Beastfolk General: Oriental Adventures Edition

>badgertits
Get the fuck out, furry fucking shits.

Yes unfortunately. They threw away 30 years of fluff and playable gnolls for shitty hyenaesque demon spawn. Fuck 5e lore, its godawful in so many ways, not just gnolls.

That's because 5e lore is a fucking mess that tries to appeal to grognards but can't even do that right, seeing as how gnolls were playable in both Basic (Orcs of Thar) and Advanced (Complete Book of Humanoids) D&D.

4e had an article in Dragon #367 called Playing Gnolls, which was a huge shot in the arm for them as a PC-compatible species. I know it wasn't the most in-depth article they ever had - Ecology of the Flind in Dragon #173 came first, but it was still focused on Gnolls & Flinds mostly as "that enemy race". This article really made them seem believable as a PC race.

Minotaurs also really flourished in 4e, being both a PC race in the PHB 3 and getting themselves a "Playing Minotaurs" article in Dragon #369 that really sells them as a race with an interesting hook for making PCs.

What do you dislike apart from their handling of gnolls, user?

Minotaurs don't seem to be doing too badly in 5e. The Dragonlance seafaring-Greco-Roman-type got a pretty early UA, and sheep-minotaurs showed up in the Amonkhet Plane Shift.

I've mostly forgotten pretty much everything else. Gnolls were such a stinging rewrite that its mostly the thing that makes me hate the edition, that and the godawful rules.

There is some good in the system, like the kobold art and a few other art pieces, and Wizards finally breaking down and giving us MtG setting stuff. But other than that it's mostly just shit.

Don't forget playable gnolls in 3.5 Races of the Wild splatbook. Neutral gnolls who worshipped the nature god. And Eberron having neutral gnoll mercenaries and caravan guards from the monster nation of Droaam.

Well, when Wizards gets around to writing an actual Eberron book, Znir Pact gnolls will probably show up again.

Thought- how about Beastfolk as magical constructs?

Also what’s worse- furry beastfolk, or weeb beastfolk.

If I'm not inclined to play monstergirl PCs, I play Tengu, Sahuagin, or the idea of a dog Kobold merchant is interesting.

But I'm going to assume that people don't consider Sahuagins to be beastfolk, right?

Constructed for what purpose, and by whom? Also, not completely sure of what distinction you're making.

They're horrible fish people, I'm pretty sure that counts.

I’m thinking as a means to make better golems. Mages discover how to create life, but the basis of the golem determines how complex they are.

Inanimate material means golems who are very robotic, elemental magic creates Atronachs that understand emotion but very poorly. Beastfolk use animals as a base and thus are the most human.

Also furry beastfolk are furries, covered in fur, with animal faces, etc. weeb furries are anime characters with animal ears and tails.

My personal fetish is weeb furries that err on being more animalistic and exotic.

You'd have to nag her pretty persistently in order to do so.

>Oriental Setting
>only Japanese yokai
Come on, a European fantasy wouldn't be composed of just France would it?

Niumowang (a bull demon) from Journey to the West had an affair with a nine tailed fox, that would be an interesting start of a beast race of minotaurs with fox tails.

What do you have against the french, user?

I was just thinking about hengeyokai. I had an idea for the setting I'm making where the humans of not!Japan all died out, the hengeyokai were saddened by this and moved into the empty cities to carry on an exaggerated parody of the not!Japanese culture based on the impressions they had of it.

Can you name any beastfolk yokai from China, Korea or India apart from Vanara, though? There has to be more potential than D&D has ever embraced, but since they refuse to do the research, I figured why not ask Veeky Forums?

There aren't a whole lot of "beastfolk" in those areas to my knowledge-plenty of mythical beasts, who could probably make for interesting races if you were so disposed. Hinduism has a multitude of avatars with animalistic features serving as various aspects of divinity, though.

Kappas, monkeys, and pigs

In China there are no beast folk, only animals that turn into humans, and are usually evil (or at the very least, terribly disruptive to life). the monkey king is a literal monkey who takes human form.

>Magical constructs
I'd think that if a wizard were to make a flesh golem, it would be better to keep it based on one species for starters for simplicity's sake. I could see them either going for a simple animal to test themselves or just making a human so it can immediately set to work with menial tasks. However, the idea still intrigues me. I just got the image of some crazy group of alchemists, artificers, and wizards putting together some kind of humanoid wardog built like a warforged covered in living tissue. A techno-magical animal terminator of sorts. Why? Because wizards have no sense of right and wrong.

>Weebs vs furries
Furries are worse, just because there are more of them. More people means more dumb people and more dumb people means louder dumb people.
t. self-loathing furry.

Well I imagine stone and metal golems being around forever, then moving on to magical material for magical forepower, before trying to move on to flesh.

Cats and Dogs to start with before branching out. No human Golems because a. It doesn’t work (or at least magical-theory isn’t there) and b. Massively illegal.

I’m also thinking they can serve as pretty good familiars, and the setting being one where almost everyone has access to at least a minimum of magic.

>What do you have against the french, user?
Bonjour, ya cheese eatin' surrender monkeys!

>Bai Ze
People called them Hakutaku, but they're originally Chinese.

>Gumiho
From Korea, the idea of a nine-tailed shapeshifting fox.

>Chiyou
Chinese God of War, said to be a six armed man with a bull's head. He was said to have 81 brothers and be the ancestor of the Chinese people- perhaps some people descended directly from him who possess more of his features?

While you are right, functionally for races you could have them.

After all, in Journey to the West, Flower-Fruit Mountain had numerous demon monkeys.

Essentially, "beast-folk" like Sun Wukong are animals who have their qi become sentient and intelligent, which is the origin of the Nine-Tailed Fox. However they're generally evil, and they're not really classified as one "race" so to speak.

If you want to adapt it for a setting (which is what I would prefer to do) then I'd just make races based off the actual characters of Journey to the West. After all, most of the core D&D races are themselves adaptations of Tolkien's works.

So, query; we all know the Kitsune well enough that most anons here could probably spitball one for 5e that'd be better than any of the Fox Hengeyokais of D&D canon. But what about some of the less famous hengeyokai?

What abilities do you think would be appropriate for a 5e Tanuki, Mujina or Bakeneko?

>furries
>weebs

Kobolds/lizardfolk or bust.

But really, weebs are the worst. Even the most in-your-face-fetishy furry is better than even the most well-done weeb beastfolk.

Weeb furries.

Go full anthro or go home.
It ain't beastfolk unless it has a muzzle or beak.

Ah, yes, animal muzzle on a perfectly human body with stonkin' tiddies (digitigrade legs optional), how subversive, creative and sophisticated.

Unless your beastfolk are clearly non-human or go full redwall, you don't get to act superior.

yeah but that lore fucking sucks so I ignore it.

to not be a complete faggot without examples, Charr in GW/GW2 are a good example of proper beastfolk, subverting both "human body with non-human head" and "beastfolk are a noble savage race"(by the time GW2 rolls).

They pretty much invented industrial warfare for their setting, didn't they?

Yup. And humans are the resident ancient noble race that went in decline, the place usually reserved for elves.

And creatures you'd EXPECT to be elves are something else entirely and the most alien playable race of the setting.

GW has pretty good worldbuilding.

>ew, human bodies are so gross
>here, literal bestiality is better!

You have some fucked up priorities.

underrated

Maybe not as "folk" but they do have various servants of heavens. Like Ox-Head and Horse-Face.

>furry or weeb
why not both? pic related

To be serious, weeb versions tend to have more ridiculous sexual dimorphism than furry, making them worse overall.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Journey_to_the_West_characters#Antagonists

Honest to goodness using any of these as a basis for a race is probably fine.

>sexual dimorphism
This is the thing i hate the most in weeb versions desu.

It's like they decide they want cute girls with animal ears, then halfway through the development they realize they need to have men and in a panic-induced brainfart fall back to furries.

Thankfully this is dying down.

I’ve never noticed that. Most weeb versions I’ve seen are the same as the cute anime girls with anime eyes except replacing girl with boy, which is what I’d expect.

>I’ve never noticed that.
It was VERY prevalent in 90s and 00s. In anything korean too.

>Most weeb versions I’ve seen are the same as the cute anime girls with anime eyes except replacing girl with boy, which is what I’d expect.
This is a second brainfart and the one that seems to be starting to die off too.

That explains it.

You confuse me though. If it’s to be weeb, wouldn’t you rather it be consistent weeb?

You don't need the whole race to be uniformally cute/beautiful (unless you have MMORPG budget to balance and it's easier to get away with one model per race), that way lies faggotry.

Oh, by that, I just mean it’s hard to make anime people look ugly. Not that the race is inherently beautiful. That’s an elf thing.

youtube.com/watch?v=ku3rTW3CHzo

For example OP, Black Wind Demon King from Journey to the West is essentially a bear-man, could base a race off them called, "Black Wind Demons" or something and give them the racial power to turn into a black cloud.

No harder than any other art medium and in a pinch you can always over-exaggerate.

I'd say it's actually harder to make individual anthros ugly without making them some "ugly" species, but that's more of a problem of human facial recognition.

Basically I mean animation tends to default towards cute, hence plain girls in anime never look plain. And to make someone ugly, you do tend to over exaggerate.

Ah, that, yes. It's not only a medium limitation, though, it's a cultural japanese thing. If you're not cute, you can't be a main character. Or important secondary character. Or anyone, really, except for background extra, joke character or a villain.

I feel like dimorphism can be really interesting in a race, but the usual standard of "animalistic man, animal-headband-wearing woman" seems pretty silly to me. Of course, I'm not really a fan of the "animal-ear-headband" look in general, seems like they could do more interesting things in terms of visual design.

I prefer them on the weeb spectrum but erring on to being more animalistic. They have animal eyes, claws, animalistic legs, etc.

So, random question; I've railed about the traditional way that D&D has handled hengeyokai, with all the focus being on "turn into one specific animal, like a watered-down level 1 druid".

But, how would you handle hengeyokai in 5e to make them interesting?

Me, I'd treat each hengeyokai breed - kitsune, jorogumo, tanuji, mujina, whatever - as its own race and give it other racial abilities based on its mythology, like how we have dwarves being really tough or elves being super stealthy in nature. At most, give them a shared racial trait to cover "turns into a combat-incapable little animal" as ONE racial trait.

But, that's just me. How would anons do it?

I'm not all that inclined to use them as an actual "race"-they seem like they'd work better as NPCs, at least to me. But yeah, thinking purely in 5e racial terms, I feel like they'd probably benefit more from breed-specific write-ups than attempting to lump them all into a single, multi-variant race.

Anons? What is the most interesting beastfolk race you've ever encountered in a Veeky Forums context?

For me, I have a soft spot for the Shin'hare - not just because bunnyfolk are a rarity in Veeky Forums media, but because they actually manage to be a competent, even creepy, evil threat in a way that, say, the skaven fail to manage.

They literally breed their own children by the hundreds just to slit their throats at birth so they can use the blood to fuel the magic spells needed to craft enchanted arms & armor for their elite soldiers. That's some grimdark there.

Not the same user but wanted to say that fox shapeshifters are originally from chinese folklore and are also present in korean folklore.

The hell's that from?

Maybe if you ask her politely.

>Shin'hare
hextcg.gamepedia.com/Shin’hare

So, they're an incredibly aggressive and rapid-breeding caste-based society that attempted to enslave coyote people to learn how to control the weather, until a coalition of races drove them underground, where they picked up blood magic, mushroom men slaves, and a seat at the "let's kill the surface and take their shit" alliance's table? Interesting.

Also, "Concubunnies"? Really?

Hey, don't blame me, I didn't name them. I think it's a stupid name myself.

>Even the most in-your-face-fetishy furry is better than even the most well-done weeb beastfolk
go back

So, question, does a race of playable gorgons based on the gorgons of Magic: the Gathering count as a beastfolk race?

Unless your Gorgons are more snake than humanoid, I'd say no. I think Gorgons are more like Demihumans.

I agree that monster girls are shit and almost insulting, but Beastars is going a good job.

Sadly they diddn't use it to it's full potential.
They cuold have handleled Malyk better in the expansion. By existing there.

>ONE WHO CONSORTS WITH BEASTS!

Anons? Long story short, I need some help figuring out deities for two beastfolk races in my setting - can I get any suggestions? Hutaakans are a culture of jackalfolk warlock-priests who worship pulp style "Dark Gods", whilst Gnolls are a slave-race created by the Hutaakans.

This is my current rough-draft list.

Hutaakan Pantheon:
The Dark Mother: Goddess of hutaakans, fertility and black magic. Absolute ruler of the hutaakan pantheon, first and foremost of their deities.

Zuggtmoy: Goddess of fungus, drugs, medicine, ecstasy.

Mordiggian: God of necromancy, death, darkness, slavery, feasting, cannibalism.

Teratrogen: Goddess of mutation, transformation, fleshcrafting, surgery, physical augmentation.

Dhamballa: God of serpents, revelry, illusion, whimsy, pleasure, and carnality.

Gnoll Pantheon:
She Who Fights: Goddess of gnolls, war, protection, savagery and strength.

He Who Thinks: God of gnolls, cunning, stealth, psionics, magic, hearth and home.

Would the gnolls have a death god or psychopomp of their own, or do they lack any strong belief regarding what happens when they die? Would they associate any of their beliefs with natural or astronomical phenomena, or has living under the thumb of dark magicians pretty much destroyed all expectation of the world working in any sort of "natural" way?

Hmm... good question. I mean, they kind of know that the hutaakans made them by melding lesser demonic spirits to hyneas, and they definitely know that the hutaakans raise their bodies to serve as zombie laborers, so... I don't know. Do you think it makes sense that they'd have a death god of their own?

If that's the case, probably not. Given they have no reason to think of their existence as anything but an extension of jackal magic, attaching metaphysical meaning to the end of that existence probably isn't very common. Then again, exposure to outside faiths or philosophies might make them question that. How did worship of the two gnoll divinities begin?

Shouldn’t this thread be on /trash/

In a nutshell? Emulation.

The Hutaakans have a "Mother Goddess", a deity that they believe directly looks out for them, supports them and cherishes them.

Gnolls, however, are NOT her children, and are not allowed to worship her (the others in the Hutaakan pantheon are fair-game). So, the gnolls secretly went looking for their own protectors.

She Who Fights and He Who Thinks are the spirits who answered them; the first gnolls, the ancestors of them all, the literal and spiritual mother and father created when the hutaakans first wove their creations into being.

That gives gnolls a sense of comfort, so they keep their ancestor-deities' worship a secret. It's one of the things that has given them the strength to begin rising up against their makers en masse, because they know they have greater beings who do love and cherish them, and they do not need the hutaakans. In their theology, the hutaakans merely midwifed their race into existence, but it is the Holy Ancestors who are their true parents and who command their true loyalty.

Make sense?

The fact that playable beastfolk in D&D alone goes all the way back to Basic (Gnolls in Orcs of Thar, lizardfolk/gatorfolk/caimanfolk/lupins/catfolk/phanatons in Dragon, sphinxes in Top Ballista, etc) suggests that, no, beastfolk have every right to be on Veeky Forums.

Yeah, I'd say so. Though if they actually do ascribe their existence to ancestor spirits, with dark magic simply being part of the process, I suppose it would make sense for them to have a psychopomp after all.

Hmm, when you put it like that, it does make a lot of sense. Thanks a lot! Hmm... maybe they govern Death and Fire, since the usual gnoll practice is to cook their deceased's body and then devour it bones and all to help the deceased's spirit be reincarnated and to ensure the hutaakans can't reanimate it?

Don't know that this thread will make it through the night, but want to clarify my two main issues here:

1: Missing Roles - Are there "niches" in the pantheon that could be filled, ala the suggestion earlier for a gnollish death god?

2: Names - I'm absolutely awful with names. Suggestions for better names much appreciated.

bump

Fire in general might be stepping on the thinker's portfolio a bit, what with the hearth thing. Might be better to specify the kind of fire. In keeping with the theme you seem to have going, maybe gnolls would call it "One Who Waits" or something similar?

As for the jackal gods, it really depends on the kind of things that happen in their society and their territory. You've got gods for feasting, drug-induced ecstasy, general pleasure and revelry, and the various elements presumably used to actually support their society-slavery, illusions, manipulation of living tissue, medicine to survive the horrible things they do to themselves and others, all that stuff. The question of whether or not there's anything missing seems like it depends on whether there's any element of their society that their faith doesn't cover.

I don't play Magic. What's their deal?

Hmm... I can't think of anything the Hutaakans might be missing in terms of gods, myself. And thanks; the One Who Waits sounds like a good idea. Appreciate your help.

Basically, Magic's Gorgons have scaly skin, fangs, serpentine eyes, snake tails for hair instead of the normal snake heads/bodies, and on Theros, they have the lower bodies of giant snakes, like the iconic Lamia.

I think they mean from a (non-fetishy) design point of view even beastfolk are better than monster girls, heck at least beastfolk DO look monster-ish, you can even call them mutants if you want, try to say the same about little girls with horns glued in, you can't, this is my humble subjective opinion nobody cares about, of course.

>the reptilian race appears
>they're evil

Maybe if they didn't kidnap people's girlfriends all the time, people wouldn't think they were.

Bumping this afore I leave for the morning. Random question; what do anons think of foxfolk in the vein of Vistani - nomads who travel the land in exotic carriages, using a combination of sorcery, showmanship and petty thievery to survive?

Is this a valid beastfolk race?

There's no particular reason for it not to be. Though like the Vistani, plenty of people won't be happy to have them around.

They're what you'd expect. Snake-haired bitches who turn you to stone. Sometimes their hair is segmented tentacles instead of snakes.

What beastfolk race do you like the least, Veeky Forums? Why?

Are we talking specific, canon beastfolk races, or just general ideas?

If the former, Warhammer's Beastmen. They've got absolutely nothing going for them - they're literally an entire jobber subfaction for Chaos, and can't even handle being a faction of their own. They exist only to tear down, destroy and defile everything that exists, and are literally embodiments of the worst aspects of Chaos lore.

In general? ...Hard to say, but, probably birdfolk. I just don't find them very interesting as a general rule. The Rito in LoZ: Breath of the Wild are pretty bland.

Beastfolk is like calling them niggers.

At least call them BeastMEN.

I'm really not sure how I feel about Spelljammer's Giff, personally. They're a stupid, STUPID race of British blowhard gunpowder-obsessed hippo men... and yet, at the same time, they're so ridiculously campy they have a certain charm.

It's like thousands of beastfolk feminists were suddenly triggered, their voices silenced.

On topic: what does Veeky Forums think of beastfolk with needles or spines?
Cool? Impractical? Should it have stats impact or just appearance?

Tabaxi from 5e. Because they are... does anyone actually remember anything interesting about them?

>Here are some cat people. They live in a faraway jungle and wander sometimes. They like being comfortable.

Aren't they occasionally menaced by super-powered, demonic tabaxi "lords" who claim dominion over them?

...