Racial Epithets

[Blessed Kitten]

I'm trying to design a dark, gritty kind of world where even the "civilized" races don't get along very well, and I was thinking that a few good disparaging slang words for the races would add a lot of flavor to the world and character interaction.

Anyone have any good pejorative words or phrases that the PC races could hurl at each other?

So far, I know I want to use "peck" for halflings...

 

[Voadam]

The Valus CS has a chart of racial epithets. One of the ones for elves is pointers (for their ears I guess) and diggers for dwarves (mining).

Half breed or mule works well for half elves or half orcs.

Dandelion eaters was a good one for elves from Shadowrun. Effeminate names work in general for elves. Always calling a male elf by the female version of his name or by a different woman name each time (as in the TV show Scrubs) works.

 

[Gez]

Dwarves: Stump, Quasim, Hairball.
Elves: Fop, Pointy-Ears.
Gnome: Minus.
Half-Orc: Snout-face, Groin. (To understand the latter, you need to know Rêve, a very fine game I must say. It has a lot of dual-language humour, for example, there's an orc-like race with pig heads called groin. I suppose you know what groin means in English, and in French it means "pig snout".)
Human: Perv. (Come on, every half-breed race is, by default, half-human.)

 

[ShadowStar]

I know that in alot of SciFi humans are refered to as Breeders, it seems that that would work well for a multi-species fantasy setting as well. Muckers, Diggers or Barrels work well for Dwarves. I've always had a fondness for Dandilion Eaters, long for a racial slur though so it'd likely devolve to Dandies. Peck is great for Halfling, and Mule or Breeder is good for and 1/2 race. For the barbaric races (Orcs, Ogres etc) probably Sloaps (for their sloaped brow) or Feeders would work well. What other races are you planning on using.

 

[Voadam]

In our campaign my character learned orcish from a half-orc retainer and we started making up some orcish words. I asked what the word for pretty flower was in orcish and he said they didn't really have one but "Najej" meant "prickly bush" so that became a common epithet of my character's "You're nothing but a damn najej." "Don't be such a najej." etc. It has a nice ring to it.

 

[Beowolf]

this may not help much but there are some joke posts somwhere that have some good racial jokes that could be very usefull to you. maybe someone can find a like for you because i cant remember where they are here.

 

[Blessed Kitten]

Thanks for all of quick replies. It really helped me start thinking in the right direction.

Although more is always appreciated...

 

[rkanodia]

Just a side note, for those who care, the epithet 'digger' is about as offensive to many Native American cultures as a word can get, up there with 'redskins' and the like. Obviously a fantasy game doesn't have to be connected to reality in any way, but consider the reaction you'd have if someone in your gaming group decided that dwarves should be called 'chinks' because the typical dwarf is greedy for metals and likes the sound of coins knocking together, or that drow elves should be called 'darkies' because they prefer to avoid the light. If your reaction is 'Hey, that's a good one. Zing!', then more power to you. If you say 'Hmm, I don't like that idea,' then going with 'muckers' or 'barrels' is probably a better choice.

 

[Blessed Kitten]

Thanks for the heads up. I didn't know about that one. And I guess that's what this is all about, racism and ethnic slurs seem to be a ubiquitous part of culture. Especially when a culture is what we would consider less "enlightened". So I can't really imagine a world based on medeival values with multiple races with clear and meaningful differences between them not having a lot of really mean, hateful things to say.

I live in Texas, so I can't turn around without hearing a new one...

 

[billd91]

Here are some we've used:

Dwarf: rock-eater, squat
Gnome: big-nose, stump
Elf: fairy, wuss
Halfling: lunch, halfie


I think coming up with really creative ways of saying things like this are kind of fun. Traveller had some good ones used between humans and vargr (uplifted terran canines). Humans called the vargr doggies, growlers, and barkers. Vargr, being more sensitive to odors and not having human-like sweat glands, called the humans stinkers and, because they're hairless, pinkies.

I think when it comes down to it, if it works OK in your game and you keep it in your game, it's OK. Personally, I had never heard of "diggers" as an epithet for some American Indians. But then, use of epithets can be regional. So my friends and I wouldn't have bat an eye at it, unlike some other better known epithets. If a player objects, then stop using it. But if there's no harm, then I figure there's no foul.