Environment and Creatures

Source: Dungeon Master's Guide

Introduction

Creatures do more than rip, bite, tear, and pummel player characters for the fun of it. They eat. They seek shelter. They poop. They need protection from predators. They sleep. They make little versions of themselves (with and without the help of others). In short, they have lives outside of the brief time they appear in your Dungeons and Dragons game session.

When developing an encounter that involves a creature, you should take into account all of these aspects of its existence. Doing so will get you thinking more deeply about your game which almost always leads to a more entertaining role-playing experience for you and your players. You might even come up with ideas you would not have considered without such an in-depth analysis. It’s also just plain fun.

Source: Dungeon Master's Guide

To that end, I'd like to talk a little bit about environment and its impact on your creature encounters.

Environment

Source: Pixabay

When designing a creature encounter, the first thing you must consider is the environment in which the encounter takes place. Environment is defined as “the surroundings or conditions in which a person, animal, or plant lives or operates.” As such, the environment describes the stage (but not the set pieces) upon which an encounter takes place. It establishes the weather, general landscape, and flora. More importantly it sets limits on the creatures that can appear in the encounter. A creature will only survive in an environment where it can find food, shelter, and protection. For example, barring magical influence, an owlbear cannot live in the ocean because it cannot breathe underwater. You therefore should not create an underwater encounter with an owlbear. Doing so breaks the “reality” of the game and can dampen everyone’s fun.

Select the Terrain Type

Dungeons and Dragons uses “terrain types” as high-level categories for the environment. To get started with a creature encounter, you’ll need to first pick the terrain type where the encounter will take place.

The game includes the following terrain types: arctic, coastal, desert, forest, grassland, hills, mountains, swamp, Underdark, underwater, and urban. You might be able to come up with other terrain types but those will always fit into at least one of these predefined ones. (Since there are various rules that affect or are affected by terrain type, it’s not a good idea to create your own without also considering these ancillary rules. It’s easier to just use the terrain types the game already defines and find the best fit for your environment.)

Source: Pixabay

It is possible for the player characters to travel through one terrain type before coming upon an encounter in another terrain type. How the characters get to the encounter doesn’t necessarily matter. The terrain type immediately surrounding the encounter is much more important. For example, an encounter might be deep in a cave (Underdark terrain) whose entrance is in the mountains (mountain terrain) of a frozen wasteland (arctic terrain). In this example, since the encounter is in a cave, only the Underdark terrain is applicable. It doesn’t matter that the characters had to climb mountains and brave blizzards to get there.

Select the Creature(s)

Once you know the terrain type, you’ll need to pick the creature(s) that will appear in the encounter. Fortunately, Dungeons and Dragons has your back here too. Various supplements list the creatures that can be found in each terrain type. These lists are in the appendix of the Dungeon Master’s Guide, Volo’s Guide to Monsters, and Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes. D&D Beyond also provides the ability to search for creatures by terrain type. (Ironically, the Monster Manual does not list creatures by terrain type.) 

Source: Volo's Guide to Monsters

Your environment might actually include more than one terrain type, such as a coastal forest (forest and coastal terrains), a hilly desert (hill and desert terrains), or the entrance to a cave in a frozen tundra (Underdark and arctic terrains). Your instinct might be to only select from creatures that are listed for all the terrains involved. While you can certainly do this, you will be putting unnecessary limitations on your encounter. 

Consider instead that in a situation where there are multiple terrain types at play, one terrain type will always have a greater effect on a creature than the others. Which terrain type this is depends on the creature. For example, though a black bear can be found in hills it will likely not be in the hills of a desert because of the adversities that desert conditions impose. A scorpion, on the other hand, is not listed for the hill terrain but could still be found in a hilly desert because, once again, the desert conditions are the primary driving force not the hills. For creatures that exist in the real world, which terrain is “more important” can be fairly easy to work out. It will take a little more practice and research for the creatures unique to the Dungeons and Dragons. Fortunately, many creature descriptions include hints for if not full disclosure of this sort of information.

Native Environment

For the sake of this write-up, if a creature is listed under a terrain type then consider that terrain type to be a native environment for that creature. This has a practical impact on the creature’s day-to-day existence. In its native environment, it will know what is edible and the best way to acquire those foods. It will know where to find shelter or where to find the materials to build a shelter. It will know the predators it must protect itself against (and likely have certain adaptations to help in their defense). It might even have access to others of its own kind with which it can mate. This helps to ensure the species carries on after the creature is dead. In short, the native environment provides the food, shelter, protection, and mates a creature needs to thrive.

Source: Pixabay

From a game standpoint, a creature in its native environment will have a certain knack for utilizing the environment to its benefit. The extent of this benefit, of course, depends on the intelligence of the creature. A zebra might know where the various watering holes are in a desert but a humanoid might know where to dig to find an underground spring. A deer might be able to recognize the web of a giant spider and avoid it but a fey might be smart enough to lead its pursuers into the webs to escape a pursuer. None of this necessarily affects the rolls a dungeon master might need to make but it does provide a broader opportunity for acting with and reacting to events as they unfold in an encounter beyond simply standing their ground and hoping for the best.

Non-Native Environment

For the sake of this write-up, if a creature is not listed under a terrain type then consider that terrain to be a non-native environment for that creature. (I know “non-native environment” can be another location of the same terrain type, such as two different lakes or two different forests. But I want to put that aside for now.) You can, of course, place a creature in such a terrain type. You just need a good reason for doing so. Fortunately, there are several possibilities.

Source: Dungeon Master's Guide

A creature might simply wander into a new environment. Here, a creature could be taking advantage of a change in the environment that makes travel possible where before it was not. For example, a vargouille slips through a portal that a necromancer opens between his desert hideout (desert terrain) and a nearby city (urban terrain). Or a creature might be following a food source, paying more attention to its belly than its location. For example, a xorn tunneling underground (Underdark terrain) for precious metals breaches the surface and finds itself in a prairie (grassland terrain). A creature could even be escaping a threat, such as predators or a natural disaster. For example, a goblin tribe leaves its wooded homeland (forest terrain) for the nearby marshes (swamp terrain) to escape the lizardfolk who invaded their territory.

A creature might be transported into a new environment by accident. This could happen due to a natural event. For example, a hippogriff is carried from its mountainside nest (mountain terrain) up into the highland tundra (arctic terrain) by the winds of a hurricane. A creature could even unexpectedly find itself a passenger on another creature or a mobile object. For example, a flail snail hanging out in the woods (forest terrain) is suddenly on the back of a summoned zaratan that lumbers its way into nearby plains (grassland terrain).

A creature might also be purposefully introduced into an environment. This could be the result of a rather benevolent need. For example, settlers moving into a wild forest (forest terrain) bring with them a herd of aurochs for manual labor. It could be to hunt other creatures in the area. For example, a gnoll pack lord lets loose a few maw demons on a city (urban terrain) they are sacking. It could also be to provide protection. For example, a wizard might set a mimic in a cavern (Underdark terrain) to protect her possessions.

Source: Monster Manual

Residing in a non-native environment also has a very practical impact on a creature’s day-to-day existence. A non-native creature might have a more difficult time finding food, shelter, and/or protection. This puts its life in jeopardy and in some instances can drive the creature to behave more recklessly than it normally would. A creature can still survive if someone or something provides it food, shelter, and protection. For example, a wizard using a mimic to guard his treasure could periodically put a rabbit or two in the room for the mimic to hunt. The creature then becomes dependent on that support. So the next question to ponder is what happens when that support is no longer available?

Conversely, a non-native creature might find life much easier in its new environment. It could be that the native creatures have no real defense against it, making for an easy snack. Or maybe there are no predators, allowing the creature to breed and multiply at unprecedented rates. Again, thinking through this can lead to interesting game play.

Of course, there is a toll on the environment when a non-native species thrives in it. The results can be unexpected and quite devastating as is demonstrated in the real world. (I’ll be discussing impact in a later installment of my blog.) 

Conclusion

In general, a single creature will only survive in an environment where it can find food, shelter, and protection. An entire species will only persist in an environment where food, shelter, protection, and mates for reproduction are available. If a creature (or species) cannot meet these needs, it will eventually perish. And this is why the environment is the first thing you must consider when designing a creature encounter. Dungeons and Dragons has made this easy for dungeon masters with their lists of creatures by terrain type. Of course, a creative DM can always place a creature in an environment other than one for which it is listed, but there needs to be some explanation for this.

Source: Pixabay

That’s all I have on environment for now. In subsequent posts, I’ll be taking a look at other aspects of a creature encounter, including geography, society, impact, and motivation. Until then, comment below to continue the discussion.

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