Inter-racial borders?

[Ferret]

So in fantasy with the usual races, all of whom are good or at least not evil, have their colonies and countries.

Mainly in fantasy humans rule; they're everywhere, but in a world that has equal (or near enough) levels of races what happens? They sit in seperate countries, trading and what not but remain unmixed? This leaves the playing field open when land becomes unoccupied, what happens when you go visit elfland. One dwarf milions of elves? Many may not have seen then before. What if they are mixed? Are they all friendly, or do caste levels form? Slaves even?

No taking this to a new level, all of the core races loock roughly the same, just sizes and whats inside. What happens if these races look nothing like each other? Say the kingdoms, or kingdom (featuring a mix) have Centuars, ogres, kobolds, humans and satyr. Or any mix of apearence and alignment?

 

[Mark Plemmons]

Personally, I'd say that countries of humanoid races would have the exact same problems as human countries. They would trade goods, make war, form alliances, and so on.

 

[Ferret]

[edit: Sorry misread above post.

So they war and trade?

 

[Mark Plemmons]

[edit: Sorry misread above post.

So they war and trade?

In my opinion, yes. Though of course they probably wouldn't war with country X AND trade with country X at the same time.

 

[Aries_Omega]

Racism

Ahhh.....now we are talking. Thats one thing that gets me. By default a human is cool with an elf. They have GIANT POINTED FRICKIN EARS! But seriously...in my campaign in the human kingdom that my players game in the population is mostly human....like 90%. They in the last 50 years have made up with the high elf empire, the various dwarven city-states and came together to fight of the evil orcs....okay....cheesy. If I had to compare my campaign to another exsisting one the closest is Fading Suns.

The humans have subjugated first the native humans (barbarian tribes) of the area like Europeans did with Amer-Indians and then later pushed the wild elves out of their homeland. If it wasn't for the high elven kingdom....who incidently just gave the wild elves soverignty they would have been in deep stuff.

As part of the agreement for fighting against the orcs (like the elves wouldn't have) the state church recently has decreed that demi humans....elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes and other races that fought alongside the humans have souls and do go to heaven....just not the same one that humans do....they go to a lesser heaven for being tainted and non-human. Talk about gratitude.

Aries

 

[Hand of Evil]

Humans dislike difference, Humans are pack animals - they will always find something to cause conflict.

Life span - what would be the effect on trade, honor, treaties? How would a short lived race view long term agreements? What of alignment changes to within groups over a period of time?

 

[Green Knight]

Eh, personally I find the whole bit where the bigots are almost always humans tiresome. Nothing wrong with bigoted humans, but why not create bigots of other races, as well?

For instance, instead of doing the whole "Europeans invade the Indians and take their lands" bit, how about having a nation of Gray Elves invade the lands of the Wild Elves and take them? Or have a nation of Dwarves which keeps High Elf slaves? Or how about a society of Rock Gnomes which considers the Svirfneblin an abomination, and are trying to wipe them out of existence?

That's infinitely more interesting than the "humans are the source of all bigotry" plotlines which has been trotted out in practically every form of sci-fi and fantasy. There have been exceptions, of course, but it just gets annoying eventually seeing one show/story after another going to that well and coming back with the same old product.

 

[frankthedm]

Humans are little more than talking, violent, & greedy apes to most Elves. Dwarves are well known for thier bigotry in tolkien inspired fantasy. Both races tend to be of good alignment while humans tend to be neutral, so logicaly the racist action of humans will generaly be worse/ crueler/ more evil. And since authors know just what humans are capable of, it is simpler to use them rather than defining what a Lawful or chaotic good race would or would not do.

 

[Three_Haligonians]

In the campaign I'm playing we've always treated it like this:

Large urban areas: you'll find mixes of all races. Albeit, in some cities these races might naturally live close together, making an elven sector or a dwarven sector. But people move, fact of life, and typically they move to larger urban centers for work or convienence. When this occurs, you've got no choice but to start brushing up on your dwarven....if not language, at least you'll have some idea of thier customs etc. What results is that most large urban areas are a mulicultural mix.

Rural areas: well, now you've got a better chance of seeing an entire town made up of humans or elves or whatnot. Even so, there are loads of people travelling through towns for whatever reason. And many of these smaller towns must do business with thier local big city, so most people are used to seeing all sorts of races.

Four adventurers with homicidal tendancies soaked in blood, however, not so typical.

Seriously, though, yes, occasional racism exists, but, mostly its a matter of nationalism. If your an elf from Rendora (a spanish-type setting) you'll probably find yourself exhanging words with an elf from Evandale (avolon-type setting).

T from Three Haligonians

 

[Aries_Omega]

Non-Human Bigots

I have actually explored the idea of other races being the aggressor. In my world the high elves with their empire explored the land and came across other elves that were brown and primative. These "wild elves" were given the great gift of "culture". Some resented it and others fought it. Finally the high elves decided to let them be and quite ruling them as a colonial power. Thats when the humans came and did the same damn thing! So the wild elves talked to the high elves and told them what was going on. The high elves felt that no one else should be messing with their painted and tattooed primitive cousins except them and went to war over it. Later Orcs were able to put aside their differences and unite....causing the other races to set aside their squabbles and take them on.

Also dwarves....despite that they ar lawful, in my campaign the do not get along. Each dwarven settlement is a city state. Two city states could have the same subrace of dwarf and still not get along. The are bigoted towards each other. Does this make sense to anyone else. Lawful dwarves don't get along yet Chaotic high elves have a large empire?

The only race that doesn't do this in my campaign setting is halflings and gnomes. Rock Gnomes and Svirfneblin get along for example. Those races just seem to be able to blend into whatever place they are at and not be bothered too much.

Aries