#and the giant fish clearly is (hi ocean arcanum)

[raayllum]

One thing I noted watching The Dragon Prince is that the intro splits the same continent in half with the elves/humans so they started with the same amount of magical animals/plants each. There’s still some magical animals the human side but their presence is far, far reduced comparatively so do you think that’s specifically because of dark magic harvesting leading to more “normal” to our eyes species dominating?

I’m fairly surprised there isn’t a visibly established livestock industry’s for magic animals too (that way say your lunar moths can be renewably hatched each year, or a sheep population equivalent kept etc).

You seem very immersed in much of the lore so thought it’d be fun to at least pose as a query.

I think there's a few different things here to consider (that we'll probably never get a definitive answer on) but this is my best guess + what we do know about how dark magic operates:

Both regular animals and magical creatures can be used for dark magic. We know this because we've seen human blood be used in a couple of spells, Claudia puts grasshopper goop in Soren's mouth (2x08), and then later uses the deer in its entirety to undo Soren's paralysis.

That said, it does seem that magical creatures are more potent and preferred for dark magic spells. This makes sense - while you can use the life essence of anyone/anything for dark magic, creatures with magic inside them (any arcanum) are inevitably going to have more to "squeeze out" than a non magical creature would.

With that in mind, I think canon gives us a few answers and subtextual clues.

The most important one is something Viren refers to 2x05 (which has haunted me ever since), in which he cites that, "After centuries of fighting amongst ourselves, the five human kingdoms finally found balance, an era of peace." The Book 2 novelization gives a little more information about this period on conflict, explaining that "The first summit of the Pentarchy had been held centuries ago, and it had brought an end to the Mage Wars and created the modern order of the human kingdoms" (Ch17).

We don't know, of course, if this is precisely the same period of time. Maybe by helping to imprison Aaravos (and presumably disposing of the last king of Katolis), the Orphan Queen likewise helped put an end to the mage wars. Maybe she only came on the scene centuries after the mage wars! Who knows. "Held centuries ago" could mean three, which matches up with the Orphan Queen / Aaravos imprisonment timeline (and no more mister startouch elf preying on mages) or it could go back closer to 700-800 years. We'll just have to wait and see if we ever get more details!

Regardless, the Mage Wars and the fact they were likely fuelled by dark magic, since it was humans fighting amongst themselves, might answer why we see so few (known) magical creatures in the Human Kingdoms other than maybe glow toads: mages went after the most potent magical ingredients during the fighting, and reduced those numbers to virtually nonexistent or extinct.

I would imagine before the Mage Wars / even before Xadia split, maybe, more magical creatures were held and domesticated as livestalk. (Elves certainly do keep some animals as pets, such as Janai's flying hot cat, though I'd expect something like a Moonstrider to maybe have evolved as a sort of hunting companion.) However, humans on the eastern side and elves on the western side were likely forced to abandon any farms / communities they had in regards to animal care when the Exile / Schism happened. Information and resources might've been lost, as animals on one side of the continent were likely different compared to others, although some humans (who already lived in the west) and some elves (who already lived in the east) wouldn't have had to have moved.

That said, I think the simplest and shortest answer is just that there's not a lot of mages within TDP's world. For each group of people, we see a lot more warriors or diplomats than mages and they don't seem to regularly be employed in the military of kingdom we've seen, Sunfire or Pentarchy troops or otherwise. We can also guess that in the Pentarchy due to the specificity of the ingredients needed, sometimes, that Katolis by virtue of being closest to the Border would be primed to have the most dark mages and dark mage traffic / travellers (although I've HC'd that Evenere due to its isolation has a fair bit of lingering magic more than say Del Bar or Duren). But due to the amount of knowledge and ingredients required to seemingly do most dark magic spells, as well as the toll it takes on the body, I think it makes sense that most people wouldn't have the interest, access, or ability to pursue that kind of path when there's plenty of others that are less gruelling / easier

Magic is everywhere, and small pieces of magic (like Ruthari's moon opals) are everywhere, but outside of the specific skillsets of each primal (Moonshadow illusion spells and forgery, maybe cooking, forgery and healing for Sunfire elves) it doesn't seem like magic is something they readily depend on for food or livestock in their day to day lives. And if that's not the case for the majority in Xadia (only used in times of crisis, etc), I can see that need plummeting in the Human Kingdoms simply because it takes a lot more time/energy to maintain than might be necessarily utilized because of the low demand

This was all long winded speculation and hopefully mostly coherent. If you're interested in more deep dive worldbuilding thoughts I'd really recommend some of @kradogsrats stuff as it's great and a lot more eloquent / all encompassing tbh

#worldbuilding #dark magic #headcanons #darkwinganimus #tdp #the dragon prince #requests #analysis series #analysis #it's hard cause something like a banther COULD be a magical creature we just don't Know #and the giant fish clearly is (hi ocean arcanum) #i think the pentarchy has a much more consistent black market for dark magic parts #moving through katolis to the rest but again #more narrow and underground > built into society #tag ramble