Homebrew Worlds and Races

[Andrew D. Gable]

Hey, all you homebrewers. I was just curious as to what new races you include in your world and what roles they play - or for your home variants on standard races.

Standard DnD Races
Human: The most widespread race of Dendain (my campaign world).
Dwarf: Split into two camps. The dwarves of Teraksheim struggle for their very survival against a horde of shambling undead; those of Skagsheim are a brutal military dictatorship that's harnessed the power of steam and gunpowder.
Elf: Of all the elves, only the grugach variety is usually available to PCs. The rest exiled themselves to the Plane of Faerie.
Genasi (all): Found mostly in shamanic areas of the world ("Africa", "Mongolia", parts of "Scandinavia").
Half-Elf: Rare crossbreeds between grugach and humanity. Found mainly in "Scandinavia".
Half-Orc: "Swine That Walk Like Men". Inhabitants of the nation known as Triath.
Lizardman: As vypanse, they inhabit "India".
Tiefling: Many of the human, elven, and orcish inhabitants of the Dark Hegemony (the "big baddie" in my world) are tieflings.
Vanara (OA): In "India".

New Races
Dwerrow: A lightly built variant on the dwarf motif, rumored by many to be crossbreeds between dwarves and a long-extinct race called "halflings".
Trine (name tentative): Think thri-kreen, with druid as a preferred class. (Yeah, I mercilessly lifted M:tG's Nantuko) BTW, can anyone think of a better name? Trine just isn't cutting it.
Ulfin: Basically, PC gnolls. The gnolls IMC all have the dire template (see below) added.
Woodwose: Best described as "dire men". Basically, humans with the Creature Catalog's dire template applied that live in the forests.

Also, the drow of my world are only a fraction of the dark elven race. I've combined most of the intelligent races of the Underdark under the heading of dark elf, so the drow are "brothers" to duergar, illithids, what have you. Each clan has many "sub-clans" or septs.

Aboleth..................................Clan Mirrormurk
Bainligor..................................Clan Bloodwhisper
Beholder.................................Clan Fellglance
Derro.....................................Clan Earthbore, Rockmind sept
Drow.....................................Clan Venomsong
Duergar.................................Clan Earthbore
Grimlock................................Clan Bonesharpener
Mind Flayer.............................Clan Mindlash

What are yours?

 

[bwgwl]

in my homebrew world, the PC races are:

• humans, of course.
• dwarves, broken into three ethnic groups. one is based on medieval russia, one on tibet. the last is a stone age society ruled by wizards, living amongst the ruins of their long-lost magical empire.
• goblins, which have racial traits more in line with PHB halflings.
• trolls. not MM trolls. this race is named troll, but physically looks like the MM bugbear and has stats of the MM ogre. (confusing, no? ) they are considered goblinoids, being, in effect, Large goblins.
• hobgoblins. a hobgoblin is anyone with a mixture of human and goblinoid (goblin or troll) blood.
• planetouched are common. i'm working on making them templates instead of races, though, so i can have aasimar dwarves and genasi goblins.

that's all that's available to PCs. the only other sentient races in the world are considered "monsters" and don't take part in civilization -- giants, minotaurs, hags, other forms of monstrous humanoids, fey, etc.

 

[Ral]

homebrew worlds

I do the following in my own home-brew.

Dwarves: loosely based on the Norse mythos. 2 distinct groups of dwarves, the clans (country dwellers) and the dwarves that live in the cities. A dwarf who leaves his homeland cannot return.

Elves: The Drow are a very small (about 5%) part of the total elven population. My drow are elves that have been banished from their homelands and have turned to the underground for survival.

Halflings and gnomes are rare.

Half-elves are common and are not shunned, except by elven royalty.

Humans are prevalent.

The sub-species are distributed throughout the land based on geography, I.E. high elves in the cities, wild in the country.

I think this gives a more plausible look and feel to my world. This reflects the recent inter-species wars that the land has recently recovered from.

Good luck and have fun

 

[bloodymage]

New Races

IMW, I only allow traditional D&D PC races, except half-orcs, who are killed at birth. I do have two variant NPC races:

Briny Elves

Also known as Nautical Elves or amongst themselves, Sea Elves, these are the sailors of Elfdom. They are as reclusive as Grey Elves, or more so. The only contact with them is sometimes when one of their "wave cutters" appears off a foreign port to trade. They tend to be slightly shorter, but stockier than High Elves with a ruddy complexion. They tend toward silver or golden hair with a greenish or bluish tint to it. Their eyes are bright and piercing, blue to green.

Typical ablity scores: Str 13, Dex 12, Con 11, Int 9, Wis 10, Cha 11

Briny Elf Traits:
Proficient with scimitar, rapier, dagger, ranseur, trident and all crossbows
More closely related to Aquatic Elves than other subraces, Briny Elves have an air sac rather than gills which allows them to store up to 4 hours of air (1d4)
Can speak with sea mammals (whales, dolphins, etc.)
Can cast Obscuring Mist at will as a supernatural ability which moves with the caster (or his ship) and cannot be blown away by anything less than a typhoon, though fire-based attacks are effective.

Preferred class: Fighter (sailor) or Sorcerer.

Dracolings

This subrace of halflings is reputed to be the result of an odd intermingling of halfling, elven and dragon ancestry. Physically, they most resemble Tallfellows. Their hair is universally golden, straight and long. Their eyes are the color and brilliance of gems. Their beauty is almost appalling (saving throw applies). The most significant physical difference between Dracolings and Tallfellows is that a Dracoling's skin is almost translucent. They have a symbiotic relationship with most of the breeds of gemstone dragons providing them with companionship and comfort. They aid in defense and provide anoniminity for the dragons. Most importantly, one Dracoling mate is required to produce a gemstone hatchling.

Typical ablity scores: Str 9, Dex 12, Con 13, Int 11, Wis 14, Cha 21

Dracoling traits:

They have no weapon proficiencies
As Lightfoots and Tallfellows plus an additional +4 natural bonus to AC (the translucent skin is not fragile!)
Lifespan 1/2 dragon
Immune to fear, sleep, paralysis
SR 17
Blindsight 15 ft.
Keen Senses 1/2 dragon ability
Gaze attack 1x/day Flesh to Stone.

Preferred class: Wizard.

 

[Xyros]

My primary campaign world was inspired in equal parts by the Mongo of Flash Gordon and the Rann of Adam Strange. None of the races from the Player's Handbook - including humans - are "standard," though a rare handful kidnapped from alternate prime material planes may be found in the larger nations (one of my players is in fact playing such a "Flash Gordon-esque" elf hero).

Some of the standard races of the Old States instead are:

the arransu - a blue-skinned people with bifurcated wrists and ankles (that is, each arm ends in two hands, each leg ends in two feet) whose preferred class is psychic warrior.

the durajh - a race of natural hermaphrodites whose preferred class is samurai. They consider "monosexuals" little better than humanoid animals.

the xos - a green-skinned race whose heads are shaped like the classic Platonic solids. My players call 'em "dice heads," i.e. one subrace has a cube-shaped skull, another has a tetrahedron-shaped head, and so on. The xos are a caste-divided society; each skull shape has its own community, and one's status within that community is determined by skull size. The bigger the head, the more important the person. Caste determines class preference.

the kureshim - from "If Thoughts Could Kill." They are refugees from another world living among the arransu.

There are others, similarly alien and strange. The campaign features psionics over arcane or divine magic, so many of the races have either psion or psychic warrior as their preferred class.

 

[Tsyr]

The vast majority of my campagin world is unexplored... If there are other races out there, they will be discovered later, but not yet

From the Core Rules:

Humans, Goblins, a couple different types of Giants, Centaur, Dragons, Sprites, Nymps, Dryads, Satyrs, Gnolls. Not all are available as PC races though (Only PC from that list)

Home-brewed creatures: Elves, Dwarves,* and a few other creatures drawn from mythology. Only elves and dwarves from that list are open for player characters.

*My elves and dwarves are signifigantly different from the PHB elves and dwarves

 

[Darraketh]

Grimalkin: a malicious race of matriarchal felines.

And all the usual suspects.

 

[Tonguez]

Re: New Races

IMW, I only allow traditional D&D PC races. I do have two variant NPC races:

Briny Elves
Also known as Nautical Elves or amongst themselves, Sea Elves, these are the sailors of Elfdom. They are as reclusive as Grey Elves, or more so. The only contact with them is sometimes when one of their "wave cutters" appears off a foreign port to trade. More closely related to Aquatic Elves than other subraces, Briny Elves have an air sac rather than gills which allows them to store up to 4 hours of air (1d4)
Can speak with sea mammals (whales, dolphins, etc.)
Can cast Obscuring Mist at will as a supernatural ability which moves with the caster (or his ship) and cannot be blown away by anything less than a typhoon, though fire-based attacks are effective.

Hey these are almost identical to my Mariner Elves (even down to the ability to breath underwater for a few hours (imc =con bonus - but no air sac) and Obscuring Mist!!!

Anyway besides these rarely encountered Mariner Elves (who imc live on huge raft-islands) the world (which is made up of Islands)also features

Humans - per PHB

Half-elves- imc elves are NPC Fey 'Sidhe' - with the ability to use both obscuring mist and Ethereal Jaunt they occasionally 'fall in love' with mortals and thus Half-elves are born

Half-orcs -Actually my world doesn't have Orcs, but these creatures called the 'Children of Punga' are human 'throw-backs' said to be descended from Punga the god of ugly things (like Lizards, insects, sharks and abberations)

Gnomes-as is

Goblins -as is

Half-giants 9 feet tall, strong and wise. Favoured class Druid +1ecl

Avians - 'Humans' with wings able to glide (but not fly unless they take a feat and gain the Fly skill)

Sea People 'Humans' (the People of Kiwa) able to breath underwater but who are light-sensitive

Sahuagin My main badguys and available as PCs at +3ecl

Lizardmen also exist but have not yet been encountered and aren't yet available.

 

[Warchild]

My favorite homebrew setting has humans and some near humans (transformed by magical energies). Elves, dwarves, gnomes, and the rest give me a rash these days! LOL.

 

[War Golem]

Allowed PC races in my current "Return of Khaos" campaign are Human, Elf and Dwarf from the PHB, all planetouched from FRCS (plus the 2 lawful/chaotic ones from a recent Dragon issue, if anyone wanted to play one), and 4 "custom" races: Kzinti, Nali, Sauran, and Skaven. All but the Nali are adapted from other games.

The four custom races are detailed on my web site.

Cheers!

-War Golem