What nonstandard player character races does your setting have?
>>43597149
Shit, my setting is MOSTLY nonstandard player races. I'm actually currently working with my players and an artist we commissioned to flesh them out visually.
None. Humans only.
>>43597149
Adorable little Plant People?
The rest of the "nonstandards" are dead, or lost.
>>43597609
The problem with just asking "What nonstandard player character races does your setting have?" is, of course, that answers are going to have to be involved in order to be at all informative. I could say "Well, I have ohanya and surai" and so on down the list, but that isn't actually going to tell you anything about them.
>>43597149
Dwarves, Elves and Humans. They're not what you think they are.
>>43597675
>Humans
Okay, I'll bite. How can you makes humans so different, but there's still a point to call them humans?
>>43597149
Jötun, 8-foot tall giants, the shortest of their kind.
Sure, I could say that surai, like in >>43597609 and >>43597672 are water people, and that ohanya, as in the picture on this post, are fire people, but that's kind of like saying that elves are "pointy-eared people who live a long time."
What level of detail are you looking for, here?
>>43597711
They're Humans, but not like you or I. They're Humans from folklore and myth. Words have great meaning, everything is bigger, grander and more dramatic. There is no mundane Humans, but that doesn't mean everyone is a Hero. There is no dull peasants, but cunning men full of worldly wisdom and folklore that can be helpful or harming. Heroes are not shining fantasy knights, they are beings of myth and legend who perform deeds beyond the scope of mortals because they are heroes. Kings are not simply rulers, they are authority and majesty.
It's a very folkloristic setting where words and deeds have substance.
>>43597779
>demon-thing kills a weird bird, makes fried chicken with his head
>>43597149
Well my favorite setting of mine I replaced the Elven races with Tengers, a mix between plains Native Americans, the many Steppe peoples of Asia, and Romani. Also have the Orcs and Orno, Orcs are just Orcs, but dumber and twice the size, and Orno are smart, wise and caring slug people. They used to be one race, the Titans, but they "challenged the gods" as the myth goes and minds and body's where split (like in Dark Crystal.) with all that was wicked about them transferring the a race of war golems and all that was great transferring into there preferred food. Also no Gnomes, I HATE Gnomes!
>>43598065
The fuck did gnomes do to you
>>43598122
They killed my brother and raped my sister!
>>43597779
Honestly, the races in your games seem super cool and I want to know more about them. So as much as you'd like to share is my answer. But could you be less petulant about it? You could easily just describe your races without fishing for interest.
>>43598160
>>43598122
Say gno to gnomes!
I have a couple I've been fucking around with.
>Cucoy or Ghost Drinkers- Magical spirits given form, highly aligned to nature. They don't reproduce sexually, or at all, new ones just kind of appear. They can absorb ghosts and literally 'drink' them, which makes ghosts and spirits very scared of them.
>Minionlings- Similar in size and look to kobolds, but usually created by Wizards to fulfill specific tasks. Most are either released or escapees, and most either love or hate their old masters. Only a few of them are fertile. They come in a few general shapes; Slavelings are small and fast (traditional kobolds), Brutelings are tall (for them) and fat, very powerfully built, and finally Queerlings are smart and magically potent versions.
>Trolls- Not nonstandard, but not usually playable
Other then this though, I'm realizing now just how many of my races are just humans mixed with something else. I think I might play up this angle- half human half animal, half human half spirit, half human half godling... Might be cool.
>>43598238
Well, it's less "fishing for interest" and more "highly distracted at the moment, so I realize I have more to say a few minutes after posting."
The four stoichen races--ohanya, surai, and the less-concretely-named ehekatl and yanren--aren't native to the "central" world of the setting. Instead, they're from the worlds of Qažadar, Baťrasa, Dan'Khalal, and Habakad, respectively. Each one of those worlds is dominated by a particular one of the four elements--fire for Qažadar, water for Baťrasa, earth for Dan'Khalal, and air for Habakad--that heavily informs the geography, wildlife, and magic. However, the stoichen are not the only intelligent races of their worlds, and the various genie races were massive dicks to them over the course of history. Ifrit hunted ohanya for sport, kept them as pets, and bred them for desired qualities. Marids hunted and ate surai and the leviathans on which they made their homes. I haven't quite finalized what the dao did to the yanren and the djinn did to the ehekatl, but it'll be equally dickish.
So, roughly three thousand years ago, from surviving records--of which there are very few--some kind of divine intervention, planar alignment, or other phenomenon allowed the stoichen to cross over from their worlds to the world around which they revolved. Their reception was cool at first, with some facing more prejudice than others, but they did their part during the catastrophe that wracked the world a thousand years later and are now fully integrated into the societies of the world.
I've attached the DM notes on ohanya. I'm still working on the document for surai--I'm most of the way through mating and life cycle, but haven't yet gotten to psychology or cultural trends.
A lot of my races are actually nonstandard. It's mostly because I like pretending I'm super original about things.
notable 'core' races are Oortlings, Scions, Archons, and Blemmyae.
notable 'major' races are Nogs, Created, and Iceborn.
notable 'minor' races are Gremlins, Eiyen, Cynocephali, Monopods, and Skabs.
The core, major, and minor things are just so I can remember their relevance to the overall story, not population or rarity. Created for instance are literally becoming a very common race to see in the Great City and surrounding satellite-states. It's not a core race because they're otherwise unimportant. Some drama about them replacing slave labor AND elf labor, and their zealous worship of Archons, but that's why Archons are a core race.
>>43597149
dolphorcs, lots and lots of dolphorcs
>>43597149
I'm currently fiddling with an extremely magical race that produces so much mana they don't even need to eat, just need water. Inherent sustenance and agelessness are completely natural. However, their bodies still need vitamins, proteins, and minerals to rebuild and to grow, so many of them end up as decrepit skeletons with atrophied muscles, pulling themselves around like puppets with their own mana. Furthermore, with the right minerals, that occur in their "holy water", their bodies grow crystals out of their spines that act as mana batteries, storing their excess energy for dire circumstances.
All that said, they're actually very crude with their magic, because they have so much. Comparitively, humans have to scrimp and save and be immensely creative in application, to achieve something like a fireball. Meanwhile they can just snap their fingers and cause one, but they can't make one as strong as they proportionally should be able to. As it turns out, the best bang for the buck is simply having them transfer excess energy to disposable humans and turning it into an endurance game.
Thoughts?
Don't have a game row, but if I did I'd have Kinaree as a race.
There are the snake-assed people, you probably know the type, who are sometimes also mutated into gorgons by divine blessing/curse, pic related in the latter case. Beyond them you could maybe play a weird spirit of some kind or a rogue skeleton, I guess.
>>43598886
Humans suck as usual
>>43597149
None, mother fucker. Why? Because the first rule of my setting is "nothing that doesn't make sense, biologically". That severely reduces your options. I don't even have gnolls and shit because digitigrade feet are fucking stupid on bipedal creatures. And dragons are fucking SMALL. The biggest ones are only about two-thirds the size of a human, not counting wings and tail. There's no race with horns on their heads, cause that shit would cause physical imbalances. And the only one with a fucking muzzle is the Loup, who are massive sentient and sapient god damned DOGS, bitch!
>>43597149
Do androids count as nonstandard?
>>43599229
>None
>massive sentient and sapient god damned DOGS
That sounds like a pretty good nonstandard player character race, though.
>>43599301
I... you...
Fuck. You got me there. My players certainly seem to like them.
>>43599220
It's a setting where everything is trying to kill humans who only stand a chance because they have enough territory to fall back into as they sprint forward in unethical science to make more and more lethal weapons while the other races languish in the past.
The above race is actually super important in that they're essentially race traitors and shack up with humans after the other magical races turn on them.
>>43599229
Seems rather dull and unimaginative. You're correct in that a lot of typical fantasy species wouldn't evolve naturally, but that doesn't mean humans and their elf/dwarf/whatever derivatives are the only things that could fall into the "makes biological sense" zone. There are so many strange organisms already in reality that could be reasonably well adapted into sapient species for a fantasy setting. I don't mean anything as droll and uninspired as dog people or spider people or [xyz] people, either.
>>43599229
>>43599301
>>43599409
>>43599301
Aren't giant dogs (along with giant humans, etc) more implausible/biologically impossible than many "strange" races?
>>43599455
He's the same kind of moron who if shown a species that had extremely poorly designed, inadequately evolved feet and legs he would bitch about how they don't make sense.
Then be shown that they're talking about real world humans and spill his spaghetti everywhere.
>>43599229
Digitigrade feet are stupid on bipedal creatures?!
Oh shit, better tell Ostriches and every single raptor that they don't exist!
>>43599051
>black gorgon
muh dick
>>43599517
Not giant. Just very large for dogs. Think wolfhound sized.
>>43599455
The trick is to make the cultures different and interesting rather than relying on biology to do it.
>>43599529
Listen, dumbass, I'm well aware that humans are badly built. However, they're still built well enough to successfully function, unlike so many fantasy beings that are n more than "lets take (animal) and make it bipedal, hurr". And, for all their flaws, humans have a number of major advantages, too. It balances.
>>43599598
You know as well as I do that birds and saurians are a special case. Their elongated toes allow them to balance in a way that bipedal cats/hyenas/goats/other mammals couldn't. Same goes for muzzles. There's good reason why we don't have protruding jaws, because they would require heavy counterbalances on the back of the head. This is why cromagnons had large occipital buns, because they were needed to counter their heavy jaws and brows when running.
>>43599760
>balance in a way that bipedal cats/hyenas/goats/other mammals couldn't.
Clan based 8foot tall Beetle people.
Cursed humans in the form of goat legs, second class citizens for mocking the god of nature thousands of years ago. And not-elves whose bodies change depending on their magical affinity
>>43599820
Just stop. One dog, lovingly cared for by humans with all it's needs tended to, is not the same as a species having to do everyting, including things like hunting and war, while permanently on on tiptoe
>>43598523
Wasn't there a thread about that ghostdrinker race?
I faintly remember at least something like that.
>>43599843
>Cursed humans in the form of goat legs
...Satyrs?
>>43600083
Yes, I made that to help flesh them out.
>>43599760
What about elephants? Do you have super-intelligent elephants?
>>43597149
>>43600197
I think it would probably help to cut back on the furry aspect, desu senpai
>>43598886
So when they transfer excess energy to a human, does the human get the excess mana like they do, but with the finer and more creative applications of their spells as well?
>>43600315
More like an instant recharge. Most humans die if you oversaturate them with mana. But if it would normally take you all night to get back in fighting condition, they can have you juiced back up in an instant, if they're willing to burn the mana to do so.
>>43600477
Another question, what is the tech level in your setting?
Because a race that produces a large amount of renewable and what seems to be powerful energy, combined with the ingenuity of humans, sounds like some high-level stuff could be possible.
>>43600551
There aren't enough mana dorks to be spared for non-military uses. Tech wise, everything starts a few decades ahead of the modern era, but with the population constantly retreating and torching everything they left behind it's a lot more grim than you'd expect it to be.
Unfortunately, mana doesn't mix well with technology, since it's entwined with the living spirit. They figured out advanced AIs and neural implants, but they also figured out how to inject a man with a serum and bring him back from the brink of death in an instant. Unfortunately, they two don't mix, the implant will get ejected by the healing process.
But at the same time, the characters of importance are throwing down with .50 caliber machine guns treated like rifles, and swinging around swords that can cleave boulders in half. Because they're fighting monsters just as strong.
>>43600657
Neat.
So what other races are there?
>>43600905
can't stay awake any longer anon. You'll have to wait till tomorrow
Suffice to say though, they're mostly big scary monsters to be killed.
>>43597149
Depends on the area.
In the western, half settled area, it's mostly normal races with the "monster" races being hated and feared. In the east, it's a rather different story.
The most common races in the east are, in (very rough) order
Humans
Yulaks
Goblins
Gnolls
Bearded Lizardfolk (basically Bearded Dragon lizardfolk, in contrast to the more monitor lizardfolk of the west)
Hobgoblins
Dwarves
Halflings
Elves
Yulaks are half-gnolls- basically thousands of years ago a rather nasty group of elves took over, and drove the humans and the other monstrous races away/into extinction. Many humans and gnolls fled into the deep desert, where they adapted to a nomadic, bedouin like lifestyle. However, resources in the desert were limited, and they had a tendency of interspecies and inter tribal warfare, which was slowly destroying them. Two great leaders from each race saw the slow death awaiting them, and came together to stop it. They, one by one, united each tribe of their own race, and then came together to negotiate once and for all. However, the differences between the two were simply too great, and neither side trusted the other. They appealed to the god who ruled the desert, who agreed to aid them. He blessed them with the ability to have children, at which point they married and forced many of their followers to marry. The children thus produced were Yulaks- large, hunched humans with the heads of hyenas. Halfway between both species, they were able to bridge the gap in thought between the two, uniting them. Also new blood ties made life a lot easier. Then the united desert tribes swept out of the desert, butchered their way through the elven lands, drove the few survivors into the deep forest, and lived happily ever after. Kind of. Ignoring the evil tyrant outsider who conquered the whole region a few centuries later.
Nowadays the population is about 20% Gnoll, 40% human, 40% Yulak.
tldr I like hyena minotaurs.
Not really any. Basically all playable races are either fairly typical or totally homebrew. I guess the most unusual unoriginal ones would be the two I stole from TES, but that's a multi-million dollar franchise, so you get the idea.
>>43597149
Yeah, I have the Vox.
>paranoid wizard wanted to hole up in his tower.
>Sent for the greatest blacksmith, toymaker, and artist in the realm
>Together, the four created complex automatons infused with various elemental magics.
>Rumor spread quickly, and various kingdoms wanted these clockwork guards as well.
>The Four obliged, got rich off the process.
>a hundred years later, nearly every decent city has Voxian guards.
They originally are set in a neutral state that is very passive-aggressive.
Some kingdoms give them the freedom to develop their own personalities, as they claim it helps the public get used to the soulless guards. Buddy-cop Vox shenanigans ensue.
Other more brutal kingdoms will often set them to a judge dredd like mindset, to uphold the law at all costs.
To justify Vox in a party, it's usually assumed the Vox is a personal protector of a magic-user.
As for their demeanor, Bored and lonely magic-users have not been above stealing or commissioning a Vox, amd giving it a free personality.
Technomagically grown mages who use the core of an interdimensional monster to regulate their abilities by removing and repurposing chunks of their souls, leaving them as emotionally hollow weapons used as fodder. Only a few understand how much they're missing and have found ways to complete themselves, namely by murdering people and using their soul to fill in the gaps, but this leaves them unstable from its patchwork nature.
ONLY humans. No special snowflake half-dragon-quater-snail-but-idenitfy-as-dolphin characters.
>>43603817
okay, but can I play an ogre named "bungo" who eats raw chickens and who can never pet things with the appropriate amount of pressure?
>>43598529
From the cliff notes in the post, I'm highly reminded of Primal on the PS2.
Four demon realms, inhabited by a race that also so happen to be elementally aligned. The Ferai of earth, Undine of Water, Wraiths of... well technically Time but they work well for Air. And the Ifrit of Fire.
All realms connected to a central realm of Nexus where the four elements are mixed and turned into the creation-stuff that keeps the world turning.
Oh and our world of Mortalis is there connected to Nexus too. Demons don't really give a shit about it.
Neat idea, going to read the pdf now. If you ever "complete" the setting/races -or get put of beta in other words- please do share.
Oh and play Primal, was a neat little hidden gem in the PS2 heyday.
>>43597149
XPH races (githyanki, githzerai, thri-kreen, elan, etc.) +
MoI races (skarn, azurins rilkan, duskling)
I kind of wish Tome of Battle had some new races.
Dire humans
Far too many. Wendigo and otter-frogmen are core races.
>>43597149
Abbos :^)
>>43597912
Sounds like traditional but special snowflake edition
>>43604991
When I play fantasy, I want to play epic heroes. If you like to play a mundane dirt farmer, that's you.
>>43597149
Define 'nonstandard'.
>>43605702
Races that aren't in the Player's Handbook (or equivalent) for whatever system you are playing
>>43605828
What if they are in additional books for the game and are featured as core races within additional rules text?
>>43605857
Then you'll have to make a call based on how obscure the additional book is
We're counting on you anon, don't fuck this up
>>43605828
Then the answer is 'none', for I have no system.
>>43598122
>>43598160
And they killed my sister and raped my brother!
>>43597629
This. I'd rather my players use their character's history and motivations to make good role play than their race. I feel like it's a bit of a cop-out. Same goes for actually constructing the setting, really. There have to be actual reasons for differentiation and/or conflict between groups (culture, language, ethics etc.) rather than just race.
>>43607626
>I'd rather my players use their character's history and motivations to make good role play than their race.
It's not a mutually exclusive thing. You can have just as much character backstory and motivation while playing a nonhuman race, and then draw upon the physicality of the race to inform more esoteric aspects.
>Same goes for actually constructing the setting, really. There have to be actual reasons for differentiation and/or conflict between groups (culture, language, ethics etc.) rather than just race
Race-as-culture is lazy as hell, but, again, it's not the only way to implement races. Integrated societies can be different from one another despite having the same mixture of races, while societies with different races might be similar to one another due to location, climate, religion, and so on.
Lazy use of races is just as bad as lazy use of anything else, but no worse.
>>43607626
>implying being a member of a race locks you in certain personality
go fuck yourself.
>implying character of an exotic race cannot have interesting personality
go fuck yourself.
>Implying different races cannot have different cultures within them
go fuck yourself and leave your GM license at a table.
>>43600217
I once had a monk lizardman player.
He loved it and made pretty cool plays.
>>43598886
I'm GMing a Numenera campaign where humans are hunted by Huge Monkeys from another dimensions, monkeys have ancient Rome society and tech level, but they are far more resistant and strong than humans, so the full party is needed to even have a chance against 4 monkeys or a single Gorilla, and they always travel in packs of 10-15.
No idea now how to make them able to find a weapon that can defeat the monkeys. I don't want them to just find a magical weapon, I would like to have something more peculiar.
Any ideas /tg/uys?
>>43608375
Sorry, I didn't mean "find a weapon", I meant "find a way"
>>43604214
Great game, with great demon races that could easily be concerted to humanoid races in your own campain world.
snake bear man formed by horrible experiments on himself.
A fish in a mech suit made by person previous.
Siege Giraffe.
Standard race, but non standard class, a hobo. Literally just a hobo who spouts crazy nonsense and regularly poisons both his party, himself, and the enemy because he smells THAT bad.
I tend to let my players play whatever they want so long as we can "balance" it.
>>43597149
Giant Komodo Dragons
Clay Golems
Bat people
Grey Aliems
Psionic Cockroaches
Water elementals
>>43597149
Niggers.
>>43608790
heres your reply
>>43599301
>>43599517
>>43599229
Large dogs can't survive in the wild because they can't successfully hunt enough to fulfill their food requirement.
>>43598529
>elemental planes are complete worlds, with cultures and wildlife, rather than just a ball of whatever element
Neat. Why don't more people do this?
>>43606850
I think his definition is not very good.
I'd say that nonstandard races are all those that are not just copies/slight variations of, say, LOTR Races.
>>43608068
>>43608155
I feel like you're reading a little more into my reply than I meant. I just would rather leave it alone because it tends to encourage people to make lazy decisions. Of course, with a properly rich setting race is just as descriptive as culture, personal history etc etc. but I would really rather not use it as a mechanic.
Also, using race to justify a certain physicality or personality (read in-built ability modifiers) is a little too prescriptive. It encourages a kind of RP I'd rather avoid.
>>43608068
This is a fair point. I do agree, and I suppose it just comes down to the fact that I prefer a little more low-fantasy in the end. There are ways to integrate race as a convincing mechanic but it doesn't grab me as interesting.
>>43608841
There's no reason a large canid would fare any poorer than any other large predatory mammal like bears or big cats
>>43598886
Anyone else want to weigh in on this? Ill enthuse the interested with other creations Ive made later tonight.
Think this makes for a good waifu race? Assuming Im talking about one who takes care of her figure, rather than the creepy skellingtons
Played dawn of worlds then converted to 5e.
We had men with owl eyes and wings, hermit crabs that lived like dwarves, giant snakes with tentacle arms in both militocratic Roman and Mongol khanate flavor, humans with salamander skin and symbiotic moss, and swarthy french jungle men.
>>43598560
I'm interested.
>>43608375
A weapon that turns them into humans, causing horrifying psychological damage to them.
Lizardmen
Androids
Demonborn (aka tieflings, but they are all direct demon+mortal offspring)
Dark elves
Apes
Svirfneblins
and humans.
>>43613703
what happens if two demonborn have a kid?
>>43613703
Regular kid.
>>43609248
I honestly don't know. It just seems like the logical thing to do.
>>43610460
Except that's wrong, because they're pack hunters. They may be stronger, but it makes them less efficient as well.
>>43597149
The Branded (pejorative: Runelings), fully sentient golems created by high wizards who meddle in the secret arts of the transplanar. They are branded with the Rune of Creation, a rune so hard to cast it might as well take your life in the process, as it isn't made for manipulation by beings of this plane. Because life can be given to any construct, the forms of the Branded varies radically from individual to individual. Their bodies range from melded-together armors to clockwork toy animals to life-size wooden carvings of animals to beautiful iron statues bathed in gold, made solely for the purpose of becoming a Branded one.
There is however little use anymore to creating a Branded, since they grow independent more or less as soon as they learn their cognitive faculties (takes some weeks). Most Branded that live in society also have branded themselves with the much more common Runes of Speaking, of Hearing and of Sight. The majority of Branded came to be through a series of experiments by a wizard who sought to make himself an army, however he quickly realized as the Branded developed their cognition that they weren't very much willing to obey their creator. Some seem to carry some sort of extraplanar knowledge - it is said that sometimes when a rift is open in this plane's sky, a few Branded may literally rain from said rift. At least that's the popular explanation for when a Branded wakes up in the middle of some farm without any idea of what it is or was up until that point.Obviously created because a player wanted to play Alphonse Elric.
>>43612532
Interested in anything in particular?
