- #1
some bloke
- 279
- 98
So I am writing a campaign for dungeons and dragons, and I have just started putting together a part of the setting in which a kingdom was shrunk about 2000 years prior, and stored in a small container. The upshot of this (by my own authority as the author) is that time travels about 10 times as fast within the shrunken kingdom as outside. So to the people outside it has been 2000 years, but to the kingdom it has been 20,000 years.
The Kingdom is isolated from the magic of the world, so has instead developed technology (where D&D typically sits in a fairly static state of technological progression, with swords and bows).
I have decided that the sentient populace has developed to a near-future style of scifi, with modern type guns being the main weapons but with a smattering of more powerful railguns and plasmaguns thrown into the mix, so that side of things is fairly well on its way to completion.
My next thoughts are those of the the evolution of species within such a confined space. Essentially the kingdom is about 5,000 square miles, with walls around it and a ceiling which is perpetually shrouded in cloud, and produces a variety of weather (except clear skies, of course) to keep the ecosystem going, with day & night cycles still occurring due to outside magic. things like water draining away and that sort of thing I will hand-wave away, it doesn't need to be hard sci-fi too much. But will the animals have evolved in such conditions? I would guess anything migratory would have to change its habits, which might in turn lead to changes in the populations of their carnivores and scavengers, as long-distance tracking isn't so important. I don't think 20,000 years is really enough for significant evolutionary changes (enough to warrant more than just a slight change in the description, eg. migratory birds becoming fatter due to a lack of need/capability to move, so moving toward becoming ground birds. that sort of thing.
thoughts?
The Kingdom is isolated from the magic of the world, so has instead developed technology (where D&D typically sits in a fairly static state of technological progression, with swords and bows).
I have decided that the sentient populace has developed to a near-future style of scifi, with modern type guns being the main weapons but with a smattering of more powerful railguns and plasmaguns thrown into the mix, so that side of things is fairly well on its way to completion.
My next thoughts are those of the the evolution of species within such a confined space. Essentially the kingdom is about 5,000 square miles, with walls around it and a ceiling which is perpetually shrouded in cloud, and produces a variety of weather (except clear skies, of course) to keep the ecosystem going, with day & night cycles still occurring due to outside magic. things like water draining away and that sort of thing I will hand-wave away, it doesn't need to be hard sci-fi too much. But will the animals have evolved in such conditions? I would guess anything migratory would have to change its habits, which might in turn lead to changes in the populations of their carnivores and scavengers, as long-distance tracking isn't so important. I don't think 20,000 years is really enough for significant evolutionary changes (enough to warrant more than just a slight change in the description, eg. migratory birds becoming fatter due to a lack of need/capability to move, so moving toward becoming ground birds. that sort of thing.
thoughts?