Does it make sense for completely non-Human races/species to evolve on other continents?
For example, would it make sense for Dragons and Orcs to evolve on a South America-like continent, and Dwarves and Elves evolve on a Europe-like continent?
Do these continents' geographies have to be really different from any of Earth's continents' for all these races to evolve?
Realistically? No.
In a fantasy world? It doesn't matter.
Evolution doesn't work towards a goal. On Earth, when continents separated evolutionary paths diverged. While most geographical features and biomes were present on all continents, the random nature of genetic mutation coupled with natural selection - or evolution - produced varied species filling the same ecological niches. For example, Australia's red kangaroo and North America's pronghorn antelope occupy the same niche while looking completely different.
>Does it make sense for completely non-Human races/species to evolve on other continents?
Of course. Evolution is all about breeding and competition. If they aren't anywhere near each other, why would one species evolving affect the other?
>For example, would it make sense for Dragons and Orcs to evolve on a South America-like continent, and Dwarves and Elves evolve on a Europe-like continent?
Yes.
>Do these continents' geographies have to be really different from any of Earth's continents' for all these races to evolve?
Geographies? Probably not. But you do need to recreate some conditions to create intelligence. We had certain pressures that happened to allow for intelligence, such as our upright stance, our omnivorous diet, our social development, and our relative lack of competition.
Interesting. Now would it be possible for several, or even many sapient species to evolve on a single continent? Or just one per continent. and the rest of the species on said continent are only sentient like animals?
Were being bipedal, adaptability to different environments, and having no competition the only factors that guaranteed Humans could evolve higher intelligence?
Also, I know we out-bred the Neanderthals, so would that situation be the most likely to occur on other continents where Humans never evolved?
i forgot to include our species' diet among those other factors.
It would just be the same as us, the resident species would eventually have one that reigns supreme.
>Now would it be possible for several, or even many sapient species to evolve on a single continent?
Well, it depends. When you look at our species and other human species, we eventually outcompeted ones like the Neanderthals in Europe.
However, if a species is limiting itself to a particular environment, then others species could survive unmolested in those spaces.
>Or just one per continent. and the rest of the species on said continent are only sentient like animals?
One per continent is probably a better idea, unless you can come up with reasonable way to keep some species away from each other.
>Were being bipedal, adaptability to different environments, and having no competition the only factors that guaranteed Humans could evolve higher intelligence?
It didn't guarantee it, but it certainly helped. Intelligence seemed to be built into our species, since it started springing up with each new human species that evolved, without being direct ancestors of us.
But there are many other factors that happened to result in our intelligence, just as it has resulted in intelligence with other animals.
>Also, I know we out-bred the Neanderthals, so would that situation be the most likely to occur on other continents where Humans never evolved?
It could do. Usually, the superior species will wipe out the inferior whenever they're introduced. But, again, if they have different strengths and weaknesses, they might survive.
>Now would it be possible for several, or even many sapient species to evolve on a single continent?
Evolve or survive? And what exactly determines sapience?
Look at hominids. We know now that Neanderthals, Sapiens, Denisovan, and Floresiensis are existed at the same time, if not (mostly) the same space. Several others are suspected. All, known or suspected, have a common ancestor though.
Out of all those hominids, only Sapiens still exists. All the others were out competed and/or killed off by Sapiens while Sapiens had extremely limited technologies.
>Were being bipedal, adaptability to different environments, and having no competition the only factors that guaranteed Humans could evolve higher intelligence?
Who knows? There are decades of doctoral dissertations on the subject yet you want folks on a gaming board to explain it to you in 2000 characters or less? How about doing your own homework?
>Also, I know we out-bred the Neanderthals
You know wrong. We interbred with Neanderthals, not outbred. Denisovans too.
>> so would that situation be the most likely to occur on other continents where Humans never evolved?
Inter-fertility is going to depend on a host of things not the least of which is how far separated are the species in question from their common ancestor.
>realistically? no
>in a fantasy world? it doesn't matter
Who says that fantasy worlds can't be realistic? The definition of "fantasy" is the "fantastically imagined", that doesn't mean that it's arbitrarily "wrong" or "non-existent".
>Evolution is all about breeding and competition
Mmm, wrong, I can see where you're going though. Evolution is about what's best fit for an environment. Breeding and competition is driven by the individual species inhabiting an environment.
>Mmm, wrong,
Mmm, no. Fitting the environment is the result of breeding and competition. They don't just magically start fitting the environment for no reason.
>Evolution is about what's best fit for an environment.
No. Evolution is about what's good enough for a given biome at a given time, not what's "best".
Evolution has no goal other than survival. Evolution does not work towards perfection.
Fantasy is inherently unrealistic.
It can at least be sensible
inb4 some fucking pedant tries to say that just because you're portraying things that haven't happened in real life they cannot follow many of the same natural laws of our own world and maintain internal consistent and follow cause/effect
I liked in Arcanum how Dwarves and Men were the natural races, product of evolution, and everyone else is product of a much more recent magic storm hundreds of thousands of years ago, while Orcs are humans cursed by an even more recent spell.
Well, they can follow the natural laws of our own world, but they don't necessarily have to. I'll agree internal consistency and following cause and effect are generally a good idea for most fantasy worlds.
The word you're looking for is verisimilitude. It precisely describes the choice of realism or lack thereof in fantasy. It is a thing in the English speaking literary tradition. You can stop arguing now. And if he continues to argue, stop feeding the troll- the earnest question has been answered.
If you want to write a fantasy/extreme alternate history based on known natural laws applied as we understand them today, that's cool. Some people might call it sci-fi, but whatever.
But if you're going to do that, I don't see why you'd restrict yourself to a world of orcs, dragons, and elves that'll feel like most other pseudomedieval D&D worlds.
I can imagine circumstances where your premise would work. Arguably it has (dolphins, elephants, etc are cognitively very different from us, and don't have our facility for tool use, but there's reasonable evidence that their brains are about as complex as ours).
If two technological species are competing for the same resources, they'll probably fight, or one will dominate another unless they're somehow isolated artificially. For example, it's hard to imagine a world where a pure clade of neanderthals would survive to the present day unless they were in the deepest, darkest wilderness.
>Does it make sense for completely non-Human races/species to evolve on other continents?
Depends on how nonhuman we're talking.
As I'm sure other anons have pointed out, Orcs, Dwarves, Gnomes, Goliaths, Halflings and maybe even Elves are entirely reasonable evolutions of the basic proto-human creature in the same vein as neanderthals. Whilst of course in the real world the neanderthals and their like were entirely bred out, forced out, or starved out of existence, there's no reason that your fantasy humanoids can't become isolated from other strains and survive until the invention of ships good enough to end their isolation. Maybe your orcs come from the local equivalent of the americas, or your dwarves are just so well adapted to mountains and high-altitude life that nobody else ever bothers going there?
Developing in parallel, with multiple humanoid species sharing the shame location and ecological niche, and still coexisting? Much, much less likely. Not physically impossible, but so unlikely that it's not really feasible at all.
Sadly Kobolds, Gnolls, Lizardfolk, Merfolk, Myconids, basically any creature that isn't an ape of some kind, have absolutely no evolutionary basis for their existence, at least not simultaneously with humans- why did another humanoid species, completely unconnected to the ape-based creatures, evolve at almost exactly the same time? A few thousand years is a tiny blip evolutionarily, but once one creature has become intelligent a few thousand years should be more than enough for them to get to a situation where no others can manage it.
>Evolve or survive? And what exactly determines sapience?
Both. Sapience in this case means intelligence equal to or greater than a Human's. Advanced tool use, social groups, languages, etc determine sapience.
>Who knows? There are decades of doctoral dissertations on the subject yet you want folks on a gaming board to explain it to you in 2000 characters or less? How about doing your own homework?
Some of the other anons in this thread have done a good job giving me at least the basics as to why Humans evolved to be intelligent. Agree that I should do more independent research, though.
>You know wrong. We interbred with Neanderthals, not outbred. Denisovans too.
My mistake.
>>Sapience in this case means intelligence equal to or greater than a Human's. Advanced tool use, social groups, languages, etc determine sapience.
That's where your realistic fantasy fails. You see, those other hominids I listed had pretty much the same "kit" as Sapiens but they're all extinct now. All it took were a few minor advantages and Sapiens sent packing Denisovan, Florensiensis, Neanderthal, Cro Magnon, and the others which are suspected to have existed. Sapiens is here and the rest joined the Dodo.
Despite that real world example, you want Orcs on one continent, Elves on another, Humans on a third, and so forth to somehow survive up until a medieval analog. The reality of the matter is that one of those sentient species is going to gain some advantage during the the Lower or Middle Paleolithic and KILL OFF all the others just like Sapiens killed off those other hominids.
Sprinkling them around on other continents isn't going to help matters either. Sapiens filled the globe and killed off all the other advanced hominids during the Lower Paleolithic. Sapiens reached Australia/New Guinea 40K years ago. Distributing orcs here, elves there, etc. isn't going to stop one sapient race from driving all the others into extinction before anything like "advanced tool use" is developed.
>>Some of the other anons in this thread have done a good job giving me at least the basics...
No. They've just parroted the usual grammar school/common knowledge tropes.
I point out AGAIN that several hominid species and subspecies achieved intelligence or sapience or whatever term you want to use, but ONE of those species WIPED OUT all the others while still at a Lower Paleolithic hunter gatherer level of technology.
One of your fantasy species is going to accumulate enough minor advantages very early on in the process to kill off all the others. All of them somehow evolving together while also occupying the same ecological niche WILL NOT HAPPEN.
Bullshit.
That's certainly one scenario, maybe even the most likely, but there's no fundamental reason it's the only possible option.
Even assuming one sapient species eventually comes out on top the game setting could take place before then, in fact, that's basically the case with tolkein which a lot of modern fantasy has its roots in.
>Bullshit.
Do tell.
>That's certainly one scenario, maybe even the most likely, but there's no fundamental reason it's the only possible option.
It's the only option rooted in reality for the one reason you're deliberately ignoring. Evolution.
>Even assuming one sapient species eventually comes out on top the game setting could take place before then
Before then? On Earth - you know, REALITY? - it happened during the Lower Paleolithic. Is the OP's setting going to feature hand cobbles and skins or a "medieval" level of technology.
> in fact, that's basically the case with tolkein which a lot of modern fantasy has its roots in.
You are trolling aren't you?
Tolkien's setting didn't have one sapient species wipe out the other during the Lower Paleolithic because, among many other things, his setting didn't even have a Lower Paleolithic.
Eru and the Valar "nerfed" the Elves by scooping most of them up and transferring them to another continent where they were handed Iron Age technologies and competed against no one. The Dwarves were kept in stasis until the time was right from them to emerge and they "appeared" with Iron Age tech too. Orcs etc. were bred from captured Elves and, again, handed all the knowledge they needed. Finally Humans wandered in and, through contact with the Elves, were handed everything too.
No sapient species EVOLVED in LotR. They were created with their societies all but fully formed No sapient species DEVELOPED their technologies either. They were gifted them by the gods instead.
What you're deliberately ignoring is the fact that the OP want evolution to occur in their setting and evolution does not occur in LotR.
>Do tell
The user I responded to made the claim that any possible incidence of co-existing sapient creatures would end up with one wiping out the other and "reigning supreme".
It's on them, or you if you're them or want to defend their claims, to prove that bullshit is some universal law.
>It's the only option rooted in reality for the one reason you're deliberately ignoring. Evolution.
Wait, so you're actually arguing that things exactly as they happened on earth are the only possible way for things to go regardless of hypothetically different circumstances?
I can't tell if you're baiting or stupid/autistic.
>Before then? On Earth - you know, REALITY? - it happened during the Lower Paleolithic. Is the OP's setting going to feature hand cobbles and skins or a "medieval" level of technology.
Idk, I'm not op and I didn't see them mention it as I skimmed the thread, regardless see above.
>everying in response to the tolkein comment
Completely missing the point.
The granddaddy of most modern fantasy involves multiple fantasy races interacting and co-existing before most of them fading away to leave one reigning supreme.
Obvious precedent and inspiration for hypothetical "races" co-existing and interacting such to provide a fantasy game setting in the period before most of the races fade away to leave one reigning supreme kinda like real life.
>You are trolling aren't you?
Right back at you, although after reading your post I honestly suspect genuine non-meme autism just as much.
>That's where your realistic fantasy fails...
Except he's not talking about human intra-competition, he's talking about an entirely different evolutionary line.
>Despite that real world example...
Considering different races and cultures managed to survive up until a medieval analog, so the assumption one will wipe out all the others before reaching that point is wrong.
>Sprinkling them around on other continents isn't going to help matters either...
Except it would. There were no other humans on the Americas, for example, until our species arrived there. Remove the ice bridge and that would've been an isolated continent. You're making the assumption a fantasy world would be as connected as ours.
>No. They've just parroted the usual grammar school/common knowledge tropes.
Ironic, for someone who's done just that to accuse others of it.
>I point out AGAIN that several hominid species and subspecies achieved intelligence...
And many other species are also developing intelligence. They're still here.
>One of your fantasy species is going to accumulate enough minor advantages...
Nope.
>All of them somehow evolving together...
And here's the crux of why your argument failed. You're relying on an assumption.
OP, ignore that guy. He's an unimaginative dick with only the basest of education in evolutionary history.
Dis a good post
>Sapiens sent packing Denisovan, Florensiensis, Neanderthal, Cro Magnon
Cro magnons are modern humans you idiot.
He's right that you have to up the geographic isolation. Also no recent ice ages to create land bridges that permitted many of these migrations. Competition and extinction follow on very quickly from contact in geological terms.