Homebrews - Stealing the best - what to steal?

[Psion]

In another thread, Piratecat said:

I like to start from scratch, and then liberally steal the best parts of other settings and adventures. That lets me add what I like best, and dismiss or change details that I don't.

Which got me thinking of what else I could steal.

Then, in another forum, someone is asking what everyone's gnomes are like. And then it got me thinking of how I could make the gnomes for my game world interesting. So I thought... which setting has interesting gnomes.

Why Eberron of course. So for the first entry, I offer:

Eberron's Gnomes - Gnomes as somewhat frightening information brokers.

Okay, what you got?

 

[Scribble]

Slitheren From Scarred lands

Rat people who aren't lycanthropes are cool.

 

[Cam Banks]

Slitheren From Scarred lands

Rat people who aren't lycanthropes are cool.

I think I would rename them Skaven (from Warhammer) to A) avoid the Harry Potter reference and B) avoid any association with snakes/worms.

Besides, Skaven = scavenger. Rats! Get it?

My own entry into this: Birthright's Dwarves. They're earth-strong, but they sink in water!

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Psion]

Slitheren From Scarred lands

Rat people who aren't lycanthropes are cool.

Well, if you are gonna talk that, I am nabbing Asaathi, cool warrior-wizard snake men, for my current game world.

I stole Ratmen for my last game world, but was debating whether or not to do it again. Guess I should, since I am using Necromancer Games' Bard's Gate, and it features them.

 

[Imagicka]

Greetings...

Gnomes.

A friend of mine made gnomes the alchemical lords of his world. They had developed gun-powder and explosives and the technology to use it (crude firearms & cannons) and controlled this information/technology fervently. Anyone who learned how to make explosives usually met with an accident (ie *boom*) very shortly after the gnomes found out.

Gnomes in my world are a dying race. They are few and far between, typically pacifist nomads (ie Tinkers) that usually dedicate themselves to learn one skill very well, and have a philosphy that is rather zen-buddist in nature. All the Bosch (that's what I call my gnomes) are seeking 'nowhere'. They are kinda akin to Robert Jordan's Tinkers, and their pacifist ways seeking the 'way of the leaf'. (Though I'm convinced that Jordan stole these ideas from my brain since I had a working model of the Bosch before I even heard of Wheel of Time.)

(Putting my tin-foil hat back on...)

 

[Scribble]

Well, if you are gonna talk that, I am nabbing Asaathi, cool warrior-wizard snake men, for my current game world.

I stole Ratmen for my last game world, but was debating whether or not to do it again. Guess I should, since I am using Necromancer Games' Bard's Gate, and it features them.

Oh yeah Asaathi are cool too.

 

[Desdichado]

I've pretty much defaulted to using shifters and changelings from Eberron in my D&D homebrews from now on. I really wish the rest of the x-touched races were LA+0 like them now, too.

I actually steal pretty liberally from the Warhammer 40k setting, and adapt the technology down to fantasy standard too.

 

[Wik]

Elves who are more fey than human, and whose hair and skin change colour with the seasons. It's from my particular version of Forgotten Realms, circa 1994.

 

[Desdichado]

Elves who are more fey than human, and whose hair and skin change colour with the seasons.

Hey, I've done that too!

IMO, elves need some sprucing up somehow if they're going to work for me. My latest thing has been to disallow them as PC races and make the the main bad guy race of the setting (which casting orcs and goblinoids in a relatively sympathetic light as savage but usually more or less noble cultures). For background, I steal liberally from 40k Dark Eldar.

 

[Psion]

IMO, elves need some sprucing up somehow if they're going to work for me. My latest thing has been to disallow them as PC races and make the the main bad guy race of the setting (which casting orcs and goblinoids in a relatively sympathetic light as savage but usually more or less noble cultures). For background, I steal liberally from 40k Dark Eldar.

Rockin'.

Not sure how I'd integrate the feel of fantasy elves with eldar, but if I wanted to make them implicitly psionic, that's the riff I might take.

Hmmm...