, where the Source is the center of the universe, and the void marks the edge. now that i think about it, the Void isn't represented very well as a black hole, since a black hole is 1 discrete object. the Void is the edge of the universe, and material or energy that encounters it is destroyed and then transported back to the source, to be released again as raw energy. only objects of significant mass (the planets) aren't pushed outward by the constant flow of energy at any significant rate.

water content: the majority of water on earth didn't form with the planet, but was deposited here by comets after the planet's formation. no comets equals much less water. same with asteroids. they got sucked into the void and reduced to raw energy. only the 3 planets were big enough to avoid this fate (so far). without the bombardment of comets and asteroids, there were fewer, if any, mass extinction events, causing the extreme variety of creatures typical of the fantasy genre. while different species may die off, at least some members of each group of species survive.

[HeadlessMermaid]

You can't have planets orbiting a star and each other at the same time. You need to elaborate on what you propose the planets orbit to be like?
I think this is possible with twin planets: Two planets of comparable mass circling each other (effectively each counts as the other's moon), and the pair of them goes around the star. The orbit of each planet separately would be spiral-elliptical, resembling the orbit of the earth's moon. But the orbit of the system as a whole, which in fact passes in between them, would be elliptical like the orbit of the earth. More or less.

It's not inconceivable to extrapolate from this a system of three planets, though it would be more complicated.

But other than that, I agree with Yora. Catgirls. The formation of stars and planets goes back to the big bang, requires an expanding universe, and a lot of interaction between matter and energy. Hence, a lot of matter and energy: scattered around, clustering, collapsing, expanding, exploding. I can't imagine how a universe with only one star, one black hole and three planets could ever be possible. And if the rules don't apply, you make your own: do you want oceans? Then the planet has oceans. :)

[Ksheep]

While it would be possible for three planets to "orbit" each other (rather, all three are orbiting a barycenter, which in turn is orbiting the sun), it would not be the case that one would be closer to the sun at all times, unless there are some really strange things going on.

The only way I can think of this being possible would be if the center planet of this system was right on the barycenter and was massive compared to the other two, and the others are stationed at the L1 and L2 Lagrangian points… but then it wouldn't be a "once in 5000 years" alignment, but a "constantly aligned". Also, the outward one (the one at the L2 point) would be in a constant "solar" eclipse, whilst the inward one would cause a constant "lunar" eclipse on a spot on the main planet (it wouldn't be a constant black spot as seen from the ground, assuming the larger planet revolves on an axis that isn't aligned with the sun and other two planets).

EDIT: Just for reference, here's a page with various orbit types for binary systems, triple systems, and quadruple systems. Note on the triple, it shows all three objects around one barycenter as well as two around one barycenter and that barycenter orbits a second barycenter with the third object.
http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/orbits.html

[lunar2]

yeah, it was needlessly complex for the sake of a cool mental image. in my second post i revised it so that the Source isn't a star, but the center of the universe, and the Void is the edge of the universe, and everything that gets sucked into the void cycles back around after being reduced to the most basic possible components. the 3 planets were the only things big enough at the creation of the universe that they aren't just carried away by the current like everything else. they don't orbit each other, they just slowly circle around the source, aligning once every 5,000 years to form a lull in the chaos that magic can pierce. btw, both Elysium and Hades are significantly bigger than Thera.

[Qwertystop]

Put the three planets all orbiting the Source. Make them orbit at different speeds in the same direction and plane (as in flat area). Add a magical element to the system that tries to balance the speeds of the three planets (call it some force of Law or something) but cannot quite manage it due to another force (call it Chaos) trying to keep the speeds different. End result is that relative to the middle planet, sometimes the inner one is a bit ahead, sometimes the outer one is ahead. It sort of bobs back and forth. Since the speed changes are slow (maybe Chaos increases the discrepancy only when they're close to lined up, as it can't plan for the future, and Law is slowed by red tape so it takes a while to react to Chaos messing with the speeds), they only actually line up rarely.

They're not technically orbiting each other, but this way they still remain close together, only occasionally line up, and you get to make all four forces have a tangible effect in cosmology, instead of just two.

[kieza]

Question about genetics, more to confirm what I think I know than anything else:

My setting's goblins are a really diverse bunch: you've got goblins, hobgoblins, gobols (bugbears) as well as a lot of rare, hyper-specialized types. But all of them are actually part of a single species; they can interbreed, and their offspring all look the same until they're about ten years old, and then they metamorphose into an adult form depending on environmental factors during their childhood.

1) Is it actually possible for a goblin individual to have genetic code for each of these subtypes, but only express the proteins for one of them?

2) How realistic is it for a goblin's adult form to be influenced by childhood factors, with none of the possible forms dominant? The classic short, scrawny goblin is sort of the "base" form, which a goblin child will become if not exposed to enough metamorphosis triggers. Meldings of forms is impossible (or rare, resulting in birth defects). Is this realistic?

[lunar2]

Put the three planets all orbiting the Source. Make them orbit at different speeds in the same direction and plane (as in flat area). Add a magical element to the system that tries to balance the speeds of the three planets (call it some force of Law or something) but cannot quite manage it due to another force (call it Chaos) trying to keep the speeds different. End result is that relative to the middle planet, sometimes the inner one is a bit ahead, sometimes the outer one is ahead. It sort of bobs back and forth. Since the speed changes are slow (maybe Chaos increases the discrepancy only when they're close to lined up, as it can't plan for the future, and Law is slowed by red tape so it takes a while to react to Chaos messing with the speeds), they only actually line up rarely.

They're not technically orbiting each other, but this way they still remain close together, only occasionally line up, and you get to make all four forces have a tangible effect in cosmology, instead of just two.

well, the source isn't technically good, nor is the void evil. they are just inanimate features of the universe. everything comes from the sources, goes to the void, and is then recycled. the relationship between positive energy/good, and negative energy/evil. is purely cultural, because the angels inhabit Elysium, and the demons inhabit Hades. note that both angels and demons are descendants of two warring nations originally native to Thera, and that they migrated because of the development of WMDs, to protect their society from any means of direct assault from the other. once they migrated, they (and the creatures they brought with them) mutated into their current forms because of the energy imbalance on the planets they inhabit. their alignment is purely cultural, however, and there are a few evil angels and good demons.

[Savannah]

1) Is it actually possible for a goblin individual to have genetic code for each of these subtypes, but only express the proteins for one of them?

Probably. It'll involve some sort of epigenetics, where the genes in question are turned on or off. There are species like the clownfish which change sex in adulthood (all clownfish are born male and, when the female in the group dies, the dominant male becomes female), so I don't see why changing race during puberty would be that much more extreme.


2) How realistic is it for a goblin's adult form to be influenced by childhood factors, with none of the possible forms dominant? The classic short, scrawny goblin is sort of the "base" form, which a goblin child will become if not exposed to enough metamorphosis triggers. Meldings of forms is impossible (or rare, resulting in birth defects). Is this realistic?

Again, probably. Diet and stress (and other things causing hormone changes) would probably be good options for factors.

(I'm not a geneticist, I just always liked my genetics courses :smallwink:)

[Yora]

I think this might be the best bet for the described planetary system:

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6qenhLrHv1rud7mxo1_1280.png

There is one known 6-Star-System that is very much like this configuration.

[Xuc Xac]

if so, then i guess they can be in separate orbits around the sun, as long as they line up every 5,000 years. the number 5,000 is itself random, but it needs to be rare enough to be a very significant occurrence, while still being common enough to have happened several times within recorded history.


All history is recorded by definition. Do you realize how long 5,000 years is? All of human history from the earliest written words to the present day is a little over 5,000 years. 5,000 years ago, people were abandoning stone in favor of copper to make tools and weapons. You know what's happened since then? Everything else humans have ever done!

Drop some zeroes.

[TheWombatOfDoom]

You can't have planets orbiting a star and each other at the same time. You need to elaborate on what you propose the planets orbit to be like?

Assuming "normal" formation of planets, water and asteroids would probably be just the same as in the solar system. The current model is that the solar system formed out of a single cloud of relatively uniform dust and gas.
If you want there to be only the two stars and the three planets on the entire plane, then the real world processes of star and planet formation don't apply at all, and you can set everything pretty much as you want to.

Don't the dwarf planents (formerly pluto and its moon) orbit each other AND the sun?

[Ksheep]

Don't the dwarf planents (formerly pluto and its moon) orbit each other AND the sun?

Technically, they are orbiting a barycenter, the center of gravity between the two. If the two bodies are the same mass, then the barycenter would be equidistant between the two bodies, but it would be shifted closer to the heavier of the two if they are of different mass…

[Yora]

Don't the dwarf planents (formerly pluto and its moon) orbit each other AND the sun?

The important differences are that double stars and planets are orbiting "together" around their shared center of gravity and not "around each other", and I am not aware of any cases in which three bodies form one unit.

The craziest system I know is Castor, with six stars:

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6qvdzEevV1rud7mxo1_1280.png

You have to big stars forming a binary system, both orbiting their shared center of gravity. Both of these two big stars also have a dwarf star orbiting them like planets.
And in orbit around the whole thing is another binary dwarf system. :smallbiggrin:

And to make things crazier, all six of these stars could have planets. Which may include binary planets and moons. And possibly binary planets that have moons orbiting the shared center of gravity of the two planets.

[Ksheep]

You also have (if you allow for more fictional places) the Verse of the Firefly series. One solar system with 5 stars, multiple protostars, dozens of planets, and hundreds of moons.

http://www.fireflyshipworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/verse-frontbig1.jpg
http://www.fireflyshipworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/verse-backbig1.jpg

The system has five stars and seven brown dwarf/protostars. All the stars orbit the White Sun, (also called 34 Tauri (2020) A, or Bai Hu (White Tiger) by the Chinese), which is a class A0 giant, 2.5 times bigger than Sol and 80 times as bright. The "Central Planets" are the terrestrial worlds that orbit the White Sun. Farther out in this system the Red Sun (a class G5, also called 34 Tauri (2020) B, or Zhu Que (Red Phoenix)) and Georgia (class G0, also called 34 Tauri (2020) C, Huang Long (Yellow Dragon)) share an orbit and worlds orbiting these stars are referred to as "Border Planets". The fourth star Kalidasa (class F5, also called 34 Tauri (2020) D, or Xuan Wu (Black Tortoise)), and its planets orbit next. After that, the fifth and last star Blue Sun, (class F0, also called 34 Tauri (2020) E, or Qing Long (Blue Dragon)), and its planets orbit. Worlds orbiting these last two stars comprise "The Rim". Planets too far away from the biozones of the main stars are sustained for habitability by a series of protostars. The protostars Qin Shi Huang and Lux orbit the White Sun. Murphy orbits Georgia. Himmbjørg and Heinlein orbit the Red Sun, Penglai orbits Kalidasa, and Burnham orbits the Blue Sun.

[lunar2]

All history is recorded by definition. Do you realize how long 5,000 years is? All of human history from the earliest written words to the present day is a little over 5,000 years. 5,000 years ago, people were abandoning stone in favor of copper to make tools and weapons. You know what's happened since then? Everything else humans have ever done!

Drop some zeroes.

well, as with most fantasy worlds, humankind is both significantly older and reached civilization much quicker than real humanity, because of the interference of older, more advanced races such as dragons. in this world, dragons are one end result of dinosaur evolution (warmblooded, bird hipped, intelligent scaly things), with birds and the few surviving dinosaur species being the other branches of that particular tree. humans split into several species (human, elf, dwarf, halfling, goblin, orc. no hybrids, reptilian humanoids, or gnomes) naturally, and evolved into angels and demons supernaturally. note that the "demons" in this setting are more like the baatezu than the tanarri. they want to control everything, not destroy it. this will definitely be a magitec society (not tippyverse, since none of the limited list casters can create a teleportation circle, and they are the only ones that even get 9s), especially on Elysium and Hades.

[Yora]

You also have (if you allow for more fictional places) the Verse of the Firefly series. One solar system with 5 stars, multiple protostars, dozens of planets, and hundreds of moons.

http://www.fireflyshipworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/verse-frontbig1.jpg
http://www.fireflyshipworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/verse-backbig1.jpg

The system has five stars and seven brown dwarf/protostars. All the stars orbit the White Sun, (also called 34 Tauri (2020) A, or Bai Hu (White Tiger) by the Chinese), which is a class A0 giant, 2.5 times bigger than Sol and 80 times as bright. The "Central Planets" are the terrestrial worlds that orbit the White Sun. Farther out in this system the Red Sun (a class G5, also called 34 Tauri (2020) B, or Zhu Que (Red Phoenix)) and Georgia (class G0, also called 34 Tauri (2020) C, Huang Long (Yellow Dragon)) share an orbit and worlds orbiting these stars are referred to as "Border Planets". The fourth star Kalidasa (class F5, also called 34 Tauri (2020) D, or Xuan Wu (Black Tortoise)), and its planets orbit next. After that, the fifth and last star Blue Sun, (class F0, also called 34 Tauri (2020) E, or Qing Long (Blue Dragon)), and its planets orbit. Worlds orbiting these last two stars comprise "The Rim". Planets too far away from the biozones of the main stars are sustained for habitability by a series of protostars. The protostars Qin Shi Huang and Lux orbit the White Sun. Murphy orbits Georgia. Himmbjørg and Heinlein orbit the Red Sun, Penglai orbits Kalidasa, and Burnham orbits the Blue Sun.

That's really quite a clever solution. :smallbiggrin:

[Geostationary]

Question about genetics, more to confirm what I think I know than anything else:

My setting's goblins are a really diverse bunch: you've got goblins, hobgoblins, gobols (bugbears) as well as a lot of rare, hyper-specialized types. But all of them are actually part of a single species; they can interbreed, and their offspring all look the same until they're about ten years old, and then they metamorphose into an adult form depending on environmental factors during their childhood.

1) Is it actually possible for a goblin individual to have genetic code for each of these subtypes, but only express the proteins for one of them?

2) How realistic is it for a goblin's adult form to be influenced by childhood factors, with none of the possible forms dominant? The classic short, scrawny goblin is sort of the "base" form, which a goblin child will become if not exposed to enough metamorphosis triggers. Meldings of forms is impossible (or rare, resulting in birth defects). Is this realistic?

I remember the first time you asked this, so:
1) Entirely possible for this to occur. Another example would be social insects- the main genetic differences are if they're haploid/diploid (male/female) and epigenetic factors (queens vs. drones).
2) Entirely possible. You'd have differing ratios between each type, but it would work. "Meldings" would probably be caused by mutations and may or may not cause birth defects (depends on what the genes in question do- if they have other unrelated roles this may happen). They could also cause deformity/death during the metamorphosis, depending on how that all works.

[Yora]

I agree with that. While it is apparently not common in mammals like humans, dogs, or horses, insects, fish, and reptiles are extremely "flexible" when it comes to these things.
In a fictional world I don't see any reason why a similar genetic mechanism would be impossible in an apparently mammalian species like goblins.
There are even some existing species that can quite radically change their anatomy in later stages of their life completely dependent only on the social structure of the group, like one kind of fish in which each group has only one female and one fertile male, and when the female dies, the fertile male turns female and one of the infertile males becomes fertile.

I would say the best way to handle it is to say that all goblionoids start out as "basic goblins" and when they reach maturity they either stay that way or keep growing into one of the other types.

[lunar2]

I have a similar genetics question. In my setting, unicorns and pegasi are the same species. Unicorns are male, and pegasi are female. Is it realistically possible for a mammalian species to be so different that one gender actually has 2 extra functioning limbs (plus the bone structure differences a flying animal would have compared to a non-flying one)? I'm not asking whether it's actually happened (obviously not) but whether it would even be realistic.

[Geostationary]

I have a similar genetics question. In my setting, unicorns and pegasi are the same species. Unicorns are male, and pegasi are female. Is it realistically possible for a mammalian species to be so different that one gender actually has 2 extra functioning limbs (plus the bone structure differences a flying animal would have compared to a non-flying one)? I'm not asking whether it's actually happened (obviously not) but whether it would even be realistic.

If you do some handwaving and say it's a sex-linked trait, you could get away with it. This way the HOX genes or whatever is regulating wings wouldn't activate when some protein encoded on the Y-chromosome is present. As for the other structural differences, you could also chalk it up to differences in gender, but I'll note that pegasi are not exactly built right to fly in the first place, so this isn't so much of a concern. It's also possible that both males and females display the "pro-flight" traits, but only the females use them for such assuming they don't detract from overall fitness too much.

[Yora]

Working wings are quite a huge difference, but genetically there's not much of a problem. A Unicorn would probably have very tiny bones in its shoulders that never developed into wings.
From what I know, all animals develop the same way in the first months regardless of sex, and anything that has started to develop at that stage can't be removed later. But it can be stopped from continuing developing depending on sex or other factors. Humans have many such things in the case of genetalia, where the same basic organs develop completely different to the extend that they are no longer recognizable. Or for example wales have tiny tighbones that don't do anything, but are part of the basic blueprints for all mamals at very early stage of development and the special whale characteristics only start to form when the bones have already started to develop.

[lunar2]

actually, iirc, the "thighs" of a whale do support the genitalia, or something like that. but i get the point. So, bottom line is that it's unlikely that they would appear exactly as they do, but there's nothing inherently wrong with the setup.

[Morghen]

Medieval cities:

1. How much farmland was necessary for a city to support itself (or nearly so)? I assume the needs progress in a linear fashion and not an exponential one, so we'll go with a city of 5,000.

2. How much grazing land for that same city?

3. Sewage. What did they do with it? I assume a large portion went onto those fields.

[Ksheep]

Medieval cities:

1. How much farmland was necessary for a city to support itself (or nearly so)? I assume the needs progress in a linear fashion and not an exponential one, so we'll go with a city of 5,000.

2. How much grazing land for that same city?

3. Sewage. What did they do with it? I assume a large portion went onto those fields.

For the first two, I'd suggest looking at this (http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/demog.htm). Approximately 180 people per square mile of farm/ranch land. Not sure how accurate it is to real life (probably varied a LOT depending on region, season, etc), but it's a start.

As for sewage, again depends on era and location. Some places (London circa 1700) would just throw the sewage into the streets, whereas some places would have waste collection set up, whereby the excrement would be reused, whether in the fields or for other purposes is up to you (historically, vast amounts of urine was used to make phosphorus before the industry switched to bones and, eventually, mined rock).

[Yora]

Also depends a lot on where you are. ca. 500 to 1500 is not only a very large range of time, outside of Europe you can also find highly different conditions. Cities in China could be 20 times as large as in Germany, which requires drastically different infrastructure and use of land.

[Aux-Ash]

Urine is also a major component in leather making. Which is generally why the tanning district is as far away from the rich settlement as is possible in most cultures.

[Yora]

And preferably both downriver and downwind. :smallbiggrin:

[Conners]

If you had a race of the genetically perfect humans or whichever, how much better would they plausibly be? Like, "a lot", "an awful lot", "a crazy lot", or "not as much as you'd think"?

[Spiryt]

If you had a race of the genetically perfect humans or whichever, how much better would they plausibly be? Like, "a lot", "an awful lot", "a crazy lot", or "not as much as you'd think"?

"Genetic perfection" it's pretty much empty term, which is often understood weirdly.

"Perfection" is pretty entirely relative to the conditions out there.

6 feet 5, 280 pounds powerful, fast twitch human may seem completely 'superior' to much smaller, clunkier one, but in situation where there's not enough food, space, or where humans must just run * a lot * from some predators, it's actually becoming a problem.

Certain micro-flora and general metabolism configurations, will obviously be much more complicated, and mutually exclusive as well, some people will be better suited, genetically to face certain food, weather, diseases etc. than others.

So it generally get's complicated quickly, but generally 'perfect genes' were mostly sad and dangerous dreams of some guys in USA/Sweden/Germany etc. in 19th/20th century.

[Conners]

6 feet 5, 280 pounds powerful, fast twitch human may seem completely 'superior' to much smaller, clunkier one, but in situation where there's not enough food, space, or where humans must just run * a lot * from some predators, it's actually becoming a problem. I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean with this part. Someone who is large and health tends to be as good a runner (or better) than someone who is smaller and less healthy.

In general, I see a lot more advantages to the 6 foot 5, healthy human, than I do disadvantages. Though, you might've just been using this as an example.

[Spiryt]

I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean with this part. Someone who is large and health tends to be as good a runner (or better) than someone who is smaller and less healthy.

In general, I see a lot more advantages to the 6 foot 5, healthy human, than I do disadvantages. Though, you might've just been using this as an example.

I meant 'clunkier' as less dexterous, not less healthy.

Such a big humans are decent short distance runners, even thogh much smaller ones are optimal (I'm pretty sure that almost no top sprinters were bigger than ~ 100kg) but such build absolutely won't work very well at running greater distances, like the ones primal humans often had to cover.

Even with healthiest conditions possible, best food etc. such man would be quickly slimmed down a lot to accommodate running long distances, for example. Though 'genetically' he still wouldn't be optimal.

[Conners]

Clunky as in not very dexterous, or just less dexterous?


Such a big humans are decent short distance runners, even thogh much smaller ones are optimal (I'm pretty sure that almost no top sprinters were bigger than ~ 100kg) but such build absolutely won't work very well at running greater distances, like the ones primal humans often had to cover. How is it for cross-country marathons?

[Geostationary]

I think what you're not understanding is that "perfect genes" is a rather meaningless term, unless you're trying to describe an organism perfectly adapted to its environment, which would also most likely make it helpless in any other environment. With the human examples Spiryt is giving, you're assuming that a larger, taller, etc. human is preferable when this may not be the case- there's no reason that a smaller, "weaker", human may not be preferable to the larger one. You're assuming that larger=healthier&better when this is not the case. Larger organisms also have limited in ways that smaller ones are not by virtue of their size, which is another factor to consider.

Basically, there's nothing inherently better about the humans you appear to be envisioning as the "superior" strain, and they may not even be favored by selection due to a variety of evolutionary and environmental reasons.

[Ksheep]

To continue on this train of thought, while a larger human may have some advantages (can reach higher, longer reach, longer strides), they also have major downsides (lower stamina, difficulty getting blood to all organs, more likely to have congenital heart failure).

For a (rather extreme) example, look at Robert Wadlow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Wadlow): he bordered on 9 feet tall, but he needed braces in order to stand or walk and didn't have any feeling in his lower extremities. He died at age 22 due to an infection of a blister on his ankle caused by his brace.

[J.Gellert]

For a (rather extreme) example, look at Robert Wadlow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Wadlow): he bordered on 9 feet tall, but he needed braces in order to stand or walk and didn't have any feeling in his lower extremities. He died at age 22 due to an infection of a blister on his ankle caused by his brace.

That's a disease, and cannot be used for comparison in any case.

[Aux-Ash]

It's also well worth to point out that in terms of fitness and health, upbrining matter a lot. Possibly even more than genes themselves, it's a bit unclear as to exactly how much (look into the "nature or nurture" debate for more information).

How you're fed as a child, how much you exercise (and how much you injure yourself when exercising), how exposed you are to diseases, education are all very important aspects in forming a fully healthy and intelligent adult.
A person that has "perfect" genes but is malnourished since childhood is not going to be stronger, smarter and healthier than someone with "lesser" genes.

Genetics won't really make anyone immune to things either, so an unfortunate infection can ruin the development of even the most ideal genetic predispositions.

Human development is very very complex. We really only barely scratch the surface of it with our knowledge. But genetics is just one aspect of a multitude.

I agree with most others though that perfect genetics is a pretty pointless expression. Unless you have an ideal phenotype (dangerous territory, as others have pointed out) there's no such thing.

Also, if all these "perfect" humans have a similar genetic makeup, they'll be at -higher- risk of genetic disorders among one another than a widely diverse group. Because of inherent problems in replication that is the same for every human, it's far more likely that people of similar genetic makeup spread an error than people with very dissimilar genes.

[Ksheep]

That's a disease, and cannot be used for comparison in any case.

But it shows the complications of being overly large. If you look at the list of tallest people on record, most of them died young, and most of them died due to some complication due to their size. Also, a fair number of them had difficulty standing, among other things.

There is a reason why average height for humans is around 5'6" - 6' (depending on region): This seems to be the optimal height. Any larger, and your body can't supply enough oxygen and nutrients to all of it's organs. Any smaller, and you've got a whole other slew of problems: difficulty breathing during sleep, poor motor skills, bowed legs…

Even if you are of average height, there are other things to consider. While extremely pale skin is great in the northern latitudes (helps with Vitamin D production in the short days during winter), it's horrible if you live in the tropics (easy to sunburn, increased risk of skin cancer). One of the reasons that people in tropical regions have very dark skin. Now, which of these is more "genetically perfect"? If you listened to certain European countries circa 1940, you'd say the caucasian…*but they would be ill-suited to live in a fair chunk of the world (appx. half the landmass, depending on where you draw the line). One of the reasons that humans are so successful is because they are diverse and can adapt (over the course of some generations) to fit many different areas.

[NichG]

Even certain 'obviously' bad things like sickle cell anemia have situations in which they're beneficial (sickle cell anemia helps against malaria), and the problem is when they occur too strongly (certain recessive traits that can 'double up') or when they occur outside their optimal environment.

The question gets a bit more interesting if you allow for genetic advancements not currently present in the population but theoretically compatible with the human species, since then at least you can discuss the idea of currently inaccessible or at least un-accessed genetic traits. Also, if you look at optimality for the individual rather than the species then the picture changes too (things like senescence - aging - are species-level benefits but individual maluses). Most things past the end of reproductive viability aren't under strong selection, but are still relevant to the individual humans.

For instance, humans with a blue whale's genetic repair mechanisms would basically get cancer at a rate 2000 times lower.

There are other things that could be adapted to that humans haven't had time to adapt to, such as the fact that human lifespans right now are about twice as long as most creatures our size. There's a whole host of 'new' diseases that crop up just because we would've been dead from violence or infection long before their age range of occurrence.

[Qwertystop]

Yeah, there are certainly things that are good in just about every situation (or at least never bad). Assuming NichG's representation of blue whale genetic repair mechanisms was accurate, I can't see any disadvantage to it (though admittedly I'd never heard of it before). Any sort of disease-resistance is probably always a good thing, as would be a more efficient metabolism.

[Geostationary]

The caveat with generally beneficial traits being that they can consume more resources, may interact with other genes in peculiar ways, and may generally do bad things that you don't want happening in exchange for better health in a specific area.
As an example, you now have a mutation that lets you regrow brain cells! Huzzah! On the other hand you're now 10x more likely to develop brain cancer! Boo!

It's all a matter of trade-offs and unexpected consequences, so even the "good" traits can be a bad at times. Unless you have a very specific set of circumstances in mind, there is no "best" configuration.

This could also make for an interesting scenario where such advancements are made, only to have a whole slew of new, unforeseen problems arise, be they social or otherwise.

[Conners]

I think what you're not understanding is that "perfect genes" is a rather meaningless term, unless you're trying to describe an organism perfectly adapted to its environment, which would also most likely make it helpless in any other environment. With the human examples Spiryt is giving, you're assuming that a larger, taller, etc. human is preferable when this may not be the case- there's no reason that a smaller, "weaker", human may not be preferable to the larger one. You're assuming that larger=healthier&better when this is not the case. Larger organisms also have limited in ways that smaller ones are not by virtue of their size, which is another factor to consider.

Basically, there's nothing inherently better about the humans you appear to be envisioning as the "superior" strain, and they may not even be favored by selection due to a variety of evolutionary and environmental reasons. You're making quite a few assumptions about what I assume :-/.


Couldn't find cross country, but for World Marathon Majors, the winner of 2006 is 6' 03". He continues to get good placings for the next few years. Relatively short men also win the marathons, so it mostly shows that size doesn't make a fatal difference.


@Aux-Ash: That's what I'm wondering. How much does having ideal genetics effect things? This might be too unknown an area to consider. But, just humans who don't get sick, or don't get sick often--it'd be interesting to wonder how that'd change things.

To have a very good gene pool, you'd need genes that not only result in healthy humans, but also need to be diverse, so that children have good genes as well.


@Ksheep: Being big because of a birth complication and being big due to genetics are rather different. Obviously, we don't get any really big humans without problems (far as I know), because our genetics aren't working out that way. If our genetics were different, you could probably get pretty big, healthy humans.



The question gets a bit more interesting if you allow for genetic advancements not currently present in the population but theoretically compatible with the human species, since then at least you can discuss the idea of currently inaccessible or at least un-accessed genetic traits. Also, if you look at optimality for the individual rather than the species then the picture changes too (things like senescence - aging - are species-level benefits but individual maluses). Most things past the end of reproductive viability aren't under strong selection, but are still relevant to the individual humans. Mm, this sort of speculation and thought is pretty interesting to me.


@Geostationary: There are some traits that don't have very notable drawbacks. Some people are just healthier, and others are just sicklier.

[Geostationary]

You're making quite a few assumptions about what I assume :-/.
Fair enough.





@Aux-Ash: That's what I'm wondering. How much does having ideal genetics effect things? This might be too unknown an area to consider. But, just humans who don't get sick, or don't get sick often--it'd be interesting to wonder how that'd change things.

To have a very good gene pool, you'd need genes that not only result in healthy humans, but also need to be diverse, so that children have good genes as well.
On the other hand, let's not forget the competition. While we're busy drastically improving ourselves via genetic engineering of some form or another, we're also forcing pathogens to adapt or die- while this may kill off some of them, other will be back with a vengeance if they prove capable of breaking through our improved defenses. This is where having "nonideal" genes is useful, as they 1)improve diversity and 2)provide protection against novel mutations in harmful pathogens. By narrowing down the pool, you're limiting the potential defenses; however this also depends on how you're achieving this. Were you planning on having selective breeding, genetic engineering, or some other system in place? This is important, and will also give you an idea as to how future human society may develop, another interesting question.


@Ksheep: Being big because of a birth complication and being big due to genetics are rather different. Obviously, we don't get any really big humans without problems (far as I know), because our genetics aren't working out that way. If our genetics were different, you could probably get pretty big, healthy humans.


Mm, this sort of speculation and thought is pretty interesting to me.


@Geostationary: There are some traits that don't have very notable drawbacks. Some people are just healthier, and others are just sicklier.
Actually, they aren't. Gigantism is often the result of a genetic disorder, with all that that entails. If we did have a different genome, we may be able to get larger, but at that point we'd probably either not be obviously "human" or running afoul of physical laws- I'd need someone else to comment on the feasibility of such a thing. As for sicklyness, the problem is a matter of genes and situation. You can be quite healthy in a given environment, yet be sickly in another. An excellent example already mentioned is sickle cell, which is preferable if you are a heterozygote and living in a malaria-infested region; otherwise you're going to be worse off than someone without the allele. I agree that sometimes traits are generally just "better", but they aren't that common, and are subject to all the usual limitations of genes and their interactions.

So, how were you planning on humans reaching this point? That's also a rather interesting question, and could provide a better idea of their society and views on the "ideal".

[Conners]

This is important, and will also give you an idea as to how future human society may develop, another interesting question. That is an interesting question. Hmm... Come to think of it, if the diseases do get stronger, but your immune systems are stronger, won't that just revert things to square one?

Or, maybe a lot of the viruses die off, but a few ones manage to survive? Not sure how viruses adapt to stronger immune systems, so I can't say.


Were you planning on having selective breeding, genetic engineering, or some other system in place? Originally, I was focusing on how different having the right genes might be. Though, if you changed the genes significantly enough, they mightn't seem human.

I agree that sometimes traits are generally just "better", but they aren't that common, and are subject to all the usual limitations of genes and their interactions. So, there aren't that many traits we know of which are good well-rounded sorts?


So, how were you planning on humans reaching this point? That's also a rather interesting question, and could provide a better idea of their society and views on the "ideal". Wasn't meaning the question for anything specifically (there are a lot of possibilities), was just wondering how suped up a human (or human-like) being can get through genetics. Whether their athletes would be better than ours, their bodies requiring more or less food, etc... it could change a lot of things about their society.

[Aux-Ash]

That is an interesting question. Hmm... Come to think of it, if the diseases do get stronger, but your immune systems are stronger, won't that just revert things to square one?

Or, maybe a lot of the viruses die off, but a few ones manage to survive? Not sure how viruses adapt to stronger immune systems, so I can't say.

The immune system happens to be one of those things that are not genetically developed (or at least, the majority is not genetically developed). You could probably alter it to make it marginally better. But a stronger immunesystem is one that sustained and survived lots of infections.

If there's only a few pathogens left, immunesystems by and large will be weaker. Not stronger. Many recent studies suggest that allergies is a result of understimulated immunesystems, as opposed to flaws in it.


Originally, I was focusing on how different having the right genes might be. Though, if you changed the genes significantly enough, they mightn't seem human.
That's not very likely, the genome is massive and a few changes here and there will probably still be within the median variance within our species. Remember, we share 99,5 % of the genome with chimpanzees, 90 % with mice and ~60 % with funghi. And even then... that 0,5 %? That's 16 million basepairs.

Singificant changes indeed.


Wasn't meaning the question for anything specifically (there are a lot of possibilities), was just wondering how suped up a human (or human-like) being can get through genetics. Whether their athletes would be better than ours, their bodies requiring more or less food, etc... it could change a lot of things about their society.

The changes will most likely at best be marginal. Genes do an amazing much, but unless you've studied genetics you're unlikely to appriciate how huge it is. To anyone else, they can probably come across as rather disappointing.
I guess with the right genes, society would by and large have some advantages over our's. But not large enough to outcompete us on every level. And they'll still largely face the same issues.

[J.Gellert]

That's not very likely, the genome is massive and a few changes here and there will probably still be within the median variance within our species. Remember, we share 99,5 % of the genome with chimpanzees, 90 % with mice and ~60 % with funghi. And even then... that 0,5 %? That's 16 million basepairs.

Of course most of the genome is "trash (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-coding_DNA)", only a very small percentage is actually used to store information (genes).

That we share 99,5% of the genome with chimps means that we have common ancestry (and thus common junk sequences), not that we are only 0,5% different.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Question: I'm currently trying to build a campaign setting where the core concept is all the Sealed Evils In Cans got unsealed at the same time and are now wreaking havoc on the world. The deities of the setting (whom I haven't figured out yet) are all dead because they sacrificed their lives fighting these evils. That sacrifice is what has given mortalkind a chance at survival, with civilized races such as humans, elves and such allying with their enemies like orcs, kobolds and gnolls and forming a new post-apocalyptic society where they live in the shadows of these massive monsters and are building the strength to take their world back.

My big question is what the fact that the gods were real and that they're now dead would mean for the state of the world. Obviously if various aspects of the world were controlled by the gods the world would have been screwed the minute one of them bit it (killing the god of the sun causes the sun to go out, meaning no photosynthesis or weather, which means no life is possible, or no god of the oceans meaning all the water in the world dries up). But how do I represent the fact that the death of the gods is a very bad thing and they need to be replaced as quickly as possible?

Two, how should they be replaced? Part of the concept of the campaign is that there's a pack of super-wizards who are basically just rip-offs of the Ten Who Were Taken from Glen Cook's Black Company series, and they're the ones who were actually responsible for the gods' deaths. After the gods were weakened fighting the evils, these guys swooped in out of nowhere and ganked them. I don't want them to be actual gods (though they're powerful enough that they might as well be), but then what happens to the gods' power after its death if it doesn't transfer to the gods' slayer?

Finally, what effect would this have on society? The various churches would basically be useless, as they no longer have spell-casting abilities since the beings that provided them are dead and their spiritual core has been lost since their object of devotion was murdered basically in front of their eyes. I know this is probably a thorny issue, but I'm having trouble developing the place the PC's are supposed to come from, this new society struggling to protect its fragile borders and eventually seek out the evils and destroy them themselves.

[lunar2]

i actually have a "zombie" question. remember the zombieland movie, where zombies are caused by mad cow disease jumping to humans? that got me thinking about genetic engineering gone wrong.

the premise is this:

some scientist makes a virus that delivers new genetic material/alters existing material, whatever. this new material alters the way humans heal, cutting healing times roughly in half, and allowing limbs and stuff to eventually grow back. there are 2 main drawbacks to this, though.

1. the brain now regenerates over a period of roughly 6 months, causing memory and skill loss. basically, if you haven't used a particular piece of information in the last 6 months, you don't have it anymore, causing a progressive loss of memory, advanced skills, etc. it wouldn't effect skills used on a regular basis, such as walking, running, or basic tool use, since those get rewritten often enough not to be significantly affected.

2. the increased healing rates and faster cell replacement drastically increase metabolism, causing a need for large amounts of food.

the virus can be spread from host to host by fluid contact. bites, kisses, and sex are the most common means of transfer.

the end result: a creature that looks mostly human, but operates at a nearly instinctive level, and is almost always hungry. it would probably take a few days for the first symptoms to show up (increased appetite and/or rapid weight loss), with full transformation taking as much as a year.

would this be a realistic zombie?

[Geostationary]

Question:
...

My big question is what the fact that the gods were real and that they're now dead would mean for the state of the world. Obviously if various aspects of the world were controlled by the gods the world would have been screwed the minute one of them bit it (killing the god of the sun causes the sun to go out, meaning no photosynthesis or weather, which means no life is possible, or no god of the oceans meaning all the water in the world dries up). But how do I represent the fact that the death of the gods is a very bad thing and they need to be replaced as quickly as possible?

Two, how should they be replaced? Part of the concept of the campaign is that there's a pack of super-wizards who are basically just rip-offs of the Ten Who Were Taken from Glen Cook's Black Company series, and they're the ones who were actually responsible for the gods' deaths. After the gods were weakened fighting the evils, these guys swooped in out of nowhere and ganked them. I don't want them to be actual gods (though they're powerful enough that they might as well be), but then what happens to the gods' power after its death if it doesn't transfer to the gods' slayer?

Finally, what effect would this have on society? The various churches would basically be useless, as they no longer have spell-casting abilities since the beings that provided them are dead and their spiritual core has been lost since their object of devotion was murdered basically in front of their eyes. I know this is probably a thorny issue, but I'm having trouble developing the place the PC's are supposed to come from, this new society struggling to protect its fragile borders and eventually seek out the evils and destroy them themselves.
So, first we need to know more about the natures of your gods- are they lecherous parasites, guiding intelligences for natural forces, embodiments of their portfolio, or something else entirely? How they relate to the world will determine the effects of their demise- it could do nothing, cause natural systems to go crazy and out of whack, retroactively remove their portfolio from existence, or some other thing. Did you have a particular cosmology in mind?

Replacing them is also tied to the nature of the gods, but some popular ways to replace them involve true belief in the nature of a thing (such as that "entity X has dominion over Y"), that their power flees to the closest suitable vessel, that it gets distributed as appropriate throughout the world, or it may pass from creation entirely. It's really up to you, and the "best" method is probably one that ties into how gods work in your world.

As for the effects, I take it that 1) the gods provided the faithful with power, as opposed to faith granting the faithful power and 2)everyone knows the gods are dead. The church, while it would definitely lessen in power, would still have a place. Modern churches do just fine and they don't rely on direct acts of god every Tuesday to keep functioning; clearly there will be more doubt as this previously was the case, but just because there's no longer divine casting doesn't mean there isn't power in the people's belief- it just means that the people will also come to place their faith in new things. Instead of believing in the Great God Om, they'll have faith in the inginuity of their people and hope for the future; they'll place it in ideals and hopes and dreams and probably some of those cults that always seem to pop up in times of crisis. Denial is also a valid option.

Hopefully this helps.


[the premise and symptoms]

would this be a realistic zombie?
Depends on what you mean by "realistic". When the brain regenerates, is it fresh-baby new, so that you're learning things like object permanence and how to work your visual cortex shortly before forgetting it again? Or are you reverting to some arbitrary "I know nothing and have no skill/muscle/whatever memory to speak of"? Both cases would end up with lots of dead people, not zombies, as humans aren't really built to run around feral forgetting everything every 6 months, including any skills with only instinct to guide them. Interestingly, the increased healing rates may also increase the incidence of cancer and benign tumors in the infected as the virus probably screws up the cell cycle big-time.

So? realistic, probably not. While they'd be able to recover from injuries faster, they'd not survive for long in the wild and would easily die from infections and other natural hazards. They'd also starve to death far more easily, as a faster metabolism is not a good thing in this case. The vectors by which it spreads are spot on though.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

So, first we need to know more about the natures of your gods- are they lecherous parasites, guiding intelligences for natural forces, embodiments of their portfolio, or something else entirely? How they relate to the world will determine the effects of their demise- it could do nothing, cause natural systems to go crazy and out of whack, retroactively remove their portfolio from existence, or some other thing. Did you have a particular cosmology in mind?
I honestly don't know. The ruleset I'm using is Green Ronin's Black Company Setting, based on Glen Cook's novels. The official word in those books is that it's simply not known whether the gods are real or not, but if they are, they don't interfere in mortal affairs at all. Meanwhile you've got super-wizards like The Lady and the Shadowmasters who are basically gods because of the sheer amount of magical power they can use, but aren't worshiped so much as feared and obeyed.

That setting's cosmology is a collection of 16 individual Material Planes linked together by the Plain of Glittering Stone. I'm not sure what this cosmology would be like, but I was thinking of going more for one like this: There's a World (the Material Plane), an Overworld (where the Gods live, sort of like Asgard or Mount Olympus) and an Underworld (where the souls of the dead are supposed to go, with the disaster going on many can't find their way down there, so undead are a persistant problem until the afterlife is properly sorted out). But I'm not sure where to go from there. Where things like demons should come from (in the Black Company setting, I think, any spiritual being that wasn't a former person is a demon).

Replacing them is also tied to the nature of the gods, but some popular ways to replace them involve true belief in the nature of a thing (such as that "entity X has dominion over Y"), that their power flees to the closest suitable vessel, that it gets distributed as appropriate throughout the world, or it may pass from creation entirely. It's really up to you, and the "best" method is probably one that ties into how gods work in your world.
The goal is for PCs who've done incredibly well to be able to take on the mantle of a god and start rebuilding the pantheon, as well as prevent unworthy people like those evil super-wizards from becoming gods.

As for the effects, I take it that 1) the gods provided the faithful with power, as opposed to faith granting the faithful power and 2)everyone knows the gods are dead. The church, while it would definitely lessen in power, would still have a place. Modern churches do just fine and they don't rely on direct acts of god every Tuesday to keep functioning; clearly there will be more doubt as this previously was the case, but just because there's no longer divine casting doesn't mean there isn't power in the people's belief- it just means that the people will also come to place their faith in new things. Instead of believing in the Great God Om, they'll have faith in the inginuity of their people and hope for the future; they'll place it in ideals and hopes and dreams and probably some of those cults that always seem to pop up in times of crisis. Denial is also a valid option.
I know that one problem that the PCs are going to run into a lot is pockets of survivors who've taken to worshiping and appeasing their local evil so it leaves them in peace. The community they come from is really the only place that doesn't do that because they've settled in a place away from the bigger evils and the only threat they have to deal with at the moment is a tenacious bandit lord.

Hopefully this helps.
A great deal, yes. Thank you! :smallsmile:

[lunar2]

-snip-

my neurology is definitely lacking, which is why i asked. i'm envisioning memory gradually fading, as individual cells die out and are replaced. skills used fairly often (such as walking, running, problem solving, even talking or social interaction) may atrophy somewhat, but not disappear entirely, while most memories would fade over the course of about a year. the end result i'm seeing is feral pack hunters (since the zombies retain social instincts and rudimentary skills) that stalk whatever the easiest prey is. this is the fast, somewhat intelligent zombie, not the lumbering idiot zombie. i thought of the cancer thing, too, but i didn't now how that would work out with the entire body replacing cells faster, not just the tumor.

[Yora]

Here is the simplefied geography of a setting I am working on:
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m77fvce3BJ1rz7r1oo1_1280.png
In the west you have a very large dry plain, in the east the open ocean. In the north there is a large temperate forest and in the south there is a tropical jungle. Between them is a narrow valley through which one river (not shown) runs down to the ocean and ends in a large wetland.
Dark brown are high mountains like the Alps or the Pyrenees, light brown are rugged hills like the Appalachians or Carpathians. The area of the map is roughly like the United States or China.

Now what would the climate be in the valley marked by the big red arrow?
I would guess it would form a natural corridor for warm dry air from the plains to flow down the valley to the hot humid wetlands down at the sea, resulting in a climate like Greece or Spain, even while wedged between two very large and lush woodlands.
Would you agree?

[Spiryt]

Well, IMHO:

- existence of such different systems in "blocks" like that relatively near to each other seems somehow improbable.
I would guess that according to Earth "rule" there should be some bigger region of subtropical flora or some mountains or stuff to divide them, especially with ocean nearby.

- Carpathians are hardly 'rugged hills' for most part, dunno about Appalachians.

[Geostationary]

Speaking as someone from the east coast, the Appalachians are definitely mountains. As for the climate, have you looked at the rainshadow effect?- it looks like you have, but I don't want to make assumptions. I'd look at California to see if there are any similar configurations, but I'd figure that the corridor and surrounding land would tend towards a Mediterranean climate- the surrounding woodlands would probably more lightly wooded than you're suggesting though.

[Yora]

I'm from southern Jutland, everything about 30 m is a mountain to us and every bump in the ground a hill. We're not good with these terms. :smallbiggrin:

[Beleriphon]

Well, IMHO:

- existence of such different systems in "blocks" like that relatively near to each other seems somehow improbable.
I would guess that according to Earth "rule" there should be some bigger region of subtropical flora or some mountains or stuff to divide them, especially with ocean nearby.

- Carpathians are hardly 'rugged hills' for most part, dunno about Appalachians.

The Appalachians are an ancient thrust mountain range so old that they've weathered off the peaks into large rounded mountains.

The map is probable, provided that your weather patterns blow from east to west (assume the north is on the top of the map), so you'd have a large wet climate on the east side of the mountains and it would be drier on the west. This would produce a large rain shadow. Depending on latitude this could be a large plains area similar to the Alberta or Montana in the US.

I'd actually expect your red arrow would produce chinook winds (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinook_wind) on a regular basis. If you have winter there the temperature could change as much as 30 or 40 degrees celsius in a very short period of time (so we're talking from -20C to around 20C inside of 10 minutes).

[Ksheep]

I'm from southern Jutland, everything about 30 m is a mountain to us and every bump in the ground a hill. We're not good with these terms. :smallbiggrin:

Sounds like Florida…

[HeadlessMermaid]

I have a question for a modern setting.

a) With existing science and technology, is it possible to build a gun that delivers an anesthetic, causing people to drop unconscious without otherwise harming them? And what would it look like?

I'm pretty sure there's such a thing for animals, but I have no idea how it works. How the drug is delivered, if it shoots something like darts or something like bullets (or something like syringes :smalltongue:), how long it takes to take effect, etc.

b) If something like that is possible for humans, is it reasonable for law enforcement to use such guns instead of firearms? Would the "bullets" be too expensive, or the accuracy too low, or the range too small for example? Would the anesthetic be unreliable to actually stop someone on the spot?

If it isn't feasible, what sort of non-existing scientific breakthrough would make it so? Something medical, like an anesthetic that works as instantly as a D&D touch poison? Or, if money is the problem, something that allows for cheap mass production of the drug? Or, if delivery is the problem, the engineering of an appropriate gun?

And if it IS, in fact, feasible today with existing technology, why doesn't law enforcement use it already? I must be missing something.

Thanks in advance. :)

[Spiryt]

I would imagine that range would be always rather poor, and many kinds of clothing would make it even more erratic.

[Savannah]

HeadlessMermaid, here's some information (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tranquilliser_gun). Basically, yes tranquilizer guns exist and there's no reason they can't work on humans, but they're not used because there's not a way to get a dose of something that will immediately knock out a human without risking overdose. (Remember, humans have a wide variety of body sizes and may or may not be under the influence of drugs/alcohol/whatever when they would be darted.)

I'd guess the most critical breakthrough for that sort of thing would be finding a drug that can knock people out at a much, much, much lower dose than needed to kill, so you could load a relatively large amount (to take out a heavy human) without risking overdose or other side effects.

[Spiryt]

Drugged people that wander and fall around for few minutes before drug kicks in fully would probably be messy too.

Plus syringes in bodies when someone can stomp them hard, assuming even moderate crowd, more broken glass...

[Talakeal]

I have a question for a modern setting.

a) With existing science and technology, is it possible to build a gun that delivers an anesthetic, causing people to drop unconscious without otherwise harming them? And what would it look like?

I'm pretty sure there's such a thing for animals, but I have no idea how it works. How the drug is delivered, if it shoots something like darts or something like bullets (or something like syringes :smalltongue:), how long it takes to take effect, etc.

b) If something like that is possible for humans, is it reasonable for law enforcement to use such guns instead of firearms? Would the "bullets" be too expensive, or the accuracy too low, or the range too small for example? Would the anesthetic be unreliable to actually stop someone on the spot?

If it isn't feasible, what sort of non-existing scientific breakthrough would make it so? Something medical, like an anesthetic that works as instantly as a D&D touch poison? Or, if money is the problem, something that allows for cheap mass production of the drug? Or, if delivery is the problem, the engineering of an appropriate gun?

And if it IS, in fact, feasible today with existing technology, why doesn't law enforcement use it already? I must be missing something.

Thanks in advance. :)

Anesthetics are dangerous. It is my understanding that more people die from anesthesia complications than surgical complications while in the operating room, and that is from a carefully monitored dose by a anesthesiologist rather than a standard issue projectile fired by a peace officer.

I know Tasers have trouble with most thick clothing, I would imagine tranquilizer darts would have similar issues.

[awa]

in regards to the zombie question something to think about is they would probably all die of cold. since they would forget how to deal with ice and snow during the warmer half of the year leaving them defenseless unable to remember to put on warm clothes or turn on heaters.

actually i think zombies would be the least of your concern with the long delay between infection and symptoms this would be more of a viral danger then a zombie danger with the zombies largely secondary to the general collapse of society. the zombies as described would only go after humans once all other food sources were gone becuase by the time they would have forgotten normal food they would also be to weak to threaten any one else.

[lunar2]

the long symptom delay is specifically meant to cause the fall of society. by the time anyone knows what's going on (say a month), hundreds of thousands or even millions of people might be infected.

@zombies dying from stuff. true. but they still have human intelligence. and they can still breed. in fact, they can outbreed humans easily, since the child would develop and grow rapidly.

Cold: a decent portion of them would still figure out how to wrap up in clothing, or group hug, or get inside a building. those that remember how to make fire will make fire.

Food: remember that by the time they have truly become "zombies" they will have very little morality or inhibitions left. they will hunt humans when the humans are easy prey. they will eat grass and bugs if nothing else is around. if they get really desperate, they will even eat each other. also, while they may starve faster than a human in bad times, they also recover faster once they get food. so any that survive will bounce back rapidly, with no permanent damage.

[Synovia]

I know Tasers have trouble with most thick clothing, I would imagine tranquilizer darts would have similar issues.

They dart large mammals with 1"+ skin (like pachydyrms). Typical clothing isn't going to make much of a difference. Any sort of armor though....

[Talakeal]

They dart large mammals with 1"+ skin (like pachydyrms). Typical clothing isn't going to make much of a difference. Any sort of armor though....

I don't think its an issue of penetration directly so much as it is getting tangled in loose clothing or multiple layers of clothing. Sort of like how a chainsaw can chop through a tree but not a towel. But I am not expert, I am just repeating some stuff I heard in my administration of justice class back at junior college.

[Geostationary]

the long symptom delay is specifically meant to cause the fall of society. by the time anyone knows what's going on (say a month), hundreds of thousands or even millions of people might be infected.

@zombies dying from stuff. true. but they still have human intelligence. and they can still breed. in fact, they can outbreed humans easily, since the child would develop and grow rapidly.

Cold: a decent portion of them would still figure out how to wrap up in clothing, or group hug, or get inside a building. those that remember how to make fire will make fire.

Food: remember that by the time they have truly become "zombies" they will have very little morality or inhibitions left. they will hunt humans when the humans are easy prey. they will eat grass and bugs if nothing else is around. if they get really desperate, they will even eat each other. also, while they may starve faster than a human in bad times, they also recover faster once they get food. so any that survive will bounce back rapidly, with no permanent damage.

The problem with still having human intelligence is that we're able to do so much because we have methods to preserve information; they would not. Additionally, they'd probably have complications with their pregnancies, as speeding up the process is a bad thing- lots of things need to happen in a specific order, and they also need to stop at the right time, which is precisely what this virus appears to be messing with. Pregnancy is also a dangerous thing that makes life harder for the mother, which lowers a feral human's life expectancy further.

As for starving, it takes us about a week to starve to death while living an active lifestyle. With their increased dietary needs, they'd probably starve to death in a few days, as they'll be leading a very active lifestyle. They also won't know what is and isn't edible, leading to deaths from eating inedible/poisonous things, and will have minimal sanitation and hygiene resulting in lots of people being infected with disease, parasites, and food poisoning. Additionally, they'll have to hunt prey unaided by most tools, which makes things far more difficult, especially if you're incapable of remembering how to make tools or to hunt. Instinct can be a great thing, but humans are not the species to showcase for this.

As for healing, they'll only bounce back with no major issues if they recieve some form of medical care; otherwise they'll be having lots of problems. Sure, you can heal a broken bone, but it's unlikely that it will miraculously heal back right- in fact, the faster growth would make it easier to set incorrectly. Hygiene is also a major issue again.

[HeadlessMermaid]

Thank you all for your replies about the tranquillizer gun, I looked it up and now I know how to handle it. :)

[Conners]

If you did get a group who were significantly more healthy, better warriors, better looking, etc.--how do you think they'd be seen by other cultures? Would they be hated jealously, or looked on with admiration?

Most stories have elves which fit this description, but they generally feel so distant from humans and the like. What are your opinions of how it would be, if you got a more human-like culture, which had traits that are often universally respected?

[HeadlessMermaid]

If you did get a group who were significantly more healthy, better warriors, better looking, etc.--how do you think they'd be seen by other cultures? Would they be hated jealously, or looked on with admiration?
You mean if they were a distinct culture, getting in contact with other cultures for the first time? I don't think it would matter at all. It's their cultural traits that would make all the difference, and obviously their behavior towards the "normal" folks.

Basically, it goes back to the objection that there's no such thing as a genetically perfect human. There are no "universally respected traits" either. Healthy could count, but only in specific environments (depending on climate, available food, common diseases in the area etc).

Universally better-looking makes no sense whatsoever. Beauty may be linked to healthy on some level (and also to the faces you saw a lot when you were an infant, notably your parents), but it's fundamentally a social construct. Whatever your specimens are like, they're not going to be considered universally handsome.

Better warrior is also relative. Stuff like speed and strength may be secondary to training, training may be secondary to tech level (or vice versa, it depends), the elite mounted warriors are worthless in certain terrains, and so on.

In short, you can't possibly separate culture and environment from the traits people are actually born with.

Now, if you suppose that two distinct groups have the same culture and live in the same environment, but one is healthier, stronger etc, then we can talk. But you'll have to specify the culture, the environment and whether they're competing for the same resources or not. Otherwise, no one can guess. Today's societies are very different from prehistoric societies, and there are still enormously varied outlooks around the world. You can't possibly expect a similar reaction from everyone.

As for the elves, the key word for them isn't "better" (whatever that means), it's "otherwordly". That's what makes them exciting. In D&D, this was downplayed, but only in the rules (their racial traits don't make that much of a difference). And yet, they are still expected to live in glorious forest cities, doing noble things, and without bothering themselves with trivialities such as farming and herding. Meanwhile, humans are toiling in the dirt to get food on the table. That's why elves are respected. Because the story demands that don't get their hands dirty.

See? It all goes back to culture. Pointy ears and +2 to dexterity are aesthetic details. :)

[Yora]

When they are nice guys, the traits that make them admirable will probably be the same that people despise them for if they turn out to be enemies.

[lunar2]

so, assume we do try to make a genetically superior (since perfect is impossible) humanoid race, regardless of environment. what would be some realistic traits that would be, if not universally advantageous, at least rarely disadvantageous?

ideas:

1. skeleton (bones, tendons, and ligaments) made of lightweight carbon polymers. half the weight or less of real bone, but stronger than steel. not too many situations where a greater strength to weight ratio is a bad thing. more flexible polymers may lace the skin, as well.

2. skin pigment that deforms based on the amount of vitamin D in your blood. when you are low on D, it opens up, allowing light in. when you have enough D, it closes, protecting you from harmful radiation.

3. a similar compound channels heat inward when your temperature is low, and outward when your temperature is high, replacing sweat as a means of regulating temperature.

4. ability to regenerate lost limbs. how is regaining a lost arm a bad thing, assuming that's as far as the regeneration goes?

etc. there are possible traits (even if they don't actually exist yet) that are just better than traits we have now. genetic superiority is possible, when you start thinking outside of the box.

[Spiryt]

so, assume we do try to make a genetically superior (since perfect is impossible) humanoid race, regardless of environment. what would be some realistic traits that would be, if not universally advantageous, at least rarely disadvantageous?

ideas:

1. skeleton (bones, tendons, and ligaments) made of lightweight carbon polymers. half the weight or less of real bone, but stronger than steel. not too many situations where a greater strength to weight ratio is a bad thing. more flexible polymers may lace the skin, as well.

2. skin pigment that deforms based on the amount of vitamin D in your blood. when you are low on D, it opens up, allowing light in. when you have enough D, it closes, protecting you from harmful radiation.

3. a similar compound channels heat inward when your temperature is low, and outward when your temperature is high, replacing sweat as a means of regulating temperature.

4. ability to regenerate lost limbs. how is regaining a lost arm a bad thing, assuming that's as far as the regeneration goes?

etc. there are possible traits (even if they don't actually exist yet) that are just better than traits we have now. genetic superiority is possible, when you start thinking outside of the box.

Those are engineering superiorities though, not genetic ones.

Living organisms we know cannot have polymer bodies or regenerate limbs if they are of greater size/complication.

Even regrowing relatively simple tails is very strenuous process for lizard, and they don't really return to their previous state.

[Beleriphon]

Those are engineering superiorities though, not genetic ones.

Living organisms we know cannot have polymer bodies or regenerate limbs if they are of greater size/complication.

Depends on your definition of living. In theory its possible to have a life form that derives its basic structures from silicon rather than carbon. It would be an inorganic life form in the most literal of ways, but it could still be alive.

Skin pigmentation isn't necessarily engineering, that can and probably would be a genetic trait. Neither is the ability to process energy levels to match the environment. I mean really that would make an organism exothermic rather than endothermic.

If the heat levels thing is more about an increased efficiency of venting excess body heat to the environment when the body begins to overheat, or draw in extra heat from the environment when it is threatened by hypothermia I don't see why that couldn't be a natural process.


Even regrowing relatively simple tails is very strenuous process for lizard, and they don't really return to their previous state.

That fact is that its possible to regenerate a relatively simple extremity. Thus its should be possible to regenerate a limb. So its not completely beyond comprehension that a humanoid species might be able to regrow an entire limb without loss in function or capability once the regrowth is complete.

As for genetic superiority, there are a few genetic traits that we could enhance in humans that would create people that have better than average abilities across the board. You'd never get superhumans, but I don't see why engineering in genetics for better health, high metabolism, low muscle fatigue, high intelligence (or rather the predisposition to it), excellent eye sight, never getting aging related diseases such as Alzheimer's, or even extremely low senescence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senescence). Depending on how you control the processes related to aging, many of which are thought to be genetic, you could extend human life spans by decades or possibly centuries. There are already complex organisms that can live for extremely long times, tortoises or lobsters for example (some scientists have suggested lobsters might be functionally immortal (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1196/annals.1297.096/abstract))

[lunar2]

Those are engineering superiorities though, not genetic ones.

Living organisms we know cannot have polymer bodies or regenerate limbs if they are of greater size/complication.

Even regrowing relatively simple tails is very strenuous process for lizard, and they don't really return to their previous state.

so are you saying it is impossible, or that it hasn't been done yet? don't for a second think that all possible organisms already exist or have exist.

besides, isn't keratin (rhino horn, skin, hair, and nails) a polymer? we already have polymers throughout our body. simply replacing them with a stronger one should be relatively simple. as long as the polymer is made of common materials (such as hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen), and can be created through organic processes, there should be no disadvantages to the switch.

also, an engineered genetic superiority is still a genetic superiority.

[Spiryt]

That fact is that its possible to regenerate a relatively simple extremity. Thus its should be possible to regenerate a limb. So its not completely beyond comprehension that a humanoid species might be able to regrow an entire limb without loss in function or capability once the regrowth is complete.

As for genetic superiority, there are a few genetic traits that we could enhance in humans that would create people that have better than average abilities across the board. You'd never get superhumans, but I don't see why engineering in genetics for better health, high metabolism, low muscle fatigue, high intelligence (or rather the predisposition to it), excellent eye sight, never getting aging related diseases such as Alzheimer's, or even extremely low senescence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senescence). )

If high metabolsim would always be 'better' then billions of people wouldn't have slow metabolism.... Higher storage for periods of malnutrition, better resistance and 'dampening" to all kinds of toxins, and so on.

Humans already have low muscle genetically, for the cost of being really weak compared to other primates.

"Better health" is very ambiguous, and as mentioned, mainly dependent on conditions and environment, particularly during childhood.

"Excellent eyesight" as well depends - humans generally already have very good eyesight - cannot see in such a great detail like birds of prey, but in exchange are very perceptive on closer distances, don't see to well in the dark, but very well in daylight, have vision somehow balanced between linear and peripheral vision and so on.


All, in all, certainly there are ''unsuccessful' genes out there, and traits that are generally suboptimal in most cases, but one can't getting "better" traits without expense of something else.

Otherwise earth would be full of super organisms...


Depending on how you control the processes related to aging, many of which are thought to be genetic, you could extend human life spans by decades or possibly centuries.

And seeing that Earth ecosystems are already overloaded with mortal humans, very long lived/immortal humans (or any other organisms, really) are not in any way good for environment, and as a result, for humans (organisms) themselves. Animals that large and space requiring must die to make place for next generations.

So immortality may seem like "superior" trait for individual organism that enjoys living, but it's not so in broader spectrum.

[Beleriphon]

besides, isn't keratin (rhino horn, skin, hair, and nails) a polymer? we already have polymers throughout our body. simply replacing them with a stronger one should be relatively simple. as long as the polymer is made of common materials (such as hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen), and can be created through organic processes, there should be no disadvantages to the switch.

Insects have a chitin exoskeleton, which is a polymer that is derived from glucose. That said, most of these creatures kind of have a maximum size based on the square-cube laws. It might be possible to have a relatively large human sized organism covered in chitin, but wouldn't be a quite the same since it is actually quite flexible in large enough quantities.

Keratin is also a protein that when formed in monomer filaments forms things like hair, nails and some types of horn. Its also found on the outer layer of skin on virtually all vertebrates. You can also find in the walls of some types of fungus.

As a complete aside polymers already exist in humans. Every single cell in your body contains one: DNA. So polymers isn't really a very good term when discussing this since is applies to a very wide variety of chemical compounds, most of which don't really confirm to the idea of a commercial polymer like PVC or silicone.


"Better health" is very ambiguous, and as mentioned, mainly dependent on conditions and environment, particularly during childhood.

We aren't talking radical changes in so far as virtual immunity of diseases. If there were a way to engineer out susceptibility to diseases that would be a benefit. For example sickle cells increase resistance to malaria, but with other attendant issues when not dealing with malarial environments. If there were a way to cause that malarial resistance without its attendant drawbacks I'd say that would be an improvement.


"Excellent eyesight" as well depends - humans generally already have very good eyesight - cannot see in such a great detail like birds of prey, but in exchange are very perceptive on closer distances, don't see to well in the dark, but very well in daylight, have vision somehow balanced between linear and peripheral vision and so on.

I'd refer to my inability to see more than three metres clearly without glasses as poor eyesight. Birds of prey are probably not a good example since the current idea behind their vision is that the centre of the vision is magnified and the peripheral needs to be used to focus on anything up close. Its why hawks and such will look at you sideways when you're standing close to them.

That being said some humans have been reported to have eyesight well above the 20/20 standard (most people probably are above this, but its not really tested for since 20 feet or 6 metres is optically identical to infinity for the purpose of lens focusing). I think the highest reports that I've seen was something like 20/5, which is really quite incredible. If you could engineer in that level of vision into every human, and never have them require glasses or other corrective devices wouldn't that be better?


And seeing that Earth ecosystems are already overloaded with mortal humans, very long lived/immortal humans (or any other organisms, really) are not in any way good for environment, and as a result, for humans (organisms) themselves. Animals that large and space requiring must die to make place for next generations.

So immortality may seem like "superior" trait for individual organism that enjoys living, but it's not so in broader spectrum.

Well, I'm not going to argue with current geopolitics and resource consumption, but that really seems more like a problem with culture rather than anything else.

Other thoughts though regarding genetic improvements are really more removing negative traits (like Alzheimer's for example) or enhancing existing traits. You could improve oxygen transport in the blood. That alone would allow humans to function better in low oxygen environments, and would improve muscle performance.

I suppose the biggest problem with genetic tinkering is that we don't know how most of biological processes really function beyond the most basic macro levels. For example whether we end up myopic is determined by a variety of things, genetic inheritance from our parents for one, but there may be environmental factors. Recently a study has show 90% of children 18 or younger in Chine, Korea and Japan require glasses of some kind. This can't be purely genetic since similar groups in other parts of the world have much lower levels of requiring corrective lenses. So the suggestion has been that they spend so much time inside doing school related activities they aren't exposed to enough sunlight and thus don't produce as much vitamin D as other geographical groups which is related to the growth of the eyes.

How could genetic engineering remove the need for glasses, I don't know, but given that there seems to be both purely genetic factors and environmental factors it seems reasonable that a sufficiently advanced knowledge of the processes of eye growth could result in removing the need for corrective lenses.

Realistically anything to happen I'd think just going with transhuman implants would probably be a easier to achieve. And probably require a whole lot less tinkering to get right.

[Spiryt]

besides, isn't keratin (rhino horn, skin, hair, and nails) a polymer? we already have polymers throughout our body. simply replacing them with a stronger one should be relatively simple. as long as the polymer is made of common materials (such as hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen), and can be created through organic processes, there should be no disadvantages to the switch

Is there any real theory how should cells, fluids, genes, and all that stuff look like if constructed from such stuff?

[lunar2]

i never said build the whole body from it. i was simply talking about the skeletal system and the skin. but, if you want to take it that far, simply replace collagen with a stronger compound. all tissues in the body become stronger, hopefully with no increase to weight.

[Aux-Ash]

1. skeleton (bones, tendons, and ligaments) made of lightweight carbon polymers. half the weight or less of real bone, but stronger than steel. not too many situations where a greater strength to weight ratio is a bad thing. more flexible polymers may lace the skin, as well.

Bones, tendons and ligaments are made out of a ligthweight carbon polymer. It's called collagen (type I, II and III, depending on which tissue you refer to). Not to mention that the bones, in addition to being protective are "springy" and serves metabolic purposes. The Calcium crystals that give it it's hard surface (put simply, bones are collagen covered in calcium crystals) is also our primary store of the very same calcium that makes muscles able to move (also serves as the emergency dump for all the heavy metals we cannot excrete in time).

In addition, since bone is the primary contributor of our length it's crucial that the body can expand and replace bone as is needed. So any carbon polymer that's intended to replace it needs to be equally malleable by the human body itself. The primary limitation here being the chemical energy needed to form and break the bonds. If it's higher than bone then we'll grow and recover from injuries much slower.

Not to mention that we'd probably have to eat a lot more to cover the needs of the carbon skeleton.


2. skin pigment that deforms based on the amount of vitamin D in your blood. when you are low on D, it opens up, allowing light in. when you have enough D, it closes, protecting you from harmful radiation.

Awesome idea. I know for a fact this will work. Seeing it's what the body already does. :smallwink::smallbiggrin: Vitamin D is a steroid hormone that regulates the expression of (among others) melanin.


3. a similar compound channels heat inward when your temperature is low, and outward when your temperature is high, replacing sweat as a means of regulating temperature.

Again, this is how the body uses the blood to regulate heat. The sweat is merely a way to dissipate it off the body once brought to the surface. It is the blood and muscle movement that is the primary regulators of it.


4. ability to regenerate lost limbs. how is regaining a lost arm a bad thing, assuming that's as far as the regeneration goes?

It's not that it's bad. It's that it's tricky. The organisms on earth that do have regeneration either does not need to move or is very small. Personally, my arm here took avout 24 years to grow. Chop it off and it'll take... twentyfour years to replace it. There's billion of cells, several kilograms of extracellular material, almost half a meter of bone (and there's only so many osteoblasts that can fit working on it... and they have to wait for the chondrocytes to finish the "frame" first) and a few meters of peripheral nerves that needs to be properly adjusted to the motoric centre.

Yes, sure. You could supposedly speed it up. Problem is that speeding cellular division up will a) be hugely demanding in energy b) the same sort of thing that happens in tumors, and c) risks mistakes during replication far more.

[Morghen]

Anybody know of a good mapping program for world-building?

I was using Warcraft III's World-Editor (which works FABulously and I recommend it strongly) but I just got a big fat update on my Mac and the World-Editor no longer works.

Alternately, if the WE has been updated that would be for the best but I can't seem to find it. There is a strong possibility that my google-fu is weak.

[avr]

Genetic engineering might well lead other ways first. E.g. (courtesy of C.J. Cherryh) innate mathematical ability, more resistance to toxins, good night vision, and of course height + good looks. Society's definition of good looks will change, but if the engineering took place in one period in the past, they will at least look more similar and probably more symmetrical.

[jseah]

If you don't mind some real math, I have a question for you:
I am currently putting the finishing touches onto a magic system that requires a teleport explanation.

Thus far, I have settled on a 4th spatial dimension, along which distances compress to half every 1 meter (1/4 at +2 and reverses to 2x at -1, etc.) so that teleport is essentially "moving inwards" until the distance is short enough, taking a step, then "moving outwards" again.
(or making a bag of holding by moving everything inside the bag "outwards" and having a 4D bag; since when you move outwards from the world, distances get bigger)
(There are some other problems with teleporting people getting no air, but let me handle that)

The thing is that I don't want to have to deal with complicated 4 dimensional rotations. 4 dimensional surfaces are already bad enough, having to deal with something that is some kind of pole whose extent also goes through the 4th is really really bad.
Therefore, I came upon the idea that the 4th dimension behaves like a Manhattan grid with respect to the usual 3. So we have a continuous world in 3D, but along the 4th, rotations aren't possible, only translations.

I would like to ask if this does what I think it does?
IE. is it true that one cannot rotate in a space where distances are calculated via manhattan distance instead of pythagoras?

[Yora]

Unless your players are quantum physicists: yes.

Because then they'll almost certainly have not the slightest clue what either variant is and how they are different. A mage snaps his finger, it makes *poff* and something appears somewhere else.

[Jacob.Tyr]

i actually have a "zombie" question. remember the zombieland movie, where zombies are caused by mad cow disease jumping to humans? that got me thinking about genetic engineering gone wrong.

the premise is this:

some scientist makes a virus that delivers new genetic material/alters existing material, whatever. this new material alters the way humans heal, cutting healing times roughly in half, and allowing limbs and stuff to eventually grow back. there are 2 main drawbacks to this, though.

1. the brain now regenerates over a period of roughly 6 months, causing memory and skill loss. basically, if you haven't used a particular piece of information in the last 6 months, you don't have it anymore, causing a progressive loss of memory, advanced skills, etc. it wouldn't effect skills used on a regular basis, such as walking, running, or basic tool use, since those get rewritten often enough not to be significantly affected.

2. the increased healing rates and faster cell replacement drastically increase metabolism, causing a need for large amounts of food.

the end result: a creature that looks mostly human, but operates at a nearly instinctive level, and is almost always hungry. it would probably take a few days for the first symptoms to show up (increased appetite and/or rapid weight loss), with full transformation taking as much as a year.

would this be a realistic zombie?

Pretty sure this is the plotline for I am Legend. Retrovirus inserting DNA into humans that over time alters them to where the uninfected don't even recognize them as humans.

Maybe explain it as a virus that results in rapid cell regeneration and growth. First noticeable impact will be quicker healing, bigger appetite and metabolism. Over time more and more out of control cell divisions occur, resulting in tumors. Tumors in the brain quickly reduce mental capabilities, ones around the body can result in disfigurement. Reduced vision, dexterity, intelligence, increased strength and constitution. Deformed mad beasts that are hard as hell to get rid of.

[jseah]

Unless your players are quantum physicists: yes.

Because then they'll almost certainly have not the slightest clue what either variant is and how they are different. A mage snaps his finger, it makes *poff* and something appears somewhere else.
Well, firstly, the system is playable... technically.

But the main reason why I am writing this at all is to make a system that can actually explain magical mechanics at a granular level.
The base-level explanation for teleport must exist for me to use it in other things. It has to be able to give predictions about the world and how it would interact with other parts of the magic system.
Hence why I am starting with the "math".

The end result I would like is for someone who understands how it works to have an explanation something like this...
"So how heck did you get the fireball to hop straight through the Stone barrier?"
"Ah, that's a little trick I invented.
Use Spell Technique to detect the collision event, convert the fire magic to the Shadow element to translate the fireball half a meter into the 4th dimension, after 0.1 seconds, move the magic back into fire to end the teleport and translate back down.

Of course, this makes the spell take one additional tick to cast, and every time it has to hop a barrier, the fireball will lose some explosion power *insert some mp number here*. Additionally, since the fireball moves at the default 10 meters per second, a wall more than 1 meter thick will generate a 2nd collision and count twice.
Furthermore, the fireball will now only explode at the point you indicate (via the established Range/Speed=TOF method), since any potential target you are shooting at will be hopped right over too!

A simple defense, of course, is to make your magic wall extend more than half a meter into the 4th dimension. "

And have it all make sense. FYI, as it currently stands, that explanation is currently *valid*; it is not some random fluff I made up on the spot, that explanation is exactly how I would make a wall-hopping variant of the fireball spell.

Also, it is using the same mechanics as the world-wide teleport spell an epic-level mage might use. Mechanics that can handle and explain the solutions to teleport-into-wall, time taken, conserving motion/speed, and the host of other problems that crop up when you do not do this.

While I certainly can just allow 4D rotations, I feel that the complications can be eliminated simply by changing the physics of the 4th dimension.

[Togath]

Just now noticed this thread and it looks like it could be help me with soem ideas i've had for a setting I've been trying to develope.

Question 1: a cultural question, how safe from attack(either from good nations opposed to things such as doing business with thieves or demons or from pirates/raiders) would a very small nation that makes most of it's income from being a completely neutral merchant city be?, I was planning for it to be both a place where pirates might fence goods, but also one where an order of knights might get their supplies from. I was also planning on having it be strongly anti-slavery, as the true natives of the city are extremely diverse in species(the city contained everything from demons to angelic beings)
If it changes anything; the city/country is on a small island in an archipelago in the middle of the setting's largest ocean(the archipelago is a very large one, but not very inhabited), and the city itself is inside of a bay(the island is a circle of "mountains" leading to a bay with an semi-active volcano in the center. The mountains are actually remains of an enormous volcano which exploded millions of years before the setting's date), the entrance to the bay I also fairly treacherous due to sandbars and jutting stones, but once inside is very deep(or at least there is a deep ring surrounding the center volcano, the water right by the city is only about 6-10 feet deep for about 100-150 feet from the docks).
the cities population is about 50K, with most of them being non-humans, it also has about 10k people visiting the city to trade in it's constantly active bazaar(which is located near the docks and is well patrolled by the city's guards to keep it safe from thieves trying to steal goods)

Question 2: has there ever been a real world culture/country that used a system of having three leaders?, For the city/country in the setting that I mentioned above in question 1, i had been planning to have it have 3 main leaders, one to manage currency and trade(he also handles most public conferences), one which acts as the country's main diplomat, and one that manages guards and the city's defenses.
I was also having some trouble coming up with names for the positions so I thought I would see if any names came to mind for those sorts of position. The only ones I have so far are; brigadier general for the one in charge of the nations military and guards, and maybe minister of finance?, for the one in charge of currency and trade

[jseah]

Question 1: a cultural question, how safe from attack(either from good nations opposed to things such as doing business with thieves or demons or from pirates/raiders) would a very small nation that makes most of it's income from being a completely neutral merchant city be?<...>
Well, it's an island nation, based on trade. Therefore, there is a very large amount of ship traffic to and from their island.
They could get a professional army, so their guys are much better trained than any other country in the world. Nearly all military are naval, so they also have the best ship crews.
Their trade gives them lots of money, so they have the best and most number of ships as well.

With sufficient sea power, a nation could secure itself from all comers. An army 30x their size makes little headway if they cannot land to invade. And naval battles play up the military skill and training factor.

See Napoleon vs England. That didn't go so well for him.


Question 2: has there ever been a real world culture/country that used a system of having three leaders?, For the city/country in the setting that I mentioned above in question 1, i had been planning to have it have 3 main leaders, one to manage currency and trade(he also handles most public conferences), one which acts as the country's main diplomat, and one that manages guards and the city's defenses.

I don't know much about how the actual UK system works, but perhaps you could adopt it for your ends.

The Royal Family is the main diplomat. The Prime minister (leader of the elected House of Commons) controls finance and economics. The House of Lords (unelected) provides the military arm and domestic security.

Of course, that involves giving the House of Lords something to actually DO, so it isn't the same as the UK's system. But you could coopt it something like that.

Since the House of Lords originated from the aristocracy, and in feudal times, aristocracy was expected to provide arms and men for wars, it makes sense to make them in charge of the military and security affairs. Perhaps it's a holdover from the feudal period when the Queen/King was an actual ruler, but has since evolved into the current form.
Cultural quirks like that exist in RL and I wouldn't be too surprised if my IC character came across a country like that.

[Lord Tyger]

Just now noticed this thread and it looks like it could be help me with soem ideas i've had for a setting I've been trying to develope.
Question 2: has there ever been a real world culture/country that used a system of having three leaders?

Yes. The term for this is Triumvirate. Historically, they've mostly happened in times of political disruption, such as after a civil war, where you might have three loosely allied factions each headed by a powerful individual, or when the death of a single ruler doesn't leave a clear heir.

[Beleriphon]

Yes. The term for this is Triumvirate. Historically, they've mostly happened in times of political disruption, such as after a civil war, where you might have three loosely allied factions each headed by a powerful individual, or when the death of a single ruler doesn't leave a clear heir.

There's one that immediately comes to mind. The one Julius Caesar murdered his way out of.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Triumvirate

[Lord Tyger]

There's one that immediately comes to mind. The one Julius Caesar murdered his way out of.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Triumvirate

Indeed. Historically, it can present problems in that generally you only end with one if you have three highly ambitious individuals.

[Togath]

Thank you for helping me find a term for that, I may also go with English/Scottish/Irish names, or at least ones that sound appropriate for the positions, as the nation in the setting is strongly allied, and influenced by(the people who populated the island originally came from the mainland nation), another country in the setting that is based off of England, Scotland, and Ireland.
How does; grand general, minister of finances, and.....high diplomat?, sound?
I may avoid tension between the three for now though, as at least currently, the only one that might try to remove the others is the diplomat(and the triumvirate in this case is elected, for 50 year spans or until a member dies or gives up the position.

[awa]

i may be wrong but i don't believe the roman triumvirate divided their responsibilities that way

[avr]

If the main defence is naval, you might try Grand Admiral or Fleet Admiral or similar rather than Grand General.

The financial guy might be called the Treasurer. Diplomat - this might be a noble title to give him/her something to throw about when dealing with foreign bigwigs, even if the position is elected.

[Xuc Xac]

Question 1: a cultural question, how safe from attack(either from good nations opposed to things such as doing business with thieves or demons or from pirates/raiders) would a very small nation that makes most of it's income from being a completely neutral merchant city be?

Singapore and Dubai seem to do ok.

[Conners]

Here's an interesting topic: Nations keeping secrets.

Using a medieval age for starters... let's say one side has much better designs of war ships. How do they keep their enemies from obtaining a ship or a traitorous ship builder? I remember hearing the Romans had to find a Carthaginian shipwreck, before they learnt how to construct ships like the Carthaginians'.

How do nations like Carthage make their ship designs so hard to obtain?

[Yora]

Reverse engineering can be quite difficult. Because even when you have hundreds of workers knowing what procedures they have to follow, they mostly don't know what the exact shapes of parts and the material they are made from are important. You could get a number of workers who worked on a certain type of ship and ask them to do the same thing they always do. But without a superviser who understands how all the components work together and influence each other, the result would be less than spectacular. And in antiquity and the middle ages, getting craftsmen from a specialized trade from a foreign nation may not even have been that easy. To build a warship for example, you might need easily 20 or 30 workers who each are familiar with a different part of the construction, and getting one of each type to betray their country and work for the enemy might not have been easy.
Even NASA had to go to scrapyards to find pieces of their Saturn V rockets because in the space race documentation was quite shoddy and engineers had no knowledge of why their predecessors used certain materials and shapes as specified in those plans they had not been thrown away.

And I think for most of history, there were no standard sized components and exact sizes were decided for the specific project and the material available.
Only the architects and engineers would know which factors are important and where you can make compromises regarding material or size. And there probably were not many of those people around. After all, that's the source of their income. If there's ten people who can build a certain type of warship, they can demand very high pay, especially when this technology provides a vital advantage for their employers. If the technology becomes public knowledge, then you can hire the engineer who works for the least amount of pay and when everyone can have it, it might not even be that useful to employ anymore. It's a cartel, if you want. And agreeing to produce that technology exclusively to a single nation can push the payment even higher.

[avr]

In an RPG setting oaths might be enforced by supernatural powers. This could help secrecy quite a bit. Guilds would have happily used such, never mind the state.

Actually using the new ships to their potential could be quite an expensive learning process even without that. There's the odd story about a new ship lost on it's first voyage; IIRC there was one heavily-gunned ship in Sweden which capsized and killed most of the crew as it left the harbour. Somewhat later in history there was the Titanic, unsinkable and immune to mere icebergs ...

[awa]

also remember you have no standardized measurements and a lot less writing things down. the foot measurement the french are using is not the same one the English are using not to mention the fact that information in general is traveling much slower. this makes any kind of technology transfer more difficult even if no one is trying to prevent you from acquiring it.

[Grytorm]

How large of an area would an independent city state control? I can't specify size or anything because I just want the question answered and I do not have any specific use for it in mind.

[Yora]

Depends on their source of income and the relationship with their neighbors. Can be as small as pretty much just the city walls, or as big as a tiny country.

Today, Monacco has an area of 2 km² and Singapore of 710 km².

[Aux-Ash]

IIRC there was one heavily-gunned ship in Sweden which capsized and killed most of the crew as it left the harbour.

Ah, yes. The Vasa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_%28ship%29). Too narrow, too high, too rushed, too heavily loaded, too expensive and too ambitious. Pride of the Swedish navy that was. For about ten minutes.

A prime example what happens when you try to build a ship you don't know how to build coupled with far too much meddling from your superiors.

Grytorm

How large of an area would an independent city state control? I can't specify size or anything because I just want the question answered and I do not have any specific use for it in mind.

Like all nations, it depends on how well it can project it's power. Some city states where little more than the city and the surrounding farmlands and towns. You could cross such a state's border on one side and leave on the other side within a single day.

On the other hand, city states such a Genoa and Venice controlled hundreds of islands and coastal colonies all over the Mediterranean in their primes. Uisng their fleets and immense riches to maintain control over massive distances (and controlling islands such as crete and corsica).
Or the papal state (which technically could count as a city state) which controlled much of Lazio (area around rome), Umbria, Romagna and Marche. Using it's immense wealth to control these lands.

So, basically... it depends on how wealthy the city state was and just how powerful it's neighbours are. A very wealthy city state with small neighbours (such as in Italy) a city state could control immense territories.

[awa]

how much you can control also depends on how fast you can move stuff. if you have good cavalry, roads, or can move things by boat you can control a fairly large area if your army needs to walk your going to control far less. terrain is also important for the same reason really mountainous regions are going to be smaller then big open plains.

In a fantasy setting with flying mounts/ air ships of some sort or reliable teleportation a city could control a vast area of land far bigger then any real world city state ever could

[Ksheep]

3. a similar compound channels heat inward when your temperature is low, and outward when your temperature is high, replacing sweat as a means of regulating temperature.


I'd like to throw in my two cents here, although I am a little late on answering this…

For a mechanism that regulates body heat without sweat, I'd suggest you look at jackrabbits. They have an ingenious solution to this problem… they use their ears. Jackrabbits have rather large ears, which they use as radiators to rid themselves of excess body heat. When they are overheating, the blood vessels in their ears expand, increasing blood flow, which directs their heat toward these areas with large surface area where the heat dissipates quickly. When they need to store heat, said blood vessels contract, keeping blood flow, and thus heat flow, to a minimum.

I believe that other mammals have similar tactics, such as elephants, although I'm not entirely sure…

[lunar2]

I'd like to throw in my two cents here, although I am a little late on answering this…

For a mechanism that regulates body heat without sweat, I'd suggest you look at jackrabbits. They have an ingenious solution to this problem… they use their ears. Jackrabbits have rather large ears, which they use as radiators to rid themselves of excess body heat. When they are overheating, the blood vessels in their ears expand, increasing blood flow, which directs their heat toward these areas with large surface area where the heat dissipates quickly. When they need to store heat, said blood vessels contract, keeping blood flow, and thus heat flow, to a minimum.

I believe that other mammals have similar tactics, such as elephants, although I'm not entirely sure…

i know. but i was wanting to keep the human shape.

[Beleriphon]

i may be wrong but i don't believe the roman triumvirate divided their responsibilities that way

The First Triumvirate wasn't even official, its just that Caesar, Crassus and Pompey were the three most powerful men in Rome at the time. Through their wealth and influence they controlled the Senate, the army and finances. Caesar played peace maker between the other two, and eventually just had Pompey killed after Crassus died in battle.

Now the Second Triumvirate was Octavian Caesar, Mark Antony, and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. This one was fully official and legalized by the Senate and basically marked the end of the Roman Republic. Octavian took the name Augustus later, and became Rome's first emperor after a civil war between himself and Antony.

If you want a different take you can look at a modern democracy with a division of powers. The US is a reasonable example. The executive (the President) can veto laws, start a war and basically acts as the head of the military actions; the legislature (Congress) makes laws, holds meetings on various subjects and can sue for peace once a war has started; the Courts interpret laws, determine whether they fall within constitutional bounds and generally act to enforce the laws created by the legislature. That's about as close to a triumvirate as we have currently, at least one that lasts any significant length.

The real problem with triumvirates is that each member is given basically unilateral power to do as they please. Its a dictatorship with three members as opposed to one.

[Ksheep]

i know. but i was wanting to keep the human shape.

You may still be able to get away with this with a human shape. Instead of using ears, you could use limbs, although to be effective they would have to loose a fair bit of their mass, which means less muscle…

[Aux-Ash]

You may still be able to get away with this with a human shape. Instead of using ears, you could use limbs, although to be effective they would have to loose a fair bit of their mass, which means less muscle…

We are already. When we're warm blood vessels expand (or even open up) in out entire skin, with an extra density in head, arms and feet. We then use the sweat to cool the skin off. But the primary heat regulator is, like with all mammals, the blood.

[Ksheep]

We are already. When we're warm blood vessels expand (or even open up) in out entire skin, with an extra density in head, arms and feet. We then use the sweat to cool the skin off. But the primary heat regulator is, like with all mammals, the blood.

Well, as lunar was asking for some way of heat regulation without sweating, the simplest answer is to radiate the heat away by passing more blood through the extremities.

[lunar2]

what i was thinking of when i posted that would work more like a one way mirror.

when you're hot, the outside of your skin reflects heat, while the inside is transparent to heat, or even actively draws it away. when you're cold, the reverse is true, and it's the inside of your skin that reflects heat back into your body. so it serves as a sweat replacement when it's warm, and insulation when it's cold.

[Aux-Ash]

Thing is though... it's not a very efficient way of cooling down. Radiating heat is as a rule very inefficient. That's why we sweat, because then we don't radiate as much as conduct it. Which is vastly more effective.

The animals in the world that uses their ears and equalient cool them down using the airflow. There are many other ways of cooling down (like keeping cooler air "stored" inside the fur, rather clever).

It's not on a biological level the obstacle lie. It's on a thermodynamic level.

[Conners]

How about Dragons? If you tried to supe up a flying, fire-breathing lizard, how far could you get before you hit some snags?

Example: Dragons are meant to be big, and sometimes nigh-invulnerable--which tends to mean heavy. That isn't conductive to flying.

You might be able to reason them having some sort of light, yet super-strong hide/scales, at this point.


So... thoughts?

[TheWombatOfDoom]

How about Dragons? If you tried to supe up a flying, fire-breathing lizard, how far could you get before you hit some snags?

Example: Dragons are meant to be big, and sometimes nigh-invulnerable--which tends to mean heavy. That isn't conductive to flying.

You might be able to reason them having some sort of light, yet super-strong hide/scales, at this point.


So... thoughts?

Another real problem is the muscles involved in lifting a dragon via flapping. If you made it so they could lift off from the ground that is. A solution to this might be the dragon flings itself from a high hieght and then glides and flaps. Making dragons wyverns helps take away from weight, as well as lighter bone structure. A young adult series - Diadem - features dragons that are basically hot air balloons, making them able to fly. Decreasing them from monsterous size to raptor-esque sizes might help.

[Ksheep]

Ah, dragon flight. I've heard many a debate about this, with solutions ranging from extremely lightweight skeletal structure to magic-assisted flight (think inherent permanenced levitate to control altitude, wings to propel forward and turn) and even a suggestion that they were filled with hydrogen or some other lightweight gas to increase lift.

[Lord Tyger]

Ah, dragon flight. I've heard many a debate about this, with solutions ranging from extremely lightweight skeletal structure to magic-assisted flight (think inherent permanenced levitate to control altitude, wings to propel forward and turn) and even a suggestion that they were filled with hydrogen or some other lightweight gas to increase lift.


Hydrogen, I think, with the added suggestion that they hoarded gold because they needed to eat enough metal that they could cause sparks to ignite the hydrogen as dragon breath.

[Togath]

Aye, the hydrogen for buoyancy and fire breath is a fairly common one, I also sort of like it as it gives a dragon a reason to not continuously use it's fire breath.
Another one I have pondered, as a way to make them lighter, is a light weight skeleton, but one with comparable strength to aluminum(or even having the skeleton mostly made of metal) or some other strong but light metal

[jseah]

How about Dragons? If you tried to supe up a flying, fire-breathing lizard, how far could you get before you hit some snags?
<...>
So... thoughts?
Just as a side note, I tried this with winged humans.
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=249326

The result of a believable wing size + muscle mass to move it would be pretty insane. That one there is a 10 meter wingspan for a 30kg main body weight (minus wing & wing muscle weight).

Unless you do rocket powered dragons ala Terry Pratchett, there is only magic.


Also, hydrogen lift doesn't work for any reasonable dragon weight.
Air has a density of 1.225 kg per m^3. Meaning that even if your dragon had the weight of a human child (30kg) and had a vacuum sac for lift, the only way you can offset all the weight is with a 36 cubic meter volume.
If this is a sphere, it has a surface area of 77.2 square meters, leaving you with a density of 0.388 kg of stuff per square meter of surface area.
Even if you posit aluminium bones, a 1cm thick layer of aluminium weighs 27 kilos per square meter, leaving you with a layer of aluminium about 1.4 millimeters thick. IE. it's a ball of aluminium foil.

No, bouyancy isn't going to work.
Additionally, bouyancy makes your dragon have problems crushing people. Imagine if a fighter was fighting a dragon on the peak of some doom mountain and gave it a good whack with the flat of his broadsword... and the dragon just floated away on the wind...

[Conners]

@TheWombatOfDoom: What if Dragons had great jumping and running ability? Do you think they'd be able to propel themselves into flight?


@jseah: Hmm... first we need to work out a theoretical size for the dragon, so as to get an idea of what wingspan and muscle strength is required. Let's start with a dragon 40 feet long (much like a t-rex), which is sleek but not especially thin. Has four "legs" (front legs able to grab things) and wings on its "shoulders". 15(?) feet in height when standing normally (on all fours). If this were a creature similar to a crocodile or t-rex, we'd be looking at a weight of something like 6 or 7 tons, I guess.

My measurements tend to be bad, so correct those if they seem unreasonable.


Anyway, first is: How much can we reduce the weight of the creature without making it weak (assuming the most optimal features possible)?

After that, how much wing span and muscle is required to give it reasonable flight ability (assuming the most optimal features possible)?

[Xuc Xac]

Aluminum is comparable to (or even weaker than) bone and it's about 25% denser. Bone is a much superior choice to aluminum for tough-but-lightweight structural support for a living creature.

Although if you were planning to mummify that dragon, it might be a good idea to swap the bones for aluminum beams because dry bones are much more brittle. You're going to need an aircraft engineer and a taxidermist...

[jseah]

Wikipedia indicates that bird-like flight wing loading has a maximum of 25 kg per square meter of wing. And the lower the wing loading, the more energy efficient the wing is.
Assume 20 kg per square meter of wing area.

We also want a high aspect ratio wing. This gives more of a gliding/soaring motion than a short wing (which requires lots of flapping) to further save energy and let the dragon fly further. Also, since the wing is going to huge no matter what, we will probably get a smaller wing area by making it have higher aspect ratios (due to being more energy efficient and needing less muscle -> lower weight -> smaller wing) although we lose top speed.
Going by a rough estimate, a high aspect ratio wing might around 10.

So for every square meter breadth, the wing is 10 meters across.
Assuming a 1ton dragon (assume carbon nanotube bones or mostly hollow or something), 1000kg = 50 sq meters wing area for a wingspan around 25 meters (and a 2-3 meter breadth, decreasing towards the tips).
Your 6 ton dragon has 300 sq meters wing area for a wingspan of 55-60 meters, 5-6 meters breadth.

Truly, epically huge. You might note that the dragon can't take off from rest since it can't beat its wings (will hit the ground).

[TheWombatOfDoom]

@TheWombatOfDoom: What if Dragons had great jumping and running ability? Do you think they'd be able to propel themselves into flight?

That's what some of mine do. They're baiscally flying squrriels only much bigger. More like a little larger than human.

For your big one, he's definately going to need running room and leaping. Would likely live on a plataeu or near cliffs. And would never be able to let anyone ride it.

[Conners]

Wikipedia indicates that bird-like flight wing loading has a maximum of 25 kg per square meter of wing. And the lower the wing loading, the more energy efficient the wing is.
Assume 20 kg per square meter of wing area.

We also want a high aspect ratio wing. This gives more of a gliding/soaring motion than a short wing (which requires lots of flapping) to further save energy and let the dragon fly further. Also, since the wing is going to huge no matter what, we will probably get a smaller wing area by making it have higher aspect ratios (due to being more energy efficient and needing less muscle -> lower weight -> smaller wing) although we lose top speed.
Going by a rough estimate, a high aspect ratio wing might around 10.

So for every square meter breadth, the wing is 10 meters across.
Assuming a 1ton dragon (assume carbon nanotube bones or mostly hollow or something), 1000kg = 50 sq meters wing area for a wingspan around 25 meters (and a 2-3 meter breadth, decreasing towards the tips).
Your 6 ton dragon has 300 sq meters wing area for a wingspan of 55-60 meters, 5-6 meters breadth.

Truly, epically huge. You might note that the dragon can't take off from rest since it can't beat its wings (will hit the ground). Would it be plausible to lower the wing loading any further, out of curiosity?

Even with the top-speed reduced, I guess it'll still be faster than a lot of land-animals?

What's the intended/possible size for the one-ton dragon? The six-ton dragon's wingspan is hard to imagine.

[lunar2]

note that the DnD dragons all have exceptionally wide wings, and some of them have wings that go all the way down the tail. is it possible that the wing being so wide helps them glide better? and of course, there is the matter of replacing all the standard compounds of the body with stronger, lighter ones. it would explain the strength of dragon bones and scales. and they could be storing hydrogen for their breath weapon (assuming this is a fire breathing dragon). while the hydrogen won't negate the dragon's weight, every little bit helps. then you have to take into account the increased density of the air on a DnD planet (terminal velocity is 300 ft./round, which is 180,000 ft./hour, or 34.1 mph, just over 1/4 of terminal velocity on earth, which means that the air is much denser).

[Conners]

This is just a supposition, but wouldn't the hydrogen cause more problems than it would solve? Maybe not, just wondering.

Very interesting point about DnD's setting having denser air. That'll probably make it much easier for creatures to fly, I guess?

[jseah]

25 meters is about the breadth of an olympic swimming pool. (10 lanes) The wings themselves are also about as wide as a lane of traffic on the road.
1 ton is about the weight of a common 4 seat car, so it's not that heavy.

Essentially, if you nailed a 1ton dragon to the ground, wings spread, it would span a major highway intersection.

You could make this a juvenile dragon or something. Then the ancient ones will be even bigger (but not that much heavier)

-> the 6ton dragon has a wingspan about 10-20% bigger than the length of an olympic swimming pool and a wing breadth of 2-3 lanes on a road. It's freaking huge, for not that much more weight.
Note that these weights are for Total Mass, including wing and wing muscles.

You could always lower the wing loading for even more efficiency (and much longer glide times), but the wings get proportionally bigger. And there is a fundamental limit to how low you can go, being the weight of 1 square meter of wing (and at this limit, your dragon is all wing and nothing else)

If you say 1 sq meter of dragon wing weighs 5 kg (pretty damn light), and you want a 10kg per sq meter wing load, then for every 5 kg of body weight, you need 1 sq meter of wing.


Note, I am not even getting into the problems regarding blood systems, bone structure (note that the bones will have to be even harder than steel to not bend at the size and weight of the dragon) and various problems scaling will introduce.


@lunar:
1 ton is pretty darn light already. Multiple people working together can lift it, and it will have trouble crushing anything much bigger than a human. A human in full plate would also be rather harder to crush (although you can always flame him once to get a tin-foil wrapped snack)

The hydrogen as lift is still useless, it will maybe account for 0.1% of the weight and expand the dragon's volume by a very large amount. Aka. very fat dragons that pop like balloons when you poke them. Shortly followed by a massive explosion.

Of course, you could say that atmospheric pressure/density is much higher in D&D land, that does solve alot of the problems, although unless it is drastically higher, will still not let hydrogen lift do much of anything.


Really wide wings reduce wing loading by contributing alot of surface area while reducing aspect ratio, it makes flapping cost alot of energy.
This also makes the dragon have problems dealing with strong winds and turbulence. (the huge parachute-like wings catch alot of air and just blow the dragon back)


NOTE: I am writing this based off a few hours research I did for that human-with-wings idea. Someone with better understanding of aerodynamics would be better able to answer questions.

Also, a living dragon can fold and trim its wings in flight. This means that the wing characteristics (primarily wing loading and aspect ratio) can actually change when conditions change. You might be able to get away with a smaller wing for powerful takeoffs that then unfold to a huge gliding area once airborne.
It will still need a running start or to jump off a cliff, that's probably not going away.

[lunar2]

@lunar:
1 ton is pretty darn light already. Multiple people working together can lift it, and it will have trouble crushing anything much bigger than a human. A human in full plate would also be rather harder to crush (although you can always flame him once to get a tin-foil wrapped snack)

The hydrogen as lift is still useless, it will maybe account for 0.1% of the weight and expand the dragon's volume by a very large amount. Aka. very fat dragons that pop like balloons when you poke them. Shortly followed by a massive explosion.

Of course, you could say that atmospheric pressure/density is much higher in D&D land, that does solve alot of the problems, although unless it is drastically higher, will still not let hydrogen lift do much of anything.


Really wide wings reduce wing loading by contributing alot of surface area while reducing aspect ratio, it makes flapping cost alot of energy.
This also makes the dragon have problems dealing with strong winds and turbulence. (the huge parachute-like wings catch alot of air and just blow the dragon back)


@hydrogen, i never thought it would be significant, just that it would be there.

@weight, that's why only huge and bigger dragons get crush. at that size, they still weigh a minimum of 2 tons, according to the creature sizes table in the monster manual glossary.

@air density. just out of curiosity, how much higher would the air pressure need to be to have a 34.1 mph terminal velocity? i'm assuming that such a huge difference in falling speed would require a similarly huge difference in pressure, but i wouldn't even begin to know how to figure it out. it would be kind of funny if we were talking about a venus-like atmosphere here. (no wonder you can't spot the sun. it doesn't exist, or you would be boiling alive.)

[Ksheep]

@air density. just out of curiosity, how much higher would the air pressure need to be to have a 34.1 mph terminal velocity? i'm assuming that such a huge difference in falling speed would require a similarly huge difference in pressure, but i wouldn't even begin to know how to figure it out. it would be kind of funny if we were talking about a venus-like atmosphere here. (no wonder you can't spot the sun. it doesn't exist, or you would be boiling alive.)

I'm not sure of exact numbers, but something tells me that this would be quadratic in function, not linear. Similar to how with wind force, doubling the speed quadruples the force exerted.

Actually, going off of wind speed/wind force, I wonder if air density has a similar effect, i.e. twice the density == 1/4 the fall speed. On Earth, air pressure fluctuates by around 10% (highest recorded was 1,085.7 hectopascals, lowest recorded 870 hPa, with average being 1013.25 hPa), so we don't see such drastic changes here.

EDIT: Found a formula to figure it out.
Mathematically, terminal velocity—without considering buoyancy effects—is given by
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/math/a/b/9/ab975d734f2371c96713a81b6bcfb220.png
where
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/math/f/2/d/f2d8ad6c8eee7080f25f3441c9eaeba2.png = terminal velocity,
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/math/6/f/8/6f8f57715090da2632453988d9a1501b.png = mass of the falling object,
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/math/b/2/f/b2f5ff47436671b6e533d8dc3614845d.png = acceleration due to gravity,
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/math/a/3/e/a3e1f7c8e2b2024029a995ec590c7e66.png = drag coefficient,
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/math/f/7/f/f7f177957cf064a93e9811df8fe65ed1.png = density of the fluid through which the object is falling, and
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/math/7/f/c/7fc56270e7a70fa81a5935b72eacbe29.png = projected area of the object.

Assuming that gravity and the characteristics of the object are the same, you should be able to figure out what the density of the air would have to be. I'd figure it myself, but I've got other work to do ¬_¬

[jseah]

^I'll run the math:

Assuming its the same object (human) and the same gravity, then terminal velocity can be expressed as a function of density of air.

Specifically, velocity = some constant / sqroot(density)

RL terminal velocity is about 110mph, D&D is 34.1mph (going by lunar2's post). This means that the RL terminal velocity is 3.22 times of D&D = sqroot of D&D air density is 3.22 times that of sqroot of RL air density.
Therefore D&D air density is roughly 10x that of RL air density...

Hmm. *checks math* Can someone else have a go? That looks kinda fishy to me.


And no, that still doesn't allow balloons to be reasonable. The human child weight of 30kg would still need 2.5 cubic meters of air displaced, which is about the size of a upright human-height fridge.
It becomes *possible* that hydrogen balloons will work, but the dragon will still be a sac of extremely thin hide around a big balloon of *very* flammable gas.

[lunar2]

so, knowing how dense the air is, do flying dragons, as they are illustrated in the monster manual etc., make any more sense than they would in the real world?

[Ksheep]

so, knowing how dense the air is, do flying dragons, as they are illustrated in the monster manual etc., make any more sense than they would in the real world?

We'd need to figure out some equation to determine lift based on fluid density…

If D&D air is 10x more dense than Earth air, that would put it at about 12 kg/m^3. Water is 1000 kg/m^3, so it wouldn't be comparable to swimming in the least, but using that density as a guideline we should be able to figure out lift as a function of surface area.

EDIT: Found lift formula. It is:
L = (1/2) d v^2 s CL
Where:
L = Lift, which must equal the airplane's weight in pounds
d = density of the air. This will change due to altitude. These values can be found in a I.C.A.O. Standard Atmosphere Table.
v = velocity of an aircraft expressed in feet per second
s = the wing area of an aircraft in square feet
CL = Coefficient of lift , which is determined by the type of airfoil and angle of attack.

So, if density is multiplied by 10x, then you'd get 10x the lift for a comparable speed and wing, which indicates that wing size can be shrunk for the same amount of lift (again, looks like it's linear, if you're going by wing area). However, you'll also have to take into account drag, which will probably increase due to the increase in density…

[Beleriphon]

So, if density is multiplied by 10x, then you'd get 10x the lift for a comparable speed and wing, which indicates that wing size can be shrunk for the same amount of lift (again, looks like it's linear, if you're going by wing area). However, you'll also have to take into account drag, which will probably increase due to the increase in density…

Drag is a huge factor, and dragon's aren't exactly the most aerodynamic critters. Most real world flying vertebrates have a fairly basic and similar shape. We're really limited to bats and birds on that front.

Bats and birds all take basically the same shape. The ones that seem to fly the most easily (small birds such as sparrows in particular) have heads that are set very near the body with little in they way of extra body mass (such as a pelican's bill). Bats take a very similar shape, although their body layout tends to include external ears. Legs pull up and lay nearly flat against the body, necks when there is a substantial one are still very short, and the body has a whole tapers towards the tail. Dragon's don't exactly have this body pattern, and even provided they could get sufficient lift they'd have horrible drag factors and probably stall out shortly after achieving flight.

[Deploy]

I have a question, one of my goblin cultures will use a certain tree for their dyes and canoes, I know little about producing either. The environment is a rainforest modeled after the amazon. Is their any such tree that meets these requirements and if not, what would it look like? Where in the forest would it grow? How could the goblins make boats and dyes out of this tree? What else could they cultivate from such a plant?

Thanks in advance

[Yora]

To make dugout canoes, you really only need a tree that has a trunk with sufficient diameter and height. And for goblins, that would be smaller than for humans.
Some woods become soft and crumble when wet, but others actually harden. You'd want one of the later types.

Dies can be made from all kinds of plant stuff, often leaves, bark, or roots.

I'm not sure if there's a type of tree in south america, that fits both criteria, but there's no reason why there shouldn't be such kinds. And for other uses, it could be used for really anything that people make out of trees. Fruits and Flowers for example.

Bats and birds all take basically the same shape. The ones that seem to fly the most easily (small birds such as sparrows in particular) have heads that are set very near the body with little in they way of extra body mass (such as a pelican's bill). Bats take a very similar shape, although their body layout tends to include external ears. Legs pull up and lay nearly flat against the body, necks when there is a substantial one are still very short, and the body has a whole tapers towards the tail. Dragon's don't exactly have this body pattern, and even provided they could get sufficient lift they'd have horrible drag factors and probably stall out shortly after achieving flight.
There are also cranes and storks, which have both long necks and legs. This does not seem to be neccessarily a problem and can be made to work.

[Conners]

Sorry for bringing this up again.

Could the 40-foot-long dragon be lightened down to 1-ton, while remaining a strong, sturdy and dangerous creature?

[TheWombatOfDoom]

Sorry for bringing this up again.

Could the 40-foot-long dragon be lightened down to 1-ton, while remaining a strong, sturdy and dangerous creature?

Dangerous - yes.

Strong - maybe.

Sturdy - unlikely.

[Beleriphon]

There are also cranes and storks, which have both long necks and legs. This does not seem to be neccessarily a problem and can be made to work.

True, but they aren't exactly the most graceful flying birds. There are some general exceptions, but veen then a stork or crane still draws its legs as close the body as possible. The similar wading bird pattern holds true for spoonbills, ibises and herons. All of them are massive and tend to use soaring flight rather than flapping to maintain flight. The dragons in Skyrim share a similar body pattern with wading birds are more plausible than the D&D six limbed dragons ever could be.

Herons are interesting since they can pull their neck very close to their bodies when in flight, and the only trailing portion are their legs. I've seen them in flight with the neck retracted as well outstreched. The other thing to keep in mind is that D&D dragons seem to have a neck and head configuration similar to a giraffe such that the neck is normally perpendicular to the rest of the body. Wading birds have a neck that bends and arches up but is actually in line with the body at the base.

So if I were to model a plausible dragon I'd use the tall wading bird pattern found in herons, cranes, or even flamingoes. It would make them look more like the dragons in Skrim with the front arms being the wings much like bats.

[Gahrer]

I have a medical question (sort of): If someone jumped (deliberately) from a height of 15-20 meters and landed on dry packed soil, how badly hurt would they be? I assume they would break both legs, maybe severly damage the spine too? How much difference could training make in this situation?

[Spiryt]

Sorry for bringing this up again.

Could the 40-foot-long dragon be lightened down to 1-ton, while remaining a strong, sturdy and dangerous creature?

Strong is very, very broad term...

Most probably would be strong compared to even powerful humans, but rather puny compared to 1 ton animals of more "usual' build.

[awa]

falls are weird sometimes pepole can fall tremendous distances and not be very hurt other times a simple stumble can break a leg. Their is a tremendous amount of dumb luck involved.

[Beleriphon]

I have a medical question (sort of): If someone jumped (deliberately) from a height of 15-20 meters and landed on dry packed soil, how badly hurt would they be? I assume they would break both legs, maybe severly damage the spine too? How much difference could training make in this situation?

15 to 20 metres? It would probably kill them, if it didn't you'd be looking at severe damage to both legs if not extensive spinal damage as well. There is practically no way for a person to jump off a nearly 7 story building without injury. There's a reason fire departments advise not to jump out a window to escape a blaze and instead do your best to wait for a rescue.

[Aux-Ash]

I have a medical question (sort of): If someone jumped (deliberately) from a height of 15-20 meters and landed on dry packed soil, how badly hurt would they be? I assume they would break both legs, maybe severly damage the spine too? How much difference could training make in this situation?

The injuries will range from none to directly lethal. Training will most definantely help, but it's still a matter of luck.

[Conners]

Hmm... changing the subject a little.

Dragons are often described as fire-proof, I find. How fire-proof can an animal get, with their skin and such?

[TheWombatOfDoom]

Hmm... changing the subject a little.

Dragons are often described as fire-proof, I find. How fire-proof can an animal get, with their skin and such?

That really is dependant on the mechanic that keeps them "fire proof". They could have a harder skin of some sort, or even some sort of inflammible chemical that they sweated.

On a side note, are your dragons planned to be warm or cold blooded?

[Conners]

Would have to ask. Since dragons often live in deep caves, I assume warm-blooded.

Harder skin sounds interesting. Any inherent problems that tend to come with that territory?

[TheWombatOfDoom]

Would have to ask. Since dragons often live in deep caves, I assume warm-blooded.

Harder skin sounds interesting. Any inherent problems that tend to come with that territory?

Heavier.

Also, Warm blooded could be an issue with thick skin.

[Conners]

Well... I guess the harder/thicker skin also makes them tougher, so it probably worth its weight.

Hmm... if the dragons were cold blooded, and had thick skin, could they "wash" themselves with fire breath to keep warm?

[TheWombatOfDoom]

Well... I guess the harder/thicker skin also makes them tougher, so it probably worth its weight.

Hmm... if the dragons were cold blooded, and had thick skin, could they "wash" themselves with fire breath to keep warm?

Yes. They could even heat the stone in the cave to warm themselves.

[jseah]

Seriously, dragons are made of carbon nanotubes. XD

Strength per weight is the highest thing out there, perfect for scales (in sheets) and for bones (in large fibres). Can do semiconductors and conductors too, so you could theoretically build computers out of it (brains?)

Obviously, it is also basically immune to heat (conducts heat really really well, virtually impossible to destroy with heat)

[Ksheep]

Seriously, dragons are made of carbon nanotubes. XD

Strength per weight is the highest thing out there, perfect for scales (in sheets) and for bones (in large fibres). Can do semiconductors and conductors too, so you could theoretically build computers out of it (brains?)

Obviously, it is also basically immune to heat (conducts heat really really well, virtually impossible to destroy with heat)

Nanotube skeleton with Aerogel skin and digestive tract? Extremely low weight and very high heat tolerance…

[Conners]

Awesome! Something about this is making me smile :smallsmile:.

Now that the dragons are fairly invulnerable to heat... what sort of firepower is possible, for a biological creature? They need to have something they can produce (even if they need to eat something strange to do it) which can become a terrifying blaze. Dragon fire is always special, and hotter than fires you light with matches.

If the dragons are capable of harming each other with fire, that'd seem fine to me.

[Inglenook]

For my dragons: I had them store phosphorous (extracted via digestion, somehow?) in a special sac in their throat. "Breathing fire" is just spitting an aerosol of phosphorous particles that ignite upon contact with air. It also prevents the dragon from breathing fire over and over without pause—eventually the sac will empty and will have to fill back up over the course of a week or so.

I doubt it's actually possible in real life, though.

[TheWombatOfDoom]

For my dragons: I had them store phosphorous (extracted via digestion, somehow?) in a special sac in their throat. "Breathing fire" is just spitting an aerosol of phosphorous particles that ignite upon contact with air. It also prevents the dragon from breathing fire over and over without pause—eventually the sac will empty and will have to fill back up over the course of a week or so.

I doubt it's actually possible in real life, though.

It wouldn't be. Then dragon as it expelled it would explode, since air would already be in the lung passage, throat and mouth. :( Poor dragon.


@Connors - if you look at the reign of fire dragons, they made them work like bombadier beetles (check out those bad boys on wikipedia) - they have two sacs in their mouths that shoot out liquid. The liquids apart don't do anything. But when they combine they ignite. What ever option they have, make sure that their throat is closed off from the fire when they spray and the igniter outside of the throat, if it's truely a breath weapon. Otherwise it would cause internal combustion. *Pop*

[Yora]

Wasn't there a scene about dragon chemistry in that really trippy 70s animated movie?

[Conners]

Bombardier beetles are awesome :smallbiggrin:.

But, the question is--what should be the fuel for the fire? Something that causes very powerful burning, certainly... It would need to be separated into two parts, one igniting the substance, of course (unless there's another method of fire breath).

[TheWombatOfDoom]

Bombardier beetles are awesome :smallbiggrin:.

But, the question is--what should be the fuel for the fire? Something that causes very powerful burning, certainly... It would need to be separated into two parts, one igniting the substance, of course (unless there's another method of fire breath).

There's plenty of chemicals you could use. I'll divert to someone with more knowledge of them to suggest them. Another thing you could do is have a "flint tooth" as my dragons have. They click it together as they "exhale" to ignite it. I'm not actually going to say how my dragons actually work though. It's not like the bombadier, though. I'm writing a novel with them so while I can help based on my research, I can't directly drop information I've concluded. I still haven't completely worked out flight either, just to let you know.