Fantasy Monster Ecology

Some people have often pointed out the illogical nature of many fantasy world monsters, especially those derived from D&D. It's been said that many monsters seem to exist for the sole purpose of killing adventurers and would never have naturally evolved-- and I agree, for many creatures, this does seem to be the case.


But is it unrealistic?

I think not. Throughout human history, we have used breeding techniques to create new variations of creatures. For example, the various breeds of cats, dogs, horses and cows. These are not creatures that would have existed in nature. And now that we are technologically advanced enough to understand DNA, we can even directly manipulate it to create "featherless chickens" such as those reported on by the BBC News article in the column to the left.



So, concerning fantasy worlds and bizarre ecology, I think many of these creatures can be attributed to wizards engaged in their own breeding experiments; though I suppose wizards would be using magical means to do so.....I am reminded of the famous quote from Arthur C. Clarke where he said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

 In my own world I have a variety of bizarre creatures which have been engineered by magical means, along with an equally magical explanation for their presence in the world. Some of them were created by an ancient race of wizards to do everything from collect trash to light up streets to protecting their towers from would-be treasure hunting robbers-- and since the end of that civilization the engineered creatures have been free to roam the world and even inter-breed with other creatures, spawning new ones.

I could be deep with this element of my world-design, and make the existence of these creatures a parable. I probably will do that, though taking a devil's advocate approach at times in order to make things more interesting.

Personally, I think there is nothing inherently "evil" about genetic engineering. I believe that the morality of an action is determined by the consequences of the action, both intended and unintended.

I will admit, I do think it is a'bit unethical to engineer a creature which will die if human beings do not take care of it, like a featherless chicken. I would much rather see genetic engineering used to advance a species, not degenerate it.