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.
Very interesting article. It covers the environmental impact of an introduced carnivore species thorughly; I did not know gargun were entirely carnivores by the way.
The analysis does not focus on the swarm however; which seems to me to be more of an omnivore or herbivore behaviour, but I could be wrong. Or maybe swarming is a reflection on the relative intelligence of Gargun; who on perceiving a supply/demand imbalance have enough brains to relocate.
A question: Would a swarm precede extensive cannabilism or thew other way round?
Barring insects, the only animal type I know that swarms are rodents; lemmings, mice, and rats. This only happens when the conditions are right, which is usually during or after a time of plenty, when the birth rate can explode. The animals exhibit aberrant behaviour, like fighting and running off cliffs into the sea. I think gargun swarm because of population pressures, too. And these probably come about for much the same reasons; an over-abundance of food. Lots of food means the pressure is off to eat other gargun; so the population builds, the pressure rises, and some spark sets off a civil war.
A civil war is the perfect time for a strong enough group or faction of grab a princess or two, and head out of the hive to escape the carnage. It’s a bit hard to know what comes first, though. It could be that an attempt by a faction to grab a princess is the spark that sets off the civil war. Either way, the swarm bugs out, and the rest of the colony convulses in an orgy of blood-letting. After the war is over, either the old king restores some kind of order, or the new king does. In either case, I suspect the hive celebrates with a feast…and guess what’s on the menu.
Now how many ways can you serve gargun? Roasted, fricasséed, grilled, fried, steamed, poached in a white wine sauce…. 😀
This doesn’t address the issue of the effect of the swarm on the environment. In my opinion, these are of too short a duration to be considered as anything more than a localised natural disaster, probably the equivalent of a flood, or a small wild fire. I don’t see any real long-term effects arising from a swarm. I suspect that the great majority of swarms are doomed. Only a very small proportion would last for any length of time, and most of those would then be wiped out by their neighbours (who could be from the original colony, of course). Of course, that’s just one way to look at it; there are bound to be other ways, other conclusions.
I agree that the effects of the swarm would not be too catastrophic, at least on the wider stage. Wouldn’t want one on my manor though.
It seems to me that the impact of the gargun post Lothrim is implied in Canon to be minimal. For me, the absence of inter-racial wars of extermination, or even lessr efforts by the human kingdoms to subdue the gargun, points to one of two things: Either the gargun pose no real problem/threat or they are too resilient to bother trying to repeatedly subdue.
The analysis presented by Peter (the other one!) would seem to support the former.
Peter, this is a very nice article!
Peter the skald,
The impact of gargun post Lothrim is discussed in some articles of the Hârn source material. For example, the Kubora annihilated gargun in Peran, and local gargun bands were destroyed or driven away near Minarsas Castle in Kaldor. Also, the Migration Wars times saw gargun and Khuzdul battling in the mountains around Azadmere.
But that was centuries ago. It seems some kind of status quo has prevailed since.
Dear Ilkka,
Indeed. I used the descriptor post Lothrim to imply that during Lothrim’s reign the impact of the Gargun was not…minimal. However post Lothrim is a long time and as you rightly point out they were probably more troublesome initially than they are now.
I think my main point is that it is clear that some sort of equilibrium exists without needing an explicit ‘they pose no great to society’ written down. The Khuzan may beg to differ…..
The Khuzdul weren’t the only group battling the gargun after the fall of Lothrim and during the Migration Wars. The Siem article in HMReligion briefly talks about the Uthriem Roliri, the “secretive brotherhood of human woodsmen…founded in the second century TR, seemingly as a reaction to the depredations…committed by the Gargun.”
I think the extensive hunting of Gargun tribes in those early years has affected the racial memory of the gargun, leaving them more wary of human (and khuzan) settlements, especially since they’ve got a group like the Uthriem Roliri actively keeping their eyes on them. It’s easier to attack each other than the civilized kingdoms.
BBailey,
Indeed. In my P-Harn the uthriem Roliri do not have a major impact on…well anything..but I guess they are the most explicit anti gargun action outside of the Dwarves.
So, it seems the gargun are kept in check by their nature, the prevailing ecology, and some intervention by others.
What I want to know is why some lord or other is not chomping at the bit the wipe off a few of these minimal impact aliens, especially as some are sitting valuable established lodes of minerals.
The thing that has always puzzled me about the ecology of gargun as described, is whether Harn can support the number of hungry critters descrbied. Gargun are mostly confined to the mountains – not the most productive biome by a long shot. Human hunter gatherers can manage about 0.5 to 1 person per square mile in such regions – and they aren’t pure carnivores so they can make much more efficient use of available food sources. At 640 acres to the square mile, a Harnic hex of 90,000 acres could support 70 – 140 hunter gatherers at these densities. Lets say that gargun can manage the same densities because although pure carnivores, they are smaller and eat less than humans. This means that a complex of 1000 gargun requires somewhere in the vicinity of 7 to 14 hexes to support it.
Is there enough land for them?
decoucy, don’t forget their cannibalism. That has the twofold effect of reducing the number of mouths to feed, and providing food that doesn’t adversely impact the surrounding environment. Having said that, your figures for human hunter-gatherers are very interesting and worth having a look at. It could be that a total population of 40,000 gargun on Hârn is unsustainable, or perhaps the larger colonies are unsustainable…or both.
One way those figures could be justified — if they are a problem — is that they are the figures as at the beginning of 720TR; the same as all the other information. This might mean that colonies we see as being unsustainable are, in fact, on the verge of a civil war, that a number of gargun swarms are about to occur, and that the total population of gargun on Hârn is about to drop precipitately. 🙂
Hi Peter. I hadn’t forgotten about the cannibalism, but I don’t think it makes much difference. If one thinks of the numbers given for the gargun population as an average, then the Harnic hills must be able to provide enough food for that many gargun. Cannibalism doesn’t increase the number of gargun an area can support, it just decreases the number of gargun. If, in fact, if you think that cannibalism is a significant food source for gargun (presumably the larger ones) it actually makes the problem worse. Biologists tend to work on a rough 20:1 rule for carnivores – that is, for every carnivore there must be 20 times as much prey animal. In the same way that herding animals is less efficient and requires more room than raising crops, eating carnivores (who in turn eat animals) is even less efficient.
I’m not sure if I’ve been very clear here, but the point is that the problem is to do with energy inflow to the gargun population from prey animals, and cannibalism can only reduce this if it is actually reducing the number of gargun – it can’t increase the long term equilibrium population.
As to sustainable numbers – I suspect it varies. I doubt the mountains round Azadmere can support the numbers said to be living there. If you take your “as at 1 Nuzyael 720” argument, then massive swarms and civil wars are due around Azadmere in 720. Could be interesting…
Cheers,
De Coucy
Hi decoucy,
I think what Peter was meaning is that Gargun cannabilism is kind of like herding; or even ‘growing’ crops..in that it is a more efficient method of food production.
In essence, a 1000 gargun hunting in the sparse forests is less efficient than 500 gargun hunting in the forests and eating the other 500! With my arbitrary ratio this would imply that either the 40,000 is really 80,000 (with half as ‘fodder’); or that the 40,000 is made up of 20.000 fodder.
The fact that half will be taken out of hunting will not reduce the productivity as their ‘gift’ will be greater than the removal of their hunting skills. That says a lot about their reproductivity or their hunting skills IMHO.
Hi Peter (the Skald)
Even if the cannibalism is like herding it is still less efficient than just hunting because you’ve added another layer to the food chain.
1000 gargun > hunting animals in the forest
is more efficient than
50 gargun > preying off a population of 1000 gargun (20:1 predator to prey ratio) > hunting animals in the forest.
Cannibalism cannot make any significant difference to the number of gargun that an area can support – except to make it a little worse – although it can function as a mechanism for bringing down population numbers when they get too high. To assert otherwise is to assert the biological equivalent of a perpetual motion machine (a population of 1000 gargun surviving by eating some of that population cannot support a stable population of 1000 gargun…)
Cheers,
De Coucy
Hi decoucy,
Why is 1000 gargun hunting in the forest more efficient than 500 hunting in the forest and eating 500 other Gargun? (I am not sure whether the 50/1000 20:1 ratio was a misread of my no’s or a new argument by the way..however, it is all arbitrary)
Cannibalism doesn’t increase the number an area can support…but it decreases the area needed to support a certain number…it is a freezer full of supplies.
Hi Peter.
Cannibalism is only a freezer full of supplies for as long as the supplies last. Then you’re back to square one.
Why is 1000 gargun hunting more efficient than 500 hunting and 500 (or whatever number) living off the 500 that are hunting? Good question, I’m glad you asked…
The total gargun population an area is able to support is a function of the energy (read : “food”) flowing into the total gargun population. Gargun eathing other gargun doesn’t alter the total energy inflow. Sure, for a short time some gargun can survive by eating others, but this is neither here nor there in terms of the equilibrium level that an area can support.
Saying that cannibalism can result in a larger population of gargun is equivalent to saying we could solve an oil shortage in a country by siphoning fuel out of some cars and into others. Yes, we can keep some cars running longer that way, but it doesn’t address the total supply of petrol in the country at all.
Hmm… reduced to poor metaphors. I’m not explaining this as well as I could…
Cheers,
De Coucy
De Coucy, I get you and you are correct; the laws of energy conservation certainly apply to this case. There is a total amount of energy available in a habitat to support everything, including gargun. Growing gargun need energy, and that has to come from somewhere, most probably from outside the colony. At some point the amount of energy flowing from outside to inside must come to an equilibrium and match the energy flowing the other way.
I guess what I was saying is that the gargun cannibalism is a means for the energy within a gargun colony to circulate, thus — to a limited degree — reducing the energy intake from the external environment for at least a short time. I certainly don’t think that cannibalism can support a higher population of gargun…that’s just crazy talk! 😀 In fact, it’s a means of population containment, reducing the impact of the colony on the outside environment. It’s not sustainable over the long haul, but it can lead to short term fluctuations in the impact of a gargun colony on the surrounding habitat.
So energy travels into a colony and cannibalism helps to circulate that energy within the colony for a short period, but eventually energy must also travel in the reverse direction. Swarms are an obvious way that energy leaves the colony, as would a bloody civil war. Which leads me to an interesting thought…gargun dung. 😉
Obviously, gargun eat and excrete, consume and eliminate. They aren’t so alien as to be able to totally convert their food into energy, so there is a certain amount of waste. A major (perhaps the primary) way energy moves outside a colony is via the midden heap and a civil war could see a fairly substantial increase in the size of the colony’s dung pile, I’d imagine.
Of course, this opens up to possibility of a colony actually benefiting the surrounding environment, or at least some part of it. A gargun colony may well have a complete ecosystem of scavengers and their predators that rely on the waste products of a gargun colony. The midden heap attracts rats and dung beetles, and these in turn attract rat hunters and beetle eaters, and so on, and so on. Trees and bushes grow, rain falls and washes the waste down streams and the energy is dissipated into the surrounding environment…and the circle is complete.
This doesn’t address the fundamental question of whether the numbers as written are realistic. I haven’t made an exhaustive study (and I’m not going to) but I suspect you are correct and the population figures for gargun colonies are too high. It’s not an issue that most players or GMs will care too much about, but it makes for an interesting debate. 😀
This energy thing seems to be a puzzle. Here’s one way to ease things up, totally p-Hârn:
1) The gargun larvae eat excrement and/or vegetation (when there’s no meat available, and probably there isn’t for the larvae).
2) The gargun produce larvae as food, foraging for vegetation when their own excrement etc. cannot keep up the larvae.
3) Most of gargun cannibalism (up to 99 %) is actually eating the larvae, not adult (hatched) gargun.
Ergo: the gargun would have a supply of meat without needing to feed it with meat. At least 900 % more efficient, energy-wise!
4) The larvae would be foremost for the queen & the elite cadre of the colony. Thus dividing the larvae (i.e. meat) among the population would be a central way of controlling gargun populations.Eating babies is also a very good way to control the population level and even prevent swarming. 😉
IMHO, this would allow the Hârn sources to carry weight, while at least partially answering the energy puzzle & gargun impact on the environment & ecosystem.
-ILe
Interesting idea. Certainly provides a means of spreading the energy flow among more layers of the habitat and of dramatically reducing the overall impact of the hive on the environment.
These are the kinds of kooky, sideways-thinking ideas that I hoped would come from these posts. 🙂
Ikka. That idea is thoroughly disgusting. It seems very appropriate for the Gargun as written. I like it – although I worry a little about your state of mind 🙂
Cheers,
De Coucy
Thanks for the thanks. And thanks for caring. It’s good someone worries about my state of mind – because I don’t. 🙂
-ILe
The other thing is to increase the amount of animlas kept in the pens for breeding. Though as they are striclty carnivores, I wonder how many pen animal they would need to be able to harvest enough to feed half the population, the others fed from foraging.
How much meat in pounds I wonder would it take as a daily ration to keep a human going?
If we go with about 2,000 calories or so a day for a 150 lb human, we could probably drop to 1400 for a 100 lb gargun. Hamburger raw is about 600 calories per pound, so your average Gargun needs a little over 2 pounds of raw hamburger a day (say 2.5 lbs)
If gargun can absorb nutrition well from things like bones, and they can digest 90% of an animal, than say an 80 pound goat will give almost 30 days man day rations for Gargun, so your 1000 member gargun community needs about 35 goats per day.
I wonder if gargun also drink goats milk?
I also see gargun being happy to eat beetles, centipedes, etc., things humans don’t always look at as food.
Lastly, my personal feeling of Gargun is the can eat pretty well anything from an animal – bones, tendons, etc. It may not be their favorite part (or it may be), but they can eat far more of an animal than humans do.
Some have implied that Gargun have a faster metabolic rate than humans. Unfortunately to make the equation work, I’m not sure if this is a good idea.
It says under the entry for Amekt that the Kyani there have “substantial livestock holdings”…maybe some gargun have more than a few tethered goats…
@ 35 goats a day (or 17 or so if 50% of food comes from foraging) we are talking over 500 goats a month, or 6,000 per year @ the 17 number!
Another thought – If gargun drink goats milk (600 lieters per year per goat – using low but modern numbers – may be off for middle ages) the goat produces 360,000 calories per year, or almost 2/3 of a gargun can be supported by a goat’s milk!
Keep 500 milking goats going, enough males to make babies, and eat only enough goats to kepp 500 milking goats in operation, and you have 1/2 the population fed from maybe 600 goats or so.
The gargun maybe goats milk drinkers. Not quite how I envision them, but it makes more sense from a calorie/feeding idea.
The other thing is I wonder if they perhaps raise beetle colonies or similar – hell, it would be easy for them to feed dung beetles, and they are a good supply of protein!
I don’t think gargun are milk drinkers; that’s not how I interpret the phrase “pure carnivore”. Having said that, cats are also pure carnivores and they love milk. So I guess it’s possible, although I somehow doubt gargun get the majority of their caloric intake from milk.
No, I see gargun as consuming any protein that’s even remotely edible, including insects, carrion, birds, eggs, everything. When the surrounding environment becomes too denuded (energy poor) to support them, the colony turns inward for their next meal. Pressure to find food would contribute to swarming (i.e, get away before you get eaten yourself), which not only rids the colony of excess population but also distributes the pressure on the environment.
After this conversation, I’m no longer sure I believe the population figures for gargun colonies in HârnWorld. I think the population of a hive would fluctuate wildly but— over time—the average would be pretty low. That doesn’t make them any less a threat, though, because I can make a case that swarms are more frequent.
Nasty thought, that! 🙂
Dear Turin,
I am sure I am missing something, but where did the 35 goats no. come from?
And why justs goats, why not cattle etc
1400 calories per gargun, used the 600 calories for raw hamburger (could not find calories in raw goat), figured gargun digestive systems would allow them to eat 90% of the animal, 80 lb goat (figured middle ages goats were smaller than modern ones)
For the Goats vs Cattle – Goats eat alomst anything and are easier to “free range”. My problem with cattle is that they need better forage, and I don’t see gargun farming to provide the forage for cattle.
Leitchy – I somewhat feel as you do about milk drinking gargun (or maybe a diet of sour smelling curds fits them better). But I was tryiing to think of an equation that would make penned animals work in an animal husbandry fashion, as opposed to food that is to be eaten very soon. IMO, the penned animals provides some form of animal husbandry going on.
I acutally kind of like the dung beetle idea though – suits them well, I don’t know how realistic it would be to “raise” these animals for food purposes (Beetle Husbandry – we can call them the Yoko Onos instead!)
Just saw soemthing on a progarm last night , Anthony Bourdain who goes around eating foods from other (sometimes remote) cultures. One of the meals of the African Bushmen was Beetles. These were actually tasty to Bourdain, far more tasty than the Warthog Anus or Ostrich omelet that was baked in the dirt and covered with ashes! Now these they picked from thornbushes and were rather large, but Beetle raising as a form of animal husbandry makes more sense to me after seeing this. The other thing, they are very high in protein, and something like a dung beedle would have plenty of food available for it that does not require farming work by the Gargun.
IMO it kind of fots them as well. Eating insects that crawl around in crap all day.