Non-Humanocentric Settings

>GM makes a setting wherein elves are predominant surface-dwelling empire with farmland and cities i.e. Hylians.
>Dwarves have The Usual Dwarf Civ.
>Goblins still in the mountains and scrub-woods being Balkan Waaaauuugh machine.
>Humans are nomads a-la Bedouins, Shepherds, or gypsies.
>Players make all-human group for varied reasons (fighter wants extra feat, new player doesn't know what to do race-wise, third player has done almost every race BUT human and thinks WTH-Not?)
>GM wanted to be "original" and not have Humans Everywhere.
>PCs immediately scheme to try and restore Human hegemony..

Any suggestions as to how to proceed, here? I mean, the humans in this setting aren't exactly the best equipped to sack a city here. More likely, we'll either find some way to sneak into one of the elvish cities and loot it like a wandering carnival of thieves, harass the main roads and tradesmen until we get some clue from Father Sky-God, or engineer some kind of Great Plague from our swine-herds to wreck the city-dwellers' days while we sit back with our strong immune systems and wait for the Black Death to empty the halls of Avignon.

Also, other campaigns where Humans don't own most of the fantasy map, and nomad/shaman pics.

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>setting where humans aren't the dominant race
I do not comprehend???

It probably means some non-humans have larger and more powerful civilizations than humans do.

Maybe instead of just scheming to ruin everything, directly, you should try and enjoy the setting for what it is? Or at the very least, work to build humanity up and establish more of a civilization compared to being nomadic, rather than trying to kill all the elves with a plague.

Odds are doing that to the elves isn't going to make the humans eager to swoop in and take over either. If anything, Dwarves would be in a better position to take over during the aftermath. Also, cities are already more likely to get plagues by default, and assuming the elves have any sort of clergy it probably won't cripple them. If it does, it won't fare much better for your people who have less infrastructure, less clean water, and generally less ways to deal with it. The slight difference in constitution won't make as big of a difference as you're expecting, and again, Dwarves win out in the end there.

Perhaps you should head in the opposite direction of the elven city to find some people to trade with, and give your nomads a more valuable route to go back and forth between. Towns, cities, and wealth will spring up naturally after that.

>non-humans having larger civilizations than humans
I do not comprehend???

>hylians
They aren't elves retard.

Moorcock says hi, you round-earred peasants.

Well, you know that time period that every elf loves to brag about, when humans were a fledgling race and Elves had all of their grand cities before everything went to shit due to their arrogance?

Imagine you had that in the setting, but also set the game earlier before that downfall happened.

>humans
>not
>always
>the
>most
>dominant
>race
I do not comprehend???

OP here.
Yeah, this pretty much.
The fuck are Hylians, then? Half-elves? Just humans with pointy ears?
You get the point, though. High-elf snoots, Tolkeinian dwarves, Banna-Boyz Slav orks, and then there's humans as the pre-Alaric Gothic tribes/nomad traders and herdsmen.

Oh, and fricking gnomes. But they're Edgy Grimm's Fae Fuckers/Asshole Genies. So.... no. Nobody wanted to play them, or play with them.

Reminds me of something I read here, a setting in which humans were slaves all over the world.
They were either primitive people, or slaves of other races, dwarves, elves, and even orcs and halflings

Just ride some fucking sandworms into their city.

>The fuck are Hylians, then?
An ethnicity of humans descended from the initial worshipers of the goddess Hylia.

I like this idea.

I'd argue Hylians are Aasimar of an Elven Goddess and merely Humans given 'Elven qualities' in the strictest sense via their Elven Goddess Hylia.

>Just humans with pointy ears?

Pretty much. While the LoZ series does have more normal humans that show up, Hylians don't seem to have longer lifespams or any of the usual elf traits aside from pointy ears. Mechanically, they might be more similar to Half-elves, though biologically they're just their own thing.

>The fuck are Hylians, then?
Just humans with pointy ears that can use magic. Although only a fee actually can use magic and only if they are granted the power by fairies or are a reincarnated goddess so even that's a stretch.

I have always dreamed of running a game with a dominant elf/Melnibone society. My group don't like to much dark in their games so I never get to create it. Its fine though, they are very, very, good at making extremely enjoyable heroic comedy.

Some Hylians have been shown to have empathic or telepathic abilities and they're often seen as being better at innate magic use, while the only clear indication of the main strength of round-ear humans is that they're more inventive and resourceful (which is why they get all up in clockwork machinery) in the loss of their magic. The Ordona Province is a good example of this.

First off:
1. Do you have negotiator?
2. Do you have stealth-oriented people?
3. Do you have knowledge guys?

If yes, then proceed as it follows:
1. Negotiator should recon fractions inside nonhuman race, for example, different dwarwen houses.
2. Make them angry at each other with help of stealthguy and knowledge guy. Knowledge guy gathers all the tech and magic techniques possible.
3. While they are fighting each other, make some terracts, cut off supply lines in such way that one side would think that it is done by other.
4. Bash this shit with some zombie-plague, finishing off last survivors of local civil war.
5. Kill last of the last and zombies. Guys from human tribes should help you with this. Knowledge guy gives them stolen tech and magics.
6. Proceed doing so, slowly establishing spy nets and later sabotage squads in closest cities.
7. Grow this way to a country.
8. Provoke civil war in neigboring country, annex it.
9. Proceed doing so.
10. ???
11. WORLD DOMINATED BY HUMANS!!!

-Find a way to unite the tribes
-there is always individuals who will betray their own, need an engineer? find a disgraced dwarven one, need bow training any oppressed half elves?
-Introduce strategy and thought into the human tribes, teach them to do what they do best, fuck and reproduce like crazy, and fight for their survival.
-get the enemies to fight amongst themselves, a good political tragedy is always usefull, consider how communication is difficult in times without camera's radio etc. easy to plant evidence.

That's the most stupid plan I've ever gazed my eyes upon

Don't rock the boat, pal.

This is the way my setting works: humans WERE dominant until they Fucked Up Bad, leaving the elves to take over the power vacuum. Humans are now pretty much extinct East of the Dragonwall, and westerlings can't really cross over unless the dwarves let them. That is not common. The only kingdom of man left in the East is guarded by huge iron walls to keep the Fey out, and elves rule everything else, excepting the Dwarfholms in the mountains and the Goliaths partying in the ruins of the former human nation of Marduun in the North. Humans in the East ALWAYS wear a piece of iron on them to keep the Fey at bay. If one doesn't, they're stolen away to the Feywild, never to return. Or just driven mad and slowly torn apart. Humans are the "elves" in the sense that they once had a Great Civilization, of which only ruins remain. Hell, most "humans" are basically half elves in the East at this point. In the West, they fare much better, but they're still few in number; hard to have a huge population in a giant desert.