Look for Feedback on a Homebrew.

[Aryanun]

WARNING: this is a little long...

 

I'd like some feedback on if what I've written so far for my as yet unnamed homebrew world is viable.

 

Zathi: Reptile-like, with snake-like skin and smoother faces. The also have sharp, carnivore teeth as opposed to tusks and ear holes instead of ears. Poor hearing and average eyesight and scent, they have an exceptional touch sense, often being able to tell when an enemy is sneaking up on them from the tremors of the ground. Aggressive and warlike, they separate into tribes that don’t cooperate well. Certain tribes harbor deep antagonism towards specific others, leading to a natural rivalry. With a male dominated caste system where strength and battle skills are revered, females are often treated no better than slaves, taking second place even to livestock. As nomadic hunter-gatherers, they may herd some animals more for food-stock, keeping only a few around as pets or for labor. Carnivorous and slightly cannibalistic, they eat their dead in prominent ceremonies with the belief that imbibing their flesh imparts characteristics of the dead upon the living. They have a shamanistic belief system with several different animal gods, often one particular deity as the patron over a particular tribe. They do have some magic ability, though it’s a rare trait. Their skin/scale color tends towards black, dark blue, dark-brown, or dark red, depending upon the tribe. Eye color is generally a yellow or amber color although green is not uncommon.

 

Elves: Ranging in height from four and a half feet tall to over seven feet, the elves have history dating back to the pre-dawn of civilization. Whispered rumor and a widespread belief on the more commonly known sub-races has led to an inaccurate image of the elf as a whole. Most elves enjoy a lifespan of approximately 400 to 500 years, giving them the illusion of immortality, but some have been known to live beyond the average expectancy, with the eldest known elf to have lived to an age of about 650.

• Plains: The most common sub-race, the plains elf tends to be more fair-skinned, with blond or light brown hair, green or blue eyes, and are taller than their woodland cousins, more along the human standard. With a nomadic lifestyle, they herd animals (different ones depending on the tribe – elk, horses, cattle, sheep) for food and clothing and travel in caravans. Magic is mostly divination type (gypsy) and clothing is quite colorful.
  
• Forest: A fairly common type, they typically have brown or black hair, brown, green or blue eyes, and a ruddy skin tone. A greenish hair color, however, is not unknown and those with such coloration tend to be more magical (no known reason). They live in elaborate tree-top cities with a barter system and utilize druidic or elemental magic. Average height is around five feet. Monarch, patriarchal society, they are strict vegetarians and are often referred to in the derogatory as “plants†or “dandelion eaters.†Very protective of their forest homes, they challenge any who would enter, even other elven sub-races.
  
• Desert: These hardy elves are dark of skin, generally a rich, toffee color, with dark brown or black eyes. Hair color ranges from a platinum blonde to medium brown. Standing as tall as the average human, these nomadic travelers specialize in surviving in the harshest climate of the desert. Utilizing camels and horses, they scavenge from failed caravans and long lost cities. Often found on the fringes of towns along the desert’s edge, they frequently sell their merchandise at town bazaars or trick the unwary out of their hard earned gold with their often cryptic prophecies. Divination and prophetic magic, as well as some elemental, run through the veins of these hot-bloods.
  
• Aquatic: Found only in the salt-water seas and oceans, these extremely rare elves live in magnificent cities of rock and coral deep beneath the waves. Generally reclusive, they tend towards iridescent green and blue skin tones with greenish-blue eyes. They don’t have hair. Instead, they have fins that run down the length of their backs, often to their tails, which have long, thin, sharp spikes. These spikes are tipped with a neurological poison that paralyzes their foe. With a patriarchal monarchy, these beings have been known to trade with other races using gold, silver, and other valuables found in the deep ocean depths that other races cannot reach. Magic is rare and nearly unknown, with those who do have the ability usually never knowing as there are no known practicing mages. Aquatic elves do, however, have a penchant, perhaps a psionic ability, that allows them to communicate with most other sea creatures on a basic level. Having finned feet and hands, as well as an eel-like tail that helps to propel them through the water at speeds, they almost never leave their watery home. If they do, they can only survive on land without magical aid for an hour, during which time breathing is quite difficult and they start to die within fifteen minutes.
  
• Ice: Found only in the cold, inhospitable Northern snow wastes, the Ice elves are the fairest skinned, typically with a pale ivory skin or blue-tinged white skin. Hair color is white at the lightest color, pale blonde at the darkest, and eyes are blue, gray, or, extremely rare, topaz. Ice elves tend to be about six feet tall, on average. Clothing is always warm furs or thick cloth woven from the wool of the Snow Camel. Armor is normally made of thick hides or the magical scale armor from white dragons. These rare elves have a matriarchal monarch society with a barter system. Magic ability runs rampant in their blood with even the lowliest being able to perform minor feats. Living only in their hidden city, they rarely venture beyond the frozen wastes, preferring the cold. Some rangers can be found along the border towns, however, acting as guides through the blizzard prone tundra to magnificent cities beyond.
  
• Shadow: Living deep in the jungles of the Dark Land, these elusive, strange creatures can barely be seen to be related to the elves. A fine fur, often brown, reddish brown, black, or blue-black in color, covers their body, with a fine, longer trail of hair running from their forehead down the spine to the small of their back. Towering well over seven feet in height, they have exceptional hearing and remain the most reclusive of all the elves. A diplomatic society, they are quite magical, often knowing several different doctrines and utilizing them to their fullest extent. In addition, they have the ability to change their shape into any other humanoid they have seen. Their typically blue eyes tend to have a milky, pearlescent sheen. Most remarkable about this strange sub-race is the thin membrane stretched between their arms to their knees. This membrane, when unfolded fully, gives them the ability to glide so long as the elf has a high enough perch from which to catch a draft. Their arms are in three segments, much like a bats, yet fold up to allow the elf to use their long, three-fingered claws as hands.
  

 

For dwarves I'm kind of putting gnomes and hobbits in with them so the listing is thus (although not fleshed out yet):

 

Masons: Stone work specialists - mountain regions

Forgers: Metal workers - various areas but close to mountain ore sources

Wood: Carpentry specialists - ranger and druidic types

Burrow: Miners and farmers (re: more hobbit/halfling like)

Tinkers: Builders (machinecraft - gnomish)

Articifers: Magics and artifact creators.

 

Other races include: Tuatara (a dragon-man type race), an anthropomorphic lionish race that is a main adversary of the Desert elves, and maybe orcs (but I wanted the Zathi to replace the traditional orc role in my world, so I'm still trying to decide on that part yet). Humans, of course, are a given, but will have seperate writeups, just like the other races, for cultural differences.

 

I also had an idea of how to populate the Dark Land (I'll probably rename that to something more sinister sounding - think an overgrown Congo). Utilizing my anthropology knowledge, I'm thinking of going with a Hominid or Australopithecine type race (or maybe a mix of both).

 

As for magic, I'm creating a system that utilizes schools of magic (Elemental, Divination, Necromatic, and so forth) where I can say "This high level NPC mage leans towards Elemental magic, but has been known to dabble in some Summoning and Anima forces as well." This way the spellset of a particular mage can be assigned by the GM as per whichever set of rules they wish to follow.

 

Note: I'm trying to write this in a way where it is usable across platforms. I don't want it to be specifically HERO or specifically D&D. This will give GMs who decide to use things from my setting in their own (or the setting as a whole) and write up the NPCs as they see if. I will mention, in the final write up (which I will eventually post on my website - once that is up and running) how the races tend to lean (book smarts vs street smarts, cunning vs naive about the world outside their little area, and so forth).

[Old Man]

Re: Look for Feedback on a Homebrew.

 

As much as I love Elves, you should cut back on the number of types you have. Unless you have a near equal number of types of Dwarves, Humans and whatever. It's an equality thing that non-Elf lovers will resent.

[Curufea]

Re: Look for Feedback on a Homebrew.

 

Or you could just keep it the way it is and not worry about roleplayers who don't like elves - there are other settings they can use. Personally, I'm in favour of originality over "yet another D&D clone setting with these set races and no others"

 

Just bear in mind that if you are trying to make it a non-system specific setting, then you will have to make MANY compromises in creativity in order for it to be compatible.

 

Either that, or just have no rules-related things in the game - and leave it to whatever the GM using the setting can work out for their favourite system.

[Aryanun]

Re: Look for Feedback on a Homebrew.

 

Or you could just keep it the way it is and not worry about roleplayers who don't like elves - there are other settings they can use. Personally, I'm in favour of originality over "yet another D&D clone setting with these set races and no others"

 

Just bear in mind that if you are trying to make it a non-system specific setting, then you will have to make MANY compromises in creativity in order for it to be compatible.

 

Either that, or just have no rules-related things in the game - and leave it to whatever the GM using the setting can work out for their favourite system.

 

Basically I was going the No-Rules route so GMs could customize as they saw fit.

 

As for the number of elves/other races. Just because I include a race or whatever doesn't mean they have to be used. The setting is going to be fairly loose so GMs can pick and choose what they want from it.

 

Keep in mind I've barely scratched the surface. This is after only about three days work (and that's on my lunch break). There are going to be lots of dwarves, as I've listed, as well as humans, the Zathi, the cat-race (still unnamed), and the Tuatara. I just haven't gotten around to describing the dwarves yet.

 

Also, I'm working on a whole undersea population. I've been looking into research of prehistoric ocean dwellers as well as deep sea dwellers.

 

I'm also thinking about pulling the "shadow elves" and the aquatic elves off the elf list and into another category of their own as they've evolved into something much different than a standard elf. I'm still undecided on that.

[Sword-dancer]

Re: Look for Feedback on a Homebrew.

 

Or made them true different species like the Elves of Middlearth and the elves of of elfquest.

 

OtoH you could also `ve different races of Humans, dwarves, etc aswell as Lizard men or Canine men.