I need some UNIQUE fantasy races

shouldn't you be in bed now?

More unique than the D&D standard lineup

Shouldn't you be on tumblr?

Gorons, zoras and dekus are such good races, I feel like similar races in other settings dont do them justice, Im tempted to directly transplant them onto my games

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It is true I am a faggot

you're on Veeky Forums so...yeah.

If the most interesting thing about a character is their race then they're fucking boring. It's the same with people who base their identity entirely around their sexuality.

You can have absolute bog standard humans, dwarves, elves, and orcs and still give them interesting culture and characterization that makes them a thousand times more believable and fleshed out than a bunch of deviantart OC races

Are you still here? Go shit in another thread, this one is obviously not for you.

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>You should use humans only. Anything else is just a crutch at best and snowflakery at worst.
Now this is just cancerous.

If you are focusing on the elves then you are focusing on the wrong thing.

orcs

I’ve got two.

Giants. Barely ever see Giants as a typical fantasy race. Can be all kinds of weird, but my favorite flavor are humanoid who are all 7-9 feet tall. Make for really imposing enemies and allies. Women can be straight up amazons.

The other are shapeshifting Fey, who are trickster spirits. Limited shapeshifters though with rules about which forms that they can take and when (though not necessarilly strict rules). Typically live in an alternate dimension where laws of physics don’t apply. Usually has some elemental affinity.

Birdfolk
Draconians
Sentient Constructs
Doppelgangers
Pangolinfolk
Crystal People
Elementals
Undead

A good Svirfneblin player is one thousand times more enjoyable in a grim-dark setting or situation than any fancy "1000000 years old wise psychic, elemental, fey ultragetton" character from a race where basically even their youngest would make a good anime-hero.

I don't think anyone's actually trying to make that you massive faggot, it's just more interesting when a different race actually looks different as opposed to being just a human with a fucking deformity.

>people make fun of standard fantasy races (elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, etc.) as "humans but tall/short/pointy-eared/etc."
>every time someone posts a "unique" fantasy race, it's a human but has a funny head and maybe one physical trait (like a shell, an extra set of arms, etc.) to differentiate it
In every scenario, I'd gladly take the old-fashioned races.

Who is the big guy in the back?

Aranean, spiderfolks in nerubian body-type. Coming from mostly non social species, they had to be uplifted to civilisation. They have a myth that is basically the fall from Eden with Eden being a metaphor for the animalistic state of their race before being "burdened" by right and wrong. Many spiderfolks are still savage beasts and are respected (or even revered in the case of traditional shamanistic beliefs) as such, but those who have been "civilised" can't really go back (a few still tries though). "Civilised" spiderfolks have to live in communities and so have to restrain their instincts. They do that by living in a strict and rigid caste system. Proponents of the new ways tried to valorise this as dedication and to denigrate this longing for wildness, but the old ways are resilient and cultures are permeated by this nostalgia for what they see as primordial innocence.
Proponents of the new ways tend to be imperialists assholes, but somehow are a voice of reason against the bestial tendencies of their kind.

Moulting is another source of beliefs, symbolising change of life and time. Some old legal customs may count time in moultings (you may be forgiven some offences when you're "born anew"). Some believe old molted exoskeletons should be destroyed or cleansed to truly go on in life, some superstitions involve your past life haunting you in the empty shell of your past molts (and some form of necromancy actually feed such beliefs). Others actually use molted exoskeletons as material: social spiders use it as a construction materials, some warrior subcultures use moult-armours or weapons, or tools, bards may use molted instruments to invoke its original wearer, even after he passed away.
It also gave birth to a cyclic cosmology, where the world itself molt anew.

This is entirely untrue, your a moron for thinking this.

That would be Slash.

Name one. Name one concept that you couldn't play as a human

Spike

I'm getting conflicting data here guys.

Its Raphaels mutated pet turtle, he changed his name to Slash after becoming intelligent

>There is literally no concept that can be done with humans that couldn't be done better with fantasy races.
Humanless settings can be fun.

Cheers, was just googling it. I loved watching the original TMNT cartoons as a kid, but can't remember him.

Ayys

Snakes.
Not like, snake people or "snakemen". Just intelligent snakes.

Can we have some wider context for your setting to help us figure what is likely to be appropriate? A brief description of the landmass, biome distribution and mythos / pantheon should be enough, but include anything you feel is relevant.

>halfling juggler/entertainer rogue who wears stilts to compensate
>elf who saw the last time BBEG tried to take over
>satyr bard who just wants to adventure to get some of that sweet tree puss
>X race who wants to convince Y race they're not savages, it's trite but you can't play an all human setting like that without some RaHoWa implications imo

yeah you could say, what about a human with dwarfism, or an immortal human/apparition, or that's just a regular bard, or who gives a fuck about having human on human racism in my fantasy, but that changes the nature of the characters I described

Advanced humans with spaceships

>Midget
>Long lived wizard
>Your average Greek
>Minority individual in rational group

Wrong. That would just be us in space. Alien by the very definition of the word means different from us.

Mexicans can be aliens. A civilization capable of interplanetary travel would be quite alien to your average fantasy denizen

Space Mexicans does sound pretty fun to play desu.

They keep abducting all the jobs

Anything with physiological differences that make them incompatible with human society.

Aquatic creature who require constnatly being submerged. Anything with different sensory organs, such as lacking sight or making use of infrared.

An example from my setting is a parasitic species that latches on to other life forms and uses their body. They body snatch and change bodies as they see fit. The best analog for appearance is a leech with a large syringe in its mouth.

Another in my setting if a flatworm colony that forms a hive mind with one another via nerve clusters, and that build plant bodies for themselves to inhabit during long periods of inactivity. The venegatsble matter is used to protect their bodies.

More examples from my setting that simply don’t work as humans. They have enormous amounts of sexual dimorphism with fertile females being immobile chitenous towers. Fertile males look similar to enormous praying mantis and infertile males are non sapient worker drones.

HOW DO THEY KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH IT?

reading the entire post is hard sometimes

Because your addendum is basically meaningless and just saying "no I don't want the logical reasonable answer." It's like asking what's 2 and 2 but preemptively saying you can't answer 4 and then getting mad when they say 4 anyways. There is absolutely no meaningful change to the nature of the characters

Try and address these
How are these just humans?

>Svirfneblin
I really like these guys, I love the name and wish there were equivalents to other kinds of gnomes.

I've also considered straight up removing dwarves in exchange for gnomes.

I'll admit that those can't work with a human, but they're also very unusual for a SF/fantasy race. Most are just "slightly different humans who all act a certain way".

Yeah so go fuck yourself.

Okay, so you use nothing but significantly nonhuman races in all of your settings? Because if not, my point still stands. Elves, dwarves, orcs, etc, are all superfluous and crutches for lazy roleplayers

You sound like a cunt to play with.

You're not saying I'm wrong, though. Because I'm not. Dwarf, Elf, etc tend to be very narrow stereotypes that people lean on instead of developing their own character. Particularly dwarves, since every dwarf tends to basically be a caricature of movie!Gimli. Hardcore dwarffags tend to just want to turn off their brains, put on a shitty northern brogue, and shout about axes and beards and honor. And if you take that away, you're just playing a stocky, (usually) faintly norse midget.

why not criticize the tropes associated with specific classes or character archetypes the same way, they can serve as the same crutches in human only settings

are you the type of person to raise issue when you see any kind of trope appear in even the slightest way whether it's well done or not cause that's the impression I'm kinda getting

Why using fantasy when you can tell the same stories in a pseudo historical setting?
After all most fantasy stories are about facing adversity, family and friendship, love, sacrifice... all sort of themes that can be told in our world.

>You're not saying I'm wrong, though.
No kidding, I'm saying you sound like a cunt who would be no fun to play with. Nothing to do with fantasy races.

Why is this “You should only play humans and I’m gonna be an absolute prick to everybody who disagrees” guy like this?

He’s in almost every thread about fantasy races when he could just mind his own business and limit himself to humans in peace.

Maybe he's a bot.

Autism is my best guess. Or maybe he just has 0 CHA.

>Infrared

Heat is just a different wavelength of light, being blind to human visible light but able to see body heat is just being able to see a different band of light.

You want different senses try Batfolk, group based echolocation.

>I need some UNIQUE fantasy races.
>What have you got?
have I got just the book for you

maybe we're all bots he built to help him refine his argument

That can't be possible, I know I'm real.

You can’t prove that. You also can’t prove you’re not the only sentient person in all existence

You're right, but that makes me more important than you, you philo-zombie scum.

>Take a humanoid Pokémon
>adapt thier PokéDex entries from all 7 current generations to make them less Mary sue
>????
>Profit

By "Mary sue", I mean: Hitmonchan-race can't throw 5000 punches a second, but DO monomaniacally obsess over puglism.

Nothing is unique.

>HURFADURF MY NOT-HUMANS ARE VIOLET AND HAVE TENTACLE ARMS AND PANTHER FEET!
>THEY ACT JUST LIKE SOME HUMANS THOUGH.

Real unique boyo.

I think he sounds fun to play with. How'd you fancy doing a campaign set in the Carolingian era with the players acting as Missi from Charlemagne's court sent into Bavaria?

they're all humans though.

god damn you monumental faggot

fuck you, you anti-fun cuck

Wow, I didn’t need that before bed

yeah im just gonna pretend to be a wizard or knight, that's not the same amount of gay

No, but the tropes of fantasy races tend to be much, much more narrow and limiting. Wizard, warrior, etc all have a fair amount of wiggle room while still falling fairly solidly within the archetype. The traditional fantasy dwarf, however, is very much more defined, and really very artificial. I have no issue with tropes and cliches in general, but I do have an issue with fantasy races that essentially just a specific cluster of them . I find it boring and lazy. I suppose my problem is less with nonhumans and more with shallow stereotype based versions thereof. You can do really neat things with the fundamental concepts of demihumans and such, but so often you see them reduced to "an elf is a smug forest wizard, a dwarf is a loud underground Welshman, a halfling is a lazy thieving Brit, etc " which both feels like it robs the fantasy from the concept of a fantasy race and feels very limiting to both players and GMs.

While I am a fan of pseudohistorical settings, fantasy has a lot of themes and elements that can tell cool stories but don't exist in the real world. My issue is more that fantasy races as they're presented tend to be very specific and basically defining the character for you. It'd be like if you wanted to run a Le Mis inspired fantasy campaign but you make a race of blue guys with four toes who are just Javert. They all act exactly like Javert and that is their only traits as a culture. If you want to play a Trevaj then you have to act like Javert and that's that.

Actually being a dick is just fun.

Depends on how much Bavarian chocolate I can consume.
It does sound interesting though.

I like this

[Insert Russell Crowe joke]

Panzerkin!

I have a feeling that humans only guy would shit himself in anger if someone released a game where it WAS all human, but each ethnicity fills the same roles as fantasy races, because he'd then demand that people only play whatever ethnicity had zero bonuses "just like in real life".

China Meiville Bas-Lag ( three book cycle Perdido street station, Armada, Iron Council) has some really creative things going on

The Khepri are sexually dimorphic. their women are intelligent and appear as humanoid with insectoid heads. Their males are about as big as and intelligent as housecats.

The Cactae are sentient cactus people. their organs and nervous system exist only within the very core of their bodies with the majority of their flesh not being necessary to live. very hard to kill as a result. Limbs need to be severed completely.

The Remade are the result of the New Crobuzon justice system. THey have no prisons instead you are sentenced to hard labor and your body is transformed either as some form of poetic justice or more often to serve as equipment to perform that job. People are turned into forklifts and left to work in warehouses they can't physically leave, jackhammer people break their own bones when they are forced to hammer through stone, people with boilers have no choice but to continue feeding themselves coal or else they become permanently immobile.

Scabmettlers can shape their congealed blood into clothing and weapons.

there are so many more... its a great series.

Tribes of humanoid insects who have a very extreme warrior culture.
Due to the fact that their hands are chitinous scythes instead of useful hands they can't really build, only carve,this in combination with the fact that their lands are barren as fuck means just about everything in their culture is made out of the shells of the dead, other tribes or their own, everything from their homes to their currency is made out of masterly carved exoskeleton; of course their main source of food also comes from cannibalism, they don't murder to eat but since "honourable" combat is so common place they simply end up having more than enough food to sustain themselves, helps counter the extremely high birth rate too.

hes an autistic sperg but its true, most people base most of their characters personality on their race. Alternatively they base most of the personality on acting the exact opposite of their race because its all they can think of (lolrandumb orc rogue charisma). Asking your players into a single race will literally triple the quality of their roleplay and back story. Not to mention it makes it more relate able. Obviously this only applies to games with boring races

No, I like it when games give different bonuses dependent on culture, and ideally no group should give no bonus.

A gun with legs.

?

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Exactly

A fantastic choice, then. Doubly so if guns don't exist in setting

>tfw whites don't get shit that makes them better than any other race

"White" isn't really a cultural group, it's a broad ethnic one. Being white wouldn't give you bonuses, but being Germanic or Slavic or Appalachian or Quebecois would.

Except for Altruism. Which arguably hurts us more than helps us.

Remade are just Servitors