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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mad_Jack" data-source="post: 8606837" data-attributes="member: 6750306">Although it's not a mechanically codified thing, in my games any character who gets their magic from an outside source (clerics, paladins, warlocks, druids, sorcerers) doesn't necessarily have to be getting their magic from the source they think they are... One player wanted to play a paladin/warlock, so we came up with the backstory that instead of being called to become a paladin by his god he'd instead been tricked into a warlock pact by a demon who was posing as a servant of the character's god. The demon was providing his magical "paladin" abilities until the character realized what had happened, and became an actual paladin, sworn to only use his warlock powers in the service of good. I once personally played a character who gained his clerical abilities simply because he so devoutly believed that he wasn't a cleric, but actually on his way to ascending to godhood himself. Essentially, his faith was in himself, lol. Another character of mine hails from a "lost village" of hereditary warlocks who long ago made a pact with an outsider they worship as a god. She also made a personal pact with a being she believes to be her village's patron, but in fact that being was slain long ago and the contract of the village's pact has since been repeatedly sold and stolen by nearly a dozen other various beings - her personal contract was made with a minor imp merely pretending to be her village's patron, who barely had the authority to offer her a deal. And even worse, that imp is now dead, and both contracts now sit collecting dust in some lost and forgotten vault full of forgotten contracts in the dungeon of Asmodeus' palace. I sometimes have non-evil surface enclaves of drow - they're extremely rare and usually small, but when I do add them they're also ancient and well-established enough that nobody's actively lining up to destroy them.Back when drow first became playable as a race, long before I'd ever read any of the Driz'zt novels, I rolled up a female drow character who was a Sworddancer of Eilistraee that fought with twin longswords, based largely on the artwork of the goddess herself. Part of the reason she was on the surface was because she was working as a trader for her family back in Menzoberranzan. She was basically the anti-Driz'zt, proud of her noble drow heritage even though she had little interest in engaging in the typical politics and backstabbing of her culture - she made a point of walking around without a hood or cloak on, and as a merchant spent a great deal of time talking to people.Later on, when I first became aware of all the Driz'zt hate, I retconned her background so that she'd actually known Driz'zt back in their younger "teenage" years, and thought he was a total wanker, a whiny emo kid who needed to pull his head out of his arse...  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool    :cool:"  data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" /> <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> Tieflings in my worlds run the gambit from the old-school 2e tieflings who might barely show their heritage to the current red skin, big horns and tail version, and their appearance could be the result of anything from biological to mystical. There are tieflings who are literally half-outsider, true-breeding tieflings who are directly descended from outsiders as well as those whose ancestors were cursed or made a pact, tieflings who are the only one in their family to show their heritage for a dozen generations, and tieflings who ended up like that because of a personal curse or pact. They also don't necessarily need to be of human stock either - they all use the same game stats, but players can pick any humanoid for their heritage and choose whether the outsider part is demon, devil or something else.In my worlds, they're about as closely related as modern birds and whatever crawled out of the oceans to later become the dinosaurs - even the most learned sages have to squint pretty hard to see the connections, but the kobolds still claim to be the spiritual children of dragons despite the only real evidence linking them being scales and that kobolds speak a debased form of Draconic.I have a kobold character named Krik'ik'kik't'kik, a sorcerer/rogue who dresses in nice human clothes like a wizard (including glasses) and gets raging mad any time he's not treated like a respected and powerful adventurer. He claims his name translates from Draconic as "Heart of Dragons", but the literal translation is "Wyrm Guts", lol. In my games, even regular armor looks like whatever the players want it to, and is powered by plot armor - if they're wearing more than a couple square inches of chainmail, they're wearing chainmail. So chainmail could be anything from Red Sonja's costume to a full set of historical Norman mail.   I have a sleazy merchant named A'li Al'Ras'Ghul (a play on "a little rascal") whose desert-style tent randomly shows up in the markets of cities all over the world - players have left him behind in one city only to pull into another and find that not only did he beat them there but he's been there for weeks. Although he comes across as nothing more than a sleazy second-hand junk dealer, information broker and occasional quest-giver, there's a reason he says he can get you anything you desire... A'li Al'Ras'Ghul is actually a minor player, schemer and instigator on a planar level - his tent is magically larger on the inside and actually contains a portal nexus with doors to Sigil and a couple other places. No one is quite sure what plane or world he's from, how he gained his current level of power, what his endgame is, or if he even has one, and that uncertainty coupled with the fact that he seems to be far closer to the Lady of Pain than his minor status would indicate have let him get away with some serious shenanigans over the years.In my game, you couldn't kill even the Minor God of Slightly Burnt Toast through physical or magical violence no matter what plane they're on. Like you said, there are ways to trick or defeat them, but you don't get to 20th level by being dumb enough to try something like that without dire necessity.Gnomes in my games aren't generally seen as the stereotypical cutesy almost-a-joke race that most people seem to have made them. There's a famous and highly feared mercenary company called the Hell Badgers, a company of sappers and siege engineers made up entirely of gnomes who announce their presence in battle by screaming like the dire badgers that accompany them and tossing incendiaries and fireballs like beads at a Mardi Gras parade. In my games they're a bit closer to Rumplestiltskin than they are to lawn gnomes - people are well aware of their fae heritage, and as a race they have a reputation as being sly tricksters and are perceived as slightly untrustworthy and slightly dangerous. Their use of both technology and magic makes most people a bit nervous - rather than having separate subraces of gnomes the differences are merely due to an individual gnome's choice to focus more on either magic or technology. People tend to be polite to them, and most folks have the common sense not to pick a fight with one or make fun of their size - it's well-known to generally end poorly, as "You get what you give." is an old gnomish proverb and gnomes have long memories (and many gnomish friends).</blockquote>

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