Non-stereotypical versions of PHB races

[Master of the Game]

In my new campaign I switched things up a bit as well, but strictly from a cultural standpoint.

The dwarves a basically late-republic era romans with an ancestor-worship religion.

Gnomes are a slave race. Their nation lost a war with the dwarves and the vast majority now serve as thralls.

Halflings are somewhat akin to trap-door spiders. They live in holes in the ground that are disguised to look like the surrounding terrain. If they feel threatened, the pop out of the holes and take their pray by surprise.

Elves were once the traditional tree huggers common to fantasy, but their "island in the east was captured by orcs hundreds of years ago. All that is left of them are scattered wandering tribes. They worship animals, and live on horseback. Their loss of ties to the land has ended their near-immortality. Most barely live double a human lifetime.

Half-elves are not created by breeding with humans. They are in fact elves that have evolved away from their ancient roots.

Orcs are a fairly civilized and advanced race. Not completely cultured, but much like the barbarians that invaded Rome, they have taken on some of the way of lfe that the elves enjoyed when they captured their magical island.

Half-orcs, like half-elves are not the result of breeding, but evolution.

Humans are basically and invading species, new to the continent, and they're still getting their bearings.

My group is all human, and this is intentional. I changed the races, not for shock value, but to allow the players to discover the truth about this continent as their characters do. It's all about exploration and discovery.

 

[AbeTheGnome]

no, but thank you for trying to make it something I "have trouble" with rather than a preference for not changing things just to show you can.

Whoa, now! I wasn't trying to snark you. But frankly, if your preference is for "not changing things" and you have no advice or suggestions to help me do just that, you shouldn't have responded to this post.

Unicorns are imaginary as well. However, if you said "unicorns in my campaign are going to be bipedal reptiles with no horns but long claws on each of their 7 fingers" People would reasonably see this as a misassignment of the name rather than "getting away from tropes".

Elves are not elves because they live in the woods and shoot arrows. I'm not suggesting that elves should walk on all fours, here. It's a cultural stereotype that I'm trying to get away from. If the unicorns had a stereotyped culture, I wouldn't have any problem changing that too. But I digress. Again, if you're not going to respond to the OP in a helpful way, just don't respond.

 

[Nightfall]

Abe is right. Like my mom always says, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." Course I tend to repeat the same things over and over again, like Scarred Lands for example.

 

[Nyeshet]

The problem with this idea is that without any of their stereotypes you could name anything as the race. Perhaps you want 1 ft tall purple skinned reptilian-scaled humanoid(ish) beings - and call them 'elves'? Or how about 18 ft tall thin as a willow branch 'dwarves'? Or maybe halflings are literally half of a person - maybe the left half of the body, hopping on their one leg to move about? Guess what half-orcs are?

I think it more likely that you want a variant of each race that touches upon a less common stereotype rather than what is used by WotC?

In some legends elves were half the height of humans, mischievious, and lived underground in hollow hillsides or in small valleys thoroughly hidden by dense foliage. Bard would likely make a good favored class for this rambunctious race.

This would be a very different type of elf from what is used by WotC - sort of a cross between halflings and elves but with a bardish cast upon their features. Yet it would still be fully grounded in literally centuries old stereotypes for their race.

Dwarves were - in the original norse legends - very strong and stout, not quite normal human height, intensely gifted in magical artisanry, and often lived not underground but instead in cave-like burrows that rarely went all that far into the nearest mountain side. Favored class Wizard might work well for this race, in fact.

Gnomes were intially Tiny beings that could move as swift as a man despite their size, were highly resistant to cold weather - sometimes sleeping in the snow, for that matter, said to leave tracks like a bird in the snow or soft ground, and also said to be incredibly wise and knowledgeable about nature and the local geography. Druid would likely work well as a favored class for this race.

Orcs have had so many descriptions made of them that almost anything will work - small or large, wily or dumb, clumbsy or graceful, etc.

Halflings are based on Hobbits, so there is less to work with / alter there, although you might return to the roots of the race, in a manner of speaking. The hobbits were not known as wanderers, after all, so the fluff about semi-nomadic gypsy-ish bands can be disguarded - and a few other small changes might also be made to re-affirm their non-wandering, practical lifestyle. Rogue, for instance, has to go as their favored class. Expert would work better - and might explain their lack of general adventuring (as they lack a PC class for their favored class).

 

[Chris Tavares]

I'm looking for race concepts to pilfer for a homebrew. I want to violate most, if not all, stereotypes/tropes of the traditional (PHB) races. The name of the race does not have to match what I'll eventually put it with. To give an example, I took the flavor text for minotaurs in the Dragonlance CS and used it for High Elves. Now, I'm looking for chaotic, bloodthirsty dwarves who don't live underground, demon-worshipping elves who aren't drow, shamanistic, animistic orcs who aren't necessarily evil, and kobolds that are like miniature dragons, and aren't totally nerfed. Suggestions?

If you can find it, you might want to look at the Sovereign Stone campaign setting for ideas. They added some serious twists to the cultures of some of the standard races.

The elves were a caste-bound, samurai-like culture obsessed with honor.
Orcs were sailors who got physically ill if they were away from the sea for too long.
Dwarves were essentially Mongol horsemen.

 

[Plane Sailing]

In my last D&D campaign I moved a little way away from the classic views on some races:

Dwarves were short klingons. Barbarian was their favoured class. Took everything I could from Klingon-ness.

Elves were originally from another plane, and they long to get back there. Being long lived, high level elves should be quite common, but as soon as they can learn plane shift they get together a team of high level buddies and go plane hopping looking for the way back 'home'.

One idea that I remember hearing about a long time ago in 1e days was a campaign where the halflings were an island nation, steeped in honour and tradition. The clans included the Hobitimoto and Hairfootso, classes included samuri and ninja. Fear the ninja hobbits!

 

[Master of the Game]

I am seriously considering adding gith to my game modeling 40k races. The githzari would be Tau-esque, with a strict caste structure and "For the Greater Good" mentality.

Githyanki would be like Necrons >

 

[Kobold Marine]

Using real-world cultures to add variety is always good. I've played a Mexican Dwarf, complete with outrageous accent, sombrero, and tequila. Since my PC was the first dwarf encountered by the party, the DM responded by making Hill Dwarves Mexican, Mountain Dwarves Spanish, and so on.

The game I'm currently in has featured Norse Orcs and Persian Elves.

In previous games I've run, I populated the Plane of Shadow with a Mesopotamian-based culture. My current game world has litorians (an AE race) with Greek culture, language, and alphabet. Since AE has a rune-magic based class, I'm using the Greek alphabet as the basis for runes. Wikipedia and Kate Monk's Onomastikon are probably my most useful tools when building worlds.

In a past campaign, I also fiddled around with goblins a bit, and made them into fey tinkers rather than mini-orcs, with a twist: every 1 in 100 goblin births is a hobgoblin. If two hobgoblins mate, the chance of producing another hobgoblin is 1 in 50.

Originally, hobgoblins were highly regarded, since they were capable of greater feats of strength than normal goblins. A village's hobgoblin would do all sorts of physical labor and were treated like minor nobility in return. Until one bright goblin wizard discovered a way to make unborn goblin babies into hobgoblins, and the hobgoblin population exploded. Hobgoblins then started becoming second-class citizens. After a period of this, they revolted, and took over. The hobgoblin warlords carved up the goblin lands into dozens of little fiefdoms. Since then, the hobgoblin population has slowly declined, due to the fact that the potion recipe was lost in the revolt. The hobgoblins still rule, but their days as rulers are numbered and they know it.

Hope this is useful.

 

[Stormrunner]

Halflings are somewhat akin to trap-door spiders. They live in holes in the ground that are disguised to look like the surrounding terrain. If they feel threatened, the pop out of the holes and take their pray by surprise.

Combine these with the Dark Sun pygmy-cannibal halflings and they start to get really scary...

Tad Williams, in his Memory Sorrow and Thorn series (The Dragonbone Chair, et al), has halflings as Eskimo-style arctic dwellers (the Qanuk). This actually makes a lot of sense. Look at Tolkein's original hobbits - stout, compact bodies with a layer of fat; short stubby limbs; large hairy feet; live in burrows. These are all characteristic of arctic-dwelling mammals.

Of course, if they "take their pray by surprise" they'd need to apply Sudden metamagic feats to their divine spells, no?

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

Now, I'm looking for chaotic, bloodthirsty dwarves who don't live underground, demon-worshipping elves who aren't drow, shamanistic, animistic orcs who aren't necessarily evil, and kobolds that are like miniature dragons, and aren't totally nerfed. Suggestions?

Well, generally I don't like posting just to promote our books, but I believe you should take a look at Lines of Legend: Winter Elves I don't know if it's applicable in its wholeness, but you may get some ideas from it.

We also have a preview available in our website. You may want to take a look in it here.

Cheers,