What do you guys think about elephants as a fantasy race? Not like, elephant-people, just straight up elephants. I'm pondering some worldbuilding thoughts.
So, I wanted elephants as well as horses as cavalry, mostly as a pseudo-Indian rule of cool thing. But I got to thinking, we've never really domesticated elephants, just tamed them with a lot of force. I have to imagine druidic empathic abilities and speak with animals and the like might open up some doors, especially given how incredibly smart they are. But if you have to actually talk them into helping you, suddenly you're talking about them as characters. What role do they have in these societies?
I'm thinking, you know, maybe certain elephant groups offer warriors to druidic-aligned and elven kings or something, so that keeps that royal prestige angle going on elephants. Can elephants cast spells, though? How would you balance them as PCs? Should I even try?
Do you remember that one, book? Movie? Show? Dinosaur Island, or something? Where people and dinosaurs live alongside each other?
Like that.
Nicholas Jones
What about Dolphins, octopi, I mean can you play other animals then, like foxes, trash pandas, or maybe the salty murder log?
Aaron Moore
I dunno, the idea of elephants being a race give me flashbacks to shit new player trying to demand I let them play awakened wolves.
Gabriel Young
Alright, let me tell you. I had the most shitty player who did this. He absolutely demanded he play an awakened wolf named shadow. And this kid was edgy as fuck. I can green text stories?
Gavin Cox
Yeah it sounds cool I don’t see why not. It’s not drastically different than races of giants
There is that one sci-fi novel about a herd of space elephants invading Earth. I forget the name.
Leo Martin
Niven's Footfall?
Jaxson Smith
>Sit down for D&D starting one off for funzies. >Charlie makes a necromancer. >Kieth crafts a barbarian. >Jordan wills into existence a monk. >Imokwiththispartybalancesofar.png >So david, are you going to make your typical elven ranger, or human samurai? >Looks of skepticism from the black imperialist nazi. >The most horrifying sounds fly out of his mouth.
"can I make an awakened animal."
>I give him the thousand yard stare. Plsno.ptsd >Makes one anyways. >Initiate game about crashing a high society event and basically robin hood. >Party gets wind of fox hunt. >Dis gun b gud >Party ensues hunting the sentient wolf, and I didn't even have to prompt them.
It was a good day.
Jaxon Watson
I actually did octopodes in the last game I ran, but that's because they were actually in the canonical game (Numenera). I generally think more alien critters like that make things a little more interesting; a raccoon doesn't seem all that different from a primate to me psychologically, although I'm far from an expert. But if you're a critter with a ganglionic, distributed nervous system that communicates with chromatophores and sees light polarization, you're in kind of a different world.
Hudson Thomas
I like the idea, but giving players control of them is giving me nam style flashbacks to having to deal with a guy who thought he was a dog
>Running horror game. >Thatguy David is there. >Tell him that the prompt is its a shipwreck on a plagued island that needs help. >He makes an actual character. Its a monk. >My god, everyone made real characters, no edge, no cliches! >First town, encounter the faceless horde. Basically zombie without eyes/noses but have jaws. >Characters flip out, fight and manage to make it to school house. >Barricade themselves inside, thinking its safe. >Thatguy fucks off into the school building.
Keep in mind, everyone else is actually role playing.
>Kids have faceless horror plague. >David straight up murder hobos a bunch of fucking kids. >Party is freaking out at him. >Calm party, get back to action, siege the school. >End up in basement. There is a priest. Lazarus, an npc. >Tells them cure is the church, its a holy symbol.
>Get to church find out holy symbol is stolen, caster escaped into catacombs. >Crucified priest on cross. >David says we leave him. >Mothingfuckingkingofdrama.fuckyou >Kieth, Jordan, and our guest Kimberly decide helping him down is the best idea. >Fucking good, it was a disguised flesh golem. >Thatguy gets a victory, because his character wasn't bad, honestly. >In catacombs, music mix in background plays dead monks. >Dis gun B gud... again. >trap closes on middle marching order, who is David. >Trapped in a box filling with water.Keep in mind this was planned before hand, the trap, not him being in the middle. >Thatguy dies. >To be honest, most of the party died... One guy made it out with no cure.
Lucas Cruz
Do you really want straight-up elephants? Or do you want romanticized wise-and-intelligent elephants, in the same way that a lot of fantasy has romanticized wise-and-intelligent horses or other mounts? Or are you coming into this with a bit of a scifi mind and thinking, "These are elephants, but they have been interacting and communicating with humans for many generations, they have adapted and developed inter-species social skills to the point where people don't see them as animals anymore"?
Connor Sullivan
It sounds fucking cool and promising. I'm imagining nomad herds offering themselves as a workforce to augment both labor and war in exchange for food, trinkets, booze and whatnot. They could be their own caste, the versatile one, fit for labor, philosophy, ruling and war.
But let's face it, only dwarf elephants would work as PC races.
OP here. You are asking very good questions and I'm honestly not sure. I could totally see taking this in a Blue Rose mystic psychic animal direction, but I could also see that third option, thinking, you know, they still live in their own herds and do their own elephant thing, but have enough of a rapport with groups who've Speak With Animalsed them on the regular to be able to interact transactionally and socially. To be honest I kind of want to hear what you guys think would be coolest.
Hudson Reed
Well, if I did em as PCs, I feel like I'd have to do some kind of Level Equivalent or racial levels crap. I don't think it'd be impossible, but it seems like a lot of fucking work. I'm leaning towards keeping them as NPCs.
Bentley Richardson
I think psychic animals would be a bit of a cop out. It'd be really interesting to imagine how elephants might work as a newly intelligent/uplifted race: maybe one day there's a super smart elephant born who is able to teach others how to make more advanced tools. How would the elephants learn to communicate with humans? Over generations do they first discover knowledge-sharing internally, then use that generational knowledge to eventually discover writing and human language meanings? How do they construct more and more advanced tools to work with and enhance their (limited vs. hands/thumbs) bodies? Could be really cool if there is an interesting history of how these animals developed and how they solve the realistic problems they'd face gaining intelligence.
Colton Garcia
Ritual magic only by nature, and the ability to use magic items without verbal components to their use. Perhaps they rely on mankind partly for the convenience? Humans can farm their food, fit their armor, and secure the safety of their children
Isaiah Morgan
I always wanted to do this, maybe not specifically a wolf, but some kind of animal. It seems like it would be an interesting idea to explore and in a D&D world with animal companions and shit, it hardly seems unreasonable.
Josiah Williams
I think sign language and keepin them npcs just to keep them well, yaknow, elephants
Leo Rogers
Ran a campaign with a displacer beast and a halfling thief once. Sometimes things just work out
Kayden Carter
My man!
Also my man!
Also I recall a builder/quest a good while back with elephant-men (it went dark very fast), was pretty good
I always liked the idea of cows once being sentient, generous educators to the lower conscious beings of the realm but backed the losing side of some great cosmic war over what secrets should be imparted to lesser beings like humans and were cursed into their current lowly forms as a final insult, doomed to rely upon the charity and good nature of those they sought to teach. If mankind is so worthy of their teachings, surely they shall be in good care.
If you want elephants, you could do something like an old Middle Eastern-style kingdom pissed off a power Djinn that cursed his people top be elephants forever. And maybe camels too.
