Exactly how common are monsters, demons and magical beasts in

were common everywhere and so settlements were limited to nomadic villages
then elves came and killed them all
now big monsters are rare but smaller ones aren't uncommon in less-inhabited areas

File: 1483755070626.jpg (127KB, 719x1112px) Image search: [Google]

127KB, 719x1112px

I am currently DMing Ravenloft. What do you think?

>>51072552
very rare, most people have never seen one and some people think monsters simply don't exist

They're exceptionally rare in most of the nation, but the further south you go, the more likely you are to run in to one that made it past the Adobe Wall. Still, the Alligator Clan does its job well enough that most cowpokes go their whole lives without seeing one of these things.

>>51072552
Magical beasts are everywhere. Every living thing uses magic at least a tiny bit subconsciously.
Usually small things like a bird's internal compass or a plant self-generating a breeze to disperse seeds.
Beasties that breathe fire and crap rainbows are significantly rarer, and often monsters. If you wanted to find them it depends on where you are but it's not going to take you long to find tracks or the like. Many find civilised races not worth the bother unless starving. Most exist somewhere between wolves and tigers depending on the monster in question. Dangerous, but precautions can make it so they just don't want to bother.
Further away from civilisation are the real monsters -or more accurately civilisation is far away from them- which find civilised races somewhat tricky food. Like cracking a nut. Bring a tent, supplies and a guide.

Of course shit keeps shifting and a man eater giant lizard monster might start preying on outlying farms. Which necessitates guards, mercenaries and monster hunters.
Monsters are usually just anything that is both dangerous and difficult to impossible to train. An actual tiger would be a monster, it somewhat remarkable for using absolutely no magic whatsoever.

The only reliably safe way for normal people to travel between cities is to hire a band of professional travelers as an escort, or take the train. Plantations far enough outside of cities to be unable to expect help from them often hire mercenary armies for protection.

Top predator level. There might be 1 owl bear per valley, that kind of thing.

>In Ravenloft

The monsters are wherever Strahd wishes them to be. It's his land, after all.

>Dark Sun

Full blender mode, no survivors. The amount of leftover war creatures from the Red Age ensures either you encounter nothing and the desert cooks you, or you encounter a God awful abomination that tears you to shreds.

>>51072552
Rare, they are the stuff of legends and the tall tales of drunken old hunters or retired soldiers from the Reclamation war. No one outside the Church and the Imperial Academy believes that the war was fought against an arch-lich who had a compact with the more nefarious old ones and a legion of demons, despite the fact that the land bears scars from these horrors, and the heroes that cast them out. This is all despite the fact that the head of the Church is essentially an arch-lich himself, magic pervades the Empire and most military excursions are lead by the equivalent of a death knight, who is reanimated specifically for the purpose. In reality the entire rest of the world is mostly non-humans, mutants, or so strangely alien it would break their minds. The Imperial public is generally forbidden from leaving its bounds without sanction from one of the higher orders of power, and monsters are regularly routed from the borderlands by tinmen (basically steampunk skittarii, controlled and owned by the Academy's higher ranking officers). That being said my party is about to meet a monster for the first time in our next session.

>>51072552
It's a blender of primordial beasts and critters. Predators and minor threats are common, and you will be hard pressed for camping without leaving a guard out and sleeping in shifts. They all have some type of venom or deadly or powerful bite. Many of them have claws and talons, even if they're herbivores.

Pelts are often worth good money and claws/teeth are good trading items, and used as currency by a few. Food is aplenty because of the excess of animals, so people stay in large walled villages and towns. Adventurers and guards have to be competent and on point, but recent steam power has made many people lazy.

Monsters are a plague on society and a constant threat to the barbarian clans.