Demihumans

[Duke Bushido]

On 5/18/2023 at 9:36 AM, Scott Ruggels said:

 

No Tolkien races in sight. 

 

 

It..... It's so.....   _beautiful_....  🥲

[assault]

On 5/26/2023 at 10:32 AM, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

It..... It's so.....   _beautiful_....  🥲

 

Just for fun: the name Elric means "Elf King" in old English.

[Duke Bushido]

Too late, I'm afraid.  That one I learned a few decades ago.

 

[tkdguy]

2 hours ago, assault said:

 

Just for fun: the name Elric means "Elf King" in old English.

 

The Melniboneans were pretty much elves with a decadent civilization.

[Lord Liaden]

13 hours ago, tkdguy said:

 

The Melniboneans were pretty much elves with a decadent civilization.

 

Hero's Valdorian Age setting explicitly did that, with Elves from the Turakian Age having been corrupted by the traumatic destruction of their world, and adopting the Melnibonean role in the succeeding Age. Non-humans are in decline in VA, and survivors like Dwarves and Goblins have been warped both mentally and physically.

 

That is another approach one could take with demihumans, have them as dying peoples, and/or altered by some event. Perhaps that only applies to some of them in one part of the world, if you want to keep the standard versions as well.

[tkdguy]

The Lamentations of the Flame Princess rpg portrays demihumans as dying species.

[Michael Hopcroft]

1 hour ago, tkdguy said:

The Lamentations of the Flame Princess rpg portrays demihumans as dying species.

With "real" humans couldn't really expect to be around much longer either. Protectors of reality fail even if they only lose once.

[Doc Democracy]

Been reading a lot about demi-humans recently, also thought it was on the boards that folk were talking about eleven being chaotic good and dwarves being lawful good.

 

In the Greyhawk HERO I am rustling up, I think that demi-humans will tend toward one or more of the planes.  I reckon elves will tend to the plane of Good and the plane of Air, putting them in that semi-angelic place.  Dwarves will tend toward Law and Earth, giving that generic stolid outlook.

 

Obviously not ALL dwarves or ALL elves but you can assume that any random elf or dwarf will exhibit those tendencies.  That works the same on the other side, humanoids have different tendencies.  Orcs tend to Evil and Fire, goblins to Chaos and Earth.

 

I think Planar connections should be obvious to anyone with Sight to see it.  These tendencies simply mean that they find talents/spells/abilities that use the energy from those planes easier to learn and use.  I am thinking that templates would have a skill enhancers and naked reduced END advantage for powers associated with those specific planes.

 

Am reading the Manual of the Planes to give me an idea of where to push things.

[Ninja-Bear]

23 hours ago, tkdguy said:

The Lamentations of the Flame Princess rpg portrays demihumans as dying species.

Isn’t that just very Tolkein? Elves are leaving the earth for the West? The dwarves dig into their mines but aren’t prolific and the Hobbits literally outgrow themselves? So they’re already dying.

[tkdguy]

10 minutes ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Isn’t that just very Tolkein? Elves are leaving the earth for the West? The dwarves dig into their mines but aren’t prolific and the Hobbits literally outgrow themselves? So they’re already dying.

 

You can definitely see it that way. No West for the Elves to escape to in this setting though. Still, you can reasonably explain the game as Tolkien meets Lovecraft.

[Cloppy Clip]

On 5/17/2023 at 12:34 PM, Ninja-Bear said:

How do you guys tweak Demihumans? So as to he familiar yet not just a Heroized version?

 

In my opinion, you can get a lot of mileage by considering how the different demihumans would have interacted through history. Even if you start with the most stereotypical set-up imaginable, by thinking through the consequences of trade and migration you can create a rich setting that has some unique twists while still feeling familiar.

 

For example, if you have elves be treated as the wisest and most intellectual race then, regardless of whether or not that has any basis in fact, other demihumans will adopt elvish philosophies and ideas to their cultures. A large motivation for the development of Islam was taking the Abrahamic faiths like Judaism and Christianity, that were popular in the region but associated with foreign powers, and reframing them as an Arab religion. In the same way you'd probably find concepts from elf society popping up among dwarves, halflings and orcs, but refocused on those communities.

 

Another thing to consider is that if a minority community doesn't take on the practices of the dominant culture then there's likely going to be a lot of discrimination occurring, as the minority becomes siloed off from the rest of society and an easy target for harassment, which can reinforce the choice of the minority to keep to themselves where they can. If left to go unchecked this can end in an ugly way, as when many medieval countries, low on funds, forced their Jewish populations to convert or face exile and the confiscation of their property.

 

In general, there's a lot of good material to be taken from real life history too. Pick some interaction between two different cultures and transpose that to your setting. You're not beholden to how it turned out in real life, either, so you can let your imagination run wild as you come up with different twists on history.

 

This post has been all over the place, so apologies for that. But hopefully there's something useful here.