Characters Does your campaign world have any "strange" races in it?

[Drowbane]

I wonder what it is about Warforged and Dwarves that seem to make them go hand in hand... My homebrewed version of warforged (dwarf-forged) have the appearance of heavily armored dwarven warriors (Adamantine Body comes standard, some oddballs might have a lesser armor type). My campaign's dwarves created the 'forged to suppliment thier failing front-lines.

I guess I lack for originality, but the "weirdest" PC race in my homebrew are Thri Kreen (accept no dromite substitutes!). Ya see, at my table the Kreen still eat other sentients... especially elves. So even once the "party kreen" (I've never managed to get a whole party of Kreen together) have accepted the lesser races as "packmates"... there is still the issue of "what do you mean I can't eat our prisoners?".

[Jack7]

Well, I guess it depends on how, or in what exact way a race is strange.

In D&D my milieu is divided into two different worlds, ours, and another, on which live Elves, etc. On the other world Giants (they aren't called that, they have a name) are an actual (player character) race, but they are almost totally devoid of magic, unlike the other races. Instead they are physically powerful and excellent builders, architects, and engineers. Other races often employ them to build cities and various structures. But they are descended from other giants who were bred when Nephilim and Rephaim visited that world and interbred with their ancestors. The giants who are player races are about 7 to 12 feet tall, and often display unusual abilities, depending upon the individual. But their weirdness is due to the fact that they are naturally non-magical and naturally proto-scientific and "crafty." Like Elves were in the Tolkien, but instead of being magic crafty, they are technically crafty, and very distrustful of magic. They sometimes possess the natural "spiritual" capabilities of their ancestors, and therefore make excellent thaumaturgists (miracle-workers) and clerics.

There are also the Korruhn and the Korrupt. These are not races but rather individuals who have been exposed to high level magics and the effect is to "mutate" those individuals. (Not all individuals exposed to high level magics "korrah" or mutate, but a certain percentage do.)

When the mutations are physically unnoticeable and when the mutation appears in a player character race the individual is known as a Korruhn, when it happens to an animal or beast or it produces obvious physical and behavioral changes then that creature is called a Korrupt, which is another name for a "monster." So all Korrupt in the game are monsters, either because of appearance or because of behavior, or both.

There are the "Drown" who live on the other side of the Other World. They are completely pacifistic, chalk-white in appearance, and tend to live in secrete and in hiding. (No-one knows the location of their culture or population center, some think it in the mountains, some think it veiled or camouflaged, some think it underground.) They are extremely powerful illusionists and "spiritualists" and excellent sailors and navigators and explorers. They will not fight directly or kill, preferring to sacrifice themselves for others if necessary, but because they are so good at magic they rarely get killed through attack. But because they love to explore secrete and hidden places many of those who do "adventure" disappear or die by misadventure. However this race began as a group or nation that engaged heavily in the sacrifice of themselves and each other (they practiced what we would call human sacrifice) for centuries until a new leader led a certain percentage of them north and they became pacifists. The original race had lived in what out world would be Central and South America and eventually died off by killing themselves off with constant warfare and sacrifice.

The Mastred are a vicious race living near what in our world would be the Caribbean. They are all cannibalistic and piratical in behavior, and are the natural enemies of the Giants (elder Giants, 20 to 40 feet tall) who live in that area and around Washington DC (in our world).

Chimeras - a particular type of Korrupt that fuses aspects of more than one animal, creature, or beast. Like the Korruhn and Korrupt not a race as much as a "type."

In my sci-fi games there are also Intelligent Artifacts (IA). IA are machines or artifacts that display sentience and intelligence, but also all seem to have an agenda of their own. Some think they were created by a race of other machines, some by an alien species, some that they come from another dimension, or some even that they were individually created by God. IA are often also called God-Technology because the abilities they often demonstrate are very similar to those powers and abilities traditionally ascribed to God. If you could think of angels and demons not in the from of humanoid creatures or "beastly bodies" but rather in the from of machines then that might be a close parallel. None of these machines appear like living creatures though and some are gigantic, moon sized, and some are microscopically small. A few even seem made of coherent energy forms.

In my D&D Other World there is a parallel or corollary type of Artifact that often exhibits capabilities very similar to God-Tech or IA, though they are not called that. Some think a long dead race created these artifacts, some think the Nephilim/Rephaim did, some think God did. Like with the IA each such artifact is unique. Artifacts like this often strike up "personal relationships" with particular individuals and even seem to recruit such individuals for whatever particular agenda the artifact seems to be pursuing, but such artifacts never disclose their real intentions, even if they develop obvious friendships with living creatures. And some such artifacts do indeed become life-long friends with certain creatures, including korrupt and monsters. Such artifacts will appear and disappear from time to time but no-one knows if they can be destroyed.

[Dragonbait]

I'm using the new FR campaign setting right now. Since it is basically a totally new world, I've changed the race mix a bit. Minotaurs rule over the Labrynth and are much more organized and disciplined. Gnolls are the most numerous race from the Beastlands and hire themselves out to the other nations (like the gnolls from Eberron). I'm trying to avoid making whole new races. Once I start I often go crazy and make hundreds.

My home brew: Absolutely. Wolfmen, catmen, frogmen, and other animal races. Of all the races, the wolf humanoids were the most regularly played (aside from human).

[Aeolius]

Yes, and most of them are hags... or have gills... or are hags with gills.

[Asmor]

Originally Posted by Drowbane

(dwarf-forged)

Dear god.

Dwarforged.

I'm simultaneously delighted and terrified.

[Jhaelen]

Not really. I'm using plenty of lycanthropes, though. Were-squids are pretty weird: They look a lot like mindflayers in their hybrid form

The Changing Breed books from the WoD Werewolf rpg were a great inspiration for me.

[Chaoszero]

Originally Posted by MarauderX

Elder races: Elves (and eladrin and drow too), Rakshasa, Litorian, Dragon, Aranea, Illithid, and more.

I am a big fan of 'elder races' and I love your combination. I never thought of aranea as a creator race. Awesome.

My campaign has a couple weird races;
The tibbits (from Dragon) are small humanoids that turn into cats and asct as spies for the kingdom.

Phoelarchs (from MM3) are humanoid phoenixs that are mistrusted by the populace for their strange religion and culture.

Kamiks are fox-people who live simple lives akin to tolkein's hobbits where they play music and smoke pipe-weed. Very magical tradtion.

Although I don't use Genasi in my campaign as a race, a player of mine wanted to play one anyway and he ended up being a fallen god of elemental storm. I guess thats one way to explain a unique creature.

[Southern Oracle]

Two races from Dragon magazine have made prominent appearances in my Planescape 3.5 game -- the t'kel and the adu'ja. The adu'ja are humanoid plants, and the t'kel are reptilian humanoids who serve the adu'ja as a slave race (my back story, not the article's). One of the PCs is an escaped t'kel. I also have nagas from Oriental Adventures living in Elysium.

[fissionessence]

Well, since my campaign is set in the Magic: the Gathering multiverse, pretty much anything goes.

Currently we have: Gnoll Rogue, Dauthi Witch Doctor, Minotaur Barbarian, Saproling Artificer, Leonin Rune Soldier.

In my previous campaign, which was not Magic-based, I had nonetheless inducted flamekin from Magic; there were also a hive-mind kinder version of thri-kreen. However, none of the players were either of those races. There was a changeling (doppleganger), though, but for some reason that doesn't seem weird to me.

~ fissionessence

[Dannyalcatraz]

Originally Posted by Drowbane

I wonder what it is about Warforged and Dwarves that seem to make them go hand in hand...

Its that extreme level of craftsmanship required to make them coupled with a general lack of overornamentation (which would suggest Elves), and they actually work (which rules out D&D Tinker Gnomes).

I guess I lack for originality, but the "weirdest" PC race in my homebrew are Thri Kreen (accept no dromite substitutes!). Ya see, at my table the Kreen still eat other sentients... especially elves. So even once the "party kreen" (I've never managed to get a whole party of Kreen together) have accepted the lesser races as "packmates"... there is still the issue of "what do you mean I can't eat our prisoners?".

I've had that issue come up with races other than T-Ks. Depending upon the campaign, Orcs, Lizardfolk, Anthros and others have all been known to get a little...hungry.

[Wik]

I've had quite a few over the years. In my current campaign, there are a few non-standard races, mostly from 4e sources:

Minotaurs, called the "Hala'ra" by themselves, are semi-mystical wanderers who seek to return to their ancestral home city, known to foreigners as the "Mazeworks" or "Kael Tessera".

Genasi are semi-arabic in nature, wandering their arid plains in loosely allied tribes. They are obsessed with weather, and have a warrior culture devoted to fighting demons (which makes a lot of sense in my campaign world).

the only created race I currently have, though, are the Otterfolk. These are playful people that are pretty much just sentient otters, with hands (of a sort). They hide from most sources of trouble, have an obsession with dreams and the recording of history, and are terrified of iron.

They don't particularly like paper (it doesn't mesh well with their chosen habitat), and carving in stone is next to impossible (because they hate the bad-smelling iron), so they rely on special shamans to record their history and interpret their dreams.

They make their primary living selling "Healing clams" to merchants (the clams being the primary ingredient in healing potions and other medicinal draughts), in exchange for various worked goods.

[Dannyalcatraz]

the only created race I currently have, though, are the Otterfolk. These are playful people that are pretty much just sentient otters, with hands (of a sort). They hide from most sources of trouble, have an obsession with dreams and the recording of history, and are terrified of iron.

They don't particularly like paper (it doesn't mesh well with their chosen habitat), and carving in stone is next to impossible (because they hate the bad-smelling iron), so they rely on special shamans to record their history and interpret their dreams.

They make their primary living selling "Healing clams" to merchants (the clams being the primary ingredient in healing potions and other medicinal draughts), in exchange for various worked goods.

Ach- I wish I had been talking to you when you came up with this idea...I'd love to have helped.

Without diminshing the role of the Otterfolk shamen, you could have had them use knots as their "written" language. Their hands should be strong & dexterous enough, and there are plenty of materials that would have been suitable- kelp or ligaments for example. "Punctuation" could have been in the form of shell or stone bits with holes in them.

They could have also used sharp stones to etch whalebone, baleen or walrus tusks in their own unique form of scrimshaw.

And their spellbooks? In the former case, they could have looked like a wild textured bead mat. In the latter, a whalebone carved in 3 dimensions, dyed with certain inks derived from sea creatures (like squid ink or the infamous "royal purple" extracted from the murex snail).