[setting help] Science fantasy races

[Set]

Wierdest 'techno' race I had were Neo-Ants. Each Neo-Ant was a hive-mind, consisting of a queen that sat sessile somewhere in the ship / complex, being a 200 lb. man-sized critter, while her Drones, individually about the size of a small dog, scuttled around the ship / complex doing repairs and maintenance. She was in constant connection with them, so long as they remained within a half-mile or so, and coordinated their actions. Ships with Neo-Ant engineering crews would often have shelves or tubes running along walls and corridors, allowing the Drones to move around the ship without 'getting underfoot.'

Different Queens tended to not get along, being profoundly territorial (and coldly mercenary, as well) and so no ship or complex would have more than one Queen, unless they had *very* precisely determined areas and functions, and neither would ever overlap the territory (or perform the functions) of the other.

A Queen generally had anywhere from six to twenty-five Drones, and treating the Drones like individuals generally pissed off the Queen, since they were basically appendages. Sometimes one would get snarky towards someone 'individualizing' her Drones, by separately addressing their limbs and acting as if someone's left hand was an individual...

While the Queen could barely move at all, they tended to sit on some sort of mobile platform, either with many mechanical legs, or a hover platform of sorts. When first introduced to ship-board life, they would insist on making their 'nest' in one of the life-pods, due to their inability to hustle to the pod in case of a disaster, but many have gotten a bit more laid-back as their mobility technology has improved, and merely demand the quarters *closest* to the life-pods, and a designated life-pod (that they paint and mark as clearly 'there's').

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I just did not want to copy and paste and write a new background from an existing published race. Modifying and twisting the to something new and different is what I doing for this race.

Sorry, I was a bit unclear on that.

On your goblinoids...give them organs like a spider's spinnerets that will allow them to produce their own safety lines...or organic glues, like a mussel's byssal fibers. Engineers like that would really mean it when they said "All it needs is a bit of spit and polish!"

As for alien brutes, I like the radial symmetry thing, with a central mass housing most organs and being tripedal, hexapedal, septapedal or more, size S-L (perhaps they grow with age?) with a combo of Dwarven Stability and the Half-Giant's Powerful Build. Toss in a slightly elastic body structure that gives them additional reach.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Throwing my vote in for small insectoids.

Likewise.

I would base them off the Selenites from H.G. Wells' First Men in the Moon. Or make them centipede-like.


RC

 

[tecnowraith]

Okay for y monstrous race and thinking of going for a more brutish winged race or an amphibious race. I just did not want to do a big hairy brute race that i have seen a lot in fantasy (and scifi) settings, mostly looking like cat people.

SilvercatMoonpaw2 I might do tree/plant people later on.

Another idea is to do a nature spirit type race or elemental race that can all of those. Not like doing one type of element like wood spirit or one creature with on element but one race with different elemental or nature type features. Still thinking about it.

 

[darjr]

I don't remember the author, but there were these giant bats, cept they used their legs as arms and their feet as hands, they walked on the 'knuckle' of their folded wings like they were legs.

Also the 'hive' mind of the 'dogs' from verner vinge. Where each 'inidividual' was a small pack of dogs that kept their mind together by fast acoustic communication between the independent dogs.

 

[InVinoVeritas]

I'll combine technowraith's request for an alien aquatic brute with Dannyalcatraz's idea of a radially symmetric creature.

They're like echinoderms, like sea stars.

Capable of growing extra limbs, these tentacled monstrosities come in all manner of shapes and sizes. They reproduce by budding, shedding limbs to form independent creatures. They can mate through recombination, multiple creatures donating limbs into a single chimeric offspring.

Early in their history, they crawled around in sea beds. Eventually, they showed incredible problem-solving capabilities, learning how to find and chase down prey in a huge number of different ways. Some figured out how to use the small and large individuals in different ways, showing a large degree of specialization.

Eventually, they started combining their individual arms into new bodies in various ways. For example, they might mimic a hand and arm by attaching a number of small tentacles to the end of a large tentacle, then send the new creature off to handle human equipment.

Nowadays, they are a force to be reckoned with, with many different configurations and undecipherable motives.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'll combine technowraith's request for an alien aquatic brute with Dannyalcatraz's idea of a radially symmetric creature.

They're like echinoderms, like sea stars.

Capable of growing extra limbs, these tentacled monstrosities come in all manner of shapes and sizes. They reproduce by budding, shedding limbs to form independent creatures. They can mate through recombination, multiple creatures donating limbs into a single chimeric offspring.

Early in their history, they crawled around in sea beds. Eventually, they showed incredible problem-solving capabilities, learning how to find and chase down prey in a huge number of different ways. Some figured out how to use the small and large individuals in different ways, showing a large degree of specialization.

Eventually, they started combining their individual arms into new bodies in various ways. For example, they might mimic a hand and arm by attaching a number of small tentacles to the end of a large tentacle, then send the new creature off to handle human equipment.

Nowadays, they are a force to be reckoned with, with many different configurations and undecipherable motives.

I like that....but I was thinking more like Cnidarians: sea anemones, hydras, coral and jellyfish. Which, of course, means they may have nematocysts!

They're slow...but they're poisonous!

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

I don't remember the author, but there were these giant bats, cept they used their legs as arms and their feet as hands, they walked on the 'knuckle' of their folded wings like they were legs.

Dougal Dixon's After Man: postulated 50 million years in the future bats would colonize new Hawaiian islands, and one species was a Nightmare Fuel predator that had evolved to use its stronger wing arms as legs while its more dexterous hind feet came over the shoulder to be used as claws. Also it had no eyes and used its giant ears for locationing.

 

[tecnowraith]

Well i have been working on my brute monstrous race and i know one aspect of the look i want is to be a biped with hind legs like a werewolf in crinos form from WoD, a Draenei/Tauren or Nightcrawler from X-men: Evolution. I have not seen many playable races like this in rpg "published" settings.

Update: Well I have decided to with scientific rout wit the race as being genetic engineered. The background of who created them, where they were created and how they were made is being worked on still.

 

[HeinorNY]

Reptilians.
An ancient race of master magicians that controlled most of the known world, now a decadent civilization.
Less like V and more like reptides from chrono trigger.

Proto-humans.
Remaning ancestors of humans that weren's touched by the space gods and didn't evolved to a more intelligent and civilized state.
Strong, furry and dumb gorilla-like men.

Xenoman
Xenomoprhs like aliens or zergs once acquired human intelligent and humanoid form without losing the hive mentality.

Etheral.
Same as WoW etherals.