Fantasy Setting

[warlock1971]

During the course of development of a fantasy setting, I have come up with a few "flavour" issues.

I am not a fan of gnomes and halflings as player races, however, I wouldn't mind a short race that is less well known but I am not that keen on anthropomorphic animals. Can anyone suggest a good alternative?

The world is vanilla fantasy but I do have a somewhat darker bent in mind. I don't necessarily require there be a small human-like race available,perhaps using goblins or ratmen may be preferable.

 

[strega]

Fae

 

[warlock1971]

Fae

Do you mean in the same vein as D&D Eladrin or Pixies and Dryads, etc?

 

[Da Boss]

Mogwi and Gremlins (if you feed them after midnight) - could be quite a fun addition to a world?

 

[Olaus Petrus]

In many darker fantasy settings (like Clark Ashton Smith's Hyberborean and Zothique cycles or Karl Edward Wagner's Kane stories) humans are only playable race. But if you use standard fantasy races and want some sort of horror theme, then perhaps lycanthropes, undeads or ogres could be suitable player races. Halfdemons and such are also nice, but you have to remember not to make them too powerful. Some of those could be short, like wererats, small ghoul like undeads etc. And even demons and halfdemons can be small imp like creatures.

And when it comes to elves and fairies, in darker settings those could be similar with fair folk of mythological stories rather than Tolkien elves. Their nature seems to be always otherworldly and magical, but quite often they mean ill to humans.

 

[Dan True]

Redcaps from Irish mythology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redcap

- Dan

 

[rust]

Can anyone suggest a good alternative?

This could be some inspiration, especially if you
remove the weirdest elements:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictsies

 

[JP42]

Can anyone suggest a good alternative?

This could be some inspiration, especially if you
remove the weirdest elements:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictsies

Truly diabolical. I like it!

 

[strega]

When I say Fae I mean Fae not some crappy pseudo Tolkienish races. Read something like The Broken Sword or The Great God Pan for an insight on what Fae can be.

 

[Da Boss]

Another possibility is the Nezumi (Ratmen) from Legend of the Five Rings - interesting race and depending on the cultures of your world could be be a good race to include and play in.

of course they are not as dark as GW's Skaven (ratmen) if you want a really unpleasent race.................

 

[warlock1971]

Another possibility is the Nezumi (Ratmen) from Legend of the Five Rings - interesting race and depending on the cultures of your world could be be a good race to include and play in.

of course they are not as dark as GW's Skaven (ratmen) if you want a really unpleasent race.................

Thanks for all the suggestions guys. So Skaven, what makes them so dark? I do like the idea of "Ratmen" as an alternative to halflings

 

[Olaus Petrus]

I don't know about Skaven, but Fritz Leiber's "The Swords of Lankhmar" and it's intelligent rats are good inspiration for more sinister rat creatures. In this story they plot against the humans and try to conquer Lankhmar. Rat lady Hisvet even takes humanoid form and manages to seduce Gray Mouser inorder to advance her own plans.

 

[warlock1971]

The main races I have incorporated as Player Races so far are:

Dwarves that are strong in Engineering, Sorcery and Alchemy; Elves that are perhaps more akin to D&D Wood Elves, with a Matriarchal society and a Sun-worshiping religion; Really keen to incorporate some sort of Ratmen in to the setting as well as a kind of Cat People/Rakshasa ...

I am still toying with the idea of Centaur and Minotaur as player races.

 

[warlock1971]

And a few types of Human too

 

[Halfbat]

Duck!

Less anthropomorphic than you may think.

 

[warlock1971]

Duck!

Less anthropomorphic than you may think.

Thanks, but I fear the belong in Glorantha

 

[Olaus Petrus]

Minotaurs could make a great player race (at least for those who love to play as warriors) in a setting where people don't see them as maiden eating monsters, but generally speaking human/animal hybrids are good player races as long as they are humanoids.

Problem with centaurs is the shape of their body, because having the lower body of a horse makes it difficult to enter into many locations and they can't climb like humans etc. This makes places like mountains and caves difficult to them and breaking and entering into rich merchant prince's house should be very challenging for centaur, especially if party has to use the roof access. While it's possible to play as them, some people get bored if they can't participate into all the action.

Personally I recently used cynocephali (men with dog's head) and other similar creatures as monsters in a recent adventure. In my adventure (which was loosely based on the setting in Michael Moorcock's Von Bek novel "The War Hound and the World's Pain") they were originally human, but Chaos had corrupted them into monsters who served the lords of Hell. In another sword & sorcery horror scenario I used ancient pre-human race of reptilian men who worshipped Great Old Ones as monsters, but naturally beastmen and snakemen don't have to be just chaotic monsters in your campaign setting and they could be just normal races like Gloranthan newtlings or ducks. (While I have even played as Gloranthan duck, I can't take them seriously as race, because I always keep thinking old Donald Duck cartoons of 1930's and 40's.) But nevertheless be they playable or not, beastmen races are almost always great addition to the campaign.

 

[JP42]

Duck!

Less anthropomorphic than you may think.

Have you seen the brief, subtle allusion to Ducks in the RQ6 rules?

Although halflings are
clearly a human-like
species in most fantasy
settings, this need not
be a hard and fast
depiction. One could
very easily use the
halfling's characteristics
to, for instance,
portray a race of sapient
duck-like people...

 

[Da Boss]

Another possibility is the Nezumi (Ratmen) from Legend of the Five Rings - interesting race and depending on the cultures of your world could be be a good race to include and play in.

of course they are not as dark as GW's Skaven (ratmen) if you want a really unpleasent race.................

Thanks for all the suggestions guys. So Skaven, what makes them so dark? I do like the idea of "Ratmen" as an alternative to halflings

Skaven are IMO GWs best creation:

They are a complex society of Clans - each with its own powerbase (Worship of Chaos, plagues, mad science, Ninjas and powerful warriors) and who hate and fear each other.
They see all other races (and to be fair all other skaven) as food, slaves and rivals - usually at the same time.
They worship a Demon Lord which seeks to destory all other races
They are obessed with Warpstone - raw magic in material form - which is dangerous to touch or even be nearby and which created the Skaven. It sends you mad and warps you physically - skaven are resistant but not immune.
Skaven are constantly scheming and trying to advance - if only to avoid being enslaved, killed or eaten (or all three).
As the GW book on rpging them says - nothing is ever a Skavens fault - there is always someone or something else to blame..........

They make great villians with no redeming features numbers, strange and deadily magic, bizare and dangerous technology (to both sides) and of course Ninjas (Clan Eshin).

Loved playing them in the Mark of Chaos Computer game

 

[warlock1971]

They sound perfect, I'll see if I can do them justice in a Legend setting. Sounds to me that they would be perfectly suited for city campaigns as well.

Someone mentioned the body shape of centaur as being a potential problem and I would have to agree. Initially I hadn't considered the potential problems associated with the race.