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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lackhand" data-source="post: 4879535" data-attributes="member: 36160">I was thinking about this, and you can have a slightly higher than fourth class human citizenry if you change a few things. Almost all of them result in humans living either in hiding or in walled city-states.<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Humans have a big brother. There's something -- angels, giants, werebears, armies of golems, or demons -- that likes humans. Maybe the humans sacrifice stuff to it, maybe there's some inhuman altruistic motivation at play. Regardless, they like what we'd regard as status quo, and so they maintain human habitats.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Humans have a BIG brother. There's a god of humans, a curious property to human blood or human dwellings, or ancient magics in place since the Dawn Times which render human habitats inhospitable to the critters of the night. In fact, this one is reflected in Sigil, where the Lady of Pain keeps the peace and stops all the CR 8+ outsiders from eating the low level PCs alive. Think about it.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Humans are stronger than you think. PCs, far from being rare, are relatively common -- all werewolves are ferocious balls of fur, but every city has (in addition to somewhat useless men at arms) a full retinue of NPC heroes whose full time job is remaining in town to enforce the peace. What's rare are roving PCs; as they get to be higher and higher level, the remaining strongholds become more and more desperate to have them "retire", so that they can help keep the citadels safe.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Human Reservations. Humanity is a relatively unmagical race, and so it's not as affected by dead- and dying- magic zones or wild magic zones -- and so they make their homes there. The other species don't want that land or have to interact with humans on pretty much the same level while on them, and so again, humanity is able to eke out an existence. This is an especially neat option because it means you don't have to think too hard about the repercussions of what you're designing -- on human lands, physics works the way we expect, so castles make sense. Elsewhere, magic holds sway, so +5 swords and dungeons make perfect sense.</li> </ol></blockquote>

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