D&D General What are the most populous races in your setting?

[BookTenTiger]

So was this built off the PC races your characters chose and you built up a world they would be connected to, or did they come up with backgrounds that you took and ran with, such as the tiefling-vampire connection?

I had a general concept for a campaign: Vampire Oppressors in a secluded valley. (A remix of Curse of Strahd.) I knew there would be an enslaved peoples, a ruling class, a few other roles. The players made their characters and I filled it in from there.

The original characters were a tortle, a tiefling, an aasimar, and a goliath. I decided tortles were the enslaved and oppressed class, tieflings were the upper class, aasimars became a group of warriors who had passed through long ago, and goliaths were outsiders and very rare.

I filled in the valley with humans and some halflings, because I like halflings.

When the tortle character died, the player rolled up a gnome. We decided gnomes had been forcibly imported as expert artificers and mages.

This is my first time building the races of a campaign world off of player choices, and it's been really fun!

 

[RoughCoronet0]

In my homebrew world, elves would technically be the most populous race as they are spread across at least three of the six continents (as well as the underdark and the oceans) and have the largest amount of Subraces.

1. Eladrin (the season variety specifically)
2. High Elves
3. Wood Elves
4. Sea Elves
5. Avariel
6. Drow
7. Shadow Elves (Shadar-Kai)
8. Twilight Elves
9. Sun Weavers (Sun Driders)
10. Night Striders (Moon Driders)
11. A large percentage of Tieflings are of Elvish decent
12. A large percentage of Dhampir are of Elvish decent

Humans meanwhile have only arrived to the world in the last decade or century (still deciding an exact time) and are considered one of the dragon folk (along with Dragonborn and Kobold). Their numbers are small and they mostly stay in the Dragon Continent.

 

[steeldragons]

Most populous...hmmm...

#1. Humans. Hands down. Pervasive buggers're everywhere. Building their kingdoms and citites and nations. Making their wars and religions and evil and ruining existence in general.
#2. Goblins.
#3. Kobolds.
#4. Orcs.
#5. Trolls & Ogres (and Hags) are essentially the same species. "Ogre" in Common, from "Ogor" in Duun (dwarvish), is just the dwarven name for a "Rock Troll." Hags, of course, are the powerfully magical females who dominate/rule their species.
#6. Elves.
#7. Dwarves.
#8. Satyrs & Halflings occupy roughly the same environments and exist in roughly the same numbers.
#9. Centaurs.
#10. Gnomes.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

In my current setting the orcs and humans are most populous. Humans are rather adaptable and can thrive in many environments. And unlike many other species, some humans practice agriculture which allows high population cities to exist. (This is a stone age/early bronze age setting, so many people are some sort of nomads or hunter-gatherers.) Orcs on the other hand are hardy survivors, and can live in areas that would be too harsh and inhospitable to may other species, which gives them an niche humans cannot compete with. The third major species are the eldri, my small elf-like species. They however are far less numerous than the other two, although they can be found in many environments. They live in small clans. There are also many other intelligent species, such as gnolls, kobols, morogs, lizardfolk, kreen and others. But they're more peripheral. Granted, this may merely be due an anthropogenic bias: the campaign just takes place in the part of the setting where humans are common, and perhaps in some distant regions of the world this might not be the case.

Spoiler: An illustration of the three major species

More images of the denizens of my setting, as well as my other art and sketches at my Instagram.

 

[Tallifer]

I would like to say Cookie Gnomes (pictured below) and Mushroom Men, but it is probably Homo sapiens. I do however have a kitchen-sink approach to races in my campaign world modeled on the variety of places like Oz and Barsoom.

(See more illustrations from this D&D webcomic: Tales from the Gnomish Tarot )

 

[Voadam]

I would like to say Cookie Gnomes (pictured below) and Mushroom Men

They spring up everywhere!

 

[aco175]

I'm boring and just play the way it always was with mainly humans and the other PHB races being in the minority with pockets where they may be dominant. My group has been playing for a long time and it is just the way it is.

I kind of only need races based on plot. It is assumed to be human dominated so when there is a village with a bunch of dwarves or halflings, it is something to notice. A trade town where goblins and orcs are tolerated as traders and merchants would also qualify. It is more of another tool similar to classes where some kingdoms are ruled by fighters and clerics rather than mages, or the one ruled by a mage may be evil.

 

[Laurefindel]

Humans

...except in settings where there are no humans, like in two of my homebrews.

Tired trope? Perhaps; I don't care. Except when I do.

hum, that was a remarkably unhelpful answer...

 

[Voadam]

I'm boring and just play the way it always was with mainly humans and the other PHB races being in the minority with pockets where they may be dominant. My group has been playing for a long time and it is just the way it is.

I kind of only need races based on plot. It is assumed to be human dominated so when there is a village with a bunch of dwarves or halflings, it is something to notice. A trade town where goblins and orcs are tolerated as traders and merchants would also qualify. It is more of another tool similar to classes where some kingdoms are ruled by fighters and clerics rather than mages, or the one ruled by a mage may be evil.

So how do monstrous humanoids stack against humans and PHB races in the game? D&D has usually been fairly ambiguous on the amount of monsters as a default.

 

[Tonguez]

Humans

...except in settings where there are no humans, like in two of my homebrews.

Tired trope? Perhaps; I don't care. Except when I do.

hum, that was a remarkably unhelpful answer...

What are your settings with no humans? How does lack of Humaniti affect things?