Help with homebrew world races

Hey guys,

so I'm slowly beginning my first homebrew setting. I received demands from my players to create something different with new fantasy races instead of the classic dwarves/elves/orc. I have a hard time coming with something more than A) a reskin of classical races, B) a mix of human and X beast or C) a cheap rip-off of a real-world culture with a bad reskin...

For now, I have:
- Human, classic

- Uldirane, a semi-aquatic race that is composed of small hive-minds of sentient jellyfishes (exposure to aboleth stuff) that inhabit a ''steampunk-ish diving suits'' to breath on land. A character of this race is actually playing a hive-mind in a suit!

- Monturi, Kenku-like hunchback always covered in sooth. Legends say that they used to be phoenix but that the evil Nagpas stole their fire to fuel their great machine god.

and that's it, I'm stuck.

So, please dear people, hit me with your best fantasy races or interesting take on existing races.

Full Disclosure: I'll steal your ideas.

A race of celestial guardians who were the divine protector of an ancient civilization that died out a thousand years ago due to internal corruption and strife. Now the celestials are mere husks, blackened flesh on emaciate frames, enervated by their failure and a millennia of despondency, radiating despair into physical manifestations. When their ruined homeland is discovered by an expedition, the celestials remain unseen but haunt the expedition's return, both tormenting with nightmares and unease and protecting with their ancient magic. When the expedition returns to civilization, the celestials disperse throughout the world, eventually manifesting in their gaunt forms to attempt to fulfill their creed. "Protect the people". Given their grim appearance, and the psychic despair they project they are rarely anyone's first choice for a guardian angel, but those desperate or brave enough to ally with them find them....a little out of practice.

Here are some from my worlds:

The Hchrena: To be a child of the old gods, that, surely, is what it means to be a Hchrena. The Hchrena, who look much like humans, but with skin of wood and leaf, are the progeny of the most ancient Treants, who are said to have given their seeds to an ancient society of Human Druids, who then cultivated these seeds within their own bodies, creating the Hchrena. Hchrena reproduce by burying seeds that females "give birth" to. Those seeds then grow into adult Hchrena, leaving all Hchrena children unseen except for a patch of leaves or moss which might poke out of the ground.

The Nlak: Beyond their bloodied, toothless smiles, the Nlak hide cunning tongues. Legend says that they were created by a wizard, or perhaps a god, to be the perfect liars. Their ability to deceive is, however, greatly reduced by their strange appearance and the wariness it excites in others. Nlak have no teeth, and their mouths seem to constantly spill blood. Furthermore, the eyes of Nlak are a vile mauve, and their pupils bear odd, noticeable scars that seem to flicker like flames. Of course, not all Nlak are evil, but it is in their psychological nature to lie. Thus, a Nlak hero must constantly struggle against the urge to deceive.

The Nimrax: With blood of lighting, veins of metal, and a foul cybernetic form, the Nimrax are a nightmarish species of magical cyborgs composed of horrific technologies, who recycle organs and metal in order to create yet more Nimrax. It is said that, at the core of each Nimrax, there lies a Soul Sphere, the imprisoned soul of a humanoid.

A spin on tabaxi; the catfolk have a caste system based on purity of breed and bloodlines. Purebreds are the aristocracy and are rare when compared to strays and alley breeds. All catfolk regardless of breeding can charm humans with a gentle purr. Humans are used by the purebreds as servants and soldiers in wars against the dogs (gnolls).

I have one idea that I'm saving for a book, but I can give you the seed of it easily enough.

Plant people. Not exactly dryads, but beings that are sentient plants with some control over their growth. The interesting parts of them as a race come as you start answering questions about them. Like, what do they do with their dead?


In my DnD setting I've taken a few classics and respun them.

My Yuan-Ti were adopted by a dying snake god and drank of his blood to gain power to fight their enemies. They are not evil, though they do enjoy empire building like most civilizations. The big thing is that they practice forms of ritual cannibalism in an attempt to reconstitute the god that saved them. The Thin-Bloods (Pure Bloods in the monster manual which is the dumbest name for the lowest caste of a system based on how snake like you are) eat snakes, especially on holy days. Then the Half-Bloods, who have the lower half of snakes or sometimes snake heads (I'm not into the snakes for arms thing. It's decent for a monster but raises too many questions about how they would live in society based around thumbs.) occasionally ask a particularly valiant or notable Thin Blood to be sacrificed and eaten by them. With the "Pure Bloods" (Called Abominations in the book, because of course the most perfect example of divinity gets called that in the culture they come from [sarcasm]) doing the same with the Half-Bloods. Now, here's the deal. This practice is sacred, and eating an unwilling person is a heinous crime. So, people can say "No, I don't want to die today", but it is also a high honor, because being devoured means your power and the collected divinity of snake blood in you (which if you are super awesome most be really high for your caste) gets taken to the next caste, and your power and Animus may be reborn in the next caste, getting higher and higher up the ranks. Not being eaten means your divine snake blood is wasted, to be reborn as normal snakes and have to work back up the ranks again. This means eating the dead is rather common. There is an immortal emperor of the Yuan-Ti who sits at the top, who is meant to eventually become the avatar for the Snake God.

As an aside, I've found that to avoid the "Humans with funny hats" problem, you need to think about the culture of the people you are working with. They aren't human, so we can't assume they would think or react like humans. A Yuan-Ti adventurer from the culture I have laid out would be horrified at the thought of their body being left in some far foreign land, they might even keep a stash of money that is specifically for paying to have their body preserved and transported back home if they die. Because that is a big deal in their culture.

I did something with the Genasi as well. Literally the children of Genies, do to an epic based off a massive war and a peasant woman being a perfect servant to the Four Great Leaders, the Genasi actually fill in a purpose as slaves and servants to the Genies. But, leaning heavily into the idea of English Buttling and taking people as possessions into people as expensive possessions. Genies like showing off, and owning the swordsman who slew seven dragons and reclaimed the sword of four winds from the Pits of Hell is like a current rich dude owning a gold plated ferrari. He's going to show them off to impress his peers. But, like that gold plated ferrari, he's also going to take care of that mortal, because how he takes care of his stuff reflects on him as a person.

And, this has effected the society of Genasi. They can leave a bad master, and the social hit of a well-respected Genasi leaving the household of a Genie or even asking to leave would be fairly devastating, but they also see their worth in literally how much they are worth. They seek out the arts and mastering tasks, because mastering something raises their value if they are sold off, and that means they are a better person. They actually have invented magical books that they carry with them, ones that copy everything into a twin book in a Great Registry. It is a log of their actions, their achievements, their embarrassments, their lineage (hey stud breeding is a thing, though I haven't considered it too much in the context of this setting yet) and their sale history.


I've got places to go, so I'll wrap up their, but more than thinking "What weird thing can I make this race look like" I'd say look for something and dial it to eleven. I know of myths where Ghouls are sentient and have their own underground empires, or you could have a race that are living elementals of magical energy, but if you never think about what that means for how they act then they are just going to be humans with strange abilities that people are likely to forget they have.

This would be hard for me since I find most of the new races I see as not needed and rather silly. I would go to the players to get ideas on what they are thinking if they do not want PHB stuff or refluffed traits on a new name. I see many races on DMsGuild from otterfolk, giraffefolk, and space crystals. Maybe some of this can help.

aco175 said:

This would be hard for me since I find most of the new races I see as not needed and rather silly. I would go to the players to get ideas on what they are thinking if they do not want PHB stuff or refluffed traits on a new name. I see many races on DMsGuild from otterfolk, giraffefolk, and space crystals. Maybe some of this can help.

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True, it can be difficult to find innovative and attractive ideas for novel races without devolving into anthropomorphic animals or humans made of crystals, lava, or rock.

I've found that most of the best fantasy races are those that are extremely altered Humans, just alien enough to seem completely foreign, and just familiar enough to be more understandable than psionic space crystals who are immortal, omniscient, and telekinetically-inclined.

Here is one more from one of my worlds:

The Ilmriex: As a part of the grand collective, your mind belongs to The Overseer, the warden of the Ylthitirax System. Although they look much like their distant cousins, the Humans, the Ilmriex have minds that are utterly different than other creatures. Each Ilmriex holds, within itself, near-infinite knowledge and psionic power, just waiting to be unlocked through proper discipline.

Do your players realize that there is a good number of races in 5e outside of the boring old regular human, short human, bearded human, and pointy eared human from the original game? There are official genasi, warforged, goliaths, kenku, et al, that are already statted up and ready to use, and you can easily build an authentic DnD setting without the original lineup. My personal preference is to use concepts taken straight out of real world mythology and reimagine them with evocative qualities instead of making things, whole-cloth, with word-salad names and explanations, but some people enjoy the Star Trek approach where you just slap a bunch of letters together.

In my game, i brought back the Deva from 4e and spun their origin to be a little different by intertwining them with the Ashura instead of the rakshasas. Essentially, the Deva and Ashura are 2 politically and philosophically antagonistic races that appeared mysteriously when an ancient god was destroyed and wiped from the fabric of history. Instead of moving through the Astral Sea to serve other gods, the slain deity's angels were loyal to the end and chose to incarnate as mortals on the material plane. The two factions represent a sort of a gnostic paradigm of duality: the deva value abstract, transcendent spiritual values while the ashura embody materialism, sensuality, unchecked emotion, and existentialism. Neither is essentially "good" or "evil" and when an individual dies, they are reincarnated into either deva or ashura forms based on their spiritual state upon death.

Chaosmancer said:

I have one idea that I'm saving for a book, but I can give you the seed of it easily enough.

Plant people. Not exactly dryads, but beings that are sentient plants with some control over their growth. The interesting parts of them as a race come as you start answering questions about them. Like, what do they do with their dead?

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I use mandrakes as a PC race. In real world folklore, the mandragora root is special because it sort of looks like it has a male or female shape. In my DnD, ancient fey magic created a gendered plant race known for their haunting song and cultural expertise in alchemy (which is a nod to their real-world association with medieval alchemy). They have racial variations based on their Mandragora Scream ability and regional plant qualities.

Have you checked out the races James Wyatt’s created for the various M:tG plane shifts? there’s some cool options for Zendikar and Ixalan (as well as the others)