Fantasy Races

I figured black just because of the inevitable grease causing dirt and powdered coal to stick, and again with the low light levels messing with their interpretation of colour. They also wouldn't have a lot of colourful things to compare their hair to, so they might not even see the appeal of bright, colourful hair.

In terms of style,Ii imagine everyone having the top of their head covered in hard, stiff hair that's either smoothed over or in cornrows attached closely to the scalp, and then having hair that goes long enough to leave the scalp is seen as a luxury and a sign of status. It's fashionable to have little spikes of hair or dreadlocks going down your neck, and people in certain important positions have long braids that hang down. Only the most fortunate can have clean, loose, flowing long hair hanging beneath the protective sections, like spiritual leaders and the obscenely rich.

Perhaps for practical reasons it's common to have shale or stone beads dangling on the ends of any loose hair, acting as crude chimes and a means of finding each other in the dark. I can almost see those who refuse to wear the chimes being seen as sneaky and untrustworthy. That or people just make a habit of wearing noisy accessories like bells.

I want to include a race in my setting that is an offshoot of human. I see them just looking like humans the size and proportion of Warcraft orcs. There's also a divine/supernatural origin to them. Is this concept worth being a whole separate race?

Adding to this, things like powdered coal, rust or chalk in different colours would serve as makeup, and materials like petrified wood, plants or bone would be prized above most metals for things like jewelery, since crude metal is so commonly seen.

I'm also thinking of how cool it would be if they defended their colonies and drove away subterranean horrors by slinging balls of burning thermite at them, scraped off of oxidized ore.

For reference, I see it being akin to the dude on the right of pic. The one in the middle is a normal human sized knight.

I have a racial archetype like this called primals. They are descended from shamans of many races, mostly humans who tried to merge and blend in with nature and were rejected. For the most part this means they just have antlers and can move silently through thick underbrush.

I personally think it's worth giving them their own race if it affects their base stats on some level. For example, primals have stealth and nature proficiency by default but suffer from lowered CHA.

Honestly though do whatever you want, dwarves and elves are really just humans with different proportions and different fashion sense.

So half giants? Your idea is perfectly fine and has been done many times before.

Yess, that all sounds real gud

I also like the idea of styling it into these perfect balls, hard and rubbery looking.

Now I'm thinking what kind of unique qualities could they have to make them just a lil bit of a fantastical while keeping them grounded in the reality.
Sorta like interesting facts you find out about animals that sound almost like magic, like crocodiles never stopping growing or echolocation of dolphins and bats.

Well shit.

>caring about making a unique race instead of one that you think is cool

depending on how deep they live maybe they no longer have eyes like the mexican tetra
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_tetra

How about they can eat and digest certain types of raw minerals like calcium as food? Even root vegetables need sunlight and they'd run out of moles or whatever to eat eventually. They can't chew rocks, meaning they crush it into a powder and add water to form a paste. I could also see them cultivating colonies of certain molds, fungi and insects as food.

They're adaptable and mostly immune to sudden, radical shifts in temperature, since the depths can become dangerously cold. Some of the ones who dwell deepest can withstand scalding if they run into a hot spring, and with adequate preparation can wade through lava pockets they sometimes dig into.

I'd imagine they'd have something different about their lungs too, because oxygen density and air quality would be a problem. Maybe they can live on carbon monoxide, or only need to breathe occasionally?

Town guards carry flint spears or stone tomahawks, or sometimes heavy mauls made of crude rebar and lumps of granite, since ranged weapons are so often ineffective. Fancier weapons are things like sharpened thermite rods that sparkle and burn through whatever they pierce.

I've always liked the idea of them having thermal pits ala pit-vipers so they can 'see' heat.

My setting has the big 3 (Human, Elf, Dwarf) plus the individual racial offshoots of those. But I made my own one up too; Wirrens.
>Tall (Av. Male Panliscian Wirren = 6'1'')
>Hair follicles are thicker than other creeds, therefore more rigid generally (Fair hair is only prevalent in some racial groups, most are black, brown, or v.dark red)
>Eyes are affected by central heterochromia, with the darker shade on outside and a lighter tint around the pupil
>Skin is patterned with stripes (like those on a zebra or tiger), whose density varies from individual to individual. The darkness of the patterns' pigment varies depending on racial skin-tone.
Found mostly in areas near open plains due to their history as a migratory species.

It's not that at all. It's just that all the thought I put into trying to come up with balanced rules ended up being unnecessary. It would have been nice to not be a huge idiot and waste that time.

Humans, Elves, Beastfolk, and Other. In loads of subraces each.

Aurelians are short, dark humans who built the Not!Roman Empire.
Argenti are the human ancestors to the Half-Elves (Halvannen/Elysians) who are the Not!Greeks.
Aesiones are blond, red-skinned Not!Viking-Pacific Northwest Amerindians.
Varromantes are red haired Not!Gauls who spent a few centuries fighting Fey.

Halvannen or Elysians are the Half Elven descendants of the Argenti and Baasith Elves

Baasith are the bronze skinned elves of Not!Carthage.
Nebedeans are the cultured warrior elves of Not!Selukia.
Gholars are the Not!Persian Elves.
Selites are the jungle dwelling elves of Not!Isrealites who guard the Black Land.

Brutum are half-giant Not!Sarmatians that are resistant to magic.
Zhan are wolf-riding goblin Not!Huns.
Qarat are enlightened ape-men from Not!India.
Hithkin are sailing snakemen from Not!Egypt.
Ennki are wild goatmen from Not!Scythia.

Guard hairs or no hairs, cold blooded biology due to the heat, octopus like squishiness, ability to subsist off of base ecology of the underground.

size of hats should correlate with social status as only the highest ranked in a society can afford the space to have large hats

There's a human variant in my setting that has adapted to a cultural practice of climbing and leaping from great heights. They have thick, very strong legs that allow them to drop from several stories up and land on their feet without getting hurt.

There are signs all over ravines and cliffsides warning travelers to keep an eye on the sky, else they could be hit with a tribal raiding party dropping in on them. They have a signature battle cry and like to do vicious dragoon spear-dives from so high up you can't see them. One moment you hear a whoosh and a shout from high up, the next you're flattened by an axe kick and split in two by a broadheaded spear.

This also acts as an excellent excuse to include big brown amazon ladies with ultra-thick thunder-thighs that like to glomp you.

But what do they do?

Live. What do humans do?
They tend to make good traders, as their nomadic roots have given them good inter-region contacts for trading routes. Many coastal groups make good seafarers, but they have a great amount of diversity. One group that lives near the dominant mountain range on the continent are notorious yodelers.

Rate me?

Unique Races

>Tarro: Godlike beings formed of psychic energy. Each wear masks that allow them to have physical form, there are 22 of them.

>Corgyn
Corgi people. A Nomadic race consisting mostly of farmers, shamans ect.

>Pangole
Pangolin/badgermole people, live in underground cities and have strong magical ties to the earth.

>Runen
Sentient constructs powered by aether/noospark

Pangoles sound cool, might steal that.

Corgi people are a fantastic idea but
>farmers
>nomadic
explain.

Prehistoric Fantasy Setting Mode

Cro Magnon: Playable. Physiologically modern, but usually smarter, stronger and more dexterous than modern man, because the weak don't survive. They have the most complex technology in the world, and are the only human subspecies who have mastered projectile weapons in the form of javelins, darts, slung stones, bolas and most recently the bow and arrow.

Neanderthal: Playable. Shorter than Cro Magnon, but much stronger and more physically robust on average. They aren't any dumber than Cro Magnon, but isolation in Northern regions has left them fairly primitive. Their woodworking is reasonably advanced, but their stone tools are usually unrefined flakes glued to wooden hafts. Importantly, their joint structure is poorly suited for hurling projectiles, and they can't run nearly as fast or as far as Cro Magnon. Their vocal chords are slightly less refined than they are in Cro Magnon, and as a result they have trouble speaking their language, except in a raspy and indistinct accent.

Antecessor: Not ordinarily playable. The last gasp of Homo Erectus. While not inherently evil, they have adapted for using other humans as a food source. They are tall and powerfully built, with males ranging 6'3 to 6'6 on average, and their bones are thick and armor-like. They do not easily grasp the concept of compound tools, and their weapons are usually simple fire hardened wooden spears and hand axes. They are on the decline, as their primary food source, Cro Magnon, develops more effective weapons.

Avi Sapiens: Playable with the right group. Intelligent dinosaurs who have technology that rivals Cro Magnon, but built to suit their own physical peculiarities. Their hands aren't as nimble as human hands, so most fine manipulation is done with their beaks. Though they are powerful for their weight, they are usually less physically strong than their ape rivals. They compensate by being much quicker generally.

They grow small plants on their wagons, obviousl

I'm down with this.

I dig these races. Now I kinda wonder what a homebrew world where I make the races all based off my favorite video game races might be like.

Zora, Ronso, Ghouls (Fallout), etc. I'll have to keep a list as I remember races that I love.

More non playable sapient species

Wooly Mammoths have developed sapience, culture and simple tool use. They can even imitate human language by manipulating their larynx with their trunk, but few know this skill.

Behemoths are sapient sauropod dinosaurs which live for centuries. They don't achieve sapience until they reach a certain size, at which point they become wandering hermits, occasionally dispensing wisdom to travelers but mostly keeping to themselves.

Pan Habilis are intelligent chimpanzees. Their high aggression frustrates their attempts to develop more advanced culture, but their unparalleled physical strength among sapient apes makes them a force to be reckoned with.

thanks. I've got a list saved somewhere of other races I liked and was interested in adapting to my setting.

Some other stuff I was working on were super-fast quicksilver golems that worship the god of fast, friendly non-enthralled skeletons that hoard dairy products, kung fu bat people, whalefolk and sloth samurai. Not sure they'd all go in the same setting though.

Homebrewing is fun.

Nimblewrights were always one of my favorite 3.5 creatures. Might be kinda neat as a race of water spirits bonded to armor.

Never heard of them. What're they like?

Love this idea, what kind of campaign are you running?
do you allow players to pick different species in the same campaign?

I like the mixing of vikings and amerindians that could lead to some interresting stuff.
Tho just from that mixture depiction id imagine something like conan.

Your elves sound like sluts.
Is your setting bronze age based? you seem to have a focus on those cultures, it seems like you mostly fleshed out the humans and dont focus too much on the elves.
How do half giant sarmatians work? What do they ride?

Concept art sauce?

I'm trying to replace Dwarves in my setting, because you can't do anything new with them. I have heaps of good ideas for Elves but Dwarves are always just Dwarves.

However, I recognise and appreciate that there's a lot to be said for having races that aren't overly complicated, or alienating and have some basic widely-known stereotypes that make understanding them easier, and make it clear when you're playing them against type to keep things interesting.

So what's a good alternative? What's a solid race idea that isn't totally weird?

Final Fantasy... I wanna say X, but I don't know the chronology well enough.

Replace them with Leprechauns.

Gives you the relative stature and expectations of a dwarf but you can go hog fucking wild with what it is as a creature because no one uses those damn things. If you lean away from the lore a tad people will first thank you for not being campy and stereotypical and only in their second breath condemn you for going off-model.

>Humans: Actually aliens from another world. An invasive species slowly drowning out (and interbreeding with) most everything else
>Dwarves: Fairly basic, but with a much larger focus on magic and wizardry. Have most of the coolest things
>Gnomes: Just a Dwarf sub-species. Culturally very similar to dwarves, except more of a focus on technology over magic
>Elves: Actually hyper-advanced homonculi created by an ancient race. Usually can't into cleric and druid stuff. I separate magic and nature elves
>Halflings: Basically irrelevant. Loosely affiliated with orcs
>Orcs: Reinforced as the thug race, except now with sociological excuses

>Lizardfolk: The ultimate frontiersmen who live even where Orcs won't. Have really heavy druid/shaman focus
>Gnolls: Literally Mercenaries: The Race. Have basically no central government or hand in anyones pie. On the verge of extinction
>Goblins: Similar to elves, except cheaper, mass-produced versions
>Kobolds: paradoxically weak, yet hardy, Kobolds maintain a presence nearly anywhere there is a presence to be had. Almost universally dismissed, and used to it. Have basically replaced halflings in most of my things, because for the life of me, I can't meaningfully integrate them. The fact that I'm talking about them when I'm talking about kobolds should say a lot about both

>A question I have for you ...
Most importantly, they add variety and memorability. People remember things easier when there are patterns. Realistically, a human and a dwarf could act identically, but people will remember the person more if they are wearing a racial hat.
They also allow you to integrate world history and people together effectively. At the end of the day, I could probably replace them all with humans, but they also help keep general mindsets where they need to be in my mind while I am creating a world's history.
I believe keeping a race just to fill out the list sucks. I'm running into that problem with halflings.

How are Dwarves always just Dwarves but elves can be variable? Do you mean in physicality or the gruff psychology?

I figure Dwarven affinity for being underground and craftsmanship is the same as the Elven affinity for nature and magic. So you could still have 3 kinds of dwarves modeled after the cliched Elven types
>High dwarves- urbanised, high technology, live underground but due to their population have above ground settlements
>Wild dwarves- decentralised, tribal dwarves that live almost exclusively underground and are meticulous hermitic artisans within a particular field
>Drow dwarves- urbanised, high technology, live on the tops of mountains, wear their beards upside down and are evil. Have a religion focused around scorpions.

>How are Dwarves always just Dwarves but elves can be variable?
That probably comes from Tolkien having several distinct tribes of elves with different cultures, general appearance and dialects while dwarves were all the same regardless where they lived.

It's a sandbox, map crawl type campaign. There's a lot of stuff going on but I don't push the players to do anything in particular.

The setting, Mesozoa, encompasses an entire planet, so sometimes weird racial matchups are appropriate for a single group, but they often aren't. Even within a single species, there's a lot of conflict.

In the region the current campaign is set, there's conflict between two broad Cro Magnon groups: the humans who have built permanent settlements harvesting oysters along the shore of the Great Moc Bay, and the nomads who see them as another exploitable resource. The party plays one of these nomadic tribes that has been "hired" to protect a particular mud walled village from a more warlike tribe.

The most common racial matchup is Cro Magnon and Neanderthal, since they're equally intelligent and can more or less speak each other's languages. Antecessor tend to view the other hominids as food, but some outcasts could potentially look to other human groups for a home. Whether or not they'd be accepted is another story. Avi Sapiens are frequently at odds with the human species, but much like parrots or ravens, they CAN speak human languages, and many do.

Nimblewrights appear in the Monster Manual II. Basically, unlike other created golems, Nimblewrights were intelligent. This is because they were made by binding a water elemental into a suit of armor, so the resulting construct had the personality and mental traits of that water elemental.

I like them because it's an intelligent golem, it's a suit of full plate that bends and weaves in inhuman ways (check the wrist position in the picture.)

The way I would do them for a fantasy race, would probably have a race of oozes that need a shell of some kind to interact with the world, protect themselves, do manual labor, etc. At the end of a long day it's nice to ooze out of their armor into a weak gelatinous puddle. They're capable of moving on their own, but far easier to exert force when occupying some kind of articulated shell.

FFXI. That's the original concept art for the MMO. I wish they stuck with that instead of what we got, really.

Make Dwarves have different cultures as a race beyond Scottish miners who drink a lot.

Nothing is wrong with any race presented in most fantasy games except that they have a single universal culture that all groups of that race are expected to adhere to in place of any true sensible cultural divide among groups and location. Give races more culture than the standard issue in different places and it should work fine to keep them in.

(animal)-folk suffix based names for bestial humanoids is the laziest and demeaning way possible of describing them. To the eponymous 'beastman', using the term (x)folk should be the equivalent if calling them a nigger.

At least use a tired but more classical naming convention, like 'Leonin' for ones based on lions, 'Lupines' for wolves, 'Tuskarr' or something equally as dumb for boars and so on.

bump

that sounds cool user. Id play your campaign.

Not counting the fact there are humans all over the place with their cultures and countries, there are endemic humanoid parrots and there are also highly intelligent lynxes in certain forest, but it wasn't proven yet if they are truly sapient or not.
And there was, looooong time ago, a civilisation of avian reptiles, but due to it happening millions of years before humanoids appeared and said civilisation never going past entry-tier tribals-that-just-started-to-settle-down, barely any traces of it are left.

Nobody really complains, having distinctive, varied and numerous cultures easily replaces races for my players. The two non-human races were thrown in mostly as part of world-building than anything else.

Civilized? The usual Not-Warhammer races.

Humans in various factions, elves in various factions, dwarf clans, greenskins warbands, vampires counts, dinosaur/reptile savages, mermaid/mermen race, beastmen, and an avian republic.

I don't go nor do I try to go against the flow. Generic is good.

Rakshasa: They may have at one point been the demons from which they derive their name, now they are a purely mortal race. Standing between 5'6" and 6'6", and possessing two functioning sets of arms, they are seperated into three main castes that have specialized themselves through selective breeding. The Rakshasa believe the second set of arms is proof of their powerful heratige, while naturalists argue it is merely a mutation due to their constant meddling with the arcane. The Kuvera are leopard-like. They are of the lowest caste not taken up by slaves and non-Rakshasa. They are work as the merchants and slavers. Cunning and wry, and even the truth from their mouths drips with misdirection. They adorn themselves with gold and jewels around their spots to accentuate both their beauty and their wealth. Their love of bargaining and backstabbing, and their natural ability in illusion makes them adept warlocks, rouges, sorcerers and bards.

The Indra caste are panther like. Slighter in frame, and deep black fur, they make up the religious caste. Operating as both priests and police, the Indra are a fearful force in Rakshasa lands. Masters of magical disguise, speaking ill of the faiths or of the Raja to even the most trusted confidant may cause once friendly eyes glimmer with the piercing green of a predator upon it's prey. Those in service to the gods adorn themselves in silver to ward away spirits demons and the undead. Those in service to darker powers piece themselves with delicate glass pipping filled with quicksilver to ward away good. Often clerics, paladins, and druids.

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The final caste is that of the Asura. Powerfully built tigers, they exude a regal air. Each member of this caste is in some way royalty, with each knowing their place in line for power as well as one may know their own name, despite of the constant powergrabs changing that ranking. Intelligence is prized, as a leader must be so many steps ahead of the knives that wait in the dark. Children are raised in the great libraries of their home city-state, growing their arcane knowledge and might while constantly jockeying for position and prestige. If a member of the Asura clan has not slain a half sibling before adolescence, it is most likely because others have dirtied their hands for them. Their stripes are adorned in alternating gold and silver, with precious stones interspersed. Most become wizards, though any method to incorporate power is respected as long as it produces results.

Humans everywhere
Elves from the far north wit war mammoths
amphibious trolls as the priestly caste of the main nation
eusocial dwarves
pig orcs = texans

My Dwarves are elemental. They come from the 4e style elemental chaos and were the first cultures in the world, giving them a more Near Eastern feel with lots of stone obelisks, tombs, and step pyramids.

They use spears instead of axes and hammers because they're used to holding back demons and other shit in narrow underground chokepoints.

As one of the oldest races, they basically taught everyone else how to harness fire, build cities, forge metal, etc. All the great human kingdoms took influence from them and Dwarves are still a mainstay in human society.

They're also matriarchal. Men go out and make war, labor, trade, etc, leaving the women at home to actually run the homes and cities.