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

[Conners]

Don't have any nutrient in mind, currently. Was just thinking of a creature which has trouble digesting food, so it needs to suck digested food (nutrients) out of other creatures.

[Ormur]

Doy. Should have thought of that.

I suppose a better question would be "Given a climate, crop, and technology level, how can you figure out approximate yield?"

My advice would be to find a comparable society in time and space and locate some sources on that.

[Wyntonian]

Here's one.

Assuming a race of people about half human height and proportionally strong, generally unarmored and almost never able to procure actual weaponry, as well as frequently having their hand tied together, how would their fighting style develop?

This is for the culture of the gnome slaves in part of my world, I'm curious how they would defend themselves against an armored guard with a halberd or sword. Maybe trips? Catch the knees? Lots of hamstringing blows with little concealed knives?

My first thought was that it would look a lot like Capoeira, a martial art that developed in a remarkably similar situation (African slaves in Brazil), but it would be hard for a gnome to kick a human in the jaw, unless they develop a remarkably portable step-stool.

[Spiryt]

This is for the culture of the gnome slaves in part of my world, I'm curious how they would defend themselves against an armored guard with a halberd or sword. Maybe trips? Catch the knees? Lots of hamstringing blows with little concealed knives?
.

They wouldn't?

Really not much do to here, with all the odds against them.

To form any resistance in such situations, forming some 'underground', possibility to obtain some weapons, and so on.

As far as actual fight against such guards, ganging them (5:1 and all) quickly and in coordinated manner would be most feasible solution.

Exchanging strikes with someone with an actual weapon, and that much bigger than you is outright suicidal idea.

If one has to fight, grappling would be obviously better idea, to take halberd out of equation, obviosuly it's still risky.

Being half height, so probably like quarter of weight of your opponent makes it hard as hell though, so they would have to be very strong wrestlers.

[Yora]

Capoeira is still a good starting point. Not only can it be done without hands, because of the very long arching swings the kicks can get incredible power. A kick does not just come from the knee, but also has the action of the hip and the other leg behind it. Getting kicks and punches that have real force behind them would be critical for them.
Also, half the height means one eigthth of the weight and mass, so they could have developed to have remarkable jumping ability. Foxes can jump up to 4 meters with their tiny legs. With a few steps of running space, hitting the chest or ribs with a kick should not be too difficult. Also: Exibit A

While they might be a bit too short for it, Aikido might also be something too look into. It's a system that is based entirely on exploiting the momentum of an attacker and taking the opportunity when he is unbalanced for a moment. You don't throw your opponent like in Judo, you redirect his punch into the ground, with his face quickly following. It's designed to work for people who can't produce a lot of force.
For ethical reasons, Aikido does not have any offensive moves, as it was developed after world war two for self defense and deescalation. However in the earlier phases of development, it did also include fast punches to nerves and pressure points. Unfortunately, that means there are no competitive matches that showcase how it looks in action when done by masters.
There are even some techniques for which you don't even have to stand up.

Edit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2NR4QM-OKc When you know what you're looking for, there are many half-second pauses in this demonstration, where you can see how the attacker ended up in a position where he is so unbalanced and has his legs in positions, from which he can't really get out. Since it's a demonstration, he doesn't fight it and peacefully gets down in the spot where he is supposed to while doing a lot of the work. But the point is that he couldn't get out if he wanted to. In sparring, you usually "jump into" being thrown a bit, since you really don't want your arm being used as a leaver with your body weight pressing down on your elbow joint. If a throw fails, you might still end up breaking a joint and most of the submission holds do not work by forcing the opponent down, but by using pain to keep him down. And in the case where a subdued opponent can't raise his shoulder because it would break his elbow, you could always pull at his hand to have the same effect, if you want to. And as our teacher said, when things get really dire, even throwing the attacker into a simple forward dive roll can do a lot of damage when you can direct that roll into a wall.

[Spiryt]

With a few steps of running space, hitting the chest or ribs with a kick should not be too difficult. Also: Exibit A

The problem would be in doing any serious damage, being 1/8 of the wieght and completely airborne. Aside from the fact that basing one's stan-up on jumping is generally not safe idea.

Does Jaa even have any acutal fights/competitions, anyway?

Using some Thai boxer showing effective strikes would probably be good idea. This is a stunt.

While they might be a bit too short for it, Aikido might also be something too look into. It's a system that is based entirely on exploiting the momentum of an attacker and taking the opportunity when he is unbalanced for a moment. You don't throw your opponent like in Judo, you redirect his punch into the ground, with his face quickly following. It's designed to work for people who can't produce a lot of force.

It really would need opponent who flails completely pointlessly,(punch to the ground? how?), and generally using his momentum in completely wrong way, though...

Assuming that someone want to punch anyway, seeing that guards will be armed, and should they want to subdue, just tackling and restraining slave would be better.

[Yora]

I don't say that Aikido works for people who are 70cm tall being attacked by fully grown human warriors. It's just there's a principle to build on.

[awa]

i imagine a fighting style for gnomes would be based largly on misdirection and trickery . they have a small amount of innate magic they would probbaly blend that into it. (use ghost sound to make him turn around then shank him
as far as fighting techniques in real life mechanics trips would probally be common as it doesnt take that much force to the back of the knee to knock someone over (although in dnd terms the penalty for trip due to being small really reduces that viability.)

[Beleriphon]

Assuming a race of people about half human height and proportionally strong, generally unarmored and almost never able to procure actual weaponry, as well as frequently having their hand tied together, how would their fighting style develop?

I'd assume it would involve a great deal of dying. Even human slave revolts involved procuring actual weapons at some point, and we're talking the same species.

The big thing to consider is one of reach, and weapons. At a certain practical level a bigger, heavier, poorly trained armed opponent is more than a match for a master of any of a variety of unarmed martial arts. That counts for a great deal in a fight, especially when your opponent can pick you up with one arm. Add to that being armed, and possibly wearing armour and you have such a disparity that unarmed combat for the smaller creature is just isn't going work without massive numbers to overwhelm a single target.

[Gahrer]

Doy. Should have thought of that.

I suppose a better question would be "Given a climate, crop, and technology level, how can you figure out approximate yield?"

I have found this site really usefull for such questions: http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/demog.htm

[Jeff the Green]

I have found this site really usefull for such questions: http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/demog.htm

Wow. Awesome. Can I offer you a cookie?

[awa]

in the real world the size and weight advantage described here would be almost unbeatable. dnds rules make small character far more viable physical combatants then they would be in real life. in real life creature this small would have a very hard time hurting humans they have very little weight behind their blows, and short limbs further weaken their strikes as well as mean they need to get extremely close to attack. on top of all these things humans have a substantial speed advantage over their short stubby legs.

I feel that for gnome sized creatures to have a plausible uprising their not going to be doing it with martial arts. (unless we ditch the realism and give them lots of monk levels)

[Beleriphon]

I feel that for gnome sized creatures to have a plausible uprising their not going to be doing it with martial arts. (unless we ditch the realism and give them lots of monk levels)

Unless you emphasize gang tactics and disarming single opponents to kill them with their own weapons. Even then if you face more than a single opponent, or that one opponent gets in one lucky blow your entire set of tactics are shot.

[zlefin]

prelude to economic base question -
i'm thinking of a settlement/small city that's larger than just a farm village; but it's not near water, unlike most major settlements from what I understand of history.
The main reason I can think of such a thing woudl happen is if there's a local high value mineable resource. Since shipping by nonwater means tends to be expensive in olden times; only a high value resource would tend to justify a settlement (gold, salt, mithril)

the question:
Are there any good examples of NON-mineable resources (aka resource that aren't mined) that are worth building a city around without good water access?

[awa]

so basically the gnomes have to massively out number their foes and plan on a lot of dying.

[Jeff the Green]

the question:
Are there any good examples of NON-mineable resources (aka resource that aren't mined) that are worth building a city around without good water access?

Wood (depending on setting)
Luxury items

• Ivory, skins, fur
• Food (non-domesticable plants, caviar, etc.)
• Rare woods
• Spices (saffron, cinnamon)
• Incenses
• Dyes

Magic?

[Beleriphon]

the question:
Are there any good examples of NON-mineable resources (aka resource that aren't mined) that are worth building a city around without good water access?

Oil is one, pitch is another. Peat can be quite valuable to the right people, and is more dug up. Mind you its from wetlands and bogs so that kind of goes out the window for no water, although it generally isn't found in areas with rivers.

You can look at salt, which doesn't require rivers or the like. A common method of making salt is from the sea. You can't drink sea water, and you still need to transport the stuff inland somehow.

You'll still need a source of water for people to drink, even if its terrible for boats or transportation. Rome was sitting on a river and it still needed aqueducts to keep its population in water (quite literally sometimes).

If you look at the silk road there are relatively large towns along the way. Many of them don't really offer much other than a safe haven. This is as much a resource as anything else, in fact a location that is safe and can provide shelter to travellers might be worth more than raw resources.

[Aux-Ash]

prelude to economic base question -
i'm thinking of a settlement/small city that's larger than just a farm village; but it's not near water, unlike most major settlements from what I understand of history.
The main reason I can think of such a thing woudl happen is if there's a local high value mineable resource. Since shipping by nonwater means tends to be expensive in olden times; only a high value resource would tend to justify a settlement (gold, salt, mithril)

the question:
Are there any good examples of NON-mineable resources (aka resource that aren't mined) that are worth building a city around without good water access?

Any form of tradegoods can form a basis for a settlement at a major crossroads or bottleneck. Ivory, slaves, silk, fur, whaleoil, wheat, cattle, horses and so on. Not everything needs the sea/a river to be transported and some things, such as cattle, is genuinely much more difficult to transport over water.

Other decent causes for settlements are for defensive purposes or faith. Plenty of cities have been founded on holy sites. It's a place people come and meet at, that's pretty much the only basis you need for a city.

[Conners]

How feasible is a gryphon? Also curious as to whether it would be possible to have an adult human rider.

[Jeff the Green]

How feasible is a gryphon? Also curious as to whether it would be possible to have an adult human rider.

No. Let's leave out the evolutionary absurdity of a six-limbed bird with fur/mammal with feathers and talk about wing load.

The maximum wing load for birds is 25 kg/m^2. Lions can exceed 250 kg, so the wings of a gryphon would need to be at least 10 m^2 in area. Probably more like 25 m^2, which is approximately equivalent to a wing span of 14 meters, or 45 feet.

Quetzalcoatalus may have been about as massive as a small lion (though some estimates put them more in the 70 kg range), but it was bigger than a WWII fighter, and probably couldn't actually fly, only glide. The largest bird, Argentavis, was around 70 kg. It could probably fly, but may have had considerable difficulty getting off the ground.

There are three ways a gryphon could fly, but each has considerable implications for a game world. The first is low gravity. The second is a denser atmosphere. And the third is magic.

[Conners]

It's lion half would have be abnormally light. 45 feet wouldn't seem so bad for a dragon, but supposedly by using light materials and powerful wing muscles, you could get flight with a smaller wing span.

Will have to look back at the dragon discussion for some references.

[Storm Bringer]

prelude to economic base question -
i'm thinking of a settlement/small city that's larger than just a farm village; but it's not near water, unlike most major settlements from what I understand of history.
The main reason I can think of such a thing woudl happen is if there's a local high value mineable resource. Since shipping by nonwater means tends to be expensive in olden times; only a high value resource would tend to justify a settlement (gold, salt, mithril)

the question:
Are there any good examples of NON-mineable resources (aka resource that aren't mined) that are worth building a city around without good water access?

well, in the right terrain, Water itself (i.e. in an oasis city in a desert). bear in mind any settlement NEEDS to have a reliable supply of fresh water to support itself, be it a spring, or a river that can't be navigated . One of the two major reasons settlements were on rivers was becuase it was easier to move goods along a river using barges than to lug it overland, and this remained true until the invention of railways. the other is that the town was built at a ford or bridge site, i.e. was sat on a bottleneck that foced people to travel though the town. this latter reason also works for other bottlenecks (ie a town at the base of a mountain pass, or at the only good route between city X and city Y that doesn't go though the Bog).


as others said, maybe the town was built in a defensible location to provide safety for travellers, or to control the road (this overlaps with the bottleneck example above).

maybe its just the local market town, where all the local farmers come to sell thier surplus goods.

thiers plenty of reasons build away from a river. thiers just no reason to build away form water

[Yora]

No. Let's leave out the evolutionary absurdity of a six-limbed bird with fur/mammal with feathers and talk about wing load.

The maximum wing load for birds is 25 kg/m^2. Lions can exceed 250 kg, so the wings of a gryphon would need to be at least 10 m^2 in area. Probably more like 25 m^2, which is approximately equivalent to a wing span of 14 meters, or 45 feet.

With gryphons we have the luxury of having the exact skeletons on which it is based.

Spoiler

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And the closest thing to compare these animals with would be a hippopotamus. One of the least likely animals to fly, wings or not.

[Starshade]

A race of Gnome slaves using some martial art? Capoeira is a good starting point I'd think, but it's remarkable how well takedowns and trows fits it, the capoeira I train got takedown and trows, but it's not just slavechains who could have influenced the devlopment, but african religion, and traditions of not fighting with the hands (but with weapons, some tribes never fought with their hands). And the desire to train, without showing what they did.

I know Pa-Kua /baguazhang is fully able to work with only one hand, too. Lots of martial arts would work nicely with the hands chained, with a little creativity.
I would guess the MA would have "chained" and "unchained" forms, if it looked like Kungfu/Karate, with training drills for different situations. In Okinava there was armed drills, say, for fighting with fishing spear, farming untensils as the nunshaku (grain treshing), and a oar.

[awa]

In addition to the points about the animals weight and wing span in real life flying vertebrates are very specialized for flying where as the griffin becuase its body shape is built off a lion is designed for running and pouncing. The griffins second set of legs are largely dead weight and serve no function on a flying predator.

[Togath]

Something that I just now thought of, would a giant insect or arachnid be more plausible if it's chitin evolved to contain very high amounts of metals?, Like the brazilian wandering spider's fangs?

[Jeff the Green]

Something that I just now thought of, would a giant insect or arachnid be more plausible if it's chitin evolved to contain very high amounts of metals?, Like the brazilian wandering spider's fangs?

Someone with more entomological knowledge could be more specific, but the primary problem with giant insects is their respiratory and circulatory systems. They don't scale well

[Togath]

ah, never mind then, I can't see how an extra sturdy chitin would help that.
Do you think a giant vertebrate would be more plausible if it had a skeleton with high concentrations of metal?(if I remember right for vertebrates it's more the skeleton then the lungs that is the problem)

[Yora]

Polymers of chitin and sclerotin, as found in exoskeletons, can be rediculously strong, you only can crush insects because their exoskeleton is very very thin. I never tried eating lobster, but their shells are made from the same stuff. I think you probably can scale it up to almost any scale, the same way the bones of rodents and elephants are made from the same material.

The main reason why insects are confined to such small sizes is indeed their circulatory system. Vertebrates have blood that is pumped through the entire body, from the tiniest fish or kolibri chick up to grown blue whales. Not exactly sure how it works in arthropods, but they lack such a system and oxygen can not travel very far from the point where it inters the body.

However, I see no reason why it would be impossible to evolve such features giving them a functional analog of a circulatory system, which then would allow these species to grow to almost any size. Would probably take millions of years, but in a fictional context there is no reason why certain kinds of spiders and beetles wouldn't have evolved it long before the present.

[Zeful]

Polymers of chitin and sclerotin, as found in exoskeletons, can be rediculously strong, you only can crush insects because their exoskeleton is very very thin. I never tried eating lobster, but their shells are made from the same stuff. I think you probably can scale it up to almost any scale, the same way the bones of rodents and elephants are made from the same material.

The main reason why insects are confined to such small sizes is indeed their circulatory system. Vertebrates have blood that is pumped through the entire body, from the tiniest fish or kolibri chick up to grown blue whales. Not exactly sure how it works in arthropods, but they lack such a system and oxygen can not travel very far from the point where it inters the body.

However, I see no reason why it would be impossible to evolve such features giving them a functional analog of a circulatory system, which then would allow these species to grow to almost any size. Would probably take millions of years, but in a fictional context there is no reason why certain kinds of spiders and beetles wouldn't have evolved it long before the present.

There's also the lack of support and structure chitin provides. Apparently, without a proper endoskeletal system for support, scaling them upwards and accounting for their poor respiration system, they'd still collapse under their own weight.

But yeah, in a fictional context, there's no reason something that resembles a beetle couldn't be the size of a Volkswagen