Demihumans. For some they're an essential component of the fantasy RPG genre. Whether they be the belligerent, avaricous dwarves of vanilla D&D or the 7' desert-dwelling elves of Athas you can almost guarantee that most settings will include at least one analogue of the classic races.
The reason behind this thread is that I'm currently prepping a campaign for the Wilderlands of High Fantasy setting and have found myself in a bit of a rut regarding the stock fantasy races. I want to present them as recognisable yet distinct from their more generic brethren. I'm looking for cool and interesting takes on the idea, whether it be physical, cultural or spiritual. A Sword and Sorcery vibe is a definite bonus, as I'm trying to avoid the standard medieval cliches. Examples from other systems (eg. the Dryad-like elves of RQ) and literature are more than welcome.
So, RPGsiters, bring me your demihumans! I'll post my own embyonic musings if and when a few responses are in.
Quote from: DrewSo, RPGsiters, bring me your demihumans! I'll post my own embyonic musings if and when a few responses are in.
Play elves as the fantasy version of Greys (totally alien viewpoint, detached interest in humanity and other sentient races, rarely motivated by outside concerns).
Lord Hobie
Quote from: Lord HobiePlay elves as the fantasy version of Greys (totally alien viewpoint, detached interest in humanity and other sentient races, rarely motivated by outside concerns).
Lord Hobie
that's a good one. i think i'll steal it for my fantasy setting.
how about dwarves as earth elementals? they don't have to look like earth genasi (or whatever the part-elementals are), but could just have a drab, tan skin color. they don't really eat (much) but do still drink, frequently to excess. "if ya don't drink, you'll harden up, like old Kharazdim the Elder! didn't touch the stuff, and slowly turned to stone, he did."
Quote from: DrewDemihumans. For some they're an essential component of the fantasy RPG genre. Whether they be the belligerent, avaricous dwarves of vanilla D&D or the 7' desert-dwelling elves of Athas you can almost guarantee that most settings will include at least one analogue of the classic races.
The reason behind this thread is that I'm currently prepping a campaign for the Wilderlands of High Fantasy setting and have found myself in a bit of a rut regarding the stock fantasy races. I want to present them as recognisable yet distinct from their more generic brethren. I'm looking for cool and interesting takes on the idea, whether it be physical, cultural or spiritual. A Sword and Sorcery vibe is a definite bonus, as I'm trying to avoid the standard medieval cliches. Examples from other systems (eg. the Dryad-like elves of RQ) and literature are more than welcome.
So, RPGsiters, bring me your demihumans! I'll post my own embyonic musings if and when a few responses are in.
Hi Drew,
You might want to get "fresh" ideas by looking at classical/medieval/celtic sources for what elves are like. The Tolkienish Elves are the basis for our common lot in RPGs usually. However as it happens Elves are much more ethereal and otherworldly than the way they are commonly portrayed as character classes in D&D type game settings, as far as I know. I would read around a bit on the mythologies related to elves. There are a huge variety of Elves, dark, light and grey. I would take a look at classics such as the 'Mabinogion', Spencer's 'The Fairy Queen', and other similar sources and see what comes to mind for you.
The thing about it that I would consider is that Elves by nature (er supernature?) are strange and somewhat unfathomable beings from the Other World (Tir Na Nog), and not really simple tall humans with pointy ears and good marksmanship skills + some magic. That's a very D&Dish way of viewing them. For game purposes that works, but from an 'interesting story' perspective you can find a great deal of raw material out there in the old literature of our forefathers. Dust off a tome or two and see what you can dig up. When it comes to Elves, Dwarves and the other denizens of Feylandia, you need not have to resort to invention or recombination. There's quite a bit there already for those who know where to poke around. Elves are far stranger beings than our RPGs would lead us to believe...
I hope this helps to at least point in a helpful direction...
Batteries not included.
- Mark
My take on two of the race are found here
http://home.earthlink.net/~wilderlands/cselves.html
http://home.earthlink.net/~wilderlands/csdwarves.html
I think the trick isn't coming up with a new gonzo background for them. What I would do is focus more on the individual level. If YOU and your friends were role-playing a group of elves in your Wilderlands campaign what would they be like how would they act. From that extrapolate backwards to a more general culture and racial background.
An alternate is run a campaign (short or long) where everyone plays elves. Essentially you and your groups define what elves are. In my experience a focused campaign like tends to create a rich and interesting background.
Finally in fantasy, note this is being simplistic, Elves were presented in several ways. Sidhe Fae of high noble blood, or the Elves of Alfheim of Norse (angelic, direct ancestor of Tolkein's version). Tolkien himself had two versions, the Hobbit Elves and the LoTR/Simarrillion Elves. From here you can read up on the different version and their variants and take what elements you want.
I choose the Tolkien variant myself as I felt it was the most true to the origins of the game I was playing (AD&D 1st). When I switched to Fantasy Hero and GURPS they remained essentially the same except their society became much more reclusive, powerfully magical, and mysterious.
The one player I had ever seen play an elf in my game couldn't role-play out of a wet paper bag. Eventually he wound up torching a village (He was a GURPS fire mage) After that even his own party was pissed off at him, the village had some important contacts, and he wound up being bagged by the Elves. His punishment was to be treated like an animal as he treated others like animals. He was transformed into a donkey and was to give rides to all those who came to the elven city for a hundred years and a day.
As for the general lack of PCs elves (or demi-humans) in my game is mostly due to the fact I give so many interesting options to the human side. I did have a couple of good dwarven players. And a handful of hobb... err halfling players.
Given the strange history of the wilderlands setting you can pretty much go nuts. Discovered by interstellar travellers, fought over and influenced by the Markrab, the Dragon Lords and everything in between. The players Guide has more history of the setting than the box set, i'm told, but i don't have that book.
I was talking with someone at DexCon and we brainstormed a fun notion of Jungle Elves: the core notion was that they wore skins and lived in trees and primitive shit like that not despite their intelligence and insane longevity, but because of it.
"Well, yeah, we built a huge city of magic and wonderment a few centuries ago ... and the jungle overran it, like it overruns everything. Fuck it. It's not worth the bother. There's some ruins a day or two over that way, if you want to check them out, but you'll have to dig through like ten feet of vines in order to even see what the city used to look like. Or, I got monkey-meat on a stick roasting on the fire right here, if you want to deal with something real."
Quote from: TonyLBthe jungle overran it, like it overruns everything. Fuck it. It's not worth the bother.
Damn, what a great "been there, done that" attitude. They might even be able to predict major events in human civilization because they've been there before.
"You know, since King Harold started debasing coinage, massive inflation is going to set in. Move out of the city before the famine hits in 3 years."
They might figure humans are still evolving and haven't gotten past their civilization fetish yet. So they don't want to get too involved with humans until they've had their collapse and restructuring.
I don't use demi-human races anymore in any of our games, but when I did, I usually mapped them to a recognizable culture. This gave me a whole crap load of shit to mine (Orks live in a medieval Venice-like city, Doge and all) and made it easy for the players to get their heads around the idea (okay we all saw Laurence Fishburne in Othello right? Think the Venicians from that).
This kinda thinking always led me to break from the usualy stereotypes for the races. Orks as Venicians, Halflings as Byzantines, Dwarves as Mamuluks, Elves as the barbaric Franks and Humans as everyone else's bitch is one example.
Keith Senkowski
I went back to the roots myself and twisted them up:
Dvegr
Born of ancient mountains heart, they are more akin to iron and stone, than flesh and bone. The Dvegr are smaller than the other races of men, like a boulder to a hill, they are also more solid, weighing more than even the tallest fomoradgh. The males grow luxuriant beards from an early age and many dvegr hair grays early in their adult years. Dvegr can be as beautiful or as frightful of appearance as humans, and often share traits with nearby human cultures (such as coloration of skin and hair.)
They are peerless craftsmen, miners and warriors. While disdainful of magic and the wizards' art, they too have craefters of their own, and items made by dwarf-smiths and girded by their enchantments are things of legend. Dvegr have better vision than most other Kinships in twilight or low light, but suffer a bit under bright sun.
Kinship Traits: Heart of Iron and Bones of Stone: Dvegr are very resilient and resistant to harm. (Greater)
Challenge: Pebble's Burden: Dvegr cannot float, thus cannot swim and this makes them less than fond of water. (Greater)
Dwarf physiology is such that when they die their bodies slowly become stone, harder than granite locked in the position where they meet final repose. This is not spoken of commonly but many an alcove with a stone Dvegr Statue within a Dvegrhold's Mourning Hall is actually the stone hard body of a fallen ancestor.
Sidda
Often spoken of in quiet whispers, yet rarely seen, they are feared by humans more often than not. The Sidda are known also as the Fair folk, or the Fey. Where this race as a whole has gone is unknown even to the scant few who still wander the lands of men. They are a lithe folk with inhuman grace and uncanny voices. They have fine beautiful features, large almond shaped eyes, and pointed ears.
Kinship Traits: Mythic Countenance: As Sidda age they take on mythic traits of their birth name. Slowly becoming elemental or legendary primal forces over time. (Greater),
Kinship Challenge: Sorrow's Burden: Sidda feel things deeply and are moved by sorrow for the pains of the land and their people, as well as the sorrow's of all the kindred of men. They suffer melancholy rather easily due to this.
As Sidda age they take on on some primal elemental aspect until they are unrecognizable as a race of man. The mighty Oak-King who appears as more a tree each and every year for example, stands over nine feet tall with bark like skin, and antler like branches upon his brow, he dwells currently in his forest home upon a throne of gnarled roots which span from the eldest of all Oak trees.
The Lion of the North, a snow-white lion, nearly the size of the horse, was once a powerful Sidda warlord.
The Lady of the Sea, a woman of sea foam and saltwater. She sometimes appears within an ocean wave that breaks apart instead of smashing to ruin. Like the others she too was once a Sidda.
Sorry for the delayed respose people-- an age-old health issue reared it's ugly head again, necessitating another week in a crumbling NHS hospital.
There's some great stuff here folks, real food for thought. Once I come off the industrial strength painkillers in a few days I should be able to frame a response that isn't half-sensate drooling idiocy. My own take on how to present the demihumans (and to a lesser extent humanoid) races of the Wilderlands has crystallized somewhat, although there's definitely a few ideas in the thread that I'll be making considerable use of.
Cool beans indeed. :)
In Birthright, dwarves are so associated with earth and stone that their skin is stone like (to the point of giving them 2 DR) and grey, and they can actually eat rock (and live off of it). It's kinda bland tasting to them, but they still have whole dishes based around various types of stone. I always found that interesting.
In a home-brew setting I've been working on sporadically for a few years, I've postulated that humans and several other "tall" races are not native to the world, and that the only true natives are the elves, which are small, much more like halflings, the dwarves, and the goblins (which are wolf-riding nomadic hordes similar to the huns or mongols).
OK. The fog is finally starting to clear, so I can finally get to responding. I'll be doing so on a post-by-post basis, so bear with me on this one...
Quote from: Lord HobiePlay elves as the fantasy version of Greys (totally alien viewpoint, detached interest in humanity and other sentient races, rarely motivated by outside concerns).
It's a nice idea, and one that's occured to me before, although the Grey analogy is something I hadn't previously considered. I like the idea of Elves being inhuman in both physiology and outlook, with the traditional "fae" motif being something ascribed by a largely ignorant humanity attempting to categorise. Finding out that the traditional legends of treating with these creatures mean less than nothing certainly has possibilities...
I'm not sure if it
quite fits what I'm looking for though. My players are veteran fantasy readers, and it's quite likely that they'd simply view a distanced, alien elvish mentality as little more than a version of Tolkien's Noldorin.
That said, there's a distinct possibility that I can use this as the template for the ur-Elves whom arrived in the Wilderlands hundreds of millenia ago. At the moment I'm tending toward a kind of mystical trans-speciest physiology and mindset that has gradually become 'fixed' into different lineages over the intervening epochs. I think it's a cool jumping off spot that can incorporate some of the other stuff in this thread.
Good stuff. :)
More responses later.
Quote from: beeberhow about dwarves as earth elementals? they don't have to look like earth genasi (or whatever the part-elementals are), but could just have a drab, tan skin color. they don't really eat (much) but do still drink, frequently to excess. "if ya don't drink, you'll harden up, like old Kharazdim the Elder! didn't touch the stuff, and slowly turned to stone, he did."
I like the idea of an elemental connection, just one that's a little less pronounced. Perhaps if the hardening of the Dwarfish race was a psychological or spiritual phenomenon? Unless certain rituals are observed and taboos enforced then a gradual mental calcification occurs, resulting in fatally compulsive engineers, prophets and madmen. Maybe a Dwarf hardened into a continual psychopathic rage, who never stops to eat, think or rest would be viewed as a kind of divinely tainted warning against the perils of irreligious thinking.
A
group of them would be very similar to the Infected in the film 28 Days Later. Now there's a thought...;)
Quote from: VBWyrdeHi Drew,
You might want to get "fresh" ideas by looking at classical/medieval/celtic sources for what elves are like. The Tolkienish Elves are the basis for our common lot in RPGs usually. However as it happens Elves are much more ethereal and otherworldly than the way they are commonly portrayed as character classes in D&D type game settings, as far as I know. I would read around a bit on the mythologies related to elves. There are a huge variety of Elves, dark, light and grey. I would take a look at classics such as the 'Mabinogion', Spencer's 'The Fairy Queen', and other similar sources and see what comes to mind for you.
The thing about it that I would consider is that Elves by nature (er supernature?) are strange and somewhat unfathomable beings from the Other World (Tir Na Nog), and not really simple tall humans with pointy ears and good marksmanship skills + some magic. That's a very D&Dish way of viewing them. For game purposes that works, but from an 'interesting story' perspective you can find a great deal of raw material out there in the old literature of our forefathers. Dust off a tome or two and see what you can dig up. When it comes to Elves, Dwarves and the other denizens of Feylandia, you need not have to resort to invention or recombination. There's quite a bit there already for those who know where to poke around. Elves are far stranger beings than our RPGs would lead us to believe...
I hope this helps to at least point in a helpful direction...
It does indeed, although I'm moving in a different direction for reasons stated above. I've read a fair bit of mythology, and whilst undeniably cool there's a kind of familiarity to it that just isn't sparking my interest at the moment. The Wilderlands setting has a strong sci-fi undercurrent that I'd like to incorporate into a grander mythological foundation that will inform my sessions, at least on a subtextual level.
Put it this way, I'm more of an Eldar man than an Elf-lover these days. :D
Thanks for the contribution, though. It's always good to have a reminder of where this stuff originates.
Quote from: estarMy take on two of the race are found here
http://home.earthlink.net/~wilderlands/cselves.html
http://home.earthlink.net/~wilderlands/csdwarves.html
That's some wonderfully evocative stuff you've written there, estar. Very Tolkienesque in tenor. I particularly like the Dwarves as an unbonded slave race who are still fulfilling the obligations imposed by their original masters, even if unwittingly. It lends a cool, tragic dimension that I can incorporate into the developing idea above. Perhaps their servitor breeding results in a tendency toward ultra-focused thinking, which if left unchecked blossoms into full blown obssessive mania. The story of Dwarven liberation could be intimately tied to the forefathers of the contemporary clans forging a different way of thought, a metaphysical escape hatch of sorts that required constant maintenence to retain it's efficacy.
QuoteI think the trick isn't coming up with a new gonzo background for them. What I would do is focus more on the individual level. If YOU and your friends were role-playing a group of elves in your Wilderlands campaign what would they be like how would they act. From that extrapolate backwards to a more general culture and racial background.
This is kind of what I've been doing. I began with striking, non-traditional images then retro engineered them, developing a sense of context and lineage along the way. The ideas in this thread are helping immensely with the process, allowing for all kinds of cool embellishments that would never have occured to me alone.
QuoteAn alternate is run a campaign (short or long) where everyone plays elves. Essentially you and your groups define what elves are. In my experience a focused campaign like tends to create a rich and interesting background.
I ran a sci-fi campaign years ago using exactly this technique. All alien races were invented by the players at character creation. The results were far better than I dared hope, even the cigar-chomping Gremlin porn star with the telescopic penis...
QuoteFinally in fantasy, note this is being simplistic, Elves were presented in several ways. Sidhe Fae of high noble blood, or the Elves of Alfheim of Norse (angelic, direct ancestor of Tolkein's version). Tolkien himself had two versions, the Hobbit Elves and the LoTR/Simarrillion Elves. From here you can read up on the different version and their variants and take what elements you want.
I choose the Tolkien variant myself as I felt it was the most true to the origins of the game I was playing (AD&D 1st). When I switched to Fantasy Hero and GURPS they remained essentially the same except their society became much more reclusive, powerfully magical, and mysterious.
There's an outside chance that I'll be using ideas like this, but if I do it'll be less in the Tolkieneque tradition and more reminiscent of Moorcock's Melniboneans. Whatever the case, they'll be an isolated cultural anomaly, similar in size and population to todays Amish. Their history will be heavily tied to the trans-speciest origins of the ur-Elves I mentioned upthread, and may well see their arcane technology as a form of pureblooded cultural preservation. They will be wrong on that score, but it doesn't hurt to have a few inhumanly beautiful sociopaths with energy lances running around the edges of the map. ;)
QuoteThe one player I had ever seen play an elf in my game couldn't role-play out of a wet paper bag. Eventually he wound up torching a village (He was a GURPS fire mage) After that even his own party was pissed off at him, the village had some important contacts, and he wound up being bagged by the Elves. His punishment was to be treated like an animal as he treated others like animals. He was transformed into a donkey and was to give rides to all those who came to the elven city for a hundred years and a day.
Poetic retribution is undoubtedly the most satisfying. Funny stuff. :D
QuoteAs for the general lack of PCs elves (or demi-humans) in my game is mostly due to the fact I give so many interesting options to the human side. I did have a couple of good dwarven players. And a handful of hobb... err halfling players.
My campaign will be completely humanocentric, at least in the early phases. that's why I'm looking for more out-there concepts that I can slowly intergrate. Once the players become more familiar with what I'm trying to do with the world then they can start picking character races as they see fit. What I'm doing here feels pretty ambitious, and I want to ensure that some doofus player doesn't dive headlong into the old cliches I'm so desperate to avoid. I've had enough of Trumpkin Rumbleturd and his ilk to last a lifetime, although that's likely due to bad player experiences than anything inherently wrong with the genre material.
For my current homebrew I added a certain Sword&Sorcery feel to demi-humans: They're basically (d)evolved relatives of homo sapiens. Elves are survivors from distant and lost high cultures who evolved further from homo sapiens, while orcs and goblins are half-bestial apemen à la Conan.
I have no dwarves yet... I simply dunno how to integrate them into the theme of pseudo-pseudo-scientific evolution. And halflings won't come, as I never liked them (neither in Tolkien nor in gaming).
Quote from: One Horse TownGiven the strange history of the wilderlands setting you can pretty much go nuts.
That's the general idea, but I only want
cohesive nuts. ;)
QuoteDiscovered by interstellar travellers, fought over and influenced by the Markrab, the Dragon Lords and everything in between. The players Guide has more history of the setting than the box set, i'm told, but i don't have that book.
I've had a flick through a friends copy, but really need to get one of my own. It looks like there's some seriously good shit between those covers.
Quote from: TonyLBI was talking with someone at DexCon and we brainstormed a fun notion of Jungle Elves: the core notion was that they wore skins and lived in trees and primitive shit like that not despite their intelligence and insane longevity, but because of it.
"Well, yeah, we built a huge city of magic and wonderment a few centuries ago ... and the jungle overran it, like it overruns everything. Fuck it. It's not worth the bother. There's some ruins a day or two over that way, if you want to check them out, but you'll have to dig through like ten feet of vines in order to even see what the city used to look like. Or, I got monkey-meat on a stick roasting on the fire right here, if you want to deal with something real."
Cool. I've decided to import a version of Dark Sun's Athasian elves into the setting as another example of the 'fixed' descendants of the starfaring ur-Elves of prehistory. Nomadic hunter-gatherers with a fundamentally pragmatic approach to life and death, theirs is an oral tradition where the most important distinctions of chronology are "yesterday, today and tomorow. All else is as dust." They'll primarily roam the various plains lands to the west of the City State, and may well be the first demihumans the pc's have any likelihood of enountering.
Quote from: NicephorusThey might figure humans are still evolving and haven't gotten past their civilization fetish yet. So they don't want to get too involved with humans until they've had their collapse and restructuring.
Nice. Consider it stolen for my Athasian analogues. Despite their "here and now" mentality there's just enough vestigial racial memory of the collapse for them to regard civilisation as a portent of apocalyptic significance. It gels quite nicely with the ruinous nature of the Wilderlands too. The Athasians look on with incredulity as humanity climbs back out of the ruins only to start the whole process again.
Go here
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=251358
And check out post # 82, for an interesting take on demihumans.
Quote from: beeberhow about dwarves as earth elementals? they don't have to look like earth genasi (or whatever the part-elementals are), but could just have a drab, tan skin color.
Racist. My dwarfs have a rich, dark brown loamy color.
!i!
Well, my Elves are sprits and thus generally not used as PC.
Dwarves are viking/norse myth influenced. Short but more well proportioned. Generelly pale skin and light hair color, but the Druag Dwarves who are black skinned dark haired and more stout.
Halflings are more see fairing people with a liking for war.
Gnomes are smaller than halflings and known to form communities in large (by their standards) machines that they created. Some are as large as a city block others might be as small as a human sized house. They are tinkerers but have special affection for automatons.
Quote from: Ian AbsentiaRacist.
!i!
only to the short ones ;)
Quote from: McrowHalflings are more see fairing people with a liking for war.
funny, the halflings in my old campaign were also seafarers, but nomadic merchants instead of warlike. if you wanted a ride on one of their cargo ships, tall folk were stuck sleeping on the deck. . . .
Quote from: beeberfunny, the halflings in my old campaign were also seafarers, but nomadic merchants instead of warlike. if you wanted a ride on one of their cargo ships, tall folk were stuck sleeping on the deck. . . .
Well if you slept on the deck of my halflings ships, you might wake up to them trying to eat you. :D
Generally they love to eat and will eat anything with meat, even humanoids, if they don't have a reason to do otherwise.
awesome! nice twist! chompy chompy
Quote from: McrowWell if you slept on the deck of my halflings ships, you might wake up to them trying to eat you. :D
Generally they love to eat and will eat anything with meat, even humanoids, if they don't have a reason to do otherwise.
I still think that's wierd. I'm getting into Dark Sun stuff now, with the cannibal halflings, and it's just kinda wierd to me. Not automatically a bad wierd though, if I can use it to scare the piss outa the players with it. ;)
Quote from: SigmundI still think that's wierd. I'm getting into Dark Sun stuff now, with the cannibal halflings, and it's just kinda wierd to me. Not automatically a bad wierd though, if I can use it to scare the piss outa the players with it. ;)
They don't just chomp down on anyonee. Normally cannibalism is reserved for people they hate. :D
An elf is an elf, regardless of what you call him, so if I don't want elves then I ditch them entirely. For my next game, I'm dumping all of the usual suspects and restricting playable races to one: human. If the players want more options, then they have to unlock them through gameplay; when their current PC dies, then--and only then--will those new options become available. Same goes for whatever basic classes I don't allow, and all prestige classes.
Quote from: KeithI don't use demi-human races anymore in any of our games, but when I did, I usually mapped them to a recognizable culture. This gave me a whole crap load of shit to mine (Orks live in a medieval Venice-like city, Doge and all) and made it easy for the players to get their heads around the idea (okay we all saw Laurence Fishburne in Othello right? Think the Venicians from that).
This kinda thinking always led me to break from the usualy stereotypes for the races. Orks as Venicians, Halflings as Byzantines, Dwarves as Mamuluks, Elves as the barbaric Franks and Humans as everyone else's bitch is one example.
Personally I prefer to use humans as human analogues. Elves, Dwarves and the like are an ideal opportunity to stretch the boundaries a bit.
Quote from: SilverlionI went back to the roots myself and twisted them up:
....
Sidda
Often spoken of in quiet whispers, yet rarely seen, they are feared by humans more often than not. The Sidda are known also as the Fair folk, or the Fey. Where this race as a whole has gone is unknown even to the scant few who still wander the lands of men. They are a lithe folk with inhuman grace and uncanny voices. They have fine beautiful features, large almond shaped eyes, and pointed ears.
Kinship Traits: Mythic Countenance: As Sidda age they take on mythic traits of their birth name. Slowly becoming elemental or legendary primal forces over time. (Greater),
Kinship Challenge: Sorrow's Burden: Sidda feel things deeply and are moved by sorrow for the pains of the land and their people, as well as the sorrow's of all the kindred of men. They suffer melancholy rather easily due to this.
As Sidda age they take on on some primal elemental aspect until they are unrecognizable as a race of man. The mighty Oak-King who appears as more a tree each and every year for example, stands over nine feet tall with bark like skin, and antler like branches upon his brow, he dwells currently in his forest home upon a throne of gnarled roots which span from the eldest of all Oak trees.
The Lion of the North, a snow-white lion, nearly the size of the horse, was once a powerful Sidda warlord.
The Lady of the Sea, a woman of sea foam and saltwater. She sometimes appears within an ocean wave that breaks apart instead of smashing to ruin. Like the others she too was once a Sidda.
This is EXACTLY the kind of idea I had for the starfaring ur-Elves of Wilderlands prehistory, with the proviso that their trascendent sorcerous technology granted them a proteanic physiology, enabling them to shift and blend forms at will. Most adopted something similar to extant planetary fauna, albeit hybridized to the point of something entirely new. A daring elite shifted entirely into the abstract, becoming creatures bounded only by concept or emotion. A few even elected to retain their basic (if idealised) humanoid form, which later would become the corrupted template from which humanity itself would eventually spring.
Regardless of their preferences, the technologies and rituals required to sustain the Eldar in such a fashion required vast wellsprings of physical
and metaphysical power. Those whom found themselves stranded on Ghenrek following the war with the Makrab were at a stroke denied this life-sustaining force. Many died screaming, their impossible biologies caving in on themselves in violent implosions of agony. Others, better adapted to the physical laws of their new prison world became self-sustaining wonders, much like The Lion of the North you described above. The Eldar whom chose to remain in their humanoid form prospered for a while, although their poor fecundity and extended longevity made them unsuited for competition with the more dynamic, volatile races that succeeded them. Of the abstracts, nothing is known. Perhaps they too disappeared. The few scholars in the world knowledgable enough to even speculate on their fate do so in hushed tones, for foolish is the man who would question the gods.
That's the basics of Elves in the Wilderlands. For now anyway.
Quote from: Cerulean LionGo here
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=251358
And check out post # 82, for an interesting take on demihumans.
Not bad at all. I particularly like the idea of synthetic gods, it's something I've been toying with myself.
Quote from: SigmundI still think that's wierd. I'm getting into Dark Sun stuff now, with the cannibal halflings, and it's just kinda wierd to me. Not automatically a bad wierd though, if I can use it to scare the piss outa the players with it. ;)
If you really want to scare the bejeebus out of them then lob a few kender into the mix.
*shudder*
Quote from: DrewIf you really want to scare the bejeebus out of them then lob a few kender into the mix.
*shudder*
Flesh-eating Kender..... I might like it..... yeah.
wouldn't that take some of the annoyance factor away from them? i mean, if the kender are trying to eat you, how much time for pickpocketing and other minor irritants would they have?
i guess they could jabber the entire time they tried to eat you. jabber with their mouths full. . . .:what: :eek:
Quote from: beeberwouldn't that take some of the annoyance factor away from them? i mean, if the kender are trying to eat you, how much time for pickpocketing and other minor irritants would they have?
i guess they could jabber the entire time they tried to eat you. jabber with their mouths full. . . .:what: :eek:
They annoy you, rip you off, annoy you some more, taunt you mercilessly, run away, then sneak up on you later that night and eat your liver.
I think the novelty of demi-humans is wearing off for me. Whereas humans can run the gambit of archetypes, demi-humans are usually portrayed in a much narrower defined archetype. I think most fantasy and sci-fi use humans as a mirror to relate experience to us the audience.
I dislike demihumans, especially as convenient "evil" races. When I can, I try to avoid having them at all. When I can't, I try to subvert some of the standard ideas.
In the last D&D game I created a world for, I set it in a period of time where technological and social developments were approximately those of the early 16th century. Printing, guns, a new continent, gold, sugar and slaves. Since it was D&D, there was also arcane and divine magic.
There were two main civilisations in the game, divided along racial lines, but not along _single_ racial lines. Humans and dwarves lived on the northern continent together as "Emerns", worshipping totems, and politically organised as a sprawling mass of city-states, semi-nomadic clans, militaristic proto-states and feudal federations. Most other demihuman races were present only as imported slaves.
There was no cultural division between dwarves and humans per se. The dwarves did not live underground, did not talk in Scottish accents, and did not see themselves (nor were they treated as) lesser members in a human-dominated society. There had been, sometime in the distant past, a division between humans and dwarves culturally, but that was well beyond the knowledge of most Emerns (The extent of it was that one totem was acknowledged as originally coming from the dwarves to the Emerns).
To the south were the Tash. The Tash were a cohesive, monotheistic (ish) civilisation with a relatively unified governmental system, advanced infrastructure and many races living together. The Tash considered themselves an empire, and had been founded by a religious movement composed mainly of elves and hobgoblins. Elves and Hobs were inter-fertile, and considered themselves different races of a single species. Drow were a race amongst the elves who were considered to be consecrated to their god (a large volcano called the Throne).
They ruled over a number of different races they had integrated through conquest, cultural interchange and political savvy. Loyalty to the emperor and their god was more important than racial background, except for elves/hobs.
The Emerns and the Tash fought fairly regular wars with one another, but also traded extensively. Tash traders were usually allowed in Emern ports and vice versa, but piracy, punitive expeditions, crusades and occasional attempts at conquest kept things interesting and unfriendly. Both groups enslaved the other and used all sorts of race-based justifications for it.
The immediate past of this world involved the discovery of the new continent, Arkhesh (named after its discoverer, an Emern named Hesh). One of many shocking things about the discovery for the old world was finding humans, dwarves, elves and hobgoblins (amongst other species) living together. This was used as a justification by both Tash and Emerns to enslave anyone they found - they were obviously barbaric enough to consort with humans/elves/dwarves/hobgoblins and thus not endowed with the full reason of the Emerns/Tash.
The basic idea of this whole thing was to try and make cultural and racial divisions distinct from one another. In D&D they're very often identical - dwarves have a single culture which is distinct from the single elf culture which is distinct from the single hobgoblin culture. I wanted to get past that while still using all sorts of fantasy races.
Quote from: SigmundThey annoy you, rip you off, annoy you some more, taunt you mercilessly, run away, then sneak up on you later that night and eat your liver.
that's the most evil critter i've heard of! fuck orcs, half-demons, etc. these are my new EVIL. thanks, man!
Quote from: beeberthat's the most evil critter i've heard of! fuck orcs, half-demons, etc. these are my new EVIL. thanks, man!
No prob. Comes naturally :deviousgrin:
Quote from: PseudoephedrineSnips excellent anthropological extrapolations
The basic idea of this whole thing was to try and make cultural and racial divisions distinct from one another. In D&D they're very often identical - dwarves have a single culture which is distinct from the single elf culture which is distinct from the single hobgoblin culture. I wanted to get past that while still using all sorts of fantasy races.
Superb. I love the idea of distinct racial groups sharing a common cultural ground. Many fantasy settings seem to imply this being the case (witness the usual suspects living side by side in any stock fantasy city) but do very little to explore the ramifications.
Quote from: DrewSuperb. I love the idea of distinct racial groups sharing a common cultural ground. Many fantasy settings seem to imply this being the case (witness the usual suspects living side by side in any stock fantasy city) but do very little to explore the ramifications.
Thanks. Though the game was aborted a bit earlier than I'd hoped (I was running it as a sideline to our main campaign), the cultural quirks came up in some neat ways in play. The first clue the PCs got that a certain NPC Emern pirate was planning to screw them over was discovering that one of his wives was a Tash elf - something unthinkably debauched to them.
I'll have more info and insight soon hopefully because I plan to run a different campaign set in the same world to introduce some new players to D&D. The first campaign (with my older, more experienced D&D crew) focused on the transposition of the characters' vengeance from Emern to Arkhesh (rapists and slavers in the old world were hunted down after fleeing to the new), but this second one will (hopefully) go a bit more into piracy and picaresques.