Your spins on races

[Mechalich]

On the subject of monocultural races, my preferred solution is to have nations and cultures break along lines other than race. So Elves who live in Alpha City are going to have much more in common with Humans from Alpha City than they will Elves from Zetaton. A settle made up exclusively (or nigh-exclusively) of a single race should be an anomaly, both in the fact of its existence and (as a result of that) its culture. Plus, in my own personal world-building efforts, I tend to have That One Country be Humans. Because why not?

I've tended to find multi-species cultures in fantasy worlds, and especially in D&D, to be unconvincing and to involve a lot of handwaving that ignores critical questions of how such polities would actually develop and behave. Take Silverymoon as an example. This is a kingdom ruled by a non-human immortal queen who has effectively god-like powers, but it's described as a more or less ordinary (albeit highly progressive) northern European fantasy state. It's just weak sauce.

If being an elf is actually a meaningful thing, then a human living in an elven city should find life to be pretty darn miserable - even if the elves are welcoming, nice, and not prejudiced at all. The experience would be considerably more foreign than going and living with the most foreign human culture you could imagine living with. Moving to say, rural Nepal, should be nothing compared to moving in with the elves.

Very few D&D products have ever actually gone and made their non-humans suitably non-human (the big exception is the Thri-Kreen, who are pretty fully realized in all their glorious weirdness). This is partly Tolkien baggage and has to do with the way he wrote elves and dwarves and hobbits more as mythical versions of humans than their own creatures, but its also just playing to the comfort zone of the players and the common Rubber-Forehead Aliens trope. And your average D&D 'race' would kill to be as well-developed as the Klingons.

Believable mixed cultures are certainly possible, but it's a lot of work and in a given story represents a lot of words. The same thing is generally true for exotic species in general. Doing them well takes a lot of effort, and yet the impulse is to flood worlds and universes with more than you can ever possibly get a handle on. I've done this myself in the past and looking back I'm largely unhappy with it.

[Max_Killjoy]

I've tended to find multi-species cultures in fantasy worlds, and especially in D&D, to be unconvincing and to involve a lot of handwaving that ignores critical questions of how such polities would actually develop and behave. Take Silverymoon as an example. This is a kingdom ruled by a non-human immortal queen who has effectively god-like powers, but it's described as a more or less ordinary (albeit highly progressive) northern European fantasy state. It's just weak sauce.

If being an elf is actually a meaningful thing, then a human living in an elven city should find life to be pretty darn miserable - even if the elves are welcoming, nice, and not prejudiced at all. The experience would be considerably more foreign than going and living with the most foreign human culture you could imagine living with. Moving to say, rural Nepal, should be nothing compared to moving in with the elves.

Very few D&D products have ever actually gone and made their non-humans suitably non-human (the big exception is the Thri-Kreen, who are pretty fully realized in all their glorious weirdness). This is partly Tolkien baggage and has to do with the way he wrote elves and dwarves and hobbits more as mythical versions of humans than their own creatures, but its also just playing to the comfort zone of the players and the common Rubber-Forehead Aliens trope. And your average D&D 'race' would kill to be as well-developed as the Klingons.

Fantasy-genre non-human species aren't usually intended to be an exploration of scientifically-rigorous alien cultures from unearthly faraway worlds.

Even if one's fantasy-setting has species that actually evolved, they evolved on exactly the same world as that world's humans, so there's some room for parallel and convergent evolution as a handwave -- it's not as if dwarves evolved on a high-gravity "water world" and are now somehow present on the earth-like world the humans are on, right? (Of course, someone will have written that novel at some point, just to prove me wrong now.)

And many fantasy settings are not worlds where evolution is the primary factor -- when the gods literally created the all the species/races around, there's no reason to assume they wouldn't follow a common model for whatever reason.

If elves are upright and bipedal and communicate through speech and have the same senses that humans have... their cultures might not be all THAT alien to a human. There are human cultures today that some of us find alien, incomprehensible, and maybe even repugnant, so there's a lot of span for some legendary/mythical "neighbors" from our past between "just like us" and "what?" that still falls in the "enough like us to comprehend" space.

[Grey Watcher]

I've tended to find multi-species cultures in fantasy worlds, and especially in D&D, to be unconvincing and to involve a lot of handwaving that ignores critical questions of how such polities would actually develop and behave. Take Silverymoon as an example. This is a kingdom ruled by a non-human immortal queen who has effectively god-like powers, but it's described as a more or less ordinary (albeit highly progressive) northern European fantasy state. It's just weak sauce.

If being an elf is actually a meaningful thing, then a human living in an elven city should find life to be pretty darn miserable - even if the elves are welcoming, nice, and not prejudiced at all. The experience would be considerably more foreign than going and living with the most foreign human culture you could imagine living with. Moving to say, rural Nepal, should be nothing compared to moving in with the elves.

Very few D&D products have ever actually gone and made their non-humans suitably non-human (the big exception is the Thri-Kreen, who are pretty fully realized in all their glorious weirdness). This is partly Tolkien baggage and has to do with the way he wrote elves and dwarves and hobbits more as mythical versions of humans than their own creatures, but its also just playing to the comfort zone of the players and the common Rubber-Forehead Aliens trope. And your average D&D 'race' would kill to be as well-developed as the Klingons.

Believable mixed cultures are certainly possible, but it's a lot of work and in a given story represents a lot of words. The same thing is generally true for exotic species in general. Doing them well takes a lot of effort, and yet the impulse is to flood worlds and universes with more than you can ever possibly get a handle on. I've done this myself in the past and looking back I'm largely unhappy with it.

Well. my point isn't that the two guys from Alpha City are going to have especially similar experience, just that they're going to find it easier to relate to each other than to their counterparts in Zetaton. If I move from modern day New York to that poor rural village in Nepal, I'm going to feel much more out of place than if, say, I move to, I dunno, a poor rural town in upstate New York. language, work ethic, expectations, ideals about what's fair and unfair, notions of what constitutes "good art". The Alpha City Elf and the Alpha City human are going to have much more similar ideas along these lines, even if their culture isn't some ideal of intermixing and equality, then the Alpha City Elf and the Zetaton Elf.

I dunno, I guess it's just that, even if, say, Elves do live off in their own enclave because living with races that grow old and die before you've reached your culture's equivalent of grad school is really awkward, that enclave is still part of the larger culture of the city/region/country. And it'd be weird to wander off to the other side of the continent, find an Elven enclave, and have that second Enclave look just like the first.

Am I making any sense?

[Gwaednerth]

Well. my point isn't that the two guys from Alpha City are going to have especially similar experience, just that they're going to find it easier to relate to each other than to their counterparts in Zetaton. If I move from modern day New York to that poor rural village in Nepal, I'm going to feel much more out of place than if, say, I move to, I dunno, a poor rural town in upstate New York. language, work ethic, expectations, ideals about what's fair and unfair, notions of what constitutes "good art". The Alpha City Elf and the Alpha City human are going to have much more similar ideas along these lines, even if their culture isn't some ideal of intermixing and equality, then the Alpha City Elf and the Zetaton Elf.

I dunno, I guess it's just that, even if, say, Elves do live off in their own enclave because living with races that grow old and die before you've reached your culture's equivalent of grad school is really awkward, that enclave is still part of the larger culture of the city/region/country. And it'd be weird to wander off to the other side of the continent, find an Elven enclave, and have that second Enclave look just like the first.

Am I making any sense?

I'd have to disagree somewhat. Let's assume a society in which the racial minorities of a city are generally poor and excluded from the power structures. They live in ghettos (either in the older sense of literally being walled off, or in the modern sense of just rundown neighbourhoods with a high population of a certain racial minority) they can't get jobs, many of them are pushed into criminality, the whole nine yards. The human in Elftopia is going to have a vastly different view of the elf.
Now, the question becomes how does the human in Elftopia relate to the humans in Humanopolis. What would tend to happen is that a sort of pidgin culture would arise. Humans in Elftopia will likely adapt human cultural norms to an Elvish society (for instance, eating a certain food still, but replacing a major ingredient or singing in the same style but adapting subject matter that the Elven classes find more palatable) but generally keep their human culture as alive as possible. For instance, most of the Mexican Americans of my acquaintance, however many generations their families have been here, still speak Spanish, because it's culturally important to them. African slaves in America were put under tremendous pressure to abandon their culture for a more European-style one, but as much as they adapted the subject matter of, for example, gospel music, they played it in a distinctly African style, even introducing the banjo to America.
The human in Humanopolis will have similar class barriers as the Elf from Elftopia when it comes to dealing with a human from Elftopia, but the human from Elftopia likely has a distinctly human culture, albeit one that is coloured with a little Elven flavouring. Of course, if it's been long enough, that will change. Most African Americans today have much more in common with white Americans than with Nigerians or Ethiopians because many of them come from families that have been here at least a century under conditions that stressed conformity to white norms. If the humans of Elftopia have been living there for centuries, then I'd agree they're probably more similar to other Elftopians than to humans from other places.

[Mechalich]

If elves are upright and bipedal and communicate through speech and have the same senses that humans have... their cultures might not be all THAT alien to a human. There are human cultures today that some of us find alien, incomprehensible, and maybe even repugnant, so there's a lot of span for some legendary/mythical "neighbors" from our past between "just like us" and "what?" that still falls in the "enough like us to comprehend" space.

I wasn't implying that fantasy species should be impossible to comprehend or even difficult to comprehend, but that, assuming that they are actually different species and not just humans with a funny gloss, they ought to be at least as foreign as highly foreign human cultures. Portraying dwarves as basically Scottish people who live underground annoys me - especially when the whole 'lives underground' part is barely even given cultural influence at all. Most D&D settings don't even go as far as Terry Prachett did when he noted that dwarves viewed down as positive and up as negative in converse to humans.

Mostly, I just find it frustrating when the various fantasy species don't acknowledge the influence of their varied physiology and psychology on how they actually live. The thing is, this has generally been done much better in D&D with races that were invented for the system or were heavily developed under the system (ie. how Salvatore basically invented a reimagined drow civilization), and they are presented in a way with better verisimilitude than the ones just flatly imported from Tolkien or other sources.

Well. my point isn't that the two guys from Alpha City are going to have especially similar experience, just that they're going to find it easier to relate to each other than to their counterparts in Zetaton. If I move from modern day New York to that poor rural village in Nepal, I'm going to feel much more out of place than if, say, I move to, I dunno, a poor rural town in upstate New York. language, work ethic, expectations, ideals about what's fair and unfair, notions of what constitutes "good art". The Alpha City Elf and the Alpha City human are going to have much more similar ideas along these lines, even if their culture isn't some ideal of intermixing and equality, then the Alpha City Elf and the Zetaton Elf.

I dunno, I guess it's just that, even if, say, Elves do live off in their own enclave because living with races that grow old and die before you've reached your culture's equivalent of grad school is really awkward, that enclave is still part of the larger culture of the city/region/country. And it'd be weird to wander off to the other side of the continent, find an Elven enclave, and have that second Enclave look just like the first.

You can certainly have multi-racial societies in fantasy. In fact I support having them, it's just that most examples of them are poorly realized. A city that has a mixed population of humans and elves shouldn't simply be a human city with a bunch of elves living there or an elven city with a bunch of humans living there (the Forgotten Realms has both) it should represent some sort of legitimate fusion between the two groups and have all sorts of weird cross-racial cultural elements. And that's two species, many D&D cities have dozens. How do those cities function as anything more than rampaging near-anarchy (which is how Sigil, the most convincing D&D city, sorta-kinda stumbles along)? What does a federation of elves, dwarves, and humans actually look like?

Generally my opinion has evolved to the point that, if you're going to have different species, they should actually be different and those differences should have meaning. They shouldn't just be a funny-looking version of an actual human cultural group.

[Bohandas]

Very few D&D products have ever actually gone and made their non-humans suitably non-human (the big exception is the Thri-Kreen, who are pretty fully realized in all their glorious weirdness). This is partly Tolkien baggage and has to do with the way he wrote elves and dwarves and hobbits more as mythical versions of humans than their own creatures, but its also just playing to the comfort zone of the players and the common Rubber-Forehead Aliens trope. And your average D&D 'race' would kill to be as well-developed as the Klingons.

Rather oronic given that in old legends elves were very strange creatures that got up to very strange things and had a list of bizarre powers and weaknesses a mile long

EDIT:
They were not, however, very believable as a stable divilization existing for any purpose other than weird for the sake of weird and whose members are actual living organisms who need to eat and sleep and such., and probably also wouldn't be very balanced as characters.

[Clockwork333]

Rather ironic given that in old legends elves were very strange creatures that got up to very strange things and had a list of bizarre powers and weaknesses a mile long

EDIT:
They were not, however, very believable as a stable civilization existing for any purpose other than weird for the sake of weird and whose members are actual living organisms who need to eat and sleep and such., and probably also wouldn't be very balanced as characters.

Yeah that's part of why I like to find a middleground between how 'human' and how 'monstrous' species are.

Having really alien biology and such is neat but it doesn't always make sense if the creatures came from similar origins or evolved on the same planet or need to have a functioning civilization as -mortals- rather than extradimensional fey.

[Tzi]

Well. my point isn't that the two guys from Alpha City are going to have especially similar experience, just that they're going to find it easier to relate to each other than to their counterparts in Zetaton. If I move from modern day New York to that poor rural village in Nepal, I'm going to feel much more out of place than if, say, I move to, I dunno, a poor rural town in upstate New York. language, work ethic, expectations, ideals about what's fair and unfair, notions of what constitutes "good art". The Alpha City Elf and the Alpha City human are going to have much more similar ideas along these lines, even if their culture isn't some ideal of intermixing and equality, then the Alpha City Elf and the Zetaton Elf.

I dunno, I guess it's just that, even if, say, Elves do live off in their own enclave because living with races that grow old and die before you've reached your culture's equivalent of grad school is really awkward, that enclave is still part of the larger culture of the city/region/country. And it'd be weird to wander off to the other side of the continent, find an Elven enclave, and have that second Enclave look just like the first.

Am I making any sense?

Your world makes a lot of sense, though I'd be left wondering about the context of this arrangement. In a sense you've described a very cosmopolitan society or "melting pot" society.

To me though I'd ask "How did this come to be? Have people always lived in these cities?" "Were did the Elves come from?" "The Humans?" "What was their culture before this?"

[Ur-Than]

I hope this thread isn't reserved for D&D races, since I've (for my personal enjoyment mainly) created a setting with various races : the Low Kingdoms. Sadly, to understand my spin on the three main races, at little bit of geographic and historical knowledge may be needed, I've put it in the spoiler.

Also, sorry in advance for the long read.

Spoiler

Show

The main continent is called Alomia.

The Low Kingdoms are the half-barbaric and mostly arid lands claimed by various Human princes and Orc kings. They form an allied confederation, most of the time, except when internal dissension after a failed raid reach a size such that those various small nations need to exorcize this violence in internal skirmishes. They always lack a strong leader able to unify all of them. The name of the Low Kingdoms came from the time of the High Empire from beyond the Shield of Saerendril, the high mountains forming a barrier between the fertile lands and the Border Marches. The Low Kingdoms are many and unstable, but the orcs and humans tend to live well among each others, with Half-Orcs being quite common.

Directly to the North and West of the Low Kingdoms are the seven Border Marches, whose rulers are all descendants from exiled elven families. Their subjects are of all ethnicity, but they are mainly elves and goblins. The Border Marches have been independent for more than two thousand years, but the threats coming both from the Low Kingdoms and the Shattered Empire have prevented the dominion of one above the others, so now for their ruling families, there is no more ambition to push the borders of each Marches. The rivers are more numerous in the Marches than in the Kingdoms and so the Marches, despite being smaller, are more populous.

Finally, west to the Shield lie what was once the High Empire. In fact, in the Low Kingdoms, it is still called as such, or Shol-Batrag, the Ancient Home. But in the Marches, it is named the Shattered Empire for a reason : more than three thousand years ago, a monstrous civil war engulfed the nation of the elves and the Empire has fallen. Wild spells were unleashed, and the land itself has been twisted in some parts. Now Athvealinawel, the Lands of the Chosen, are divided between four main power : the Archdukedom of Valannawel along the Shield of Saerendril, the Republic of Solatan, the Theocracy of Koloth, and the Principality of the Crowned. The whole population of the Shattered Empire has elven origins, but in some places, ancient magic or deliberate experimentations have twisted them in unrecognisable shapes.

Now concerning the races proper

The Humans are quite classical (being mostly western-looking in the Marches, more Middle-Eastern and North-African in the Low Kingdoms).

The Orcs were called Half-Uruks in the times before the coming of the elves, for they were born from the unions of Uruks and Humans. But since all the Uruks have been killed more than nine thousand years ago, the Half-Uruks are now a distinct race. The Orcs are grey-skinned, with some green patches, two head taller than humans, with smaller noses and ears. They are also a lot more muscular.

Therefore, the Half-Orcs mostly look humans, but their skin looks somewhat sickly, and they are just a little more strong and tall than humans. However, they are a lot more agile than the orcs.

The Goblins are ancient experimentations, which were created by mating,through magic, the last Uruk with low-borne elves before the true formation of the High Empire. However, since the results were deemed quite unsatisfactory - the goblins being smaller and lither than elves-, despite their incomparable stamina they were almost all executed. Only a few hundred managed to reach the Shield and then the Marches, where they have grow to represent most of the population. The Goblins have large almond-shaped eyes, long pointed ears and almost no nose. Clever and almost as long lived as the elves, they form the majority of the Marches' merchants and soldiers.

The elves, finally, are quite beautiful, being almost as tall as the Orcs, but a lot more lithe. They can live up to a thousand years, often have alabaster skin (except in the Border Marches, were they are a lot more tanned by the sun) and long limbs.

---

And speaking of elves, they have a rather eclectic family tree !

Elves = all the elves, or simply the ones living in the Shattered Empire who aren't another kind of elf (the majority of the population).

Dark Elves = a slur used during the era of the High Empire to designate the elven families garrisoning the eastern side of the Shield of Saerendril (because of their tan, less "sophisticated" manner and often less than glamorous past) and has since been extended to all the elves living in the Border Marches, who have now taken the name as a sign of pride, instead of shame.

Crooked Elves = half-elf, half-goblins. They exists only in the Border Marches (and in fact the seventh Marches, Lokgrawel was founded because en exiled elf married a powerful Goblin matriarch and was recognized by the others as a full Marches only when it sided with them against the Low Kingdoms in a ten years long war). They are forbidden to enter the Empire on pain of death. They mostly look like elves, but their skin is more yellowish, their ears longer and their eyes larger, they are a little hunched and they have smaller noses than other elves, but they have more endurance.

Great Elves = the elves who can trace their lineage to Valanna the Conqueror, her follower or the ruling families of the Empire prior to the civil war which shattered it (the new noble families born after this times aren't deemed great elves). All the leaders of the remnants of the Empire are great elves, and it is also the case for the leaders and almost all the nobles families of the Border Marches (technically, even the rulers of Lokgrawel are Great Elves, but their nature of Crooked Elves exclude them). One can be a Dark Elf and a Great Elf (the rulers of the Borders, for instance).

Low Elves = common elves who have committed crimes (or whose ancestors have committed crimes) so great that all their rights, lineage and heritage are sundered; said crimes include among others copulating with a human, murder of a Great Elf, use of necromancy. Most of them are just bandits or members of a doomsday cult, either by choice or because societies doesn't offer them any other option.

Fallen Elves = Elves whose ancestors have been corrupted by wild magic or experimented upon during the civil war. There isn't one breed of them, almost all of them are unique (even if Fallens who live in the same region tend to share the same characteristics).

Half-Elves = The rarest of the elven groups, the Half-Elves are born from the mating of a human and an elf. For a long time such couples and birth were forbidden both in the Shattered Empire and in the Border Marches but the Marchers have changed their policy, because they believe that the Half-Elves could ensure some form of peace with the Low Kingdoms, even if the populations doesn't like the "halflings" very much. Hamlets of Half-Elves however exists in the Shield of Saerendril, with their population reaching at best seven thousand souls. The Half-Elves are deemed dangerous by the elves because they have the same lifespan as them, but their human heritage allow them to use the spells of both races and to combine them in a unique and incredibly powerful variety of powers which can't be used by any others. Even before the foundation of the Empire, such powers were deemed too dangerous, for fear of the Helf-Elves gathering the humans around them to usurp the throne. The Half-Elves are very similar to elves, but they are taller and more muscular, and males also have some facial hair. They require specific spells to be born (just like the Goblins) since elves can't naturally reproduce with Uruks, Orcs and Humans.

Beast Elves = The Goblins. Technically, they are a part of this family and are a link between the elves and the Orcs/Humans. They aren't deemed intelligent or even persons in the Shattered Empire, which is always a source of tensions, since many a famous Marcher captain or even general is a Goblin. By extension, Crooked elves are deemed half-beasts in the Empire.

[Xuc Xac]

I admit, I did consider other elemental groups, but I find the western one is the most broad and archetypal in my mind. Like, metal and wood are awesome elements, but they don't really abstract very will. But fire... fire is destruction, it's chaos, but it's also warmth and light and energy and change. If you really abstract the concepts of the elements down, you get some really interesting implications. Like, if you think about fire as 'heat', and consider that the movement of molecules is what allows every chemical reaction in the universe to take place, fire becomes the engine that literally drives everything in the universe.

Somthing that's interested me for a while is that not every culture identifies the same set of elements. The "Earth, Air, Water, Fire" thing is western, AFAIK, but eastern real-world cultures described the elements as Water, Wood, Earth, Metal, & Fire.

Honestly, off all the various depictions of the 4/5/7/118 elements in many works of fiction, "Spirit/Aether/whatever-they-call-it" has always been my least favorite. To me it never felt like it fit right, in part because the other elements are tide in to the physical world and this last one just ... isn't.

I appreciate the effort, but it doesn't really matter what it's called, it's what it does that just doesn't seem to mesh well with all the rest. It's like having a pair of sneakers, a set of combat boots, some stilettos, a pair of sandals .... and a tophat. It just doesn't fit the theme.
And I full admit this is my opinion and no one else's.

I realize these are older posts, but I've just caught up on the thread and I want to clarify some things here.

The Western (i.e. Greek) Classical Elements are Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. Aether was added later when alchemists and natural philosophers wondered what celestial bodies like the sun and stars were made of. The other four elements are temporary or "mortal": earth breaks and crumbles, fire burns out, water dries up, etc. But the stars never change. They glow like fire, but they can't be fire because they never change. They have to be something else that is different than the four elements found in the material world. So they made up aether as the fifth element (or quintessence). It came to be associated with spirit or souls because those are the immortal unchanging parts of a person. Aether doesn't fit with the other four precisely because alchemists saw things that didn't fit the other four so they assumed that there was some fifth unchanging element that was completely different than the other four. The four elements are completely inadequate to describe the entire universe. When they realized this, they made up a fifth element that was "none of the above" to describe eternal unchanging things like stars.

Things got really weird later as alchemists began to explore the world more thoroughly and found more and more holes in their theory. They started trying to integrate more things like sulfur and mercury to fill in the gaps until the whole thing eventually fell apart as they zeroed in on the atom. Until then, Aether filled the gap of "things that we can't touch but assume are there like souls or the 'perfect' material that heavenly bodies are made of".

In Asia, there were two main systems of elements. The Hindu/Buddhist set were like the Western elements: Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Sky/Void/Heaven. This is the group made famous by the "Book of Five Rings". The other was the Taoist set of elements: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. Both systems were occasionally used at the same time in the same place because despite the names used for the elements, they don't actually overlap and describe different things. The Buddhist/Western elements are substances and describe what the world is. The Taoist elements are processes that describe what the world does. The Buddhist/Greek elements are concrete and the Taoist elements are abstract.

Think of it this way. The "Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Aether" elements are nouns. The "Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water" elements are verbs that are just symbolized by physical things because it's hard to draw a picture of an abstraction. If you put a big stone in a catapult and launch it, the Greek system says that it's Earth when you launch it, Earth when it's soaring, Earth when it levels off, Earth when it falls, and Earth when it lands with a thud. In the Taoist system, the stone is Wood when you launch it, Fire when it's soaring, Earth when it levels off, Metal when it's falling, and Water when it lands because those elements describe the actions in a cycle of rising, extending, balancing, contracting, and stopping.

[Max_Killjoy]

I realize these are older posts, but I've just caught up on the thread and I want to clarify some things here.

The Western (i.e. Greek) Classical Elements are Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. Aether was added later when alchemists and natural philosophers wondered what celestial bodies like the sun and stars were made of. The other four elements are temporary or "mortal": earth breaks and crumbles, fire burns out, water dries up, etc. But the stars never change. They glow like fire, but they can't be fire because they never change. They have to be something else that is different than the four elements found in the material world. So they made up aether as the fifth element (or quintessence). It came to be associated with spirit or souls because those are the immortal unchanging parts of a person. Aether doesn't fit with the other four precisely because alchemists saw things that didn't fit the other four so they assumed that there was some fifth unchanging element that was completely different than the other four. The four elements are completely inadequate to describe the entire universe. When they realized this, they made up a fifth element that was "none of the above" to describe eternal unchanging things like stars.

Things got really weird later as alchemists began to explore the world more thoroughly and found more and more holes in their theory. They started trying to integrate more things like sulfur and mercury to fill in the gaps until the whole thing eventually fell apart as they zeroed in on the atom. Until then, Aether filled the gap of "things that we can't touch but assume are there like souls or the 'perfect' material that heavenly bodies are made of".

In Asia, there were two main systems of elements. The Hindu/Buddhist set were like the Western elements: Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Sky/Void/Heaven. This is the group made famous by the "Book of Five Rings". The other was the Taoist set of elements: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. Both systems were occasionally used at the same time in the same place because despite the names used for the elements, they don't actually overlap and describe different things. The Buddhist/Western elements are substances and describe what the world is. The Taoist elements are processes that describe what the world does. The Buddhist/Greek elements are concrete and the Taoist elements are abstract.

Think of it this way. The "Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Aether" elements are nouns. The "Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water" elements are verbs that are just symbolized by physical things because it's hard to draw a picture of an abstraction. If you put a big stone in a catapult and launch it, the Greek system says that it's Earth when you launch it, Earth when it's soaring, Earth when it levels off, Earth when it falls, and Earth when it lands with a thud. In the Taoist system, the stone is Wood when you launch it, Fire when it's soaring, Earth when it levels off, Metal when it's falling, and Water when it lands because those elements describe the actions in a cycle of rising, extending, balancing, contracting, and stopping.

For reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Xing

[ThePurple]

Personally I'm working on a revamp of the Slaad, to make them more representative of the chaos inherent in the natural world, especially as part of evolution, to an almost contradictory degree (Evolution might be seen as an orderly thing by some, but the way it takes place is certainly chaotic) I'm not a fan of the current incarnation which are defined by their horrific ability to propagate... but are 'neutral' in name only because they're all ruled by the evil death slaad working towards total entropy for no real reason other than it's 'in their nature'.

I've always found the specific growth pattern of slaads to be perturbing. They're supposed to be a race of chaos personified and they're pretty much as orderly as the lawful outsiders where their progression is concerned.

Something to keep in mind about evolution is that it isn't really an ordered process. Evolution happens when *random mutations* occur; evolution happens *because* of chaos and enacts changes in species by having the world act upon those changes. It happens *slowly* because mutations are small and comparatively rare.

To bring this back around to the slaads, I could very easily see their chaotic nature represented in a ridiculously high chance of mutation (e.g. there's guaranteed to be at least 1 mutated gene in every new slaad). Slaads are all about evolution. Keep in mind that evolution isn't directed: you don't just decide to evolve to be smarter; evolution keeps the most adaptive (does not mean "better" or "stronger"; adaptive means that it increases the likelihood of genetic proliferation, which can sometimes mean getting weaker/smaller to reduce resource requirements) and stagnates when the environment doesn't change (e.g. if the environment is stable, stuff doesn't evolve; sharks and crocodiles are basically the same as they've been for millions of years because they're perfectly suited to their environs).

To really push this evolution/adaptation concept home, Slaads need to evolve *fast*, which means that they need really short generations. Thankfully, this works fine with their default interpretation because they reproduce via implantation and the neonate grows up in a matter of hours, ready to start clawing baby slaads into people immediately.

Of course, this rapid reproduction also means that they should have incredibly high consumption needs (gotta eat a lot to grow that fast) which means that, if they aren't constantly consuming stuff, they die (unless they get a mutation that slows their growth rate), so their lives tend to be pretty short and brutal.

This means that the slaadi form (e.g. humanoid claw frog) is a product of adaptation to the environment of their home plane, which is extremely unpredictable (which makes a bit of sense, since they're durable but not specialized). It also means that the various slaadi subtypes are simply short lived adaptations to new environments that crop up within the chaos of their home plane (as soon as that environment changes back to normal, the subsequent generations evolve back to the normal form).

It also means that you can have unique slaads pretty easily, since mutations are like that. Truly ancient unique slaads, like the Slaad Lords, would be evolutionary throwbacks to the conditions at the dawn of time, whose adaptations were inferior from a reproductive perspective: perhaps the traits that make them immortal and powerful also render them sterile, so that they're incapable of passing on those traits or maybe they were extremely long lived and slow reproducing K breeders in an environment that obviously favors the r strategy. Other unique slaads, possibly including the Slaad Lords, could be a product of a *very specific* combination of genes (or even epigenetic differences such as being implanted in a god while carrying a very specific gene) such that a single mutation produces causes the embryo to turn out like a normal slaad (which could be interesting if another Slaad Lord with that exact same set of genetics and conditions to produce a copy is born since it's simply *obscenely unlikely* rather than outright impossible; cue Slaadi Civil War).

It also explains why sometimes you see more toadlike slaads, others more humanoid, some that are grotesquely overweight while others are emaciated. Random mutation and environmental influences simply made it happen.

Slaads would basically be evolution on overdrive. Which is kind of cool when you think about it.

[Mechalich]

Something to keep in mind about evolution is that it isn't really an ordered process. Evolution happens when *random mutations* occur; evolution happens *because* of chaos and enacts changes in species by having the world act upon those changes. It happens *slowly* because mutations are small and comparatively rare.

This is a vast oversimplification that is veering sharply towards falsehood. Random point mutations are a source of the genetic variation that can drive the evolutionary process. They are not the only source, and genetic variation merely influences phenotypic expression with in turn influences fitness (survivorship and production of offspring) depending on the selective forces acting on the population.

Not that any of this matters in a discussion of D&D because D&D is not governed by evolutionary forces at all. In the traditional D&D paradigm where the Slaadi are the chaotic neutral exemplars native to Limbo (though there's a lot of weird background material, some of which is contradictory, governing that statement) they represent a force of chaotic change that is truly random, not evolutionary.

Slaadi are outsiders. If they eat, it is because they have chosen to do so - they don't require physical nutrients of any kind. Their reproduction method has been changed from one edition to the next, and they probably actually have several and many may simply materialize into existence fully formed from the chaos of Limbo just like demons occasionally do in the Abyss.

[Xuc Xac]

I always thought slaad were a very bad example of chaos incarnate. They have standardized sets of abilities and they're color coded for convenience. They're almost as organized as modrons.

[ThePurple]

This is a vast oversimplification that is veering sharply towards falsehood. Random point mutations are a source of the genetic variation that can drive the evolutionary process. They are not the only source, and genetic variation merely influences phenotypic expression with in turn influences fitness (survivorship and production of offspring) depending on the selective forces acting on the population.

It's a simplification for a reason. I didn't really feel like writing an entire discourse on evolution (much less get into epigenetics). You'll also note that I did specifically reference the environment acting on the species as a fundamental element. The entire reason that the standard slaad is a standard slaad is because the tendency of the environment they find themselves in selects against deviations from that mold.

As to slaads being outsiders and not requiring any of the normal forms of sustenance, who cares? The point is that it's a *spin* on the race. You're supposed to change stuff.

The entire premise of the idea is changing the ordered nature of slaad progression so that it's a chaotic process that still explains why slaads tend towards specific forms.

[Bobbybobby99]

Let's see...

Humans are divided into subraces based on the elements; the Aasimars are influenced by positive energy, Tieflings are negative energy, Oreads are earth based, etc. There aren't any 'default' humans. Elves evolved from mollusks (mostly clams), and are thusly amphibious; they get bonuses to charisma, not intelligence. They're universally bald (though wigs are sometimes fashionable), and don't have any ears at all. The dwarves are made of minerals, and common varieties include gargoyles, golems, and warforged. The 'traditional' dwarves, who are made of soil, have beards made of a symbiotic, prehensile plant, while the dvergar are made of glittering jewels. Pegasi are effectively donkeys with batlike wings, and Halflings are a broad group that evolved from amphibians, and whose number includes trolls and hags. Hobbits, descended from olms, are the ones who most superficially resemble humans, given their skin tone, though any closer look reveals them, while Gnomes resemble humanoid poison dart frogs, and have bonuses to every mental stat. The standard sirens and merrows can mate with the Illthids and Aboleths, both of whom are closely related, and Tritons look like four armed Koi fish. Hobgoblins are attractive, and in many ways resemble traditional elves, though they have a wolfish glint the their features; they include hobs (who can teleport short distances), brownies (who can use mass unseen servant), and gremlins (who can use shatter), alongside Powries, with an additional charisma bonus and rainbow colored hair. Kobolds resemble geckos, with appropriate climbing abilities, while Yuan-ti are more accurately legless lizards rather than snakes, and can burrow. Dryads have a constant detect undead effect and can use lesser restoration at will (I can hear the hellfire warlocks already), while the Orcs resemble boars (which isn't that unique) and can sense life energy while having a constantly shifting skin-tone (which is more unique). Most of the undead varieties are standard races, and are fungal in nature; vampires are truffle based, thusly sleeping underground and consuming tree sap, which earned them their name from the dryads, while mummies are sentient clouds of yeast that can weave cloth garments, that they then inhabit. It goes on and on.

[Pronounceable]

Humans keep asking how dwarves all live underground. They say dwarves can't feed themselves with trade only because [insert long treatise about real world topics]. Which is true. So what do they eat down there, humans keep asking. Shows what humans know. The most obvious answer is the correct one. Dwarves eat nothing. Why'd you even assume they need to eat? Thanks to Moradin's supreme skill at engineering, dwarves are alcohol engines and don't need to bother with all that digestion and excretion stuff (which is hella disgusting). That's why dwarves drink and that's how they're the best brewers of the whole world. They all live underground without any sort of fields or herds or whatever else unlucky races made by unskilled gods are in need of. Dwarves don't even have stomachs and would have to vomit if they ever swallow something solid, seeing how there's no other exit for such things. They're perfectly happy to not have any of those most gross parts other races are damned with and having to vomit up any accidentally swallowed thing is a small price to pay for it.

[Draconi Redfir]

I don't like "magic" or "made by gods" as reasons for races existing in whatever form they are or possessing whatever abilities they may have. I much prefer to think about how they could potentially evolve naturally with at best only minor magical assistance.

Take my Trolls for example. My Trolls are completely non-magical, their regeneration is explained by them actually being distant descendants of Starfish.

At some point in the far past, Starfish ate algae, this algae began growing more on the land then it did in the water, so the starfish would crawl onto land, eat, then retreat back into the water. The stars who could survive on land longer, ate more, and survived better. Eventually you got a species of starfish that spent all of it's time on land.

This didn't come without a cost however. Birds began preying on the stars, and as the stars couldn't see, hear, or move quickly, they had to develop a new form of defence. Some Stars found they could flex their muscles in rapid spasms, making their bodies flop about wildly to spook off incoming predators. This spasming was eventually used as a primitive faster-travel, slowly growing into the stars using their larger "legs" as actual legs, making them crawl about and travel faster.

A lot of other stuff happens, and we get to modern Trolls. Trolls have cells with an excess energy bank in them, they eat a lot more, but they have a sort of battery in every cell that gets charged by eating, so if they're damaged or an arm is chopped off, that energy can be used to re-grow the missing body part, including the head if needed in a matter of weeks while still surviving. Bones naturally can not grow back, so Trolls don't have bones, they instead have a "skeleton" of incredibly dense muscle tissue, and their teeth in kind are made out of densely packed and reinforced Keratin.

Each Troll has five "Proto brains" in their bodies. One in the head, wich holds a majority of the thoughts and memories, and one in each shoulder and upper thigh. So long as at least one of these brains is intact, the Troll will be able to re-grow any missing body parts it may have, provided the remaining parts have enough stored up energy to do so. As such even a Troll that is only missing an arm but is starving won't grow a new arm, and a starving Troll with no head will soon die. Even a Troll that is fully fed but reduced to a single leg with the leg-brain in tact may die as the leg alone may not have enough energy to rapidly re-grow so many necessary cells. Trolls who have lost their head and are able to re-grow it, may find themselves a slightly different Troll then the one they had once been, as the primary brain in the head had been removed or damaged, forcing new neural pathways and scrambling memories. Cutting a troll in half may give you two brand new Trolls in a week or so, but they would both be the same age, and would not be a viable way of reproduction long-term.

That's the basics of it at least, there are some other bits, but they're mostly cultural and the like. Naturally there are few if any other species related to Trolls in any way, if there are they are most likely spin offs of the Trolls themselves. not going to see any starfish Troll-apes walking around most likely.

[Telok]

I have something going on in the setting I've been finishing up, off and on, slowly. I promise I'll finish someday.

First, all the half-whatevers are either sterile mules (half elves, half orcs, etc.) or cocaine wizard experiments with 3d4 random insanities. Second, a thousand plus years ago there was a massive proto-tippyverse technomagic empire in the middle of the continent. Now there's a giant hell-desert with living spells, evil carnivore unicorns, nomadic camel-centaurs, and creepy psychic standing stones that move around when nobody is looking. The god/planar setup is custom but in a sad attempt to rationalize it philosophers assume that it looks mostly like the published D&D stuff.

I read lots of history and I married a history major so my medieval countries seriously diverge from the sanitized faux-medieval storybook version with modern western ethics. Plus I have gunpowder and cannons but no handgun/musket sized stuff, it's not real world gunpowder and has a minimum mass requirement to combust. Magic is impeded by lost knowledge and residual instability so there are no open-list casters with higher than 6th level spells.

So, the races. North sea area has tsar era russia without a central authority. Majority orcs, nobility orcs, orcish grizzly bear calvary, and a rare 220 proof vodka. East of that we have viking halflings, good farmers and nasty raiders. Big on honor too. Southeast from there past Roc Island is elf/England where non-elves are foriegners or branded slaves and politics looks like Shakespear's English king plays, lots of treachery. The manditory weekly archery meets explains the bow proficencies. A short ways south of that is fairyland, a pretty big island where you're either fey or victim. West southwest from there is a mixed race but mostly human El Cid era Spain. Next to that is a mixed race almost-Three Musketeers France undergoing a rather drawn out and chaotic civil war. Nearby we have dwarven Germany, lots of powerful but independent but allied but infighting cities. They make the best cannons and have armored war wagons pulled by dire wolves. Gnomish Switzerland, home to the gnomes of Zurich. It's very rich, makes the best gunpowder, and hires lots of mercenaries. Bram Stoker's Transylvannia with a Thrallherd vampire, the only vamp in the world and possibly the only 'mortal' who remembers the old Empire. His thralls are all werewolves. All. South of that we have pure human Borgia papacy Italy, and I managed to wrangle a pesudo-papacy out of the pantheon so I can also have pagan hunting and an Inqusition. There's the "Old Kingdoms" border states near the hell-desert which are almost standard D&D faux-medieval kingdoms, except of course that they're falling apart and overrun by monsters. There's Illiad era Greece west of that mess, with noble centaurs, mythic monsters, demi-god level heros and kings, the Mount Olympus expy, and the gates to the Underworld/Hades. They're also really big on honor and hospitality. South is a humanish Ottoman Empire along the coast with more sphinxes, genies, and stuff the further up the rivers or into the desert you go. And in the far far west is Jotunhiem. See, theres only one race of giants. Ogres, hill, fire, frost, stone, etc. etc. are all just age categories. The older a giant is the bigger, smarter, more magical, and less active he is. So some of the mountains in there really are sleeping giants who could rival the gods in power. Trolls are not giants, they are fey. They are cunning, often smart, and bound by riddles. Beat a troll in a riddle contest and he'll go away. Lose and he gets really strong and really lucky while he's trying to eat you.

So my game can start out in a normalish D&D realm and then move into politics, wars, exploration, epics, high magic, and other stuff. Or they could stick around the Old Kingdoms and try to fix things up.

[Falcon X]

To be fair, mine is an interesting take on an interesting take.

Ghost Elves: Originally published in Dragon Magazine for 3.5, these were elves that were deep into a losing war with the drow. So, they moved to the Astral Plane, transporting their homes and populations there one piece at a time.
Living on the Astral Plane for 500 years or so, the Ghost Elves became darker and more brooding. They had a strong desire for vengeance. Their skin also started to become slightly translucent. Basically, they are the Blood Elves from WoW.

My Take:
- A god of death got involved (In my game it is Wee Jas. Long story of why she did it). The god sent a proxy to the Ghost Elves on the Astral Plane to teach them necromancy.
Necromancers are one of the primary job functions of a ghost elf. A coming of age practice is when they get strong enough to cast Summon Dread Warrior on a willing dead person in order to gain a fully competent servant. The honor of coming back is usually reserved for other ghost elves, but some necromancers will sneak into the dead house in Sigil, or find a wizard on the Prime Material. They will cast Speak with Dead to see if the person is willing, and then they will bring them back to life in their thrall.
- They watch the material plane closely. They know where their enemies are. It is common for them to shift to the Ethereal Plane to watch civilization change. They will hunt on the ethereal plane and eat of it's ghostly flesh. They will take their children to watch the drow and see for themselves what vile beings they are. When they finally strike back, it will be from a very informed position.

[Tzi]

I am contemplating another spin on races and opening my setting up to multiple "races," but under heavily modified lore.

..... So, considering ways to have multiple races in a world, I am always torn on the issue between my desire for simplicity and not having to explain origins or have really definite Gods/Goddesses ect AND the aesthetics of various races and in general players LIKE them.

One Idea I've always had is to give the races a sort of primeval origins. The idea is to clean up the races category and make for a much simpler list.

So a plausible origin is that there are three general categories of races, Orcs, Humans and Elves. Each category has a primeval ancestry that links the three together. The primeval Orc, Elf and Human are all short or small creatures. I.E. Goblins are the primeval Orc, Gnomes the Primeval Elf, and either halflings or Dwarves the primeval Human.

There might be a fourth branch, From which the Kobold is the Primeval Dragonborn.

With the Exception of the Kobold, Dwarves/Halflings, Gnomes and Goblins all share a common forebears, or are made from the same thing, thus explaining interbreed ability ect.

Gods/Goddesses can still be vague, as its possible these events were shaped by great beings, Like Titans from WoW, or is the Will of Gods, ect.

The core is, Elven peoples, Human peoples, and Orcish peoples are all similar enough. The smaller or more primeval versions of the races are all more remote and less seen. With possibly only Gnomes/Primeval Elves being frequent enough of a sight in the world to be readily recorded and this is mostly because their taller descendants go to great lengths to protect them.

[Deepbluediver]

I read lots of history and I married a history major so my medieval countries seriously diverge from the sanitized faux-medieval storybook version with modern western ethics.

I'm kind of curious- could you delve a little more into what you mean by this? I've read that things like Chivalry and Bushido were basically made up (or at least drastically expanded) by later writers trying to romanticize certain aspects of the age, but where do you take your version of D&D with all your other knowledge?

My belief is that one of the goals of D&D is to tell a story, and if something serves that story well then it's alright if it doesn't line up exactly with "what really happened in the real world" because this ISN'T the real world. It's whatever world we want to build. My stock reply for the accusation that something isn't "right" is to point out that medieval Europe didn't have mindflayers either.

And I know this thread is about races, but it's not a huge leap to start asking what kind of setting produces a particular race. When I had the chance to design my own world, I decided that to support all the carnivorous megafauna you find in the Monster Manuals we needed drastically hardier tropic levels, so the whole planet is bursting with a profusion of nutritious plantlife. This, in turn, means that you don't need 92% of the population living on farms and in fact most societies support themselves just fine on a mostly hunter-gatherer existence, freeing up more people to run off and go get themselves BBQ'd by dragons. It's basically an adventurer's paradise.

[Telok]

I'm kind of curious- could you delve a little more into what you mean by this? I've read that things like Chivalry and Bushido were basically made up (or at least drastically expanded) by later writers trying to romanticize certain aspects of the age, but where do you take your version of D&D with all your other knowledge?

Ok, good questions.

First, if I wanted to tell a story then unless that story was already a D&D game story, I would not use D&D. I would use a narrative and story driven system for that. I use D&D for sandboxes that the PCs can explore, wreck, and build in. I'm not saying it can't be done, it's just not what I'd do.

Second, on the general roleplaying forum here there's the real world weapons and armor threads. I've been following that since it's early incarnations and it's pointed me towards things I wouldn't have looked at in history otherwise. That, Dumas's 'Celebrated Crimes' (essentially mostly accurate tabloid history by the guy who wrote 'Three Musketeers'), and more reading made me realize that real history is way more interesting and complicated than any official setting even tries to approach. Although I haven't delved into the Ebberon stuff too much, that could be an exception.

Third, I'm kind of with Emperor Tippy on this, the rules don't support the dirt farmers, ultra smart monsters that don't do anything, and richer than whole kingdoms superhero PCs paradigm. In the DMG first level NPCs are supposed to have 900 gold in loot/stuff but the base wage is supposed to be 1 silver a day. People say that 90%+ of the population is first level commoners but nobody takes precautions against level draining undead.

On mobile, time up, more later.

[Telok]

Back.

So what I'm doing in my setting is threefold.
First, I want awesome. Orc grizzly bear cavalry. Organized raids by carnivorous unicorn herds. A mountain that you can climb to meet the gods. A cave under which the underworld/afterlife exists and is a quest in itself. Five hundred pound blackpowder bombs. Dwarven war-wagons with mounted cannons.

Second, I want stuff to make sense in context. A reason magi-tech doesn't work and alter the face of society. A reason that undead apocalypses don't happen regularly when someone casts Enervation and walks away. The party isn't wearing more money than the local barony's population has in total wealth. A reason that super-intelligent magic power monsters aren't ruling countries and eighth level NPC Aristocrats are.

Third, I'd like to use some of the stuff I've learned. Orgies, assassinations, wars, deceit, trials and justice under medieval law. Once you get past the sanitized wimp-history it becomes quite compelling reading, messy too. The standard settings and setting styles are boring and tame after you read some of the good stuff. Those war wagons? They existed. The cultures that I'm using existed, which gives me deeper wells of information to draw on including things I wouldn't have though of myself.

You can say "But fantasy!" and that's fine. But history is rich with the cultures and events that are the source of fantasy. My players expect orcs, elves, and dwarves. Sure, I'll give them those. I can just choose that the dwarves are essentially the German free towns and Hanseatic League. Suddenly I have a ready made culture, laws, traditions, allegiances, and feuds. And if I get something a bit wrong I can wing it off as part of this setting that separates it from real history.

[kraftcheese]

Back.

So what I'm doing in my setting is threefold.
First, I want awesome. Orc grizzly bear calvary. Organized raids by carnivorus unicorn herds. A mountain that you can climb to meet the gods. A cave under which the underworld/afterlife exists and is a quest in itself. Five hundred pound blackpowder bombs. Dwarven war-wagons with mounted cannons.

Second, I want stuff to make sense in context. A reason magi-tech doesn't work and alter the face of society. A reason that undead apocolypse don't happen regularly when someone casts Enervation and walks away. The party isn't wearing more money than the local barony's population has in total. A reason that super-intelligent magic power monsters aren't ruling countries and tenth level NPC Aristocrats are.

I guess a reason magitech doesn't work could be that you just can't enchant objects; if any magic items (enchanted swords, armour, etc.) exist, they've been created by the gods and are very uncommon. You can cast spells ON an object to affect it in the short term, but nothing holds for long (this would probably mean you'd need to ban a few spells as well)

OR

You could just take the route Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, the Abhorsen/Old Kingdom books, etc. take and say that anything technologically advanced beyond an arbitrary point won't work with magic around and vice-versa.

Neither sound super satisfying to me (the Abhorsen example works more because there's an ancient magical wall between a medieval country where magic is rife but advanced mechanical things corrode and fall apart, and a 20th century England-ey place where magic doesn't work at all) but YMMV.

[Telok]

I guess a reason magitech doesn't work could be that

Oh I have that nailed down, it just wasn't pertinent to the races thing. Knowledge was lost when the old empire blew up so A) no magic item can be created at less than the minimum caster level that the item creation feat is available at. B) except for potions, scrolls, wands, etc. any item requires the Permanency spell. C) the entire world is a mild wild magic zone, starting with a 1% chance of a surge for a 5th level spell and increasing by 1% each spell level.

So not many people are making magic items because it requires higher level casters and has about a 1/300 chance of calling down a meteor on you, and a 10-pound cannon costs less then a +1 sword. Even paying for the gunners and powder for a couple years it runs less than a +2 sword while doing 10d6+30 damage with a 600 foot range increment.

Oh, yeah. I did a little research and translated some real blackpowder cannon info into D&D terms. A Cannon Royal is 22 feet long, weighs a bit over 6 tons, uses almost 40 pounds of powder, and throws a 75 pound shot up to 15,000 feet (lousy accuracy at that range though). The cannon costs a little over 9000 gold and each shot is 813 gold (750 of that is the powder). Yeah.

[VoxRationis]

I've decided to put a new spin on a rarely-spun fantasy race: humans. I feel the freedom to do this because I am currently working on an overhaul of the d20 system (it will only vaguely be recognizable as d20 by the end, I suspect, since the combat works much differently), and so I can play around with the racial characteristics to suit my whims.

Humans are often presented as a dominant species in fantasy settings, and rarely is a halfway decent reason presented for it. Originally, Tolkien did it because his setting is supposed to represent the yielding of a mythic past to a mundane latter age, but people blindly copied him without compensating for the changes they made. So you get a bunch of people spouting ridiculousness like "human numbers" (ignoring that there are usually more rapidly reproducing species of similar intelligence and organizational ability that would outcompete humans if r were truly the deciding factor), "human versatility" (ignoring that at least one race is typically listed as having the specialization of "magic", which is usually pretty damn versatile, and a great force multiplier to boot) or "human determination" (which ignores that dwarves typically move thousands of tons of stone rather than build on the surface, and orcs/goblins persist in attacking enemies in spite of ridiculous casualty rates—both behaviors indicating no lack of perseverance). You even get some people listing traits like "tool use" or "endurance running," which are features that any intelligent creature with a humanoid body plan (and sweat glands, but how many fantasy races don't sweat?) can do—humans are special for those reasons in our world because we are the only extant hominin.

So I decided to eschew the "humans are average" trope and give us something useful that would explain predominance. What I ended up going for is superior social intelligence and empathy. I'm giving humans a bonus to Charisma in the system, and they also get an active racial ability to determine another creature's emotional state. What this means from world-building is that humans are capable of better teamwork and closer community bonds than other races, but also are better at scheming and manipulating. In court intrigue settings, they come out on top; many other races tend to be withdrawing from human communities because they can't compete intra-nationally in this way. Internationally, they are better diplomats, and their strategists gain the edge of better knowledge of rivals' periods of strength and weakness. Thus, humans gain predominance on a strategic or national level even though they might be weaker than dwarves or elves or orcs in other respects.

[JackRackham]

In the world I'm building, halflings are the only group that really has their own territory (or, at least, the only group that isn't also spread around and intermixed). I've refluffed them as fierce bog/marsh people, with oversized feet, who raise buffalo and farm black rice. Theyre way more insular than standard halflings (probably closer to Tolkien's hobbits in this sense, but less happy and contented). They're famous for leading invading armies into their bogs to disappear into the mud, starve, or be eaten by bog lizards. There is also a group that lives more in the foothills that raise goats and uses similar tactics, leading armies higher into the hills/mountains with hit and run attacks, then circles back and surrounds them when they're exhausted and half-starved.

In general, though, I've de-emphasized race by having multiple kingdoms with mixed populations that were separated for centuries. So, the local culture is more significant than race. That's my main wrinkle; having it be an afterthought for most of the world, significant only in a few places.

[White Blade]

Well, I tried to keep species diversified but also close to their inspirations in various ways as well as open to every class.


• Dwarves were once the helpers of the world's creator. The Daggerhold Dwarves are losing in a generational siege war with the (much more prolific) goblins whose council of elders have surrendered control of their nation to a revanchist dictator (in the classic sense). The Black Banners are exiles from their homes who were driven out of their mountains by vampire ruled orcs and they fill a kind of medieval Jewish role and the role played by Thorin in The Hobbit. The Silverward Dwarves are world-renown craftsman and traders who live under the protection of the (original) Great Silver Wyrm and are regarded by their cousins as indolent, self-indulgent, and scheming. The Godsbane Dwarves are the servitors of the barbarian giants who killed the world's creator.

• The Elves are focused on their cities, per the usage of the Elven rings. They have three (once four) great cities. Mooreless Isle is one part Venice/Paris, one part Pirate Cove, one part Fey Court and sits on a moving island. Angel's Roost is a Shambhala-esque city, where enlightenment (and Exalted feats/PrCs) can be found. Greenshield is kind of a classic Elven Woodland City, though they are stuck in a permanent vendetta with the (original) Great Green Wyrm (because they killed his eldest daughter). The Dayspire was once a classic Crystal Spire city, but about two hundred years ago it vanished, leaving behind a bottomless pit called the Gravemouth. Though most believe the city destroyed by the gods, some whisper that it survives, twisted and cursed, far from the sights of the gods.

• Humanity ruled the (now shattered) empire under the banner of the Crusaders, an alliance of Aasimars (descended from humanity's patron deity, goddess of the sun) Paladins who united many of the steppes land horse rider clans and conquered a broad section of the land rapidly, only to be transformed into Tieflings about forty years ago. Now, there are a couple of major groups - The Old Riders, who still live in the steppes, ride horses, and are ruled by Aasimars who look down on their cursed cousins. The Waveriders, Phoenician/Carthaginian analogues, who never had any aasimar in the first place and live by plying on the oceans and clash with the Moorless Isle occasionally. And a shattered empire that resembles the beginning of dark age Europe or post-Alexander the Great's empire, with charismatic warlords laying claim to a new mandate for the empire.

• Halflings aren't done, but I wanted groups that represented a love of home. One group, the Swamp Landers, are bayou-Cajuns famed for smoking, drinking, and killing crocodiles, looked down upon by foreigners but with a deep-seated pride in their land.

• Gnomes... What is the idea with gnomes? I gave them an Egypt esque culture, with relationships to Brass dragons. But I felt like, "hills pranksters" doesn't really suffice.

• Kobolds aren't really much like bog-standard humanoids at all. They have a lifecycle that more closely resembles hornets (a colony grows up, takes territory, fertilizes bunches of eggs over time, moves them to a new warren and abandons them to hatch on their own), they're aggressively xenophobic (they hate the smell of other races), they were designed as weapons by the chtonic dragon goddess who fought the world's creator, and they eat everything. They're as smart as other races and they can learn, but they seldom have strong rearing and they function naturally as eusocial creatures. And there are lots of them.

• Goblins and Orcs and Giants.

[Bohandas]

Your world makes a lot of sense, though I'd be left wondering about the context of this arrangement. In a sense you've described a very cosmopolitan society or "melting pot" society.

Regardless of how integrated they are into their host societies, two enclaves on opposite side of the continent should drift apart on their own just from replication errors (although in the specific example in question the elves' long lifespans partially offset this)