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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Levistus's_Leviathan" data-source="post: 8512096" data-attributes="member: 7023887">If I'm reading this correctly, you're basically asking "how do I attach a story to a race that I just have the mechanics of?". Is that accurate? Like "Tieflings are often outcasts from their societies due to their Devil blood, as are Aasimar and Genasi" and you're asking how to build a race's story/identity from just the mechanics of them (not just the in-game mechanics, but also the lore-mechanics of how they came to be in the world). Correct me if I'm misreading any of this. This was actually a part of the core premise of <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/no-more-humans-in-funny-hats-racial-mechanics-should-determine-racial-cultures.682105/#post-8375405" target="_blank">this thread of mine</a>. The premise was "cultures of the player races in a world are developed through the context of the world and what mechanically sets them apart from humans". Warforged are taken advantage of in Eberron because, up until recently, they were treated as golems enslaved by the 5 nations to serve (and die) in their war so that the "normal races" wouldn't have to, Kalashtar are refugees from their oppressive homeland with mystical powers and harmful stereotypes that makes others shun them, and Shifters are persecuted due to the fact that they're related to Lycanthropes, and were almost completely wiped out by a Church-driven genocide a few decades ago. The point that I'm trying to get across here is that the race's "story" is built by three main things:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Their lore-based identity that sets them apart from humans (Warforged are "living constructs" with souls, Shifters are lycanthrope-folk, Kalashtar are psionic humans bonded with an alien entity, Planetouched are part-demon/elemental/celestial/fey, et cetera.)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">How they came to be in the world, typically in a manner that is different from the origins of humans in this setting (Warforged were created by a magical corporation to serve in the Last War, Shifters are descended from Lycanthropes, Kalashtar were created when Quori fled to the Material Plane to merge with humans, Planetouched are the result of inter-planar crossbreeding, and so on.)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">What game-mechanics set them apart from humans (Warforged don't have to eat, drink, breathe, sleep, and so on, Shifters can become more "feral" temporarily, Kalashtar don't dream and are telepathic, Planetouched have some characteristics of their otherworldly parent.)</li> </ol>From what you described in a recent post, this race answers these questions like this:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">They are heavily devoted to . . . something. Cult-like. This would probably end up making them be hated/disliked by most other races, especially ones that don't worship the same entities/gods. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">They seem to be connected to the Far Realm based on their description. Even if they aren't, their physical appearance alone is probably going to result in the people of the world not being all that fond of them. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">They have four arms. Think about how that would influence their culture. They would be great artists, warriors, and spellcasters if they set their minds to it. Their mouths' tentacles writhe when they're happy, so they wouldn't have any emotional response to seeing someone smile, and would instead have that response based on the tentacle-writhing motion. They don't have a nose, so they probably wouldn't have any sense of smell and wouldn't care about living in filthy environments. (This could further alienate them from other races, with them having the stereotype of being filthy, emotionless monsters that worship an evil god/entity that want to end the world, or something similar to that.) </li> </ol>I hope this helps.</blockquote>

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