What are good races for "High Japanese Fantasy" settings?

[TheCosmicKid]

Yokai, Oni, Nine-Tailed Foxes, monkey-folk... it looks like you've got all the bases covered.

Except for kaiju and Pokemon.

I wanna playable kaiju now.

 

[QuietBrowser]

So, question; Lungborn, or "Oriental Dragonborn" - how might these actually work as a race, mechanics wise?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I wanna playable kaiju now.

The Gnomes of Spelljammer are, even as we speak, breeding miniature Kaiju.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

The Gnomes of Spelljammer are, even as we speak, breeding miniature Kaiju.

I did not say I wanted to play a miniature kaiju.

 

[Unwise]

I always like to base near-earth things on what people thought things were like, not what they were really like. So I would suggest the Gaigen as a race. Make them 7' tall, snow white skin and 'barbaric'. They could be the Goliath's of the setting, though culturally maybe more like viking settlers/traders who are seen as savages. The early Japanese were racist AF and had some pretty interesting ideas about foreigners that lends itself well to a fantasy setting.

Regarding Dragonborn, in my China-ish setting they are the chief mandarins/samurai of the Dragon Emperor and are thought to be celestial in origin. They are seen as being very high status, borederline divine, like Deva. They were created by the great dragon to act as intermediaries with the humanoid races.

Deva is another good race. They original concept comes from Indian/western Chinese mythologies. They could be servants of heaven, or cast down for some fault (a la Journey to the West). In Japan the Kami taking human form works well too.

 

[QuietBrowser]

I always like to base near-earth things on what people thought things were like, not what they were really like. So I would suggest the Gaigen as a race. Make them 7' tall, snow white skin and 'barbaric'. They could be the Goliath's of the setting, though culturally maybe more like viking settlers/traders who are seen as savages. The early Japanese were racist AF and had some pretty interesting ideas about foreigners that lends itself well to a fantasy setting.

Regarding Dragonborn, in my China-ish setting they are the chief mandarins/samurai of the Dragon Emperor and are thought to be celestial in origin. They are seen as being very high status, borederline divine, like Deva. They were created by the great dragon to act as intermediaries with the humanoid races.

Deva is another good race. They original concept comes from Indian/western Chinese mythologies. They could be servants of heaven, or cast down for some fault (a la Journey to the West). In Japan the Kami taking human form works well too.

"Gaigen", from how you describe them, sound more like a reskin of Goliaths than anything mechanically new. That doesn't make them a bad idea, though. In fact, it's really quite interesting.

Also, nice call on the Deva; they do have a certain similarity to Hindu and, to a lesser extent, Buddhist beliefs.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

Design-wise, it might be more interesting for the deva to have a second background as the main "racial power" then to just convert the 4e version. 4e had backgrounds, but they seem a little more important in 5e.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I did not say I wanted to play a miniature kaiju.

Contact their customer service & suggestions department. I’m sure if there’s enough call for giant miniature Kaiju, they’ll hop right on it!

 

[MechaTarrasque]

I wanna playable kaiju now.

With what class?

I would go with rogue, as I always laugh in the movies where the impossibly big monster sneaks up on a human.

 

[cbwjm]

Design-wise, it might be more interesting for the deva to have a second background as the main "racial power" then to just convert the 4e version. 4e had backgrounds, but they seem a little more important in 5e.

I was thinking about the deva just the other day. Currently I'm putting the race itself into a background. It doesn't quite follow the 4e fluff of the race since they don't reincarnate back into their own race, I just thought it might be interesting if they were reborn into different races while remembering their celestial heritage.