At the risk of continuing the tangent ...

I often don't like real world religion, politics, or any other direct cultural analogs in my elf games.  This dislike, however, is more aesthetic than prudential.  Probably isn't a coincidence that I also have close to zero interest in running or playing in a historical setting.  I did run a setting long ago that had every major race as a direct analog to an ancient or medieval culture.  Elves were medieval Italians.  Goblins were ancient Chinese.  But that was mostly played for laughs and unabashedly stereotypical to set up the non-stereotypical reverse over and over again.

What I do want now is the fantastical. The most practical and aesthetically pleasing means for me to achieve that is to develop each game culture from the ground up.  Of course I'm going to pull from real world cultures to do that, because I'm only human, and so are the players.  It has to be something to which they can relate.  I've got a culture in the process of being developed right now that's a mix of Roman, Celtic, and Norse elements on the surface and in the languages.  However, the attitudes of the culture are not recognizably from those cultures, except insomuch as people are people everywhere.  Meanwhile, the local "kobolds" are hearkening back to some Germanic roots, with a dose of redcaps, Norse dwarves, Renaissance fey, and some local cultural things that aren't meant to be shared with other "kobold" cultures the players might meet.  

As far as player interaction, I want the middle ground between soulless beastmen and just another brand of humans reskinned as something.  I'd rather err towards the former than the latter, but still want to pull up just short.  Something like the very fey, amoral elves that are possible and advantageous to interact with, but never completely trusted--and for good reasons.  

By way of analogy, it's also my approach to powerful magic items.  I don't want them to be great or completely cursed or such.  I want a good item to have a minor curse, so that the player has an incentive to keep the item and deal with it.  Even the cultures that are practically beastmen need to have a little hook to keep them interesting.  Normally, you'd kill trolls on sight, but they have their virtues, in their own context, that might make dealing with them preferable in some cases.

Quote from: SHARK;1118152Whenever dealing with bands and tribes of monstrous humanoids, do you make any of them larger tribal societies which develop some kind of culture?

In general, no. I prefer to have monstrous humanoids remain monstrous, so I tend to keep their culture and such mysterious and "off-screen." I think if you develop them (or at least expose that to players) too much you're in danger of "orcs are people too, just different..." territory. Some gamers might enjoy exploring such things and the moral dilemmas that tend to go along with them, but it's not something I do with monstrous humanoids. To me, it's a game thing: keeping monstrous humanoids as true "monsters" is convenient for the kind of game I like to run. If I want to explore varied cultures (and possible moral dilemmas in game), I'm much more likely to do it with human (or possibly demi-human) cultures.

Some old content I have here I thought would be pertinent. Comes from an older topic where I practiced making gothic magic items.

Quote from: Opaopajr;746135'Bleed in the Dark' Goblin Courtship Jewelry
Comprised of rhodochrosite (pink) & obsidian (black) beads. Rhodochrosite retains a darker red hue in longer wavelengths, and thus in the darkness of tunnels for those with dim vision appears reminiscent of glowing blood. The shimmering volcanic glass seems like the ichor of non-oxygenated blood or lymph -- or just the all consuming darkness of where they live.

As goblin courtship is often filled with the violent passion of animalistic bites and scratches, these art pieces represents this lustful possessiveness in lasting style. Male and female goblins can wear these, and often it is worn where they themselves were inflicted a 'wound of love'. Some popular variants are:

Bitten Finger - a wide band beaded ring or ring sleeve, sometime a cap if bitten off;
Leg Gash - a cilice, usually worn by men stabbed in the thigh;
Torn Throat - a necklace choker, the greater bead cascade the more one bled;
Cracked Cowl - a unisex skullcap to commemorate a love bash to the head;
Ripped Ear - usually a cap or covering over the holes left by ear avulsions;
Blood Tears Veil - a beaded veil with red tears, often for funerals or mourning the death (murder?) of your unrequited love.

Quote from: amacris;1118293Here's how I handle beastmen in ACKS. I have used barbarian horticultural cultures as the baseline, but I am explicit that they are cannibalistic chaotic-worshipping hybrids who genetically lack any capacity for compassion, kindness, or love whatsoever. Their sexual relations are just rape by the strong beastmen of the most fertile women, and their child-rearing is just child abuse until the strong ones grow up. Every beastman is a full-blown innate psychopath and cannot be redeemed. An adventurer in ACKS needn't worry about the lives of kobold children anymore than Ripley worries about the lives of facehuggers in ALIENS - killing them all is morally good and benefits humanity.

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The monstrous humanoids known as beastmen were created by the Zaharans in the centuries before the Empyrean War. Through magical research, they combined humans and humanoids with beast stock in repeated cross-strains. Their creations included bugbears (hobgoblins and bears), gnolls (gnomes and trolls), kobolds (lizardmen and dogs), goblins (gnolls and dwarves), hobgoblins (men and goblins), ogres (men and gorillas), orcs (men and boars), and trolls (ogres and hydras).

Beastmen were created to be soldiers for the Zaharan army – ruthless and blood-thirsty, but susceptible to control by a powerful leader. In the absence of an external authority (such as a Zaharan sorcerer-king), beastmen organize themselves into bands of loosely-related gangs ruled by a chieftain. Endemic warfare between nearby bands is constant, until eventually one of the chieftains succeeds in unifying the bands into a clan under his rule.

Isolated bands usually have no permanent home, living a nomadic existence that follows seasonably available wild plants and game. Nomadic beastmen dwell in tents made from animal hides sewn together or woven hair wrapped around wooden poles. These tents are usually small, but can be as large as thirty feet in diameter. Less fortunate nomads may just take shelter where they can find it. Nomadic beastmen survive by hunting wildlife, gathering wild forage, and raiding civilized settlements. Roving bands are often composed of only males, their females having been lost to stronger rivals.

Established clans tend to permanently or semi-permanently dwell in ruins, caves, captured strongholds, or villages. Beastmen in villages generally live in roundhouses constructed of whatever materials are at hand. In wet, wooded climates, roundhouses with timber or wattle-and-daub walls and thatched roofs will dominate. In other terrain, the walls are constructed of mudbrick or stone, mortared with sand, soil, and dung, while the roof covering is of woven hair or animal-hide, sewn to short spars.  Stone-lined pits are dug for iron forges, kilns, food storage, and waste. Sometimes the buildings are gathered to  form a ring fort or hill-fort, surrounded by ditches, moats, earthen ramparts or piled stone walls.

When settled, beastmen clans practice horticulture, cultivating small plots of mixed crops using hand tools. Beastmen care nothing for crop rotation or soil sustainability, and will simply burn or cut away a clearing, then farm it until the soil is exhausted. It is not uncommon to find large tracts of exhausted scrub around beastmen settlements. In arid terrain, they may herd goats, sheep, cows, pigs, and other livestock that can graze on the scant vegetation. Beastmen tribes that have captured many prisoners in raids may have slave laborers working farms, but these are usually short-lived; beastmen do not breed or care for their slaves, and simply eat those that die.

Family relations are brutal; beastmen males are considerably larger than the females, whom they dominate. Both sexes lack the capacity for compassion, kindness, or love. High-status males maintain large harems, within which the females compete for provision and protection. Low-status males have no chance to mate at all, except by gaining status through violence or subterfuge. As a result, beastmen males typically spend much of their time fighting, hunting, and raiding. More than half die from wounds sustained in such activities before middle age. Females are left with responsibility for domestic labor such as farming, foraging, cooking, and camping. Beastmen care little for their prepubescent children, feeding them scraps and often exiling them to the edges of the camp fires. Many whelps die of exposure or under-nourishment, leaving just the toughest and most cunning to survive to adulthood.

Beastman females can craft blankets, clothing, furniture, tools, and shelter from the woven hair of sheep and goats, or the leather, bone, sinew, and hide of animals. Metal-working is the province of males, and is typically limited to working wrought iron in pit-furnaces. Knowledge of weapon- and armor-smithing is rare, with only a handful of smiths in a tribe. Knowledge is handed down orally within families.

There are no shops or standards of exchange in beastman settlements, but beastmen nevertheless prize wealth as a means to display their power, status, and valor in battle. A beastman with holdings of animals, food, mates, treasure, equipment, slaves, troops, gold, and weapons is inevitably a mighty and respected warrior within his band – for if he were he not tough enough to guard what he owns, he would soon lose it. The moment a beastman shows weakness, he soon finds himself stripped of all possessions.
To acquire better weapons, armor, and treasure, beastmen raid border settlements and trade with Kemesh and the Ivory Kingdoms. Beastmen mercenaries frequently serve in Kemeshi armies, bringing home weapons of steel, slaves, and treasure. Through raiding and trading, this loot spreads throughout the beastmen clans. Beastmen mercenaries may also bring knowledge of siege craft, engineering, and tactics to their tribe, and a tribe led by such a veteran can be very dangerous.    

Beastmen warriors like to adorn themselves with war-paint, tattoos, and boy jewelry. They often wear their horn shorn to a single lock, in a great mane, or in a mohawk. They fight with slings, javelins, spears, bows, swords, morning stars, flails, and axes, and generally wear light armor, such as hide, leather, or scale. Champions and chieftains are, of course, better-equipped. Raids may be accompanied by blowing horns and war-pipes or beating drums. On the battlefield, their formations are irregular, relying on numbers, shock, and ferocity (hobgoblins are the sole exception, being as disciplined as Auran troops).

Beastmen worship the chthonic gods, with religious traditions passed on orally by shamans and witch-doctors. Bel, the Slaughterprince, is their favored god, but the full pantheon is recognized and called on when appropriate.  After battle, they practice ceremonial cannibalism, believing that by eating the flesh of the slain they devour their souls and gain their strength. As is common within chthonic tradition, they preserve and bury their own dead, often with slaves, arms, armor, and treasure for great chieftains. Indeed, those who have studied the black lore of Zahar recognize beastman religion as a debased version of the Zaharan's own practices.

The beastman languages are actually a variety of vulgar dialects descended from the ancient Zaharan language. Scholars who have studied these dialects have discovered that their grammars and vocabularies have devolved along similar lines into pidgin-like simplicity, but their pronunciations have become quite varied due to the mutated lips, tongues, and vocal chords of the beastmen who speak them. Beastman dialects are rarely written, but if necessary they can be adequately represented with Zaharan glyphs.

Greetings!

Outstanding, my friend! I love all the little details! It also makes encounters with such beastmen more interesting as well. Even in such barbaric and animal form, their savage culture and habits distinguish themselves from other dark, brute races such as Hobgoblins or Orcs.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;1118415In general, no. I prefer to have monstrous humanoids remain monstrous, so I tend to keep their culture and such mysterious and "off-screen." I think if you develop them (or at least expose that to players) too much you're in danger of "orcs are people too, just different..." territory. Some gamers might enjoy exploring such things and the moral dilemmas that tend to go along with them, but it's not something I do with monstrous humanoids. To me, it's a game thing: keeping monstrous humanoids as true "monsters" is convenient for the kind of game I like to run. If I want to explore varied cultures (and possible moral dilemmas in game), I'm much more likely to do it with human (or possibly demi-human) cultures.

Greetings!

Excellent, Philotomy Jurament. I can see why you like to keep their monster cultures vague. The added benefit to having them fulfill their savage roles as antagonists and seldom needing to inspire players to ponder the monster's "rights and feelings" as it were. *Laughs* Honestly, that philosophy has a strong appeal for myself, as well.

I am fortunate that many of my players easily view such races in a heroic, mythical kind of attitude, seeing such creatures as embodying primal forces of chaos, evil, darkness and savagery, and must therefore be opposed and resisted at every turn, as a matter of principle and desire to defend civilization, no matter how imperfect such may be otherwise, at least to some.

On occasion I have to deal with a player that views themselves as being some kind of defender of universal morality. Such players are usually in for a rather rough time of it from the other players, as you can probably well imagine.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

In a gonzo type of game, humanoids can have any level of society you might want.