Strange Race Question

[SleepyDrug]

I am in the middle of adjusting my Fantasy Hero material and I am taking a look at player races. Leaving aside dwarves, elves, gnomes, hobbits, and humans (the usual stuff) what races do people like to use and why? Trying to gather ideas or inspiration.

[Hierax]

Re: Strange Race Question

 

Here's 2: Winged/Flyers and Gilled/Water-Breathers because they open entirely new worlds (land, sea, sky) of adventure opportunity to the campaign and thus effectively expand the setting.

[Hierax]

Re: Strange Race Question

 

Centaurs have also been popular PC -- a sort of "do-it-yourself" cavalry. Saves leaving the horse outside of the dungeon and having to keep replacing those dead steeds but comes with difficulties of its own that give a character character.

 

Reptile/Lizard Men to get away from all of the mammalian types. Built-in rDEF armour is attractive.

[Hierax]

Re: Strange Race Question

 

The thing with races is that you have to choose them carefully with regard to the appropriateness for the campaign setting. Each race will probably also have at least one more culture and society for you to detail and how they interact with all the others races/cultures/socities. That's the great part about it, it further details your world, but at the expense of effort -- but as a Hero gamer that's nothing new, eh?

[Vanguard00]

Re: Strange Race Question

 

Like Hierax I try and open up areas of exploration (figuratively and literally) with new races. What I prefer to do, however, is to spin the usual stereotype. I don't do it just to do it, but rather because I want the race in question to fill a niche. Elves, for example, are a warrior race who used to enslave humanity and rule a vast empire. Halflings are my fantasy world's version of Gypsies, often mistrusted and misunderstood, without a home of their own. Uruk (orcs) are more civilized, and are slowly but surely being drawn into the "good" category. Giants are the remnants of the "old races". Saurians are the new "up and coming" race, and are the most aggressive by far.

 

I think you can use whatever you want, but make sure there's a reason for them. Centaurs exist in my world, for example, but only in limited quantity because of constant encroachment by other races. They live on plains and mostly try to keep to themselves. They're my world's version of the American Indian. The winged race I have proposed (but not yet named) will fill a similar niche but in the mountains. I based my 'watermen' (waterbreathers) on the original Submariner (from Marvel Comics), somewhat bitter and aggressive when landdwellers encroach or pollute their environment, but otherwise detached from the world as a whole.

 

I won't use minotaurs or faeries or dog-men or cat-men (probably) because I don't see a need for them, and they just won't fit in the grand scheme of things.

 

Create whatever races you want, but try and ensure that they have an actual place in the world. They should fulfill a need of the world and your campaign, both.

[SleepyDrug]

Re: Strange Race Question

 

Like Hierax I try and open up areas of exploration (figuratively and literally) with new races.

 

This is an appealing idea.

 

What I prefer to do, however, is to spin the usual stereotype. I don't do it just to do it, but rather because I want the race in question to fill a niche. Elves, for example, are a warrior race who used to enslave humanity and rule a vast empire. Halflings are my fantasy world's version of Gypsies, often mistrusted and misunderstood, without a home of their own. Uruk (orcs) are more civilized, and are slowly but surely being drawn into the "good" category. Giants are the remnants of the "old races". Saurians are the new "up and coming" race, and are the most aggressive by far.

 

This is along the lines of what I was thinking; how do races relate. Typically orcs and giants are evil. So I was wondering how people adjust them to make them fit into a group with other races.

 

I like your ideas, Vanguard. The halfling idea and the giants are interesting. Could you tell me more about your Uruk and how they are becoming good and your Saurians?

 

I think you can use whatever you want, but make sure there's a reason for them. Centaurs exist in my world, for example, but only in limited quantity because of constant encroachment by other races. They live on plains and mostly try to keep to themselves. They're my world's version of the American Indian. The winged race I have proposed (but not yet named) will fill a similar niche but in the mountains. I based my 'watermen' (waterbreathers) on the original Submariner (from Marvel Comics), somewhat bitter and aggressive when landdwellers encroach or pollute their environment, but otherwise detached from the world as a whole.

 

Very interesting. I played in a game where many alternate races were "get" or "wizards get", created magically.

 

I won't use minotaurs or faeries or dog-men or cat-men (probably) because I don't see a need for them, and they just won't fit in the grand scheme of things.

 

Create whatever races you want, but try and ensure that they have an actual place in the world. They should fulfill a need of the world and your campaign, both.

 

Thanks for the thoughts

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Strange Race Question

 

Anything furry, 'cause they look cool.

[Vanguard00]

Re: Strange Race Question

 

This is along the lines of what I was thinking; how do races relate. Typically orcs and giants are evil. So I was wondering how people adjust them to make them fit into a group with other races.

 

I like your ideas, Vanguard. The halfling idea and the giants are interesting. Could you tell me more about your Uruk and how they are becoming good and your Saurians?

 

 

Well, the Uruk are basically a conquered race. Coming from the typical stereotype where they constantly seem to be raiding some town/people/region, up to and including outright warfare. Now imagine one group gets tired of it and decides to just settle somewhere. They actually find a region where a nearby town of humans is willing to tolerate them (mainly because the humans could obliterate them if they wanted), and slowly trade and even trust is built.

 

The Uruk town became a place where other Uruk could come to trade for those items they didn’t normally have access to. The ‘tame’ Uruk enforced the peace, and eventually their ‘town’ became a city. Seeing their success, similar ‘towns’ sprung up in a few places, to similar success. Thus, the Uruk have learned over the course of several generations to cohabitate with their neighbors. This is not to say that every Uruk tribe goes along with this, just like there are human bandits and raiders and the like. Uruk are tolerated within most civilizations these days, even if they are viewed with some mistrust and/or discrimination. They basically are struggling against a racial bias, but they’re doing it. It should be noted that there is an offshoot race (thus far simply referred to as ‘goblins’), who still thrive on raiding. They are much more infrequent, however, and prefer frontier regions rather than more civilized areas.

 

Saurians, on the other hand, crept out of the mountains, first taking on occasional travelers, but eventually working up to full scale raids. By the time anyone figured out that they were a race unto themselves they had staked out a relatively large piece of territory in a particularly wealthy mountain range. Who are they? Where did they come from? No one is quite sure. Many believe they are the offspring of the long forgotten dragon races. It is well known that the Great Wyrms of old could take the form of just about any race they wanted, so it’s not improbably that a few might have actually breeded (if it’s possible, that is). Thus, Saurians might actually be descended from both Dragon and Man (or Elf, perhaps). It’s not generally known. They have low intelligence but are cunning fighters and quite vicious. They usually travel in small packs (4-12, give or take), but may be encountered in greater numbers (30 or more). Efforts to remove them from the mountains (by both men and dwarves) have resulted in the banding together of many tribes of Saurians to repel them. Hundreds or even thousands of Saurians will work together if given enough incentive. They do not trade but steal everything they want. It should be noted that Saurians are large, standing 7’ tall on average, and they’re much stronger and (usually) faster than humans. One Saurian is easily a match for a typical human, and even 2 or 3 trained soldiers would have a hard time taking one down without casualties.

 

Maybe I’ll post their write-ups in the near future, but I’m still in the “outlining†stages of construction, so I haven’t turned to numbers yet.

 

 

Very interesting. I played in a game where many alternate races were "get" or "wizards get", created magically.

 

Oddly enough, in my campaign world it is thought that humans and dwarves were somehow created by elves to be their slaves. Humans worked the fields and forests, dwarves worked the mines. There is no proof of this, though the elves will tend to promote this theory. Halfings, believe it or not, consider themselves to be the ‘original’ race from which all other humanoids can trace their origins. Everyone patently refuses to believe this. Mostly the other races believe they simply came about through the meddling of gods or (more rarely) through natural selection.

[Nevenall]

Re: Strange Race Question

 

One on my players played a troll for a while, and some quite good things came out of trying to fit him in a more or less human world.

I really dig the picture of the satyr in Fantasy Hero, so I added them as a race too.