Racial Origins Stories

[Samloyal23]

A typical D&D setting has a ridiculous number of races, my own included. Where do they all come from? Do you have a story or at least an idea as to how each race originated? Do you assume they just evolved naturally?

The Origin of Bullywugs​

Long ago in the kingdom of Lyonesse, when it was a client state of the vast Kironan Empire, King Philip III had a son, Hugues, who was finicky and difficult and refused to wed any of the potential brides his parents found for him. No matter how lovely, Prince Hugues always found some flaw that repulsed him in every noble lady he was introduced to. Time and again the arrogant young prince would end up insulting another princess who did not live up to his impossible standards of beauty. Eventually his exasperated father decreed he would have no say anymore in who he would have to marry. The king sent out a decree calling on any who would marry the prince to come to the palace on the first day of Spring so that the king and queen could pick a bride for their wayward heir.

Hundreds of women from across the Kironan Empire and beyond arrived, lining up to be judged by King Philip and his wife, Adelaide. Finally, after days of deliberation, a dark-eyed beauty from the distant land of Thosia turned the heads of the royal couple. She was Princess Sekhet, the youngest daughter of Thosia's King Thutmose. The king and queen summoned their son and introduced him to his new bride. He was struck by Sekhet's beauty, declaring her the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

Now, when the mysterious and haughty princess from the East spoke her voice was far from lovely and it made the prince cringe. Resigned to being married at the command of his father, he grinned and bore it through their engagement and wedding. At last, however, on their wedding night, while in the throws of passion for the first time, he could endure it no longer. He blurted out, "By the gods, you sound like a frog, I cannot stand your voice!" The princess was shocked and humiliated. Then she was furious! "A frog? " she screamed. "You think I am frog? I will show you a frog!" she sputtered with rage. She began chanting in the Thosian tongue. First the prince, then his family, then his retainers and servants, and soon everyone in the castle and the royal estates doubled over in pain and collapsed. As her keening reached a shrill crescendo they all changed, their skin turning a mottled green, their eyes bulging, their mouths stretching, their very bones warping inside their bodies. When it was done they were all transformed into loping half-frog monstrosities.

Princess Sekhet turned into a cloud of dark smoke that smelled of incense and was gone, never to be seen in Lyonesse again. The accursed people of the castle fled in horror and shame, hiding wherever they could. The people of Lyonesse rebelled, provincial dukes threw the country into civil war, either fighting to sieze the throne or striving to split away their territories into new kingdoms. The entire nation fell to pieces until the legions of the Kironan Empire were sent to restore order and the emperor raised up a duke who had not been touched by the curse to become the new king of Lyonesse, Lousi I.

The Accursed, as they were now called, who had once been the mighty and fair of the nation, were now driven out of the capital to dwell in the wilderness and become beggars and thieves. The curse stayed with them and was passed on to future generations. Their descendents came to be called the Bullywugs. After the Age of Cataclysm those that made it to the Last Lands settled on the moist southern coasts in Ys and Shosnar, becoming merchants and seamen of the lowest, least honorable type...

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

Here I thought they were made by Shredder in an attempt to combat the Turtles.

My understanding of multiple races within the D&D worlds is in part due to the existence of multiple deities, and the creative nature of each.

Additionally, races rise from mutations/aberrations/A-Wizard-Did-It changes in existing races to make new ones over time, such as in your story.

D&D seems to justify this with multiple possible "Creation Myths" that float around in-universe, but without ever firmly confirming any of them, leaving it pretty open.

I created one short lived campaign that stated that Dragons had long ago been space faring beings that collected races from other worlds across the galaxy to deposit upon one world where the laws of Physics were more flexible (Magic) in an attempt to perform an experiment.

 

[Samloyal23]

I created one short lived campaign that stated that Dragons had long ago been space faring beings that collected races from other worlds across the galaxy to deposit upon one world where the laws of Physics were more flexible (Magic) in an attempt to perform an experiment.

Dragons in space? That is too cool...

...Now, for my campaign, I'm going to assume the story is true and the Thosian princess used a Wish spell to permanently transform the inhabitants of the palace in a way that would be passed on to future generations. So she was probably around level 20 or so. I just need to have names for all the characters to fill out the history.

 

[Omegaxicor]

Awesome story, I have a base race (usually Human) each race descend from them, or one of their descendants

except for three problems, First and Second

"grinned and beared it" - should be "Bore it"
"dukes through the country" - should be "threw"

and third and most importantly

Who is this sorceress and why can't she change her voice to something more pleasant if can transform everyone into frogmen?

 

[Samloyal23]

Awesome story, I have a base race (usually Human) each race descend from them, or one of their descendants

except for three problems, First and Second

"grinned and beared it" - should be "Bore it"
"dukes through the country" - should be "threw"

and third and most importantly

Who is this sorceress and why can't she change her voice to something more pleasant if can transform everyone into frogmen?

Hmm. Well, first, why should she change for anyone else? She was beautiful and powerful. Second, most of us sound differently to ourselves than we do to others, she may not have realised her voice was that bad. Third, he was obviously hypercritical of everything, other people may not have thought her voice sounded that awful...

 

[jefgorbach]

IMO there are almost as many ways a species may have arrived in the campaign as there are species, including (but not limited to) natural evolution, creation by deity/high level casters, magical/breeding experimentation, interstellar/interplanar transportation, etc.

Pretty much its deciding upon a background that fits a specific creature as desired because frankly there are SO many possibilities that many of the races themselves are uncertain asto WHEN let alone WHY/HOW they arrived.

For instance, we ourselves are quite uncertain as to the facts surrounding our own "arrival" on earth ... so why should our fictional counterparts? Even asking the longest lived species is not only fraught with peril, but simply begs the question: did they care enough to record it, presuming they even noticed?? How many species, outside a few domesicated ones do we really know the origins of for certain?

 

[Samloyal23]

IMO there are almost as many ways a species may have arrived in the campaign as there are species, including (but not limited to) natural evolution, creation by deity/high level casters, magical/breeding experimentation, interstellar/interplanar transportation, etc.

Pretty much its deciding upon a background that fits a specific creature as desired because frankly there are SO many possibilities that many of the races themselves are uncertain asto WHEN let alone WHY/HOW they arrived.

For instance, we ourselves are quite uncertain as to the facts surrounding our own "arrival" on earth ... so why should our fictional counterparts? Even asking the longest lived species is not only fraught with peril, but simply begs the question: did they care enough to record it, presuming they even noticed?? How many species, outside a few domesicated ones do we really know the origins of for certain?

Certainly there are many ways for a species to be created. It would be interesting though to have the perspective of a race like the Ents that live for centuries and evolved before humans...

 

[Celebrim]

A typical D&D setting has a ridiculous number of races, my own included. Where do they all come from? Do you have a story or at least an idea as to how each race originated? Do you assume they just evolved naturally?

A very good question.

First of all, this very set of questions struck me about 20 years ago as I was beginning to formalize my homebrew setting. Why should there be 400 or more sentient races in the world? My inclination was and is to trim down the number of races considerably. That however still leaves a lot of things that need to have an origin explained for them.

Species in my world can be broken into the following categories:

1) Gods: The big gods of the campaign world, direct prodigy of the fruit of the Tree of Life. There are about a thousand of these.
2) Fairies: All the small gods of the campaign world, including fey, genii, and various spirit creatures. These are all the results of the Tree of Life's pollen fertilizing pretty much everything it touched. They are contemporaneous with the gods, though usually much less powerful. A few of the most powerful are classified as gods themselves, but of a different origin.
3) Giants: The offspring of the big and little gods, particularly the gods and genii, are the giants.
4) The Free Peoples: After the Gods War, the gods signed a treaty and decided to settle their disagreements through proxies. They wanted to create a servitor race modelled more or less after the fairies in stature and power. Unfortunately, each of the gods wanted the race to most resemble themselves in nature and inclinations. To prevent the treaty from collapsing, it was finally agreed that mutliple models would be created, alike in power but differing design according to the gifts that the gods would grant to them. Each of the six major families of gods offered up a design, which are now known as: goblins, elfs, humans, orine, dwarfs, and idreth. These six creations are usually named along side the fey races as 'The Free Peoples' because the treaty specified that the jointly created races would be granted the right to choose who they would serve and worship (and indeed, whether they would serve and worship anyone at all). While, as intended, it is most usual for the free peoples to worship gods from the family responcible for their design, there is a considerable amount of overlap both because the divine families are intermarried and because the free peoples appear to be truly free (indeed, in some respects perhaps far more free than even the gods intended).
5) Greater Servitors: There are notable races of powerful creatures that exist primarily on the outer planes. Most seem to have some sort of divine blood, being descended from various conjoinings of the gods or perhaps are the equivalent of outer planar fairy beings.
6) Lesser Servitors: Not all of the gods are particularly happy to have servants that are free to pack up and leave. A number of gods have created races patterned after the Free Peoples but which lack the capacity or inclination to serve any other than their creator deity. These usually exist in fairly small numbers (an exception would be water dwelling beings), and often have some fairly particular purpose - like gaurding the deities most sacred sites or avenging some sort of slight. Much like the OP's Bullywogs, a some portion of the Lesser Servitors are the descendents of Free Peoples who through some curse they brought upon themselves (or perhaps because they saw slavery as a reward), have lost thier status as free creatures. However, it would be far far beyond the power of a member of the Free Peoples to deprive another group of Free Peoples of this status. It would generally require a consensus among the gods themselves.
7) Abominations: There are a few creatures that apparantly were created unintentionally as the result of some sort of curse or the gods dabbling in things that are perhaps beyond even them. The creatures created as a result of Usurl and his sister Varna attacking and injuring and otherwise attempting to gain control of the tree of life are the most obvious of these, but there are also creatures that appear to have been pulled into creation from someplace outside it as a result of the gods perhaps misguided attempts to contact the creator. These are things that apparantly the creator had decided to not create, or which perhaps exist in other creations.

Pretty much everything capable of technology falls into one of those categories. Players are generally only allowed to play characters that are members of the race of Free Peoples (including certain fey types).

Some things have rather bizarre origin stories compared to the real world. Dinosaurs for example aren't living fossils, but survivors from a now destroyed societies magical genetic engineering. They were orginally bred as war beasts and beasts of burden, and thus have roughly the same linage as things like Owlbears. Whales on the other hand are the somewhat failed results of lord of the Shark spirits and the lord of the Elephant spirits attempts to produce a joint ruler over all of the animal kingdom. Griffins are the more successful results of the lord of Lion spirits and the lord of Eagle spirits attempts to do the same thing.

 

[Samloyal23]

Some things have rather bizarre origin stories compared to the real world. Dinosaurs for example aren't living fossils, but survivors from a now destroyed societies magical genetic engineering. They were orginally bred as war beasts and beasts of burden, and thus have roughly the same linage as things like Owlbears. Whales on the other hand are the somewhat failed results of lord of the Shark spirits and the lord of the Elephant spirits attempts to produce a joint ruler over all of the animal kingdom. Griffins are the more successful results of the lord of Lion spirits and the lord of Eagle spirits attempts to do the same thing.

I like this, most people don't even consider monsters and such for origin stories, just player character races...

My story is evolving, I'm getting a better idea of the culture of Bullywugs. Because of their inbred stigma they are not social and do not interact well with other races, seeing themselves as scum and behaving accordingly. A noble, heroic Bullywug is extremely rare. Most are scoundrels and rogues of the worst sort, turning to grift, piracy, and theft to get by. Still, they are not savages, being more sophisticated than members of their kind on other worlds. So, no Barbarians, but mosly Rogues...

 

[Omegaxicor]

Hmm. Well, first, why should she change for anyone else? She was beautiful and powerful. Second, most of us sound differently to ourselves than we do to others, she may not have realised her voice was that bad. Third, he was obviously hypercritical of everything, other people may not have thought her voice sounded that awful...

First point is strange, she obviously wants to be queen of his kingdom so she changes herself to suit what he wants (that's how a relationship works, if everyone was just themselves we would have died as a species millennia ago)

Second and Third are very good points

and the story itself is very nice (I might use it for part of my next world)