In The Beginning

One of the problems with introducing magic into real world ecology is maintaining the balance. For every new species, the competition for resources gets more heated. Of course, nature would compensate by making food more plentiful, but you cannot have your cake and eat it too. Adding dragons alone to a world of say 400 AD earth would cause many issues. First of which is how many humans or cows or deer does a dragon eat per month? How many dragons per hundred square miles of land are required to maintain the species? Myths aside, you could not just insert 20 dragons in all of Europe and expect them to survive unless they hatched prodigious amounts of young every year.

Also, magic is a technology. Given a standard very old age category D&D dragon with maximum spells and bonuses, how long would it last today against modern weapons? Not long. How primitive does weaponry have to be for dragons to just stay ahead of the extinction curve, but not really flourish? Would the same dragon survive Agincourt if the English brought their bows? How about Caesar's Legions? Dragons good against ground troops with limited missile defense? What if a spellcaster was there? Multiple spellcasters? Dragons are the type of threat that smart rulers eliminate. To extinction.

So, if the civilization is capable of supporting a standard D&D group, then the population base is huge. For a population base to become huge, the territory must be tamed with no credible threats or hindrances to food production. Again, how many cows or sheep does a dragon eat? Kings would not tolerate wolves or any other predator. At what point in your timeline do dragons start to dwindle?

Ok, so maybe the dragons all live in the wild, outside the kingdoms of men, elves, dwarves, orcs, hobgoblins, centaurs, etc. Dragons were killed by heroes of the first kings of whatever country we are speaking of. That also goes for all other big baddies and evil races.

Of course, all these creatures of myth have to have their own homelands and ecologies to survive and flourish (just to fall to our adventurers later). That means less space for man. Elves, dwarves and even halflings need their own hard-won space.

Clearly, as these various homelands grow, these races will meet and conflict. How does this turn out? Do elves have superior magic and enslave the humans? Do dwarves have superior weapons and slay the others?

Sustainable balance is our quest.

Apologies

I fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is 'Never get involved in a land war in Asia,' but only slightly less well known is this:

Never start a blog just before two of your co-workers leave on the eve of peak season.

The blog shall resume after Christmas.

Welcome to Rheen

Greetings.

For those few of you who come to this dim corner of the Internet, this blog is all about the creation of my alternate-earth fantasy role-playing world, Rheen. I doubt that I will ever publish outside this blog, but all content in this blog is copyright by me, Michael Trezevant Smith. The purpose of this blog is to share the creation process with anyone who is interested. That interest may not extend beyond the handful of poor souls(our gaming group) that will one day adventure in Rheen, but all are welcome to comment.

Rheen is a world where magic have always existed. While countless authors have created worlds were magic is present, how often have the principles of natural selection been applied to the creatures and cultures imagined? I'm not sure that anyone would allow science or logic get in the way of a good story, but I'm stubborn that way.

Rheen, by the way, is named after the element Rhenium. More on that much later.

So, if we take an alternate earth and add magic at it's formation, what do we get? Well, we have to define what magic is. Certainly, magic is a force. It is a force that can be directed by mental effort, perhaps with some training. Magic has different states. It must have a latent state that does not actively effect anything, a chaotic, active state where it can be formed by the mind , and a directed, purposeful state where it effects its surroundings. I view naturally occurring magic like a radioactive element. It has a very weak effect in small quantities widely dispersed, it is more dangerous and unpredictable as it is pulled together, yet it can be beneficial or very destructive when crafted with purpose.

That is not a very good definition. Let's be more specific. Magic, like light, has qualities of both energy and particle, but has no mass. Magic can be found in most atomic structures on Rheen in a latent, passive state. When the spark of life arrived on Rheen, magic (it might have been observed) was also there. As life struggled on Rheen, magic on a very weak level, and over many eons, began to appear in many species of organisms. Life adapted to incorporate the use of magic as a survival skill. Thus, separate species evolved with magical properties in their very genetic composition. As time went forward and intelligence developed, life had already developed the ability to manipulate magical energies through both subconscious and finally, conscious methods.

So, life forms over time developed a connective sensitivity with magic and subconsciously draw magic to themselves. This is the basis of Spiritual Magic on Rheen. As species became conscious of their ability to directly manipulate magic with mental focus, Elemental Magic on Rheen was born.

Alright. So, fire-breathing dragons and mages have a logical place in the environment of Rheen. There is still much to consider. There are many more mythical species to add to Rheen, and each species must compete for survival. Like on our Earth, the histories of the various civilizations are tied to this process.

Now, the question is, where in time do we want to start? There are three different eras that interest me in starting my campaign. The first involves the Rise of the Deities (9,000 BC-2,000BC), Late Roman Empire (300AD-500AD), and a Steampunk Age (1700AD-1850AD).

There are, of course, many issues with trying to follow a historical timeline when too many fantasy elements have been added. So, my plan is to start with the cradle of civilization and slowly grow it from there. It may be that Rome never forms, or any number of differences develop. The key is that the logic behind any decisions is sound and consistent.

To this end, I am going to use a wide brush to paint pre-9,000BC. Non-human races will have their own origins and homelands, which will be handled later. To start, I'm going to establish the human race and branch out from there.

As always, your comments are welcome!