In need of an elder race (master)

[DaveStebbins]

Think I am going to to with an avian race, strong in magic, mosty devices. It will be a raptor race, that sees the other races as a food source, which caused the building of underground complexes.

For some reason, this post made me think of using a fey race as the elder nasty. There are a wealth of options here and you could easily build a campaign with loads of dark characters, locations and plots.

Hmmm. I think I'm going to use this in an uderdeveloped part of my campaign world.

-Dave
"Dysfunction - The only consistent feature of all your dissatisfying relationships is you." --from www.despair.com

 

[CCamfield]

I just posted some history I developed for an ancient dwarven empire along these lines in a different thread. They didn't necessarily have awesome powers to create different races, but they could have created half-elves and half-orcs through breeding projects.

 

[Ringmaster]

Spiders... all about the spiders. This came indirectly from a show on TLC or Discovery about what takes over after humans.

Imagine valley spanning webs that catch seeds which the spiders gather in order to grow fodder for their humanoid cattle.

Cocooning.

A whole new system of spells/traps based on spinning webs. Imagine that same valley spanning web, except this time it's a gigantic spell or ritual that will allow the spiders to make their comeback.

Desicated corpses.

The spiders speak with complex body language and by stamping their legs (vibrations), or could communicate complex messages directly to another by injecting highly specialized poisons.

Poison.

Special humanoids are adopted as familiars and the wizard spider (a burrower) rides around in one of the humanoid's eye sockets. If the ancient race in your campaign is making a comeback, no one would suspect the spider in some NPCs eye to be the one calling the shots.