D&D General What are your Core races?

[Tales and Chronicles]

My take on core race are as follow:

Humanoid:

• Humans
• Gnome: Mod-> Only Forest or Svirneblin, the features of the rock gnomes are given both subraces. Svirneblins may replace dwarves.

Goblinoid:

• Goblin: Mod-> Ankle-biter: add a bite attack as a bonus action that grapples medium or less creatures.
• Bugbear
• Hobgobelin -> Warborn or Fey

Monstrosities:

• Lizardfolk -> Dragonborn or Snapjaw
• Orc/Half-orc
• Centaur

Construct:
- Nimblewright (warforged)


In a regular I'd also have Wood elves (using the firbolg stats minus the powerful build and with the foliage stealth), High elves (using the aasimar stats + extra cantrip and skill) and Dark elves similar to the Morrowind's ones.

 

[Laurefindel]

One of my homebrewed settings has aasimars, automatons (clockwork-like warforged), girtablilu (scorpion-centaurs), sprites, and vegepygmies as the only PC options.

but addressing the OP more specifically, removing elves, dwarves, and halflings leaves only humans as one of the original races, so might as well make it a human world, and their half-siblings:

humans
Half-elves
Half-orcs
Aasimar
Tiefling
Genasi
Shifter or another half/full lycantrope
Centaur (?)
Minotaur (?)

not sure about the two last ones. They are “half” human and half something else, quite literally, but not the product of an union of man and “X”

 

[Aging Bard]

I have a homebrew 1e campaign, so different list but fun exercise. I'd cheat slightly and have humans, gnomes, dwarf-gnomes, half-elves, half-orcs, and half-ogres.

Dwarf-gnomes and half-elves are all that remains of the long lost dwarfish and elfish civilizations (in my actual campaign, humans, dwarves, and elves are the largest populations).

Half-orcs and half-ogres are human terms and do not have their usual meaning. Rather, both of these are any potential mix with orcs or ogres that, for reasons that are not understood even to the sages, look much more like humans. Half-orcs still maintain slight porcine features (remember these are 1e orcs!) and half-ogres are much larger than normal humans, so neither are mistaken for human. It is a minor mystery of the campaign why this happens (or whether it happens for any other races).

Finally, there are 3 new sylvan races: centaurs, selkind, and sylph-elves. Centaurs are, well, centaurs.

Selkind (singular short-i, plural long-i) are like inverse selkies: they can maintain their demi-human form on land indefinitely, but transform into legged seals when they enter the water. They swim only 1/2 as fast as selkies.

Sylph-elves are sylph crosses with various sylvans, including the long-lost elves. They can fly only 1/2 as fast as sylphs.

 

[Cobalt Meridian]

Purely by coincidence, my next campaign has 9 "core" races:

• Humans (people people)
• Gnomes (fey people)
• Warforged (mechanical people)
• Aarokocra (bird people)
• Dragonborn (dragon people)
• Minotaurs (cow people)
• Tabaxi (cat people)
• Tortle (turtle people)
• Yuan-ti (snake people)

Each "people" representing a "biome" of sorts, having been created millennia past by some higher power.

 

[Campbell]

Humans
Aasimar
Tieflings
Orcs
Kobolds
Eladrin
Dhampir
Pathfinder Style Changelings
Dryads

 

[Bitbrain]

Reply to OP.

Well, it’s not entirely fleshed out, but I do have this idea for a fantasy time travel campaign where portals linking six different “Ages” are popping up everywhere, allowing the inhabitants of each age to come into contact with each other.

At present, I’m thinking the core playable species will look something like this:

Futuristic Age
Domed cities, flying cars, etc.

• Human
• Warforged

Ice Age
Woolly mammoths, saber toothed tigers, etc.

• Goliath
• Kenku

Dinosaur Age
Cretaceous Period. Tyrannosaurids, ceratopsids, etc.

• Lizardfolk
• Phanaton

Archosaur Age
Triassic Period. Rauisuchians, rhynchosaurs, etc.
- Kobold

Therapsid Age
Permian Period. Gorgonopsids, temnospondyls, etc.

• Bullywug
• Rakasta

• Jotnar: Risar

I could swear I’ve asked this before, but what’s a Risar?

 

[Yaarel]

I could swear I’ve asked this before, but what’s a Risar?

The Jotnar divide into extremely beautiful versus grotesquely hideous. Risar are the goodlooking ones, while the Thursar are the monstrous ones. While all Jotnar are Troll (in the sense of enchanters/witches/mages), there are certain sagas that seem to use the term Troll especially for individuals that descend from both Risar and Thursar, whence a sense of intermixed.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I have 2 answers:

1. I kinda like the races from GranBlue Fantasy - they're halfway "a new version of the traditional races", they're also very new and different versions - the dwarf-tiefling-oxfolk Draph are a genuine twist on the tropes, rather than "dwarves but rockier."

2. But for a real shift: new core is human, aasimar, tiefling and genasi. Humans are the only natural race, but planetouched are a thing as well. (This leaves room for other planetouched, ie chaonids and zenthyri). I'm not sure if I'd include any beast-people or goblinoids.

Edit: I'll add a third idea: all-furry game. Needs good 'build your own race' mechanics, and I'm not inclined to run such a game but I might play in one.

 

[bedir than]

In my homebrew world, the World of the Everflow, there are the discovered races through play and others that will eventually be discovered.

Kin, the people of love, are Humans, Halflings, Goliaths/Firbolg
Ken, the people of knowledge, are Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes (no rock), Dragons
Kon, the people of tek, are Goblins, Hobgoblins, Mulgoblins (bugbear)

There are also unlabeled peoples that are hybrids ('taurs, weres, etc) that burst onto the scene when the Transmuter used his powers.

To be discovered are the Kun (Lizardfolk, Kobolds, Yuan-ti) and Kyn (Genasi and playable Mephits)

 

[jmartkdr2]

I know most DMs probably don't do this, but I'm not just going to plop down a new kingdom of dragonborn in the middle of my world because they never existed in previous campaigns. If someone really wanted to play one I'd probably discuss options with the group and come up with an origin story arc and try to tie it in to previous in-world events.

I pretty much default to "Dragonborn have their own kingdom/empire across the ocean, and the ability to travel across said ocean has only recently (ten-ish years ago) become a thing." The change could be technology or some sort of barrier going away. Ten years is enough that people have heard of dragonborn and that they're not attacking, but not so long that they're considered a normal part of the setting.

Basically, all dragonborn are Far Travelers.

I've found this works well in any setting where the globe hasn't been completely charted.