Desdichado
Hero
So, in my homebrew campaign, I've eliminated most of the D&D races. No elves. No dwarves. No halflings or gnomes. Not even any orcs, goblinoids, gnolls, medusas, ogres, etc. that seem to teem all over the face of every other campaign setting.
Instead, I have humans. Oh, and the humans have been bred over centuries by slavers, leading to breeds of humans. The model here is something akin to what we've done over the centuries with the domestic dog; we've got herding dogs like border collies, we've got sled dogs like huskies, we've got great pyrenees and St. Bernards, we've got chihuahuas and cocker spaniels, we've got pointers, we've got Irish wolfhounds... anyway, I could go on, but you get the point. My campaign has the Bred; about half a dozen races that are really mostly humans, except they vary in appearance and mechanics somewhat. More information available on my campaign website.
Anyway, despite the fact that I really like that aspect of my campaign, I do miss having some more alien races at times, and in a scenario in which breeders may well have been breeding other creatures besides humans as well (after all, we have breeds of horses, cattle, sheep, cats, etc. in addition to dogs) then I can have some other, stranger races lurking about in dark corners of my campaign setting as well. And for some reason, as I've been thinking about this, I've been turned to some Games Workshop material.
The first idea I had was for a ratmen type of race; after all, rats are pretty ubiquitous, and are definitely survivors. It does make sense that the ancient Breeders may have experimented with them at some time in the past. Besides that, the Games Workhop skaven models are pretty darn cool, and Scarred Lands already did us all a favor by converting them into d20 under the guise of their ratmen race detailed in Creature Collection, Creature Collection II and Warrens of the Ratmen. The basic ratman is a roughly humanoid rat, barely medium sized and fairly lanky -- probably 4-5 feet tall and not much more than 100 lbs. Here's a pretty good picture of the miniatures. Another breed, the rat ogres (represented by the stats for maulers from Warrens of the Ratmen are really, really cool -- as this picture shows. It's also easy to add things like rat swarms, dire rats and even rat things from the d20 Call of Cthulhu book as being associated with the ratmen, and if I really want to, I can come up with a daemonic patron for the race, although the paint job on that one is a bit, er, on the colorful side.
Sort of along those same lines, I've always been intrigued by the Beastmen of Warhammer, and the latest models are by far the best, looking still very bestial, but not having goat heads per se; the muzzles are generally considerably flatter and slightly more humanoid.
Probably my favorite idea, though, is to try and do something with the kroot -- great models, stupid name. One of the things I actually really like about the kroot is that there are several critters that all look like they came from the same stock; perfectly in line with the idea of mad breeders creating blasphemous creations in the dim past. All of the kroot-creatures have tough, leathery hide, blunt but ridged and sharpened beaks, and long quills like that of monstrous porcupines at various spots on their body. This page shows a few of the varieties, including the basic plan; a tall yet tough and wiry guy, the doglike predators, and a large, ape-like or ogre-like variety. This link shows the chaser/hunter types alone, and this one shows the ape/ogre variety. If I want to get really crazy (and spendy), I can add these other varieties that are hand cast in resin from Forge World -- riding beasts that look a bit like beaked and quilled tyranosaurians. There are even larger varieties of that latter here and here.
The biggest problem for these guys from my perspective is that they're all holding laser guns, but that's not beyond my ability to model, and other than that, they look quite primitive. Well, I also think the name kroot is pretty stupid, but I'm certainly capable of changing that. I'm actually excited to try and write up a culture and backstory for these as the private project of some ancient rogue breeder that wasn't happy with his human stock of slaves. I'll probably post some more on that front right here later, but I'm curious if anyone has any thoughts first; how would you add these miniatures as an NPC race to your campaign, what would you make them like, would you start fresh with stats or borrow something else (half thinking of making them mechanically be simply gnolls or something like that).
Instead, I have humans. Oh, and the humans have been bred over centuries by slavers, leading to breeds of humans. The model here is something akin to what we've done over the centuries with the domestic dog; we've got herding dogs like border collies, we've got sled dogs like huskies, we've got great pyrenees and St. Bernards, we've got chihuahuas and cocker spaniels, we've got pointers, we've got Irish wolfhounds... anyway, I could go on, but you get the point. My campaign has the Bred; about half a dozen races that are really mostly humans, except they vary in appearance and mechanics somewhat. More information available on my campaign website.
Anyway, despite the fact that I really like that aspect of my campaign, I do miss having some more alien races at times, and in a scenario in which breeders may well have been breeding other creatures besides humans as well (after all, we have breeds of horses, cattle, sheep, cats, etc. in addition to dogs) then I can have some other, stranger races lurking about in dark corners of my campaign setting as well. And for some reason, as I've been thinking about this, I've been turned to some Games Workshop material.
The first idea I had was for a ratmen type of race; after all, rats are pretty ubiquitous, and are definitely survivors. It does make sense that the ancient Breeders may have experimented with them at some time in the past. Besides that, the Games Workhop skaven models are pretty darn cool, and Scarred Lands already did us all a favor by converting them into d20 under the guise of their ratmen race detailed in Creature Collection, Creature Collection II and Warrens of the Ratmen. The basic ratman is a roughly humanoid rat, barely medium sized and fairly lanky -- probably 4-5 feet tall and not much more than 100 lbs. Here's a pretty good picture of the miniatures. Another breed, the rat ogres (represented by the stats for maulers from Warrens of the Ratmen are really, really cool -- as this picture shows. It's also easy to add things like rat swarms, dire rats and even rat things from the d20 Call of Cthulhu book as being associated with the ratmen, and if I really want to, I can come up with a daemonic patron for the race, although the paint job on that one is a bit, er, on the colorful side.
Sort of along those same lines, I've always been intrigued by the Beastmen of Warhammer, and the latest models are by far the best, looking still very bestial, but not having goat heads per se; the muzzles are generally considerably flatter and slightly more humanoid.
Probably my favorite idea, though, is to try and do something with the kroot -- great models, stupid name. One of the things I actually really like about the kroot is that there are several critters that all look like they came from the same stock; perfectly in line with the idea of mad breeders creating blasphemous creations in the dim past. All of the kroot-creatures have tough, leathery hide, blunt but ridged and sharpened beaks, and long quills like that of monstrous porcupines at various spots on their body. This page shows a few of the varieties, including the basic plan; a tall yet tough and wiry guy, the doglike predators, and a large, ape-like or ogre-like variety. This link shows the chaser/hunter types alone, and this one shows the ape/ogre variety. If I want to get really crazy (and spendy), I can add these other varieties that are hand cast in resin from Forge World -- riding beasts that look a bit like beaked and quilled tyranosaurians. There are even larger varieties of that latter here and here.
The biggest problem for these guys from my perspective is that they're all holding laser guns, but that's not beyond my ability to model, and other than that, they look quite primitive. Well, I also think the name kroot is pretty stupid, but I'm certainly capable of changing that. I'm actually excited to try and write up a culture and backstory for these as the private project of some ancient rogue breeder that wasn't happy with his human stock of slaves. I'll probably post some more on that front right here later, but I'm curious if anyone has any thoughts first; how would you add these miniatures as an NPC race to your campaign, what would you make them like, would you start fresh with stats or borrow something else (half thinking of making them mechanically be simply gnolls or something like that).
