what races in your fantasy?

[Nifft]

Earth:
- Human.
- Half-Elf & Half Orc (homebrews) -- basically humans who lose a feat and gain some racial bonuses. No stat adjustments.
- Elf (young) -- those elves too young to know ancient elven secrets are open to PCs.
- Dwarf -- dwarves who are not trusted with ancient dwarf secrets are open to PCs.
- Gnome (tiny homebrewed variant) -- strong nuclear familiy units, widely dispersed across the land.
- Kobold -- they live in the jungles to the south, the mountains to the north, the wastes to the east... any hardscrabble life will be scrabbled by kobolds.
- Lizardfolk -- strictly coastal, these great reptiles prefer seaside views and enjoy tropical island life.
- Free Orc (homebrew) -- these honor-bound people believe in strict heirarchy and sharp swords. They gain +2 Str, but suffer -2 Dex. They speak either Klingon or Japanese. I mean Orc. They speak Orc.
- Yuan-Ti (NPC only) -- these are a secret.

Recently, Warforged have become a playable race, but the players don't know why. Exactly one has been seen on Earth... but more are being seen in various other places. Many, many more.

-- N

 

[Afrodyte]

In my home setting, I use humans, elves, and dwarves. Those are the only playable races. I hate havign thousands of humanoid species on one world.

You know, I would find a setting that limits PC races this way very refreshing. To compensate for the lack of different PC races (at least, mechanically speaking), I'd probably emphasize differences within each race and the various cultures and temperaments these races can produce.

 

[woodelf]

I usualy see Human, elf and dwarf in that order. Occationally a half-orc, half-elf, or drow and rarely a halfling. Never a gnome although they are allowed. This seems true no matter whose game I've been in.

See, now that seems to be the impression i get from most D&D players, and why i started this thread. It sounded like that was the norm (at least 'round these parts), while my experiences are closer to human, dwarf, non-PH races, half-elf, halfling, elf, in that order (with gnome and half-orc basicalyl not making the list).

Glad to see that i'm not the only one who (1) finds the PH elves, especially, a bit bland and (2) not only offers, but actually has people play, other races.

 

[woodelf]

You know, I would find a setting that limits PC races this way very refreshing. To compensate for the lack of different PC races (at least, mechanically speaking), I'd probably emphasize differences within each race and the various cultures and temperaments these races can produce.

Sure, that can be cool. My complaint is precisely that the races in the PH aren't particularly different from one another, and don't have any internal variation. But if you give them some variety, and actually play them differently, then, yeah, that'd be cool.

One thing i'm doing for my next fantasy campaign, is playing with the concept of race a bit. Inspired by, among other things, Hispanics (as much a culture group as a genetic group) and Hutus and Tutsis (created ethnicity: one culture group and thus 'race', until the colonial powers created two races). I'm using Iron Heroes, and i'm breaking each race up, mechanically, into two traits, a culture trait, and a 'blood' trait. So you can take the 'elven blood' trait, but not the culture trait, to represent someone with some elven ancestry but raised elsewhere; or the 'elven heritage' trait but not the blood trait, to represent someone raised among elves but without a particularly strong bloodline (whether a human raised by elves, or just an elf with fewer kewl powerz). And, to emphasize the point that 'race' isn't a neat set of boxes, i'm deviating a bit from the typical assumptions of what is genetic and what is learned. Frex, elven improved sight i'm sticking in the heritage trait. I'll be curious to see how it plays out in the actual game, and what people will decide are the defining characteristics of each race.

 

[DMH]

Thought I find the races from the Oathbound books, from Silverthorne's Races of Evenor (I-III) and Primal Urges' Emerging Forms line broad enough for just about any setting, I allow players to come up with new races via a template or two stacked upon existing LA 0 and +1 races.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I decided to add racial levels ala Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed/Arcana Evolved to all races in my campaign.

While no one can take more than three racial levels, some races have choices as to where they place their racial levels.

Example: There are three overarching Fey racial levels (Selee Fey, Unseelee Fey, and Wild Fey). In addition, each type of elf has three racial levels. So, a Gruadras elf might take two levels of Wild Fey and one level of Gruadras elf, as an example. Dwarves are Titanborn, and there is a seperate set of Titanborn racial levels available to dwarves and giants. There are three sets of dwarven racial levels based upon the "path" that the dwarf follows. So, if a dwarf takes racial levels, the exact nature of his makeup might be quite different from that of another dwarf.

RC

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Common races to the area are dover (+1 LA dog men from Complete Minions)

Dover are LA +0 in the basic oathbound book... I think all they get is ambidexterity and a +2/-2 stat adjustment... whats different in complete minions?

I'm also running an oathbound game. All the standard OB races, plus
Humans
Highborne (sterile divne touched humans that form ruling clans)
Liosalfar/Doksalfar (basically a type of elf thats created as a treant minion to go out and experience the world to bring memories back to the sentient trees. Doksalfar are those alfar who choose to rebel against their creators and keep their identities.
Xenthari - 4 armed pathological truth tellers and scholars
Syhar - a group of clones modeled after the alchemists in Rackham's confrontation
Myoon - A race visually modeled after the Kamino from SW episode 2 (the cloners). Tall, graceful, naturalyl psionic. Sometimes the thought processes of other sentient beings causes them to drift into a state of madness.
Drakes - weak dragons, with an accompanying 25 level paragon class

I really wanted to get away from the same old same old. So elves are just a short lived mental construct, there are no living true dwarves, halflings arent around, humans are a small minority, etc.

Party consists of
Human Magister
Picker Ranger
Thorn Greenbond/Ranger
Nightling Fighter/Rogue
Sky Drake Paragon
Syhar Akashic
Myoon Rogue/Fighter/chaos-bringer Myoon paragon

 

[Aaron L]

You know, I would find a setting that limits PC races this way very refreshing. To compensate for the lack of different PC races (at least, mechanically speaking), I'd probably emphasize differences within each race and the various cultures and temperaments these races can produce.

I have detailed notes on the various human, elven, and dwarven cultures and ethnicities.

 

[Voadam]

Dover are LA +0 in the basic oathbound book... I think all they get is ambidexterity and a +2/-2 stat adjustment... whats different in complete minions?

I'm also running an oathbound game. All the standard OB races, plus
Humans
Highborne (sterile divne touched humans that form ruling clans)
Liosalfar/Doksalfar (basically a type of elf thats created as a treant minion to go out and experience the world to bring memories back to the sentient trees. Doksalfar are those alfar who choose to rebel against their creators and keep their identities.
Xenthari - 4 armed pathological truth tellers and scholars
Syhar - a group of clones modeled after the alchemists in Rackham's confrontation
Myoon - A race visually modeled after the Kamino from SW episode 2 (the cloners). Tall, graceful, naturalyl psionic. Sometimes the thought processes of other sentient beings causes them to drift into a state of madness.
Drakes - weak dragons, with an accompanying 25 level paragon class

I really wanted to get away from the same old same old. So elves are just a short lived mental construct, there are no living true dwarves, halflings arent around, humans are a small minority, etc.

Party consists of
Human Magister
Picker Ranger
Thorn Greenbond/Ranger
Nightling Fighter/Rogue
Sky Drake Paragon
Syhar Akashic
Myoon Rogue/Fighter/chaos-bringer Myoon paragon

Dover in Complete Minions get Scent, TWF, +2 dex, +2 wis, -2 int, (IIRC) d6 bite attack.

My party is based in a dover village and currently adventuring in a goblin one.

The party consists of:
Human ranger
Human hexblade/soulknife
Illonis sorcerer
Lizardman barbarian

All four are seeds pulled in from different worlds.

 

[Nellisir]

My campaign includes:

• Dweorh (mountain dwarf and duergar)
• Fey (domovii, leshii, and troldfolk)
• Gnome (nichtneblin, steinneblin, and svirfneblin)
• Ilven (faerilven and darilven)
• Jotunar (firjotun and talvijotun)
• Half-Human (fuah, ha'ilven, and roane)
  and
• Humans

My campaigns are heavily wilderness flavored. The mix changes slightly when I switch to different campaign areas.