McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Factions - realistic or unrealistic?
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And that's assuming you are only talking about one species on competition with itself. You have different animals all squished together with different but overlapping needs and you have an ecosystem to work with. Werewolves probably would tend to a territorial pack hierarchy, but there could be several packs near each other if they have reason enough. Vampire may be all Victorian Court style, or just as easily fit a solitary hunter motif, or rodent like sewer goblin. But were the wolves may naturally form into packs, maybe vampires are solitary predators (the Cats to the wolves Dog). Maybe the Lizard People in that are mistaken for sewer alligators can have a more complex society since they stay out of new tunnels and thus the human eye most of the time.
One good thing to look at is the "peace" of organized crime. Its some of the most Darwinian corners of society around, and shows how a bunch of widely diverse groups can coexist. It depends on the "business" of each, and in a fantasy setting you just have to look at it with monster needs in mind. Mobs in a city tend to stake out territory in terms of geography and/or product. Street gangs that do intimidation rackets and the petty crime stuff, but may not get into drugs or gambling or prostitution. Likewise the drug dealers probably don't care who is robbing jewelry stores, as long as they Mind Their Own Business. You could well have ecosystem like that. Maybe Werewolf packs are the thugs, and each have a neighborhood, and brawl like you'd expect. Meanwhile the Vampires run the drugs, but have a truce with the wolves in exchange for Red Cross Blood Drives (which goes to hell when the next Alpha steps up). Maybe there is a small school of Sirens out by Pier 13, but they don't really bother anyone else, and sometimes will distract border patrols for friendly smugglers. Arms dealers could probably care less whats happening on the streets, unless that is their market.
One of those things with UF you have to think about is what force is keeping the supernatural out of the public eye. Is it a Masquerade, some conspiracy between all supernatural factions, and if so what made them all agree to get along? Is it the combination of technological disruption and subconscious human disbelief that keeps humans from noticing? Is there a secret government cover-up, some Men in Black agency that swoops in to invalidate and steal the camera footage? Personally I'm a fan of the Fall of the Black Court; the idea that one of the superpowers was nearly annihilated by what from their perspective amounts to a horde of chickens, and all the rest are afraid it will happen again.
But Oz makes a good point. Sometimes all it takes is simple food supply. Running with that thought, it doesn't make natural sense for predators to compress and cooperate in any degree in a city like that. Rather they would either consolidate the city as a single, particularly bountiful territory, or else they would go out into the wilderness to get the isolated prey that has not concentrated itself for herd protection. But in the modern age, as society has developed and communication has become so ever present, it would have reversed the situation: in small rural areas, Taken Prey would make much more of a stir than in a crowded city where the prey are killing each other every day. Survival would push them to enter the cities and blend in, the proverbial Wolf in Sheeples clothing. That would probably chaff the longer lived of the supernatural predators, imitating their prey instead of maintaining the pride of yada-yada...
Anyways, many ways to take it, depends on what you want it to do for you
Snowleopard:
Whether you like the Sookie Stackhouse books or not.
Charlaine Harris does do some nice things with her shifters.
The Werewolves consider themselves sort of the top of the shifters
but woe to anyone who calls them a shifter. (They're the bad ass biker types almost.)
Patricia Briggs in her Mercy Thompson series has given her werewolves a very specific
heirarchy and different sets of behavior for alpha wolves and the lower wolves.
asetti:
--- Quote from: Snowleopard on April 29, 2012, 07:00:42 AM ---Groups can split on all different kind of lines.
Political, religious, financial, ethnic, size, age, gender,
strength, families, the list of possible groups is endless.
--- End quote ---
And I would say it would be more odd for groups NOT to split into factions especially in a violent UF world. think about modern day gangs. You don't hear about someone being a Blood and a Crip.
arcanist:
--- Quote ---And I would say it would be more odd for groups NOT to split into factions especially in a violent UF world. think about modern day gangs. You don't hear about someone being a Blood and a Crip
--- End quote ---
.
i've always found it weird that all members of a race were part of the same group. In anita blake every single werewolf pack seemed to have more or less the same culture and terminology, ugh.
OZ:
I have to admit that I have gotten tired of "packs" of werewolves. I liked the idea when I first heard it and I still enjoy the Mercy Thompson and Kate Daniels books but for the most part I feel the idea is now worn out. Everyone that writes werewolves now seems to think that it has to be part of the story. Give me back the story of the lone man either good or evil, cursed or with a spell, able to control regular wolves or not, and maybe or maybe not in control of himself. Give me an urban fantasy where every third person you meet is not a were (or other supernatural) and where pack politics don't occupy a third to half the story. That's one of the many things that I like about Jim's weres. The closest he has to a pack is a group of college friends that like to hang out together and if there's any talk of alphas and hierarchy it takes place off screen.
Sorry about the rant. It's been building for a while.
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