![latest[1].png](https://i.imgur.com/cObCISq.jpg "latest[1].png")
How diverse are playable races in your setting?
It's a human only setting, but it ends up more varied than you think. It's a far future sci-fi where pure humans consider themselves the only true descendants of humanity, a culture of genetic augmentation consider themselves the perfection of humanity, and a chaotic utopia of disembodied minds, some of which were human once, no longer really sees any point in 'Human'.
Not at all. Humans only.
An adventuring party that looks like a fucking circus act has long ago grown tiresome. Any game I run now forces the players to be actually creative in making unique members of the same race they can identify properly with, instead of falling back on the crutch of inherently different heights, ages, appearances, etc.
Anything that's not human, they get the fuck away from quick.
>>47175284
You must be fun.
>>47174735
You can play a black dude I guess. Or an asian chick.
Primary is human only, but there are many ethnicities and cultures to draw from.
>>>47175284
I'm kinda in this camp, I feel like having too many sapient species in the world makes shit too much of a cluster fuck. I think that if the race could pass for a human if they put on a fucking hat, they are out.
I don't really get the point of having other races unless they're somehow physiologically different than humans. If they are, then excellent, because that presents a fascinating way to explore life & consciousness. If not, then you know. Not a super big deal but still.
>>47174735
All of my players must make their characters straight, white, and male.
>>47175392
Kill yourself furry.
>>47175597
I'm Triggered
>>47175392
The game tends to be, unless you have to be the special one to have fun. You probably won't enjoy being a man with steel amidst a world of monsters that are most often a man still.
>>47174735
Holy shit, that is Mae, Lowe, Main Character, Khris and That-One-Guy from Shining Force. That takes me back.
![Shining-Force-Characters[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/T0EffHd.jpg "Shining-Force-Characters[1].jpg")
>>47175706
Shining Force had some interesting races. It's not every day I actually get to play centaurs or bird people in an RPG.
![6a00e54fa495f588330120a5efe364970b[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/EO0P9Q8.jpg "6a00e54fa495f588330120a5efe364970b[1].jpg")
>Come in thread expecting people talking about interesting races in media and in their own homebrew settings
>It's just people talking about their human-only setting and bashing the idea of having fantasy races
okay
>>47175667
>in a game world where elves, dwarves, etc. exist and interact in a non-hostile manner with human kingdoms on a regular basis putting "elf" or "dwarf" on the race section of your character sheet is somehow more special snowflake than putting down any given culture in a human only one.
This meme is such a strawman it needs to go to Oz and get a brain
There are quite a few races but most aren't very player friendly, they're welcome to try though, because they're very alien (communication is an issue even) and not humanoid.
For those that are playable no problem it's
3 flavors of humans ("earth"), 2 flavors of raptor like creatures ("sky"), 1 flavor of dolphin monster ("sea"). Flavors mean their crunch benefits and common appearance are different.
The other races aren't 1:1 to the animals they are based on of course just like we're not 1:1 to other apes. For instance the dolphin guys are more like pic related adapted for (clumsy) bipedal movement out of water and manipulating things with their webbed claws.
That doesn't mean they can't be a catgirl or anything like that. We just make it fit within the setting so that they're originally human and were experimented on to make some sort of chimera or something.
>>47174735
Most cannot interbreed, and very few are even aware of the other's existence due to the low tech and degree of spatial seperation. As such, it is incredibly rare to have a party with many races. Also, each race has about 2-5 distinct ethnicities and subraces. Not done with the setting, but hers what's done
The only races that are "human" are Humans (with two distinct ethnicities and a few subcultures), Half-Giants, Nephilim Giants, Titans. The latter two are not true races, but rather are uplifted superhumans/relatives of the Deific Emperor of one of the human Empires, while the Half-Giants and Nephilim are their half-human progeny. Humans are characterized by innate drive and intensity, and are considered best at tactical improvisation and adopting new techniques. They are also the only race with boobs and beards.
The two major ethnicities are the Iskanthri and the Shayeshen.
The Iskanthri are a mighty Empire, ruled by the aforementioned God-Emperor, who gained his divinity by eating of one of the Fruits of Life, and proceeded to conquer the disparate City-States around him, and creating a unified culture and people. He then divided his nation into several Fiefs and appointed Fuedal Lords to rule over them, while ensuring his own rule via an Imperial Legion sworn to loyalty to the Emperor with garrisons across the Empire. Each Fuedal Lord is divinely transfigured to the form of a Giant to denote their mandate and servitude to the Emperor, and aside from a few direct federal laws are expected to maintain their own rule over their fief. Twice a year, the Giants must return to the capital for the Moot, to discuss grievances, report and legal changes they have made, discuss matters of military strength and planning, make requests, and other such open forums before their Emperor and the Senate. It should be noted that thier Giant status can be revoked, and their territories be reassigned or redistributed if they fall out of favor with the Emperor.
All races are good. Custom races too if they make it balanced.
I just dont allow
>magical realm anything.
>human but with animal ears and tail, or with wings
Wanna play a kitsune or catfolk? Prepare to go full Thunder Cats or gtfo. At the slightest hint of furry or erp degenerateness, they will be excused from the table.
>>47174735
Not very.
All the special unique snowflakes were butchered by the Orcs.
So now it's humans, dwarfs, and some half-elfs and halflings cowing behind the walls of ancient cities.
>>47174735
> there is never goibg to be a good Shining Force Table Top
>oranother Shining Force game.
Thanks SEGA.
My races are pretty standard fare, the weird ones are satyrs, changelings and robots
>>47176638
Attack on Orc?
>>47176416
The Shayeshen were originally warring tribes from the Mountains along the Northwest edge of what would later become Iskanthri land. Being original warring tribes and scattered monasteries, they believed the greatest honor in life was to die in glorious combat so that your spirit would be able to soar above the mountains on the wings of pheasants.
When the Iskanthri began to war and conquer, many tribes tried to sell their services as mercenary clans, but as the Iskanthri continued to conquer their neighbors, they began to eye the the hirsuit men of the mountains, and eventually sought to bring them into their Empire. Worse yet, these Invaders not only wished to force a sedentary lifestyle on them, but also relied on Divine power rather than the strength of their own arm! Meanwhile, the few Monks and Shamans in their monasteries also realized what was happening, and decided that they would not let themselves submit to this new and arrogant God. So, they called a meeting of the remaining clans and tribes, and united into the loose Cloud-Throat Compact.
This alliance forced the tribes to out aside thier differences, at least temporarily, for the purpose of fighting and expelling the Iskanthri. With the support and enforcement of the various Monasteries and Shaman Covens, they were able to push back the Iskanthri Invasion, and maintain an uneasy armistice.
Still, all is not peaceful, and the Compact only allowed the monks to intervene so long as there was a common enemy, so to this day the various tribes and clans still war and battle against eachother when not also fighting against and raiding their lowland neighbors, though it has gotten the tribes to be slightly more accepting of mystical power and aid.
>>47174735
Although it isn't really my setting, it's pretty much a zoo, but in space. I dunno how else to describe it.
We got a race of former slaves whose genetic code has been so fucked with that the only thing that the average individual compared to another has in common are fish-like qualities and usually some amount of psionics.
We got another race of former slaves, this time rats who are feral (but clever) animals on their own, but when in groups upwards of 5, gain sapience and psychic abilities. To put it in perspective, if there was say, an NPC focused on dispensing their own form of justice, they wouldn't only be judge, jury, and executioner, they'd be a whole legal circuit.
Then we got this authoritative and paranoid large monstrosities that are basically a cross between a lizard and an insect, featuring both an endo- and exoskeleton, as one of the main forces of the setting. The remains of humanity are their only allies.
Then we got these giant lobster-men who are practically jailed to their home solar system, because they were such goddamn assholes and fucked everyone's shit up. Like the lizard-bugs mentioned above, but way less authoritative and more like rabid dogs (lobsters). Additionally, they're the creators of ion weaponry in the setting.
And while there's others, I feel this post is getting a bit long, and I wouldn't feel snow-flaky enough without mentioning my race contribution to the setting. Basically Kender, but as four-armed asianeese frogs that everybody hates, along with being an Iron Age society in FTL space.
I think the only "major" animal we're missing is cats, but we made up a joke race of gyspy nekos/catfolk for one of the party members to have an irrational hatred (and commit eventual genocide) them, so I guess that covers it.
>>47176760
Kinda.
There are several different kingdoms that are primarily a single race, though there are a couple that are mixing pots. The interesting one is the city of shadowcopse, it's at the base of a volcano that has caused the atmosphere around it to be darkened and colored red so that it is never brighter than dusk. This has allowed Drow to build their lone surface settlement there.
As for the PCs, since they generally start out in the melting pot that is Hightower I'll allow any race that they can give me stats for and I deem not overpowered.except Kender, fuck those little thieving bastards.
in my Setting everything has boiled Down to groups of half-races. with only visual differences.
elfs and dwarfs.
humans are nearly extinct because they couldn't stop fucking elves.
besides that you have very varried ethical groups, religions, cults, cultures and whatnot so in the end you have a huge variaty.
>>47176835
Both the Iskanthri and Shayeshen have a disdain for purely magical and mystical arts. As such, both cultures have great import and emphasis on combat, Martial Arts, and learning the arts of warfare. What Magic they use is tied directly into thier martial arts and traditions, which vary immensely between the two. Almost no Human, Iskanthri or Shayeshen, would ever be caught dead using magic, as it is despised for being associated with the Cursed and Despised Fae, though that's a story for another time.
For Iskanthri, the soonest magical capability can be tempered into something and more refined, or at least learn to repress it, the better. All who show an innate aptitude for the mystic ways are taken in by the local garrison, and shipped off to the Academia Thavmeus, where they are instructed in how to best channel or surpress their gifts. Those who learn to surpress their magic are returned to their homes, while those who wish to develop these skills are "encouraged" to join either a branch of the Legion, stay as faculty for the Academia, find employ under one of the Giant Lords, or serve under the Ecclesia Vasilikos, the official church of the Deific Emperor and his assorted family and saints.
The Shayeshen are a lot less complicated. Whenever one of their number shoes magical signs, they often just take them to the tribe's preferred Shaman Coven or Monastery. So.e tribes also do neither, and instead ha e a Tradition of putting the individual in question through rigorous training and intoxication, teaching them to instead channel thier Magic through their bodies in a savage and riotous bloodrage while in battle. Luckily such practice is rare, and is generally looked down upon by other tribes and being undignified and harmful to the soul of the warrior.
It's getting late, and I'm still not done designing all the races. Would you like me to go over an inhuman race before sleeping, answer a human question, or are all of you sick of my writing?
My setting uses the standard races, but besides humans, the rest are kinda in the background, their numbers dwindling in the age of man
>Humans
Ancient humans used to be organized into technologically advanced city states, but were conquered by the Dragon empire. Modern Humans are split into different cultures with varying advancements, with most at the level of mid-to-late medieval levels of tech, with some near the mid-renaissance, others descended into tribal clans with more primitive, but effective technology. Most Human Cultures are drawn from Old-World Earth Cultures
>Elves
Keepers of ancient lore, Elves are in their twilight era (Except the Dark elves). Star (high) Elves live in floating cities far above the world and are probably the most advanced civilization, they use a strange mix of caste and gender system where your career is your effective gender (of which there's five, four from the humors and one for the Elderly), their powerful mages and alchemists are able to manipulate life itself and regularly change plants into useful tools (street lamps made from trees with glowing fruit). Most Skycitadels were destroyed during the Dragon Wars, but some remain
Dark Elves were originally Star Elves who were exiled from their homes forced to wander the world, but when they passed through the nightmare realm of Nod, their skyskiffs lost power and crashed in the Barren wastelands. Now the Dark Elves rule from the crumbling citadels of the old Noddian Empire, they twist their bodies into monstrous forms using the plant manipulation that the Star Elves used, as well as draw upon the powers forbidden by Star Elf Doctrine (Taking power from Infernal and Abyssal Souces)
Wood Elves were part of the Dark Elven Flotilla, but left when the majority became Cruel and wasteful, they believed in living in unison with the world, not shaping it to your will, so the outcasts settled in the jungles and built some big temples, then Died out (From mysterious circumstances)
>>47174735
Highly diverse. If my players want, they can be French, Swiss, or even Bavarian instead of standard Human. Not that any of them took any of those options.
Reasonably so. There's also quite a few non-playable races.
>>47174735
Anything on the PFSRD, within reason.I'm lazy.
Depends on the region we're playing in. If it's egypt, I'll allow someone to play a beastkin liek an Anubis or Wadjet (snake people) if it can fit. Otherwise, I like sticking with mostly humans. Dwarves and giants are basically just 10 ft or 4 ft tall humans, and elves don't exist.
Humans, Demons, and Mutants of near infinite variety.
>>47174758
sounds cool m80
>>47178301
>Dwarves
Much like the elves, dwarves have several distinct Sub-Races, but they all enjoy hardy drink and avoid work when possible. The dwarves cultures vary based more on their Depth than their geographical distance.
At the top you have the Hill folk who are sometimes thought to be the same breed as the Shirefolk halflings (due to their lack of ambition and stature). They live in burrows slightly beneath the surface (their villages often appear to be mounds with chimneys) and are famous for their goat and bee based products, along with thier small clockwork contraptions. Hill folk are amongst the most common Non-Humans to see in human lands thanks to their happy trades with Humanfolk
Beneath them are the Mountain Dwellers, they live in stony complexes beneath the surface, usually stretching into the Hallows Below. While the Hillfolk have small contraptions that are mostly oddities and baubles, the Mountain Dwellers use large steamwork semi-autonomous machines tho supplement everyday life, no digging, constructing, or farming are done by hand.
Living almost solely in the Hallows Below, the Deep Dwarves are decadent nobles with government similar to merchant republics of the late midieval period. Even though they possess much of the mechanical knowledge of the Mountan Dwellers, Deep dwarves prefer slave labor. Many Humans villages near sinkholes and canyons are terrorized by the Deep dwarves gathering more servants for their mines and plantations
>Dragons
Dragons are split up into Dragonborne, Drakes, and True Dragons, the First one is a player race, the others aren't
Dragons (True and Dragonborne) oncle had an Empire that spread across the continent of Miros. As ages past and the true dragons died out, the dragon Empire fell, and the dragonborne were forced into small pockets and kept isolated, so now you have the Revanchist Dragons of High Peak, the Drakefolk tribes in Gai'ana, or the Sealizards of the Fakida islands. Most of them are primitive.
Humans, Elves, Dwarfs, Orcs, Halflings, Dark Elves, Kobolds, and Goblins. These races can all interbreed, but there are no half races. Children are the race of one of their parents with some qualities from the other's race. Almost everything else is non-sapient and considered either monster or animal. The sapient monsters include nature spirits, things that were once people like undead and demons, Lizardmen, and dragons, although everyone thinks the dragons are nothing more than exceptionally clever hunters. Some groups argue that the Lizardmen are people because they have a sort of society, think similar to D&D hobgoblins. It isn't common knowledge, but they were once the Kobolds of a particular continent before beginning to worship evil spirits and becoming corrupted into more monster than man.
9 types of Human
Paladin Holy (classic+Holy) Humans, Witch/sorcerer Humans, Huge barbarian Humans, Humans who shape shift into animals, Magic/element attuned Conjuration monster summoning Humans, Reincarnating Spiritual Monk Humans, Humans who were transformed into golems, The Ghost Folk,
5 types of Dwarf
Dwarf Classic,
Bolvarian Dwarves
Viking Dwarves,
Scottish Fae Fearing Dwarves,
Dire Dwarves
4 types of Elves
Star Elves (literal energy beings made of cosmic gasses and stuff)
Elf Classic
Arcane Elves, Elves who went full hog on arcane magic and infused it into their being in every possible way
Nature Elves, same thing, but with druidic and fae magic
4 kinds of little people.
Gnomes. Tinkers
Halfings. Hobbit folk
Lost Child. Peter Pan folk.
Inovings. Halflings that try to innovate in more scifi ways.
All of them are part of a Mega-alliance where that to really see the uniquesness of their cultures you have to visit their home countrys.
>>47179051
>Beastmen
The beastmen are pretty much any mortal that was changed into a mix of it's parent and an animal, common ones are the Minotaur, the Lycans, and Garuda, but many others exist. Most of them live in Romani-style Caravans or in Beastial Hunter Gatherer tribes, except Minotaur who live in communist-collectives.
>Orcs
My orcs are closer to the WoW variety, so Big Muscles, Noble-Warrior archetype, ect. Chernabog, the dark god of the nothern wind sculpted the members of his favored tribe into beings of his own image, the result was fierce and fit for the northern frost of the far north. They quickly expanded over the northlands until now they're one of the three major Races of northern Miros (others being Giants and Wraiths). Some tribes explored southward and eventually ended up in the Gai'ana and became the Jungle orcs, they ride boars and fight with the remainder of the wood elves.
>Faun
Forest folk who some believe to be Humans cursed by the Sidhe, the Fauns gaurd the sacred forests of Miros and Omos, they live in tight knit tribes, tending to the wilds and keeping the forest in balance. There are also Satyrs who are outcast fauns that live in human cities and party all the time
>Halflings
The halfbreed of Hillfolk and Humans, most are known by their more common moniker, the Shirefolk. They're basically hobbits
>Goblins
Halflings that got too close to a particular Sidhe Feylord, the small cute-but-vicious kind
>Kobolds
The lowest of the dragonborne castes are called parvulus, they're the dragonbold
>Giants
Frost and Fire Giants live in the far north and live in a warrior culture. Hill giants are the inbred offspring of outcast Northern Giants, but they sometimes pick up powerful natural magics and become stone giants
Theres a whole lot more, I try to keep options open to the players, but most other races don't play a significant part in the world at large
>>47179157
>literally 21 different races
>>47179474
not him but it seems like its more of race+culture combos.
Which honestly seems fine. I've played games where you always have at least 2 classes and it generally enhances the experience
>>47179474
What's wrong with a lot of races? More options are better.
>>47180011
Too many options get overwhelming, especially if most of the differences are only cultural. Besides, them all being available as options means there must be 21 races in the game, right? That's a lot.
>>47180073
This seems like a preference thing. I don't find many options overwhelming and I enjoy diverse cultural options in games.
I've got humans, of course. They're biggest human settlement is a kingdom in the mountains where they've been maintaining the largest library in the world. All the best scholars are humans. Then there is a gnoll-like race that's mostly focused on a desert empire with some serious stability issues. Third available race is a relatively uncivilized tribe of goblins from deep underground that got driven out of their home and into the surface world. Last playable race is like a halfling, the main civilization for them is right in the middle of the major hubs of the other three, putting them in the perfect position to take diplomatic control.
Only four playable races but it's enough variety for most people I think.
>>47180180
Yeah, but, like...
Okay, let's just look at the Dwarves for one second? So you got Viking Dwarves, but what's stopping you from just using normal human Vikings instead? They're SO incredibly similar that there's really no point in making the distinction in the first place. Why not just fill that "Viking" void with the ones that actually existed IRL? So scratch that off the list.
Then you've got these Scottish, Fae fearing Dwarves. Now I'm assuming they're a bit of a mix between the Scottish and the Irish (Irish folklore features a lot of faeries and fae and stuff). But again, what's the difference between some red haired, pissed off manlet and a Scottish styled dwarf? Nothing really, except the dwarf might be just a little bit taller. So, again, you can go ahead and scratch that off the list.
Now I have no idea what a Bolvarian Dwarf and a Dire Dwarf actually are, so I'll leave those alone for now, but let's all take a look at the "Classic" Dwarves that /tg/ loves (or hates) so much.
They're a race of small, hirsute miners who like to drink, and eat, and fight all day, right? Sooo, what? That's it? That's all they're relegated to? That's like, their one "defining" trait?
Why not just make that a small subculture of mining-minded, rough-and-tumble humans then? I mean, every "Dwarf" concept is actually just some inspirational trait taken from some culture (The Scots, the Irish, the Russians, the Jews), and then just dialed up to 11. So why not just make them the humans they were based off of in the first place, and then just dial up the stereotypes to 11? It's literally just cosmetic.
The ONLY thing separating a Dwarf from a human is their height. They fall in love as Anglos do, they drink as the Irish do, they fight as the Scottish do, they eat and sleep and piss around the floor as the Norseman does, so why not just make them human already?
Dwarves are literally Not!Human, which begs the question, why not make them human in the first place?
>>47180407
Why even play in fantasy? If you are going to use human vikings, why don't you just use real vikings and other real cultures? Anything magic can just be superstition or better yet non at all. Magic is just plot power after all.
>>47180407
Wow that was a lot of words to say "Why does your setting have to have interesting details when you could just iron out everything into something simple like everything else does."
>AD&D 2e with all the splats
Yes.
>>47180407
If anything, having multiple types of the same race helps keep them from being steriotypical "This race is special because of this" hat tropes and instead gives them varied cultures like you would find in an actual race.
Humans only.
If you're a bitch and this idea makes you cry and scream as a reaction to hearing it, well...thank you for the red flag.
>>47179157
>9 types of Human
> Paladin Holy (classic+Holy) Humans, Witch/sorcerer Humans, Huge barbarian Humans, Humans who shape shift into animals, Magic/element attuned Conjuration monster summoning Humans, Reincarnating Spiritual Monk Humans, Humans who were transformed into golems, The Ghost Folk,
These are not races, these are classes.
What the fuck is wrong with you?
>>47180407
Yeah, but, like...Okay, let's just look at the Asians for one second? So you got Asian Americans, but what's stopping you from just using normal white Americans instead? They're SO incredibly similar that there's really no point in making the distinction in the first place. Why not just fill that "American" void with the ones that actually are more familiar to me?
Race or Species in RPGs is an additional vector for characterization. Really you are just restricting traits arbitrarily. So you have thing, why not use other thing to replace it. Even when being a dwarf influences a character only a miniscule amount, you don't go around and forbid personality traits for not having a minimum severity. You must be extremely temperamental, you can't just be a little.
>>47174735
My setting is the product of a bunch of sleep deprived college students orchestrated entirely by myself and our monk. As such, it's kind of bananas, but overall pretty damn diverse because we couldn't stop adding things.
Here's some short notes on it:
>Most countries don't really have a major race demographic. Orcs and humans are goddamn everywhere, halflings are MOSTLY on one continent, but get around everywhere, and there are a bunch of other races like goblins and gorgons where it comes on tribal/cultural basis.
>The big two isolationist groups are Dwarves, who just kind of do that because innovation and cosmopolitan ideas don't come naturally to them, and Elves, who are either racist xenophobic fucktards or hiding underground waiting for plot to happen.
>Also, if you didn't want any of those, you can have an undead version, thanks to your friendly neighborhood necromancer-empire up north (It's okay, they're a giant pile of hedonists and bored liches.)
In terms of general race selection, we have.
>Six different types of goblin.
>Three types of kobold.
>Two types of orc (but way more than two cultures)
>Two types of elves.
>Two types of Gnome
>Gorgons
>Three kinds of halfling (Most of them are mongolian khan-hobbits.)
>Two types of gnome.
>A whole fuckton of undead.
>One type of Dwarf.
>A myriad variety of Humans.
And any other species we handle on a "could you think up a cool place for them in the setting? Here, I'll help" system.
We also have demons, which are technically playable, but are really weird and nonsensical in the metaphysics we made, so no one has tried yet.
>>47176456
>not allowing based Ctarl-ctarl-like people
you sound like a faggot fampai.Although i can emphatise, someone who starts saying "half fae catboy shota" will be booted off my table face first before he speaks the whole sentence.
>>47180595
Do you think there's a word for something you know you would absolutely enjoy, but never comes to be in quite the way you want it?
Humans only. You don't need anything other than humans.
>>47175780
Cry more, faggot
>>47175854
it's true, though.
>>47180610
bittersweet? Monkey paw?
>>47180610
Life?
What does it count as if all races are technically human, but some humans have been significantly altered by excessive exposure to spirits/magical phenomena somewhere along the line and now are pretty odd-seeming?
>>47180650
So kinda like wakfu?
>>47180673
Probably, I wouldn't know.
>>47180585
Type breakdown
Goblin
>Mountain goblin (Your traditional bunch, kind of aztec-y)
>Sun Goblin (Ride beetles, smaller, desert dwellers)
>Hobgoblins (Tallish, pale xenophobic farmers who make golems)
>Redcaps (Pale, swamp-dwelling murder goblins who are selectively colorblind)
>Salt goblins (Pirate shark goblins who are ripped as fuck)
>Deep goblins (Half mushroom underground scholars)
Kobold
>Sky Kobold (Weedy, hollow bird bones, tied to cold-damage dragons)
>Island Kobolds (Look like komodo dragons, short, have the world's only accurate prognostication)
>Stone Kobolds (Large, buff, slightly phosphorescent warmongers)
Orc
>Xanagoth Orcs (From the jungles of bootleg south america, slightly green, about people size, conquistadors)
>Aizan Orcs (About 7ft on average, brownish skin, from bootleg china, samurai)
Elves
>Hirau (High elves, huge douchebags, literally eat pride, bald with antlers, population of about 5000)
>Drau (Dark elves, bioluminescent predator dreads,grouchy bastards, covered in magic-tattoos.)
Gnome
>Seelie (Descended from seelie fae, upbeat, bright colors, complete sociopaths)
>Unseelie (Descended from unseelie fae, predatory, cool colors, complete sociopaths)
Gorgons
>Silicate based, lamia legs, eat rocks with acid spit, are mostly pirates.
Halfling
>Kokuro halfling (Mongolian hobbits, not actually all that short, like 4ft)
>Boreal halflings (Arctic eskimo hobbits, crazy paranoid, cannibalistic, blue skin)
>Akashan halfling (Ethiopian hobbits, sick body paint, huge badasses, ride giant lizards)
Undead
>Ghouls, vampires, morghs, wights, mummies, frankenstein things, and anything else bored liches think up.
Dwarves
>Industrial revolution mafia dwarves, can't comprehend progress well, Prussian inspired
Humans
>They're humans, what do you expect? They're everywhere.
>>47180650
Sword of Shannara?
>>47180595
I could make an exception for manime
Adding on from my last post
I always explain to players, I play my settings in the eve of the age of reasoning, where many of the humanoid races are coming to terms of having a common ancestor, and were not made from the divine sculpting of a god. Perhaps a god in charge of its nating partners, maybe.
Homo-sapien, Homo-elvish, Homo-Orkish...if you wanna be technical
Lizardfolk is a broad term for people of scales; kobolds, dragonborn, chamelionfolk, gatorfolk, etc.
Catfolk is broad for the varying species id that family or whatever taxomic level you wanna call it. Jaguirefolk, lionfolk, domesticcatfolk.
Alot of it is just flavor and not mechinical.
Id lile to play agame with The Legend of Zelda races.
>Elves and Humans are all one mixed blood race.
>Jamacian rock people, brutha. Lets boogy till the sun goes down.
>2 types of fish people. Ocean Zoras who look like they come from innsmouth and shoot fireballs at you, and the beautiful river zoras who will bro it out with you on a fishing trip, then evolve into birds
>fucking goblins that ride boars, and their leader is a great axe swingimg merc
>children of the corn niggas that evolve into shrubs
>minish people who are aerity like fucks who live in your house
I mean shit, there are so mamy its hard to remember.
>>47180650
In FF11 all (playable) races are known as Humanity because they are all wide scale mutations/evolutions of a central race that went extinct. So you have Humes (pretty much just humans), Galka (reincarnating long lived buff beast dudes of only male gender), Mithra (catgirls and technically boys but mostly just girls), Tarutaru (magic midgets), and Elvaan (if elves were actually fit giraffes) are all technically considered Humanity since they have a similar evolutionary starting point, while other sentient species who didn't share said origin aren't. Point of note though, the race they all evolved from were not humans but another race called the Zilart (immortals humans pretty much).
>>47180572
That Asian-American argument seems kind of ridiculous.
In the case of Dwarves and Elves and Orcs and shiz being redundant, it's because they're filling a needlessly overfilled niche. Asian-Americans exist because they patch up the "Asian AND American" niche of "Asian American". Then you also have "Asian-African", who patch up the niche in "Asian AND African", and then you have "Asian-Latinos", who patch up the niche in "Asian AND Mexican".
In all the different countries, they all have their own little Asians because it's an obvious niche that needs to be filled.
Now say you're world building and you want there to exist a culture of Viking-like warriors. And you can go two routes; one, your already existing race develops a culture to accommodate for that Viking-less vacuum and they end up being the defacto "Viking" culture.
OR, secondly, you can create a whole NEW race of people, or monsters, or beastmen, or what have you, and you can make them Vikings and Norsemen and Hadradas and shiz.
And then if you want to give every single race a Viking-culture equivalent, then it just gets ridiculous, because then just have Elf-Vikings, and Dwarf-Vikings, and Human-Vikings, and Hungry Skelly Lich-Vikings.
Like, damn, son. Humans have managed to create more than a million cultures as it is, it's not like I need a couple 800 million more of the same shit, but in different outfits.
>>47181084
Cultural differences don't come into existence to fill niches though. They can be shaped by niches that need to be filled, but cultural differences are just things that happen to any group over a period of time. So logically, there would be both viking humans AND viking dwarves. And probably other species that have an interest in viking shenanigans as well. If circumstances led to there only being dwarf vikings then that's just how it happened. After all, you don't have Mexican Vikings or Indian Vikings. Sometimes that's just how things come about.
I don't see why you are so against fantasy cultures in fantasy games. It's a confusing outlook.
>>47181084
>>47181144
guys
what if
GUYS
what if
WHAT IF
One Viking culture but made of Humans AND Dwarves?
>>47181185
...I'd be down with that. As long as no stinky Elves show up.
No, but in all seriousness, 2 races is as far as I go. Elves and Humans? Alright, fine. Elves and Dwarves? Okay, whatever. Humans and Elves AND Dwarves? We gots a problem, motherfucker.
>>47181204
>>47181185
The question isn't how many races are in the same culture. It's what caused humans/dwarves/whatever to both band together into their own society like this.
>>47181204
2 races total or 2 races per culture? I can see merchant city-states being a clusterfuck of different people, while something like remote bumfuck kingdom would be made of one race.
>>47181213
Common enemy.
Lack of competition over resources.
More or less common culture and values.
>>47174735
Extremely homogeneous. There is only one playable race: clones of myself.
>>47181213
Well, let's look at it from a DM standpoint. You know me, I'm the guy that doesn't want more than 2 races in my world.
If someone asked me, as a DM, how two races got together to become a nation of Vikings, I would say:
"Well, you see, anon, the Dwarves weren't actually native participants of the Human, Viking-like culture that we now know as the "Vraggarth". Sure, nowadays you'd see a Dwarf wife with a Human husband walking around town and it wouldn't be such a big deal, but back when they did all that Viking shit, most of the Dwarves were either conscripted mercenaries, or just as often, they were slaves for rowing. The Vraggarth quickly found that the short, muscular frames of Dwarves made for good rowers, and thus, they were put to the galleys for years.
Over time, as those same Dwarven ancestors gained their freedom or escaped, or earned citizenship, they gained a reputation as incredible sailors and navigators, no doubt to their long experience at sea. Thus, as the Dwarves began to live and integrate into Vraggarth culture, it would become more and more common to see Dwarves and Humans fighting with each other during raids and pillages. And that is why when we think of the Vraggarth, we think of both Human AND Dwarvish Vikings."
Or something like that, I don't know.
>>47181231
2 races total. And by "race", I mean "Elves and Dwarves only", or "Humans and Elves" only. You can have Viking Elves, Cowboy Elves, Scottish Elves, Wood Elves, Black Elves, White Elves, Asian Elves, Brown Elves, Anglo Elves, Light Elves, Dark Elves, what have you, but they'll all be the same exact race.
And within those two "races" would exist the races we're familiar with today. So Humans would have blacks, asians, whites, while elves would have wood elves, dark elves, light elves. And of course each would have their own cultures and languages.
So in dense market places, you'll see various human races as well as a few elves, but you'll never see a giant or a kobold.
>>47174735
almost anything goes, but not-africa sunk into the ocean after an earthquake so no blacks
>>47181443
But not all black people live in Africa?
>>47179051
>dwarves
>avoiding work whenever possible
Nigga you think those underground super cities build themselves?!
Dwarves are the hardest working race there is, in tolkien lore most won't marry because it takes away time they could be using on thier trade which is why so few dwarves exist.
Interesting to see so many humans only or "low diversity" attitudes in one thread.
I fall into the same category though. There are basically two types of humans, "normal" which constitute absolute majority of the population, and "tall ones", a fairly small demographic of giant-like human relatives.
Then there are also few unplayable "races", "Old Ones" who are immortal humans, left over from a long-past civilization and various "Constructs", artificially created organisms, some of which may be sentient.
The Tall ones, Old Ones and Constructs are however really just a rarity of the world.
"Normal" humans are absolute majority. That said, they are obviously divided into dozens of different ethnicities and cultures, the differences between those are intentionally somewhat exaggerated. I generally prefer to go into cultural variation more than racial variation. I do believe that highly diverse race lineup isn't necessary to create an interesting and imaginative world: in fact I believe that in some cases, it can actually hinder it, as most fantasy worlds creates races that are A) collections of worn out tropes and anti-tropes, and B) actually differ really only very superficially.
I'll rather have very detailed and interesting places and cultures than than tons of token races with token differences between them.
>>47175744
Not every day we get to play as Armadillos and Jogurts either. Seriously though, loved Guntz, though Adam was probably my favorite 'cause I dig robots. Bleu and Zylo were pretty cool too, though Zylo felt like cheating.
I ended up with an extremely furry D&D group, so I did a little bit of (literal) refluffing to end up with something that both my players and I are happy with.
>Elves
Faechatte, catfolk elves who come from the fey. They tend to hole up on a small island in the middle of nowhere and manipulate the other races like the assholes they are.
>Dwarves
Woofdorfs, or just dogs. They're a mix of your stereotypical scottish dwarf with a little bit of WWF thrown in. Made when a wizard long ago wanted loyal guards, they've since become a race of their own long after hundreds of thousands of years, their culture pretty much centered around fighting for sport.
>Halflings
Rabbits, generally either ignored or made into slaves, with very few actually managing to get into positions of power. One of the best players in the campaign is a rabbit and I'm thinking of replacing halflings in any future D&D game with these guys.
>Kobolds
Come in a variety of flavors in addition to the standard lizard kobold. Current variations include shark and pangolin.
>Tiefling
Now known as the Cambion, they're cursed humans with goat heads looking quite similar to baphomet. They come into the world already indebted to a demon who takes their soul when they die, making them one of the few races on which resurrection magic simply does not work for them. Their culture tends to be very bureaucratic, but not many venture out from the island nation they originally hail from.
>>47176456
> go full Thunder Cats
That's furry.
Also, kitsune are not anthropomorphic. They are either foxes (with one or several tails) or humans (without fox ears or tails).
I'm letting my party play a kenku and a kobold. So long as they're still good about role playing it'll be fine
>>47174735
unbeatable
>>47180572
>normal white Americans instead
Because white people aren't and shouldn't be considered the default 'Human' race? If we're going purely by numbers then it would make more sense for humans to default to either Black or Asian. Most likely Asian considering current demographics.
39 races, although I don't allow all of them to be played with the same leniency:
Aaesimar
Dark Eldarin
Dragonborn
Eldarin
Elf
Gnome
Halfling
Human
Ork
Squat
Tau
Tiefling
Thri Kreen
kenku
Kobold
Dryad
Arachne
Catfolk
Dullahan
Duskling
Fairy
Githyanki
Githzerai
Goblin
Goliath
Ikthys
Kitsune
Kython
Laika
Limulian
Lizardman
Minotaur
Ophidian
Sahuagin
Sphinx
vanara
Vyzard
Warforged
Youma
>>47176416
>>47176835
>>47177323
This anon here. I'm awake now
I know this thread was originally supposed to be for racial diversity, but considering the early mindset of the thread, I felt it necessary to start here. Now, however, I'm ready to start on the Inhuman races.
Which would you like me to start on?
>Louphi and Jakrir, two reptilian-esque races that split off during a massive civil-war/crusade
>the Bra'Treesha, a race that was originally three different races, but were united when their Patron General-Kings gestalted together when they achieved Apatheosis via a Fruit of Life
>the Kednopah, the scaled armies of the Skinbourne, who dwell in thier mountain holes after the War of the Sundering Heavens.
>The Guldjur, shaggy men of the Northern Steppes, who are fragments if the Fallen Eternal Empire
>the Diatomols, the voiceless dwellers of the deep seas and coastal marshes, who serve under the old things that lurk deep below.
>the Trichtiq, misbegotten and chitinous remnants of the Fallen Eternal Empire, forever cursed for their nature
>the Razleyek, feathered natives of the Southern continent, who entreat with the spirits of legends and Tales past
>The Jakitus, sea faring and fecund people who spread for in hopes of finding enough land to live on.
Keep in mind, some races are more finished than others, as the setting is still very much WiP. Also, I may be limited for time, and it'll be slow going since I haven't written much down on them.
Several well thought out species>>Humans only>>>>>The whole zoo
I've got three playable species, each with a couple races. They have a long and intertwined history that I couldn't have pulled off with 20 species.
Well, it's a table of random animals for each body part. So...very?
>>47182299
Louphi and Jakrir
>>47182372
Okay, here comes massive posts. This may take a while
You have the Louphi and Jakrir, a race that resembles a cross between a snake and a canid, with Louphi normally resembling garter/wolf while the Jakrir are more akin to cobra/jackal. Overall features include a flat “shovel faced” snout, reptilian eyes, course fur along the dorsal side of their body with a thicker matte along their spine, ovoidal scaled neck, chest and abdominal area, and plantigrade feat with four clawed toes. Hands also have four fingers. They also possess a long serpentine tail. Males tend to be broader shouldered, with thicker fur along the shoulders and encroaching along the edges of the chest, while females tend to be wider hipped and possess longer tails. Despite their squamatic appearance, the races could be considered mammalian for they possess two mammary glands and give live birth, though they do not express permanent boobs like humans, and their glands are inguinal rather than pectoral.
The two races split ages ago after a massive civil war, with the Jakrir fleeing off to settle the deserts and wastelands, while the Louphi live near strictly in forested areas.
>>47182286
>races from 40k in dnd
holy clusterfuckness
>>47182449
dungeons the dragoning senpai
>>47175618
Nice projection, Cuck.
>>47174735
See pic related?
Good, now imagine thats the size of a wagon and inhabited by thumb-sized, wingless pixies.
Basic fluff is some fey wanted to get all civilized and shit but got caste out of the wild and lost their wings and magic... heh, just gotta wait til my players run across their first human to realize it.
>>47182347
...whoa
>>47182324
seconded
>>47182477
what the fuck is that
>>47182422
Louphi live regimented and orderly lives, dedicated to the pursuit of personal skill and wisdom for the good of thier tribes, and strictly follow the guidelines of their founding prophet, which includes ethical guides, tribal organization, population and breeding restrictions, and Exodus imperatives. Due to both their culture and slow predatory metabolism, Louphi are slow to make and commit to a decision and will often spend much time discussing and considering their options, before shifting all of their energy and focus into a singular task with predatory tenacity.
In a Louphi tribe, everyone is expected to find a place, and every gender has a role to play. Most men are generally expected to become Hunters, sentries, and scouts, as well as artisans in charge of tool maintenance. Further, it is most often Men who are expected to become the tribal Sages and Sage Walkers, who are responsible for seeing to the magical, spiritual, and genealogical needs of the tribe, and to enforce the Pact of Oaths, the Holy doctrine to which all Louphi must ascribe to.
Females, meanwhile, often fulfill the majority of artisan and agrigarian roles, as well as form the Matron Societies that are in charge of the internal politics, planning, and organization of the tribe. While these societies and councils are not allowed to make their own decisions on mystical manners, they can appoint villiage representatives, huntsmasters, reallocate resources, determine growing patterns of plants, and see to and focus on the physical needs of the tribe.
>>47182286
Yeah, I don't think I'd let someone play a Sphinx. The lack of hands and odd make up would create issues, they're just too monsterous.
Arachne and Ophidian causes issues too with their weird body shapes, athough Goliaths have trouble as well since the world generally isn't designed with anything bigger than a Space Marine in mind.
>>47182500
The fuck da ya think it is? tis a town/church/fortress.
>>47182286
Oh hey, another Dungeons: the Dragoning: 40,000 player.
>>47182508
man, you have the exact same idea as I do
Sphinx aren't permitted, Youma either because I can't understand shit about them, ophidian and arachne are heavily discouraged and goliath is advised against
>>47182521
which
>>47182553
No no, not which. ALL..
really though I dont know its actual history, just that its a cool as hell place.
>>47182567
ah okay, sorry
>>47182545
Right, Youma are weird. Probably wouldn't recommend or allow that too.
To be honest, I'd allow any of the options but explain that sometimes things get indirectly taxed for rarity. DtD is a game that is more about Yes than No so I don't think I'd want to directly refuse someone's character concept, but I would warn them about potential issues.
Like there is a Matron Dryad in my current game that has trouble fitting in some buildings or doors because she is over 10 feet tall and they're just not built with that in mind.
There are actually more races than those ones, the PDF just stopped being updated recently. There are the Durulz too along with some bunny type people and Cyclopes.
>>47182584
indeed, if a player insist on playing a race despite the warnings I would of course let him
>>47182502
The Jakrir meanwhile, due to years of corruption and directed eugenics by their abberant patrons, live maddening and reckless lives, constantly craving new and higher levels of stimuli and depravity. They form grand and blasphemous cities and are led by the mad priests of their Elder God, who advise and direct them to constantly seek greater depths of ambition and insanity. Luckily, or unluckily, generations of Decadence and Madness have also left then somewhat lazy and cunning, so they often stew in their own plans and wickedness for years before acting on a masterfully wicked ploy or assassinating a rival. Also, they have a long tradition of mummifying their fallen rivals and transforming them into crippled augers and emissaries to their inscrutable Patron.
Jakrir believe in a doctrine of force, meaning if you are strong or cunning enough to take something, you should not only take it, but do what you can to show your superiority to others. This extends to their proclivity towards capturing and keeping Chattel slaves (for servants, pleasure, food, and sacrifices), to their own gender dynamics, where males are expected to enforce dominance over their women, and females are expected to connive, scheme, and plot against eachother for favor and influence in their houses.
All this serves to entertain their Mad God and his piping council, and to continue to fuel their desire of ever increasing stimulation.
>>47182657
The magical traditions of both races trace back to similar roots. In most simple terms, both races utalize a practice of channeling magic into ones’s own body, before shaping and releasing it in various shapes on functions. This often creates the illusion of them conjuring magical equipment and regalia, when in actuality such appearances are nearly mental constructs that help them focus on the desired effect for the channeled and released magic
The Sages and Sage Walkers of the Louphi apply a strict serenity and control to their magic. They learn to control and corral thier own emotions internal Magic flow, granting them a measure of flexibility and artistry over their forms and regalia, which they combine with extensive traditions of prayer, ceremony, and craftsmanship to help supplement their position as the priesthood of their tribe.
The Jakrir, meanwhile care not for control and silly ceremony. They channel their bodily magics wildly and recklessly, letting their emotion and desires boost their Magic, causing it to warp and reshape their bodies, which the agony then further fuels to greater heights. It's not uncommon for a Jakrir to continue to channel their powers until they reach near orgasmic hieghts of profane and twisted stimuli. There is no cultural regiment on these powers, for the Priests and Pharoahs who rule their cities possess even greater power, due to blessings and boons from their Alienest master. Further, it is common for their priests to practice all manner of experimentation in mutations and mummification on their soldiers, slaves, and even themselves. So much so that, even if a priest displays no outward signs of alteration, you can be assured that their insides now barely resemble their original race.
That's it for the basics of the Jakrir and Louphi.
Any questions, comments, or requests for the next race.
Also, in your opinions, would they be better as plantigrade, or digitrade?
As a boring tool I find the idea of playing anything other than human literally unfathomable.
I currently have been carrying a homebrewed game of Daggerfall, as such all the playable races from Elder scrolls are available
Imperials
Bretons
Redguard
Nords
Bosmer (wood elf)
Altmer (high elf)
Dunmer (gray elf)
Khajit
Argonian
Although my players mostly play imperials because they identify such as the vanilla human race, breton if they want it with a magical flavor (not to mention, the game takes place in the Illiac bay, homeplace of the bretons and redguards)
My players currently are:
3 imperials, a bard, a stealth archer, and a ranger
2 bretons: a nightblade and a magician
1 Nord: a treasure hunter
1 redguard: a barbarian (insisted on being the blackest possible)
1 High elf: magician
As for the setting itself, most of the world is made up of either bretons or redguards, but a bit of everything can be found, typical of Elder Scrolls
>>47182787
>Imperials
Colovian, Nibanese, or both?
>Khajiit
What sub-breeds are allowed?
>>47180557
Nothing personell kid.
I have two kinds of settings.
A) World with relatively standard D&D fantasy races and at most one slightly weirder one
B) Human only for when I'm feeling lazy
>>47174735
If the players can bring it to the table without minmaxing the shit out of it, I'll generally give them the go-ahead.
>>47182888
because my players do not care much about the lore, difference between races are minimal
With that in mind, I find pointless to try to emphasize on the different types of imperials, and as for the khajits they are all the catfolk that appear in Skyrim (the ones playable in daggerfall are too human-like to make any difference or be interesting)
I'm playing a half-spider vampire wizard.
Nuff said.
Our race is essentially a customized lower tier vampire, we get weakened in sunlight, have to feed every 72 hours, count as undead, regenerate 1 point per round, dont die unless staked, burned, beheaded, or put into water. Also if we reach 0HP in the sun we explode and die. Also clerics can make us explode with turning if they're high enough level.
As for the half-spider thing, my mother is a shapeshifting druid and must have mated with my father in spider form or some shit. Half breeds are a thing in our setting (its a custom renaissance period medium fantasy setting), and although I'm considered an abomination and would be shot on sight in a city, I merely exist in crypts and forests, and found some acceptance among the centaurs. Plus I'm a lvl 2 wizard so I can always can disguise self if I really need to hide my appearance.
>>47182985
>angry CHIM noises.gif
May you and your players be smothered by moths!
Took some inspiration from one screenshot and have the base races all mingling together in interesting ways. One way is that humans and centaurs have a joined society and have evolved together, resulting in unusual packages.
>>47174735
There are a lot of different white ethnicities based on real cultures like the Minoans, Scythians, Kievan Rus, Sarmatians, Norse, East Romans etc in my Europe-inspired setting.
I don't think that qualifies as "diverse" in modern political newsspeak though.
As far as I can tell that's based on how close of an analogue to an American monocultural empire with token minorities and enforced egalitarianism exists in your setting.
>>47182266
>thinking anyone but whites are human
>>47184009
>>>/pol/
Also the basic biological concepts of speciation and phylogenic mechanisms would like to have a word with you.
In my setting everyone is named "boave" and they are all old ugly british men that look exactly the same. The only way to tell them apart is what scars and missing limbs they have.
Fairly. I have about eight significantly different sorts of human, who are the majority, as well as a number of nonhuman races. I've generally tried to make playing a non human feel significantly different than being a human of any stripe.
>>47174735
3 different Human interstellar empires and whole bunch of alien species.
>>47184068
>
>
>
>
>comparing literal high elves of the world to kobolds and gnolls
Mine are all based on an aesthetic similar to how Cambrian Explosion creatures are depicted and early terrestrial plants.
One are the Hemphan Spires. These are massive singular organisms who produce sterile offspring in the form of parasites. They excrete a pheromone that lures creatures towards it to get trapped in it's sap. Once in the sap a parasite burrows into the creature's brain and uses it's body. The parasitic children are sterile and sapient, but beholden to the wishes of the spire that birthed them (compelled by pheromone addiction to return and listen). Occasionally a spire will produce a fertile male and female offspring. The fertile female is immobile at birth while the males are extremely powerful and intelligent. The male will carry away the female to a new location for it to take root and grow, and defend it until it reaches maturity, at such time it begins making sterile parasitic offspring of its own.
Fertile females are enormously intelligent and lead the societies as rulers, while fertile males generally are either eventually killed by paranoid fertile females or relegated to control of mundane protection of the fertile female. This is become the fertile males do not suffer from pheromone addiction and thus can disobey the fertile female if they so choose.
Players of this race are generally infertile parasite offspring, or if they spend a large number of points at character creation they can choose to be a fertile male. Fertile female are entirely unplayable.
Hemphan Spires for millennium went to war with one another over petty disputes until two in the far south realized they together could kill a third, the third died and a four joined. Then a fifth. Others joined together to defend themselves. Nation states formed in this way. Due to the hard working nature of the sterile offspring and the intellect of the spires they quickly advanced to metal working. Their technology rests at early Rome.
Anyone interested in the others?
It's a medium-hardness sci-fi setting, so there's a decent assortment, though practically everyone is a dick of some variety.
Unless you're going really hard sci-fi, you gotta at least have aliens or robots or mutants or something.
>>47185277
Why the fuck would someone play this?
>>47185138
It always weirds me out that the animator drew her legs in front of the table.
One day I swear I'll follow this up.
http://pastebin.com/gy4ZsWYv scroll down past character info for explanations of the races.
http://pastebin.com/Z4dCJ37v for more details.
> Someday a person will read this.
>>47185495
Why would anyone play a kitsune? Or dragonborn? Or any of the other myriad flavors of not-human-but-human-enough?
>>47185277
Sounds like amazing bio-Paranoia or shitty magical realm. I choose to believe the person that made has read Michael Stanwyck.
There's several non-human sapient races, but they're not people in the strict sense of the word. Not if we consider humans to be the paradigm of people.
Some, the ones that on individual level could pass as similar to humans, may be playable. But in general the action is centered on humans and those other creatures are either monsters or have their own society aparted from humankind with it's own problems and rules.
>>47185467
>>47176837
Turns out these two are the same setting, and my good friend forgot to mention the ascetic and unmovable sentient lichen colonies, the pompous venetian birdmen who manage to stay neutral from both the lizardbug-human alliance and the space NATO due to being the galaxy's most powerful mercantile force, the giant waterbears who have only recently been discovered as sentients and introduced to the galactic community, the scholarly sentient squids and the abandoned robots trying to figure out how to follow their dead masters' last will.
There are many. I don't use elves and dwarves because they are boring, but I do use many fantasy monsters/races that typically aren't playable to stand in for exotic races.
You have many different types of humans, all created by different Gods and having slightly different traits (humanities 'thing' in this setting is basically just being 'easy to make', so they ended up as the creations of a million shitty Godlings since it was the easiest race to make.)
Then you have Goblins of different types, space alien trolls, Pig-style orcs, then tiny cute woodland critters who live in their humble hidden places. Then you have men with castles for heads, insectoids, monkey men, lizard men, kobolds, knuckles dragons (these last three are all the same race, just depends on the temperature when you incubate their eggs).
I like to play high fantasy and have strange races. Many of them exist in multiple cultures or if they are isolated may just have one. Fuck all the human only shitters in the thread, I've had my fill of 'so gritty and DARK bro it's just like Game of Thrones XD' settings, thank you very much. Go gonzo, or go home.
>>47186748
So Wakfu?
>>47187185
But in Wakfu there's only humansand eliatropeswho have developed into separate subraces due to worshipping the various gods.
>>47182477
>>47182500
>>47182521
>>47182553
>>47182567
>>47182577
It's a place in France. I climbed to the top of that spire many years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_Saint-Michel
>>47185574
They didn't. It was most likely a set of drawings on transparent film, so somebody just stacked them the wrong way.
>>47175597
Can my FtM Muslim who is only interested in women, join?
>>47184068
He has something of a point, though. The monster manuals were always set up with a basic type and then variants. Ghasts are tougher ghouls, flinds are tougher gnolls. And the main thing differentiating dragons is color.
But if you wanted to consider black people and white people as separate entries, the standard type would be brown. DNA evidence conclusively proves the "out of Africa" theory. Furthermore, most white people have traces of Neanderthal DNA. If you want to talk speciation, that's a stumbling block.
>>47185636
It's neither really. They can't even be magical realm, the sterile offspring lack genitalia.
Anatomical wise they are a bulbous sphere about a foot in diameter with another 2 feet of nerve bundles tendrils that burrow into the flesh. They look like a lamprey and bobbit worm hybrid.
>>47188387
>They look like a lamprey and bobbit worm hybrid.
Why make a race Chaotic Evil by nature?
>>47181652
>Guntz and Adam
patrician taste right there
>>47180567
>Implying races aren't classes
I want 3aboos to leave
>>47174735
There are darkies but they're not playable, since they are basically the equivalent of fantasy orcs and goblins in my setting.
Players can choose from a few different humanoids, but the big division is between the categories of Lords and Centennials. Lords are big, like 9' tall at minimum big, live for a really long time, and are hallmarks of physical perfection - beautiful/handsome, strong, graceful. Lords are closely connected to the divine.
Centennials are just a bit bigger than men today, averaging 6', and they only live for around 100 years, as their name suggests. They're not necessarily ugly, weak, or clumsy, but they're not immune to these traits. What they do have is cunning, and more importantly, magic.
There are a couple different varieties of Lords and Centennials, but all except one are white skinned. The exception are essentially Northeast Asian Lords.
>>47174735
In my setting, Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, etc., are all different types of human, but things like being short or having pointy ears are the real life equivalent of having wiry hair or not being lactose intolerant.
There are other types of humans like real life humans that have different bonuses as well like the Viking/Native American getting a penalty to intelligence, but getting a bonus to Str and Con.
>>47185602
I read it. I love the orcs. Will likely be stealing for campain. Thank you kindly.
>>47180625
>if I say it enough times it'll be true someday
If elves, dwarves, orcs, sedient gas clouds or whatever else are just "people" in the world, to the point that they're a normal player race no different than humans then, and this is the important part here so pay attention,
THEY
ARE
NOT
SPECIAL
There's nothing special snowflake about wanting to be one, becasue there's nothing special snowflake about them, they're just another culture. Putting "elf" on your sheet in such a game is no more special then putting "Spaniard" or "Frenchmen" on it in a game set in real world Medival Europe, they're just another group of people.
>don't bother using other races
>don't try to put some sort of creative spin or backstory on them to stop them from being stale
>chastise others when they try and act like you're superior for running human only campaigns
Good job.
>Valley Human, regular folks, and the most abundant. Usually of fair or slightly tanned skin and blonde or red hair. Comparatively accepting of other races. Lives in the generic valley and forest land.
>Dusk Human, somewhat less trusting of non-humans, very religious. Usually they have pale skin and nearly pitch black hair. Lives in the generic spooky forest land.
>Savannah Human, loves the heat, making gold, and good fun. Of a darker, brown skin than other humans, and has dark brown or black hair. Lives in the generic desert land.
>Tundra Human, loves the cold, hunting, and family. Somewhat aloof, they usually have blonde or light orange hair and fair skin. Lives in generic snow land.
>Elf, very arrogant and not always wise, but very smart and stealthy. Of pale skin and blonde hair, with big ass pointy ears. Lives in a land of eternal Autumn.
>Drow, like their cousins, the Elves, they're smart, stealthy, and arrogant, but they love to trade and make allies with others. They just don't like other races to live or mix with them.
They have lilac skin, white, slightly glowing hair, and the same big ass pointy ears of the Elves. Lives in large, crystalline, suprisingly roomy, underground cave systems.
>Dwarf, loves to create, work, laugh, and drink, like many other settings' Dwarves. Only a foot and a half shorter than a man, but almost twice as wide, they usually have slightly orange skin and big, well-groomed blonde, brown, black, or red beards. Live only in the largest mountains, of which they build massive cities and fortress out of.
>Mushmin, a very physically varied race of peace-loving Mushroom people. They enjoy the simple life, but they do enjoy a good tale. They're not big on adventuring, and are more or less the Setting's hobbits. They have white stalk-ish bodies and red, green, blue, or purple caps depending on their clan. They live in an Ice-covered Swamp, think of Morthal, despite being mushrooms.
>>47191022
>Gnoll, a cat-like race of humanoids. They're less so Khajiits as much as they are bigger cats walking on two legs and wearing pants. Usually of brown, black, or yellow fur, they once had their own island to call home. It has since been destroyed, and they have more or less assimilated into Human culture, primarily that of those from the Valley. Somewhat Asiatic in culture.
>Kobold, a comparatively primal race of lizard-like people, they are said to have descended from dragons, a nearly extinct race of demi-gods, and worship them as such. Kobolds are almost always of green scales, but those of red, blue, purple, and black scales are said to have descended from different breeds of Dragons. They have an Aztec sort of architecture and fashion style, and they live in the generic tropical jungle land.
>Orc, an honorbound race of large, tusked, green brutes who tend to be brawlers, barbarians, or shamans. Orcs, not unlike Gorons, enjoy curling up into a ball and rolling around, often using it as an attack or jump start against their otherwise quicker foes. Orcs have large tusks black or dark purple hair, if any. They have a long fued with the Savannah humans, who live just north of them. Orcs can be found in their tightly-knit communities in generic canyon and ground land.
>Goblin, a green, almost child-like people with small bodies and brains, but large, pointy ears and hearts. They are particularly mischevious and love to play sometimes violent pranks, as well as "borrow" things from other non-goblins. Though they can be found almost throughout the continent, the most civilized of them are led by the Great King Hobbe, a Hobgoblin, in a massive abandoned mine, of which they refurnished with their own Goblin style.
>>47180847
Can't forget those QT Yeti folks, rare as they may be.
>>47189561
>le racism meme
>>47191201
>you gots ta put negroes in yo game and have them be kangs or u raciss
Yeah fuck off.
>>47189561
so all together, how many swastika tattoos does your playgroup have
>>47191227
There is some difference between "not kings" and "orc/goblin equivalents" in terms of racistness.
>>47191443
>It's perfectly okay to make DnD approved Mongoloid stereotype orcs and goblins but if you give them black skin then that's OVER THE LINE, RACIST!
You people are fucking awful. It's a game of fantasy, get over yourselves.
>>47191033
>>Gnoll, a cat-like race of humanoids.
You son of a gun, you did that because Hyenas are feliforms, didn't you?
>>47191571
There's a difference between saying orcs have black-ish traits and culture, and saying niggers are orcs
>>47174735
Humans only, but with subraces that include a culture of magically advanced and physically graceful sorts as well as a sturdy subterranean race, unusually small people, and so on. In short, most of your standard races are represented in some fashion. It's just that they're all humans.
Elves are just a culture of humans with a long history of advanced magic, who have used it to become beautiful and maintain their youth. Separated from the enchanted domains and magics of the rest of their people, the average elven lifespan isn't much longer than a human's. For that matter, a human's lifespan can be extended to elven levels using the same methods.
Because of this, half-elves are mechanically almost indistinguishable from whichever parent race they grew up with, though their mixed ancestry is quite visible. Elves look rather weird, even if they're just a subrace of humans.
The subterranean race are basically non-degenerate Morlocks, and tend to be an industrious and cunning lot. They have quite a few excellent stone and metal workers, and make some of the best weapons and armor. However, their cultures usually have an ingrained disregard for other races and a special dislike for elves. In short, they're Dwarf/Orc/Dark Elf/Goblins, with those different groups merely being different cultures. The specific culture that most often trades with the surface people tend to grow out their beards.
We have an inquisitors ghost, a black blob that works for Q'yth-az, a fucking Blood Angel, and a warforged that is piloted by 30 sapient chipmunks
>>47174735
that art might have been good ryutaama type stuff if the centaur wasn't a bitch. also, what is the elf-ish thing in the back? a faun?
>>47192282
No there isn't.
Humans only.
I make exception only for Burning Wheel's races because it actually really runs with the whole Tolkien themed races thing, but I do not like races where they end up only being a few bonuses to different statblocks.
If you can't figure out a way to make *humans* interesting, you've got a big problem in your game or your character.
>>47193768
Tell me, what do you think of the Humans and nonhumans from these posts?
>>47176416
>>47176835
>>47177323
>>47182299
>>47182422
>>47182502
>>47182657
>>47182687
>>47186748
this guy gets it
i got interested in this shit BECAUSE regular RPGs for video games and stuff didn't have much variety for me to play around with.
>>47182266
Why would you go by numbers? Generic Fantasy is vaguely European, and the European appearance is what evolution selected for in that environment.
If you make your setting climatically non-Euro, then you replace the generic appearance with a different suitable one.
>>47193831
I think they're TLDR and I don't care enough about his fanfic setting to read them.
>>47194334
>complains about humans not having enough detail
>refuses to read posts detailing human fantasy culture and ethnic groups
It's like a self fulfilling prophecy.
>>47194381
>Not understanding the difference between engaging in an actual game you sign up for and exchanging casual conversation in a chinese calligraphy forum
>>47182266
Oh, so now all of a sudden minorities don't deserve disproportionate representation? At least be consistent, Chaim.
>>47174735
All humans, but can be from any nation that existed during the golden age of piracy.
Pirates didn't have diversity quotas but seemed to be fine at being inclusive...
>>47174735
Pretty diverse.
You've got humans, several elf cultures, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, cat folk, goblins, kobolds, a race of people that are "born dead," several extra-planar races, living constructs, pangolins, ant-people, etc...
There's around 23 I've made available to my players for a space campaign. Humans are not the majority on any planet outside earth due to a plague happening.
Android - Directive driven bots without personality
Automaton - AI decision based bots.
Desecrated - Catch all for undead, skeletons, vampires, liches.
Drakekin - Dragon people who start human shaped and as they age transform into dragons of yore.
Dwarf - Mostly live on earth's mountains due to requiring the same atmosphere as humans.
Elf - Keep primarily in the forests, one of the less technologically advanced races.
Floran - Plant people that thrive on warm, damp planets with one to many suns.
Half-Elf - Humans dying off in large numbers prompted many to take different races as their fiances and half breeds were inevitable.
Half-Orc - See above.
Halfling - Darkness dwellers that worship the moon.
Human - Very homogenous due to a plague wiping out around 80% of the population.
Mesiacan - Delusional sect of humans who worship and dedicate their lives to an imaginary time god.
Insectoid - Live alongside Florans and hunt them, incapable of typical speech.
Kitsune - Fox people who developed as a result of well studied arcane humans breeding with catfolk.
Malimus - (Tieflings sorta) Denizens of infernal hot planets who've grown hard scales, reddish hues, horns, and tails to help foster survival in the landscape.
Merm - Aquatic fish people who've cornered the market on land walkers and subaquatic travel.
Mijoran - Round inflatable balloon merchants who thrive in toxic environments.
Rakashan - Effectively catfolk who are extremely territorial and attempt to destroy Kitsunes as they are horrible amalgomations to them.
Saurian - Lizard folk which encompasses kobolds and flightless lizard people. Remain underground and only leave for sunbathing.
Slime - Self explanitory.
Thuella - Harpies pretty much.
Tsukumogami - Energy beings and specters that possess old weapons and materials.
>>47182985
Not even the Khajiit from Morrowind? Aaaw.
>>47182324
What we have here is a lack of ambition.
>>47194865
What kinda shitty humans get fucked up by a plague in space. Some kinda space plague? Was it hiding as it spread throughout the known galaxy and then just killed all of them at once?
>>47197510
I imagine it wouldn't be hard, actually. I mean everyone is right next to each other in space
>>47179157
That's the most retarded hugbox shit in the world. I absolutely love it.
Five different types of human
>God blooded germanoslavic northerners
>Islamo-buddhist elemental southerners
>Time displaced vampire Mayans
>Demon-blessed voodoo viking pirates
>magical berserk Dragon cultists
Six sorts of elves
>hideously treacherous theatrical fair folk
>giant primitive wendigo Celts
>antisocial shadowy Bedouin ninjas
>edgy emotion vampire orcs
>Tolkien tier better than you faery slavers
Dwarves, in both gregarious industrious flesh midget and weird ancient golem-ant flavors
Aggressively libertarian demon worshiping Apache P'orcs
Tricky, greedy magical goblins and their giant, WH ork-like lackeys
And some less important races
Aggressively anti-surface deep one merfolk
Sorcerer-Viking bear people
Kung fu angels possessing statues
Ghosts
Time displaced Hispanic lizard men (at war with the Mayans above)
Half-hag tiefling-y witches
Half-boogeyman bethesda supermutants
Demon-possessed ogres
Cannibal lepers
>>47174735
I am of the opinion that anyone can play whatever they want so long as it isnt retarded or obviously over powered.
I have a little over a dozen distinct races with two or three sub races each.
>>47180073
>HURR DURR MY HEAD CANT HANDLE ALL THESE OPTIONS HUMANS ONLY PLS
Ill give you a run down of all my major races. Humans are not the top dog in my setting, far from it actually.
I have
>Humans
>Elves (four types) Day, Dawn, Dusk, and Night Elves.
>Orcs (two sub species)
>Lizardmen. Crocodile like "Sargiss" & bearded dragon "Caenu" (two races)
>Gnolls. The Hyena "Syrabi" & Wolf "Allerleirauh" (two races)
>Birdmen "Draal".
>Mushroom men "Eldrid".
>Slugmen "Namjek".
>Tiger/Cat men "Tanmo".
>Demon Clans. These are minor Demons that live in the physical plane. Think Tieflings.
>Snake people (two races) Human like "Lamia" & animal like "Hish".
>Bat men "Bagorah".
>Fish men "Lo". Evil Deep Ones. Resembles angler fish.
>Crab people "Clandon"
>Aliens from the moon "Yog". Resembles spiders.
Those are all my standard canon races. About half are very minor races that are only found in specific areas.
>>47174735
Humans, iron elves, dwarves, and kobolds are the main races in my setting, each with their own trade presence and at least part of the ruling class in an established nation.
Gnolls and wood elves both have either been corrupted or driven insane by a malevolent force that attached itself to the source of druidic magic. Some sane ones still exist but most are viewed with distrust at best and typically can only find place in society as mercenaries or curiosities.
Orcs are more of a force of nature like the mongols and sir not appearing on the player's current continent.
Tieflings have become a major race but were the result of magical fallout after a cataclysmic event. Save for one nation where a tiefling historical figure took on folk hero status and they became part of the nobility, tieflings are the setting's gypsies.
only humans
>>47174735
both less, more, and maybe.
Less because I'm trying to focus on just five to seven races. (Human, elf, dwarf, "orc"*, Feral**, dragon, and daemon***)
But more because I am trying to give each race different cultures, nations, etc.
Maybe in the respect that a few races normally used for other races are appropriated as ethnic groups of the more major races. (like halflings live in a fairly rural, farming nation and gnomes are a coastal/island group)
*Orc is a catchall term for the race though refers to a specific ethnic group. They don't appreciate it (best equation would be if "Londoner" was used to refer to everyone from the UK)
**This race needs a better name, but they're animal/beast folk (though not any one-specific animal, rather taking traits of many, maybe Chimera?)
***Daemons are actually different from Demons, though they are related. Daemons are basically normal elves, dwarves, humans, etc. that got corrupted by demons into something unrecognizable from their base race.
>>47203039
Any particular reason
>>47203324
You'd have to ask my DM
Pretty sure its because of the autism
>>47203566
Or it could be because fantasy races are all humans + latex/CGI anyway, so any superficial "diversity" in fantasy races is just a buzzword misused by Grievance Studies majors and bean-counting racists on /tg/.
[/two cents]
>>47205090
So, autism
>>47182584
>>47182286
>using the fanmade D:tD book
why
the first and second already have balance problems
the third just takes that and throws the fucking dial out the window
>>47194865
>Space campaign
>Lists a bunch of fantasy races
?
>>47205914
Best case is spelljammer
Worse case is one of those people who insists on using D&D for EVERYTHING
>>47190346
And less special than if you played a Spaniard in a game set in samurai-era Japan.
>>47197510
Plague happened a good many years before extensive and easy space travel as done. It was more as a result of of earth becoming too densely populated and illness cropping up in large groups spreading too quickly for doctors to quarantine.
>>47207823
Savage worlds actually.
I use the names fairly loosely as they're still alien beings on different planets. Elves, Dwarves, Halfbreeds and Halflings are more in the vein of humans who adapted to different earth climates rather than the typical depiction.
There are plenty of alien races (Greys very much exist in the setting) but, the listed ones were the ones I made available to my players after several insisted on having me homebrew races. Slimes are a result of one of those peeps.
>>47174735
Pretty wide spread I'd say
>Human
>Elf
>Half-Elf
>Half-Human
>Quarter Elf and three quarters human
>Quarter Human and three quarters elf
>Half human wherein the other half is also human but you lie to your friends to seem more interesting.
>Human but you tell people that you have elf blood in your family, and you memorized the Elven words for "Love, Family, and what you think is Beauty, but is actually Swine"
and finaly
>Pure blood human with an Elven tribal tatoo on their arm.
>>47202024
Not him, but it's more like
>HURR DURR, MY HEAD CAN'T HANDLE ALL THIS RETARDATION. HUMANS ONLY PLS.
Seriously, how is it so hard to understand? What Humanfags (or 2 racefags) like about the "HOOMAN-OWNLEE" option is that they'd rather not just bog down their world with all these redundant, nonsensical fantasy beasts whose only real purpose is to be NOT!Muslims, but with pointy ears or something. It's ridiculous. People read the rulebook and they go, "Oh, gee, well, I guess I'll just follow the book word for word and include very goddamn race under the sun, because that's what this book tells me to do."
Nah, mate. Humanfags don't want to follow the book and they just want to do their own shit, because sometimes the book is retarded as fuck.
Seriously though. Do you really NEED lizard-folk? Do you really NEED orcs? Do you really NEED a dedicated race of "LMAO BAD GUYS xDDD" instead of coming up with a GOOD reason why you're even fighting them in the first place? Seriously, kobolds are the biggest cop out of all time.
>HURR DURR, WE LIKE TO ATTACK ADVENTURERS BECAUSE WE'RE LITERALLY BORN TO BE THE BAD GUYS XDDDD
My god, when did /tg/ suddenly lose all its standards?
>>47208999
BASED ASF
Do Elves tell their Elf friends they're going to human cities in the same vein Americans tell their American friends they're going to Mexico for Spring Break?
>"Yo, fae. Humans are super easy. I get so much tail whenever I go to Faraday Mithris, it's insane."
>>47211033
why aren't their good dragon kobolds, just evil dragon serving kobolds?
>>47175284
If your campaign takes place in not!Europe, I'm rolling up a not!East Asian. If it takes place in darkest not!Africa, I'm rolling up a not!Swede.
Just to spite you.
>>47211033
>i am an uncreative faggot who has to strawman others to feel better
ok
>>47211033
>Seriously
>Seriously
>Seriously
Stop using the same word over and over again unnecessarily. You could have said "in all honesty", "really", "honestly", "let's be honest", "for real, though", or any number of other synonymous words or phrases.
Language is an art, your lexicon is your paint. Stop using crayola, or at least don't be so obvious about it.
>>47211861
I'm an English major, brah. You really don't need to lecture me on my rhetoric.
>Inb4 "then why don't you act the part?"
Because, nigga. I was shitposting in the sense that I cared enough to write a massive, emotionally charged post, but I didn't care enough to make it sound pretty, as long as I got my point through.
>>47211847
I would argue that having the standard Human/Elf/Dwarf/Orc setting is actually the more "uncreative" world, whereas the Human-Only setting seems to be the rising star newcomer.
I mean, I tend to run a lot more "Human-Only" settings, but I think any amount of races are fine, as long as they're well thought out. But I've seen many cases where DMs just got too lazy and copied everything from the book because they were too apathetic, or too uncreative, to change things up for themselves. In fact, I happened to be one of those DMs.
Don't lie and say you've never gotten lazy enough to just copy the book because you didn't want to put the time into worldbuilding. I can practically guarantee that every ForeverDM has done it at least once, if not more. THAT'S what gives multi-race settings a bad name.
>>47190183
Well so long as one person likes it I'm happy! Feel free to use it, or change it or whatever you want.
>>47174735
I have a lot of them, but mostly different sapient species.
>>47180625
Ok,chum,we got it-you're angry,just stop showing everyone that you're angry,it's indecently
>>47184009
>>47185138
>goys are that delusional
>>47211033
Why would you play fantasy at all then?
>My god, when did /tg/ suddenly lose all its standards?
It never did.It's just you who is a newfag.
>>47188154
>most white people have Neanderthal DNA
that has been disproven numerous times
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal#Interbreeding_with_modern_humans
>>47185138
would you say that these aren't the same species?
just kys already you autistic faggot
