Races of YOUR World

[SoulsFury]

The campaign I'm running right now only consists of Humans but depending on what happens with this campaign all the phb races will be available, as well as kobolds, minotaurs and maybe a couple of other races depending on the roleplaying of the current group of humans on this New World.

 

[glass]

For my 'Pelhorin' campaign, which has been slowly evolving for years but has yet to really get of the ground:

Humans
Elves/Eladrin (not sure if the default divide works for me, though -needs some thought)
Half-elves (traditional royalty in one of the settings main nations)
Dwarves (living on an island and sailing big iron ships)
Halflings (the original plan called for several versions, I might add 4e-style riverboat ones too)
Dragonborn (one of my players would mutiny if I left them out!)
Teiflings (although devils don't exist so that fluff will need changing)

Possibly some others, depending one what the playable races in the MM look like and what Necromancer et al can come up with.


glass.

 

[Turjan]

I just use some well known names instead of the campaign ones in order to make it easier for me to explain:

• Humans: The natural choice for players. There's enough diversity to make a difference as far as background goes.
• Mojh: The natural choice for human sorcerers who want to prolong their life. It's a replacement for lichdom, with less negative connotations. Good player choice for somewhat higher levels.
• Ogres: Bred by elves from human stock for "biological warfare". Look like tall humans, but have an insatiable appetite for the flesh of their ancestors. Unsuited for players.
• Elves: They cover the whole elf/dwarf/gnome niche. Often live below the ground and don't like bright sunlight. Second big power on the continent. Limited player suitability (or suited for a campaign on its own, which never happened).
• Fey: Elves that gain immortality as a service to their clan. They slowly lose their "humanity" though, which makes them mostly unsuited as player race.
• Nezumi: Ratmen raised to intelligence as a slave race by elves. Can't speak "Common", which limits their player suitability. Some spread the "wererat disease" as part of elven "biological warfare".
• Trolls/goblins: Think Gloranthan trolls with their size and status dimorphism. Replace goblinoids and orcs. The third big power on the continent. Decent player suitability (or good for their own campaign).
• Harrids: Enigmatic race of seers in the mountains. No player suitability.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

If you don't mind a question: You've said that that approach wasn't working out for you, what was going wrong?

Ultimately, I'm not sure that playing even "benevolent" representatives of colonialism sounds like good times. Even the fact that the exiles were literally incapable of going back (even if they wanted to) felt like something to excuse their occupation of dragonborn territory . . . "we have nowhere else to go!" is the colonialist analogue of "but torture's acceptable if it's the only way to save a large number of people!"

I think, for me to be comfortable with the setting, I would need to give the exiles a secluded patch of territory which they wouldn't be taking away from anyone else, but then that lowers the pressure on the exile community to get involved with the dragonborn-tiefling conflict - and what then is the point of the setup at all?

So right now I'm not sure whether it's worth salvaging the Exile idea or trying something else.

 

[danbuter1]

The player races in my world are: humans, tieflings, aasimar, changelings, and shifters. There are also tons of NPC races like goblins, etc.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Tieflings, for instance, aren't the result of mixed bloodlines in my campaign (I don't know what default is) but the result of a curse generations in the past.

Yeah, you just described the default. Tieflings (in the assumed setting) descend from the humans of fallen Bael Turath, who dealt with devils and were cursed for their crimes.

 

[Lanefan]

The game world is one that does not have a "static" size, it changes over millennia from being approximately Earth-sized to it's present size which is nearly the same as Mercury. This causes continual "land grabs" as the various races try t hold on to what they have. Some nations disappear as the world shrinks, to reappear thousands of years later when the world expands, so providing a continual source of ruins and strange artefacts for adventurers to discover

Unrelated to races, I know; but I just have to say this is bloody *brilliant*! I'm rethinking my Decast world (still in design) as I type...

Though doesn't this make historical mapping a bit of a bee-witch?

Lanefan

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Ultimately, I'm not sure that playing even "benevolent" representatives of colonialism sounds like good times. Even the fact that the exiles were literally incapable of going back (even if they wanted to) felt like something to excuse their occupation of dragonborn territory . . . "we have nowhere else to go!" is the colonialist analogue of "but torture's acceptable if it's the only way to save a large number of people!"

I think, for me to be comfortable with the setting, I would need to give the exiles a secluded patch of territory which they wouldn't be taking away from anyone else, but then that lowers the pressure on the exile community to get involved with the dragonborn-tiefling conflict - and what then is the point of the setup at all?

So right now I'm not sure whether it's worth salvaging the Exile idea or trying something else.

Well, I can understand that entirely. I'm not dealing with the subject of colonialism much at all, but given what I was working off of and towards I certainly gave it some thought.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to get rid of the exile idea entirely, but I also think that it's a compelling idea and can work:

- Put them in their own area but give them compelling reasons of trade or supply to interact with the Dragonborn.

- Accept the grey morality, but make it murky all the way around. Perhaps the Exiles have ended up in an empty space that the Dragonborn now want.

-- Which can also work a non-murky way by simply giving the Dragonborn as much reason to interact with the Exiles as vice versa.

- Change them from colonialists to immigrants or refugees. "But we have nowhere else to go" argument is used by colonialists as justification, but it's also used by people in very different circumstances. There is still plenty of conflict and pathos in such a theme, and also a surprising amount of moral ambiguity - it's worth remembering that the pillaging Goths were refugees at one point in their complicated history with the Romans. The PCs will be in a great position to determine what sort of legacy their people's relationship with their hosts will have.

 

[S'mon]

Ultimately, I'm not sure that playing even "benevolent" representatives of colonialism sounds like good times.

You could play an Evil campaign. Or you can be self-tortured and angsty.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

An excerpt from The Protocols of the Elders of Zilargo?

Nah - that was just an excerpt from a hand-printed pamphlet. The Protocols are a far longer work.