D&D General Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes and Halflings of Color

[Yaarel]

Love the : robot : emoji!

 

[Yaarel]

That's why I have being Drunk act as Exhaustion in my campaigns, instead of just Poison. Too much drinking will kill you.

Great idea!

Sometimes alcohol has benefits, like courage, morale, and maybe temporary hit points. But it comes with Exhaustion levels.

Excellent.

 

[Yaarel]

What is the best technical terminology?

So far, official sources have used:
• race
• subrace
• kin ( = race and subrace)
• lineage ( = race?)
• ethnicity
• culture



For a while, it seemed WotC was planning to remove the term "race". But recently, they seem to have walked that back. I support that removal, because many races are too human, making the term race too close to racist thinking. The buzz word has too much baggage. If the term race, as in the "human race", is to mean species, then the other races need to more clearly nonhuman.

That said.

The Players Handbook lists the Human having a number of "ethnicities". An ethnicity seems to blend "culture" and "physical diversity", such as average height, average skin color, etcetera.

If so, does subrace and ethnicity mean the same thing?

When I look at elves, the difference between High Elf and Wood Elf and Drow Elf, is easily an ethnic diversity. I suspect some might say the differences are mechanical differences. But. Ability modifiers no longer apply. Want a high Strength Drow? Done. Want a high Intelligence Wood? Done. Some traits are necessarily learned from culture, such as weapon training. Meanwhile other differences derive from diverse magical cultures. The difference between a High Elf and a Wood Elf is less than the difference between one Feat Human and an other Feat Human. And skin color does not a subrace make. These seem like Elven ethnicities.

Since ethnicity includes culture, I suppose "culture" means "proficiencies and background"?



It is unclear to me what the difference between race and lineage is. They appear to be identical, but some sentences use both terms in a way that implies a difference.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

It is unclear to me what the difference between race and lineage is. They appear to be identical, but some sentences use both terms in a way that implies a difference.

I believe that WotC is using Lineage as a "race", but you can turn into that thing. Dhampir are a Lineage because you don't have to be born as a Dhampir, you could've survived being bitten by a vampire in order to become one (or one of the other listed possibilities). If you made a deal with a hag that went wrong, you could be transformed into a Hexblood. If you died and was raised from the dead in a flawed manner, you could have been transformed into a Reborn.

You can't be turned into an Owlin or Rabbitfolk through a manner similar to this. You're born as those, just like how you're born as a Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling, Gnome, or any of the other races. You don't become them (unless through an unfortunate roll of the Reincarnate spell or the True Polymorph spell, which is a very different situation). You can be born as a certain lineage (like a Half-Vampire Dhampir character, a Half-Hag Hexblood character, or if you were born as a Reborn in a Manifest Zone to Dolurrh on Eberron), but you don't have to. IMO, if WotC were to redo all of 5e right now, they would make Aasimar, Genasi, Tieflings, and Simic Hybrids be Lineages, not races (they might even do the same for Eladrin and Kalashtar).

That's the difference between Race and Lineage. Race is your species, Lineage is your genetic mutation (and, yes, this does muddle the line between Sorcerers and Lineage/Race a bit).

 

[MGibster]

It is unclear to me what the difference between race and lineage is. They appear to be identical, but some sentences use both terms in a way that implies a difference.

I don't think they ever intended for there to be a difference between the meaning of lineage and race. They just decided to use lineage to mean the same thing while avoiding using the word race. We're on the euphemism treadmill here (which is fine because that's just how language works). Eventually WotC will just have to figure out what word and/or terms they wish to use to describe physical characteristics, culture, etc., etc. that's both clear to most readers and non-offensive to most people.

 

[Yaarel]

I believe that WotC is using Lineage as a "race", but you can turn into that thing. Dhampir are a Lineage because you don't have to be born as a Dhampir, you could've survived being bitten by a vampire in order to become one (or one of the other listed possibilities). If you made a deal with a hag that went wrong, you could be transformed into a Hexblood. If you died and was raised from the dead in a flawed manner, you could have been transformed into a Reborn.

You can't be turned into an Owlin or Rabbitfolk through a manner similar to this. You're born as those, just like how you're born as a Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling, Gnome, or any of the other races. You don't become them (unless through an unfortunate roll of the Reincarnate spell or the True Polymorph spell, which is a very different situation). You can be born as a certain lineage (like a Half-Vampire Dhampir character, a Half-Hag Hexblood character, or if you were born as a Reborn in a Manifest Zone to Dolurrh on Eberron), but you don't have to. IMO, if WotC were to redo all of 5e right now, they would make Aasimar, Genasi, Tieflings, and Simic Hybrids be Lineages, not races (they might even do the same for Eladrin and Kalashtar).

That's the difference between Race and Lineage. Race is your species, Lineage is your genetic mutation (and, yes, this does muddle the line between Sorcerers and Lineage/Race a bit).

But a lineage can be a normal "race" with prehistoric origins, born of parents.

Or a lineage can be a construct character concept, like the Warforge race is.

Apparently, a dragon can produce and engineer a new dragonborn from a dragon egg.

Genasi are element-touched mutations, that perhaps can happen spontaneously.

I dont see a meaningful distinction between race and lineage.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Aaaand you definitely CAN die from alcohol consumption.

You can die from an awful lot of things in extremes. Doesn’t make the thing poison.

 

[Dire Bare]

For mythological accuracy, as part of "elfness", the Elf must be visually appealing. There are many ways to be beautiful and that includes heavyset.

D&D has traditionally described the Elf as unusually slim. But it is more important to describe them as unusually beautiful.

Good being associated with beauty (elves) and evil being associated with ugliness (hags) is one of the problematic issues that D&D has with race, that it inherited from literature and folklore. I'd like to move beyond it, as much as possible.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Just because we and other intelligent mammals like it doesn't mean it's not a negative effect. Being tipsy is a sign that your body isn't working right anymore because you hurt it for the pleasant-feeling side-effects of almost dying.

We evolved not to die from consuming alcohol, and then as tool users abused that fact.

Lots of medicines are basically intelligently applied poisons/chemical weapons. Anything that numbs pain or messes with your blood for example. Just because we discovered dosing doesn't mean the intent on the plant's part wasn't to murder you, weaken you so others can murder you, make you think you are being murdered, or in the case of tomatoes--summon wasps to murder you.

Okay.

 

[Voadam]

Anyway a not Egyptian Dwarf from Nuria Natal. Con and Int mods. Midgard setting.

View attachment 140990

There is also Fantasy Egypt Hamunaptra

Pathfinder has the Pahmet and Ouat fantasy Egyptian dwarves, but I am not sure if there is official art for them.