Being the kind of guy who wonders about "everyday life" in medieval fantasy settings, I wonder how certain monsters might impact life in the Flanaess. As you might expect, some of them can play major roles in sanitation, economics, and other areas of life. Here are some examples:
-Otyughs:This one is pretty obvious, isn't it? Why risk the wrath of local druids, fairy-folk, and other nature-lovers, not to mention endanger the health of yourself and others, by throwing your sewage and garbage into the river when you can feed it to a monster who literally eats this stuff for breakfast? I imagine a whole family of otyughs can satisfy the sanitation needs of Greyhawk, and that most large cities will try and acquire otyughs as part of their public works.
Daring entrepreneurs could even try breeding and selling otyughs (like that clever guy who started the 1-800 GOT JUNK company, someone could make a fortune this way, by dealing with someone absolutely no one else enjoys)
-Slimes, Oozes and Jellies: Green slime makes a wonderful tool for interrogation, as do black puddings, for example. Either they talk, or they get turned into green slime, or slowly burned by the black puddings. Puddings can also eat garbage in the same way otyughs do-IIRC, one enterprising fellow in the 1988 City of Greyhawk boxed set was breeding and selling puddings to the Union of Streetcleaners and Sewermen.
-Giant bees:: The 1st Edition Monster Manual II describes how "royal jelly" can be prepared into a rich unguent that is prized by noble women for maintaining ther youth. Each jar can sell for three to eight thousand gold pieces on the open market. How many enterprising druids could make money and build a positive reputation for their order by breeding giant bees and selling the honey and unguent? You don't even need to be a druid-how many clever folk have become wealthy through the breeding of giant bees and the selling of their rich honey and the unguents that can come from it?
These are just some examples. Any other ideas? Could monsters contribute to the economy? Live openly in human societies? Take care of sanitation and other messy matters? _________________ <div align="left">Going to war without Keoland is like going to war without a pipe organ. They both make a lot of noise and they're both a lot of dead weight, so what's the point in taking them along? </div>
Giant Fire Beetles
A long tradition (since B2, Keep on the Borderlands) of sacrificing
their lives to make soft romantic lighting for adventuring companies.
Domesticated Minor Elementals
Air – keeps your house dusted and fresh
Fire – for all your cooking and needs
Earth – helps around the garden, minor mining ventures.
Water – great for mixing drinks
Nothing says style and power as having a tame Cloaker for your cloak.
Nothing says “this guy like gothic architecture” like having real Gargoyles perched on your house.
Phase Spider silk lingerie, for the underwear that’s barely there.
Racks of Shocker Lizards = cheap electrical power.
Lesser Undead (Skeletons, Zombies) work great for grunt work (unloading ships, mining, digging ditches)
Lesser Undead (Skeletons, Zombies) work great for grunt work (unloading ships, mining, digging ditches)
In canon, this was taken to its logical conclusion by Delglath, who started executing all the labourers of Rinloru and reanimating them as mindless undead.
Outsiders are also good for construction work. Reydrich used dergholoths to build his tower in Zelradton - and made very sure that anyone with seditious tendencies saw them at work.
Being the kind of guy who wonders about "everyday life" in medieval fantasy settings, I wonder how certain monsters might impact life in the Flanaess. As you might expect, some of them can play major roles in sanitation, economics, and other areas of life. . . . Could monsters contribute to the economy? Live openly in human societies? Take care of sanitation and other messy matters?
Logically. Yes. Some monsters would be suitable to being tamed. Some might even be domesticated. Others could be harnessed albeit with dangerous consequences if control was ever lost over them.
It would be fascinating to see a "monstrous ecology" type resource that looked at various monsters in this way in detail.
Unfortunately, even Eberron, which posits magic as a harnessed "technology" does not look at monsters in this way.
This is a great idea for a book or a series of CF articles. Go CSL! _________________ GVD
While I definitely like the take on ecology that CSL's asking about, somehow harvesting monsters in this utilitarian manner feels much more FR-like than GH-like to me. It reminds me of the use of gates in trash cans for household disposal, and some of the fantasticality saps from the setting as a result.
I think I'm reacting to the idea of this stuff being mass-marketed/mass-produced/commoditized vs. the idea at its root. Some druids and halflings who have cornered the market on raising giant bees in and around GH City, or a small company of mercenaries who retrieve otyughs alive from the wild so that they can be sold in GH City is one thing, but when these commercial enterprises appear everywhere to me at least they feel like they cheapen the monsters.
I had a similar reaction to the carrion crawler poison factory in the newest installment of the Age of Worms: a neat idea, but the systematicness and Dickensian-factory-like nature of how the idea was executed put me off some. _________________ Allan Grohe (grodog@gmail.com)
http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/greyhawk.html
Prochytes: “Varthalon wrote: Lesser Undead (Skeletons, Zombies) work great for grunt work (unloading ships, mining, digging ditches)
In canon, this was taken to its logical conclusion by Delglath, who started executing all the labourers of Rinloru and reanimating them as mindless undead. “
The Olman domesticated Gibbering Mouthers, although I am not sure what they used them for. I think tSB simply said “beasts of burden.”
The rampant disease that was one of the reasons for the Olman fall turned one such creature in to the Greater Gibbering Mouther, Xuxe…, the Eye God that now rules the former capital.
If anyone remembers The Free City of Haven ,from Gamelords, the city had mass transit in the form of centar-operated trollys. And Bluffside ran its sewer system through a series of gelatinous cubes to clean the water supply, burning off sections of the cubes when they got too large.
While I definitely like the take on ecology that CSL's asking about, somehow harvesting monsters in this utilitarian manner feels much more FR-like than GH-like to me. It reminds me of the use of gates in trash cans for household disposal, and some of the fantasticality saps from the setting as a result.
I think I'm reacting to the idea of this stuff being mass-marketed/mass-produced/commoditized vs. the idea at its root. Some druids and halflings who have cornered the market on raising giant bees in and around GH City, or a small company of mercenaries who retrieve otyughs alive from the wild so that they can be sold in GH City is one thing, but when these commercial enterprises appear everywhere to me at least they feel like they cheapen the monsters.
I had a similar reaction to the carrion crawler poison factory in the newest installment of the Age of Worms: a neat idea, but the systematicness and Dickensian-factory-like nature of how the idea was executed put me off some.
Most assuredly, I never intended for anyone to develop a mass commercial industry on these things, but seeing otyughs bred or captured in the wild, or having a small group of druids and/or halflings who raise giant bees in and around Greyhawk to make a mint preparing the unguents those rich and noble women enjoy...and probably pay even higher prices for if they have to have the stuff transported to Leukish, Niole Dra, Rel Mord, or whatever other part of the Flanaess they live in...
But I like some of the ideas here, most notably on how giant fire beetles are used for light, as the frost giants in "Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl" do. How could I have forgotten such an elementary use? _________________ <div align="left">Going to war without Keoland is like going to war without a pipe organ. They both make a lot of noise and they're both a lot of dead weight, so what's the point in taking them along? </div>
Bound elementals are also put to various uses in canon. The baths at Innspa are heated by a harnessed fire elemental. Also, in EX2 The Land Beyond The Magic Mirror , Merlynd's home appliances are powered by a captive lightning quasi-elemental, although that domicile is not on Oerth but rather in its own wild and wacky demi-plane, and so probably not a good example to follow.
-Otyughs:This one is pretty obvious, isn't it? Why risk the wrath of local druids, fairy-folk, and other nature-lovers, not to mention endanger the health of yourself and others, by throwing your sewage and garbage into the river when you can feed it to a monster who literally eats this stuff for breakfast? I imagine a whole family of otyughs can satisfy the sanitation needs of Greyhawk, and that most large cities will try and acquire otyughs as part of their public works.
Daring entrepreneurs could even try breeding and selling otyughs (like that clever guy who started the 1-800 GOT JUNK company, someone could make a fortune this way, by dealing with someone absolutely no one else enjoys)
We had a bit of a discussion about this recently and certain people seem to think this would be very uncool in GH. Personally I wonder why. Otuyghs obviously have a semblence of intelligence as it can speak and is neutral creature (usually).
Of course lots of dung and crap (and ash) get used as fertiliser in medieval farming society that GH obviously is but there could still be need for Otuyghs. Not all human feces and piss is going to end up as fertiliser, bleach, etc.
Consider this; What if actual Otuygh dung would be a very high quality fertiliser (surely it cannot have a 100% effective digestive system) and actually free of problems associated with human feces. A merchant would be literally earning solid gold out of crap that is reprocessed with Otuygh.
It would be mutually beneficial for both merchant (money) and Otugyh (place to be, things to eat), so why not? Even in this case, getting Otyughs to do this could be quite hard so it would not be widespread, as well as the amount of dung one could extract from Otyugh.
After all, we want to avoid the situation of Nodwick comic where a dungeon turned into a native-art & organic food shop when they realised the benefit of 'going into business' than waiting for an adventurers to come and whack them
While I definitely like the take on ecology that CSL's asking about, somehow harvesting monsters in this utilitarian manner feels much more FR-like than GH-like to me. It reminds me of the use of gates in trash cans for household disposal, and some of the fantasticality saps from the setting as a result.
I think I'm reacting to the idea of this stuff being mass-marketed/mass-produced/commoditized vs. the idea at its root. . . . when these commercial enterprises appear everywhere to me at least they feel like they cheapen the monsters.
I had a similar reaction to the carrion crawler poison factory in the newest installment of the Age of Worms: a neat idea, but the systematicness and Dickensian-factory-like nature of how the idea was executed put me off some.
I agree with this in spirit and follow a simplar course IMC but, if we imagine GH was real and the monsters appeared with the frequency indicated in the MM, it would seem some taming or domestication would take place, perhaps on a large scale, if there was no impediment and sufficient benefit. While I cannot advocate for mass monster harnessing, I really can't oppose it either. The compromise I tend to accept is that it is mainly the demi-humans who wrangle monsters, not humans, who havce a more adversarial relationship with nature compared to the demis, excepting human druids to a degree. _________________ GVD
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