Persistent worlds or series that span a long time frame
Well, since I have been reading so slow and have not been able to put out reviews at the pace I want I figured I would follow up with a small article on a few questions to ponder about persistent worlds or series that span a long time frame. Let us start this article by getting the questions themselves out of the way:
How does population remain stable in these worlds?
How is it that technology does not take a larger foothold in these worlds and magic?
How do dungeons exist? Why aren’t these places overrun with adventures looking for loot?
So what I am going to discuss is pretty much just my opinion on this subject and really I hope to get a good forum discussion going on this subject as it has always been something that has intrigued me in the fantasy world. I’m not here to answer these questions per say, but rather get everyone’s thoughts. By persistent worlds we are talking of a Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Xanth, etc… this article can also take into account those books/trilogies that speak of more then just 100 years but rather a larger chunk of time in that world. The questions above pop out to me while reading and I want to delve into them and hope a combined effort can shed some more light on them, or maybe just my ramblings will put my mind at ease.
How does population remain stable in these worlds?
All of these questions are going to be a comparison to the current state of the Earth. We have a standard landmass in these worlds, so based on the current model of Earth all these frontiers and etc would be taken over by more and more people, and then one would think as more towns and cities are put up there would be more and more births resulting in the land becoming more populated. One can attribute this to many things depending on the world, but one would think that constant monster raids play a part in this. Each of these smaller towns and villages probably lose people every month to something in the wild, and with the lax laws in most of the larger towns the occasional (or routine) death here and there goes unnoticed. Then we have the fact that there are usually a bunch of wars, border skirmishes going on, and small mercenary wars this can also thin the population. Take into account disease and the living conditions we are left with a pretty stable population number across these worlds. Is it not conceivable though that as each of these issues are dealt with that we would experience a population boom? It just seems that they never move forward with conquering the world and bending it to the humanoid way. One would think over time that humans or humanoids would ban together and put up more towns more cities and the frontier would disappear. I mean look at Earth in the past 400 years we have pretty much left no frontier on this planet, well except the ocean, but these worlds in the fantasy realm have been civilized for a lot longer then Earth yet they still have vast areas of frontier. While this leads to good stories is it something that is believable? Many of you will say humans have been around for thousands of years and still have only really conquered nature across the world in the past few hundreds of years or that there are still areas unexplored. I counter with in the same time that humans have existed on Earth with no magic some of these fantasy worlds feel like 80% of the world is still unconquered frontier, while it is probably the opposite for Earth. I contribute this to a stable population of these worlds and then the population increase on Earth.
How is it that technology does not take a larger foothold in these worlds and magic?
I want to start this topic by saying I am speaking about strictly fantasy based worlds. For all understanding outside of the magic, it seems that the general principles of Earth are followed on most of these worlds, as in chemistry and physics to an extent. So we know that these worlds have the came chemicals that would make up gun powder, they have steam for steam engines, and other such early inventions, so why over the thousands of years do we not see any of these items existing in these strict fantasy worlds? Are these worlds so caught up in war and monster hunting? It would seem that some of these humans would pursue these technologies. As magic is usually set aside for the privileged of lucky as the case may be, most of the peasant population has no access to magic but could have access to these technology advances. The foot soldier would benefit from a gun, the river boats from a steam engine, and the work shops from electricity.
In the thousands of years that these worlds exist we have very few of these avenues being pursued. If we look at Joel Rosenberg’s world we have a group of people from Earth go to a strictly fantasy world and create gunpowder and guns, and the wizards then create a sort of magic gunpowder that can be used by anyone as well. Why is it that everyone in the Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance have a gun, it seems it would be the next logical step after a crossbow. Maybe in these worlds a magic crossbow would be better then a gun but it would seem a gun would be cheaper. Same with transportation you have merchant caravans so why not a car or steamboat? The need is there for these items so why are they not developed?
Is it that the people of magic eliminate these people who stumble upon these discoveries? This would seem the most logical answer. People in power don’t want other people to get the same power, so maybe the magic users the nobles just track down these intelligent minds and eliminate them. Or is it that the people that would be intelligent enough to think of these ideas just become wizards themselves? Could be in some worlds, but in the worlds where magic is innate and not learned this can not be the case. How do these worlds remain such a backwater lot?
How do dungeons exist? Why aren’t these places over run with adventures looking for loot?
Maybe this doesn’t apply to all worlds but it always seems that there is a plethora of dungeons to explore in the Forgotten Realms. How is this? The pull of riches and magic must make it so that over the years many adventures hit these dungeons or attack that lair. Also these adventures always go to these dungeons in small groups. What is stopping the larger towns and in other worlds the larger kingdoms from going to these places with a huge force and conquering all these dungeons? It always seem that these adventures take place with a few friends, I can tell you for me if I lived in the Forgotten Realms I would be taking at least 20 of my closest friends for these little adventures into Random Dungeon #132. It seems most of the peasant population in FR doesn’t have a gold to their name but each of these dungeons are overflowing with riches. I have never agreed with the take the small team in, we aren’t doing a POW extraction they are there to kill monsters and get loot. These dungeons that have been there for so long do they just continue to kill adventurer after adventurer? With all these poor people and peasants in the world don’t they band together to overrun these places by force for the chance of gold? Just seems like it shouldn’t work
Final Thoughts
This is the first Dalerone’s Musing Article. These are more thought provoking articles that will hopefully lead to some discussion on the board, but even if they don’t it really just allows me to give you some unsolicited brain thoughts I have.
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