Desdichado
Hero
A lot folks (myself included) who are more into sword & sorcery rather than high fantasy, like humanocentric campaigns. I've seen their virtues preached many times, and while I don't remember specifically getting in on that action, I dislike elves, dwarves, halflings, orcs, etc. Basically all the Tolkienesque races that make up the D&D smorgasbord.
However, over the last few years, I think I've been drifting towards a human and transhuman fantasy setting. A fantasy world with really only humans, but some of them have undergone changes due to magic, curses, tampering with bloodlines, or even just plain having been bred as the perfect slaves. I think I first got there trying to justify, and then modify and make my own some of the other more "obscure" races and bring them to a place of primacy in place of the standard D&D races.
So, in my setting now, I've got vucari: savage bestial transhumans who xenophobically protect their wild sanctuaries... but who might wander about as mercenaries too. Their skill in tracking and scouting are usually without equal. I've also got hellspawn; those born as changelings, with some bizarre otherworldly features. Some of them even breed true, and a form of them called the hamazin once ruled an empire to the north called Baal Hamazi. It fell to internal conflict, environmental disaster, and an uprising of the enslaved human populace, but many hamazi still wander the world, either as members of successor statelets grasping at the echoes of greatness, or as expatriates, fleeing the chaos and conflict of their homeland. I've also got the seafaring jann, who claim to have afrit blood in their veins. A mutinous (or perhaps simply lost) ship of them arrived on the isles in the Qizmiri Ocean, and took over, expanding their population and their power base. The Qizmir Empire is a vibrant, growing power, but there is a sense amongst the jann that they are still looking over their shoulders for their mother empire nation to find them and force them back into their homeland. Some say that their obsession with shoring up their strength is to make sure that they cannot be forcibly removed by the numberless armies of their distant motherland.
These three are obviously based on originally shifter, tiefling and fire genasi templates. I've got a few others waiting in the wings, but other than those three transhuman races, I'm trying to make sure that various populations of regular old humans still dominate the land numerically and politically.
Anyway, has anyone else ever tried anything like that? I know conceptually it's a bit farther afield than many folks would like, but the more I develop this stuff, the more I like it.
However, over the last few years, I think I've been drifting towards a human and transhuman fantasy setting. A fantasy world with really only humans, but some of them have undergone changes due to magic, curses, tampering with bloodlines, or even just plain having been bred as the perfect slaves. I think I first got there trying to justify, and then modify and make my own some of the other more "obscure" races and bring them to a place of primacy in place of the standard D&D races.
So, in my setting now, I've got vucari: savage bestial transhumans who xenophobically protect their wild sanctuaries... but who might wander about as mercenaries too. Their skill in tracking and scouting are usually without equal. I've also got hellspawn; those born as changelings, with some bizarre otherworldly features. Some of them even breed true, and a form of them called the hamazin once ruled an empire to the north called Baal Hamazi. It fell to internal conflict, environmental disaster, and an uprising of the enslaved human populace, but many hamazi still wander the world, either as members of successor statelets grasping at the echoes of greatness, or as expatriates, fleeing the chaos and conflict of their homeland. I've also got the seafaring jann, who claim to have afrit blood in their veins. A mutinous (or perhaps simply lost) ship of them arrived on the isles in the Qizmiri Ocean, and took over, expanding their population and their power base. The Qizmir Empire is a vibrant, growing power, but there is a sense amongst the jann that they are still looking over their shoulders for their mother empire nation to find them and force them back into their homeland. Some say that their obsession with shoring up their strength is to make sure that they cannot be forcibly removed by the numberless armies of their distant motherland.
These three are obviously based on originally shifter, tiefling and fire genasi templates. I've got a few others waiting in the wings, but other than those three transhuman races, I'm trying to make sure that various populations of regular old humans still dominate the land numerically and politically.
Anyway, has anyone else ever tried anything like that? I know conceptually it's a bit farther afield than many folks would like, but the more I develop this stuff, the more I like it.