Less common monster races

I might not be the only one who's been thinking all the monstrous humanoids, orcs and goblins and whatnot, have been really overused in virtually any fantasy even remotely inspired by D&D? These little fuckers are swarming everywhere, even though most of the time very little of value would be lost if you were to simply replace them with less civilized human tribes: roving barbarians, jungle savages, wildmen of savannah, pygmies, and the sort. It rather cheapens the whole fantasy thing and makes them commonplace and mundane and boring.

A lot of times (in many OSR blogs) the first solution seems to have been to refluff them into something weirder and more alien, but I'm taking a far more simple approach: leave them as they are, just make them far less common.

Each particular monster was spawned by a different deranged wizard, demon, fairy queen, ancient dragon sorcerer, super-advanced bio-engineering alien, or whatever other fearsome menace hiding somewhere in the dark corners of the world. Some others may have spontaneously popped into existence from the caves of some mountain range or another, and still day there in the dark to this day. Maybe a few are a remnant of a previous lost age. Whatever their origin, their reach is a small one and they rarely rise to bother the humans much. They bring with them the darkness of the earth, or the will of some demon lord. They're unknown, and therefore feared.

We've got orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears, gnolls, kobolds, ogres, lizardfolk, minotaurs, trolls, xvarts, tasloi, bullywugs, maybe some giants, bunch of undead, and then a big pile of even more obscure or homebrewed creatures. That's a lot of weird shit to hide in the forests, the mountains, and the wizard towers and castles. Plenty to occupy myself with for a good while.

What do you think? Am I on the right track or should I turn back and go down a different route? Maybe got a more specific idea or two on the origins of some type of bugger?

That's a perfectly legit and fine idea.

Personally, I would make any creature that is human-like, such as elves, dwarves, orcs, and giants, just be mutated and changed versions of humans, similar to how orcs in the LOTR are actually just tortured and mutilated elves, and Uruks are further changed orcs.

I would make any significantly different race, such as dragons, be their own thing though. But they would have a completely different morality and way of doing things from humans.

Personally I'm not much of a fan of elves and others being changed humans: I like it better with humans being the young race that popped in after the elves and dwarves already fucked it all up.

I think what makes them more interesting is having them have good reason to come into conflict with humans, which provides a non-combat solution. Treat them like animals that are intelligent enough to make spears.

Example: frogmen live in a nearby river, not a huge problem normally. They usually spend their days fighting with eachother over fish, then hibernating in the mud once they've had their fill. A new mill was built up river, and its screwed with their supply of fish, so they've taken to moving overland to find more food, and settled in a lake nearby.

The reason they seem contrived is because they're just there to be killed and add some action to a session. Filling out their ecological/sociological roll more helps make them feel less shoe-horned.

In short, I wouldnt say that making them less common would be the optimal solution. However, making PROBLEMS caused by them less common is.

Frogmen are all very well since they clearly have a distinct physiology and ecology from the get go. They're frogs.

But how do you fit this logic into something like orcs, which are just bigger meaner humans?

They needn't necessarily be just big humans.

Essentially, there are two types of events which will compel any rabble-creature to change their behavior: a new opportunity, or a loss of status quo. For example, perhaps the orcs are following a herd of animals on an unusual or long-term migration, or on the flip side if they can only move in sunlight perhaps a catastrophe has create a bridge of smoke allowing them access to territory they could not reach before. Regardless, in order for either of these types of solutions to work the DM needs to put in the legwork of making them every so slightly more than just evil dudes without clothes.

But that comes back to the issue mentioned in the OP post, where most people already do this, while he'd just prefer to make them more rare.

He said he would make them more rare rather than making them weird or alien. Im contending that you can have cliche monsters be commonplace without needing to make them alien, with the solution being instead to make their status as problems be less frequent.

So in short, turn them into any feared real life animal. You seen the shit that crawls onto Louisiana's roads from the swamps from time to time? No one gives a shit despite them being nasty exotic critters that can fuck you up, because they're just not a problem.

>they're just not a problem
Except when they are.

Can you imagine the Emu War with the relevant party replaced by gnolls or some shit?

Yeah. I wasn't criticizing OP, I was trying to say it actually makes a hell of a lot of sense.

Yeah, I mean you might be on to something. Like most of the time they're just out there, not doing much except occasionally getting accidentally trampled by your horses, but then once in a while they unite and become a real menace for some fucked-up reason no human can understand.

Why not play it straight with emu people?
Maybe throw in some bands of allied cassowary people tribes.

This sounds incredibly silly and has an entirely different flavor to what the OP wanted.

Let's roll with it.

>Emu and Cassowary people.
Kinda smells like Dwarf Fortress in here.

Crab people are underrated.

TASTE LIKE CRAB
TALK LIKE PEOPLE

>tfw making an australian-inspired setting
thanks senpai

Every fucking time. Every time I post some god damn crab people, some asswipe comes in and makes that same fucking South Park reference. Fuck you, buddy. I'm done. I've had enough of this shit. I'm gonna edit every fucking image I have to make them into lobster people or something and never hear from you again. Cunt.

No need to be crabby friend. Just ignore them. Crab people sound pretty cool imo.

The greatest warriors.

>autism

It's what I do OP, Humans are the most powerful race in general,but there are a lot of races spawned be the Titans/Jotuns/Fey princes.
Biology it's what I do, orcs get pumped with hormones in a sorta of Musth when enraged or exited, they aren't that bright to start with and are very Hierarchy heavy, wanting to be the top ones. They ally normally only with they family, castrating other orcs if they defeat them, that makes them stop growing and deflates them (of course is the worse insult an orcs can suffer and it put you out of comission as a warrior), the orcs don't stop growing, but they do so slowly, and the most orcs they dominate the bigger they get, normally orc society is clanish and sort of semi nomadic, but they respect treaties, and they word is binding (a thing very common with titanspawns). The worse weakness they have is than they are very weak to magic/power influences, they have a limited pow (I use BRP), also they aren't as enduring as humans (probably the sturdiest race, along the Dwarfs). Nothing really ground breaking or specially original I know.

I AM NOT YOUR BUDDY, FRIEND

My main problem with how common these creatures are is why haven't they yet created their own actual civilziations instead of simply being "that humanoid animal that lives in caves and dungeons".
Humans already had some sort of protosocieties when we barely even knew how to communicate verbally, why wouldn't a creature with working hands and smart enough to talk be able to get to the same point? Go the full course and make it so there's huge exapsnes of land untouched by man because they keep getting thrown of by kobolds, who are far less intelligent, but are much better accustomed to the terrain and climate. Or maybe if you want to cross goblin lands you have to pay some kind of tax because even though they're basically barbarians it is still their land and a full on conquest campaign would be too much of a hassle.

Making them less common works if you want fantasy to feel more like mythology and less like the modern idea of fantasy, so at that point you'd rather be working with other kind of beings more mystical and intimidating like fae, ghosts, witches and the like.

I'd actually like an underwater setting where you play as some sort of crustacean and the like.
Mantis/pistol shrimp are banned though. Too broken.

Try using a cynocephaly, their into weird occult shit.

>My main problem with how common these creatures are is why haven't they yet created their own actual civilziations instead of simply being "that humanoid animal that lives in caves and dungeons".

Hence why being ruled by evil sorcerers or dragons or other individuals, who couldn't give a shit.

Maybe try and conquer something on occasion.

I do this, in a fashion in my campaigns. By having races that by the Monster Manual are typically evil, not be so entirely. There are good villages of orcs out there, the PCs just never hear about them because they're isolated and don't bother anyone. Humanizing monsters by not having them be auto-combat encounters does cultivate a lot more roleplay in such a game.

YOU'RE AN UNCLE FUCKER!

In my experience, nowadays people have less qualms about fighting other people than fighting anything that ressembles a wild animal. So all I can throw at my playgroups without whining about "cruelty" are beastfolk and undead.

aboot that