A Good Non-orc Orc/Minion Race...

[Remathilis]

For Some, its orcs. Others, its goblins, or draconians, or gnolls, etc.

I'm looking for something different.

PREMISE: An industrial city/metropolis surrounded by a mostly barren waste. People have fled to the safety of cities, even normally evil races have begun to live in these urban sprawls. Safe transport is done by rail, and its dangerous to leave the city area.

What I need is a good race/monster that can keep a fairly industrial culture confined to its cities. It needs the following:

1.) Prolific. Lots of them.
2.) Able to survive in a non-flourishling land, like in mountains.
3.) Temperate if possible, but I'm open to Cold/Hot.
4.) Not a Goblinoid/Orc
5.) Weak enough to fill a role normally filled by orcs, but with enough variety/advancement to challenge higher level characters.
6.) Not Undead/Demonic, for campaign reasons.

Ideas I've had included the Firenewt (Monsters of Faerun) and the Abiel (MM2), but I want some creative ideas for other monsters from other sources.

 

[Mark]

You could take gargoyles, drop them down to 2HD and have them advance by character class instead of HD (as -2 LA).

 

[Nightfall]

Well there's Asaatthi, Ratmen/Slitheren, and Sutak. They are my favorites.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Ideas I've had included the Firenewt (Monsters of Faerun) and the Abiel (MM2)...

Damn - I was going to say Abiel.

Um, Bullywugs?

-Hyp.

 

[Quick Leaf]

wererats

Wererats! Hordes of filthy, treacherous, cowardly wererats! What's worse is you never know who has the disease of lycanthropy within the city walls.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Super intelligent, evil, mind-eating Kobolds!

 

[FireLance]

Wererats are good. You might also want to consider troglodytes. So bad you can smell they're bad.

 

[TroyXavier]

There's always gnolls. Like Orcs but more fun.

 

[Kalendraf]

Grimlocks. Normally encountered underground, but consider an off-shoot that now lives above ground instead. Make them into nocturnal hunters that do their raiding at night when the darkness hinders their foes, but their blindsense works fine giving them an advantage. They are still dangerous in the daytime, but tend to sleep then so they are not as active.

IMHO, the grimlocks are the D&D equivalent of the Morlocks in the movie "The Time Machine". You can watch that to get ideas of how to use them. Consider making them into cannibal tribes that feed on any humanoids they can find, and then other tribes if hunting gets poor.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Gnolls are cool. Especially 3e Gnolls because they're rangers. Toss on levels of ranger/druid on those puppies (Pun! HA! I kill me!) and you have a nice, scaleable foe.

Incidentally, druids are Nasty McNasty at high levels. Although, I would make Gnolls a +1 ECL race. I know that according to "da r00lz" they should be +2, but I made up a Gnoll/Ranger-4 for a 6th level game and he was kind of weak.