An ancient civilization making a comeback... which race?

[Klaus]

Goliaths.

Dromites.

Elans.

 

[Sigurd]

Mix it up

There are so many non-core race books that you really should consider.

Silverthorn's Template books
AEG Monster & Mercenaries

If you rework a standard race you have a real potential to fall back into standard patterns, especially if you face player expectation.

I'd choose a developed race from a source your players aren't familiar. You can of course home brew it completely but if its going to be central to your setting another source might give you some welcome inspiration\collaboration. If the setting is a smaller PDF house there's a better chance that your players will be really surprised.

Adamant Entertainment
The first issue of Buccaneers and Bokar have a race called the Maboya (sort of a lizard\melnebonian) that would be interesting. Cruel racial supremacists with little use for humans*.

* It would be interesting to have a setting where the emerging 'old race' has decided to unite all the non humans against us.

Inner Circle
The Avadnu monster manual has a bunch of races - alien and wierd.

Mongoose
The Monster Encyclopedia has Cat People and all manner of things.


You might also consider Octavirate's "the Forgotten" it has mostly sort of regressed dragons and some half dragon templates. Its thematically very close to a re-emerging old race.


Sigurd

 

[cmrscorpio]

Depending on the amount of paranoia you want to instill, Phasms would be excelent of you wanted to do a whole world once ruled by creatures like the thing in John Carpenter's The Thing.

 

[Gez]

Elves.
Yuan-ti.
Lizardmen.
Ethergaunts (FF).
Humans.

Everything but elves. Elves as "ancient master civilization that's more ancient than everybody else and then some more" is horribly clichéd and overdone. Furthermore:

The race cannot be Elves, dwarves, humans, gnomes, halflings, orcs, or any goblinoid. Any ideas?

Giants are a good bet, since with the magical plague you get an excuse to use the various forms of giants (and ogres) as so many plague-warped degenerates. Cloud and Storm giants have remained close to their original glory, the others are more or less warped.

Another good bet is something that is really alien. The Spellweavers fit nicely the bill; and in another way the Dromite do, too.

Feys, collectively, could be interesting but probably isn't compatible with what you had in mind.

And these trogrells by sinecure, Tonguez and Hunter are just awesome.

 

[Set]

Another vote for Lizardfolk, with a twist.

Make them an uber-lawful stratified caste society, with Poison Dusk and Blackscale Lizardfolk (MM3) each being part of a separate-but-equal pair of castes that each follow very specific roles in their society.

You could even add a touch of Saurial to them, and have the Poison Dusk retain vestigial gliding membranes (being former pteradactyl-like humanoids) and the Blackscales retain some horn-fringes on their heads (being former triceratons). Despite their savage appearance, they would dress in ornate fineries, and the majority of their 'civilians' would have levels in Expert (being exceptional crafters) and Aristrocrat (being also consummate schemers, embroiled in all sorts of eons-old familial and political intrigues). If you want to add 'common' MM Lizardfolk in as a third caste, they could also be more saurian in appearance, perhaps velociraptorish, iguanadon-like or stegasaurian, depending on which way you want to go (or, the common Lizardfolk could represent three or four different subbreeds, statistically identical, but differing in appearance).

Despite their advanced culture and philosophies, they would still decorate themselves in 'savage' fineries, such as cloaks of brightly colored feathers or patterned animal hides, and clattering jewelry made of intricately carved bones and river-polished stones, creating a sense of disconnect in viewers of other races, who might initially see them as primitives, only to be rudely surprised...


To go with a completely different twist, have them appear to be human (albeit albino, perhaps from a millenia living underground), but actually be from that Human sub-race introduced in the Book of Vile Darkness. The plague / disaster that wiped out their world? Yeah, that was deliberate, they decided the easiest way to kill the gods was to kill all of their worshippers. They've poked their heads up and are very, very disappointed to find out that life has returned. Time to dust off the old genocide plans and start again...

 

[Wystan]

How about the Arcana Evolved Races?

Litorians and such....

 

[Roger]

Myconids.

Those guys are awesome.



Cheers,
Roger

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

Githkin; your choice of githyanki, githzerai or both. You can't go wrong with them.

Cheers,

 

[Felix]

Skeksis.

Who cares if they're not written up? They're friggin awesome bad guys. They'll make your PCs fear the title, "The Chamberlain".

 

[GreatLemur]

Ogres (& Merrow) - the plague caused the deginerate form we see today but once they were glorious (cue Ogre-Magi) maybe even add in other giants

Dromites would be cool too

One theory of the Hulk is that his body is made up entirely of a colony of cancerous cells which multiply when he is injured causing him to instantly heals (and become bigger and stronger) - the same idea could explain the Trolls ability to regenerate arising from the 'plague'
The Proto-Trolls might have actually caught their plague from their genetically engineered cities! - so yes some of the the cities are wonderous, self repairing and 'alive' but others are putrid death traps where the very walls seep a miasma of sickness and decay)

Abberation World where the native ecology is giant fungus and protozoan slimes, in which be-tentacled horrors exist as the degenirate offspring of a once thriving (yet alien) civilisation of bio-engineered cities and organic constructs

The Proto-Trolls were the first humanoids to 'infect' this strange world, forcing the Grell into hiding, but by their very entry bringing about the plague which mutated to become their curse

Now more humanoids are arriving, will they also become victims to the Troll curse and do they have the power to hold back the return of the native Grell...

MWAHAHAHA

Such terrible spelling and punctuation, but such great ideas! I really dig the hell out of all these concepts.