Subraces - why so many?

[Gwarok]

Sub races are there for those people who can't get enough of a good thing. They need it itemized, categorized, and spelled out till all the magic is gone. Its a confusion of variety with originality. Moss gnomes and deep lime dwarves make baby jeebus cry.

 

[Aeolius]

...umber hulks, trolls, ogres, ghouls, wraiths, hobgoblins, and gargoyles all had aquatic versions in 1edADnD.

And the scrag (troll), merrow (ogre), lacedon (ghoul), and kapoacinth (gargoyle) are in the revised 3.5e MM. Vodyanoi (umber hulk) became more like its folklore equivalent in Frostburn, while the koalinth (hobgoblin) has yet to be seen in 3e (aside from my campaign, of course). In addition, you could use the aquatic racial variants in the 3e UA for more undersea beasties.

 

[Gez]

(back in 2e Birthright also has specific subraces, even going sofar as to have a different logo depending one the region of the continent that the product covered)

I always found this a very nifty idea. Unfortunately, the AD&D game system was so repulsive I wasn't interested in any TSR book.

 

[Mark Plemmons]

Oh?
AEG's Monster provides a subrace for EACH monstrous race.
Edit: And Kalamar has (gasp!) Five races or Orc.
(BTW, the Kalamar Orc book is very cool.)

Thanks.

The recent Friend and Foe: Gnomes and Kobolds also has a lot of cool info on kobolds, though they have no new subraces.

 

[Mark Plemmons]

There.
[*]Kalamaran Dark Elf (Kingdoms of Kalamar, stats and culture differs from MM Dark Elf)
[*]Kalamaran Gray Elf (Kingdoms of Kalamar, stats and culture differs from MM Gray Elf)
[/list]

That's also true for the Wild and Wood elves, for both stats and culture. The High elves are the same as the MM High elves for stats, but the cultures will be much more fully detailed in the upcoming Friend and Foe: Elves and Bugbears, early next year.

 

[Nighthawk]

I think this can be put simply - players and DMs like to have choices. With more subraces, not every PC is cut fom the same racial cloth. And it clearly opens the door for cultural differences as well.

Some folks forget that not all role-players are good at portraying cultural differences "just because". I think having the racial sub-types gives players a handle to graps when trying to approach the "I'm similar, but different" thing.

Agreed. My gaming experiences, both as GM and player, with subraces have generally been good. IMO, they add rather than detract to the RPG experience. This is because there are enough people who are are better suited to using ideas already crafted and then adapting them to their personal taste (this category includes myself).

 

[Mark Plemmons]

Halflings
Lightfoot Halfling/Hairfeet
Tallfellow Halfling
Deep Halfling
Strongheart
Ghostwise
Jerrin/Cannibal Halflings (BoVD, no relation to Athasian)

Orc
Common
Mountain
Grey Orc
Orog
Orgallion
Half-Orc

For halflings, you can also add our Amberhair, aka Golden, halflings ("azravan").

As Psion mentioned, there are also more KoK orcs - the Black ("urar ukak"), Brown/Desert ("chagun ukak"), White/Snow ("nukugh ukak"), plus the Common ("ukak") and Gray/Deep ("nogror ukak").

Oh, and I don't remember if anyone has mentioned hobgoblins. The KoK setting has two hobgoblin kingdoms, plus various tribes, so there are subraces for these as well. These are named for their regions, rather than climate or color, but they have different stats. These are the -

Krangi (of the Kingdom of Norga-Krangrel)
Kargi (of the Kingdom of Ul-Karg)
Kors (of the P'Tikor hills)
Dazlak (of the Khydoban Desert, where Korrut pi Dazlak led them long ago)
Rankki (of the northern Khorren Woods, which they call the Rankagh).

 

[Mark Plemmons]

Oh, since we're talking about monsters too, I just remembered that there are different trolls as well. In the KoK setting, the trolls are descended from the Titans, and the various subraces came about due to the Titans' involvement in the War of the Gods (see Dangerous Denizens: the Monsters of Tellene).

These are:

GREAT TROLLS
Elder Troll
Demonic Troll

HIGH TROLLS
Chaos Troll
Mindreaver Troll
Ravager Troll
Rot Troll
Storm Troll

LESSER TROLLS
Arctic Troll
Cave Troll
Moss Troll
Sand Troll
Sea Troll (salt water only, while scrags live only in fresh water)
Stench Troll

The standard MM troll is also a Lesser troll.

 

[tarchon]

I'm interested in how and why these subraces came about. I know their origins go way back in D&D editions---I beleive the first exhaustive listing appeared in the original Unearthed Arcana (possibly in Dragon mag before that).

In the finance industry, it's called "churning."

Really, at this point they should just make "subrace templates." "Gray X", "Wood X", "Aquatic X", "Subterranean X"...

 

[VirgilCaine]

ELF
- Aquatic - no idea where these come from

Cheers!

Because wherever you have humans--Merfolk--you need Aquatic Elves to make them feel bad about not being so perfect.