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Hi,

i had one of the players questioning me, how animals survived the scourge, i know some dragons allowed people to live with them in their lairs.
And farm animals have been taken into kaers, but what is lets say with a parrot sitting in a jungle? What is with unicorns, ape´s etc ?

The passions in vasgothia fighted the horrors personally, but they died in the battle, had vasgothia also kaers ?
What is with the other places, where Thera did not show up ? Is everyone dead, or did the Horros just overlook something ? It was a global catastrophy right ?

regards

Sangeet

I think the horrors just found the animals less interesting to torment. People are juicier. That's not to say a horror wouldn't pull a wing off a parrot just for giggles, but it's not very nourishing.

Plus, without people to hunt them, the animals may have done better in some ways.

Can't speak to Vasgothia and the other areas as I didn't get the Thera Sourcebook. I think it hit differently in different areas, thought.

I would have to say that each Kaer or Citadel was something of a much larger Noah's Arc, so-to-speak. There were one-hundred years or so between the warning and the closing of the doors, so it wouldn't have been all that difficult to corral animals into zoo's, prior to moving them into the protection of the Kaer's and, if I understand it correctly, many of these were large enough where birds could fly and even the least domesticated animals had some room to roam.

I think it would have been explained to those building the Kaers and Citadels, along with the purchase of the Rites of Protection and Passage, or perhaps figured out by community leaders and designers of these protective caves, that it wasn't only the preservation of the Name-givers, but also that of those under their stewardship, which needed to be tracked. Besides, I don't care how vegetarian you pretend to be, Human beings are carnivore's, and that's how it's going to be; why deny nature? I think the T'Skrang, the Obsidimen, the Elves, and the Windlings could get away without eating meat, and even the T'Skrang have fish; however, Dwarves, Orks, Trolls, and Humans... I don't think so. You may as well ask them to die, as to go without meat.

Yeah, I'll go with the Arc's.

It was stated in one of the books that Horrors rarely paid attention to normal animals - that's because animals are not namegivers and do not have such a wide varaiety of emotions to feed on. Only when Horrors needed some servants or cannon fodder so to speak they turned to animals and changed them the way they saw fit. Other than that animals were more or less ok during the socourge as log as their original habitats were not completely destroyed.

The Scourge was the apocaliptic event that many religions spoke of and it affected the whole world. Different places had different methods of survival - Brasavie had Kaers as probably did most of Theran provinces, Kathay's people were sheltered by dragons. Elves tried a different approach but failed. Other places like Americas or Australia had different methods - thats up to you. But I like to picure the Aztec Pyramids were some kind of protection from Horrors and I imagine that not only the blood elves failed at the attempt. Maybe northern Asia is a blasted wasteland now a no-one survived? Or indeed it is a lush and beautyful land that managed to endure the scourge thanks to the sacrifice of the dragons that used to live and died there to preserve it? It's rally left unexplained for purpose

You could have dozens of game worlds just as rich as Barsaive.

Barsaive has recovered scary fast too, right? To the point that people attribute it to magic but don't really understand it. That combined with all the smaller human population (more habitat, less hunting) should see a quick rebound in surviving animals.

What's with all the living dinosaurs? Was it simply a dinosaurs=awesome moment amongst the designers?

I wouldn't say scary fast, but fast enough. If you know how fast an ecosystem can recover after a catastrophic event like a fire or vulcanic eruption, the recovery rate of Barsaive in nearly 100 years after the end of the scourge isn't completely fantastic, but still the lands recovered fast. Possibly due to intervention of the passion Jaspree (f.e. it is said that Jaspree covered the horror devastated area of the old kingdom of Ustrect with a forest).
Magic could transform the still tainted areas of Barsaive pretty quickly. Just imagine a group of 50 Purifiers with Cleanse power and a wizard who could cast the Cleanse Astral Space Spell. The Badlands would be gone within a year or two.
Mentioning all the dinosaur like animals, well Trolls and Obsidiman need mounts too.

The questors of Jaspree are doing that. And it isn't working.

No, they don't know why.

Also stated in older editions that the jungles/forests weren't entirely destroyed - the Scourge altered many lifeforms and made the more common creatures overtly vicious and territorial. Well, after all, its a harsh world of survival. This trait of vicious animals and defensive plants has continued.

As for global Scourge. Well assume it's so, but then which 4th World cultures definitively know that the Earth is actually a globe? Magic covers the Earth like a tide, but some places are peaks and others troughs, with more or less magic accordingly. If there are magic-dray places, then the Horrors woulodn't have been able to affect them in full force. Plus, the places with less "life" would have been less affected as the Horrors would have had less reason to hang out there and pollute the terrain.

As always, your game, your Barsaive (or beyond!)