So fantasy worlds are often full of monsters. Dragons, hydras, giants, demons, gorgons and other stuff...

Most creatures are static. They are what they are.

Humanoids advance and create things. They'd only need to survive long enough to stop being 'humans' and start being 'bipedal engineers with projectile weaponry and environment-formed artificial resilience in the form of armor and buildings'.

Even a tarrasque would take a little bit to claw through a stone wall.

And humans are only the 3rd smartest creatures on earth anyway behind the dolphins and mice.

Humanity fucking dies.

The end.

This. We got where we are, largely because our intelligence allowed us to outcompete other animals and remove ourselves from the hunter>prey dynamic.

In a fantasy world with all the kind of bullshit there usually is, realistically speaking humanity would never reach a point to compete with the others without help. Either a god taking pity/favoring humanity, or stronger races protecting or keeping humans around.

Even then, it's far more likely that humanity dies out before it even properly becomes humanity in the first place. The only reason humans exist in these settings to begin with, is because we ourselves are human and need something similar or exactly like us to relate to or insert as.

This actually is something I've put some thought into, albeit with retards to settings where humans coexist with dinosaurs.

Firstly, agrarian society as we know it doesn't get off the ground when there are predators of humans roaming around. Whether they're ceratosaurus or vampires, setting up a plot of land is just not gonna cut it here. Thus, anyone interested in surviving will set shop in areas that are defensible against local predators. This really will vary depending on the nature of the in the region.

This means that hunter gathering will be a more viable and rwliable means of bringing in food. Kill a sauropod, and you and the whole tribe is set for a month. Given the heights that humans can reach, simply through hard work in most RPG settings, attacking a killing megafauna head on is a very plausible task for the tribe's hunter class.

All of which brings us to the hyper predators. Contrary to popular belief, anything thw size of a tyrannosaur is absolutely not going to give a fuck about humans unless it is absolutely STARVING. They might be attracted to a group of them (another reason agrarian society is a bad idea here), but a few wandering out in the wilderness are of so little consequence that theyjust won't care. Dragons will give even less of a fuck, because pre industrial humans taste stringy and don't even have any precious metals.

All of this actually does give plenty of opportunity for recognizable civilization to arise. Magic takes the place of technological innovation for the most part, and experimentation is geared towards killing those fucking things with the teeth. Eventually and adventurer class arises, whose only job is to go out, kill the ugly things, take their shit, and tell stories about it later.

tl;dr, it all fits together quite well, and goes with the tradional conception of the D&Dverse quite nicely.

Humanity likely would have clustered in areas that are "relatively" safe and aggressively purged threats within those areas similar to how wolves, large cats, bears and other predators ended up being wiped out by humanity in many areas IRL

In those clustered areas we would have been forced to compete for whatever resources are available resulting in near constant conflict.

In addition to that the sheer population pressure would have resulted in mass exodus situations where people would attempt to colonize less hospitable locations, still suffering high casualties but simply due to numbers and migration from safer areas reinforcing those numbers they'd be able to wipe out any threat that can't match or overcome the human population.

Humanity would have also been very likely to take up whatever "outside" assistance they can acquire (gods/demon pacts/etc.) and would have sought that assistance with a level of ruthlessness proportionate to the pressure applied on them by any outside threat.

Don't forget OP was mostly referring to mythical creatures not dinosaurs

Though to be honest in most cases lore usually suggests that any powerful mythical creatures are few in number. Usually the more powerful the creature the fewer of them there are.

Regardless of how powerful the creature, all alone it would likely die when facing an army or clever and intelligent hunters.

Humans might not be great at fighting bears, alligators, and wolves--but we're good at impacting our environment to benefit us and make it harder for them to get to us.
And the important thing to note is that while there are situations where they could go out of their way, risk their own hides, and still kill us, it wouldn't be worth it most of the time: it would take too much energy, or they'd be at risk for being seriously hurt for what they would gain from it.

And if there's a fantasy beast where that wouldn't hold true it means you're either playing a bad system or using a bad setting, writing a bad campaign, or thinking too much and too literally about these things.

if we're factoring in fantasy world bullshit, though, you have to also consider that bullshit might work in our favor. maybe the other monsters hate each other more than us, and that conflict keeps them in check. or if there's magic, you better believe we'd learn it the same way we learned to use tools.

That is assuming that humanity gets the opportunity to truly compete by achieving higher intelligence and a biped stance.

Realistically, I don't see humanity even beginning. Recall every standard fantasy world race that is on par, greater, or nearly as intelligent as humans. Each and every one of them is in direct or indirect competition with humanity and each-other. Humanity is at an even greater disadvantage if human precursors are late to the party and come into being after all the others.

Barring some human favoring cataclysm, one or more of those races will achieve civilization first, and all others will basically be doomed to the fate shared by all other animals in our human dominated earth.

Humans are used as slaves by various types of intelligent races because they're intelligent enough to understand commands more complex than "sit" and roll". Eventually small, isolated communities of escaped or freed slaves (left to themselves because of slave overpopulation, slaves getting close to becoming too numerous or some shit) start forming in isolated places were other beasts wont go, for climatic or geographical reasons, simply because they're not as resilient as humans.
Thats all I cant think of., other than ·some god protected them"

Most monsters are just big animals, the ones that can actually take down whole cities and countries are super rare and inactive for very long periods of time, and usually have ways to be at least avoided.

You realize you made Monster Hunter.

Monster Hunter?

Same way any animals do in the wild; there's a balance between their ability to reproduce and the predators that kill them.

In the 5e DMG, but also applicable to other fantasy settings, it mentions that the assumption is that humanoids don't rule the world. They have cities, maybe small kingdoms, but they don't have huge connected nations that dominate the countryside. Even those places that are nominally part of a strong nation (Cormyr, Breland) are wild and dangerous the moment you get off the beaten path.

Humanity and other humanoids survive because they band together, yes, but they aren't the apex animal they are in real life.

Are adventurers plot armor? Because I assume they actually are the counter to this. Exceptional people willing to risk much for greater gains. Most die, but the borders of civlization are expanded.

My setting left the Stone Age only after the first adventurers defeated the Fey controling most of the continent.

Also, even crude forms of magic and worshipping minor gods already gave them an edge.

considering that elves, dwarves, etc. can all interbreed with humans, that suggests that they may be variants of the same species (in Fantasyland) or have a very recent common ancestor, so one's existence doesn't necessarily offer evidence against the other.

Besides, you're ignoring the possibility of geographic limitations. Humans managed to migrate to, and thrive on, every continent on earth in pre-history and survive until long after those continents had drifted apart or land bridges had eroded/melted/etc. In Fantasyland there's every possibility that humanity could thrive somewhere in this world where the other fantasy creatures can't reach.

If you're already using your imagination to arbitrarily include mythical creatures it's not hard to use that same imagination to justify how they could coexist with humans.

Either a God or an Elder Race takes an interest in developing and protecting humanity. Otherwise we stay in the Stone Age and probably go extinct.

>where the other fantasy creatures can't reach
How very convenient.

I was just about to make this thread OP, good on you.

Monsters couldn't possibly exist, you can't maintain a perfect balance in the ecosystem with even ONE monster in the fray.

Glad we agreed, OP. We should remove monsters and just fight animals and humans.

>This. We got where we are, largely because our intelligence allowed us to outcompete other animals and remove ourselves from the hunter>prey dynamic.

Not really true though. A really fit predator human is probably the best long distance runner on the planet, not to mention one of the fastest, can climb better than most, is reasonably agile, can eat a very wide variety of foods, can see/hear/smell reasonably well compared to many, is not the strongest but still strong and heavy enough to compete with a lot of creatures. There's a reason that primative man rose above other predators before significant technological or social advantages really took effect.

Ye forgot the squids and crows (or just corvidae in general i think) who are extremely smart if not even smarter than the more normie-tier dolphins and mice.

literally monster hunter lmao

>There's a reason that primative man rose above other predators before significant technological or social advantages really took effect.
Because early man had no real competition? They bred with and outlived the neanderthal. But imagine if early man had to compete with early versions of things like kobolds, orcs, sahuagin, elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, lizardmen, goblins, etc. Fantasy humanoids either stronger, faster, more intelligent, or even able to outbreed humans.

>monkey people (primitive humans) fighting pig people (primitive orcs)
Sounds actually fun, my family man.

forgot image

Monsters don't often level up, humans do. Roving nomadic tribes would probably live a life more akin to adventurers than most of more classical villagers. Plus hunting nets xp. A village might be easy pickings for a monster, but a tribe of level 8-10 nomads would be a lot more of a problem. And once those people begin settling down into communities, the warriors would transition into an organized militia.

...

Obviously, the biology there is different from reality. Humanity used dedicated breeding and magic to bring forth demigod-kings to combat the monsters of the world. Eventually, humanity's champions managed to slowly beat back the wild, and when the dragons realized that huh, maybe these stupid monkeys might be a threat, it was already too late.
A gilded age ensued, with several dozen guardians each with the power to slay dragons watched over the men and women that served their every whim and accomplished the minor tasks. Some people may have disagreed with this sort of worship in exchange for safety, but it was better than going into the wild and being devoured.
However, the hubris, jealousy, and infighting between these godlike super-men eventually led to humanity splitting apart into separate nations and falling back into a state where the wolf is now always at the door. Tech never advances, because everything is being dedicated to making sure the dragons and monsters stay gone. If only there were some way to create the champions of old...

>When we remove the plot armor, how could humanity survive in such a world and develop civilizations?

Alright, I usually go by a few principles.

>Number 1. Humans in a fantasy setting are, themselves, a fantasy race.
Humans that live in a fantasy setting may very well be "the standard", but they are and would be a fantasy race; with fantastical norms, fantastical abilities, qualities, etc.. Whats normal for them could be extraordinary for us and so on and so forth.

>Number 2. Fantasy worlds are flush with resources.
A world with dragons, hydras, giants, gorgons and other stuff 'needs' to be flush with resources available or otherwise it simply won't have anything for these horrifying monster to subsist on inbetween human communities. The same resources these monsters take advantage of can be utilized much more efficiently by smaller humans.

Number 3. Man-eating is very niche.
Eating sapient people is going to be niche- it doesn't matter how or why, it's simply not going to be anyones bread and butter unless there's either lots of other sapient species (and humans are or were just caught up in the middle) or they just came onto the scene with the world just flush with humans.
The point is while it's horrifying to have a Troll or an Allosaurus eat your neighbor...It's traumatic and horrifying because that doesn't happen as often as one would think.

Oh, shit, one another thing I forgot to mention that this post reminded me of: >Number 4. Weakness provides discretion and overwhelming power gives confidence.
Most of the biggest, largest, most dangerous carnivores simply would not be interested in eating humans unless they needed to or had a specific reason: they're simply not worth the time, energy, and other animals simply taste better. A Chimera is more interested in devouring a Hadrosaur or Aurochs then a boney Human, but by all means if you fuck with him he'll cut you.
Likewise, many creatures that have evolved or developed effective defense measures will not attack mindlessly out of fear unless you give them a damn good reason. A Skunk isn't afraid of you, anything, or anyone else because it knows everyone else knows that it can spray them with the worst stink imaginable. The Catoblepas isn't going to be bothered by a few Humans because it knows, they know, that it smells so fucking bad plants wilt- and that it can projectile spray acidic, awful, diarrhea at anyone who bothers it, so it peacefully eats it's grass.

Well the thing about being at the top of the food chain as a carnivore is that you aren't typically in great quantity. Its often a case that there will only be enough food for so many dragons or hydras as is, so to be fair i don't think the human race will have to deal with them as often as youd worry.

Alternatives for survival though
>Live underground
>Broker pact with Giants, which is in all likelihood very plausible.
>Become thrall race to the greater beings of the land.
And why not really.

I would argue that Neanderthals are themselves the evidence that Humans would triumph over the other races, because we literally did that already. Consider two massive factors to our advantage: The first, that we can (typically) interbreed with MOST fantasy races. Elves for sure. Dwarves, Halflings, Gnomes, Orcs, usually. This means that even if we're competing for resources, we're still furthering our species by good old fashioned fuckin'.

The second is that Humans have proven that they can thrive in *any* environment with even just stone age technology. Fantasy races are often typified by their native climate. Lizardfolk live in swamps. Dwarves live in the mountains. Elves live in forests. But Humans live everywhere, and that gives us an incredible advantage.

But it's also kind of moot, because OP was talking about mythical beasts and monsters, not fantasy humanoids.

That's how natural selection works, pham. Convenience. If something is eating us, we move to a place where they won't eat us. Humans are, AFAIK, the only species on earth that migrated and thrived in every environment, on every continent (excluding species that were themselves introduced by humans). If we're in an unfavorable spot on the food chain, we up and move to a different food chain. Meanwhile, it's not like lions are following us into the arctic or polar bears are migrating to the desert.

Neanderthals failed partially because their niche shrank, not because humans overran it. Assuming swamps, mountains etc continue to exist, the races specialized for those areas will continue being more successful there, assuming they can makes it out of the stone age before humans do and actually do overrun everything.

What niche did neanderthals even fill?

They were an ice age population that survived off megafauna. They were better adapted to the cold than us, but then it stopped being so cold. Combined with the decline of megafauna, the neanderthal's high caloric requirements and their inability to throw worth a damn they just dwindled. Then humans showed up and fucked and/or ate whoever was left.

>Humans are, AFAIK, the only species on earth that migrated and thrived in every environment, on every continent (excluding species that were themselves introduced by humans).

I'd add Wolves, Bears, Lions, Elephants, Horses, and Boars to that list of "migrated and thrived in every environment". Before humanity had anything to say about it, those animals were basically found everywhere, anywhere, thriving and multiplying.

Well we took care of that now didn't we Satan?

Boar aren't native to the Americas, they are an invasive species brought by the Spaniards.

We've spread further than any of those, and while we managed it with a single species, they usually required multiple to get the spread they have.

Most fantasy monsters are essentially just animals with stranger attributes and abilities. The bigger threat would come from other intelligent predators, Illithids, Vampires, Lycanthropes, ect.

How could pre-bronze age humanity even deal with a colony of vampires?

stay awake, track them, hunt at day

Live in open flats, plus communities are often small enough for people to know eachother and recognize a stranger, not to mention its hard as fuck to pretend to not be a vampire seeing as in early stage societies fucking EVERYONE works outside.

>quick to reproduce
>tougher than other species
>lives longer than other species

Are we Krogans?

We're not that fast at reproducing though really. This always bothers me, what is the pregnancy period of dwarfs or elves in different fantasies?

In Tolkien I think it was one year for elves. They were considered a year old at birth or something like that

Some good points have been made, but I think we forget that fantasy settings with gods and magic and stuff are fundamentally different from our own.

Orcs wouldn't have to evolve over millions of years, competing with humanity; a god or wizard could get bored and just make them one day.

Depends on the setting

Such a small time for such life expectancies. I guess the longevity is what keeps them from overpopulating, wisdom and all that.

I mean if we are talking fantasy humans
Go with the "muh adaptabillity" and "muh human spirit" and slap magic , the gods, NPC's who are worthy of having character sheets, or tech and you have a explanation
As for our world? i dont know man ask /x/

Boar is sus scrofa. What this graph shows are lions

I'd rather see some monster run civilizations instead, with millions of dragons,hydras, giants, and etc as the main population, while the humans are irrelevant or considered resilient pests.

So the monsters can use their unique biological skills and even wisdom gained from just being around so long to actually create technology and social structures that last millions of years.

Hell, imagine a dragon with the intelligence of Tesla or Leonardo Di Vinci, except with the wealth and lifespan to fully exploit it. Imagine the stuff he could create, just out of boredom alone.

>futuristic Dragon colonized universe, with dragons in exosuits trying to build a base on the surface of the sun using a combination of superscience and their intrinsic magic/biological advantages.

Elves lose interest in sex after having one kid. There's vague implications that they give up a portion of their spirit to make them, and it's only the really kinky ones like feanor that have enough spirit for more.

Ok but think about it this way
Humanity people just wake up in a day and say "man im gonna go kill like 40 goblins for a bunch of gold because they are bothering this village"
Are you implying that over the course of however long it takes for millions of dragons to populate humanity wouldent just be scorched from the earth?
Hell we have "dragon slayers" literal weapons forged for the sole purpose of killing a dragon better
imagine what a dragon artificer could do its fucking crazy long lifetime
its a fun idea but would never work

>Are you implying that over the course of however long it takes for millions of dragons to populate humanity wouldent just be scorched from the earth?

I actually meant a setting that basically didn't try to push humans in it via some dumb plot armor, and just changed the baseline species powerlevel to be dragon, or other kinds of monsters.

You kind of already see this with like celestial or demon societies anyways, but I would like to see what a modern Giant society would look like. Which I suspect would be somewhat similar but also with some significant differences such as forests being considered like lawns or small grasslands in comparison (and the various wildlife as mere bugs).

And in a modernizedish Giant society maybe there could be a wildlife biologist that tries to study all these small creatures and even looks for the really tiny sentient races like pixies and whatnot.

Well the giant scoiety would be a caste society as the monster manual states in order of CR
But yeah agian like 90% of monsters would just crush humans because "you are small and have very little potential" i can see other races prehaps being spared
Also you would more be giving the "monsters" in this case the plot armor
A giant empire would implode on it self within 1-3 ruler cycles most likely
Sure the giants respect their places most of the time but fire giants want war and martial excellence
Hill giants are dumb and want food and to pillage
Storm giants just want to rule their skies forever
The reason why a giant society doesn't form is because they have to many differing opinions
Same for dragons same for a lot of things
Even for devils devils have different devil lords they serve under and while all those devil lords serve asmodeus , that doesn't stop them from being crafty and attempting to fuck over each other

tales of vesperia did a thing where
>Long time ago humanity was great, had amazing magic, golden age
>something happened magic went wild, all humans now live in cities that have magic items to protect them
>monsters errywhere
>The only people who travel at all are either rich, military, strong, desperate, or merchants
>Party goes around in the ruins of old settlements, finding lost magic
>All this fun exploring isn't for the sake of it, but to find the magic item that runs the water in your hometown

>Sure the giants respect their places most of the time but fire giants want war and martial excellence
>Hill giants are dumb and want food and to pillage
>Storm giants just want to rule their skies forever
All these desires can co-exist though. They feed into each other even.

Humans use tools and work together.
Sure an owlbear is scary, but vs 20 guys with spears or even bow/arrow, or fire spells?

Listing is as follows The lesser giant - to the higher giants (only counting pure giants)
Hill giant- Primitive, Dump, Want to eat a lot of food, And are literaly to stupid to relize what a caste soceity is (not joking it says that)

Stone giants- Reclusive and quiet and peaceful as long as they are left alone, Have very little account for what the surface world actually is

Frost giants-Love snow and ice, Brute strength but smart and enjoy martial excelence, Love war fuck crafting their own goods (actually says that)

Fire giants- Love fire, Build fortresses around volcanos, Matrial experts, Feudal lords not as savage as frost giants and actually have a very dwarf-ish mannerisim to them albeit much less tolerant of people

Cloud Giants-"rarely engage with giant kind", See them selves as betters of the storm giants when they are lower in reality, live on mountains and clouds

Storm Giants- Live So Far above the world or below the sea that they are beyond reach of most creatures, Solitary, miss the old days

Tell me how this sounds like a functional society?
Hill giants- i want food
Stone giants- i want silence
Frost giants- i want war
Fire giants- i also want war but i also want to craft shit
Cloud giants- "there are other giants?"
Storm giants- I MEMBER BACK WHEN THE OLD GIANT EMPIRES STOOD

Not even fucking accounting how the hell would you call a civilization a civilization if its members are literaly , half a worlds apart AT BEST

Most of these monsters will die against our weapons in massive use from, for example, an army

DR 10 or even 15 is shit when modern weapons (according to D&D) deal like 8d10 or more. Imagine a couple of guided tomahawks dealing hundreds of d10s in area and you'll have scorched hydras

What part of PANTHERA LEO makes you think it means Boar?

That makes even less sense! Unless early elves were fucking all the time but living hella short.

They did in fact fuck a lot and got picked off by the beasties Melkor sicked on them.

LOTR lore is something i must gander at sometime

>humans are generalists

They can survive in every climate.

>apex predators are super specialized

Trolls are only a problem in the north. Raptors in the South. And there are always some secure points humans can live where the predators can't.

>apex predators are predictable

Trolls can be avoided during hibernation for example.

>if the predators are too successful their numbers dwindle aswell and both prey and predator reach normal numbers again.

>MAGIC

Lot easier to survive if the Shaman fireballs the shit out of the T-Rex hunting you.

Compared to such predators, we breed like rabbits. Also our ability so survive in more varied climates. I imagine in such a setting human-human war would be a very rare thing. Unlike IRL

I've heard it's not so much about pregnancy period so much as fertility period and cultural shenanigans. For dwarves, a common thing to say is that females are just that rare. For elves, they only ever manage to spit out a kids like once every hundred years or so (due to them being massive faggots i assume)

And by that time they're just too busy "with their careers" and before they know it they're 20,000 years old living in a luxury treepartment with a few dozen litters of domestic panthers.
YOU WON'T FIND LIFE MEANING IN THE BOTTOM OF THAT MILLENNIUM MATURED WINE GLASS SUZANNE!

>"Players need something to relate to"
Sooooo favored by the gods?

Sure. I mean, usually you don't even need to think about why to include humans, you just assume they'll be there. They're the big attentionwhore race that hijacks storylines, and exists even when evidence suggest they shouldn't because you know, can't have anything without humans if you want anyone to play or get invested.

Fire, tools, superior adaptability and intelligence compared to most monsters as super scary shit would be rare. Exactly like your ancestors fought the mega fauna. Habitat destruction goes a long way too.

Magic and gods would tip the scales against the rare and more outlandish shit. Even (rare) access to healing would help a lot of people live whom otherwise would have died, they in turn could remain alive thus inventing or assisting in the invention of new strategies and tools to cope with the environment. Now factor in all the other forms of magic, gifts from the gods etc.

Doesn't look so bleak.

Isn't that Kingdom Death?

Always liked the idea of a setup where humans exist, but are unplayable, or difficult to play as. Let's say, for thousands of years, they have been in the service and company of a monstrous and evil race which has permanently colored their ideals and views.

That this race, was the one who uplifted them, and sheltered them, earning their undying loyalty and companionship, as these humans are treated to some odd behavior mix of how one treats a friend, and a pet. They are linked to this race like how dogs are to man, or even closer.

And most or all attempts at swaying these humans would be near pointless, as the majority of the culture around and having to do with the humans, is utterly focused to preying on man's inclination towards fierce tribalism, strong, dogmatic leadership from those who know more than they do, and generally feeling good by being on the winning side.

kind of like if the human's treated a celestial body and it's angels as a god and an extension of it's divinity

Why do you think most early civilizations were in river valleys?

>Hill giants- grunt soldiers
>Stone giants- peasant farmers
>Frost giants- elite soldiers
>Fire giants- elite soldiers/craftsmen
>Cloud giants- nobles
>Storm giants - nobles/leaders
Honestly, their desires don't conflict more than the average nation's population

Why no forest giants?
They always seem on the ball