Monster races and light racism

I'm starting a new campaign and the players rolled mostly the standard stuff, but we've also got an orc and a gnoll. And I'm thinking how humans would look at these buggers entering their villages - and by the same token, started to think the opposite, how the party would look when entering a gnoll tribe.

Lynch mobs and shit like that might be the most logical consequence, but it's also boring as shit. I'm thinking of something lighter, like being just sort of unpleasant and vaguely antagonistic without going downright hostile.

What kind of fun shenanigans could come up out of these culture clashes? Any good racial slurs humans might have towards gnolls, or orcs towards dwarves for that matter? Any plot hooks or tiny little city events and encounters resulting from this?

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=3oEWA7UglB4
ibb.co/ixgRT5
ibb.co/hVwMvk
ibb.co/czvEFk
weasyl.com/~snk
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

Pigface
Tuskies
Momma's boys (hyena matriarchy be crazy)
He-bitches
Dogface
And the all purpose "brutes" or "savages"

>Momma's boys (hyena matriarchy be crazy)
>Gnolls call humans "Daddy's daughters" instead
>Neither side thinks this is an insult

Orc/Gnoll PC's get served rotten or raw meat "hey, you like this don't you?"

Bones get thrown at them in the streets, with taunts of "free food for the brute"!

Escalating provocation, trying to "prove" their animal nature. Any response leads to retaliation

Charge them extra.

It's a classic.

Also, women give them intriguing looks

Listen here.

I made a gnoll trying to scrap a living in human lands.

Humans and her kind have TANGIBLE reasons not to like each other (bloody history of fight over territory they consider theirs, with each side ravaging the other in retaliation, butchering kids and non-fighters alike). You have soldiers who fought in the wars and witnessed atrocities, people who've lost family, and generally that communal feeling of them being an enemy.

Therefore, life is really hard for her. She usually needs to avoid beeing seen or stay somewhere too long lest you have a party of vengeful soldiers stalk her and take it out on her. She works as a bounty hunter, basically doing the blood jobs humans don't want, but she often gets scammed on the payment as corrupt, racist captains embezzle the money for themselves. And then, she sustains wounds in the fights, because nobody would sell her metal armour. She cannot get these wounds treated as healers, which tend to be the least prejudiced kind, don't want to be lynched by the rest of the village. She isn't accepted inside inns or inside any sort of building, when even dogs are kept inside, so she stays out in dark streets for the night. Her intimidating stature keeps the riff-raff away, in any way she never has anything worth stealing.

Therefore she ends up being in very bad health but has to keep up hunting regardless. Once she finds a human partner, however, he acts as the "face" and things go much much better for her. Her reputation actually improves once she is responsible for a high-figure child rescue due to her maternal instinct and people start spreading legends about her like a mythological figure protecting children which she acts wholeheartedly and more butthat'smystoryandtgdoesn'tprobablycare

For gnolls slurring "prey-races", I've always used the term "meatskin". For humans, simply dogs. It's not like they see a difference, or know what a hyena is.

Have "civilized races only" signs in front of most shops, separate enterences, basically anything "Jim Crow" will do.

>spoiler
reee

[cont]
If you're alone or you seem weak, you increase the chances of a party of especially rowdy men (usually on the younger side or military veterans) to "teach you a lesson" or "avenge someone" on you when you're not looking. Public provocations and such are also a way to try and start shit, and all of my nonhuman PCs have learnt never to answer to this, and just swallow their pride, and try not to care, because otherwise that is kicking the hornet's nest.

However being with other humans as friends, they can, depending on their own standing, teach the provokers a lesson, or being called traitors. They might have to feel the burdern of dragging undesirables as party members, and that should be what makes the ensuing reaction beautiful. Or disgusting.

In any case expect your glass to be spat in, your prices to inflate, the merchandise sold to be of the most dubious quality, and people generally not being helpful at all.

Imagine the spitefulness of today's nationalists, but just in Fantasy setting. You know how petty and childish they get and the lenghts they'd go to avenge their ego even if they're just some bald middle-class men on the fatty side and doing unimportant jobs, you only have to translate.

[cont again? wtf]
Oh last thing

People will get incredibly passive-aggressive

Expect things being spillt on you by """"accident""" and the like. And any opportunity to humiliate you or disparage you. People talking in your back. Doing dog noises. Staring purposedly. Anything they can do that is in the Bitching Book for Highschooler, of which I'm sure you're familiar with, being a nerd and all that.

Just look into your past as a bullying victim, or anywhere you were different.

Ah yeah, I forgot one thing: the law having disparaging / discriminative tenets JUST for YOU.

Nonhumans not allowed to carry weapons, or must not do this... Have to pay that... Whatever.

ur gonna get cucked by the red rocket bro

Think how the south treated black folks during the sixties. Places that only serve humans only, human only water fountain s, unable to participate in politics and of course people reporting you to the authorities just because you've been in one spot for too long.

Dogs and gnolls not allowed in this establishment.

Aren't gnolls like literally demons anyway? How could they even manage this?

Not in my setting. But if you're going that way, remember that tieflings are a lot more demon than gnolls (they look like actual satans). Gnolls are plushies compared to the tiefling backstory.

As I said, in mine, I've made those reasons for the races to hate each other on sight, because I'm really not satisfied with "aligned races". However they're not always at war, or on the same location. There are hot zones, there are less hot ones.

They're seen as hated enemies, and also by being nonhumans, monsters, with a lot of willful exaggeration. Yet, because this is a fantasy world, and humans didn't just come first and took ownership of the planet and saw others suddenly arrive, they don't consider other races to be aberrations just for being nonhumans. It's just that it's really easy to say they're animals you can't trust (ie SAVAGES SAVAGES BARELY EVEN HUUUUMAN). At the same time, they are also feared, so people try to keep their distance with them when they throw abuse.

>tfw no gnoll gf

>what sort of happens when tribes and villagies attempt to coexist
youtube.com/watch?v=3oEWA7UglB4

Just replace skin with fur and barely even human with not at all.

Additionally, maybe gnolls have their reasons to worship demons, and that doesn't mean those are bad reasons, you know?

If none of the "good gods" would want to help me out because I'm not human... If I was always been pushed on the shittiest, most barren lands for a reason or another, or because the long-ago generations / champion god lost the fight...

As far as racism is concerned, I think it's mostly dependent on how flammable the current location is. If things are tense, I think nonhumans wouldn't even try to be seen in the daylight.

Well it's nice to see at least some part of my story interests you user

Did she have pseudo?

"No dogs allowed" is definitely something you should say to a gnoll.

>If none of the "good gods" would want to help me out because I'm not human
Good gods aren't racist.

It's like rabbits and cats! They call each other their bitch, and think they are on top!

Maybe not all of them.

Also nice get.

...

No.

That's what she looks like.

ibb.co/ixgRT5

That proves nothing.

Pants off, lady, we're going to get to the bottom of this.

Good for who, user? Who's god, user?

If they aren't racist, why are their followers racist?

Kek.

>If they aren't racist, why are their followers racist?

There's no reason humans in fantasy worlds would be any less inclined to twist the teachings of their gods to meet their own purposes than they are in the real world.

She's 2.3m tall and she's a born prodigy of murder. She'd rip your head off before you got the time to offend her.

That's saying nothing about what SHE likes.

But then that is establishing that morality isn't ingrained in race. Or you'd say "except for everyone else" but that'd be kind of a shallow dick move no?

>morality isn't ingrained in race

Certainly isn't, but that doesn't mean people wouldn't tend to think that way.

Tribalism, basically. Everyone but me and my buddies is Satan. Especially when they're not even people.

I would still hit it.

With my claymore.

Hope she likes 2 handed.

Because even good gods have assholes followers.

They won't actually talk with their deity through.

Yes, but even if they do, casual racism still doesn't tend to go to the extreme lenghts of purging and so unless it's been building up for years, purposedly provoked by agitators, most often with political power, such as nazies.

What I am saying is, you will see hate crimes and incidents every week, but otherwise racism will tend to stay casual unless something is going on.

I'm pretty sure even medieval christian-muslim relationships went somewhat okay in cities where they coexisted; the Spanish Inquisition, although unexpected, is more an exception than a rule.

You're mingling with a creature from one of the few races where females wear the pants. I doubt your hit dice is going to impress her. If you want to woo such a kind of woman, you have to show your sensible, cultured, somewhat submissive side, cheesecake.

ibb.co/hVwMvk
ibb.co/czvEFk

All in all I can't really tell you too much because she's one of the possible applications for a current Roll20 game, I'm still thinking about it.

>That's saying nothing about what SHE likes.
What she likes user?

Who's drawing that stuff, by the way? Because it's really great and I've always got a whole bunch of commissions to make.

Amazonians want Hercules my nigga.

Ah yeah, I forgot to say.

In my settings gnolls are basically used for criminal purposes or for the blood jobs humans don't want to dirty with, such as mercenaries (and if it's them who do the war crimes... Can't blame the lord). That's how, politically, they're sometimes actively invited to hang around by corrupt or manipulative lords. They're really good at fucking shit up technically, intimidating and bloodthirsty.

There's a niche ecosystem for them, even if you admit they are evil. I even made them good at it because of their pack mentality helping them having the edge in organized crime. Gnollish mafia.

They could only subsist on the scraps of civilized society. But then people associate trouble with them, of course, just like they associate it with immigrants nowadays, and blacks some time ago. Whether or not they did something, they're convenient scapegoats.

So that's for urban ones.

Wait a little. You are GM'ing or playing?

Is her mother a giraffe? Why is her neck so long?

I'm applying for Mighty Quest, user, can't talk heresy here.

Me. And I'm grateful you appreciate, and I'm sorry if anyone feels I'm self-promoting (I'm using links to not spam).

Aha. But she ain't an amazonian. I mean look at those pictures, these are weak 80's wives. Gnoll girls bench press.

I would rape her and it would be a chaotic good act.

>Me. And I'm grateful you appreciate, and I'm sorry if anyone feels I'm self-promoting (I'm using links to not spam).

Nah, you had a good enough reason to post it even if it didn't actually answer the question at hand and didn't even say it was your stuff until asked.

Why not both?

But I'm not using any of this right now. I'm just doing a fantasy background for fun.

Hyena neck. She's just holding it straight. I base it off the animal's proportions.

Also you noticed she's quite elongated. She's already really tall for her own kind.

>thinking he can manhandle a 7ft tall bounty hunter with jaws that crush bone

user, at some point in the story, she wrestles a BEAR.

Are you black user? You really seen to be heavy in 'racist stereotypes'.

But I wouldn't mind if you don't put her alongside your setting. Not that I think she would be a bad character, but I wouldn't like you stroking your character if you was DM.

This is a setting for make stories that I then maybe make into comics for fun.

I'm white. Racism is great for stories and drama. Certainly better than just dropping X is evil and that's canon somehow. You need human reasons for conflict to happen so that you can have heroes.

I actually prefer to have fictional races to battle than human reasons, mostly because they are usually twisted to whatever morality the DM subscribes (and who gets salty if PCs disagree).

But then again people have different tastes, so oh well.

Also, do you have a blog somewhere that you put your art on?

So...? I raped an ogre.

I really don't understand how they get it wrong. Conflict is usually pretty simple: irrational prejudice, or resource fighting, every side believe they're right, the end. Trust me I don't like /pol/ or SocJus bs either. Nothing worse than a DM trying to prove a point.

Sometimes, you know, you could even just say that because the PCs think they're right, then THEY ARE. Even if their ways of solving problems aren't what you would do, or even if you think it's not good solutions at all rationally, you might just want to go their way, because those are still *solutions*. All you have to do is, whatever they do, present an advantage and a disadvantage. They're being permissive? Lazy immigrants take advantage. They're being nazies? Oh wow who knew that this would alienate some people.

It might be personal, but I don't see a quest resolution as necessarily be doing the one thing I'm expected to be done, but just to do something that brings it closure, and we build the next one on the ensuing situation.

What I mostly like in games if when I get to talk things through, meet NPCs, explore how the different races are represented and their fun little quirks (like hey kobolds why do you worship that rock what's the history behind this), etc. Having an alignement system often removes this, and whoever is left to talk to are usually cookie-cutters ("YES WE ARE GOOD-ALIGNED LIKE YOU, FRIEND! DO YOU WANT FRIENDSHIP?").

>inb4 furshit
Believe it or not I can't stand the common furry.

I like to link my Weasyl because I don't write too many personal things there.

Beware that ahead may lie opinions and dubious quality.

weasyl.com/~snk

I'm still thinking about the fact you're telling me you intend to rape my character, user.

Rape is love.

Also you probably don't know, but raping gnolls are a Veeky Forums tradition.

>inb4 furshit

Who cares, this isn't 2006 anymore.

As I figured your art's pretty good.

You know most of my hate for furries is because all they see in my production is dick.

They can't tell it from the average fetish porn or the horrible eyesore characters they see on their website.

I never get some sincere appreciation like "oh wow this character interests me what's the story".

Not that I'm assuming people should be any interested, but you know, not the best for motivation.

Especially that they are, quite frankly, absolute fucking degenerates. Then *I'm* the arrogant one...

Well, I see you are a good DM. Maybe I just had a few bad experiences with it, but I enjoy the forces of light and darkness fighting it out.

Like in Age of Wonders. I loved 1, found 2 average and hated 3. It's more preference, but I enjoy having clear orcs of Moria and light elves.

It would be better if... Nevermind. Thanks.

But I think it's better if I quit derailing the thread.

Speaking of racism, have you never thought that other races just can't tell if you're gnoll guy or a gnoll girl? In fact if females are bulky, maybe neither do gnolls.

>Speaking of racism, have you never thought that other races just can't tell if you're gnoll guy or a gnoll girl? In fact if females are bulky, maybe neither do gnolls.

Besides gnolls, we regularly see that problem with kobolds. Both races also tend to be fairly egalitarian and put everyone to work and war regardless of gender, so maybe they don't even care.

Light and Dark is good but you need to make it quite thematic. Like a good explanation, but that means you also have to explain how do bad humans relate to orcs. I think in LotR, it was mostly a matter of corruption, but what I really liked was how it was based on human flaws. I remember that line about the genesis, and I always loved it; it said that that when Melkor started to provoke a difference in the "melody of the world" or something, it made it more worrying and terrible, but also more interesting.

Gandalf did say that you keep away evil with small day to day acts of good, and I loved that part too.

In a sense it's not much so a rigid alignement system as it is that evil was caused by the madness of some, and you always had the choice to reject it and be good.

Law and Chaos are the original alignment system, and it rather makes more sense too. I suppose you could say Good and Evil are more like harmony and discord?

In my current game my PC said he can't tell kobolds from young lizardmen. He hates scalies, either way.

I'd say gnolls care. The thing with females is how they're the ones who procreate, so, losing a female is bad for the tribe. Since you want your tribe to stay strong and prosper, you'd not going to risk females in war, even if they're the dominant gender. In my idea that translated as females being elite forces that favoured longbows and leadership, always got the best equipment, like the nobility; while the males were used the same ways as levies. You only ever send the females in the danger zone when you want to break through.

Well I don't know.

Is eating the dead good?

Human: No that's horrible, and also a sacrilege
Gnoll: Yes that is honouring the dead, by helping the tribe behind death

Hmm.

That doesn't even fit in Law or Chaos. See I hate alignement.

Sounds like esoteric funeral rites to me. That's just neutral: a point of view.

There are far better examples on alignment, I'd say.

You should only rape gnolls if they are matriarchs and you want to demoralize them.

t.player who raped a gnoll.

>5e ''lore''

Should you steal?

Gnoll: stealing from your own race is sacrilege. Stealing from humans is fine, they are prey and if they can't prevent it they didn't deserve their possessions. We want to survive. We don't so much "steal" as we "take".
Human: No. But stealing from gnolls is stealing from monsters no? Therefore... Not stealing.

You need then two systems, one for humans and one for gnolls, but you can't really rule both by the same.

I'm not sure how I'm supposed to receive this discussion seeing I made the character and I like her very much.

That's a cute gnoll, don't worry I would only rape evil matriarchal barbaric ones.

The same way all tough guys want a big Amazon who will take charge, pick them up and show them her forceful loving?

ITT: racism discussion turns into frustrated nerds projecting their unlikely power fantasies. Also bestiality.

Zosha is cute

CUTE

I would like to be raped by a dragoness.

But it wouldn't be rape because I would be willingly. :(

Here's the best thing user

Behind her thick accent, she also has a lisp.

Zosha is cutest.

It's funny but only after did I realize "Zosha" was a real name and also used by existing characters.

In addition to everything being said so far, whenever there's a crime being committed in the vicinity, guess who's the first suspect?

Zosha.

Guys, I really want to say...

Honestly, on half a year of my art of her being online, the first compliments I ever got were here.

>Zosha is cute

First time ever.

Obviously, the party should pretend that the gnoll is their specially trained dog mascot. If anyone questions it, they can suggest the confusion is just the result of country bumpkins who have never seen an exotic trained dog.

When I need to slip a gnoll PC in "civilized" lands I just say it's either a bodyguard, a pet, or it's charmed. Of course the player knows that if he abuses this I'm going to eat his arm later.

Thats pretty much all these threads.

Be happy people didn't go full pseudopenis.

They like my Zosha

It's all I wanted

feels

Your Zosha is cute.

Racial tensions are the bread and butter of any setting I make. It usually shows up in the little things. NPCs speak in derisive tones to players they don't like, I've had quest givers ask to "talk to another representative" when they don't like the party face, if a player is of a race that is disliked by an NPC but that NPC likes the player for some reason there will be a lot of "I hate X, but not you player Y, you're not like the others". Races have vastly different cultures which cause some strange plot hooks.
For instance, many nations have policies that subtly move minority populations into collected areas. One nation has a law that states that no residential block may have more than 50% of the current occupants be foreign at any given time but has no equivalent for the opposite (this forces immigrants to spread out). A potential quest appears where five native families move out of a block changing the balance in a way that means there are too many foreigners in the area. Some of the foreign families have to leave but are refusing to do so. And there's the quest, players can solve it in many ways. Convince the foreign family to move, convince a native family to stay, convince a native family to move in, force the foreign family out by violence, bribe the government and make some paperwork disappear. Plenty of options.

bump

This guy should be my GM

...Why?

Then what of the opposite? How would a tribe of gnolls handle a couple humans entering their home?

Usually, the best parts are taken by the females, and the lower ranks of individuals share the rest.

That's different because tribal cultures are less individualistic, often. So in a human city you may have "one human", but that's not necessarily going to be the same mindset in a tribe. If it's tribe frend, it's frend. You only eat frend when frend is already dead. You may chew on frend's sleeve, but only in a frendly display. If you still don't like the meatskin, I think you can't do much without hurting your standing within the tribe, besides protesting to the others.

Also, they're going to keep their distance once they discover humans only bathe once a WEEK.

What if the party gnoll is a member of the tribe and introduces the rest of the party as such as well?

I suppose that would totally depend on the clout, authority and standing of the gnoll. First of all, it has to be good with the chief: are these people beneficial to us? Or do I implicitely like / trust Scratchy? Then, the religious authority: does the shaman think it's heresy (likely)? Does he read omens about it and are they good? Can Scratchy / Scratchy's friends / Scratchy's chief tell the shaman to can it? Lastly, splinter factions. How does it stand with the most hardline elements of the tribe? Will the claimants to the chief's position use this as a catalyst to further their own plan? Do they bank on the most extreme xenophobes and zealots?

I think if Scratchy's a well respected member of the tribe, and if the racial hate currents are mild enough, they might tolerate their presence, but will take any bad behaviour on Scratchy.

It might go a looot better if the party proves itself directly to the tribe, such as the cleric being a medecine man for the sick. That was in The Last of the Mohicans, although it was a ruse. Or if they already have a reputation.

I'm just thinking about it now but: are the humans popular?

Tribes would function sort of small settlements and villages. They might tend to have more of a person-to-person relationship. So if your humans can, I don't know, dance or crack good jokes, the tribe might like them. Gnolls love to laugh.

>There's no reason humans in fantasy worlds would be any less inclined to twist the teachings of their gods to meet their own purposes than they are in the real world.

It used to be a thing that if you worshiped a god and got to cast spells from them and such, you'd get those stripped away if you were unfaithful. I guess 3.x and subsequent babby editions allowing fedoracore clerics and what have you have somewhat blunted that.

But like, if you were professing to be a Zarusite but went home to fug filthy nonhumans every night, you'd get a smiting if your DM wasn't some kind of {{{libcuck SJW}}}.

I don't think gods were ever all that strict: so long as you truly and honestly didn't go against all your god finds holy, you should be fine.

Take Pelor for instance. He's a god of the sun and the light, so a follower could take this as an excuse to shit on creatures living underground, and could easily at the very least be a dick to kobolds without Pelor bothering to come down and set him straight.

Holy shit learn to spell friend you retard

>missing the point
>being this bad at b8
Come on

>taking the b8 anyway
Clearly he's not -that- bad.

How is that "taking" the b8 in any other way but to carry it all the way to the trash and dump it there?

What do you think the "b8" is for? Is it for discussion? Is it for anger?

No. It is for posting. Just that.

Respond to him at all and you take the bait. Even if it was just to dump it to the trash, you still touched it.

I don't know b8s. I think of gnolls right now. Many. Cackling. Mocking me. Motherfucking gnolls making fun of my fashion sense.