What are some unique things aboout your setting's races?
In my setting, the dwarves worship their ancestors. One of the biggest parts of their religion is to respect the dead and to leave them to their rest, so necromancers, zombies, and Liches are abhorred as a sin against nature.
Shameful self bump.
>>46513380
The only thing I could claim as being slightly interesting is that they're all modified humans.
But that's not really unique, as I stole it from Wakfu.
>>46514595
Also
>Dwarves abhor necromancy and revere ancestors
>Unique
I wrote a setting where Elves (and by extension Half-elves) don't do the whole 'burying your dead' thing, but instead they just strip dead bodies and unceremoniously throw them out to be eaten by animals.
Also OP's setting just described the Dwarves from Warhammer Fantasy. That attitude of respect your dead, kill the necromancer is a warhammer Fantasy thing.
His idea also smacks of Dragon Age
Elves don't have beds, since they don't sleep but meditate. Elven rooms are furnished with intricately woven carpets and cushions.
The Dwarves have a church which worships every god. Mostly because it makes for good business.
It's not huge departure from vanilla, but I ran a 4E game where drow were pirates. They lived on chain of island that "naturally" shifted back and forth between the Shawdowfell and the Prime Material. When in the Prime they'd raid human ships for resources and slaves. The exact location the islands appeared wasn't consistent, so it was very hard for the humans to retaliate. By the time you located a drow island and called in a fleet, it would fade back to the Shadowfell.
Also both eladrin and drow were immortal, but with extreme age they transform into beings that have trouble relating to mere mortals. Eladrin become powerful fey (there was a eladrin warlock who's patron was her own grandfather). Drow become driders.
>unique
>dwarves
Was this a troll post?
>>46516324
thats actually an interesting idea for those races.
i ran one where humans and orcs were slave races to the elves, halflings, gnomes and dwarves. freedom could be earned but they were still second class citizens, and nowhere near enough of them were freed to become anything other than a mild nusiance.
half elves, half dwarves and half gnomes and quarterlings (half-halflings) were executed at birth or whenever found, as humans were the only ones that could produces these offspring. however half orcs were praised as slaves. smarter than orcs, but stronger than humans.
>>46516411
unique aspects to the classic races
>>46516437
Oh, in that case I'd like to contribute with idea that all the classic fantasy races are actually descended from humans either as a result of natural selection or because magical forces changed them resulting in supernatural selection. I have personally utilized it in one of my more generic style fantasy settings. I think it's neat way to give a finger to elven superiority.
>>46516621
Btw. I know it's blatantly stolen from Arcanum. Just forgot to mention that.
>>46513380
>unique things about your setting's races
>"Dwarves!"
>>46513380
In my fantasy setting, all the elves are dead. This is explained in the title of the story: All the Elves Are Dead. In the story, there are no elves. Elves are hardly even mentioned, except in passing, and always in the past tense.
>>46513380
In my setting, the elves worship the rain. One of the biggest parts of their religion is to respect the trees and to leave them to their growth, so woodsmen, pyromaniacs, and beavers are abhorred as a sin against nature.
>>46516821
>This is explained in the title of the story: All the Elves Are Dead.
So the story is about how the elves died, or the impact their extinction has on the setting?
>Elves are hardly even mentioned
Then why are they in the title?
>>46513380
4 races, each one based off of a season.
global seasons.
Summer-folk: Dark skinned, red eyes. comes from Australia on steroids. generally stronger and willful.
Spring-Folk: pretty much Asian with green eyes. come from verdant greenlands rich with natural resources. silver tongued, and generally luckier.
Winter-Folk: pale skinned with Blue eyes, nordic. come from a cold, inhospitable polar region. tend to be a lot heartier, shrugging off injury and disease alike.
Fall Folk: Tan Skinned with orange eyes. Their homeland was ravaged and destroyed centuries ago, live in traveling caravans seeking a home to call their own. generally much more worldly, having great knowledge and intuition.
>>46516930
The story is completely and totally unrelated to elves. They are of no importance to the setting or the plot. Their disappearance is pondered about as frequently as you or I ponder the disappearance of the Neanderthals.
>Then why are they in the title?
Because when you write a fantasy story people expect elves. So right on the tin I let people know there will be no elves in the story, as well as the reason why.
The vampires get most of their blood supply from rivers and the sea, because the ocean has actually been replaced by the ever bleeding wound of a god who was killed.
>>46516961
If you don't want elves in your setting, just don't put elves in your setting. Writing in the fantasy genre does not automatically imply the presence of elves. But when you make the title of the story "All the Elves Are Dead" that implies that the story is in some way about the death of the elves.
>>46517035
This is also masterful misdirection on my part. Readers will keep coming back for chapter after chapter, waiting for the elf plot to kick in. By the time they realize the bait and switch they're already dedicated to the plot in motion/the characters I've laid out.
>>46513380
My Dwarves are a blend of Jews, Icelanders, and Italians.
Their creation myth says that they're descended from 8 Dwarven couples created by a blacksmith-deity in days long past. These descendants organized themselves into 8 tribes. The problem is that there are a lot more than eight tribes in all the Dwarven lands. This led to a lot of conflict and religious warring until the clergy on all sides basically instituted a "don't ask, don't tell" policy on the discussion of tribal origins.
Tribes are broken down into Clans, then Families, then Houses. A Dwarf is most loyal to his House, then his Family, then his Clan, then his tribe. Almost everything a Dwarf does is geared toward edifying his House. Dwarves have no compunction against lying, cheating, stealing, or killing so long as it advances the station of their House or Family but aren't really keen to do that stuff if there's no tangible benefit for it.
A Dwarf's occupation is decided by the patriarch (or sometimes matriarch) of his House. Some Houses are very flexible, leaving the door open for the Dwarf to pursue a different occupation if the one chosen is ill-suited while others are very strict and will make a cripple serve as a soldier or a blind Dwarf as a scribe. Such strict houses tend not to be in good shape.
Feuds between Houses or Families can be centuries-long affairs that greatly destabilize a region as they work to undermine each other politically, economically, and militarily. Many Human mercenaries have made small fortunes while serving feuding Dwarves.
Orcs are as civilised as the other humanoid races and play an active role in society.
I gave the chaotic evil barbarian trope to the minotaurs, and added a viking flair to them.
I just love orcs and didn't want them to be the big dumb bad guys they're usually portrayed as
During the last universe's incarnation, two races called Dwarves and Elves realized their world was ending. Instead of fruitlessly seeking immortality or some other means of surviving the end, they instead combined all their talents to create a magical device which recorded as much of their combined histories, art, culture, etc, as possible. They then went happily to their end.
Fast forward a few billion years later into the next universe. One of the other races in-setting find the device and turn it on. Due to magic functioning very differently in the new universe, instead of beaming the entire Elf-Dwarf culture (nordic tbqh) into their minds to appreciate it drew in a massive amount of magical energy and created a new race whole cloth. The Jotun, as they named themselves, were small giants of tremendous strength, craft, and magical finesse. This first generation was born with the knowledge of the Elves and Dwarves, and a combination of their best traits. While they live to forge their own culture, Jotun continue to honor the past and typically see themselves as the great record-keepers of the world.
>>46513380
Draconians are an artificial race twisted into their current state by a BBEG dragon looking for more footsoldiers. All current draconians are descended from one particular asshole's army.
There's a race of avians who worship the sun with an almost Solaire of Astora-like fervor, who actually take a page from the Necrons of all things. Reincarnate when killed, hugely heavy armor, energy weapons and eldritch magic.
Gnolls invented gunpowder and have an uncanny knack for explosives and flame-based weaponry.
Humans aren't the only race in the world with ethnicities, culture divisions, or even countries. That's the big one I can think of. All elves are not tree hugging, cloak wearing archers. All dwarves are not forgemasters with giant beards.
>>46513380
Lots of things.
>Nine-inch-tall gnomes who headbutt rock walls
>Golems powered by living souls
>Psychic jackal-headed ex-slaves
>Dwarves who calcify to stone as they age
>Giant Intelligent Friendly Talking Spiders (okay, not that unique, but I think they're awesome all the same)
>Cockney, surly, blacksmithing rabbitfolk
>Trolls who are basically Kaneda-meets-Ultimate-Warrior in all their eight-foot, blue-skinned, horned, lion-tailed glory
>Elves which are the leftover descendants of Fae experiments in creating bio-weapon soldiers, and who are hard-wired to go genocidal on each other on sight
Not sure how much, if any, of this counts as unique, but there you have it.
>>46513380
Most of unique things are per culture rather than per race, but there are some actual physical differences.
>Humans
Pretty much normal humans, but stronger and tougher. Every human can use magic. No exceptions. Generally very adventurous, have a long and tender affair with all kinds of ships.
>Kashan (catfolk)
Tough as shit and will keep on fighting until chopped to pieces. Cannot into magic, but can do shadowrun PhysAd stuff. Some of them can shapeshift into huge fuckoff tigers.
>Goblins
And you thought cockroaches were indestructible. Goblins are dumb, regenerate almost any injury in a matter of minutes and will eat pretty much anything edible (and some things that are not).
>Dwarves
Somewhere between an organic being and elemental, dwarves are creatures with hard, rock-like flesh, inner core replacing most of their organs and elemental magic coursing through their veins. Their body turns into mithril upon their death (unless their core was badly damaged, in which case their body turns into silvery fumes floating in the air and an impressive crater).
>Yula
Small blobs of magic that are not born, but made in a huge ancient factory. Because of this, they are very centralized, being the only monoculture of the setting. Being blobs of raw magic, their physical form quickly dissipates in the surroundings, making it necessary for them to don humanoid protective suits the moment they step out of the crucible. Old Yulas dive back into crucible to add their collected knowledge and memories to the whole race's knowledge.
>Elves
Not immortal (anymore), but live up to 300 years. Elves are universally psionics, even those who cannot do any other kind of magic. They also used to merge their consciousness with their Obligatory Huge Tree when they die, reincarnating some time later, but now it's dead they use technology to do that (with unfortunate side-effect that for some unknown reason reincarnates take priority over true births, so they're kinda fucked now).
I guess it has more to do with their god and origin story but I had a campaign where the Dwarf god (with a beard of many colors) gave birth to the first dwarves by clipping his beard and animating the clippings. The Iron Dwarves were also completely hairless so a common racial slur would be to call them dandruff.
>>46513380
>Not having Dwarves who practice necromancy to raise their ancestors
>Not having the Dwarves ruled over by immortal Ancestor Liches
>Not having high lords of houses be mummies that are roused from slumber during times of need
>Not having Necro-Embalmers be a respected clerical position
You had one fucking job and you screwed up. Hope you're proud of how many cocks you suck.
>>46517127
That's good, most people write them off as just savages.
In my setting, Orcs are Lawful Evil for the most part. Live in the desert/steppes. Loosely based around Chinese/Mongolians. They have around a dozen dynasties that are lead by one head dynasty. The smaller dozen ones constantly fight for power with coup's and subterfuge. Lot like Game of Thrones.
They're the most technologically advanced race in the setting, but mainly when it comes to war. They are experts in metallurgy and training disciplined soldiers.
They're currently in a century long war against the Human kingdom to the North that's based on Medieval/Renaissance era Russia. They're led by their King and his royal family, however one Noble family is actually Vampires plotting to take over the throne.
Dwarves essentially are lawful evil, frequently messing around with the infernal shit bound in the Underworld.
My dwarfs are actually instinctually terrified of the underground. They instead make terraced cities on the sides of mountains and hills and strip mine for materials. They once were standard dwarves but years of demons and drow wrecking their shit changed them.
They're horribly near-sighted and actually kinda shit warriors above ground, which is where they stay now, and therefor have to rely on mercenaries for defense. Religiously they worship the sun and nature spirits, and consider any ghost or ansestor spirit to be corrupted by demons and to be feared.
Badically take standard dorfs and give them PTSD from all the shit they have to deal with and have them flee to the surface that they're horribly adapted for.
>>46517754
>Giant Intelligent Friendly Talking Spiders
>GIFTS
He he he
>>46513380
So you've just been watching lots of youtube videos about people complaining about the vamp dwarf alliances... GJ
>>46513380
>What are some unique things aboout your setting's races?
I didn't even try to be edgy and unique
>>46516621
Shit dude, I did that in my game.
>>46516973
So... they're normal people, drinking water from the rivers.
Good job, dumbass lol
>>46513380
I kind of wanted to keep most things pretty generic so I wouldn't have to do a huge amount of exposition to the players about the basic PC races (ie. "in this setting, the dwarves can fly, and have a society modelled after Aztecs, complete with macahuitls and blood sacrifice to the Great Bearded Serpent"). That being said, there are some things.
Dwarves are mostly your standard dwarves, with living in mountain holds and being big into crafting, engineering and following their traditions. But they're also survivors of their old empire being conquered by the dark elves, who hope to one day reclaim their homeland. They also got some imperial Chinese influence in their style of dress, and the fact that they got a complex bureucratic system with huge amounts of different ranks and positions.
Elves are your typical wood elves (semi-nomadic forest-dwellers, very good at archery and sneaking innawoods), but the thing that sets elves apart from other mortal races is that their bodies can naturally store magical energy, using it to sustain themselves, or converting energy derived from food into magical energy. That makes them very good spellcasters, but elves have a cultural restrictions about using most forms of magic (they do a lot of druidic and shamanistic magic, but not the standard wizard stuff).
Dark elves, however, are very different from the standard DnD model: instead of being chaotic evil backstabby worshippers of Lolth, they're lawful evil highly organized zealots who worship what is essentially Cthulhu and his buddies. Since they're not a standard PC race I decided I could make them more different, and besides, DE tend to differ quite a bit between settings anyway, aside from generally being "elves but evil" (see FR drow vs Eberron drow, or WHF dark elves).
>>46516973
I shamelessly stole that and turned it to my purposes, just so you know.
In my setting Dwarves are built in the star forge and launched to the mountain settlement of their clan. It is believed by the dwarves that they are in control of this section of space, and are merely engaged in a competition among clans to see who can conquer the world. Of course all each dwarf ever sees after it is crafted are the sides of the cannon that launches them and the rapidly approaching planet. So it's pretty much anyone's guess.
Elves are slightly different due to exposure to the shadow realm nearly 1500 years ago that their Lord Wizard sacrificed himself to send back to its plane.
Humans are adaptable and able to fill any role. Of all the races they breed the quickest and possess the most incredible courage.
The descendants of what once made up the human population of the setting are now a cursed race, and are resistant to types of negative energy, but transform into mosnters if exposed to enough of it. This curse is generally unknown to the common person, but the average person is generally more sickly-looking than a normal human would be, and the funnel-chest deformity is a trait almost everyone is born with.
Unaltered humans no longer exist, being either forgotten or part of obscure mythology about the past, and these people refer to their race as "vanus."
True elves left the world long ago after some terrible, unknown treachery. They supposedly live in veiled cities hidden and separated from the world of mortals by powerful magic, but no one is actually sure if they truly exist.
The elves who decided to stay behind on the world proper eventually changed to the point of being almost unrecognizable, and are basically sun-vikings now, with somewhat pointed ears, but much more human-like proportions and much shorter lifespans. Red war-paint or tattoos are culturally significant to them. These people go by the name Balnr, which they use as a word for both their race and their culture.
The skavard are a short race of rat or mole-like rodent people, who have a history of being extremely good at tinkering and improvising, being one of the world's currently most industrious races.
They are naturally extremely observant with good memories, and picked up the basis for their tinkering while enslaved by the vanus in ages past as mechanics. The average skavard, if you tell it to disassemble an engine, will know exactly how to build it again once it has fully taken it apart. Using observations like this made during their time of enslavement, and their own improvisation added on, the skavard built a pervasive tinkering-based economy after the industrial revolution, now the world's leading industrial race behind humans.
(continued)
Jews in my setting are a race of heat resistant financial juggernauts that always manage to have the other races in stitches.
Goblins, Gremlins, and Orcs are part of a ant-like hive organism.
First they start as Gremlins. These are about the size of a 5 year old with a bigger head. Curious and nasty pranksters. After 10-15 years they dig a cocoon in dirt and transform into goblins. There's a roughly 1-10000 chance they will become a Goblin Queen. If a Queen is present when this cocoon is made she can introduce pheromones that change the gremlin into a specialized Goblin known as a Hobgoblin. These are specialized at tasks such as smithing, managing, fighting, and so on. Queens lay Gremlin egg clutches pretty much constantly.
If a goblin or hobgoblin is gravely wounded or injured in some way they may once more cocoon themselves to try and survive the damage. If they can, they slowly change into a larger, smarter creature known as an Orc. This metamorphosis holds the same chance of producing a Queen, but said Queen with be an Orc Queen instead who lays smaller clutches of Oruks instead of Gremlins. Oruks are basically just bigger, meaner Gremlins. These Oruks metamorphosis into a Orc after 15-20 years, and orc can undergo a forced metamorphosis when gravely injured into Ogryn. Ogryn are basically smaller versions of cave trolls; Big, brutal, blunt.
Society is strictly segmented, role-based, and hierarchical. Orcs tend to stay separate from or establish control over goblins, though since they usually kill the goblin queen to stop from being overwhelmed by their great birth rate this is almost always a fairly temporary situation.
Bugbears are a rare mutation general only seen in northern climates that have their own metamorphism process that simply sees them get bigger and hairier. Gnolls are a seperate species and act differently.
>>46527709
While the skavard were enslaved by the vanus, they were used mainly for small, less dangerous, craftsmanship jobs, typically working indoors.
The sulfurians were not so lucky. The sulfurian are a race of grey-skinned horned humanoids who have excellent darkvision, physical endurance, and can withstand immense heat.
Using their heat resistance and high tolerance of toxins, the vanus, in ages past, enslaved this race, and used them as miners, keeping them deep underground in the mines in conditions the average vanus wouldn't be able to withstand for long. The vanus used this excellent workforce to sustain their at-the-time empire. Despite being naturally resilient, the sulfurians understandably did not enjoy being forced to work in such harsh conditions, and they still bear a large degree of resentment towards the vanus, even though the age of their enslavement has (mostly) come to an end. (with the exception of the occasional illegal black market slaver.)
(continued)
>>46514820
Elder Scrolls did the whole ancestor worship thing first, even if they were more like elves than dwarves.
>>46517248
>There's a race of avians who worship the sun with an almost Solaire of Astora-like fervor, who actually take a page from the Necrons of all things. Reincarnate when killed, hugely heavy armor, energy weapons and eldritch magic.
That's a similar to the Arakkoa from WoW. They worship the sun, some use a phoenix theme, and they've got strong ties to the Burning Legion and Fel magic
>>46513380
There's a type of fey that has a flower on their chests.That's their genitals
>>46527973
The next race is actually more of an umbrella term for a group of unique races, each being magically connected to and associated with an aspect of the physical world: Ash, Salt, Dust, and Smoke. These people are collectively called amathads, but individually each category is very different from the others. They were once associated with Fire, Water, Earth, and Air, but that was before the world's climate was drastically ravaged by a great cataclysm. All of the amathads generally have the ability to subsist on less food and water than the other races, but this can be more or less true depending on the subrace.
The subraces of the amathads are as follows:
(continued)
>>46528328
The ashwalkers, descended from the firewalkers, have black or gery skin, softly glowing at various points, resembling dying embers. They have very limited magical influence over fire, and even then only some of them are born with this trait. This subrace is probably the least common of the amathads.
(continued)
>>46528348
The saltwalkers, descended from the seawalkers, are completely hairless, with smooth, Voldemort-esque noses, fish-like eyes, and ears bearing a resemblance to fins. Their skin is scaly, but very smooth, with scales so small one might not notice them without looking closely. They tend to have colors similar to mudskippers light browns and greys being prominent, with fish-like variations in hue across their bodies. They have webbed toes and fingers, but are bipedal, unlike their ancestors who naturally resembled mermaids, but could shapeshift into forms with legs. They are amphibious, but are highly adapted to life on land, dwelling in salt plains, mud flats or dried out river beds in the wasteland.
>>46528371
The smokewalkers, descended from the windwalkers, resemble harpies with ashy-grey or brownish feathers, often also having trails of smoke drifting off of their heads among their hair, or trailing off of various parts of their body, like their heels, in addition to having feathers mixed in with their hair, and patches of small feathers on their bodies instead of body hair, including facial hair on males. They have wings instead of arms, and thus rely on their prehensile bird-like feet for doing things like writing or manipulating objects. They have traces of their ancestor's natural manipulation of wind, but have greater connection with smoke. They tend to wear goggles to aid them in seeing through the dense smoke clouds drifting above some parts of the wasteland. Their fighting styles tend to consist of them remaining entirely airborne, attacking their foes with weapons, typically spears or staves, held in their feet.
>>46528395
The dustwalkers, descended from the earthwalkers, have completely pupil-less yellow or white eyes, and extremely rough and dry skin that resembles cracked, dry mud. Their hair tends to also only grow in equally subdued and desaturated colors, typically shades of greyish-brown. The males often completely shave their heads. This subrace of amathads is almost entirely nomadic, and its members manage to survive on even the smallest amounts of food and water, even compared to the other amathad subraces.
And that's it, those are all the playable races of my setting.
There are other races I haven't mentioned, such as two amathad subraces who didn't ally themselves with the vanus, and remaining members of the seawalker subrace who maintained their form after the cataclysm by hiding in the ocean. Not to mention the elves who hid themselves away from the world, and consider the vanus their enemy.
That's all for now, though.
