Turakian Age: Drakine Population Dynamics

[DrTemp]

Thinking about Turakian Age (which i like), i came across the follwing question:

 

If I have understood correctly, Drakine Population halves every generation. Is that so?

If yes, how do they maintain their empires over the milennia?

If no, what is the actual population development of the Drakine race?

[Intrope]

Re: Turakian Age: Drakine Population Dynamics

 

Thinking about Turakian Age (which i like), i came across the follwing question:

 

If I have understood correctly, Drakine Population halves every generation. Is that so?

If yes, how do they maintain their empires over the milennia?

If no, what is the actual population development of the Drakine race?

That's pretty much what it say in the book. I chalked it up as some kind of editing error, mental blunder, or possibly as something that's only recently begun (but that part was omitted too).

 

They obviously couldn't maintain anything over any time period if that was true; given 30 year generations, 1000 years would require a starting population of 10 billion drakine, which is silly (and they've been around for thousands!).

 

My recommendation: ignore that line completely. (And ignore the one about them having breasts as well--nonsensical for reptiliods).

[Koshka]

Re: Turakian Age: Drakine Population Dynamics

 

If I have understood correctly, Drakine Population halves every generation. Is that so?

 

My understanding of that section is that most Drakine females only have one child. However, most isn't all. Especially with magic, there could easily be some Drakine females who bear twins or can get pregnant more than once in their lives.

 

Now, that's probably not enough to keep the Drakine population figures up to par. I would suspect it's something relatively new (predating the wars the Drakine lost because they couldn't outbreed humans, but "new" if one looks at their overall existance on the planet).

[JJR]

Re: Turakian Age: Drakine Population Dynamics

 

My recommendation: ignore that line completely. (And ignore the one about them having breasts as well--nonsensical for reptiliods).

I see no reason to ignore this. The fact that reptiles in the "real" world do not have breasts in no-way should infer that dragon-kind humanoids cannot have breasts in a fantasy world. These are worlds of our imagination and should not be limited to real-world ideas, imo.

[Max Callahan]

Re: Turakian Age: Drakine Population Dynamics

 

I had a bunch of questions along this line. How did the Drakine ever get to be numerous enough to have empires? Did the gods of the drakine create them in large numbers in the beginning, or is childbirth fatalities more recent? How common is it for Drakine females to decide not to have a child? How does Drakine society treat females who don't have their child. What is the life span of a drakine female who doesn't die from childbirth (from an evolutionary stand point I would expect it to be low as most would die soon after becoming fertile, but having been created by their gods all bets are off). What's the ratio of female children to male children (more girls means a slower die off). Does Drakine society discourage/prevent females from doing dangerous things so they don't die before having their child? Do Drakine males love their mate, and if they do how do they approach reproduction knowing it will most likely kill their partner.

[SirViss]

Re: Turakian Age: Drakine Population Dynamics

 

Suggestion from a guy that isn't playing in a Turakian Age campaign, but has heard of the Drakine "problem":

 

I would reinterpret it as the females laying only one clutch of eggs in their life time. How many eggs is a clutch? I leave that up to GMs and their own campaigns.

 

(They do lay eggs, right?)

[Koshka]

Re: Turakian Age: Drakine Population Dynamics

 

The impression I had is that Drakine have live births, but my copy of the book is on loan at the moment so I can't look that up. Anyone have it handy?

[Guest joen00b]

Re: Turakian Age: Drakine Population Dynamics

 

I've already incorporated my vast knowledge from watching the Croc Hunter into their physiology: They breed like normal reptiles, laying 20 eggs or so at a time, and depending on temperature, they will be male or female. They know this and can control their own population, which allowed them in the past to build grand armies for the empirical conquests. With the loss of the empires also came the loss of the priests that enforced the practices of controlling sex in the hatcheries and they're not as 'busy' as they used to be. Thus their numbers have dwindled, and it's rare for all the young to live to adulthood due to the rigors of the world.

 

Just my two coppers at least.

[DrTemp]

Re: Turakian Age: Drakine Population Dynamics

 

Well, the "more than one child per pregnancy" idea makes some sense. But. A defining element of their race seems to be that fathers raise single children.

 

So to me, it actually makes the most sense to assume that the phenomenon of the mothers dying at childbirth is a very young development. Possibly the result of evil and powerful magery and/or the working of an insidous god... before that, they had maybe a low rate of reproduction, but were still able to grow in numbers.

 

Hm... that somehow calls for a mystic quest to save the Drakine race...

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Turakian Age: Drakine Population Dynamics

 

I've been wondering about this as well, and I was going to start a thread about it but you beat me to it.

 

The book says they give birth to live young one at a time, and that most females die giving birth and most that don't die find the experience so painful that they don't do it again. The book gives them no LS: Longevity in their package deal, so we can assume they live about as long as humans.

 

If we assume that baby drakines are equally likely to be male as female, and that 80% of females have only one child in their life, and 80% of the rest have two, and 80% of the rest have three, etc., then 200 adults will produce 125 children for the next generation. How many of these 125 will die from war, disease, starvation, misadventure, or foul play? 20%? That would seem to be the very minimum, considering that they seem to make war a lot, have no special resistance to disease, etc. If so, each generation will be half the size of the previous generation.

 

If 80% of baby draks are female, then 200 adults will produce 200 children (using the same assumtions as above). This keeps things fairly stable, with the population slowly dwindling due to war, disease, etc.

 

It turns out that if X% of births are the last for the mother (for whatever reason), then you need X% of the births to be female. Thus if 90% of births end the reproductive careers of females 90% of newborns need to be female to keep the child population the same as the previous generation. If 99% of females die giving birth, 99% of the babies need to be female. This would keep the population stable if there are no premature deaths do to war, etc.

 

If you want to keep the population stable, you need even more females. Assuming the 80% one child rate above, if 10% of them die off before reproducing (and assuming that 10% is proportionately distributed among males and females), then 1000 adult females will produce 1250 children, 1125 will survive to adulthood, so only 125 can be males to keep the population the same. That's 1/9 male, 8/9 female (11%/89%). And each male would have, on average, eight different mates. This in turn would create some genetic problems as inbreeding would be almost unavoidable, but the gods will work that out.

 

If the one birth rate is 80% and the die young rate is 20%, then ALL the children must be female forever to keep the population stable which of course presents another logical problem. This can be solved by having males be immortal and unkillable, and always producing female offspring. This contradicts the book, so how 'bout: one hidden male somewhere who is immortal and unkillable and who fathers all drakine children, all of whom are girls.

 

I haven't provided a rigorous mathematical proof, but the following formula looks right:

 

F = B/(100-D)

 

B = "one birth rate"

D = "die young rate"

F = fraction of females

 

So if 60% of females die giving birth and 30% of draks die before reproducing then 60/(100-30)= 6/7 of the children must be female, or about 86%.

 

How's that for a solution?

 

Oh, and I second Intrope's idea about reptile breasts. I've noticed a disturbing trend lately in the illustration of dragons and related creatures: They are too often made to look like mammals with scales, rather than reptilian creatures. Look at their legs. They are often portrayed as cat-like in their structure. I often see them depicted with what can only be described as paws with scales. Like a tiger with scale armor. Dragons are probably the ultimate fantasy monster, and IMO they should look fantastical and alien - not like mammals. When I see one of these scaly cats, I don't think, "Wow! There's a fearsome dragon!" I think, "Wow! There's an artist who doesn't know how to draw reptiles!" Attention Artists: When drawing dragons (especially their legs and feet), think of aligators, lizards, dinosaurs, or other reptiles. Your dragons will look much more dragony, and scary. They don't have the same joint structure as cats and dogs.

[DrTemp]

Re: Turakian Age: Drakine Population Dynamics

 

This solution is valid by the numbers, and has the charm of changing the sahisha only superficially into something that ensures the race's survival.

[arcady]

Re: Turakian Age: Drakine Population Dynamics

 

I see no reason to ignore this. The fact that reptiles in the "real" world do not have breasts in no-way should infer that dragon-kind humanoids cannot have breasts in a fantasy world. These are worlds of our imagination and should not be limited to real-world ideas' date=' imo.[/quote']

 

Considering that the females usually die in childbirth, we do have to wonder why they have mamary glands. Since it says it is the females and not the males who develop them, it's a bit illogical if they then almost never live to use them.

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Turakian Age: Drakine Population Dynamics

 

(I apologize in advance.)

 

I've heard of milking the lizard, but this is ridiculous!

[DrTemp]

Re: Turakian Age: Drakine Population Dynamics

 

Considering that the females usually die in childbirth' date=' we do have to wonder why they have mamary glands. Since it says it is the females and not the males who develop them, it's a bit illogical if they then almost never live to use them.[/quote']

 

Except, of course, if the "mamas die at childbirth" feature is a new thing, in evolutionary terms.

 

Additionally, it is an Epic Fantasy setting. It is entirely possible that they were actually created by their gods, who just liked breasts for some reason.

[CorpCommander]

Re: Turakian Age: Drakine Population Dynamics

 

And each male would have, on average, eight different mates.

Well sign me up for that! How can Male Draks go to war? They must be exhausted!

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Turakian Age: Drakine Population Dynamics

 

Well, that's really only an average. Drakine footsoldiers and peasants might only have one mate, nobles might have dozens, and the king might have over a hundred. That leaves plenty of time for low-ranking draks to go to war.

[Bozimus]

Re: Turakian Age: Drakine Population Dynamics

 

I have nipples. They don't function, but I got 'em. Not everything on our bodies is practical...what the hell do tonsils and the appendix do anyway?

 

Does a Fantasy game really need stringent logic?

[CorpCommander]

Re: Turakian Age: Drakine Population Dynamics

 

I have nipples.

 

You can milk anything that has nipples. (If you've not seen "Meet the Parents" with Ben Stiller and Robert DeNiro, this is a classic scene.)

[arcady]

Re: Turakian Age: Drakine Population Dynamics

 

I have nipples. They don't function, but I got 'em. Not everything on our bodies is practical...what the hell do tonsils and the appendix do anyway?

 

Does a Fantasy game really need stringent logic?

You have them because in the womb everyone is originally female. The male gender change happens as the result of a hormone imbalance. As an adult, I could give you the counter hormone and your breasts would develop and become functionally viable - though enabling lactation would require whatever hormones are present in the body as a result of pregnancy.

 

Human breasts are there for a reason, and it has nothing to do with Hugh Heffner. It's a food organ, and if the people who develop them to fullness never live to use them, you have to wonder why they have them.

 

Does a setting need logic? Yes - where the magic isn't there interrupting that logic it does. When the magic does interrupt, the effects should make sense to the nature of the magic.

 

I don't recall for the appendix, I think it's vestigal to an earlier stage. Tonsils do a function which if I recall is corrected to disease fighting or something.

[keithcurtis]

Re: Turakian Age: Drakine Population Dynamics

 

If female drakines are illustrated with breasts, then they have them.

If you really feel a need to explain them, then simply say that the drakines are not reptiles, they are reptilean, or perhaps, "reptile-like". They lay eggs and produce milk. So does the platypus.

Great Skyfather, we're talking about lizard-people who don't even exist. You can give them wings and electricity producing organs. Just be consistent; don't sweat real-world analogues for things that don't exist.

 

Keith "jumping into silly arguments" Curtis

[arcady]

Re: Turakian Age: Drakine Population Dynamics

 

Just because something does not exist is NO EXCUSE for it to not make sense within the parameters set for it.

 

Simply put:

 

If an animal never uses a major external organ, why is it there? Logically, it should be the males who develop breasts, not the females.

 

Unless some recent factor has dramatically changed their physiology and resulted in all the deaths, in which case, what is that factor and what other effects has it had?

[CorpCommander]

Re: Turakian Age: Drakine Population Dynamics

 

You can give them wings and electricity producing organs.

 

Can we make the breasts produce electricity cause, uh, that would be kinda neat.

 

 

"Hissss, You really do not want to mess with our women..."

ZAAAP

hehe!

[Bozimus]

Re: Turakian Age: Drakine Population Dynamics

 

You can milk anything that has nipples. (If you've not seen "Meet the Parents" with Ben Stiller and Robert DeNiro' date=' this is a classic scene.)[/quote']

 

That is a good scene!

[Bozimus]

Re: Turakian Age: Drakine Population Dynamics

 

Just because something does not exist is NO EXCUSE for it to not make sense within the parameters set for it.

 

Simply put:

 

If an animal never uses a major external organ, why is it there? Logically, it should be the males who develop breasts, not the females.

 

Unless some recent factor has dramatically changed their physiology and resulted in all the deaths, in which case, what is that factor and what other effects has it had?

 

Comic books must drive you crazy!

 

I think Keith refers to the basic suspension of belief that is required merely to play the Fantasy genre. If you look at Fantasy TOO closely (or comic books, or movies, etc.), all you will find is flaws, inconsistencies, etc. It is possible to examine a piece of art with an electron microscope, but why do it when it is meant to be looked at from across the room with the normal eye?

 

Now, you have every right to do that (your game, your enjoyment), but it seems counter productive to apply such strict levels of logic in a fantasy setting, IMO.

[Bozimus]

Re: Turakian Age: Drakine Population Dynamics

 

Can we make the breasts produce electricity cause, uh, that would be kinda neat.

 

 

"Hissss, You really do not want to mess with our women..."

ZAAAP

hehe!

 

With electric breasts, Drakine dating would become a spectator sport...

 

1st Drak - "What is he doing?"

2nd Drak (looking through magic scrying device) "Moving his arm around her shoulders..."

1st Drak "Gimme the magic ball! Gimme the magic ball!"

2nd Drak "It is my turn now (SLAP)!"

1st Drak (glaring) "What is he doing now?"

2nd Drak "Going for second base...."

1st Drak "Yesss!"

A loud ZAAAAAAAAAP-POW is heard!

2nd Drak (wincing) "Love hurts!"

1st Drak "Her father sacrificied a human to Tamna-Seth..."

2nd Drak "That explains why poor SSSSam's right arm is now a pile of ash."