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How Are Your Elves/ Dwarves/ Orcs Different?
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<blockquote data-quote="Blue" data-source="post: 7421501" data-attributes="member: 20564"><p>I'm going to answer for a previous set of campaigns I ran in the same setting which lasts 12 years between them. It was also in D&D 3.0 - 3.5.</p><p></p><p>Elves actually were immortal, in that they would not die of age. They were a +1 ECL race with other adjutments, and not native to the "prime material". Over the course of their life they would look younger and older as their mental picture of themselves changed. There were no drow. Oh, and anything immortal (also dragons in this campaign, for example), had spirits instead of souls. This mean in the fiction that they could not change their base natures, and mechanically it also impacted spells like resurrection (remember, D&D 3.x)</p><p></p><p>Orcs were not a monoculture, nor "innately evil". Rather there were the Riders fo the Northern Steppes, seven* nomadic tribes of horse-riding orcs each with their own stereotypes. The party from the first campaign actually helped one of the tribes, the one with the most affinity for the humans on that frontier, to overcome some of the other tribes.</p><p></p><p>The * on seven is that one of the tribes had gone underground and become somewhat drow-esqe.</p><p></p><p>The other main orc culture was slaver sailors who lived on a archipelago, traded with a nearby human kingdom that allowed slaves, and worshiped a dark beast that lived in a slumbering volcano.</p><p></p><p>My dwarves were a bit more traditional, had lost their whole ruling family and were lead by a steward and council that held the throne in their name. Geographically their mountain chain made them the gatekeepers between the primary human kingdom and the wild frontier to the east. The humans were latecomers to this continent (well, really this material plane, but that's another story) and the dwarves at first thought them another variation of goblinoid.</p><p></p><p>My hobgoblins were a strictly communistic society, very lawful and regimented. The lawfulness helped avoid the corruption that seems to plague real world implementations of communism, and there were a serious military force, though on the far side of the dwarves.</p><p></p><p>My kobolds were the cockiest sons-of-guns, all "descendants of dragons". There lived in a chaotic meritocracy where you hooked your wagon to a rising star and gave 110% effort - until you changed to someone else or started your own plans. But the just abandoned, they didn't backstab on the way out.</p><p></p><p>Besides a somewhat familiar type of kingdom culturally that the PCs started in, there was a human-led mixed-race empire to the west that was lead by an Emperor who was the rightful heir to the duke of the "Western Marches", abotu a quarter of that first kingdom, who was first male heir but like a second cousin once removed and the duchy overturned it's patriarchial laws and made the very-well-suited daughter to the duke the new duchess. Anyway, that happened generations ago and this guy had worked out a way of staying live for generations (serial immortality I think, taking over his children) and had founded this empire with the support of minotaur tribes and then grew it very metropolitan and accepting of different races. This is the one that had slaves the archipelago orcs traded with.</p><p></p><p>Even the base kingdom I tried to work out regional differences culturally, like the over-civilized South March with seamen and merchants high on the pecking order and Merchant Houses, the frontiersmen of the Northern Marches, the breadbasket in the east, nestled close to the safe dwarven border.</p><p></p><p>Other set of humans were on the far side of the dwarves, barbarian tribes that were actually the lost 13th ship when the humans came here from another continent (really another prime material world). Each tribe had some stereotypes, including one lead by a blue dragon, and another who took bugbear brides as second wives that wouldn't give children.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Blue, post: 7421501, member: 20564"] I'm going to answer for a previous set of campaigns I ran in the same setting which lasts 12 years between them. It was also in D&D 3.0 - 3.5. Elves actually were immortal, in that they would not die of age. They were a +1 ECL race with other adjutments, and not native to the "prime material". Over the course of their life they would look younger and older as their mental picture of themselves changed. There were no drow. Oh, and anything immortal (also dragons in this campaign, for example), had spirits instead of souls. This mean in the fiction that they could not change their base natures, and mechanically it also impacted spells like resurrection (remember, D&D 3.x) Orcs were not a monoculture, nor "innately evil". Rather there were the Riders fo the Northern Steppes, seven* nomadic tribes of horse-riding orcs each with their own stereotypes. The party from the first campaign actually helped one of the tribes, the one with the most affinity for the humans on that frontier, to overcome some of the other tribes. The * on seven is that one of the tribes had gone underground and become somewhat drow-esqe. The other main orc culture was slaver sailors who lived on a archipelago, traded with a nearby human kingdom that allowed slaves, and worshiped a dark beast that lived in a slumbering volcano. My dwarves were a bit more traditional, had lost their whole ruling family and were lead by a steward and council that held the throne in their name. Geographically their mountain chain made them the gatekeepers between the primary human kingdom and the wild frontier to the east. The humans were latecomers to this continent (well, really this material plane, but that's another story) and the dwarves at first thought them another variation of goblinoid. My hobgoblins were a strictly communistic society, very lawful and regimented. The lawfulness helped avoid the corruption that seems to plague real world implementations of communism, and there were a serious military force, though on the far side of the dwarves. My kobolds were the cockiest sons-of-guns, all "descendants of dragons". There lived in a chaotic meritocracy where you hooked your wagon to a rising star and gave 110% effort - until you changed to someone else or started your own plans. But the just abandoned, they didn't backstab on the way out. Besides a somewhat familiar type of kingdom culturally that the PCs started in, there was a human-led mixed-race empire to the west that was lead by an Emperor who was the rightful heir to the duke of the "Western Marches", abotu a quarter of that first kingdom, who was first male heir but like a second cousin once removed and the duchy overturned it's patriarchial laws and made the very-well-suited daughter to the duke the new duchess. Anyway, that happened generations ago and this guy had worked out a way of staying live for generations (serial immortality I think, taking over his children) and had founded this empire with the support of minotaur tribes and then grew it very metropolitan and accepting of different races. This is the one that had slaves the archipelago orcs traded with. Even the base kingdom I tried to work out regional differences culturally, like the over-civilized South March with seamen and merchants high on the pecking order and Merchant Houses, the frontiersmen of the Northern Marches, the breadbasket in the east, nestled close to the safe dwarven border. Other set of humans were on the far side of the dwarves, barbarian tribes that were actually the lost 13th ship when the humans came here from another continent (really another prime material world). Each tribe had some stereotypes, including one lead by a blue dragon, and another who took bugbear brides as second wives that wouldn't give children. [/QUOTE]
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