Gargun – An Ecological Disaster?
January 20, 2008
The gargun, also known as Hârnic orcs, were brought to Hârn by Lothrim the Foulspawner from some other realm of reality, probably through the Godstone under the Earthmaster ruins in his capital of Elkall-Anuz. However they arrived, by 250TR, they had spread throughout the island. In other words, they are an introduced species, a non-native life-form the local ecology hasn’t evolved to cope with. What can we learn from the introduction of foreign species on Earth that we can apply to the game world of Hârn?
Earthly Examples
There are a number of examples we can use from our own history to provide us with information. An introduced species can adversely affect its new environment in a number of ways. Gargun are pure carnivores (they don’t eat plant material of any kind), they are intelligent and have a racial memory, and they swarm when numbers grow too large. At a brief glance, this sounds like a recipe for disaster.
Let’s look at some examples from Earth to see if we can build up a better picture.
Example 1
Introduced pure carnivores, feral cats and weasels, have had a devastating effect on the native bird populations of New Zealand, because these birds evolved for millennia without any natural mammalian predators. Many became flightless and relatively slow moving. On small islands of that archipelago, there is no doubt that cats have wiped out all native birds. On the two main islands, bird life was also adversely affected, but few species have been extinguished (although a number are close).
Hârn isn’t a small island; its landmass is quite extensive, and the distance from a major continent isn’t nearly as far as New Zealand from Australia, its nearest big neighbour. The Hârnic ecology is also more varied than New Zealand; there have always been predators of all sizes, so prey animals have learned to adapt. Gargun are pure carnivores but so are mountain cats, wolves, yelgri and wyverns, all of which are native to Hârn. Once you’ve learned to dodge a pack of yelgri or a hunting wyvern, prey animals like deer can probably cope with smelly gargun.
Example 2
Cats have also had a negative effect on the reptiles and small mammal species of Australia, although just how great an effect is debatable. Population density is low, probably because cats need a lot of protein (meat) and there just isn’t enough to sustain higher numbers. Inland Australia is mostly semi-arid or full desert and native species are widely distributed, so most of the time a mother cat simply can’t find enough food to support more than one kitten from a litter. In fact, the largest concentrations of feral cats occur where there are also large concentrations of rabbits, another introduced species. There is some research that shows feral cats appear to have reached a kind of equilibrium with the indigenous fauna.
Hârn isn’t a barren land like Australia. Its forests are teeming with life because there is abundant rainfall. There is also a wide variety of habitats, from heath, through mixed forest, right up to alpine conditions in the deep mountains. There are many large rivers and countless streams and brooks. And let’s not forget one very large lake in the central interior. The soils around river valleys is fertile and, as a result, life is fecund indeed. Hârn can probably support another carnivore.
Example 3
Goats strip the land bare, eating everything green. In the resulting harsh conditions that they themselves help produce, they even strip the bark from the last trees thus compounding the situation. In a very real sense, goats are responsible for the deserts of the Middle East. Gargun have a similar effect. They will strip all available prey animals from an area that they can find (and that means everything; deer, bears, wolves, everything). This means that most large, and many smaller, meat-bearing animals would vanish from the area surrounding an active gargun colony; either because they’ve been killed and eaten or they’ve fled.
However, gargun have a couple of traits that mitigate this problem. They are known to keep prey animals in pens. This may mean they practice a crude form of animal husbandry, although this has not been expanded upon in the source material. I don’t see a couple of hundred gargun subsisting on a few tethered goats; there would be a need for a great many animals to sustain a viable herd over the long term, so this probably means that a few animals are not eaten right away, but kept by order of the gargun king for special occasions.
The second mitigation is much more radical; gargun are cannibalistic. This practice would drastically reduce their impact on the surrounding environment in two ways; it reduces the need for meat from outside the colony and it reduces the number of mouths that need feeding.
Summary
Nature is incredibly resilient; after six hundred years of the gargun living on Hârn, the natural ecology of the Isle of Hârn has probably returned to an equilibrium of sorts. The in-built cannibalistic trait of the gargun means they provide their own checks and balances—to a degree. The relatively low numbers of gargun that survive for any length of time in a colony probably have an impact on the local area, but that impact is counter-balanced by the reduction in all levels of the food chain.
A reduction in prey animals outside the colony means the attention of diners turns naturally to inside the colony, and the old, slow, weak, and the unlucky get to be the main course at lunch. Thus the colony’s numbers are further reduced (until the next hatching, anyway) and the pressure is further eased on the animals outside the colony. Nature rebounds and repopulates the vacant niches, meaning the colony population increases, meaing increased pressure on the prey animals…and the cycle starts all over again.
Roleplaying Opportunities
So how can we use this information in our games? Here are some thoughts I had; feel free to add more in your comments.
- The heroes are travelling through the countryside, living off the land. Any wilderness experts in the party will suddenly realise that they have been travelling through an area where there are far fewer bird calls, and less recent sign of game. The environment has an odd stillness about it, as if frightened of something. The cause is a newly established gargun colony, spawned from whatever existing colony is the nearest.
- The reduction in larger carnivores has led to an explosion in the population of a small pest species (voles, dormice, lemmings, or whatever you feel fits best). Having eaten themselves out of house and home in the wilderness, these pests invade outlying manors, destroying grain and vegetable stores, gardens and crops. If they aren’t stopped, the manors will face an uncertain winter.
- Herd beasts are disappearing, and there is little sign of their where-abouts. A nearby gargun colony (say, a couple of days march from here) has a new king, and he plans to raise these herb beasts in the manner of humans. He has told his warriors to collect as many herd beasts as possible and bring them back-alive-to the colony. Meanwhile, other gargun are clearing fields around the colony to house the beasts.
Wrap-up
Do you not agree that gargun have settled into their niche and that Hârn’s ecology is regaining its balance? Does this post have any value apart from (maybe) an interesting topic to think about? Please share your thoughts and leave a comment.
Tags: ecology, gargun