Racial segregation in your world

[The Shaman]

I'm still working out the racial mix for the game-world but as of right now the most cosmopolitan race other than humans appears to be hobgoblins, who can be found as traders and mercenaries among human communities.

Dwarfs are isolated from humans in all but one small area of the game-world. Goblins and bugbears don't have the hobgoblins' sensibilities. Orcs are raiders, not traders. Lizardfolk, merfolk, giants all pretty much stick to their own, though they might be found in or on the periphery of a few human communities.

Overall there are more likely to be 'ghettos' composed of different human cultural groups than of other humanoid races.

A couple of caveats: I don't use the standard PHB mix of races and the world is one with very few monsters, so monster-races are pretty much off the table.

 

[the Jester]

It varies widely. In general, bigger, more cosmopolitan areas are more likely to have a mix of ev eryone. Smaller nations or islands often are primarily one or two races, with others nearly completely absent. For instance, there are about 20 halflings that aren't pcs on the entire island of Dyshim.

 

[Ibram]

Most of the races are fairly segregated. Humans, as the most wide spread race can be found in nearly every corner of the world. Dwarves are restricted to few isolated mountain, and elves have only a few cities to call their own. Orcs are a more wide spread race, having major population centers on two of the three inhabited contients. Goblins are restricted to the northern regions of on of the larger continents.

Trolls and Ogres are another wide spread race, though their numbers are comparitvly few.

Halflings are wanderers on one continent, with only a small country to call their own.

 

[Quasqueton]

You have to explain the Caves of Chaos reference to me.

The Caves of Chaos are the "dungeon" of the old D&D adventure module Keep on the Borderlands. [See the link in my sig to read a discussion of it.] The cave complex had some of every evil humanoid creature, goblin caves, orc caves, gnoll caves, etc.

My question was meant in the vein of: Do the orcs live and roam in the Black Mountains only? If the PCs adventure in the Green Forest, they may find elves and kobolds, but never any orcs (except perhaps a rare individual who has roamed far from the traditional orc homelands). If they travel through the Black Mountains, any humanoid encounters will probably be with orcs, as goblins and gnolls don't live there.

In the World of Greyhawk, for instance, the humanoid races can be found just about anywhere. Something like the Caves of Chaos is a possibility. (Some leader-type pulls a bunch of diseperate humanoids from the surrounding area. See the ToEE as a specific GH example.) But I know some campaigns have the races pretty much set in their own areas of the world. There may be cities where you can find examples/representatives of the various races all living together, but most of those individuals/groups traveled to that city from their traditional homelands.

I was wondering how common this concept is.

Quasqueton

 

[John Morrow]

Are the races of humanoids in your world segregated to certain parts of the world, or are they sprinkled throughout the lands?

Most are concentrated into native areas but they can be found outside of them.

I have a racially and ethnically mixed group of friends and players that talk about issues of race and culture so it's an issue I play with a little. For example, the Druid was a pretty hard-core elven woods elf while the NPC Rogue/Wizard is a "city elf" whose parents sent her to "elf school" to learn all those elven things like how to use a rapier, longbow, etc. She speaks elven with a strange accent because Common is really her native language. The Druid doesn't consider her "authentic" and she wound up marrying a human PC, which neither set of parents was too happy about, either. They are also travelling with a half-elf NPC that hates her human side (her father left her mother). And the irony of it all is that the Druid has been reincarnated as a human (the spirit of the world is trying to teach him a lesson about racism) so the only full-blooded elf in the party isn't "authentic" and is carrying a half-elven child while neither of the two characters who badly want to be full-blooded elves are.

The halflings, on the other hand, are socially flexible and widely accepted, but they have to deal with several annoying racial stereotypes (e.g., cook, thief, comedy relief) and they are often dismissed as cute but not very effective. The irony there is that the halfling ranger in the party probably deals more damage per round with his bow than any other character in the party but still gets talked over and has trouble finding things in his size, much to his frustration. The player of the halfling ranger likes to joke that things like the requirement that an Arcane Archer be an elf is "the Man's way of keeping the halfling down".

I mean, in a given land (civilized or not), could one find an elf community, a dwarf clan, a goblin tribe, a orc tribe, and others? Or are the elves only found over there in that particular forest, the dwarves only over there in that particular mountain range, goblins only over there in that hill land, and the orcs only over there in that broken land?

The orcs are generally Evil and are segregated into some tribal areas of barbarians. The goblinoids in my game are Evil by nature (they can't be Neutral or Good) and hold what they can on the edges of human society. Neither is welcome in the human cities, nor are gnolls or kobolds. You'll find elven enclaves in many cities, who primarily run magic schools and manage trade in goods to and from the main elven woods. Dwarves are generally more solitary outside of their homelands and you'll often find them running a solitary smithy, stonework, or gem-cutting shop with their family and maybe a few others. The halflings tend to be found in the service sector in the inns, taverns, theaters, and seedier parts of town (hence the stereotypes). They tend to move freely among the humans but generally have an areas in a city where they cluster to live. The gnomes are small in number and are extremely rare outside of their homelands.

Could a "Caves of Chaos" kind of thing be found in your world?

The first part of my game was loosely based on various incarnations of the Keep on the Borderlands module (i.e., KotB, RttKotB, and Hackmaster's LKotB) but part of what I did was break the Caves of Chaos into more isolated encounter areas. So I don't exactly have Caves of Chaos things because I tried to place the various monster races into the environment they are given in the various monster books, thus Goblins prefer a different environment than Bugbears, who perfer a different environment than Hobgoblins, and so on. And I also eliminated or changed those creatures that wouldn't fit in the environment.

My version of the Keep (a hybrid of the RttKotB and LKotB), however, did have quite a few halflings, some elves, some half-elves, and a dwarven smithy. In some ways, it was a microcosm of a northern city.

 

[Virel]

In my key city, 1/2 orcs aren't allow near the public bath...they have to go to the river. I think that's about it.

 

[S'mon]

Hm - I thought this would be about whether there was racial apartheid in my campaign setting... certainly some human and non-human races are only found in certain parts of my campaign world. There are Duergar in one area, Drow in another. Orcs are common, but not ubiquitous. Even humans aren't found everywhere.

 

[S'mon]

Also, as far as human society goes, you're about as likely to meet a goblin, hobgoblin or even bugbear as an elf, dwarf or half-orc - not likely, but possible. No gnomes or halflings, they're about as common as pixies and sprites. Orcs, kobolds and most other evil nonhumans are attacked on sight.

 

[Turanil]

Humanoids and Goblinoids are segregated, both have a part of the campaign setting. On the frontier you may find them mixed of course (but not peacefully!).

There is much less segegation among humanoid subraces (I mean: elves, dwarves, humans, etc.), though they remain among communities of their own who do not much mix. Adventurers are the exception.

 

[Galethorn]

Well, within the central regions of my setting, there are three 'racial' groups of humans; Ennorians, a subset of them known as 'Arnaic Stock', and the Tyrnians. Ennorians are generally brown-haired, and have relatively fair skin (the 'Arnaic Stock' is just taller than average). The Tyrnians are especially tall and fair-skinned, and have generally light hair, with an abundance of red-heads.

To the north are the northrons--tall, very fair-skinned and fair-haired--and to the south are the Southrons (who call themselves the Zarhalzot). The southrons are somewhat duskier-skinned than everybody else, and they tend to have fairly straigh black hair. As well, further south, there are the Chandaki, who tend to have almost black skin, and hair like the Zarhalzot. To the east, across a major mountain range, and a couple thousand miles of grasslands, are the Rhûr; a slave-race to a particularly evil demi-god; they're short, powerfully build, and define the word 'swarthy'. As well, there are other intelligent races, but they're so small in number that they're not worth describing (elves, dwarves, dryads/nature spirits, gnomes, etc.).

So, these six human 'races' (ethnicities, really) are in varying combination and proportions in different areas. On the coast, in the nation of Arnadûn, it's mostly those 'Arnaic Ennorians' along with a certain number of nothron traders, southron merchants, and a small Tyrnian sector. As well, Chandaki mercenaries are not unheard of in Arnadûn.

In Ennoria, it's almost all Ennorians, with a certain number of Tyrnians. The other groups are not well-liked in Ennoria, and there isn't much reason for them to visit anyway.

In Tyrnia, it's mostly Tyrnians, with some 'Arnaic Ennorians', plain old Ennorians, and an unusually large number of dryads and elves in forests (but they don't really interact with the humans).

In Dornlund, it's an even mix of northron, Ennorian, and Tyrnian blood, with most of the Dwarven Nation living in the large mining/metalworking town of Isenburg.