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TrashCat
2009-04-22, 12:55 AM
So WOTC publishes all these nice books and "Ecology of ___" supplements that describe D&D's various races and peoples. But although these cover a lot of the big important stuff (politics, religion, history) it leaves to your imagination most of the minor everyday things that makes real cultures so rich. Think of all the stuff you'd leave out if you took a real-world culture and condensed it into an entry for the PH or MM.

This is a thread for all the little extra "facts" you've accumulated in your head through role-playing. I'm not looking for your house-ruled alternatives to official fluff, or for you to offer up entire histories/ societies you have made up (maybe a different thread). I'm just looking for random bits of detail that help give these races an extra layer of texture on top of the official fluff. I've only ever played 4E D&D, so that's the context I'm coming from, but you're welcome to offer examples inspired by other editions (just say which one).

In our campaign, I play a 4E wind genasi. Most of my examples from playing him came about by accident..... I didn't set out to invent random racial fluff, they just sort of occurred to me (often after the fact).

For instance.... from his backstory, my character was travelling with a couple other wind genasi before joining up with the party. These other genasi died of the plague (plague features pretty heavily in our setting), and I had a sentence about him going off to the highest hill in the area to bury them. It later occurred to me that cremation would probably be more aesthetically and spiritually pleasing than burial for a wind genasi. I quietly went back and swapped "buried" for "cremated." That got me thinking about how genasi conduct funerals in general. Fire genasi would also favor cremation, probably, and water genasi might do an over-the-waterfalls type thing like they did for Boromir in LOTR. Earth genasi would probably still prefer burial, though.

Similarly, the first night we made camp during the campaign, I assumed my character used a bedroll like everyone else. I've since decided that he sleeps in a camping hammock instead. In fact, he prefers hammocks to normal furniture in general, even if we're staying in a city.

The only time I've come up with one of these factoids on purpose was when I was brainstorming his background and family history. "Ecology of the Genasi" makes it sound like wind genasi are restless types who don't like to settle down. Which is fine if you're an adventurer, but most people aren't. What kind of day-job would such people gravitate towards? Once I thought about it, the answer was obvious. Sailor.

My last example isn't exactly a cultural quirk, but I'm including it anyway. I've decided that my wind genasi character is mildly claustrophobic. This should be fun when our party does the inevitable dungeon crawl. :smalltongue:

chiasaur11
2009-04-22, 01:03 AM
Elves are neurotic that other races will find out about their race's incredibly slow rate of advancement, and will do anything to ward off the inevitable discussion of it.

Kobolds lay traps pretty much anywhere they settle down for more than a night due to sheer force of habit. Needless to say, this is rather awkward for houseguests.

averagejoe
2009-04-22, 01:13 AM
I tend to look at this from a species/developmental point of view. For example, bears are famous for that whole "mother bear getting pissed off if you go near her cubs," thing, so I had the idea that orcs could have the same thing. So, in orc culture, physical contact is treated with indifference for the most part, but being allowed to approach a mother orc's young is a sign of intimacy. This also means that orcs have little to know concept of personal space.

Or, another example, I've redone goblins as arboreal scavengers because the illustration in the 3.5 monster manual looks kind of like a monkey to me. Since they're essentially prey-creatures, they have no concept of "cowardice" or "bravery," but instead their society thinks highly of things like the ability to run/evade, and those who stay and fight threats are often thought of as stupid/boorish.

Fishy
2009-04-22, 01:44 AM
Unless Genasi ships are vastly different from human ships, sailing is a terrible job for someone with claustrophobia. You have to sleep below decks, and space is at a premium, with nearly all of it being used for the hold. Ceilings are low, bunks are tiny.

I'd go with some sort of traveling merchant caravan thing, gives you the option of spreading out when you make camp for the night.

Tempest Fennac
2009-04-22, 01:55 AM
I tend to have Gnolls as matriarchal due to how they are based off hyenas with them being likely to worship Kord or Sharess if they aren't evil (I ignore listed alignments and I thought those dieties were a good match for a hedonistic race which relies on physical toughness and strength over social skills or intelligence). I also tend to have Kobolds as generally being sadistic towards people who have hurt them (it would only be evil Kobolds who would want to hurt people who hadn't done anything to provoke it).

TrashCat
2009-04-22, 07:33 AM
Unless Genasi ships are vastly different from human ships, sailing is a terrible job for someone with claustrophobia. You have to sleep below decks, and space is at a premium, with nearly all of it being used for the hold. Ceilings are low, bunks are tiny.



Good point. However, my guy's claustrophobia isn't debilitating, and it applies more to dungeons and underground spaces. In a ship, you can still sense the activity of the elements not far away, as opposed to a mine shaft where there's miles of stone between you and the surface. Anyway, screw convention... who says they can't sleep above deck? :smallwink: They have a racial resistance to cold.

If it still bothers you, notice I say that it's a personal quirk (albeit racially inspired) rather than a cultural one. I never said they're ALL claustrophobic.