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I'm making a video game! - and I could use your input/comments

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oddtail:
Couple more worldbuilding-related questions I've been pondering.

One is the issue of lifespan. Since I'm going for sapient animals, but with biology and mating habits roughly corresponding to the actual animals they're based on, human lifespans would be weird. Also, since I'm going for differences from humans as a thing that fuels the game world, it wouldn't be that interesting, either.

Completely realistic lifespans, on the other hand, would make it difficult to handwave away complex culture, especially projects that take a while to accomplish (like, oh I don't know, building castles).

Since sapient animals would probably live longer without much genetic change otherwise, and since captive animals life significantly longer than wild animals anyway (and civilised animals would live a bit longer, too, probably), I settled for a reasonable middle ground. Animals do live longer, and that tacked-on "bonus" lifespan is larger for short-lived animals. Meaning that if the lifespan is measured in single years, I'm more than doubling it, and for animals that live almost as long as humans anyway, I barely extend the lifespan at all.

Which gives the rough ballpark of small rodents typically living for 3-5 years, other small animals up to 10-15 years depending on species, wolves usually not going far beyond 30, and very long-lived, large animals easily going beyond 50, sometimes even 60.

Which, of course, led me to think about how it would impact the culture.

1) wolves might be more warlike and politically active, because 30 years is not that long to accomplish much. Preserving your dynasty requires you to conquer or expand somehow, seeing as if you're lucky, five or more of your kids might reach adulthood. They will likely not be able to subside on the holdings inherited from parents or grandparents. So it stands to reason conquering the neighbors' lands would be a frequent occurence for the high-born. You can't take your time, because unlike humans, wolf nobility do not have up to 5-7 decades of scheming to build the family/clan a bright future. Which I'm just fine with, seeing as "neighbour conquers your land" is the game's inciting incident.

2) This in turn gives interesting possibilities both for the game's main story and semi-random events/quests. I already planned to confront the player with a change in perspective regarding the player's own actions, so a flip from an initial inevitable reaction "the main character loses all she has, and it's terrible injustice" to a situation where the natural progression is to do a similar thing for the heroine's own children might be interesting. Especially if the game's antagonist is substantially older than the heroine and secondary antagonists include his adult children, especially if/when he dies of old age like halfway into the game.

3) This is partly sequel material and partly just speculation (because the game will not have the time or scope to go into these things), but I was wondering about issues of holding land and inheritance. Human knights or nobles did have many children, often, but we tend to have children one at a time. The common European system of giving the central lands to the oldest would not work that well in a society where you have anywhere from two two five "oldest".

Which actually led me to look up Mongol systems of inheritance and fealty, of all places. And while I'm not going to explicitly model the wolves' culture on Mongol culture (I'm still going for an overall European vibe), it does seem like a good fit in many places. Inheritance took age of sons into consideration for Mongols in the Middle Ages, yes, but inheritance of titles from siblings was a bigger deal. Issues related to distance from the family's home tent in addition to land size also seem to mesh with what would be relevant for wolves, who would have (even symbolically) hunting grounds rather than just arable land to divvy up. And the Mongol empire had a notably hands-off approach to conquered lands as long as they paid tribute properly and didn't rebel. This seems more in line with a world where various species exist. Loose governing of places and populations of other species makes more sense, at least in parts, than a more rigid feudal system of most of Europe.

4) Heck, I am starting to question whether the premise "the heroine's husband got killed" is necessary for the game's start. I was never all that happy with it, because it always felt a bit cliché and also made the heroine the wife of her husband. Which kinda sucks and puts her in a box and reduces her agency in the story implicitly. If instead this was about conflict with a brother or sister, that'd create a more interesting story dynamic, and could be incorporated into gameplay (are there other brothers or sisters? Whose side are they on? Did they gang up on the poor protagonist, were some of them killed or otherwise removed from the picture, or maybe they're just indifferent or distant, literally or emotionally?).

Also, that's great story misdirection. A player will probably bring his or her own preconceptions into the game world if there's not an exposition dump right away (and I'm not planning on including one). "My brother/sister betrayed and dethroned me" has a very Shakespearean vibe (or if you prefer, Lion King vibe), so the default assumption will be that this is honorless betrayal. And as the player explores the story and the world, it might be revealed that no, this is a dick move, but it's pretty much how sibling interactions in this particular wolf culture work. Which means the player still has the motivation for the heroine, but is thrown a bit of a curveball partly into the story. Seems like more interesting writing than a boring "avenge my poor husband".

5) On a more general note, I am thinking about how lifespans might influence the cultures of the game world. The wolves I wrote a bunch of paragraphs above, but a few more disjointed thoughts:

- small mammals less likely to rebel if they don't have much of a lifespan anyhow. It stands to reason.
- interspecies contact and cooperation makes more sense when long-lived animals naturally jump into the role of scholars, scribes or wise old men. It also explains why wolves might not be the be-all, end-all of power held. Which is a parallel to the struggle between the military power in Europe and the legitimacy of that power from the Church, without the world having to have a dynamic identical to Christian Europe. Or a Christianity-like religion with serial numbers filed off.
- the dynamic of a year measured by seasons, especially as related to agriculture, becomes more interesting and a bit darker when a substantial portion of the population will not see the next harvest. I'm thinking harvest festivals as a celebration of death as much as life, and seasonality of life much more important to herbivores than (large) carnivores. Still thinking how to play up that contrast in dialogue options during encounters.

6) I was wondering about religion. I don't want a transparent stand-in for Christianity, as I said. Plus, it'd make no sense. I'll go somewhere between fictional religions, leaving things purposefully vague, and taking inspiration from pre-Christian pagan religions in Europe. The question is, would every species revere gods based on their own species, or others? (I can see herbivores having dark gods represented by carnivores as a personification of a fear of being eaten). Would different species have the same, or different religions in the same region? Maybe carnivores would impose their own religious worldview of a world where it's just to eat and fair to be eaten? Or perhaps the opposite - herbivores might be more religious and superstitious. Or perhaps different species would worship aspects of the same god or gods, envisioned as their own species, but understood to be the same entities? Since most every mammal is sapient, would that make animist religions more likely to exist (since "everything has a soul/life/personhood to it" is already half correct), or less likely (since anthropomorphising inanimate or non-sapient things is less of a psychological need?).

----

Anyway, that's a bunch of convoluted, tangled half-concepts, I'd be very happy to hear any thoughts, loose ideas or comments =)

LTK:

--- Quote ---The common European system of giving the central lands to the oldest would not work that well in a society where you have anywhere from two two five "oldest".
--- End quote ---

Why not? Mammals still give birth one at a time, and even eggs don't tend to hatch simultaneously.

oddtail:

--- Quote from: LTK on 11 Mar 2019, 05:03 ---
--- Quote ---The common European system of giving the central lands to the oldest would not work that well in a society where you have anywhere from two two five "oldest".
--- End quote ---

Why not? Mammals still give birth one at a time, and even eggs don't tend to hatch simultaneously.

--- End quote ---

Yes, but animals like wolves give birth to litters of a few pups at a time. I am not convinced a few minutes' or hours' difference would be culturally significant. Seniority is not something that is "natural", I think it is a cultural echo of the expectation that the oldest son or daughter is the most mature and responsible. Laws regarding inheritance are a reflection of that.

I just don't think animals would develop a culture where the younger pups from the litter would be less significant. If anything, such a rule would automatically make the younger resent the older, and that's not the sibling dynamic for wolves in real life. They are close and tend to cooperate and form close bonds, at least when they're young. It's advantageous, and there's no real incentive to act otherwise.

What I'm saying is, there *would* be a rule to establish seniority if wolves were for some reason *given* a culture where a difference in time of birth is significant. But I think it very implausible that such a culture would arise in the first place. I think human culture is a reflection of how we naturally tend to our children (mostly) one at a time, and how older siblings interact with younger siblings (and they may be separated by a few years, because women are not necessarily constantly pregnant, and not all newborns survive infancy anyhow).

Or to put it another way: if I imagine pre-sapient humans (or other animals that give birth one at a time), there are already dynamics that are not governed by culture that differentiate younger from older siblings. We are not that different, with culture, in how our family dynamics work from the non-culture-having apes that exist. Similarly, I envision sapient wolves as not that different in family dynamics from their non-sapient ancestors. With some leeway given to artistic license and anthropomorphising, of course.

But again, taking from human cultures that put siblings on a more equal footing (like what I managed to look up of Mongol culture) makes more sense than inspiring the setting ONLY by more hierarchical, primarily age-based views.

EDIT: if I saw a culture that differentiates the social and legal status of different pups from the same litter, I think who is the largest or the strongest one would be more of a factor than whoever was given birth to, first.

EDIT 2: or to put it yet another way: without any significant age gap, there's also no time to groom the oldest, to secure their position, to establish a hierarchy. A system that arbitrarily favoured one son or daughter just because they are very slightly older seems like something that would be extremely unstable. Both from within the family and societal changes at large. The feudal system in Europe was already unstable (primogeniture is arguably a bad idea compared to ultimogeniture, because it gives the most power to the oldest child, who ALREADY is going to have the most power and clout), but at least it's excusable and it can tend towards a shaky equilibrium, sometimes. Heck, for humans it's conceivable that there's only one child, or two at most. That eliminates the problem altogether. For wolves, it may eventually be the case (after all, not everyone survives to receive inheritance), but it'd be rarer.

Cornelius:

--- Quote from: oddtail on 11 Mar 2019, 05:15 ---Yes, but animals like wolves give birth to litters of a few pups at a time. I am not convinced a few minutes' or hours' difference would be culturally significant. Seniority is not something that is "natural", I think it is a cultural echo of the expectation that the oldest son or daughter is the most mature and responsible. Laws regarding inheritance are a reflection of that.

--- End quote ---

Not necessarily. If we look to the inheritance of early medieval Europe, we have Salic patrimony and gavelkind, where the inheritance would be equally divided between the (male) heirs. Succession by seniority only came about when this kind of inheritance led to too much fragmentation, so people decided something else was in order to keep the land and society united. (That is to say; to limit the number of warring factions.)

oddtail:

--- Quote from: Cornelius on 11 Mar 2019, 08:49 ---
--- Quote from: oddtail on 11 Mar 2019, 05:15 ---Yes, but animals like wolves give birth to litters of a few pups at a time. I am not convinced a few minutes' or hours' difference would be culturally significant. Seniority is not something that is "natural", I think it is a cultural echo of the expectation that the oldest son or daughter is the most mature and responsible. Laws regarding inheritance are a reflection of that.

--- End quote ---

Not necessarily. If we look to the inheritance of early medieval Europe, we have Salic patrimony and gavelkind, where the inheritance would be equally divided between the (male) heirs. Succession by seniority only came about when this kind of inheritance led to too much fragmentation, so people decided something else was in order to keep the land and society united. (That is to say; to limit the number of warring factions.)

--- End quote ---

Does it invalidate my entire point, though? I still think human cultures value older children and build a somewhat hierarchical relationship - not universally, but often enough - in a way that animals that have larger litters would not, were they sapient.

(of course, the odds of an animal having large litters and being sapient are very small, because sapience is in part related to slow development of infants and large heads, and both of those require "litters" of one. But I have to draw the line somewhere with trying to keep things realistic...)

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