How to avoid Furry Fandom?

[interwyrm]

To be honest, I've never liked the cliched dwarves and elves.

In a homebrew campaign that I'm working up, which I think I'll call "Skyland," the humanoid races are all going to be somewhere in between human and various African animals. The most human-like will be called Priman, and they will (obviously) be a hybrid of humans and apes. I like to have more information about my setting than is really needed for the players to interact with. I've decided that productive breeding is only possible between two members of the same type of hybrid. In that case, 1 out of three children is born as an animal, and the remainder are born as new hybrids. (This corresponds to a genetic cross where having two of the one allele is fatal, two produce hybrids, and one produces a pureblood of the other allele.)

Because of physiological similarities between different species of hybrid, they have the anatomic capability to mate, but never produce offspring.

My worry is that the players might think it too close to 'furry fandom' and therefore too weird.

Don't take this as a flame, but if you are into furry fandom, I don't really want to hear about it. My friends and I all think it is weird, so stay within that constraint please.

 

[jdrakeh]

Honestly, if you are anthropomorphizing animals, you're already deeply into the 'furry' fanbase. I think you may already be screwed insofar as avoiding what it is you seek to avoid. The only other thing that may work is to stay away from "love" (or lust) as an in-game theme. It should never come up in games with anthros if you're trying to avoid the "furry" label.

 

[Ripzerai]

Establish that your human-animal hybrids have no genitalia, and are created by wizards in vats. That avoids a lot of the "weirdness," while introducing a lot of weirdness of its own.

Even so, you're still "weird." Deal with it. The only way to avoid associations with "furry fandom" entirely is not playing a roleplaying game where everyone pretends to be some kind of anthropomorphic animal.

 

[interwyrm]

...The only other thing that may work is to stay away from "love" (or lust) as an in-game theme...

This sounds like a good idea. It may have sounded like I was straying into that, but it was really more because I've been thinking about genetics in general lately. I think I won't even bring it up, and just give a stony glare if someone else does.

Other than that, aren't shifters basically falling into this same category though? How does eberron avoid it?

Btw... I'm going more for planet of the apes than anything else.

 

[awayfarer]

Avoid making anthropomorphic animals, make them anthropomorphic plants instead. You are far less likely to encounter someone who thinks they're a pine tree. If this does spawn a group called "Barkies" or something, you're on your own.

ISeriously though if you're going to go with the anthro-animals thing you might want to play up the human side a lot. Make the animal traits slight. Maybe if they're something like shifters, sort of bestial looking humans, it might work.

 

[BadMojo]

Other than that, aren't shifters basically falling into this same category though? How does eberron avoid it?

Shifters are more like Lycanthrope Light than anthropomorphic animals. Everything I've read portrays them like feral humans with some animal aspects, but definitely more skewed to the human side of things.

 

[interwyrm]

I was thinking that I would make only the most human-like ones playable races.

And on second thought, Island of Dr. Moreau is more the feel of these beastmen that I am trying to go for.

Also, I thought I might avoid some problem by restricting the setting to African animals as that cuts out most of the really iffy ones... like foxes and wolves... although I guess lions might cause problems too.

I might actually end up just using shifters with slight modifications as the player races.

 

[Captain Howdy]

Also, I thought I might avoid some problem by restricting the setting to African animals as that cuts out most of the really iffy ones... like foxes and wolves... although I guess lions might cause problems too.

What do you mean by iffy?

 

[interwyrm]

What do you mean by iffy?

Every time I've had the misfortune of happening upon furry artwork, it's been a fox, wolf, horse, or cat.

 

[interwyrm]

I intend to use the setting partly as a medium to explore what it means to be human and what the difference between being an animal and being a human is.