Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ilbranteloth" data-source="post: 6797601" data-attributes="member: 6778044">And in the Realms, the dwarves and elves came first. The elves, and to a lesser degree the dwarves, helped build human society. The centuries of history between the races has a huge impact. A dragonborn walking into a village, town, or even city, for the first time would be quite noticeable, amongst the humans, elves, half-elves, dwarves, and such. As originally described in Waterdeep and the North, even this most cosmopolitan city is primarily human. Of all of the NPCs listed in the supplement, all are human except for 1 elf, 1 half-elf, 1 dwarf, 1 gnome, 1 halfling, 1 half-orc, and 1 beholder. The beholder, of course, is the Xanathar and doesn't wander the streets.The description of the half-orc states: Half-orcs are rare in Waterdeep, but are tolerated as all beings short of dow and illithids (mind flayers) are, if their gold is good. Ulmrin can pass for human in appearance...Likewise, Greenwood's description of the North in the same supplement gives the following overview of history: One thousand years ago, the North consisted of a number of civilized elven and dwarvish realms surrounded by a wilderness roamed by fearsome monsters, and such races as orcs, trolls, hobgoblins, and bugbears. Human tribes were few and primitive, dwelling along the coast. The lower birth rates of the demo-human races rendered them less able to replace casualties suffered in their almost continual fighting with the aggressive humanoids, and with the years their number dwindled. They have been steadily pushed southward by the ever-expanding, fecund orc tribes, abandoning realm after realm, or being overwhelmed by numbers and slaughtered. The many resulting, largely-empty dwarves delves and holds are what human adventurers refer to as &#147;dungeons.&#148;The demi-humans, although they achieved many splendid victories in battle, could not stem the humanoid tide even when they united (see &#147;the Fallen Kingdom,&#148; page 5). Today, the dwarves remain only around the richest &#147;mithril mines&#148; in the North, and no known elven settlements of any size exist north of Evereska. The rise of human power in the North outstripped even the growth of the orcs, and prevented the collapse of civilization in the area.The Realms (and D&D) as a whole was this way well into the 2nd edition. I think the first organized foray into playing 'monstrous' races was the Complete Book of Humanoids in 1993, and additional races weren't really made 'canon' until the 3rd Edition Campaign Setting in 2001. Granted, the Forgotten Realms have been around as long with all of those races as without (bearing in mind that Greenwood has been writing stories since '69). Published accounts, of course, didn't exist until the late '70's. But for a lot of us, it was exactly the world we were looking for. And for more than two decades it was. When they did introduce the planetouched, they looked like this:<a href="http://daedaluswing.wdfiles.com/local--files/planetouched/raceplanetouched.jpg" target="_blank">http://daedaluswing.wdfiles.com/local--files/planetouched/raceplanetouched.jpg</a>Planetouched are described as '...in most ways appear completely human.' Aasimar and tieflings both say 'some have a minor physical trait suggesting their heritage,' and the genasi are described as 'mostly human, with one or two unusual traits reflecting their quasi-elemental nature.' Also, the genasi are largely from Calimshan, a land where genies, djinn, jann, etc. have a long history, as the 'nation' was founded by genies, and now they are banned. So in their homeland they are persecuted, and would most likely go out of their way to hide their heritage even if they left the land.These added unique alternatives, without having to drastically change the very humanocentric campaign that had long existed. Only with Races of Faerun in 2003 did we start seeing exotic races (aarokocra, centaurs, lizard folk, yuan-ti, etc.) as playable races. To me, playing an unusual race like that is most interesting in a campaign designed for that purpose. The Stranger in a Strange Land trope works best if that's the actual focus of the campaign, which means that the focus is on a single individual. So the Realms were very centered on a Tolkien-based worlds (complete with the elves in retreat), which fit very, very well into Gygax's concept of D&D, at least as it was published. The racial limits in AD&D built in an automatic limiter to make certain races and classes less common, particularly if you followed the rules and rolled up a character by rolling 3d6 for each ability, in order. You rolled, you got what you got, and you built your character off of those stats. If you were interested in rising to the highest levels possible, you had to be human.Up until c2001, the published Forgotten Realms was very distinct, and then it started being pulled into the D&D homogenizer.Ilbranteloth</blockquote>

Verification