Down syndrome as a fantasy race (Worldbuilding thread)

Looks like what happened if creating a character with Intellignet below 4 in Fallout games.

youtube.com/watch?v=8XllttBJi98

see That might sound a bit orky, but maybe we could focus more on resilience and temporary super strength rather than all-around brutishness. Also, to add a bit more flair, what do you guys think of taking the brown spots displayed here and increasing them in size to give the Flatheads a mottled look? Or maybe it could be a regional thing.

laughed out loud

I think its a fair question to ask. I mean, dwarves are seen as these magical creatures but when you get down to it any midget could start bulking and open a smithy. Find a couple likeminded little people and pop out some babies and bam, real life dwarves. So why can't we do the same with other genetic malfunctions? It just seems like an interesting question.

OP, why do you want to make an entire race based on a disability?

Basically, why not? It's been done before, as I stated in the post above yours.

Perhaps retard strength allows them to smash through dense underbrush

Chromosome vampires.
They become gradually more retarded the more chromosomes they steal but also gradually more powerful.

...

This is great, if this gets shit posted to death or ignored I'll be mad

People seem to be getting the physical traits straightened out so I'm gonna throw my hat in for culture.

>usually form small communities out in places other races don't want anything to do with, due to disease resistance
>strong familial bonds, are actually fairly pacifistic and just want to be left alone
>value hard work and a simple life
>are actually really good at keeping a schedule due to their propensity for repetitive behavior, towns can basically run like clockwork once everything is set up properly
>can be impulsive and difficult to keep focused when not on autopilot
>Flatheads place a lot of value on potions or poultices or what have you that aid in sleep, as their race has difficulty sleeping.

And now for using them as enemies:

>Flatheads have a lot of trouble sleeping, and can actually stay up for days at a time if they don't take care of themselves.
>if they do this for too long they become a Waker
>Wakers are crazed Flatheads who never sleep and form reclusive communities of savage raiders
>Since they don't sleep, they have even less focus but can attack at any time, night or day

That's what I have so far.

Perhaps they're simple, but hardworking? Offer them food and board and they're an inexpensive farmhand who can accomplish simple, repetitive tasks with minimal supervision.

I've done something similar with a tiefling like race in my setting, basically instead of looking like traditional demons, they have various mundane and magical birth defects and a compulsion to take a particular aspect of life and pervert it into something destructive

Remember when people would laugh at this instead of think it was something political?

*psst* It's bait, ignore it *cough* *cough*

This is good

I need to get off this fucking site man, I swear it's lowering my IQ or some shit.

Make them live somewhere tropical, so exposure to the elements isn't as harsh. Basically they can survive just fine wandering around picking random fruit, catching the occasional animal by pure chance, easy fishing with just sharpened sticks, etc.

Also, I highly doubt that down syndrome people are so retarded that they can't make basic shelters out of sticks and then slapping some mud on it to seal up the cracks.

Creating fire/not burning the entire village down would be their biggest challenge.

You've got some points there. I guess it would just depend exactly how smart we want Flatheads to be. Are they the same level as their real world version or a bit smarter but still kinda dull? I guess it'd be up to the individual DM.

Just dig a big hole, drop in yellow grass and twigs, then take a hot stick and lay it on the stuff.
That simple.

They are "slow" and a "simple" race. But the more intelligent races fucking love them because of how they can specialize. All other races are basically jack of all trades types. They can all learn to read or write, as a race they can all practice magic of some sort, even if it's only divine/shaman type. All races can learn to build architecture and forge precious metals, etc.

Not with these folks. Each individual can only learn to do one single task. BUT, once they master it, they fucking MASTER it. No where else can you find someone who can forge a perfect 50/10 sword EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Even Master dwarves have "bad days" or make mistakes.

So the other races basically adopt them as serfs, or outright own them as slaves. And use them to create perfect inanimate objects and shit. "Such good quality you don't NEED to enchant it." "Why the hell would you bespell that? That's overkill!" etc. etc. etc.

This is literally just Gully Dwarves

To expand on this, the Flatheads can forge a bronze sword so perfectly, just by sheer skill, that it can cleave through solid steel plating like a hot knife through butter even when it's enchanted/bespelled/what the fuck ever.

So owning a Flathead bronze sword is better than owning a Dwarven steel sword.

Flathead kids should take like thirty years to mature properly.

-2 int
-2 cha
+2 con
Counts as Large

They sounds like the inferior version of robot race.

All right, here's what I'm thinking so far, lets consolidate stuff:

>Physical appearance is like normal, only the brown spots they have grow much more prominent in some regions, maybe forests
>Can disable muscle inhibitors at will
>Not very bright
>Very long developmental period of 25-30 years before they reach peak intelligence, and even then it isn't much more than a dim-witted human.
>50 to 70 year lifespan.
>Live simple and honest lives in villages throughout the tropical regions, can easily perform repetitive tasks and their working hours are practically on autopilot
>survive in hostile regions filled with poison and disease where other races can't or won't
>need sleep aids to get a full nights rest, staying up for too long turns them crazy
>Have an innate ability to master a skill to an extreme level, but it often isn't realized in their primitive natural environment
>More advanced races use them as slaves or servants to produce amazingly crafted gear/furniture/ect
>Also perhaps use them as a general workforce due to their ability to self-automate, with the more promising/old being used to create masterworks

How's that sound?

I'm thinking that family is everything to them, and they don't view themselves by their individual name, but instead by their relation to their family members, only ever referring to a Flathead by name when addressing how another is related to them. For example, instead of referring to two individuals as Bob and Chuck, they'd refer to them as 1st Son of Chuck, and Birth Father of Bob.

Sounds perfect

Alright OP
Considering in this fantasy realm downies are implied to be their own fantasy race we need a culture that can house them.
They are the closest living race to a simple robot. Their culture is structured off required tasks and doleing a single downie towards it. If more tasks need to be completed they require outside assistance. Because of the cultural stigma of one job forever, the downies tend to worship odd or destructive gods with abilities that can suit them. These demons or ceatures as they often are take a role as an abusive parent which the community loves dearly. They have a strong sense of right and wrong but not among strangers to which they are afraid or do not care about.

We Filthy Frank RPG now?

Both of these sound good. The naming conventions and "robot" descriptor fit well with the stuff here

I feel like thematically they might have too much overlap with orcs.

I wonder how well you could replace all the fantasy races with mental disabilities.
Austistic Elves and OCD Dwarves?

People actually seem to be doing a good job of giving them a unique identity, just read through some of the thread.

>Austistic Elves
When I think about it kinda make sense of thinking of most fantasy elves as very attractive autists.

I'm thinking that going full robot is a bit too far. You'd likely prefer to have a human farmhand over a Flathead if they cost the same, but due to the low cost of hiring a Flathead even a poorer farmer can have a group of workers to do the harvesting and threshing.

As for the expert craftsmen, I'm thinking that this would be exceptionally rare. As in, maybe fewer than ten in the entire world rare. After all, an artisan must be adaptable in order to learn from his mistakes and get a grip on the nuances of his craft, so it would be rare to find a Flathead smith who beats out a common dwarf, let alone a grandmaster. Just my humble opinion of course.

I do very much like the idea of them being personally moral, but accidentally worshiping demons and petty evil gods who take advantage of their trusting and simple nature.

Fuck I have downs

>You'd likely prefer to have a human farmhand over a Flathead if they cost the same, but due to the low cost of hiring a Flathead even a poorer farmer can have a group of workers to do the harvesting and threshing.

Individually they might be bad (barring masters) but I think due to their ability to self-automate, having a whole group of them each performing a simple repetitive action for a full eight hours would far outpace human farmhands. But if you only need one or two then yeah humans are your best bet. Flatheads would be better for plantations.

>As for the expert craftsmen, I'm thinking that this would be exceptionally rare. As in, maybe fewer than ten in the entire world rare.

I'd argue they'd be a bit more common than that but due to the short lifespan of the race they never last that much more than a decade or so after achieving full mastery, so they usually end up taking their secrets with them to the grave.
Masters are fleeting, so people are usually in a hurry to snap them up before someone else does.

>I do very much like the idea of them being personally moral, but accidentally worshiping demons and petty evil gods who take advantage of their trusting and simple nature.

This seems pretty good to be honest.

>2nd toe is longer than your big toe
Your kind sicken me and should be cleansed from the Earth.

Flatheads aren't smart enough for magic and therefore can't use it. Because of that they have a deep hatred for it and wage war agains't magicians, the use of magic in Flathead territory is punishable by death and it's deeply insulting to use magic in front of a Flathead no matter why and where they are.
Flatheads have deeply colectivistic views as they aren't smart enough to survive alone, they need a group and the group is more important than the individual.

Seems a bit violent for most Flathead communities from what has been made so far but I can see that working for a group of minor antagonists. I think at the least a healthy fear of magic would be commonplace in most if not all communities though, yeah. Collectivism also makes sense.

>This entire thread
>The only removed post was sending anons back to /pol/

They'd probably create and inhabit an online anonymous message board where people can argue about anime waifus.

Literally dwarfs

Due to their instinct to form and maintain patterns and routines, and relatively high strength, Flatheads, when properly trained and motivated, are highly disciplined and ferocious warriors. In Flathead society, violence is rare, and violence on such a scale is unheard of, due to their innate kindness, but when their family is threatened, they're sufficiently sleep-deprived, or raised from birth to fight, they are effectively worth twice their number in equivalent human infantry.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with politics, it's a mental exercise, nothing more, nothing less.

I think that's certainly fair in all respects. How would a master Flathead craftsman come to be? I'd find a hard time imagining they'd master it on their own or learning from a fellow Flathead. It would also take a weird sort of grandmaster artisan to decide he'd rather train a Flathead over a talented apprentice.

I'd think it either happened one time in the local environment or in a slave pen when one crazy Flathead found the time/motivation to get really good at one thing. His abilities were discovered and the phenomenon becomes more sought after. I would think its rare to nonexistent inside Flathead communities though, but with the opportunities provided by more advanced civilizations such a person is more likely to appear.

ore wa ochinchin ga daisuki nandayo

...

You're perfect for the thread topic, then!

Seriously though, this thread has piqued my interest.

Sounds like /pol/

>m-muh genes

user who originally came up with the idea. My logic was along the lines that all Flatheads can specialize.

Basically, take a young flathead child, then train them daily over and over again on performing one single task. Be it carving wood, bone, stone, making glass objects, forging precious metals, carving jewels, etc. The task itself is irrelevant. Just drill the "proper" way to do it over and over again into the Flathead. Excluding everything else, even the knowledge of how to read or write.

By the time the Flathead is a grown adult they can do that one thing perfectly, far beyond any human, dwarf, or elvish skill, over and over again. Now, this is where it makes them special. Each individual piece they make is of the exact same quality, exact same detail, exactly the same in every way. Basically, it's a high fantasy version of taking a digital pic of a perfect sword, then copy pasting it to every one of your soldiers. Or a perfect diamond, or a perfect crystal goblet, etc.

> he doesn't get the ioke

And of course, needless to say, this makes them extremely crippled in every thing that doesn't rotate around their single special skill. They can't read or write, they can't cook, they can't survive let alone provide, for themselves at all. Their only ability is whatever they specialize in.

But as I said, that was my personal train of thought. You do you, user.

Oh yeah that does seem a good way to do it. I must have misinterpreted some of what you were saying. This also does a good job of separating their masters from Dwarven smiths because its less an art and more just perfectly following the instructions. Actually yeah, Flatheads would probably benefit a lot from being taught how to do something by a master of the craft. Like if they are taught by a third-rate swordsmith, they can only make third-rate swords. But if they are taught by the best swordsmith ever, they can easily replicate his work.

Go back to where you learned that fun was bad

Yes, which is why I mentioned that other races love them.

Imagine a poor kingdom with nothing but sand. Then they get their hands on some Flatheads, and manage to scrounge up the money to pay for a master glass maker come to stay for a few short years.

Next thing you know this poor kingdom is getting filthy rich off of their Flathead serfs doing nothing but pumping out glass windows, glass goblets, glass beads, glass floats for fishing nets, etc. etc. etc.

>being so butthurt about /pol/ you come to Veeky Forums to complain about it

Excuse me sir, but you can't simply order an "extra sharp" sword from Tardius the swordsmith. He makes sharp swords, and not a razor's edge sharper.

Motherfucker, stop feeding the god damn trolls.

You'd think Veeky Forums of all boards would know how to deal with them.

I bet some guilds and stuff hate their guts because of how it kills their businesses and junk. There's probably some shady shenanigans you could work in there.

>slipping an insomniac into the Flathead worker's food supply so they all go crazy allowing the merchant's guild to move in and not worry about being rendered obselete

There's a quest for evil characters.

I think the vast majority of Flathead's wouldn't cause too much trouble for the guilds. They'd mostly be doing incredibly simple work. I imagine that there might be a city in which a lazy artisan clothier trained a Flathead to mimic his work so he could keep up with demand while taking the credit for himself. Wouldn't necessarily draw the ire of a guild unless the individual fronting the business wouldn't pay their dues.

If for whatever reason, a trained Flathead finds themself masterless or out of employ, there would probably be a potential employer who could make use of their talents for a cheap price.

"I don't give a shit if they aren't extra sharp. Tardius is the only damn blacksmith in the whole kingdom who can forge over a dozen swords in one month and every single one of them is of the exact same quality and standard as the sword I wield as we speak."

I'm thinking that the main appeal for Flatheads is that the goods they produce is all uniform. A wife to be would want all of her wineglasses to match each other perfectly on her wedding day. Even if they are of a "poor" quality and inferior to content produced by other races.

So Flatheads would probably be excellent brick makers, or wood/stone carvers, or blacksmiths more for supplying the bulk of the army.

While the rich and elite pay out the ass for human/dwarvish/elvish goods. The only time a Flathead makes anything to compete with the other races is if a Master of one of the other races personally trains them.

Well think of it this way. You're some guildmaster in a city and these new creatures get in. The city asks for your people to train the slaves to do work and you laugh it off since these things look like they can barely think. So you send some craftsmen to assist them in their duties. And then a decade or so later, business suddenly dries up. You do some investigating and it turns out those slaves are perfectly replicating the products your own slaves painstakingly churn out, with the exact same quality every time. Now you can't compete and you're out of a business.

Flatheads would probably make excellent midwives/healers/medics. Just teach them simple basic stuff like how to properly clean a cut, what plants/herbs to use to alleviate certain pains, etc. 99% of medicine is simply "Keep that shit clean."

Obviously they wouldn't be a physician or the equivalent of a doctor. But they would still be highly useful. The doctor type people can delegate the less serious injuries to the Flatheads, simple things they can handle, and thus concentrate on the more serious injuries. Plus, they can safely send out Flatheads to replenish their medicinal supplies without fear that the Flathead would accidentally purchase the wrong ingredient and wind up killing a patient.

Except that the guild can do what the Flatheads can't. They can use their imagination. Say the Flatheads are making glass window panes. They are all identical. So how do the rich and elite stand out? They pay the local glass guild to find them the BEST artist in the whole town to make damn sure that all the windows in their mansion stand out like a glorious flaming faggot peacock in comparison to all the poor peasants in the city.

If anything, the demand for uniqueness among the elite should drive the guild prices sky high.

>Except that the guild can do what the Flatheads can't.

This is true, but you have to keep in mind that before the flatheads are introduced to a society, the roles they have were held by locals, who are now all out of a job. Maybe societies that have used them for a long time work smoothly, but I can imagine their appearance causing a fair amount of social unrest when initially introduced. It'd be a lot like the current problems we are facing with automation.

As someone who works in the medical field, I can assure you that our downie friends would not be suited to field medic duty in any meaningful capacity. Using Flatheads as teamsters and errand boys might work, but only if very specific instructions are given and the deals are worked out ahead of time.

Not user you're responding too, but we gotta keep in mind that the artisan Flatties are few and far between. The vast majority of Flatheads are suited to VERY simple work (i.e. a plantation). Considering the assembly line wasn't invented until the industrial era where replaceable parts became the norm, I'd imagine that hiring the rare talented Flathead for more complex work would be a trade between reliability and flexibility for any merchant involved in the transaction.

Ah right, fair enough. Maybe if the setting is more technologically advanced it'd end up being a problem.

Dude, what the fuck, this is a blue board

>The most popular fantasy species are, when you get down to it, just humans with a few tweaks.
So what?
>Elves are humans who are pretty and have pointed ears.
Nope.
>Dwarves are humans who are short and stout.
No.
>Orcs are people who are green-skinned and ugly (originally at least)
Wrong.

Its a bit too late for that user. The wheels of destiny are in motion and the downy race is being forged in the fires of Veeky Forums

Genestealers?

Elves are already in the core classes after all.

user, why don't you want to make an entire race based on a disability?

Ogres?

>Extra sharp

Why do you hate good swords? The sharper the edge on a blade, the more fragile.

>in this world of myth and legend, magical power is directly related to the number of chromosomes and organism has
>certain beasts are much more magical than others, with no apparent rhyme or reason
>and amongst men, the Gifted are occasionally born. Their minds stunted, their bodies warped, but their magical prowess... Incredible.

>chimps, gorillas, water buffalo and potatoes are more magically gifted than humans

>the microscopic ciliates organisms possess the greatest magical powers on this planet at 29.64 × 10^6 chromosomes

>wizards need exotic spell components because they're harnessing the raw magical power of buffalo-horn and pond scum to fuel their wizard shit

You fuckers know literally nothing of what you speak. Dwarves are inspired and very much look literally like neanderthals, a separate human species. They aren't just midgets you fucking mongs. Elves aren't just skinny humans with pointy ears but have far more that separate them from humanity.

OP and all the idiots contributing are literal retards or down syndrome sufferers themselves and should head back to their motherboard /pol/.

Sure bud. What exactly defines an elf again? Are they chaotic good forest swellers with pointy ears who tend tonmake good wizards and rangers, or, say, chaotic evil fae bullshit that will go out its way to fuck with you just to have a laugh?

Elves are primarily identified by pointy ears and beauty. Everthing else is variable.

How would a race of low functioning auts work out

My down syndrome cousin tried to molest me when I was a kid and nothing was done about it because "he didnt know any better"

There was a doujin about this

>More chromosomes... more power...
We are but mortals in an age of titans

Already a race in the dragonlance setting.

Also part of Youth in Revolt