Limiting humanoid availability

[Darklone]

No pirate talk 'ere, blimey.

 

[Tonguez]

I cannot believe has not been properly included in D&D, the most common demi-human race in medieval encyclopedias, literature and other tracts: the cynocephali -- the dog-headed men.

I always thought the Gnoll pretty much fills this niche as the 'dog-ish' Humanoids. I tend to use Gnolls to represent Cynocephali.

What I would like to see though is Anthropophagi (the headless cannibals mentioned in Othello)

Anyway my question is

Has anyone run a setting in which Humans do NOT exists?
What was it like, and did it work or did players default back to funny looking human?

 

[dave_o]

Avast, Joshy! I be usin' less'en ye six or so, already!

In me campaign, I gots these land-lubbers: Humans (an' some scurvy ones, aye), Elves (lolly-gaggin' land-lubbers), Dwarves (mighty fine pirates, be they gettin' out o' the ground), 'n Halflings (wee srurvy mates).

(Actually, the Elves in my campaign are sailors, so maybe the land-lubber comment is a little off. )

 

[frankthedm]

O- Gnolls/Flinds: Large Canine race and represent the evil hordes. I keep them factious, with an intricate clan system that keeps them fractured and waring with themselves. I also slightly modify the Gnoll depending on which climate they are from, so Gnolls from Northen wastes are a bit huskier while Gnolls from a Sea Coast tend to be more Intillgent,etc,etc. Pound for pound, they are the same creatures.

O- Kobolds: A smaller canine race that happens to be the misfortunate little brothers of the savage Gnolls. They lack physical size and strength, so they are easy targets for Gnoll bullying, but they have a great talent for Arcane Magic. I keep them limited to a specific region, so there isn't various kinds of kobold, but you'll find them slaveing away or serveing Gnolls/Flinds all over the world.

I did a very similar thing with my kobolds. In my home game, hell and abyss are "closer" and kurtlemack is currently Yeenoghu's whipping boy. Many gnoll lairs have smaller kobold warrens honeycombing them. My players, who can clear out a gnoll den without casualty, are still scared to death to crawl around in the cramped kobold's tunnels. Gnolls have 2 other sub types IMG, the Feral [dire ape stats and size, but monstous humaniod and a few more int points Mini: mage knight werebear] and gnoll lord [minotaur phys. stats more or less. Mini; Reaper Lupine's].

Orcs: The orcish race is sinking into degeneracy as it celebrates its victory on the stump of the elven life tree. The orcs won the battle against the elves a few centuries back, who lost thier god in the ordeal. However all the LE [I AM using the original version] Grumush got from Corelon's demise was a hunk of chaos 'taint' [shifted to NE]. Some of Grumsh's people still hold to dicipline [favored class fighter and effectively hobgoblins] but many are nothing better than degenerate barbarians. BTW "goblins" are orc children [makes for fun RP] Ever fecund, the orc's blood can mix with many things, humansand ogres being the most common better half.

Other races that are main contenders for the primary races

Humans, dwarves, skaven and Lizardmen [with skinks as county cousins]


There are a few elves left in the world, mostly in hiding since there is an easy to use high level spell that can let the caster live a bit longer, that uses an elf's soul as a "material" component, Nope, life ain't fair. The elves more or less lost the war with the orcs because a wizard kingdom's insane rulers [with the help of god of magic and dimensions with questionable motives] tried to do a global version of this spell to make all the other creatures unaging. The wizards were trying to fulfill a prophecy about causing Death to die. The Elf god's retribution took the form of a massive meteor that crashed the ceramony and more or less destroyed the capitol city of the magic kingdom. Alas the magic god's potency was enough to make sure the spell still caused heavy elf casualties. The city's remains are an adapted Mordheim setting. The elf god, having used a huge portion of hir power to call forth the retribution, while metephisicly battleing Gruumsh, knew defeat was eminent and willed Hir divine potences to the fae court.



unrelated flavor text

And on a pedestal in the defeated gnoll priest's lair, there rest a peculiar statuette of unwholesome caricature directly in front of a noxiously scented stain on the cavern floor. The foot tall statue appears to be an unnaturally gaunt gnoll wielding a 3-balled flail. The figurine seems to have almost a ghoul like quality to its shape and stance. But the most disquieting thing on the statue is that, if the string of gnawed skull trophies it wears; human, elf, dwarf and orc skulls, are in proportion to this creature, It would stand well over thrice the height of a man.

A chill runs down your spine as you begin to wonder if that curious sounding final howl of the Gnoll priest was a petition to this Thing. The malignant feeling is compounded by what almost seems to be malice filled contempt within the unmoving visage of hunger it bears, which you would swear is focused solely upon you.

 

[Desdichado]

Ahoy, me mateys! I'm right glad to see this here thread has not been marooned. I do be shivered, though -- why is it that all we scallawags make gnolls come from ye fantasy equivalent of darkest Africa? In the not so distant past, hyenas were pack hunters common to Europe, North America, parts of Asia and many other places as well, and came in many, many varieties. I think it'd be fun to get the gnolls out of there stereotypes imposed on them by living species of hyena.

 

[AFGNCAAP]

Good post, Silveras. I think another thing that adds a lot to the idea is not to make humanoids have one, single, monolithic culture. Make them as varied as human cultures, with multiple nations, but do so without splitting them into subraces! To me, that adds a great deal of verissimilitude.

Yaar! `Tis true! Yet most of `em demihuman land-lubbers hardly come aboard and sail the seas, yet there be human mates aplenty on deck![/pirate]

Along a similar vein, humans (who rarely are broken into subraces, stat-wise) have a plethora of different deities & pantheons, yet the demihuman races (and their component subraces) are often lumped together under 1 or 2 pantheons. If anything, these demihuman subraces come closest to practicing monotheism than humans.

IMHO, either each culture, human or not, should have a complete, filled-out set of beliefs/mythology (i.e., their own pantheons), or (my preferrence) the number of deities altogether should be reduced. Dragonlance sort of did this, but it doesn't have to be executed in the exact same manner. Essentially have 1 pantheon of deities that are worshipped by mortals, esp. if the deities often interact with their flock through emmisaries (outsiders) or contact (omens, speaking with mortals directly or in disguise, etc.). Different cultures may have different takes on the deities, and may even gravitate to worshipping one particular deity (or set of deities) over others, but the divine powers remain the same.

Then again, a lot of the D&D setting religious rely on some sort of theism instead of using other varieties of religious belief, but that's a whole new thread in itself.[pirate]

Yaar! Blast the land-lubbers and their soil-soled gods! May Neptune calm the seas and Jove blow a strong wind t' catch me sail!

 

[Desdichado]

Aye aye, Cap'n -- ye spoke the truth of things, you did. There's more 'n one way to keelhaul the guvner's daughter, as the old saying goes.

Ye can have many subraces, or ye can have one race with multiple cultures. Seems D&D is a bit schizophrenic about how to treat it; humans are a single race with multiple cultures, while other detailed races are subraces. Poorly detailed races have neither, and are only a single race period. That might be a bit "politically correct"-ness involved there, but either way, I think it's silly.

Arrr, I prefer to treat all the lubbers as humans -- fewer stat mods, but develop detail around more than one culture; that's the way the wind blows in my campaigns.

 

[Pixie Barbarian]

Let's see:

Halflings - Because who else will carry the "one ring"?

Gnomes - Scatter them around your gardens in front of your house.

Kobolds - Oh, the power! THE POWER!

Goblins - But there will be no hobnobbing with hobgoblins and no goblinoid races with cute teddy bear names (e.g., "bugbears").

Blues - <sings> Ah-bo-dee, ah-bo-die, ahbodee, ahbodie! </sings>

Dwarves - Because, we need at least one tall race.

Of course, all of the monsters in the game will have to be at least large size. And after all their fighting and adventuring, the PCs can get together and sing "It's a Small World After All".

 

[Profane Deicide]

I did a very similar thing with my kobolds. In my home game, hell and abyss are "closer" and kurtlemack is currently Yeenoghu's whipping boy. Many gnoll lairs have smaller kobold warrens honeycombing them. My players, who can clear out a gnoll den without casualty, are still scared to death to crawl around in the cramped kobold's tunnels. Gnolls have 2 other sub types IMG, the Feral [dire ape stats and size, but monstous humaniod and a few more int points Mini: mage knight werebear] and gnoll lord [minotaur phys. stats more or less. Mini; Reaper Lupine's].

Nice idea, I may just lift it