Alternate Creature Interpretations (Feel free to add your own additions)

[Sizzlefoot]

But those made for eating could be different than the soldiers.
Besides humans are eating strange things all the time.

Yeah, how else are you gonna get mad cow disease?

[Xania]

I was initially planning on doing something like this, but I decided to mix it up a little. To make up for their weakness and small size, almost all goblins develop sorcerous abilities during puberty. Those who don't are generally exiled or even killed, to keep the bloodline pure. This has made the goblins the magocratic rulers of the goblinkin empire, with bugbears as the warriors and hobgoblins as the common folk. Since hobgoblins are waaay more common than goblins and bugbears, and because they tend to be abused and downtrodden, hobgoblin adventurers aren't all that uncommon.
An interesting plot idea: out of the blue, a hobgoblin is born with sorcery. Do they hide it in fear of being executed or experimented on? Do they use it as a weapon to rebel against the goblin overlords? Do they strike out on their own, adventuring and on the run?

I like it, this must be the first time i see the hobgoblins as the commoners.

[Sizzlefoot]

I must say I haven't seen too many particularly interesting depictions of mind flayers. Hmm.

They're octopus(ish)-headed, so I guess they could have three hearts and blue blood, but that doesn't really say much about their culture.

Ah. Like octopuses, mindflayers can change the color of their skin and contract to fit into smaller spaces. They use these abilities to sneak into humanoid settlements, and, you guessed it, eat their brains while they sleep.

[Flumphburger]

More than just guardians and inhabitants of the forest, elves are literally part of it. These incarnate woodland spirits are superficially humanlike in form, but their bodies are as much plant as animal. Their skin is tough and scaly like bark. Their hair green and smelling of damp moss. Their bones are hardwood, and their blood almost as much like sap. Elves can be found anywhere where there is abundant life, particularly forests, jungles, and overgrown swamps. Aquatic elves appear in kelp forests and seagrass plains, and drow favor the underdark's luminous, chemosynthetic mushroom forests. When an elf moves into a new area, it gradually mutates to reflect the local primary producers.

Elves can go into their sleeplike trance anywhere, but over time they became agitated, depressed, and physically unhealthy if they go too long without fusing. In ideal circumstances, an elf trances while leaning or laying against a tree or other local equivalent, and letting the plant mould and attach itself to their body. Imagine a borg drone plugged into its alcove, or an H.R. Giger creature merged with its sexually suggestive biotechnology, only with plants, mosses, and vines engulfing the elf instead of ugly wires. While fused with the plant, the trancing elf builds an empathic connection with it, and if it fuses with it repeatedly it starts to pick up an instinctive familiarity with the surrounding environment, as well as taking on some cosmetic traits from the plant in question.

When an elf grows old and frail, it spends more and more time asleep and fused with a tree. Eventually, it falls asleep and never wakes up, and the tree completely assimilates its body leaving only a faint trace of it on the outside bark. Fragments of an absorbed elf's memories, passions, and desires live on within the tree, and any elves who fuse with it in the future dream of the dead one and are influenced by their remnants. If a single tree absorbs hundreds of dying elves, their essence coalesces to create a new, conscious intelligence, and the tree comes to life as a Treant. Treants are regarded as demigods by elvenkind, worshiped and revered for their great depths of ancestral knowledge and memories, as well as for their power. Treants spend most of their time asleep or in deep meditation, but awaken to share their wisdom with their modern day grandchildren, or to help defend them from invaders or other crises.

Elf reproduction is also heavily tied to their home forests; in fact, one could even consider trees to be a third sex of elf. When a female elf is fertilized by a male, she fuses with a large and healthy tree and passes her and her mate's mixed essence into it. A strange fruit will start to form on one of the branches, or perhaps a gall-like bulge on the trunk. First the woody skeleton grows, curled up in a fetus-like ball, then the flesh and skin, all protected by treebark and leafy down. When the newborn elf awakens and pries itself loose from its mothertree, it is ready to begin its education...or to continue it. If an elf fetus gestates in a tree that has absorbed one or more dead elves, it will be born with some inherited memories, making its childhood and upbringing shorter and easier. If it gestates in a full-fledged treant, it will be a fully educated and physically mature adult upon birth, having been thoroughly acculturated by the Treant during the "pregnancy." Elves born from heavily used trees are almost more like resurrected amalgamations of the community's previous members than new individuals. This is both a blessing and a curse for the elf community; more conservative elven cultures encourage mothers to use treants or proto-treants to host their young, while others prefer "raw" trees that will allow new individuals with fresh perspectives to develop. The latter is more work though; childrearing is kind of a pain in the ass no matter what race you are.

Some elven females take a vow of chastity and instead devote their lives to nurturing the trees used by other elves to raise their own young. These chaste fertility priestesses gain great druidic powers, and are usually tasked with caring for and communicating with the slumbering treants as well as helping baby elves develop. These are Dryads.

Despite their plantlike appearance and tree-based life cycle, elves are omnivorous, and enjoy a wide variety of meat and plant foods; they exchange a few nutrients with their trees while fusing, but not nearly enough to sustain themselves. Elf territories are carefully engineered and curated ecosystems, shaped by druidic magic, skilled mundane forestry, and subtle influences from the fusion trees and treants to host as great a variety of useful plants and animals for the elves as possible, in a self-sustaining balance. Growing elf communities sometimes expand their forests onto nearby grasslands or plains, which is why elves and humans are historic enemies. Any elf will tell you about greedy, exploitative humans who cut or burn down the forests to make room for their ugly cities and famrs, and any human will gladly complain about the cruelly indifferent elves who will spread their forests onto claimed farm and pasture land if given the chance. In truth, there's been plenty of fault to go around throughout the history of these two races. The dwarves have usually been a moderating influence between humans and elves, as they trade heavily with both (the elves provide wood for their forges and rare regents for magical item creation, and humans provide food, textiles, and other bulk goods, while humans and elves both purchase dwarven stone and metalcraft).

[Flumphburger]

Hobgoblins are turning out to be a bigger player I thought they'd be in a setting I'm working on. I've been contemplating a sort of hobgoblin equivalent of the drow- pale-skinned, sometimes with a slight bluish tint, and subterranean, the masters of strange necromantic magicks and creators of monstrous beasts. These drow-goblins were perhaps hobgoblins afflicted with a strange disease caused by a parasitic mold, which causes their skin to grow pale and extremely sensitive to sunlight. This is because sunlight can kill the mold in a few days. As a result, drow-goblins who manage to stay on the surface for around a week gradually are cured, becoming normal, healthy hobgoblins.

Thinking about it, that could potentially be an interesting origin for drow and/or duergar and/or svirfneblin as well.

Another random thought that just came to mind: we have dark ones, drow, duergar, and svirfneblin. Where are all the mushroom-farming Underdark halflings?

This has some interesting implications. The underdark is (or is home to) some evil corrupting force that lures creatures from the surface world in and twists them to make a corrupted version of each race. Borrows a lot thematically from Tolkein, while also serving the DnD default premise of "adventurers go into underground caves and dungeons where they fight a bunch of evil things."

If you're going with the parasitic mold explanation, then maybe the mold is the creation of an evil underdark deity. OR perhaps it IS the evil underdark deity, extensions of a massive fungoid demon hidden near the center of the world.

[Aniikinis]

Since we're on a somewhat goblin kick, the goblins and goblinoids in my Ku'lown setting are strange.

First off, bugbears. They're a strange case, in that instead of being a distinct race, they're the result of a natural bio-magical process inherent in all goblinoids. If a goblinoid becomes infected with lycanthropy, vampirism, ghoul fever, or is affected by the bite of an abhorrent scourge, their body launches an all out war on the offending infection. Should the disease/curse take hold and manifest, the goblinoid is immediately killed and a barghesti revenant (zombie with the stats of a skeleton and the fiendish template along with the outsider type) rises in its' stead. Should the goblinoid fight off the infection, the latent magic forces a metamorphosis into a bugbear with special traits based off of the trigger disease, lycanthropic bugbears being the most common. Strangely enough, this process seems to invert the nature of the goblinoid that produced it. Goblinoids are a fairly servile group, even more so than kobolds and blightlings, but the bugbear is fiercely independent and will eagerly attack and attempt to kill anyone giving it orders or seek to impose its' will on goblin tribes and the like.

The appearance of a bugbear is dependent on the appearance of the goblinoid they used to be, but are still altered by this change. Lycanthropic bugbears are covered in fine hair, have massive teeth and claws, and stink to the depths of baator along with their surly dispositions and craving for the tearing of flesh. Vampiric bugbears are gaunt, much paler, with saber-like canines and an affinity for vermin that goes against their newly regal disposition and thirst for fresh blood. Ghoulish bugbears are hairless, have multiple rows of shark-like teeth and long serrated claws, appear to be perpetually starving with saran wrap skin covering bones with little muscle and a distended gut, and are constantly hungry. Finally, abhorrent bugbears are twisted, almost demonic looking, beings covered in spiny scales, constantly leaking blood and pus from between its' scales, with massive curled horns and wicked talons on all appendages, they subsist on the pain and fear of other creatures and love to torture their prey physically before extracting the sensations with their talons.

Hobgoblins are up next with a subdued form of weird. Hobgoblins are rare, and are often times mistakenly assumed to be a Goblin King and killed at birth, making them even more rare than they would normally be. They have vibrant metallic skin and glistening, jewel-like eyes with hair that seems to have been sculpted perfectly to fit the statuesque figure of the hobgoblin. However, they are very, very dumb and physically inept. Pretty to look at, yes, but too fumbling and inane to really do anything else but stand there and look pretty. They follow orders unquestioningly and make excellent sycophants for any king or liege lucky enough to find one in their charge. Strangely enough, they make amazing magic users when they can actually learn it and would be terrifying if they could actually do much.

Unbeknownst to the wide world, hobgoblins are free of the taint of barghest blood. They are the truest expression of goblinkind, untainted by the ancient curse that plagues their smaller kin. This could be considered a blessing, where it not that other goblinoids have an innate sense of loathing for the hobgoblins.

Finally, the OG goblins. Goblins are a cursed race. Long ago in ancient times they pledged themselves to a barghest lord in exchange for power. The first recipients of the power were insanely powerful and were seen as gods by the other goblins who quickly fell into line beneath them. Over generations, however, this power has gotten so diluted that it doesn't blip on the radar. Before the events of The Waking, not a single person could tell you what the bargest lord would have gained from its' pact other than servants. After that event, every single lord or lord-to-be can tell you exactly what the fiendish lord got out of the deal.

See, goblins aren't an evil race. Sure there are a few bad apples here and there, but in general they're a good people. Kind, good natured, willing to fall over themselves to help their liege or fellow man. You'd be hard pressed to find a person who couldn't enjoy the antics of the goblins or at least isn't openly hostile to them. But the barghest blood in the goblins is a clear and present threat to the world, one that strikes a dark undertone to the insanely useful and helpful goblins.

At one point in time, goblins were the most numerous race in the world, numbering in the upper millions easily. When a certain threshold of population was reached, a goblin was formed in the deepest pits that was the perfect ruler for their lord's cause. Upon the eve of his birth, the world shuddered as the first instance of a Goblin King was unleashed on the world. Over the years he grew and attained the status of highest lord over all goblinoids. The goblin king was taller, stronger, smarter, and far more commanding than any other goblin could have possibly been. On the night before the planar convergence, the goblin king enacted a ritual that bound all goblins together in mind and soul and leashed them to his will in order to enact the role he was born to fulfill.

The night of the planar convergence was still and clear before a beam of pure white light erupted from the site of the goblin castle. The beam tore the very fabric of the surrounding world apart and caused a massive titan to emerge from the opened rift. Powered by the unified souls of the goblins and controlled by the goblin king, it sought to tear the world asunder. The greatest of heroes, most powerful of titans, fantastical of beasts, and most stalwart defenders of the realms showed up to do battle but nothing seemed to harm the great being, until a group of nobodies made pacts with great beings from beyond and within the world itself. The first warlocks and avowed did battle with the hordes of goblins besieging the realms and one managed to wrest control of a company from the goblin king, forming the first fealty. A mass extermination was done in the glow of a burning white pillar and a mad titan kept busy until the goblin king could no longer hold the being in the world, and it vanished.

When the titanic being vanished, the beam snapped off and the goblin king laid dead and half disintegrated against the smoking hole of nothingness that was where the castle once stood. The lands surrounding the hole were twisted, barren, partially disintegrated, and resembled a bad wireframe model on a computer with almost all detail having been stretched towards the pillar or deleted by it. The system of fealty was instituted and goblin villages became status symbols and a way to keep the goblin population at reasonable levels.

In the current point in the setting, there is an avowed that is worshipped as a god emperor by his goblin village for bringing them prosperity unlike any in their history. He takes a small tax of living goblins for use as personal servants, harem members, and sacrifices in order to feed the domesticated spiders he gave them and to please his patroness (she likes the taste of goblin flesh, especially of females with little or no offspring). He is also funding the research to figure out a way to break the curse on the goblin race, due to him having a high love for the little green beans.

[Sizzlefoot]

I've been thinking of making all giants blue.

This would be mainly to show that the giants are all actually the same race. I suppose I could give them normal human skin tones, but blue just looks cooler. I'm pretty sure some old artwork for Against the Giants had a blue-skinned fire giant. Storm giants might have a slight hint of green. Fire giants would be dark navy blue. Stone giants would be grayish-blue. Cloud giants would be a rather pale sky blue. Hill giants, though... They might look kinda weird with blue skin.

Edit: Whoops, forgot frost giants. Aren't they already kinda blue, though?

[theVoidWatches]

I have dragons, giants, krakens, and rocs all as semi-divine embodiments of a particular element. Along with the element thing, they each have an additional special quality which is vaguely related to the element.

Dragons, which embody fire, have this thing where their personal power is based on how much they own/influence (because fires get stronger depending on what's burning and how much of it). That's why dragons hoard - because accumulating gold is the simplest way to grow your power. The ultimate way, of course, is to rule over others, which is how the BBEG of my current campaign (an ancient dragon who secretly rules over most of a continent) got to where he is today.

Giants, which embody earth, get to have a secondary element that they embody (because the earth supports all the elements). Stone giants, who doubled down on earth, are the weakest, and tend to be stolid and unchanging. Fire and storm giants, who have secondary elements of fire and water respectively, are roughly as strong as each other - both are very strongly emotional, but fire giants have trains of thought like locomotives (they change their focus only slowly), while storm giants are more mercurial. Cloud giants, who embody air as well as fire, are the most powerful of the giants, and are tricksters - they enjoy screwing around with lesser beings.

Krakens, which embody water, have powerful psychic abilities. Pretty much anything that could get by as an asspull from Phoenix or Professor X in comic books is something they can do.

Rocs embody air, but I haven't decided what their second quality is. Maybe shapeshifting?

This is mostly beside the point, as the previously-mentioned BBEG long ago exterminated most of the other elemental embodiments - the few survivors are mostly in hiding.

[Prince Vine]

More of a cultural thing but I have halflings as tribes of barbarians in a tropical region engaged in a constant struggle against dinosaurs.

Mostly because a halfling decked out in bones riding a dinosaur is awesome.

[Xania]

Basically because it looks better along the other goblinoids and i got tired of them being there only because "somebody has to die instead of somebody else", goblins were like the githyanki in the right corner in this picture, they also lived in forest instead of mines and caverns, wich remains for xvarts and kobolds.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E2MBw6HYt0...vern-brawl.jpg

[Cyclops08]

In my work-in-progress setting, humans originally bred orcs as soldiers shortly after rebelling against an empire of giants. But a disturbing though just came to mind: what if they also bred them for food?

It could be why orcs became evil. Rebelling against those who looked upon orcs as delicious, they started eating their masters back.

If the whole world loved to eat you, wouldn't you turn violent too?

It would make for some very interesting stories about the victorious armies holding barbecues after the battle.

It would be interesting to see player reactions after a successful dungeon raid as well.

[Xania]

Don't know if there are cyclops covered in crab-like armor with lobster claws and several legs somewhere, like the real crustacean.

[Flumphburger]

It would be interesting to see player reactions after a successful dungeon raid as well.

They'd get out the ketchup and relish?

[Aniikinis]

They'd get out the ketchup and relish?

I mean, that'd be my first instinct too. What? You folks don't read the setting notes the GM gives you all? Shameful display.

Well, since I'm here. Lizardfolk in my settings come in three flavors: Cursed, Civil, and Captivated.

Cursed lizardfolk are those who are the remnants of whatever ancient civilization lived in that setting and therefore still harbor traces of the ruin that came to them. They are typically sorcerous/warlock inclined, are essentially feral, and hate the "lesser beasts" for taking what was rightfully theirs.

Civil lizardfolk are just what you'd expect of a typical core race. They build cities, cultures, religions, etc. They carve out territory and defend the borders of their lands, vying for power with the other lords of the region and getting enmeshed in the web of diplomatic insanity. The main differences between them and the typical core races is that at least two of the following things are true about them, which ones those are is dependent on the setting. The qualities are:

• Obligate Carnivores
• Obligate Herbivores
• Kleptothermic
• Cold-Blooded
• Lack of Emotion
• Simple Minds
• More Arrogant Than Elves

Captivated lizardfolk are those whose entire worldview is shaped by a higher power. Whether this is a god, demon, angel, vestige, whatever isn't important for their classification, due to them being remarkably similar despite it. They are typically tribal, aggressive, and willing to go to any lengths necessary to "please" their patron.

[Xania]

Lizardfolk are mostly the evil humans with scales and orange or yellow eyes type, to keep them apart from troglodytes or kobolds.
The more animal looking kind also exist, although they are more rare and not evil. There are herbivores and carnivores too, but always asumed they were cold-blooded.

[Sizzlefoot]

Lizardfolk are mostly the evil humans with scales and orange or yellow eyes type, to keep them apart from troglodytes or kobolds.
The more animal looking kind also exist, although they are more rare and not evil. There are herbivores and carnivores too, but always asumed they were cold-blooded.

I don't do troglodytes. I just have stinky lizardfolk who live underground.

[Sizzlefoot]

I think I might merge the fiends (with maybe a little slaad) into one race, the daemons. Daemons can be of any alignment, though most are chaotic neutral, chaotic evil, lawful evil, or true neutral. Daemonic princes are worshipped as gods by some mortals. Hey, that reminds me. Gods.

I don't think I'll have "gods" in the traditional sense. The closest thing to traditional D&D gods will be hero-gods, which are ascended mortals. Dragons, daemonic princes, giants, and beast spirits are all worshipped at least a little bit and thus can grant divine power to clerics and paladins.

Also, dragons are kind of like angels, in that many serve hero-gods or even daemonic princes and they likely had some part in the creation of the world.

[Xania]

I don't do troglodytes. I just have stinky lizardfolk who live underground.

Yes, looks like troglodytes are mostly unused.

Since i mentioned xvarts, mine are taller, between 4 and 5 feet, their chores aren't determined by gender and get along a bit better with kobolds.
Don't know very well how they should look though.

[Sizzlefoot]

Yes, looks like troglodytes are mostly unused.

Since i mentioned xvarts, mine are taller, between 4 and 5 feet, their chores aren't determined by gender and get along a bit better with kobolds.
Don't know very well how they should look though.

I might make mine look like little stereotypical Grey aliens, except, y'know, blue. And with the pointy ears and orange eyes. Hair is optional.

I may also add mutant xvarts who resemble blue-skinned, hairless, orange-eyed humans or elves. These are generally used as spies, using the good ol' "an evil wizard made mah skin turn blue" trick. Works every time.

[Xania]

I might make mine look like little stereotypical Grey aliens, except, y'know, blue. And with the pointy ears and orange eyes. Hair is optional.

I may also add mutant xvarts who resemble blue-skinned, hairless, orange-eyed humans or elves. These are generally used as spies, using the good ol' "an evil wizard made mah skin turn blue" trick. Works every time.

Sounds fine to me, thanks ^^
Don't know how many times the story about the wizard can work though, probably more than expected.

Somebody uses strange looking dragons? Willow was passed on TV and i was wondering about it.

[Sizzlefoot]

When goblins need to fight, they magically breed hobgoblins. Hobgoblins are made to follow orders, nothing more. They are tall, muscular, and warlike, and most lack even the slightest hint of a true identity.

When goblins need to hunt, they make bugbears. It's believed that bugbears were first created when goblins were exposed to lycanthropic blood. Bugbears have a wolflike pack mentality. They travel in small groups, known as packs, and they live to hunt. When a gnome or halfling escapes the goblin nation known as the Vataani Empire, a pack of bugbears is sent after them. Normally, a goblin handler must stay with them, as bugbears on their own would simply give in to their bloodlust and tear the escapee limb from limb.

[Flumphburger]

I don't do troglodytes. I just have stinky lizardfolk who live underground.

I sort of did something similar, but with bullywugs. Bullywugs that live underground are troglodytes.

[Sizzlefoot]

I've been considering making gnomes descended from xvarts.

[Xania]

I sort of did something similar, but with bullywugs. Bullywugs that live underground are troglodytes.

How different are they from the ones in the surface?

[Xania]

I've been considering making gnomes descended from xvarts.

That means xvarts are extint?

My gnomes used to be the alien species influenced the evolution before went extint, now i probably will use the normal ones.

[Sizzlefoot]

That means xvarts are extint?

My gnomes used to be the alien species influenced the evolution before went extint, now i probably will use the normal ones.

Nah, gnomes are descended from xvarts who came to the surface. Modern xvarts are the ones that stayed behind.

[Cluedrew]

Elves are all female, Dwarves are all male. They're a single "race" with extreme sexual dimorphism. The reason the party's elf and dwarf always bicker is because they're married.

This is great! There are 2/3 levels of parody in there and they are all pretty good.

I have done quite a few weird ones. Including a sexual dimorphic race where the females were giant blue-gray humanoids with wings and the males were snakes with four arms and gills (they could survive underwater). I forget where that came from. But that is a new race, a brief hint of some altered classics.

Goblins: I did a story where goblins were heavily discriminated against. But when amongst friends they would sing and dance joyously. The POV character was a human friend of goblins, as marked by the bite mark scar on his ear. Out yeah the goblins also did scaring based tattoos.

Vampires: Actually a race of creatures who cannot absorb all the mystic nutrients from nature or non-magic food sources. They get it from blood from magic using races. Humans are preferred because they have a neutral magic that provides everything. Plus the only other race in the area the story takes place in are trolls, whose bloods is discussing because it is actually toxic it large amounts, small amounts are used as medicine though. There are other races in the setting, one of the characters is part shade for instance. Vampires maintain their vulnerability to sunlight, like with troll blood it is/could be good in small amounts but the sun will fry them in under half an hour in regular conditions.

There are also old- and new-castle vampires, over the past few generations the magic of vampires has been going under a shift. The old-castle vampires are psychics and shape-shifters, new-castle vampires are strong. Originally that was it, right now if I got back to it I might give them some left over shape-shifting, also vampires also being the settings werewolves would be funny. But the strength turned out to be more useful as their numbers built up. Mostly because they could capture populations of other races instead of picking them off the edges of society. Humans can get promoted from blood stock by having particular skills, the biggest being training as a thrall knight. Which channels the human neutral magic into body reinforcement that lets them keep up with new-castle vampires.

The last general detail I can remember was how blood tasted. Vampires did not agree on what makes good tasting blood (well troll blood being bad is common). "Pure" blood (sexually, magically and so on) is generally popular but heavy flavours are preferred by some vampires.

[Sizzlefoot]

also vampires also being the settings werewolves would be funny.

In some medieval European folklore, a slain werewolf would rise from the dead as a vampire.

[Xania]

Nah, gnomes are descended from xvarts who came to the surface. Modern xvarts are the ones that stayed behind.

Hm... For something similar, small trolls like those Norwegian figures would serve.

[Cyclops08]

Gelatinous Girlfriend
This has all the stats of a gelatinous cube, just decrease the movement to 5 inches and increase the intelligence to 5. (some even learn a language).

This cube is Psychic. It has an additional attack of 2D6 psychic damage. It can use both its acid and psychic damage on an engulfed victim.

Because of its slow movement, the gelatin has adapted to lure victims by shaping a part of itself into a comely temptress based on what its victim most desires. Surprisingly, this works more often that one would expect.

Intelligent villains will use this gelatin as both an executioner and a rubbish dump and may build a pool for it to inhabit.

Its psychic awareness extends out some 120 feet. and the rogue scouting ahead may discover a beautiful girl bathing in a pool in the middle of an orc warren. (but he will hear nothing until he sees her first).