A more light hearted lore question for people to consider.
An observation that a professor of mine made has stuck with me for some time. That when taverns started to be replaced by coffee houses in Europe all of a sudden all the supernatural creatures to disappear. Now this could be linked to the rise of scientific and enlightenment thinking. Or it simply means that dragons are allergic to coffee. What do you think?
You reversed cause and effect.
When coffee shops started popping up, the monster hunters went from being drunk and or hungover, to being wired and focused, meaning they were much more effective at their jobs.
That does explain a few things. Though I’m not sure coffee could have saved that group in the Badlands.
It’d have to be the caffeine specifically, since dragons eat animals that can lactate. But good point; we haven’t seen a barista at Wyrmrest Temple.
Correlation is not causation.
Depletion of natural habitat? That usually kills/limits most things… (the widespread consumption of coffee accompanied the industrial revolution)
The widespread adoption of coffee consumption did directly effect the Dragon population, but not for the reasons you might think.
Or did you really think coffee came from a bean?
Caffeine doesn’t give you the weird visions and complete lack of judgement that hard alcohol will induce.
Perhaps “some one” partook in a particular mushroom or weed, and they had visions that a strong cup of coffee easily dispelled.