darklight
First Post
After reading the Monster Palette thread started by mmadsen, and posting a more or less out-of-place post, I decide to start this thread.
The question is:
What new races have you created, both pc and npc races, and how do they fit in your world? Or what old races have you modified, how and why?
They need not be as elaborate as SHARK's excellent Hobgoblin, OGRE and Orcs A lot less will be fine too.
Here are the ones I posted on the Monster Palette thread earlier:
Note: Work is far from done on these races, so there wont be much in the way of mechanics.
Snouts (primitive canine humanoids, name given to them by humans) not very widespread. Most live as hunter-gatherers, on the far side of a mountain range close to one of the more civilized lands. Their society is matriarchal, and the leading female of a group is often a druid. They are generally agile and have good stamina, but are not strong, and their herd mentality has reduced their individual strength of personality, giving them +2 Dex, +2 Con, - 2 Str, - 2 Cha.
Classes: Rangers are, not surprisingly, the most common class among the snouts. Among the females druids are common. All other classes are very rare, though the few individuals who venture into human lands sometimes learn other classes.
Giant Flying Squirrels (have yet to come up with a good name) with druidic traditions, funloving, but also wise. (Hmmm...this might be more or less a replacement for halflings/gnomes/elves... though they will obviously play differently) Only very few are found outside the forest of Sydornia. So far the mechanics look something like:
+2 Dex
- 2 Str
Small: +1 Size bonus to AC; +1 Size bonus to attack rolls; +4 bonus to hide
Base speed 20
+2 bonus Climb and Jump checks: Squirrels have good grasp with both hands and feet, and are used to jumping from branch to branch.
+2 on Craft("Wood-weaving"): From very early on, the young squirrels help build and repair their homes, by weaving and intertwining thin branches into beautiful, lightweight treetop homes.
+2 on Balance checks: Living 50+ feet above ground, the squirrels learn to rely an their great balance + their gliding ability
- 2 on Swin checks: Squirrels are not built for swimming, and try to avoid it if at all possible. When they have to cross a stream, they find a high point, and use their ability to glide across.
- 2 on Ride checks: Squirrels find the whole concept of riding on the back of another creature very odd, and their build also makes it difficult to sit across a horse or other mount.
Glide Ability: I Have yet to define the exact rules for this. It could potentially make the flying squirrels too powerful, or perhaps increase their ECL .
Classes: There is a fairly high percentage of druids among squirrels. They are often the clan leaders, and are always very respected for their vast knowledge of the forest. Bards and Rogues are fairly common, and Rangers and Monks are the most common of the warrior types. A 4' squirrel making an unarmed gliding whirlwind attack is quite a sight Sorcerers are rare, but do exist. Sometimes they are feared and shunned, often chosing a life away from the clan. This means that many of the squirrels encountered in human lands are sorcerers, leading to the human misconception that most squirrels are sorcerers.
"demons" (not actual demons, but they look a bit like demons.) Humans consider them savage and primitive, but they are actually a fairly civilized, if harsh society. They are hermaphrodites. Who carries the children is determined by status. The 'mother' is able to work through the entire (fairly short) pregnancy. Children mature very quickly. Being able to procreate quckly makes for a very battle-ready race. The thing that mostly keeps them from spreading, is their choice of living conditions. They prefer mud pools, hot springs and the like.
The race is quite short lived, very few individuals live to be over 50, and most die when they are around 40. They are as cunning as humans, but their short lifespan, and the harsh life of constant struggle for power means that they, as a race, are not very wise.
Classes: Fighter is by far the most popular class among the 'demons'. Among those living away from the towns and cities, Barbarian is common as well. A few learn the 'lay of the land' and become Rangers. Sorcerers, while rare, have a prominent place in the society of the demons, being generally feared and respected. Many of the top leaders of the demons have at least a few levels of sorcerer, often mixed with the combat prowess of some fighter levels.
"The Slender Ones": A strange race of tall bald humanlike people. The look a bit like the Minbhar (sp?) from Babylon 5. These people live among the humans of the empire of Qazimir, where they have a role not unlike high nobility. They care little for the humans, and have been known to disintegrate a human for failing to show the proper respect. They are very powerful inate spellcasters, with a different kind of magic. They do not have direct power over the empire, but if one of them express a feeling about something, the human rulers will very, very rarely go against it. They did not originate on this planet.
Classes: This race was originally designed to have a completely different type of magic, based on knacks from GURPS Magic. Of the core classes, they most resemble sorcerers.
Werecreatures: Becoming a were is almost always a voluntary action, requring the consumption of the fluid from the glands of a greezer, a powerful shapechanging creature. Thereafter you must drink the warm blood af the type of creature you wish to be able to change into. Hereafter you can change only in the hour, when the sun is changing from light to dark, or vice versa. (In this world the sun is always in the same place in the sky, but every twelwe hours it changes from emitting 'light energy' to emitting 'dark energy', hence my nickname Once you have changed, you have to stay that way for the next 12 hours. It is possible to do a 'half-change', becoming a man-beast (the typical werewolf of the movies). Most weres belong to a large cult devoted to becoming more in touch with nature. This cult controls the majority of the forest of Dysia.
Classes: Any class is possible, since this isn't really a race, but the idea most often appeals to the nature-inclined races. Actually I'm considering making Werecreature a prestige class instead, since the conscripts could come from any race.
Adjati: a race of gangly, translucent-skinned humanoids, that in their distant past was powerful psionics. The gods of the world, who greatly fear psionics, mindblocked the entire race, stripping them of their psionic powers, and removed the memory of the Adjati from every sentient being on the planet, including the Adjati themselves. They are now a weak and dying race. (The reason for this way of 'destroying' the Adjati involves god-level politics that I wont go into).
Classes: The race has never had a knack for magic, using psionics instead. Furthermore the mindblock blocked a large part of the brain, making them rather dim-witted and slow, excluding them from classes that require high intelligence or wisdom. The race was not intended to be a pc race, but if a player is willing to play a rather weak character, a great campaign could be build around slowly discovering the truth about the past, and removing the mindblock, bringing the Adjati back to their former glory.
Well these were a few examples from my own homebrew world, not very detailed, but enough to get an idea I think.
It would be very interesting to see what all you creative people on the boards have come up with.
darklight
The question is:
What new races have you created, both pc and npc races, and how do they fit in your world? Or what old races have you modified, how and why?
They need not be as elaborate as SHARK's excellent Hobgoblin, OGRE and Orcs A lot less will be fine too.
Here are the ones I posted on the Monster Palette thread earlier:
Note: Work is far from done on these races, so there wont be much in the way of mechanics.
Snouts (primitive canine humanoids, name given to them by humans) not very widespread. Most live as hunter-gatherers, on the far side of a mountain range close to one of the more civilized lands. Their society is matriarchal, and the leading female of a group is often a druid. They are generally agile and have good stamina, but are not strong, and their herd mentality has reduced their individual strength of personality, giving them +2 Dex, +2 Con, - 2 Str, - 2 Cha.
Classes: Rangers are, not surprisingly, the most common class among the snouts. Among the females druids are common. All other classes are very rare, though the few individuals who venture into human lands sometimes learn other classes.
Giant Flying Squirrels (have yet to come up with a good name) with druidic traditions, funloving, but also wise. (Hmmm...this might be more or less a replacement for halflings/gnomes/elves... though they will obviously play differently) Only very few are found outside the forest of Sydornia. So far the mechanics look something like:
+2 Dex
- 2 Str
Small: +1 Size bonus to AC; +1 Size bonus to attack rolls; +4 bonus to hide
Base speed 20
+2 bonus Climb and Jump checks: Squirrels have good grasp with both hands and feet, and are used to jumping from branch to branch.
+2 on Craft("Wood-weaving"): From very early on, the young squirrels help build and repair their homes, by weaving and intertwining thin branches into beautiful, lightweight treetop homes.
+2 on Balance checks: Living 50+ feet above ground, the squirrels learn to rely an their great balance + their gliding ability
- 2 on Swin checks: Squirrels are not built for swimming, and try to avoid it if at all possible. When they have to cross a stream, they find a high point, and use their ability to glide across.
- 2 on Ride checks: Squirrels find the whole concept of riding on the back of another creature very odd, and their build also makes it difficult to sit across a horse or other mount.
Glide Ability: I Have yet to define the exact rules for this. It could potentially make the flying squirrels too powerful, or perhaps increase their ECL .
Classes: There is a fairly high percentage of druids among squirrels. They are often the clan leaders, and are always very respected for their vast knowledge of the forest. Bards and Rogues are fairly common, and Rangers and Monks are the most common of the warrior types. A 4' squirrel making an unarmed gliding whirlwind attack is quite a sight
Sorcerers are rare, but do exist. Sometimes they are feared and shunned, often chosing a life away from the clan. This means that many of the squirrels encountered in human lands are sorcerers, leading to the human misconception that most squirrels are sorcerers."demons" (not actual demons, but they look a bit like demons.) Humans consider them savage and primitive, but they are actually a fairly civilized, if harsh society. They are hermaphrodites. Who carries the children is determined by status. The 'mother' is able to work through the entire (fairly short) pregnancy. Children mature very quickly. Being able to procreate quckly makes for a very battle-ready race. The thing that mostly keeps them from spreading, is their choice of living conditions. They prefer mud pools, hot springs and the like.
The race is quite short lived, very few individuals live to be over 50, and most die when they are around 40. They are as cunning as humans, but their short lifespan, and the harsh life of constant struggle for power means that they, as a race, are not very wise.
Classes: Fighter is by far the most popular class among the 'demons'. Among those living away from the towns and cities, Barbarian is common as well. A few learn the 'lay of the land' and become Rangers. Sorcerers, while rare, have a prominent place in the society of the demons, being generally feared and respected. Many of the top leaders of the demons have at least a few levels of sorcerer, often mixed with the combat prowess of some fighter levels.
"The Slender Ones": A strange race of tall bald humanlike people. The look a bit like the Minbhar (sp?) from Babylon 5. These people live among the humans of the empire of Qazimir, where they have a role not unlike high nobility. They care little for the humans, and have been known to disintegrate a human for failing to show the proper respect. They are very powerful inate spellcasters, with a different kind of magic. They do not have direct power over the empire, but if one of them express a feeling about something, the human rulers will very, very rarely go against it. They did not originate on this planet.
Classes: This race was originally designed to have a completely different type of magic, based on knacks from GURPS Magic. Of the core classes, they most resemble sorcerers.
Werecreatures: Becoming a were is almost always a voluntary action, requring the consumption of the fluid from the glands of a greezer, a powerful shapechanging creature. Thereafter you must drink the warm blood af the type of creature you wish to be able to change into. Hereafter you can change only in the hour, when the sun is changing from light to dark, or vice versa. (In this world the sun is always in the same place in the sky, but every twelwe hours it changes from emitting 'light energy' to emitting 'dark energy', hence my nickname
Once you have changed, you have to stay that way for the next 12 hours. It is possible to do a 'half-change', becoming a man-beast (the typical werewolf of the movies). Most weres belong to a large cult devoted to becoming more in touch with nature. This cult controls the majority of the forest of Dysia.Classes: Any class is possible, since this isn't really a race, but the idea most often appeals to the nature-inclined races. Actually I'm considering making Werecreature a prestige class instead, since the conscripts could come from any race.
Adjati: a race of gangly, translucent-skinned humanoids, that in their distant past was powerful psionics. The gods of the world, who greatly fear psionics, mindblocked the entire race, stripping them of their psionic powers, and removed the memory of the Adjati from every sentient being on the planet, including the Adjati themselves. They are now a weak and dying race. (The reason for this way of 'destroying' the Adjati involves god-level politics that I wont go into).
Classes: The race has never had a knack for magic, using psionics instead. Furthermore the mindblock blocked a large part of the brain, making them rather dim-witted and slow, excluding them from classes that require high intelligence or wisdom. The race was not intended to be a pc race, but if a player is willing to play a rather weak character, a great campaign could be build around slowly discovering the truth about the past, and removing the mindblock, bringing the Adjati back to their former glory.
Well these were a few examples from my own homebrew world, not very detailed, but enough to get an idea I think.
It would be very interesting to see what all you creative people on the boards have come up with.
darklight
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