Share facts and anecdotes about the races from your worlds and campaigns. What original species are there? What twists have you put on staples like elves and dwarves?
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Worldbuilding and Races
Share facts and anecdotes about the races from your worlds and campaigns. What original species are there? What twists have you put on staples like elves and dwarves?
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I removed Elves & Dwarves. That shit is so run into the fricking ground I wont touch it with a 10 foot long pole.
Counterpoint.
Using dwarfs and elves is fine, just do unique shit with their culture. The elder scrolls is a good example of this. That fricking series has like 6 different flavours of elf, yet they're different enough to be hold people's interest. Except Bosmer. Frick Bosmer.
bosmer are by far my favorite
We all make mistakes.
Bosmers are great but the game does a poor job at showing they cannibalism and savagery. That's why I always join the cannibal daedra worshipers near Markath when playing one.
IIRC, not all Bosmer follow those traditions.
How is it that between the racists, the super-racists, and the cannibals, said cannibals are the least interesting of the three?
And they're all weak because of it, look at fargoth. The green pact is their unique feature but take that away and they don't feel any different than generic wood elves. Hell, their power in skyrim is being able to summon animals
I'd rather not, that face, XD. But seriously, besides something like the Green Pact how can we make wood elves like Bosmer less generic in your book? Like, maybe they're actually partially made of wood.
>maybe they're actually partially made of wood.
Yeah, just make them look like every depiction of a dryad ever, that's super fricking unique. If you're feeling really radical, what if you made their hair into moss or tree branches too?
Find one game which doesn't have prideful elves. No LotR.
I'll wait.
Find one birthday party that doesnt have cake or pizza.
Try European-made games. Prideful elves are like peaceful Islam, a forced meme.
Are you telling us cake and pizza for birthdays are a forced meme?
im saying that cake and pizza for parties are so popular because theyre GOOD
if I went to a party and the jackass parents were serving fricking tofu and avocado or some dumb shit, some subversive "but totally better!" shit, I'd be mad, and rightfully so
Forced memes aren't good because they're everywhere. They're everywhere because they're forced by the big money industry.
oh, did big cake and big pizza force their way into everybodys parties?
If there's only big bland cake and big generic pizza to buy and no other offer, you must search for something good to meet the demand.
if the people at the party want cake/pizza and you dont, youre the problem
The people get the pizza that's offered, and the offer is forced by the big money industry and laden with microplastics. Better look for clean products or cook yourself.
The Bosmers bought all of the houses, rendering it too expensive for the Milseniels and the Zosmers to get their own.
>just do unique shit with their culture
If you have to resort to subverting just for the sake of subversion you might as well just remove them entirely.
How is making their cultures different "subversion for the sake of subversion" but making them abominations but still calling them elves and dwarves not?
Freakshit shills are fricking moronic
Fairies
> Wings and mermaid-like tail
> Female-looking asexual species
> can fit in ones palm all through their lives, except for the few "Great Fairies" who grow to gigantic sizes and become their communities' "matriarchs"
> Hatch from eggs that grow on the Great Fairies' tail. A Great Fairy can give birth to hundreds if not thousands of fairies.
> Average fairy live a few centuries, Great Fairies live at least a millenia
> Fairies are strangers to emotions and concepts such as romantic love or grief
> Only found in the most distant lands, only a few can claim to have seen one and their existence is mostly relegated to legends or an extinct species.
Forgot pic
These sound very cool anon.
If fairies live for centuries and the great fairies hatch 100s of eggs, how come they are still rare? Wouldn't their numbers increase rapidly? Or are they killed a lot?
NTA but having giving newborn fairies the "baby turtle" experience would be pretty sweet and also explain a lot of why they're so fricked up.
In nature it's pretty common for species with high infant mortality rates to compensate for it by just pumping out as many babies as possible in hopes that at least a couple out of a hundred-thousand sized litter will survive to reach the adulthood. And since the fairies anon
described can fit in the palm of your hand when they are adult sized, you can be sure that their even tinier infants would be murked by anything from insects, lizards and birds to larger wildlife left and right.
Which would also kind of explain why emotions like love and grief are alien ideas to them - a lot of species that produce tons of children at once don't care about actually looking after their litter (another anon mentioned baby sea turtles and I think that's an apt comparison) so they would have no reason to form emotional bonds with their offspring.
Though all of this makes me think that it would make more sense for these fairies to be solitary with this mindset, yet anon mentions they form communities. Wonder how that works.
Sheep.
Wolves?
At some point I stopped caring and said "only humans", but allowed players to call themselves a dwarf (human), or elf (human), or lizardman (human) and take full responsibility for teaching me and everyone else about their culture in character. I've become a lot happier since doing this.
I’d like have a race with varieties based on the classic four elemental forces in my setting, like Genasi but actually cool and not connected to genies, since the original version is outshone by Tieflings and Aasimar. Besides the typical elemental hair and eyes, and element-themed magical birthmarks, I’m having trouble coming up with traits for them that people will like though, what say you?
Maybe upon death, they would become truly one with their element by turning into a flame or a seed, in the case of fire and earth. They could go or be brought to a meaningful place so they may join the ocean as a body of water or fly into the unknown as a breeze.
I've seen you ask this before and I'm not convinced you don't just want genasi with the serial numbers filed off.
I’d like something more developed, but if that won’t work I’m fine with the knockoffs.
>I’d like have a race
I like how bumpgay doesn't even pretend to play games anymore.
Currently running a sci-fi game.
Due to random rolls the main races in this four solar-system sector of space are
>Humans who after countless generations on blazing hot worlds near blue stars have turned dark as frick and have an affinity for fire magic
>What if Rome made it to the space age and were wolf-people
>What if Tieflings were Bimbos (-Int/-Str, ++++Magic race of red/yellow/orange skinned, horned humanoids)
>Pug dogs with one central eye and tentacles
>Skinny short kings with psychic powers
>What if klingons were also tech nerds
>A bunch of hyenamen from a recently colonized world who are super laid back and a strain on the economy for no real benefit
>Apemen who do a lot of military work
>A different human mutation from another recently colonized world, they have almost no body fat so even the women look like men, they make all of the other races look soft and weak, and they're super hardworking, but they're also primitive in terms of tech and have no magic/psi potential
The final group were actually designed by the big baddies of the campaign, but since people are used to those baddies making horrifying ugly monsters, no one expects the race of adonis looking mother frickers to be one of their creations, and as a result no one is expecting them to suddenly turn on people when I need to turn the screws on this campaign, assuming my players don't read this.
That's a pretty diverse range to choose from. I know I'd play a gorilla warfare.
They're pretty cool, they might not be the smartest, or the wisest, but they're tough, fast, and very good with both guns and melee weapons.
>Less than half are animal people
>The pugs was just short-hand because they're actually more like a meatball with legs, but they've got skin like a scrotum, one giant eyeball, a big mouth, four tiny dog-like legs, and tentacles from their backs
Bruh, but no seriously I hate when every race is a bunch of weird gangly frickers with 12 eyes 3 buttholes one thumb and no arms, so I used a chart that allowed for weirdos but usually it'd be some kind of evolved mammal.
>less than half
>implying adding puazi isn't the height of homosexualry too
It's shit
>I hate when every race is a bunch of weird gangly frickers with 12 eyes 3 buttholes one thumb and no arms
Nice strawman but I never said that either. I'm perfectly fine with a Star Wars level of "alien" to aliens, where most are just weird humanoids but there's some standout oddities like Hutts or Besalisks to shake things up.
>literally a 50's diner in space
Truly the height of science fiction.
Way to completely miss the point but it's still better than space furries
Your point is moronic and you're just hunting personal bugaboos. You also have shit taste, which was my point.
I accept your concession.
>You also have shit taste
Says the furry, lel.
>puazi
Googling this just brings up porn.
Is it from something or just some random porn that got weirdly popular?
They're bimbo space tingling with an emphasis on horns and red/orange/yellow skin. The furgay is a brainless coomer to boot.
Nah, random dice said
>3d4 INT
>3d4 Strength
>6d6 Magic
In a system with 3d6 baseline for stats.
So I decided they were a slave race bred over countless generations for their magic potential, but had the ambition beat out of them.
Then for appearance I rolled
>Horns
>Weird colored skin (orange)
So went with that and added red and yellow for variation.
Calling them bimbos is easy since they're dumb on average, but everything else was coincidence.
AFAIK the Puazi would basically be unusable anyway since they're always DtF and unable to think straight or some shit, which is kind of lame.
>AFAIK the Puazi would basically be unusable anyway since they're always DtF and unable to think straight or some shit, which is kind of lame.
it's more that humans naturally produce chemicals and stuff that mimics an aphrodisiac for them. There's also the idea that the reaction is stronger or weaker depending on the individual member, but the source material only focuses on the ones that get way hornier than normal because of course it would, it's porn.
It's from porn, yes
Artist is InCase
>scifi aliens
>ackshully just a bunch of furhomosexualry
Yawn
There's only one race of elf and the """traditional""" subraces are minor ethnic groups within their polity.
I added ten foot Poles. Yeah it's a pun but I do like the image of giant hussars riding into battle on dire horses.
Do you really change races in games? Seems like an ultra autistic thing to do when you're playing with friends who probably have their own expectations for long established races like elves and dwraves.
That's why it's best to tell players about your homebrew beforehand and ask them if they're interested.
I stick to what players expect, but change things for the better
>What twists have you put on staples like elves and dwarves?
I had a pseudo-Roman setting once, where I had civilized Elves and wild Elves, with the former taking on the role of ancient Greece, and the latter partly (together with other races) taking on the role of barbarians. The Dwarves were supposed to be Phoenician.
Here's one that's been in my head by description
The horned men they come in 2 varieties the islander and the northerners, both oft have very large antler like horns growing out of their heads they are significantly larger than humans and far hairier especially on the arms, groin, legs, and chest, and their men can start growing beards much earlier than humans, they seem to be far more resilient to disease and live much longer than humans but at the same time seem to have a far far harder time recovering from injury humans, despite their own height they very much dislike heights and rarely build above 1 story, they are also one of the few of the species capable of interbreeding with humans and are among even fewer capable of making fertile offspring
As for differences between islanders and Northerners physically, Northerners are much taller and bulkier averaging around 8ft tall while islanders average at around 7ft tall, islanders are also much less hairy then their Northern counterparts and their men are even know to shave their beards whilst beard shaving would be seen as a unforgivable shame to a Northerner.
Culturally Islanders are also far more accustomed to seeing humans as their islands also have considerable human populations and by accustomed islanders are well known for being exceedingly prejudiced which is well supported in their homelands where all nobility is of horned ancestry, Northerners are far less aware of humans and if you can manage to get into their lands without being killed as a suspected invader you'll soon find they are extremely kind and generous hosts so long as be off on your way once your business has been concluded.
In terms of military both highly value the bow as with their greater strength and much longer arms your average conscripted horned bowman can usually outcompete the the power of most human held crossbows, and because of this archery is a very big main stay militarily and culturally.
Basically dire not!elves
This is cool, and the only not gay take on elves I've ever seen. I imagine a race of humanoids with the demeanor of LOTR ents, being a race that embodies the guardian of the forest.
The only non-humn sapient species we've encountered so far are a mysterious race of talking gorillas.
You just know.
There's only humans. No intelligent alien race has been discovered so far in the thousand light year radius from Earth humans have explored so far. There's been a lot of alien lifeforms, but none even in the same ballpark of intelligence as a human. Chimps at most.
Without going into too much detail it's a rather stereotypical fantasy world, but one twist is that humans aren't native to it. Rather they showed up one day using hyper-advanced technology, the main piece of it being the technology they used to travel to this world, which the native fantasy population mistook for powerful summoning magic. The humans of course weren't very welcome and in an attempt to make their home there stepped on too many toes and ended up in an all-out war against the native fantasy races, who, believe it or not, won and almost wiped out humanity. Then centuries later humans are practically in a lot places more of a
>Who knows if they actually existed
thing, while their technology very much left a mark on the world and each race has interwoven it into their culture and progress and also wove their culture and progress into it.
thats funny, I decided on a similar concept with this
the humans here came through a portal a couple thousand years ago and were relatively defenseless as they had no built-up kingdom/infrastructure and no particular geographical affinity (like how elves do well in forests, dwarves in mountains, etc)
good-aligned cloud giants decided to take them under their wing and basically become the upper class to a new society
a dozen or two long-lived cloud giant rulers who shepard and educate thousands of humans
the cloud giants have a greek theme; they speak auran ("nephosian" in my setting), they wear togas and sandals and had greek-style metal weapons and armor, they built cyclopean white-stone greek-style structures, they even had a citadel at the top of some nearby mountains that tower over the lowlands that humans made their home (not forested, not mountainous, not endless plains, not swampy/marshy, etc)
I decided "frick it" and went ahead and called it Mount Olympus and I gave the cloud giants some greek god names; the leader was zeus, his son herculese, his wife athena, and so on
eventually the cloud giants disappeared for some reason I havent decided on yet and the humans went into a kind of roman phase, building an "empire" that was the strongest civilization around, but eventually went too far and it fell in a magical cataclysm
now, 200 years later, they have rebounded into a medieval kind of society and are roughly on par with the other races
a lot of the names for things in the setting (from the human point of view anyway) are greek
like alligators are "nerolisks"
some are even real, like ichthyosaurs ("fish lizard" iirc)
Worldbuilding with realistic elves: they are superior to humans in every way and live forever. So basically they are the apex predator of the setting you have no shitting hope of defeating, they will slaughter you on a whim for offending ancient rules you never knew about and must tip toe around elves all the time.
Basically a post apocalyptic setting for humans and every other creature where elves rule.
Based, I'm sick of soi fantasy dragging elves through the mud.
For the setting I use in my current campaign, I wanted a more feral feeling due it being set mostly in a fantasy South Asia. In universe reason is that orcs won in fantasy Europe, and the party are part of a group of refugees who fled to rumored lands far to the South.
There are three separate races snakes that make up a serpent kingdom. They're collectively just called naga, but that's because humans first interaction was with the naga, the warrior race in skirmishes. Want to kill humans for food and for invading their space.
There's a race of giant, hyper aggressive amphibians called salamanders who spend 90% of their time fighting each other to take prisoners to sacrifice. Wants to sacrifice humans.
Loxodons, which I just lifted from DnD instead of trying to reinvent the wheel. The only race that's friendly to humans.
Siren race that doesn't hate humans, but they have boats filled with lots of loot and slaves to sell that are easy to sink from below.
The last few elves, which there's only a couple dozen left. They're all liches living far to the South on frozen islands trying to achieve true immortality. They only see humans as subjects to experiment on or harvest for reagents. Each is an island to himself, and will kill another elf to steal his research.
I’ve just started making a new setting, and I’m thinking that the primary region will be not!Japan. As for the races, I’m probably going to use Oni, Kitsune, and a few others (though there’s some I’m torn between making races or just monsters, like Kappa). Has anyone here done anything similar, or at least seen it done well?
You’re such a disingenuous thunderc**t, you know that? You’re lacking in both genuineness and ingenuity. And you’re a thunderc**t.
All elves are female, though with sires and bearers. One elven nation got conquered by the primary human empire before throwing them off after learning darker magic from sleeping undersea beings.
Dwarves were once united into an evil empire that was eventually destroyed by magical constructs. Apart from survivors of that, there are surface-dwelling dwarves who reject all forms of hierarchy, and shave their beards to represent that because beard cut was used to denote station in the Imperium.
Gnomes are dwarves who were mutated by using too much magic.
Kobolds serve dragons of all alignments.
Hobgoblins were artificially created by dwarves, being mutated from regular goblins to serve as soldiers. They're also all female, due to belonging to the same branch of quasi-fey as elves.
Humans were created by an evil god who mutated orcs into a species that would be weaker and more pliable, but were given free will and freedom by a much more pleasant god. Unfortunately, a huge chunk of humans still worship the evil one, hence the aforementioned empire that tried elf-conquering before.
Orcs are Norse-themed.
Lizardfolk are worryingly fond of guns and act to get their hands on as many as possible, and have kludged together waterproofing tricks for them that no one else has mastered, despite not having much capacity to manufacture guns in the first place.
Halflings have at least one bigass empire somewhere.
Humans are basically the equivalent of those temple monkeys to Elves.
Being short lived and not really much physically stronger means that humans largely can't compete out in the wild and mostly take a role as a semi-parastic underbelly on Elvish society.
Working around temples and government installations as beggars, carnies, and low-end merchants of street food and handicrafts.
Substantially they're seen as an infestation that is too hard to flush out, and a lot of elves just find humans kinda cute, in a condescending way. Like a human would with an ape.
Some elves gather servants from the humans, and it is seen as a kind of paternalistic virtue to train and care for a human and teach it elvish knowledge until it expires.
Kobolds in my setting posses a stomach that, instead of producing acid, is instead a biological furnace capable of melting and digesting raw ores and metals. They must consume at least a handful of it with every meal in order to form the scales that cover their bodies. Their diet actually dictates the colour of their scales, the majority of the population developing a reddish colour as they consume hematite, a mineral ore of iron that is as cheap and plentiful in their society as bread is in ours.
A kobold's scale colour holds great importance in their society. A merchant with golden scales is communicating that he is wealthy enough to be able to afford eating his own fortune. A kobold with grey, dull scales is immediately identified as a warrior, the military ensuring that every soldier is fed some steel alongside their meals to ensure their scales are as hardy as they can be.
Kobolds aren't quite capable of eating a "mismatched" diet of minerals as their bodies need time to grow accustomed to a specific type. Over time, and with great personal effort, their scales can fully switch from one colour to another.
And yes, the little reptilians are highly racist over scale colour. They are perceptive enough to be able to tell how the distinctive hue of even extremely similar coloured minerals. Few insults sting as badly as calling someone a "copper-muncher" or a "rock-licker"
>Tiny gorons
wouldnt that be classist rather than racist?
The scaled men have strong residual ambush predator instincts.
As such to them small fuzzy animals are a delight to them, although they have to restrain themselves from crushing them.
This beeing said, the men of scale exude a sulfurous reptilian odor which sends most warm blooded animals under a certain size into a panicked frenzy. Cats however, seem to be immune to this. As such, the ophidian city of melech regularly imports cats en masse.
This behavior however is seen as tasteless and low class by the reptilian elites.
Particularly the descendants of human slaves consider the fascination with those animals to be barbaric
Devil tieflings have consistent, uniform appearances, and don't like to mix with other tieflings. The more random looking ones are demonic in origin, or mixed with other species. Asmodeus tieflings also have no belly buttons.
israelites are making a concerted effort to make this site unpalatable to us
they dont like that we congregate here, conversing without their consent or control
>too grognard for even an ideas thread
what the frick do you people want
Bumpgay mindbroke the board into seething about "idea threads" long ago
I posted my races and then again about humans in particular
unnnn yea
>plap plap plap
hnnnnhhh senpai ya
We got bug people with a language built on three distinct dialects using gestures, intonations and pitch, and pheromone combinations, which can all be layered on top of each other at the same time to create incredibly complex and nuanced sentences filled with clarification, double-entendres, and sometime separate conversations. By consequence, this makes their literature almost impenetrable and impossible to translate to more typical languages, and it gives the bug race a reputation for being duplicitous double dealers, able and willing to say one thing to your face while meaning something entirely different on two other layers of conversation.
Since the elements are supposed to be the core building blocks of everything in fantasy settings that have them, I make it so every fantasy race represents a different aspect of an element. For example, Elves and Dwarves are both Earth-aligned, but Dwarves represent the veins of metals and gems hidden deep under the ground with their skill at mining and forging, while Elves represent how trees can live for centuries with their longevity and wisdom, at the cost of being occasionally rigid and hard to adapt. What do you think, and what races would you file under each element, like Goblins for Fire, Merfolk for Water, and Birdfolk for Wind?
Goblins are by far the most common and most dominant species, and they're very weird.
very cool!
Orcs are incapable of learning to read. Their brains just don't allow it. Even those raised by humans just straight-up can't.
They're not stupid, they have a rich oral tradition and okay tech base, but just straight-up can't read (some humans IRL are like this after brain damage).
They're also generally fuzzy on the idea of maps and schematics. They get art, but the idea of representing real life situations using abstracted drawings is weird to them.
Together with higher aggression, these traits explain why they can't make a big nation despite having extended clans of thousands and even a few cities, and why they're not a real threat to human states despite being excellent individual fighters and raiding human towns, often successfully.
ive never cared for the lore of tes
bosmer are my favorite because of how they look, their stats/skills, and because they live in a big forest
if I could be any race in tamriel, id want to be a bosmer in valenwood
its sub-tropical and thus too warm for my tastes, but if I were a bosmer id be adapted to it so whatever
My fantasy China’s dominant race is tiger-folk that conquered the other races, save for the dragons they overthrew, who are plotting revenge.
My elves might be lithe and slender, but they're also surprisingly strong, being almost as physically capable as they are magically.
Fricking Palladium Space Elves
>Super beautiful
>Super flexible
>Light and slender
>Also can casually pick up a railgun and fire it one-handed because of how strong they are
>Asgardian elves can 1v1 a dragon even
>Book mentions that elf slaves are actually worth less than you'd expect because so many people are so jealous of elves they usually buy elf slaves just to break/murder them.
thats hilarious
who the frick can travel between stars but hasnt developed biological and mechanical sciences to the point they can be pretty much as strong flexible and tough as they see a need to?
seriously how you gonna ravel faster than light if you cant make even make graphene muscle fibers and re engineer your immune system from the ground up.
The objectively superior race of the entire planet are a left over genetic experiment from aliens that came long long ago. They intended on making a slave race, but had troubles getting it perfect and decided to cut their losses, ditch what life they'd made on the planet and leave. Paradoxically leading to a super species that is absolutely fine with just doing whatever others want as long as they ask firmly enough.
I want a sci-fi universe where guns aren't used but I can't think of any justifiable reason for this to happen. I know LoGH gets away with it with zepehyr particles but i don't want to 1:1 copy it with a re-skin.
Justification is for schoolgirls.
Now simply doing space knights is a worldbuilding with more chest hair.
He has a point though. Ranged weapons could simply be viewed as a chicken shit way to fight.
define ''guns''
Dune had personal shields.
My female elves have bigger dicks than the males.
>Have a race of space elves
>The breeders of the race look like twinks with veganas
>The inseminators of the race are dickgirls
Besides insect races with a mentality to serve the hive as a whole, what are some potential ways to handle races that aren’t inherently evil, but instead simply have a mentality and moral code distinct from what humans would follow?
>What twists have you put on staples like elves and dwarves?
>Elves can grow facial hair (though it's unpopular in some Elven cultures) and aren't all pansies, and like the other races, aren't monolithic
>Halfling-equivalent is a type of elf, and are called "Low Elves" because of their stature and their reputation in many places as pests and criminals
>Gnomes are the garden gnome-looking fey variety, similar in some ways to fairies
>There are various kemonomimi races that are connected to the Fey and the environment(s) they're commonly found in
>Harpies are a sentient race that look more like pop culture angels, some of whom are feared witch doctors who can become (or be stuck as) terrible creatures more akin to their common depiction
>Mermen/Sirens have large societies under the sea and a close relationship with the Sea Elves (Greek Viking Elves with green-tinged skin and hair)
>Dark Elves have ashen, light blue/purple/pink or white skin, and are mostly known for their various weird and often evil cultish religions that thrive in their undercities, as well as crime and excess due to their extremely libertarian and uncaring ethics
I could probably list some more, but I've yet to develop concrete lore on a lot of this stuff. Some races like Dwarves are pretty standard.
Goat people. They have various horn types depending on what part of the world they are from. They have those distinctive square eyes. Most live on mountainous/cliffside high altitude villages as it seems the plains races died out long ago, although they have still have flatland territories nearby their cliffs for agricultural reasons.
My setting is an alternate fantasy earth where a lot of real historical factions exist in a fantasized form. One of the apex beasts is the massive "storm eagle" which primarily roosts in the swiss alps, of which the HRE flag is an actual depiction of, in much the same way the Welsh flag is a depictions of their actual dragons. They primarily hunt during thunderstorms, collecting static electricity (it is believed to be magic) from the clouds, and swooping in to electrocute their prey. Part of what makes them difficult to kill, aside from them being large enough to lift up armored men and horses, is that wearing metal plating or wielding metal weapons just makes you easier to zap at a longer distance.
Now that I am no longer banned, I want to share with you my Dark Elf book that I wrote for the ACKS system (a very good OSR that has an excellent economics system and a fun system overall)
>this is just the 2nd draft, the 3rd draft is being worked on
>still looking for an artist though I got some leads
-the dark elves don't reproduce naturally, they're the basis behind changeling myths (or reality)
-they're evil because they parasitize on other species, but they're still people and excellent trading partners
-they do and make drugs
-they have a matriarchal society
They're legally distinct from drow though. Give it a read!
Always hated elves and dwarves because
>if fantasy race can be described as “human but with X physical feature, just make a human”
>so I did
Elves
>humans whose bloodline can be traced back to certain ancient villages caught in magical cataclysms
>with the elf blood, and occasional meditation in natural, magical springs, an “elf” can maintain youth indefinitely
>ear length is the only way to estimate an elf’s true age
>average height is about 6 inches taller than an average human
>majority of elves are “high elves” who live on a group of floating islands
>95% of elves have entitled rich kid syndrome, but the last 5% live long enough to be legendary individuals
>dark elves are tan from living on the back of a giant elemental creature near the equator
>also paint themselves black when they do their night time raiding
>believes most other creatures are a sickness to the earth so raiding happens whenever there’s bad weather or a new moon
>wood elves are absent from the setting because they’re 80 years into a century long festival in the middle of their woods that are impossible to navigate without a wood elf
Dwarves
>humans who live in the underground country
>going from surface to dwarf land is fine
>going from dwarf land to surface makes you sick
>native dwarves are tough enough to just power through the sickness but drinking eases it
>average height is about a foot shorter than a normal human
Playable races are all sapient races who formed a loose alliance that can be summed up as
>we are at least not genocidally hostile to each other on a fundamental level
Wars, fighting and racism still exist between the races, but nobody is at a “kill or flee on sight” with anyone else in the alliance
Kobold
>dog creatures who are furred or furless and look a little reptilian
>kobold history began 50 years ago when they were liberated by a human force
>previously they were exclusively a slave race to other powerful creatures
>have been “mankind’s best friend” ever since
>exhibits the normally “human” traits more extremely than humans
>lives for 20 years, prone to reckless choices and obsessions to achieve things in their short lifespans
Racial specialty
>dexterity, versatility traits
Minotaurs
>big, strong, sturdy and lazy
>society looks like Ancient Greek society rather than medieval fantasy like everyone else because “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”
>first race to accept lamia
Racial bonuses
>strength, faith
Lamia
>weird reptile/mammal/bird creatures
>lifespans change to match their loved ones and the society they live in
>seen as the freaks of the alliance
>no history of their race prior to showing up one day and hanging out with the Minotaurs
>its ancient and forbidden knowledge that lamia was originally a “perfected” construct built to be a companion race
Race specialties
>tons of health, mana, and stamina
Human specialties
>versatility and “luck” traits
Dwarf specialties
>bit of constitution, bit of strength. Lots of intelligence
Elf specialties
>lower starting stats, more end game stats and features than anyone else, as well as human versatility
"luck"
fricking laaaaaammmmee
obvious answer is magic resistance
magic is like lead
you dont get more resistant from being exposed
it just builds up in you
your body will deal with it and you can sorta recover but your more vulnerable
dwarves and elves and lamia have been marinating in it for generations
they are all naturally on the fricked as hell threashhold
humans havent
they can magic the best and are most resistant becasue they would have to make a sorcerer king bloodline empire to get a human as magically entrenched and therefore vulnerable as those other bastards
and this is now common medical knowledge
well understood
so human wizards are common but know better than to overdo it
except those that dont
because power is the most addictive drug out there
maybe elves use them as child soldiers
about as deadly per spell as an adult
has boundless energy to keep fighting (or in this case just doesn't get mage sick as fast) and easy to understand. theyll never be as good as an ancient elven wizard but train them on one or two spells and by god are they usefull
These are good.
t. European
Consider your idea stolen.
My elves are short and cute, especially the men
In my setting there are humans along with two homebrewed races. One that has existed as long as humanity and a new race that emerged 270 years before current day in the setting. I'll talk about the latter race for now: the Munmuns.
Munmuns, or homunculi, are a newer race that appeared after a young, sickly alchemist named Carly Love wanted real friends rather than the stuffed animals that kept her company. So she created the 1st of three versions of Munmuns when she was 12.
Munmuns are 2 to 2.5 feet tall who appear to be small bipedal animals with appearances akin to stuffed toys. They have no discernable internal organs because their body is a shell to their alchemical fuel insides. They produce no waste and do not reproduce sexually. Instead a male and female Munmun hold hands and wish really, really hard for a baby. What happens then is that a bit of each of their inner alchemical fuel is siphoned from them to then synthesize into a new baby Munmun that appears right before them. They live for only about 40-50 years and afterwards they very quickly breakdown into alchemical goop.
Munmuns being a created race and a very new one compared to the two other races inhabiting the setting: humans and another homebrewed race, don't have much of a history nor a culture. Combined with a short lifespan due to their creator, Carly, being executed at the age of 18, before being able to further develop Munmuns into a more fully realized people. They're a race that will forever be stuck in beta because how to create them died along with Carly.
One of the Munmuns who survived and fled from the country of Ivelvion to the neighboring Arvis decided that in order to have something for his people to hold onto as hope decided to deify their human creator as a goddess incarnated into flesh to create and love them as a people. Carlyism is now the main religion and cultural cornerstone that a lot of Munmuns hold onto for meaning in life.
I posted this on lit and the other wbg but no feedback or advice yet
so I'm designing a race of anthropomorphic longma (Chinese dragon horse hybrid)
I wanted them to have a paler underbelly like how Asian dragons do, but I'm wondering which would be more suitable, the left where the paler section covers the entire chest, or the right where the paler section compresses inward at the chest (I based it off Kaido's hybrid form from One Piece).
Do you think I should also add feathering to the hooves? Most Asian horses do not have feathering from pictures I've looked at, but Asian dragons sometimes have flamelike fur around the limb areas, so I thought that it would be an interesting thing to add.
Also I wrote their origins as them originally being ethereal beings of radiation, given solid form from a motley of different monstrous entities pooling their chi together, and that's why they have a bit of a hodgepodge look. Think that's a good explanation?
I really don't think you need any feedback on that. All your questions are matters of preference, so just pick the ones you like and move along.
You're right, I really should place more faith in my own decisions
The first piece of worldbuilding I ever created was the Grepa Fruit. For some reason little-kid me was hyper paranoid about nutritional intake and making sure animals would have enough food... So I created a beach-ball-sized nobby purple fruit that was jam-packed with calories and nutrients.
Looking back it's hilarious stupid, but I've made a point to put grepas into every setting I've created since. Usually as a rare delicacy, because as a food item they're completely broken.
I had an idea for a small region where "mana" falls from the sky
its an edible kinda breadlike substance, very light and airy so it kinda floats down like snow but in bigger chunks
its nutritious and all non-insect non-fungi non-plant creatures can eat it
so in this region, plant life is thick (because the herbivores dont need to eat so much of it) and game is plentiful