So, long story short, I'm trying to "write a setting", fleshing out my own D&D 5e fantasy world in fairly extensive detail, and I'm trying to come up with races for it. Is it Veeky Forums appropriate to ask for help here?
The setting itself is a Dieselpunk Magitek Pulp Fantasy world, with Eberron, Nentir Vale and perhaps a dash of Warhammer Fantasy in the mix. So far, I've got the following races:
Main Continent: * Humans * Minotaurs - Religiously motivated, disciplined, honorable warrior race. * Gnomes - Divided into Cogsoul (magitek mad scientist) and Wildheart (nature sprite) subraces. * Rabbitfolk - Midwestern Settler Themed, replace halflings as the "plucky little underdog race", pseudo-druidic matriarchal theocracy. * Hobgoblins - Kaiserreich-themed invaders from another continent, dug into their holdings, cut off from the motherland, and adapting to the situation. Magitek "theme" is basically the Nazis from Wolfenstein The New Order/Colossus.
Well that is quite the list of adjectives. I would suggest trying /wbg/. Also I'm not clear what exactly you are asking for help with
Levi Nguyen
Figured I'd add other races in a seperate post for better clarity...
The Moon: * Moon Elves - Dying but proud descendants of the lost elven empire, heavily inspired by Craftworld Iyanden. * Wraithborn - Warforged-esque PC constructs spontaneously kindled to life by the soul-shards of hundreds of stillborn elven babies.
Uberwald Region (continent? Undecided which): * Dhampirs - Mutable race of humans with vampire ancestry, courtesy of a reign by hedonistic vampire-kings/queens. * Vryloka - Human worshipers of the vampire "gods" who turned themselves into living vampires to try and gain their power; everybody hates them. * Gnomeferatu - A failed attempt at infecting gnomes with vampirism, or the natural result of gnome studying necromancy, depending on who you ask. * Ghuls - Humans who mutated into a ghoul-like state as a result of a terrible famine that saw widespread cannibalism. * Fetches - Half-ghosts created by the many, many hauntings in the region. * Mortif - Tiefling-esque humanoids literally born to necromancy.
Darkest Continent: * Hutaakans: Hedonistic warlock-priest jackalfolk who worship dark daemon-gods. * Gnolls: Fiend-touched hyenafolk created by the hutaakans as warrior-slaves, currently in the middle of uprising against their masters. * Gorgons: Mad race of serpent-haired, snake-like humans born from fallen elves and the dreaming souls of lost dragons. * Sun Elves: Warlike and barbaric race of dusky elven amazons who reproduce through alchemy.
Other Races: * Ratfolk - Benevolent but anarchistic scavenger-punk rats who originated on the hobgoblin homeland, but have spread from there.
I've got a rough world map beyond what I've said and a handful of thoughts, but I figure I've said enough for now?
Oliver Morris
It's in the first line; I'm trying to come up with better ideas for the local races, which includes filling out niches and tweaking fluff.
For example, the current list is rather beastfolk-heavy, so I'm wanting to add some more humanoids in particular.
I've also got some ideas about including an "artificial human" race inspired by 1 part Warforged, 1 part the Androids of Golarion, and 1 part NieR: Automata, so just finding out if the end-result is believable would be a huge help.
Aiden Sanders
do you have a map?
Ethan Baker
>dieselpunk You better include the !not Prussian empire
Zachary Morris
Sadly, no, I don't. I couldn't draw if my life depended on it.
I do know what continents are on this world, though, at least so far:
You've got the main continent, slap-bang in the middle, divided into various provinces.
You've got the not!Africa to the west.
To the east, you've got a not!Australia (ratfolk country) and, beyond that, you've got the not!Prussia where the hobgoblins came from.
There's also a not!Orient that I'm thinking of putting to the north-east, and also the surface of the Moon.
Hobgoblins are not!Prussians, with a touch of brutalism in their magitek (think Orkz; heavy slabs of metal, belching smoke, spewing flames, ugly but functional). They ride motorized monocycles (think Wolfenstein New Colossus), carry big guns, and conquered their own continent entirely before trying to invade this one, which is why the humans/gnomes/minotaurs/rabbitfolk all banded together for self-preservation.
Currently debating whether or not to give them goblin serfs and/or gremlins as "mad scientist minions".
Jackson Flores
Something that I always think helps when worldbuilding is having a creation story, it can flesh out races, gods, the world in general while also being something that a lot of GMs over-look
Angel Green
Yeah, I've not really settled on a creation story so far. I have a pretty vague timeline of the setting in general... would it help if I outlined that?
Adrian Ramirez
Just going to try this once to bump this because, hey, I figured it'd be at least a laugh to see what Veeky Forums thought of the race concepts.
Hunter Gonzalez
If this thread is up when I get back, I can elaborate more on the races that I have planned out if anons want. Really, I just want to show off what I have and hear what people think of, say, the Moon Elves or the Hobgoblins or whatever.
Bentley Peterson
So it looks like you’ve got a pretty detailed start. Can you go into more on the main race your PCs will interact with. Just looking at the once sentence blurb on them they seem fine but I don’t know what kind of critique to give you based on that
Joshua Ramirez
You seem to have plenty of "races" already, although I think it's a pity you lack an android race in dieselpunk style.
-The ghuls could have a frankstein theme, being able to attach limbs and organs of other people in them. An upside to their sorry state and also makes them more appealing. Consider gipsy-like things such as nomadism. Having parts of their own dead could be mixed into some ancestor cult which worships the Great Ghul itself as a "god".
-Do the rabbitfolk create/maintain megaliths? Do they use weird acoustic magic to turn said megaliths into magical underground radar network which track heart-beating creatures in their domains? Does this makes them obssessed with security and hostile for undead? Do they search the heartbeats of Mother Earth herself? Are those beats related to earthquakes or do rabbitfolk also use megaliths as geographic acunpuncture?
-Consider making this more WWI themed than WWII, okay? No clear evil side, the clash of optimist zeitgeists against the industrialized death toll, urbanization vs rural life etc etc etc.
-Seeking out retrofuturist stuff might give you ideas.
>Moon elves and wraithborn Got me curious. Make me think of crystals as proeminent in their technology/architecture/equipment. Is, say, moon'quartz a thing?
>Uberwald Region (continent? Undecided which): Make it a region, see no reason to make it as big as a continent. Also, why concentrate the necro-like races in one place? Is there a reason? There should be.
>handful of thoughts Share them, unless you're very afraid of being laughed at.
Josiah Wilson
Wow, thank you both for asking. I'll try to explain, but I'm not entirely sure what you need to know...
>Humans: >>Basically the Jack of All Trades race. >>Major social glue holding the republic of races together. >>Innovative and inventive; show them how something's done and they'll want to prove they can figure out how to do it better. >>Strong cultural "setters".
>Minotaurs >>Had an empire, once, but lost it due to demon-cults that (they say) caused the gods to smite their island-nation in disgust. >>Shun the temptations of the "Beast Within", valuing civility, discipline, courage and honor. >>Labyrinthine theme, ala 4e Minotaurs; the Labyrinth is key to their racial philosophy. >>Contemplation. Vigilance. Reflection. These are the three sacred tenets of their religion. >>Typical minotaur PC is a cleric or a paladin.
>Cogsoul Gnomes: >>The "mad scientist" race. Literally a loose affiliation of little magitek artificer fey united by their shared love of "Science!". >>These guys invent the crazy tech. >>They are NOT the comic relief race. >>Think "Wolfenstein's Totenkopf", not "Krynn's Tinker Gnomes". >>Society is technically based on "rulership by the smartest", but they're not the most cooperative of races.
>Wildsoul Gnomes >>Gnomes who embraced Nature instead of Science. >>Physically and mystically adapted for different regions; for example, Forest Gnomes are illusion-weaving assassins, Water Gnomes are amphibious, etc. >>The "low-tech" race, pursuing a more tribal existence. >>Protect nature, but don't play it nice; "Nature Red in Tooth & Claw" is their philosophy.
>Rabbitfolk >>Midwestern Settler themed, roughly. >>Males hold the open power, females really run the show, due to being the majority of the priests and, in particular, their chief gods being female. >>Inhabit the great eastern prairies and grasslands. >>Technically the setting's halfling equivalents. >>Invented guns, considered the best damn scouts and riflemen around.
Jayden King
Shut up newfag
Easton Reyes
>Hobgoblins >>Kaiserreich theme, with a dash of Nazis >>Not monolithically evil; you can play a Hobgoblin PC who has left the Conquered Lands, but you'll get the stink-eye from the locals until you prove yourself, ala Half-Orc in vanilla D&D. >>Proud, militaristic, imperialistic: believe themselves the master race and out to prove it by conquering the world. >>Very strict social roles; men are soldiers, women are housemakers, and exceptions are literally that, exceptional. >>Brutalist theme to their technology; the uglier and harsher it looks, the more a hobgoblin thinks of it. >>Very, very big on fire, smoke and noise, which are synonymous with "strength". These guys invented the flamethrower, the chainsword, the shotgun and the gatling gun. >>Arrogance is their biggest downfall. >>Don't like "overt" magic much, which is actually another big impairment to them. The cogsoul gnomes make not!Warforged to pad out the Republic's armies and the humans create weather-controlling airships, the hobgoblins just try to build even bigger guns. >>Actually two distinct kinds of hobgoblin; those who actually live on "The Mainland", who've gone partially native, and the "Oldschool" hobgobs from the Home Country, who are a lot more inflexible.
Jose Baker
>Moonelves Yep, crystals and necromancy are kind of their "things". They also feature things like dirgeblades (swords magically steeped in grief and sorrow until they function with extra nasty effectiveness) and elves who, as the last living representative of their clans, are dedicated to trying to go out in the biggest blaze of glory they can, Slayer style (although there are a few very select ways to honorably exit that lifestyle).
>Haunted Land Basically, it's supposed to be this one place that has just suffered necromantic disaster after disaster - necromancer emperors, vampire noble dynasties, etc - until the whole country is literally soaking in necrotic energy, ala Sylvania.
>Handful of thoughts Not much to really say, honestly. Mostly: * I was thinking of including regular goblins as a put-upon slave-race used by the hobgoblins as their main laborers. * Gremlins are the "artificer caste" of the hobgoblin empire, having evolved into mad scientist-sorcerers. * Thinking of including clanky neo-Warforged made by the cogsoul gnomes as their primary labor bots, then granted freedom when it turned out that, whoops, the gnomes actually made them sapient. * Thinking of including some more human-looking droid-folk (Golarion's Androids meets NieR), an attempt by humanity to do the gnomes better. * The aforementioned Moon Elven constructs kindled to life with the soul-shards of stillborn elf babies.
Jordan Gomez
I'd actually argue that frankensteinian race makes more sense for a race that's not half-ghoul, as it's a pretty different theme... but it's also a really strong one, so much thanks for that!
I hadn't considered that for the rabbitfolk... that could be an interesting quirk...
And yeah, I was leaning more towards WW1. Like I said, the basic idea was "Eberron with a dash of grimbright and a booster shot from Wolfenstein 2010s".
Carter Young
Bumping this to see if it'll survive the night, because I was pleasantly surprised by the fact anons actually asked me questions about this and offered some ideas.
Liking the moonelves so far. Do they have spaceships?
So the haunted land it's also an extremely unlucky one. One of the races could have the power to temporarily curse others as to reflect that.
And the gnomes reminded me of the asura of Guild Wars, so there's another source of ideas: wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Asura
The human-humanoid-good-looking looking droids could be an gnomish attempt to sell them to other races. It sounded weird that humans would be better at something which it's suposed to be the best trace of a race, ya know?
You're welcome!
It was kind of a stream-of-consciousness fueled by caffeine, take it or leave it. But it distinguishes them, right?
Great to read that.
Isaac Perry
Appreciate the input.
No, the moon-elves don't have space ships; they're stuck on the moon and can travel between it and the planet below by way of ancient artificial portals created by their ancestors, the Ur-Elven Empire.
Hmm... not a bad idea. And you definitely have a point...or, perhaps the neo-Androids are the "Clankers" attempt at producing a new generation of themselves, refining the techniques used to make themselves?
Or maybe they just don't work for the setting at all...
Anthony Rodriguez
The cogsoul gnomes stand out as a real doorway to creative ideas. They inventing new stuff which is kind of the core reason people like to play your type of setting. I would definitely have a list of a few great inventions that are widely used as well as some stuff in the experimental phase. You know, still tends to blow up and kill the pilot half the time type things. It's also not unreasonable that they might contract out the less intelligent races for some of the more dangerous bits of their work.
Josiah Bailey
Thanks for the tip. Yeah, I actually was planning on making the Cogsouls be divided between eight "Guilds", based on the different "Scientific" principles that serve as power sets in Genius: The Transgression.
Ryder Evans
Actually, I must be honest, I am kind of having a bit of trouble figuring out how the eight guilds actually make sense functioning on their own... maybe I should try redesigning guilds from scratch?
Big thing here, though, is that whilst the Cogsouls might be "mad", they are not and should never be *incompetent*. These are NOT Krynn's bungling inventor tinker gnomes.
Blake Brown
Guilds could work, I dunno that reference but again I would come up with some specific inventions maybe one for each group. Sort of their claim to fame.
What machines, flying ships, or automatons will be in your setting? I guess gunpowder, rifling and all that will be a thing?
Robert Thompson
The base-level "tech" is Eberron, which is about as far as I've thought.
Airships are the new hotness, with different factions trying to develop them; the majority use permanized levitation spells or variants of Tenser's Floating Disk, but these are slow and cumbersome. Sleeker models propelled by captured elementals are being designed, but they haven't removed all of the bugs yet. Like keeping the ship's power source from killing everybody aboard.
Motors are definitely in use. Tractors and crude Model-T Ford type cars exist, but are still mostly a luxury. The hobgoblins use monocycles out of Wolfenstein 2.
Rifled guns are a thing in this setting. The rabbitfolk (Haffuns) invented the first guns using botany of all things.
Trains are a thing, although they don't reach everywhere just yet, and the fighting over right of way is one of the "little wars" of the setting.
Of course we have the not!Warforged, evolved from gnomish heavy labor machinery.
Hmm... not actually sure how to develop this aspect of the setting...
Gabriel Morales
Oh, and here's the current outline ofthe Guilds in my notebook:
The eight Guilds are the Guild of Discovery (Apokalypsi), the Guild of Independence (Automata), the Guild of Control (Epikrato), the Guild of Restoration (Exelixi), the Guild of Destruction (Katastrofi), the Guild of Transformation (Metaptropi), the Guild of Protection (Prostasia) and the Guild of Travel (Skafoi).
