Beastmen bait

I tend to begin world building based on specific themes I want to be important for that campaign, whether it's a focus on political intrigue or exploration.

This time around, I want to first decide and design hombrew races, then proceed to justify tnem in the setting as the first step to worldbuilding.

I want beastmen to be prominent in this setting. I'll unashamedly use both weeb style catgirl type trash, as well as actually monstrous variants, like the scourge beasts from Bloodborne. I'll use "monstergirl" races and all that amazing garbage. Just gonna embrace my magical realm.

I'm running into a lot of problems, including design space overlap.

So, I'm going to you for help and inspiration. What are your favorite non-Tolkien races? What are some set ups you'd use for a setting with beastmen and "monstergirl" races? Why would these races co exist in one city or world?

Tl;dr I want setting with shit tons of beastmen, monstrous pc races, and other stuff considered "furry." What are good ways to go about this BESIDES "just don't do it."

Toss Pokemon and Wakfu into a blender and push 'frappe'.

I don't know about you, but I have a hard time thinking of stuff like this by myself without a map. A map contextualizes things and can make good (or at least placeholder) ideas just spring to life.

Get a map and then look at it, then think about what geographical areas would give rise to certain kinds of races and cultures.

cont'
>What are your favorite non-Tolkien races?
Got a soft spot for gnolls. Need something tougher and nastier than orcs? They got it. Need something to hastily get converted into a "noble-savage" and ignore all existing lore for the sake of your own amusement? Perfect. Cool culture with interesting /tg made backstory involving eating sins and weaving baskets? Just the thing for you. Want something so irredeemably evil and monstrous that it can be killed without mercy? Use the cannon D&D half demonic gnolls. Just like big muscly hyena people? ya furry degenerate Absolutely perfect! I'm with you there

>Why would these races co-exist in one city or world?
I don't like to think of any nations as really "co-existing" but rather "putting up with each other because of reasons". I treat most scenarios with a 4X sort of mentality.

Here's a scenario: Let's say there was a prosperous human civilization with a giant mountain range nearby full of pissed of leopard people who live in caves and fight with stolen blades, stone knives, and magical ice javelins. The leopards come down the slopes to raid every so often to take wood and food (since nothing grows up on the mountains). The leopards can't move down the mountains into the flatlands because they can't assault walls and their magical ice weapons melt after a few hours in the heat. The humans can't push up the mountains because it's too difficult and there's no loot up there worth taking.

Eventually, the humans bribe a large tribe of leopards to settle the foothills and grant them the land and cities in return for fealty and protection against the other tribes. The new rulers of the foothills move in, intermarry, and eventually create a new breed of creature (here you can throw in your weeb crap).

After writing this, I realized that the leopards in this scenario are just Pic related.

That seems like a pretty good way to start, thank you.

Also, if you could give each race in 5th edition d&d a titled design space, what would the titles be?

For example, Tieflings are suspicon and prejudice magnets. Wood elves are nature wardens, etc.

How would you label each race's design space?

Centaurs. The freedom, the power.
In general I like multi-limbed monsters.
>oddly enough, I think Centorea is worst musu

You're asking me to label a race I've never seen or heard anything about. You have to make up the lore before you can encapsulate it in a single phrase.

Design space overlap is fine. Cultures that border each other have similar attributes. Remember that as a writer (or whatever kind of artist you fancy yourself) there is little chance of doing anything really new. It is possible, but rehashing obscure concepts is a great thing to do. Mimicking real-world events is great too. I have a large period in the history of my primary setting that is just "WW2 in space with furries and less Nazis" and a D&D campaign that is just "Humans/elves are the Roman Empire and the Dwarves are Sassanid invaders at the same time as the undead scourge displaces monstrous humanoids into the empire".

You did well to ask for assistance though, I think the best creativity is generated from small groups where one person is in charge. Get some friends, invite them into the project, let them each build a race, and go wild.

>Get some friends, invite them into the project
Nevermind, saw you're going for magical realm. Don't invite friends.

All very good points. I'll be less afraid of overlap, and less afraid of rehashing older concepts.


And, I was asking you to label the 5th edition races for d&d, not my magical realm races that I haven't started on yet.

If you're into that sort of thing, and have a Romaneque Empire in the setting, I'd recommend checking out the finer details of their slave trade.

In my settings, I usually have tons of Zulu, Egyptian or Aztec type cultures. My subconscious seems to have some kind of fetish for horse archer steppe nomads. Sometimes it's fun to take a real world culture, and invert one or more of their core values. For example, my Mongol analogues are semi nomadic, laid back, mostly peaceful pot farmers. Just do whatever you think is worthwhile and interesting, otherwise, there's just no point.

For the challenge, throw in some tiny Mouse people into the setting.

Hydras are pretty cool, though I have no idea how you would make one a PC. Maybe if you made it tiny?

Though it does have potential as an NPC, maybe it is worshiped by a local Village or is a City guardian/mascot

I'm gonna try to be less heavy handed and more implied when it comes to how the idea of interbreeding is presented. Although it is a nice, concise method of making the idea work. I'm gonna use it for other settings.

Tiny things, while cute, are definitely challengings. I accept. I also definitely love yhe hydra idea. I'll also have hydras replace sphinxes.

I pulled the whole "Bloodborne" style "beastmen are at serious threat of becoming monsters" shtick, and many of them are persecuted for it. Likewise, many of them are more like chimera-people, with nonspecific beastial features, and most "monsters" that are humanoid or beastlike are essentially just these beastmen who have developed too far.

Mammalians are the most common by far, followed by avian phenotypes. Reptiles, fish, and amphibians are very rare and are so far mutated that most of them are just little creepy ghouls, and those born with arthopodic features normally are typically stillborn. Those who survive birth... well, let's just say they aren't really humanoid anymore in the slightest.

Well you could always go with Gee Dubs interpretation of beastmen, though I don't know how well that would go allong with the "anime monster girl" aesthetic you want to go with.

Also be sure to tell us how the setting goes once you hammer it all out

>All monstergirls have amazing hips.
Jesus H Christ, user.

General things to avoid or tread carefully:
>The race's one gender is monstrous while other gender is human-like/sexy for no apparent reason
>The race has exactly one archetype
>The sapient race acting like a poorly done animal stereotype (might be semi-fine for more wild beastfolk, but it's a thin line)
>Monogender races
>description of race starting from mating habits
>description of race starting with and ending on mating habits

>mousepeople
HAHA, i knew this pic would come in handy one day!

>Favourite non-tolkien
Mi'qote/Mithra, Khajiit, Tauren, Beastmen of Chaos, Gnolls, Warcraft-iteration of Trolls

Writing it all out in front of me really makes me realise the pattern and the thine line I'm treading.

>Setups and reasonings
It would be important to know whether we're talking evolved/uplifted animals here or humans with bestial attributes.

The former would make things much more violent and divided as their animal ancestry would pit the prey-people against the predator-people.

The latter makes things more detailed, in my opinion, and allows for more diverse relationships between beastraces.

Personally I would read more into antiquity/middle-ages history and take my cues from there, then proceed to fantasise it up.

>So, I'm going to you for help and inspiration. What are your favorite non-Tolkien races? What are some set ups you'd use for a setting with beastmen and "monstergirl" races? Why would these races co exist in one city or world?
I could see co-extstence spreading in a world by one country/kingdom that welcomes monster races starting to use them in their armies.

The huge strength difference between the monster races and normal humans would mean that either that country expands over its rivals, or they're forced to accept the monster races in their armies in order to not get horribly beaten. In either case, however, you'd have areas with more discrimination, as the conquered country's people resent the monster races or never really welcomed them.

As for something that'd be cool to see, elite corps based on various monster races. Nezumi Assassin's guild. Dragon-girl Royal Knights. Lamia, Centaur, and other large monsters being elite cavalry troops.

Kinda depends on what the point is. I mean in universe. Why are there Beastmen? Did the Gods make them? Are they Abberations? The next step of Evolution? Proof that Wizards need to be regulated. Answering this question will help with what kind of stuff makes sense to add. Are Beastmen wild and aggressive? human-like? Are Beastmen one race with a lot of variance, or many?

Take too much beastman land and you start having a population problem. Not enough humans for the army as they aren't enough of the population. Integrate special beastmen units into the army to fill gaps. Expand to larger support units. Eventually the army becomes entirely beastmen. Thus the empire begins to fall.

Even the GW version could work with minor variation, as the female beastmen are said to be quite docile.

...

There are regular rodent threads in /trash/ for a reason

>Why would these races co exist in one city or world?
They wouldn't. Furr-ahem- beastpeople are abominations that should be purged from the world.
Good thing we have removed them from most of the lands so they all congregate together in their disgusting cities performing who knows what kind of aberrations against nature.

What goods or services would a race of river-dwelling amphibian people have to offer for outsiders?

I personally love hobgoblins, their caste system like society with goblins, bugbears, and hobgoblins, their naturally bellicose but organized nature as opposed to Orcs' more chaotic nature.

Thunder cats type of Catfolk/khajets

The party comes across a group of catfolk, on their own mission to fight a corrupt lizard folk lich.
They tell stories of their kingdom falling, and he's the last of his bloodline to restore honor to his people.
Shit would be good.

Aside from fish and river/hunting guides, you have to make it setting specific. Like what if there are leviathan like creatures who's bones make the best weapons abd armor, and only they have the boneworking skills to make use of them?

Imagine the Nidoqueen.

I finally took the time to think about about this idea and realized hngh it's a good idea.

I'll use it for the last filler race/s. So far the beastmen variants are wolf, cat, fox, and bear. There's also a metal infused race a la mirrodin, as well as not!eldrazi.

Among npcs races are mouse people, centaurs, as well as some tolkien races.

Gonna go with a rebellion against gods set up. Will post write up today

I'm actually working on something similar, save for the 'beast' aspect and more going for a straight 'Mythology' feel.
>Very little difference, I realize.
Anyway, had an idea for my thing which could apply to yours. Arachne are the drider-type monstergirls? What if there was another monster spider based off of the African trickster Anansi?

I had a few mental images, one of those being a drider with a black girl rather than Drow or Monstergirl Arachne. But a big on I hit on is that the Arachne are more "martial" with making webs that are strong as hell, while Anansi are more sorcerous spellcasters, specializing in illusion magic.

>literal spellweavers and illusory spinners
>spellwebs to stop/counter spells
>later on, resilient webs make illusions more difficult to dispell
>eventually can "catch" enemy spells and save them for later

Do you ever intend to use this for anything or is it just a pet project for fun?

The closest thing I ever had to beastmen were a small tribe of bearfolk that lived in an ancient forest. Warped by the same magic that created the owlbear, they retained enough of their sentience to retreat into the woods rather than go feral. Working with other people is difficult for them, as their instincts tell them that violence is the solution to even the most minor of disagreements; however, they are trained from birth to firmly clamp down on those instincts. Thus, they are often conflictingly described as both silently reserved and constantly enraged.

>What are your favorite non-Tolkien races?

I like Nagas and Centaurs. I promise I liked them before the Monster Waifu manga.

Since I beastpeople setting sounded cool to me, I decided I'd give a go because why not.

What're some interesting monstergirls, Veeky Forums? I'm not fairly informed on the topic, but it seems pretty comfy.

Every-time i see this picture i actually want to make this as a character. Unfortunately i never get any real way to do this since everyone where i live plays 3.PF and online groups are full of fucking special snowflake garbage.

As for what my favorite beastmen races are probably centaurs, merfolk, lizardfolk and kitsune, yes i am a fucking degenrate.

It's late, so but I threw this together because I wanted to post something and at least feel like I started.

Humans: Diplomats and survivors
Humans do not form the majority of the world's population, nor are they particularly rare. Among the other races, human diplomats are the most sought after people to mediate disputes between races. Their tolerance, understanding, and empathy is often percieved as genuine, whether it truly is or not. A stereotype amomg enemies of humankind is that if you don't absolutely confirm their death with your own eyes, they will find some way to crawl back and cause more trouble. Allies of humankind say their determination can become obsessive.

Wolf Folk: Wardens and warriors
A formidable and physically imposing race, known to be fiercely protective of family, pack, and ward. Those who do not travel in pack of 3 or 5 often gather into larger groups to protect a forest or woodland from tampering by other sentient beings. They believe this protects their way of life.
Like all races that fall under the "beastfolk" umbrella, those of the lupine can have variety a wide array of features associated with their "parent" race. Some have human to human like faces, while others have snout like maws like those of mundane wolves.
Favored Classes: Barbarian and Druid

Cat Folk: Prowlers and wanderers
These can show up anywhere in the world. There are few settlements or cities with a large concentrated catfolk population, as they are prone to wanderlust. Their natural agility and nimbleness makes them good thieves as well as gifted bards.
Favored classes: Rogue and Bard

Fox Folk/Kitsune: Charmers and Tricksters
It's not that mischief is in their blood. But, it does come naturally to them. Known for their cunning intelligence, Kitsune tend to be involved whenever big waves are made in the world of politics.
Favored classes: wizard and sorcerer

Cont

Dragonblooded: leaders and conquerors
What they believe to be a sense of nobility is often percieved by others to be a sense of superiority or self importance.
Favored classes: fighter and sorcerer

Kelaati: Delvers and keepers
The most enigmatic race. They are the gatekeepers of forbidden lore, and eternally seek more knowledge so that it may be locked away. They can have bifurcated arms, or smooth bone plating in place of facial features. Some even lack legs entirely, and instead use one or two sets of arms in concert with numerous tentacles to achieve mobility. As the race with the most alien appearance, they are trusted and accepted the least.
Favored classes: warlock and cleric

Harpy: scrappy and enduring
Though they do not have the ability to fly, they can rapidly flap their wings about for short bursts of air time. Despite the lack of grace, it actually does allow them to achieve startling speeds. Because of this, harpies are the most sought after couriers.
Favored classes: monk and ranger

Merfolk:
Favored classes: wizard and ????

Hasharan:
Insect people
Favored classes: fighter and cleric

This is for a homebrew setting for a campaign I'd like to run for weeb friendly friends

A friend of mine has a homebrew setting with minotaurs, centaurs, harpies and vaguely satyrish Celts as playable races. She's not finished working on it, though.