D&D 5E What are your world Races?

[Quickleaf]

My setting "Middle Kingdoms" for my 4e campaign included nine main races (plus lots of dragons)...

Humans! In glorious diversity!

Dwarves hailing from a kingdom where they guarded demon gates under the mountains.

Goliaths who occupied a plains and forest nation, with a Native American confederacy / warrior socialist-meritocracy vibe.

Gnomes split between those living as conquered client-people of Goliaths, and those who fled underground to form their own kingdom (Svirfneblin).

Elves living as guerillas and nomads after displaced from homeland suffering from undead curse. Half-Elves too.

Halflings as river-dwelling traders, fortune tellers, musicians, and scoundrels with no nation of their own.

Shifters were descendants of a fallen kingdom of lycanthropes, and subject to frequent prejudice.

Tieflings who hailed from a seafaring kingdom dominating southern trade, with royalty in bed with devils.

Cauldron-Born, a unique race of mutants created by a hag's curse and the subject of much prejudice.

 

[BigVanVader]

Tell me more about Cauldron-Born.

 

[Stormonu]

How many is too many animals? Or even, say, species of bird? I mean, really, is a crow that much different from a raven? Why do you need both?

When it comes to fantasy races, I'm always willing to add more. Some may be more populous than other and even others many only be found in certain parts of the world.

For my main campaign world of Amberos, here's the primary ones that most folks on the world are familiar with (i.e., can be found continent-wide) ... beyond humans.

Algalue/Tyres Haul: These are dragon men, borne of an ancient crossbreeding of dragons and elves. They are similar to D&D dragonborn, but have wings and the Algalue have innate Alter Self ability.

Elves: Just like D&D makes them; high elves are "common" elves, gray elves are noble elves (who use alchemical concoctions to physically alter their chemistry); drow are traitorous black elves. There are dozens of elf subtypes as well as during the height of their kind, the elves used their magic to physically warp their bodies to fit their environment.

Dwarves: Similar to D&D dwarves, but they are physically made of stone.

Gnomes: Created in ancient times to be diplomats between the elves and dwarves, but became their own race.

Halfings: Once elves abducted by the God of Shadows and made into a diminutive race of spies and assassins. They were freed of their servitude and taken in by the gnomes until they eventually drifted their own ways.

Mageborn: Humans of powerful, innate magical ability that are the offspring of two human wizards/sorcerers.

Hellchilde: Human offspring with one parent that is a powerful otherwordly entity - whether demon, genie, angel, elemental or otherwise. Similar to genasi, tieflings and aasimar but able to assume a frightening and powerful form evocative of their parentage.

Anhiyawen: A quasi-faerie race commonly referred to as "animal-men". They are essentially anthropomorphic creatures - foxfolk, bearfolk, catfolk, lizardfolk, whatever. They were created during the Elvin Golden Age as a sort of advanced pet for elves, and developed their own civilizations when that age ended.

Titanborn: Humans with giantish or titan blood.

Orken: Human with orc, goblin or troll blood. Basically, a half-orc.

 

[Bluescale_Kobold]

In my multi-edition campaign world, I go with the kitchen-sink/Mos Eisley approach. It's rare to find anything larger than a small village without multiple species living in it.
• Rakshasas rule over half the world. The big mystery is why they stopped their world conquest. Rakshasas are NPCs.
• Cyclopes are another major power, and are much more intelligent than cylopes are normally depicted. They once had great empires until the rakshasas crushed them, and now that the rakshasas have stopped their advance, the cyclopes are trying to rebuild their empires in the lands they fled to. Cyclopes are NPCs.
• Humans are a minority in the main campaign region, with a few kingdoms and territories. If it wasn't for the god-king whose power was able to hold back the rakshasa armies, all humans would probably be slaves in the rakshasa empires.
• Tieflings are born in places tainted by the Abyss. Long ago, demons swarmed the region. They were driven back to the Abyss, but the blood of fallen demons soaked into the earth and eventually reached the water table in many areas. Entire towns who drank from wells in these regions started finding that all their children were being born tieflings (in lucky) or mongrelmen (if unlucky). Devilborn or other fiend-blooded tieflings are extremely rare, but not unknown.
• Dwarves are a major power, with multiple cultures on both the surface and underground. Dwarves consider gnomes to be an exceptionally magically endowed clan of dwarves.
• Elves are rare and half insane fey descendants. They live hidden away in forests and mountains. Elves are known to adapt physically to any environment they live in for over a year, but quickly changing environments can stress their minds and bodies, meaning that most adventuring elves go mad after a while.
• Henge are shapeshifting animal fey found in the fey lands. No one knows how many there are, since so many hide in plain site as animals.
• Hobgoblins rule mighty empires on the southern continent, and are now at constant war with the cyclopes.
• The fey appear in multitude as fey lands appear, and vanish as fey lands recede (a 30 or so year cycle). Other than the henge, the fey are NPCs.
• Kobolds are everywhere, an underclass in most cities.

There are no half breeds (half-elves, half-orcs, half-dragons) except for those created through magic or corruption (such as tieflings). Orcs and goblins live in tribes thoughout the lands, and ghouls sometimes live in military camps, allowed to stay so that they can clean up battlefields (the ghouls are the more intelligent, Lovecraft Dreamlands-type).

 

[TrippyHippy]

I wouldn’t stop any player from playing a race from the core rulebook - although I do insist on diminutive races with low strength, which some people here don’t like. That said, I would generally prefer to keep most non-human races exotic if given the choice, and like giving humans some cultural ties too.

 

[aramis erak]

My homebrew world, when I run it, will have available for PC's: Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Orcs, Pixies, Sprites, Brownies, and Reptile Men. Been that way since 1991. No half-races. I haven't decided if reptile-men will morph over to Dragonborn or not.

 

[Quickleaf]

Tell me more about Cauldron-Born.

I did a write up of them a few years back... here it is!
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?249964-Cauldron-Born

 

[Gilladian]

IMC the two continents I've outlined (basically the geography of North and South America, but nothing culturally retained) have humans, elves (but NO DROW, half-elves, dwarves (variant race), half-orcs, hobbyts (variant halfling though I really like the 5e version, so will probably just go with that), and 3 or 4 of my own races; catfolk (marchat), lizard folk (szathair), frog-men (grippli), and I've added pixies but I'm really iffy about keeping them. I have one player who would love to play one, but I'm not sure they'll ever do it, so who knows?

I don't have dragonborn, tieflings, gnomes or warforged. I used to really dislike gnomes (bad experiences with tinker-gnomes) and I still don't really see how they distinguish themselves much from halflings, but if I ever outline other continents in the world, I might include them just for the sake of variety. Dragonborn, Drow and Warforged will never appear in my campaign, and a tiefling wold be a unique being; a player could convince me to let him/her have one only with a really special backstory and a promise not to muck things up with too much drama.

 

[Joe Liker]

There is a kind of "maximum density", though, I feel, both from a "plausibility/suspension of disbelief" angle: "AnOTHER ever-so-slightly different culture and appearance for a race of goblinoids[elves/reptilians/whatever]?! Come onnnnn Mr./Ms. DM!" ; and a "maintaining interest in the game"/immersion angle: [hyperbolic example numbers] "So there are 142 different species of acknowledged sentient 'peoples' that coexist in this world?"

A better way to approach this is to find out what the players want to play and adapt your world accordingly before the campaign even begins.

Homebrew D&D is a lot more fun if the DM and players collaborate and compromise to build the setting together, rather than having a totalitarian DM who will brook no deviation from the perfect world he has envisioned. (I'm not saying that's you, but it does seem to be a common attitude among certain DMs who post here.)

 

[was]

Humans are the only remaining player race in my campaign world. The rest have been systematically wiped out in various wars. However, all humans start with one of 10 home-brewed ancestry feats which allows them to expand a bit.