Underdark Frontier Encounter List

Underdark Frontier Encounter List

Possible list of encounters in the Frontier areas of the Underdark. Frontier areas are lightly settled tunnels or caves, but communities are small and far apart, usually separated by miles of tunnels. Occasional larger forts maybe present to give warning to larger settlements in the distance.

Abishai, black
Ankheg
Baphotaur
Bat, deep
Baneguard
Beholder, gauth
Bodak
Bugbear band (hunters, scouts, family group)
Chitine hunters
Cildabrin
Cloaker
Cockroach, giant
Desmodu
Dire corbie
Dragon, juvenile deep
Dragon, juvenile copper
Dragon, young adult black
Dragon, young red
Dragonkin
Drow scouts
Duergar marauders, scouts, hunting party, miners
Earth Glider
Ettin
Foulwing
Ghaunadan
Giant, phaerlin
Giant, stone
Gloura
Goblin war party
Grick
Grimlock hunters
Gray render
Hound of the gloom
Lamia
Lurker
Lurking strangler
Medusa
Metalmaster
Mind flayer
Mindshredder larva
Mohrg
Nifern
Nycter
Ooze, black pudding
Otyugh
Phaerlock
Psurlon, average
Raggamoffyn, shrapnyl
Reason stealer
Roper
Roper, prismatic
Scorpion, giant whip
Skindancer
Slaad, red
Spellgaunt
Spider, harpoon
Spider, Large monstrous
Spider, giant sun
Spider, giant whip
Spider, shadow
Spider, subterranean
Stonesinger
Susurrus
Svirfneblin patrol
Swarm, bat
Swarm, swamp strider (near lakes, rivers, and other wet/swampy areas)
Troglodyte war party
Troll
Troll, cave
Umber hulk
Vampire spawn
Vermin lord
Wererat troupe
Wraith
Xorn, average

Human Nature causes law breaking

Human Nature causes law breaking

The human concept of morality poses upon us some interesting quandaries. We create laws to regulate behaviors and protect the innocent, but in some cases these laws actually cause more issues then they solve.

As I pointed out earlier the economic impact of the Drug Trade alone is well into the Billions if not over a Trillion dollars a year in the United States alone. This is money that is spent because Federal Law says that the mere use and in some cases possesion of certain drugs is illegal due to morality.

The number of drunk driving deaths in the United States was 11,773 in 2008. This was a 9.7% increase from 2007. These are deaths that we live with because by 1933 the cost of enforcing Prohibition Laws, coupled with the sheer amount of illegal activities surrounding alcohol made it impossible to enforce. It is estimated that there were between 30,000 to 100,000 Speakeasies in New York in 1933. In modern day New York there are only about 20,000 bars AND restaurants in New York City. This is despite a nearly doubling of the population in the City itself.

Take a look at this map which covers 176 bars in the East Village alone. Now imagine what up to five times as many bars would look like. I’m pretty sure that Police Enforcement in that day and age must have consisted of walking down the street, looking for the unmarked “empty” storefronts and simply kicking down the door. The number of false positives under such a method would have been remarkably low.

“Many laws as certainly make bad men, as bad men make many laws.” ~Walter Savage Landor, Imaginary Conversations

That certain laws inherently cause crimes has pretty much been a given throughout history. Speed Limit laws are a great example. I know that I regularly travel 5-10 miles over the posted limit. Even though it may be perfectly safe for me to travel at that faster speed, I’m still breaking the law. This happens so much that Police departments across the United States tends to give an unofficial 3-5 mile grace. Or if all the traffic around you is going faster, they’re more likely to pull someone over for not going with the flow of traffic.

“The more laws the more offenders.” ~Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia, 1732

In another example, Oregon’s Cell Phone law goes into effect January 1st, 2010. In short, talking on a cell phone without a hands free device will result in a Class D traffic-violation with a minimum $142 fine. The fine amount and exact classification will change depending on the jurisdiction.

Both my wife and I believed this law already to be in effect. But I also found that it only marginally changed my cell phone usage behaviors in the car. Now that I know for sure that the law goes into affect tomorrow, this may be a different story.

Another example is Age of Consent laws. In the United States the age of consent is defined between 16 to 18 depending on the state. Yet in Europe and Latin America, the age is 13-16, which Chile being the only country at 18. Here is where things get weird. According to this chart in 1880, the Age of Consent in almost every State was either ten or twelve, with Delaware at seven! Universally that age increased to the 16-18 range by the 1920’s, but in many cases it was moved from 18 back down to 16.

The Age of Consent is aimed at “protecting” innocent and immature children. The definition of innocent and immature is at best a crap shoot as it varies from person to person. Even what actions would make someone immature or mature vary and could be seen in the same person within a few minutes of each other.

Not counting in the Morality arguments, Age of Consent still has one more huge factor to take into account. This being human nature AKA basic psychology. In 1943 Abraham Maslow wrote “A Theory of Human Motivation.” Included in this paper was the theory of the hierarchy of needs.

450px-Maslow's_Hierarchy_of_Needs

This chart was borrowed from Wikipedia. I have been utterly facinated with this theory ever since it was introduced to me in High School. There are hundreds of variations on this chart, which all pretty much manage to differ only on wording and color. To interpret this chart the needs at the bottom have to be met before the next level can even be met.

Note that the third level puts sexual intimacy before needs such as self-esteem, confidence, achievement, respect of self and lack of prejudice! To be fair not every need on every level needs to be met by every person to advance to the next level. Add in the fact that in the past ten years it’s pretty much become accepted in Psychology that both sexes are hardwired to be attracted to younger members of the opposite as a matter of Evolution, and we have a recipe for disaster in light of these Age of Consent Laws.

So in this case people are torn between three things, their morality, societies laws, and their own psychological needs. People can barely keep to the speed limit which is a fairly black or white issue in comparison! Who in their right mind really expects the average person to be able to wrestle with questions on this level when philosophers have been asking these kinds of questions for thousands of years?

The primary reason in the slippage of the Age of Consent from 13-14 to 16-18 being fictional news reports in a British Newspaper about forced child prostitution in 1885. But what continues to be covered up is that the primary factor behind child prostitution (and prostitution of any form) is economic. Prostitution drastically decreased during the 1870-1910 period due to Industrial Revolution which grew fastest in the United States and led directly to a higher amount of wealth across all sections of the population. This had to have a much bigger effect then any laws put in place.

So now we have a supply and demand situation that leads directly to child abuse and it’s associated side effects. And worse of all, Child Prostitution hasn’t gone away. It’s simply been moved to third world countries were it once again makes economic sense.

The key point here is that humans will break the law after a risk analyst and nothing is going to stop that, no matter the punishment. Millions of years of Evolution can not be stopped in a couple of hundred years, and it can be argued that doing so could be more detrimental to the individual then anything else.

I’m not sure what the answer is. Perhaps 1985 type mind control techniques do make sense for the betterment of society. Or perhaps the Golden Rule or the Ethics of Reciprocity should become law unto themselves. Maybe the Age of Consent should be revised downwards and parents forced to take a more active interest in their Children’s lives and development?

Time to legalize illicit drugs?

Is it time to legalize illicit drugs?

Listening to NPR can elicit some sobering thoughts sometimes. It’s becoming more and more obvious that the United States really needs to become more practical about a lot of issues, and less emotional. One of the biggest issues that affects our country much more then most people realize is illicit drug use.

According to the White House.Gov budget web pagethe Drug Enforcement Agency’s budget was $1,761,000,000 in 2007. The page gives estimates $1,937,000,000 for 2009. There are several other agencies who overlap into the drug trade on that page too. Add in the FBI, Marshals service, Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force, BATF, and Attorney’s and we’re talking about another $1,196,400,000. If we use an extremely conservative 10% of their actual budget is directly related to drug enforcement, that still comes out to $119,640,000

Now, according to Criminal Offenders Statistics half of all prisoners are serving for violent or drug related crimes. Again, being conservative lets say half of those are drug related crimes. Going back to the Federal Budget, $5,534,000,000 is for the Federal Prison System. A quarter of that is $1,383,500,000.

So on the Federal level we have an extremely conservative number of $5,081,500,000. This is the direct MINIMUM cost of the Drug War to taxpayers in 2009.

Now, according to White House Drug Policy report, US Citizens spent $63,700,000 on illicit drugs of all types in 2000. Other sources state that drug use has stayed steady since 1993, so we can assume this number is still pretty close. So at a Federal level, not including individual states, we’re spending over five billion dollars to stop sixty million dollars of trade.

In Mexico, over 10,000 people have died in the drug war violence in the past few years. There are no hard numbers for drug related deaths in the United States, but no doubt a huge number of those violent crime statistics I mentioned above are drug related.

In 2003, Alcohol and Tabacco Sales were $115,900,000,000. Without any other hard data, lets assume that sales are the same in 2009, although they’ve most likely increased since then. With an average (low-balled) tax of 5%, all the states are making a combined $5,795,000,000 from the sale Alcohol and Tabacco products. Yes, these may not be the same as the hard drugs, but they all come into the same class of Luxury products in their recreational use.

After Prohibition ended, the cost of illegal alcohol decreased to ten percent of it’s Prohibition-era costs. Let’s assume the same would happen if the current crop of illegal drugs were legalize and we find that the drug trade would decrease to $6,370,000 over the entire United States. At the same 5% tax increase we’d see a mere $318,000 in tax revenue.

To break it down:

Cost of “Drug War”: $5,795,000,000 (Federal Level Only)
Tax revenue generated off legalized drugs: $318,000
Cost of education at Federal Level in 2009: $45,400,000,000
Cost of Iraq War, 2009: $136,000,000,000

Now, I didn’t add in costs of rehabilitation from drug use which is already factored into our current health costs. Nor did I also factor in the cost of putting in a legal distribution system (free to tax payers), tax enforcement system (minimal and covered by IRS as part of regular duties,) any age limit enforcement laws that would need to be taken care of before drugs were legalized, and of course drug tests for employment. There is also the current cost of cleaning up illegal drug production sites, especially in National Forests. Such costs would be rolled up into the production and manufacture and thus taken away from the Taxpayer.

It’s interesting to note that after Prohibition, the consumption of alcohol went DOWN by 30%. While there is no reason to believe drug consumption would decrease also, it’s hard to imagine it would increase by more then ten or fifteen precent.

I have also not mentioned any monies that would be generated by commercial hemp production as product demand would likely remain fairly low. Although Hemp seems to be one of the best plants to convert into biofuels, so those revenues could potentially increase dramatically.

The last thing we have to factor in is the affect legalized drug would have on other countries. To take Mexico for an example as their citizens are responsible for a huge percentage of illegal drug production, in addition to their own savings in having to decrease drug enforcement program, there would be more money flowing into their overall economy. Small scale farmers could afford to cultivate currently illegal products and raise their own economic level to name just one example.

Economically I think we really only have one choice. The moral arguments against currently illegal drugs is the exact same as it was against alcohol during Prohibition and will probably never be solved. But having just under six billion more dollars, a decreased prison population, less pollution, and most of all, less violence seems to counter just about any moral argument one can make.