。Nonhuman fantasy civilizations question

[Guang]

Remember Fallcrest, back in 4th edition? A point of light composed of people from whatever races supported each other against the darkness, very different groups thrown together by circumstance into a working whole.

So I was thinking on how to recreate a "fallcrest", using only those fantasy civilizations that were deeply detailed across multiple mediums and/or gamelines, with subcultures and subgroups - you know, kind of like how real people are.

I only came up with 3, counting humans. Elves from Tolkien to FR to DS to Midnight RPG. Dwarves with a similar range of good source material.

What am I missing? I thought maybe goblinoids, but they're either a faceless evil army. Even Warcraft Orcs are kinda one-dimensional.

Would love to find more that have their own cultures and civilizations, but not sure where to look. Help pls?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

...fantasy civilizations that were deeply detailed across multiple mediums and/or gamelines...

That’s your problem right there! Not many fantasy settings have been detailed across multiple mediums.

 

[GMMichael]

Just take real cultures and re-skin them as fantasy races. The Elder Scrolls should have more orc (orsimer) culture if you really need another source.

 

[Eltab]

In most lore, Gnomes hide "just over the hill" or in out-of-the-way corners. They could always have been there, but easily missed behind their illusions.

Halflings can be in some quiet safe corner, providing the agricultural breadbasket(s) of a larger kingdom. Halflings never have adventures (which they think of as a synonym for "disturbing the peace") or do anything or go anywhere, so the people who write histories don't have any reason to say anything about them.

 

[Guang]

Thanks for the replies.
Dannyalcatraz, I'm thinking more archetypes than settings. Elves and dwarves can't be the only ones that have kingdoms, art, culture, history, wars, and so on, just fighting bad elves and bad dwarves, having no need for humans in their stories most of the time as either friends or enemies, can they? I thought maybe lizardfolk, but the best lizardfolk civilization I've seen comes from Doctor Who, which would be tough to transtion over to fantasy. Then I thought maybe some kind of merfolk, but same problem - seems the best choices are the seven nations of aquaman or the gungans of jarjar.

DMMike, thanks for the Orsimer suggestion. I never got into the Elder Scrolls, and am enjoying reading up on them.

In most lore, Gnomes hide....
Halflings....quiet safe corner....

Yes, and I've run into instances of each that I absolutely love. But an independent civilization for either of them? I haven't yet run into it. I mean, if you even just do word association: elf city.....elf nation....elf army - no problem. Dwarf city....dwarf empire...dwarf army, also no problem. Halfling city, nation, army.....closest I've seen is The Shire, and that was protected from afar, nowhere close to being independent. Maybe something could be done combining all the "little people" into one people, like Fantasycraft? Seems a start, but not sure where to go with it.

I just keep thinking there's got to be a way to have a fourth "core race" people have powerful, educated, confident deep "old country" roots. There's gotta be something archetypal I'm missing that's not evil like snakepeople.

 

[Celebrim]

Faeries.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Dannyalcatraz, I'm thinking more archetypes than settings. Elves and dwarves can't be the only ones that have kingdoms, art, culture, history, wars, and so on, just fighting bad elves and bad dwarves, having no need for humans in their stories most of the time as either friends or enemies, can they? I thought maybe lizardfolk, but the best lizardfolk civilization I've seen comes from Doctor Who, which would be tough to transtion over to fantasy. Then I thought maybe some kind of merfolk, but same problem - seems the best choices are the seven nations of aquaman or the gungans of jarjar.

Don’t let prepublished stuff- or its lack- limit you.

IME, Reptilian cultures have almost always been more popular in sci-fi than in fantasy. But D&D’s Lizardfolk already have a loosely defined tribal structure that lends itself to all kinds of adaptation to emulating pre-European Mesoamerican, Polynesian or similar cultures in warmer climes.

I’ve done likewise with anthro-wolves, Minotaurs, Gnolls and the like.

I took the riverboat trading cultures described for halflings in 4Ed and used it for some 3.5Ed dwarves I reskinned as anthro snapping turtles.

 

[Jhaelen]

Would love to find more that have their own cultures and civilizations, but not sure where to look. Help pls?

In my 3e D&D campaign I used the Changing Breeds from oWoD's Werewolf: The Apocalypse as an inspiration for about a dozen different lycanthropic humanoid species. I ruled that like the Shifters in D&D's Eberron setting they didn't actually contract lycanthropy. Instead you had to be born as one of them.

Since there were dedicated supplements for each of them, history, culture and society were quite detailed and well developed, so they served as an excellent basis for their D&D equivalents.

 

[GMMichael]

I just keep thinking there's got to be a way to have a fourth "core race" people have powerful, educated, confident deep "old country" roots. There's gotta be something archetypal I'm missing that's not evil like snakepeople.

Oh. Yeah, that's totally orcs. The only reason that they're portrayed as brutish, evil, etc. is because history is written by the victors.

 

[Fluerdemal]

Back in the 1e days there were the "<race> Point of View" articles that are probably worth tracking down. That said, you could probably reskin the Dragon-Blooded from Exalted as Aaismar and the Abyssals as Tieflings if you wanted, that would give you some rich lore to draw on.

Similarly, it can easier sometimes to "collapse" several of the evil races into one race with multiple specializations. So in my game world goblins are goblins, snotlings (name/concept stolen from Games Workshop) as goblin young, hobgoblins that are experienced, senior goblins, redcaps that are the hobgoblin elite, and black goblins (aka bugbears) that are giant sterile mules that occur semi-regularly in goblin communities. Now I use one basic cultures for all the goblins instead of having to figure out a half-a-dozen different cultures for basically very similar races... This let me get rid of orcs and a bunch of other relatively generic evil humanoids as somewhat redundant and clean up the ecology of the setting.

D.