D&D General What races/species populate your DnD world?

[Yaarel]

Here's the list from the world generator for my homebrew world, ordered roughly by prevalence:
View attachment 402126
It doesn't cover Tieflings, as they don't have a significant local territory, and it is certainly not exhaustive beyond that. Any of those would be fair game for a player to roll up a character as, but not the limit.

Establishing frequency is a good idea.

My medievalesque setting has Giants be the most frequent creature type, but they typically inhabit the Ethereal Plane. Then among Humanoids: Humans are most frequent, then Gnomes, Dwarves, then Elves. Typically, Gnomes inhabit the Fey Plane in and around a Material Human settlement. Dwarves reside underground in the Ethereal Plane, and Elves in Fey fertile forests or Wildspace skies. Dragons originate from Giants but are a distinct Creature Type inhabiting the Material Plane. It is normal for members of various species to immigrate into each others communities. Hence the larger communities tend to be multispecies, but usually remember which species founded the community.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I usually have all races somewhere in the world, but in the few games with limited species:

Islands World - No humans, high elves, or wood elves. The main campaign area features a wide array of species but the most populace are Shadar-Kai, Drow, Goliaths, gnomes, halflings, Tabaxi, orcs, followed by various other animal folks like tortles and Grung and shifters.

Courts of The Fae - Again no humans, this time also no halflings, orcs, or Dragonborn, and predominantly the fey species and animal species. Warforged are basically tree-people, and I would allow an orc to be played as an “ogre” probably but not a normal orc. Even Wood Elf would have been pushing it in 2014 rules, but they have more magic vibes now so it’s fine.

Maaaaybe no tiefling or aasimar, but so far neither has come up.

TBH I’d love to just ban humans altogether lol imo they are not needed. Play a Goliath or Halfling or wood elf or dwarf or something.

 

[Hriston]

If I was starting a campaign from scratch today, I'd sit with the players, find out what species and classes they were interested in, and maybe some favorite monsters, and make all of those things the standard assumptions for the setting and go from there.

My group and I started with the premise that the setting is a medievalistic fantasy world, so assuming things like dragons existing is considered fair game.

 

[jgsugden]

Hey guys, got another question for EnWorld regarding Dungeons and Dragons. What races/species populate your world when you create them?

Do you mix things up like having Dwarves in Fey Forests, do you keep things by the book, or a mixture of both?
...

My primary world has a surface area 12 times the size of Earth. It also has a Dyson Sphere-like Underdark surface nearly as big. Beyond that world, I have a heavy humanoid presence in the Elemental, Astral, Fey and Shadow realms. The majority of species came about when the Gods realizes that free will worship granted them power and the Gods created beings to give them free will so that the humanoids would worship them... which only kind of worked out ...
One of the primary reasons I went with that design was to facilitate the idea that any PC design will have a place.

Do you want a LotR Elf/Dwarf/Human/Halfling style PC? I have a 'core fantasy' style nation.

Do you want a human that uses modern technology (semi-automatic weapons, cell phones, internet)? I have another world where those PCs exist (although the world is covered by anti-magic and is thus hard to reach).

Do you like a little apocalypse in your fantasy? I have a plethora of styles in my Underdark.

What races/species populate my setting? All of them. I may not have discovered all of them yet, but if someone wants to play an archetype, I will find where they are hiding from me.

Do I mix things up? Absolutely. When you have that much to fill, you get to experiment a lot and I've been building, rebuilding, and exploring this setting for nearly 45 years now.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

On my Current setting Artra following intelligent species exist:

Common playable:

Human
Eldri (small elves with horns and tails)
Orc

Uncommon playable:
Gnoll
Kobol (dog kobold)
Lizardfolk (with dragonborn mixed in)
Totori (tortle)
Goblin
Kreen (thri-kreen)
Aarakoa (skeksis-like aarakocra)
Morog (bugbearish ape-person sasquatch)

Monstrous unplayable:*
Harpy
Ogre
Giant
Troll (including hags)
Myrmian (formian)

* For game balance reasons mostly.


I rewrote rules for the species, so even the species that are common D6D species have slightly different rules. Many of these have different cultures, but there are no dedicated subspecies rules. Hoever, the rules tend to contain some flexible choices that can be used to represent traits typical of various cultures.

 

[SkidAce]

My primary world has a surface area 12 times the size of Earth. It also has a Dyson Sphere-like Underdark surface nearly as big. Beyond that world, I have a heavy humanoid presence in the Elemental, Astral, Fey and Shadow realms. The majority of species came about when the Gods realizes that free will worship granted them power and the Gods created beings to give them free will so that the humanoids would worship them... which only kind of worked out ...
One of the primary reasons I went with that design was to facilitate the idea that any PC design will have a place.

Do you want a LotR Elf/Dwarf/Human/Halfling style PC? I have a 'core fantasy' style nation.

Do you want a human that uses modern technology (semi-automatic weapons, cell phones, internet)? I have another world where those PCs exist (although the world is covered by anti-magic and is thus hard to reach).

Do you like a little apocalypse in your fantasy? I have a plethora of styles in my Underdark.

What races/species populate my setting? All of them. I may not have discovered all of them yet, but if someone wants to play an archetype, I will find where they are hiding from me.

Do I mix things up? Absolutely. When you have that much to fill, you get to experiment a lot and I've been building, rebuilding, and exploring this setting for nearly 45 years now.

I use this theory for my campaign world also.

 

[Celebrim]

Free People (Preapproved PC Races)
-------------------------
Sidhe, Pixie, Changling
Goblin, Hobgoblin
Elf
Human, Half-Elf, Half-Goblin
Dwarf
Orine (homebrew)
Idreth (homebrew)

Either free peoples or close kin by not generally playable for balance or gameplay reasons. Could be PCs if the player had proven themselves talented, trustworthy, had reasons more than power/ego and the campaign themes and level supported it, but has never happened. PC races are generally expected to be able to talk with a wide variety of characters, able to travel, able to get along socially with other beings, and so forth, and often that's not the case in this category.
----------------------------------------------------
Bugbear, Ogre, Hill Giant, Sprite, Troll, Atomie, Brownie, Nixie, Dryads, various faeries, ghosts, elementals, genies, true giants, deities, animals and animal spirits

Lesser Servitors (Basically resident outsiders) - Strictly not playable as they have little variation in personality and no real agency and often major gameplay issues. Would be like playing an orc in an authentic Tolkien setting. If they have true free will, you are doing it wrong.
-----------------------------
Merfolk, Gnolls, Kobolds, Ghouls, Minotaur, Troglodytes, Lizardfolk, Sahaughin, True Dragons, Aarakocra, Gibberlings, Yuan-Ti, Bullywogs, Myconids, Trents, Ettercaps, Aranea, Centaurs, Satyrs, various hags, probably more but they would be rare single colonies usually guarding and maintaining some sacred space belonging to a deity that they were unswervingly loyal to. I can imagine doing something like there are Tabaxi in this one temple in this one city and once a year they join the human priesthood in a procession through the streets, and those are the only Tabaxi in the universe.

Greater Servitors
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Fiends, Celestials, Modron, Slaad, etc.

Other (Aberrations)
Aliens in a sense, in that they are beings of whole different universes brought into this one long ago by ill-advised magic, never being meant to exist in this one. Inscrutable and dangerous. Varelse.
------
Mind Flayers, Beholders, Kopru, Aboleths, etc.

 

[Mephista]

I leave in the core species, but add in warforged, shifters, an abberant inspired tiefling and plasmoids as slimefolk.

Other species intermixed with core til theres no differences. Goblins intermixed with halflings to the point there's no differences, just throwbacks. Same with Hobs, bugbears to orcs, Goliath, etc. Kobold are Smol sized dagonborn (or shifters if you prefer anime style kobolds).

And so on.

 

[Lanefan]

Hey guys, got another question for EnWorld regarding Dungeons and Dragons. What races/species populate your world when you create them?

Are you referring just to PC-playable species or to all of 'em?

I ask because while my game has a very limited list of PC-playables the setting and its universe probably has every monster ever invented plus a few no-one's heard of yet (i.e. homebrews yet to be dreamed up).

Do you mix things up like having Dwarves in Fey Forests, do you keep things by the book, or a mixture of both?

More or less by the book, that way any exceptions stand out as unusual.

 

[The Soloist]

My last 5e group campaign (2018) had humans only. But true monsters (undead, demons, devils, dragons, etc) could be encountered underground or in the wilderness. It was a faux-France setting centred around the fortress of Carcassonne, which I visited in 2012.