PDA

View Full Version : Refluffing the Races



rogueboy
2009-06-05, 01:45 AM
I'm designing a campaign world, and am having some problems with races... I am reflavoring a couple races from the 3.5 PHB, and swapping a few of them out for some others - my goal is to have 1 race based (loosely) on each of the 6 main stats, plus humans. So far, I have a solid basis for humans, a reasonable start on Elves, and an idea for what Halflings, Gnomes, and Shadefolk (new race). Here are the races I have for each of the 6 stats:
Strength - ??
Dexterity - Halflings
Constitution - Dwarves
Intelligence - Elves
Wisdom - Gnomes
Charisma - Shadefolk
Any - Humans

I have a thread here (http://www.enworld.org/forum/plots-places/256063-what-would-society-look-like.html) that is the discussion that led to the flavor I now have for humans (see spoiler). I recently posted (post #30, page 2) posted a summary/write-up for each of the races, which I'm reprinting in the spoiler below. Any ideas, feedback, or constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated. At least for now, I am primarily looking for flavor/fluff, and I will develop the crunch to reflect the fluff once I have it finished.

Humans are a nomadic race, living in tribes in the Whatchamacallit Plains. Warriors in human tribes specialize in mounted ranged combat, favoring a composite bow from the back of large birds which resemble emus. The raptors, called FancyRaptorRaceNameX, are typically about 5 feet tall, and are ridden much as horses are. Each member of the tribe prizes their personal FancyRaptorRaceNameX highly, often placing them in their top few of their (minimal) possessions.

Due to the heat from being in an open environment, human tribes tend to wear lightly-colored, loose-fitting natural fiber (cotton) fabrics, with arms and legs covered. Warriors wear either no armor or very light armor, and metal armor is unheard of. Similarly, metals in general are a scarce commodity among human tribes due to their inability to maintain active forges to make use of the metal.

Humans hunt for themselves, and have renowned wilderness skills. Aided by their nomadic lifestyle, they are respectful of the land and its need to recover after being used for a time. As such, it is rare for a human tribe to remain in one place for more than 2 weeks.

As a whole, humans are somewhat xenophobic. While they will dine and trade with other races, it is unlikely that they will trust anyone without repeated encounters to prove the foreigner's trustworthiness. Despite this innate distrust, humans are infamous traders, traveling the world acquiring things needed elsewhere (the Whatchamacallit Plains cover enough of the world that it is a short [relatively speaking] journey from the edge of the Plains to almost any major settlement). Humans trade using a barter system, as they have no use for coins outside of other races' lands. In addition to exotic goods, human traders are an excellent source of news from the outside world, particularly politically, as they have found that political knowledge is highly valuable to many leaders of major settlements.

Human tribes provide the vast majority of the world's exotic honeys, as they maintain beehives during their travels, using the wide variety of plants they encounter to influence the quality and flavors of the honey they produce. This has the added benefit of pollinating the flowers, which some settlements pay for, especially if they are unable to afford or access magical aid to the pollination of their plants. Many tribes have developed chambered caravans for their beehives, allowing them to control which hives have access to each area's pollen. This allows each tribe to produce several varieties of honey each year. A large portion of the tribal leaders' role is in determining when and where to travel. Missing blooms means the pollens are missed, leading to a poor crop of honey. In a particularly good year, honeys that are as complex and subtle as the best wines are produced, and sell for exorbitant prices.

Magic in the human tribes is of critical importance to their survival. Mages aid in the breeding of FancyRaptorRaceNameX, providing the raptors with more strength, agility, endurance, and other critical factors to their use in war and hunting. Human tribes also maintain several locations with historic importance. Perhaps the most well-known is a cave, somewhere in the Whatchamacallit Plains, where tribal elders bring the greatest warriors of the tribes when they are killed in order to be revived. Little is known about the cave, but many suspect that it is surrounded by natural crystals (perhaps a natural diamond node?) that can amplify magic. The tribal elders maintain the secret of the location of this cave for fear that if it is discovered, the ability to restore great warriors to life will be lost forever.

Gnomes are quite possibly the race that is most in-tune with nature that still has regular interactions with the other, city-dwelling, races. Gnomes have mastered the arts of summoning and protection (abjuration) magic, as well as communicating with forest creatures (Speak with Animals at will, limited to forest creatures).

Halflings, as their name suggests, are small, standing roughly three-and-a-half feet tall, on average. They have an innate connection to birds, and are able to communicate with them using their innate Speak with Avians (as Speak with Animals, but limited to avian species) ability. This ability to communicate with avians allows halflings to gather information that most people believe private. With natural skills allowing them to sneak around effectively and their dexterous tendencies, halflings make excellent hidden informants, particularly in urban settings.

Elves have a focus on the long-term that takes advantage of their natural lifespan and their ability to act slowly and still live to see their actions come to fruition. While gnomes use their talents to protect and nurture the natural world, elves use their talents for divination, transmutation, enchantment, and illusion magic to manipulate the natural world to the plans of the elves. Though elves seem focused on nature, it is truly only an exercise in understanding changes over time and ways to shape them. The image of a sylvan glade is far removed from that of the elven orchards; nature itself is bent to the will of the elven craftsman, and their understandings of the world only garner a greater ability to change it. An elven forest will appear shaped by the hands of time; strange stone formations worn away by channeling water through odd canals, trees in unnatural shapes via pressurization and weighting, and beautifully complex arrangements of plants are all common signs.

Young elves (read: Those whose life has yet to exceed humans born in the same season) are sent out from the community in tight-knit groups known as Groves. They live in small settlements which have been the gathering place of their kind for millennia, learning crafts and the ways of other races. Most humanoids have not met an elder elf, and due to the deep similarity in bloodlines some superstitious peoples believe that elves are actually immortal, though fickle and aloof.

When the grove's members are sent for, they return to live their second lives amongst their own people. It is then that they apply their knowledge and thoughts to their elders. Elven culture trusts its young with a strong voice; elders are usually pushed away from service.

The reason behind this casting out is simple; the elves spread their seeds through their elders. Highly trained and still strong and fecund for several decades after their casting out, elder elves establish new cities and fortresses, serve in militia, and live amongst the other races in quiet solitude. These wise elves are usually well received, but hide their elven appearance for fear of reprisal. Indeed, amongst the humans there is talk of men who live in hermitage who bear strange eyes, and are thought to be the spirits of the land itself.

Shadefolk tend to dwell in areas that other races find uncomfortable, either due to heat or cold (as the Shadefolk feel little discomfort in head or cold, and even that is limited to temperatures well out of the human norm). Clothing worn by these Shadefolk accentuate their otherworldly appearance, which stems from their eyes and skin: upon puberty their eyes take on the look of golden orbs, which set against their skin "like the stars of the highest heaven on a sheet of smooth velvet". Shadefolk who survive their change at puberty (from an appearance that is human but for the lack of a shadow to their otherworldly appearance of adulthood) are natural leaders, fearless and strong. Shadefolk mages find that their energies are different than that of the other races, and often draw inspiration from the stars themselves. While rumors abound about the source of Shadefolk and whether they can reproduce naturally or are deviant births from other races (particularly human), it is generally believed that Shadefolk are able to reproduce. If any non-Shadefolk has given birth to a child with no shadow, the child was abandoned and the preceding pregnancy explained off as a miscarriage or a stillbirth.

This leaves the strong race open (I don't have anything particularly good in mind) and the tough race (dwarves) somewhat undefined. Any comments, questions, ideas, or otherwise would be greatly appreciated.

T.G. Oskar
2009-06-05, 02:22 AM
I'd identify each ability score for what it represents, and get a good grasp at it. The reason is because Gnomes don't seem fit for Wisdom, a trait most common on races more closely intimate with nature.

Strength is mostly a score prized by athletes, warriors, and those with a martial bent. Any race that benefits from having a well-trained military, or which lives to the credo of "the strong cull/lead the weak" will worship Strength. So, this usually goes towards the Orcs, Ogres or Hobgoblins/Bugbears.

Dexterity is the score prized by the nimble, the people that usually run and who usually hide. Halflings are dead on the spot; no other race encompasses agility as well as halflings do, at least in the terms of coming to mind really fast.

Constitution is the score prized for the resistant, for those who endure even the worst of conditions. Again, Dwarf is right on the spot; a race made virtually of stone and metal can't be frail and weak. If you're willing to add other creatures from other places, Warforged and Goliath are also great choices.

Intelligence is the score that prizes logic, analytical thinking and memory. In that regard, while Elves usually value magic, they aren't the race that embodies it. I could say Gnomes, but that's driving them to the tinkering mentality of Dragonlance. Really, the races and creatures that prize intellect are the inhabitants of Mechanus (it's quite odd that a dragon is more intelligent than a creature formed of perfect logic; then again, the game speaks of Dungeons & Dragons, so it makes sense they are the perfect creatures so to speak)

Wisdom is the score that prizes awareness, perspective, transcendental thinking and faith. This is why I don't look at Gnomes as naturally wise, but rather smart enough to survive (a trait mostly inherited from Halflings, the only other race with their size). Elves, on the other hand, live for so long that they gather a veritable amount of Wisdom. Any race that goes for immortality undoubtedly follows the path of Wisdom

Charisma is the force of personality, the force of attraction, and mostly self-esteem at its highest. And for that reason, the Shadefolk (is it the Shadar-Kai?) don't seem to be a proper choice. The only races that come to mind are actually the Aasimar and the Tiefling; ironically, the planetouched races. A Good person with Charisma is the light of the world, inspiring people to follow in their footsteps; an Evil person with Charisma wins people with their sweet lies and their seduction. It comes naturally that those who represent the alignments also become naturally inclined towards this. Changelings and dopplegangers could also apply, but in a different way; they are inherently social creatures, using their guile to survive.

That leaves humans (and dragons) as the one race that represents every score in balance. Humans are the balancing force most of the time, while dragons are the epitome of perfection.

That's just an alternate depiction based upon my general perception. Feel free to use, ignore, steal borrow or otherwise inspire upon my thoughts.

Also, you MAY draw a correlation between the elements (and other concepts) with the scores.

Strength = Force (pretty evident)
Dexterity = Wind, Air (again, pretty evident)
Constitution = Earth and Stone
Intelligence = Mind, the psychic potential
Wisdom = Water (notice how most of the time the relaxing songs and whatnot usually key off water?)]
Charisma = Fire (it burns, it inflames, it enlightens. Mental traits, mental depictions, and usually inclined towards force of personality; fire is masterless and bows only to the strongest will, not the strongest individual)

rogueboy
2009-06-05, 02:43 AM
I'd identify each ability score for what it represents, and get a good grasp at it. The reason is because Gnomes don't seem fit for Wisdom, a trait most common on races more closely intimate with nature.

I'll admit that when I initially wrote the list of stat/race associations, I was unsure of how to 'assign' elves/gnomes to intelligence/wisdom. I can definitely see having those switched - the reason I put them the way I did is that Gnomes (as I've refluffed them) are fairly nature-oriented, and are more druidic than Elves, in that Gnomes interact with nature as it naturally occurs, while Elves manipulate nature and bend it to their will.


Charisma is the force of personality, the force of attraction, and mostly self-esteem at its highest. And for that reason, the Shadefolk (is it the Shadar-Kai?) don't seem to be a proper choice. The only races that come to mind are actually the Aasimar and the Tiefling; ironically, the planetouched races. A Good person with Charisma is the light of the world, inspiring people to follow in their footsteps; an Evil person with Charisma wins people with their sweet lies and their seduction. It comes naturally that those who represent the alignments also become naturally inclined towards this. Changelings and dopplegangers could also apply, but in a different way; they are inherently social creatures, using their guile to survive.

While I had initially thought of using the Shadar-Kai (reflavored a bit from 4e), I have moved away from the Shadar-Kai beyond the association with the death god, and a similar physical appearance. The Shadefolk are not based (beyond what I just mentioned) on any race that I've seen printed.

My goal is not necessarily to take races as written and assigning them to a stat, but to design the fluff for a race (either redoing the fluff for an existing race or designing a new race) that fits with each stat.

Tempest Fennac
2009-06-05, 02:49 AM
My Apefolk homebrew race would probably work for Str: http://forum.mydndgame.com/index.php/topic,191.msg4006.html#msg4006 .

Gnorman
2009-06-05, 03:04 AM
My Apefolk homebrew race would probably work for Str: http://forum.mydndgame.com/index.php/topic,191.msg4006.html#msg4006 .

Or, you know, Half-Orcs.

Coidzor
2009-06-05, 03:05 AM
Or, you know, Half-Orcs.

Or even just "Noble" Orcs like what Warcraft's Orcs have become. ... Could easily do something to separate the Noble Savage Greenskin Orc and the Pig-man murdering rapist epitome of evil Brute Orc into two different species. Possibly associating the always CE variant (back?) in with the goblinoids...

I'm not sure if you were soliciting active ideas for other races... but... this struck me after reading what I had and I got so excited I just had to post it...

Dwarves: The planarly displaced declining civilization. (sort of as opposed to the more usual ancient elven civilization that's in decline due to how slowly they develop anything in comparison with humans/reproduce.) They're tough due to having to be so in order to hang on by their fingernails as they do. Their home material plane came in contact with this one in the form of numerous isolated, temporary gates that mostly occurred underground so that their mining teams didn't even notice that they were going someplace new until the portals shut behind them. As a result, few women even made the initial journey to this planet, much less survived being trapped underground with only a vague idea of how far from the surface they were/getting dumped into the underdark with only mining tools and their wits/cave lore. Forms a disparity between the hard-line conservatives who just want to survive(that is the usual dwarves, except with added in reason for the seclusion of dwarven women and increased importance of the dwarven fertility deity as they're screwing to the utmost to try to increase their declining upon arrival population) and the adventurer-types who want to figure out the magic of this world so that they can find a way back/establish a more permanent gate so they can exploit this land too.

Basically, probably they came across with the bare minimum to come anywhere close to resembling a stable breeding population of women, and they came to this world in isolated pockets so each "Mountain Home" literally can be worlds different based on the difficulties that the initial group faced and how much their initial civilization (whatever you want it to have been, might have it have been drastically different to explain the subspecies) backslid into despotism/fascism.

Possibly originating from a basically completely scientific world so that magic rubs them the wrong way both biologically and mentally except in rarer cases amongst those who've been born on this world.

Depending upon how recent of an arrival you want dwarves to be/how old the world is in general, this can work without really tweaking dwarven aging.

They're hardy survivors not only because that's how they're built but because they've had to be (because anyone else simply didn't hold up and died). And the world literally is littered with dead dwarven fortresses because they either all got killed off by a really hungry troupe of dire apes/bullettes as they were establishing fortifications and exploring this new world or because they died out before making contact with another group of dwarves and they didn't have enough women to make a new generation. Or a more warlike dwarven group nearby killed 'em off for their women/enslaved 'em and abandoned the old fortress or worse-off initial fortresses basically emigrated to fortresses that seemed better off.

Makes 'em a bit grittier than usual since they have real trouble surviving and eking a living but also keeps their conservatism fairly important as well. Though it's possible that somewhere half-dwarven enclaves have been established by some more libertine/desperate dwarves somewhere in attempt to at least have something of the dwarves survive...

...Hell, they could even be basically the equivalent of a planar penal colony. Depending upon the homeworld's knowledge of what it's portal tech/magic/magitek does Any level of offense from thieves and murderers and rapists to those who simply couldn't make rent/accidentally spilt some ceremonial whiskey/were born under an ill mark/inconvenient POWs/some kind of slew of nonviolent offenders during a draconian crackdown to remove all deviants from pure and proper dwarven society.

This variant could have basically two groups, those who hold on to the traditional intolerance of dwarves and just view things a little bit differently , say, these are the "Puritan"/Protestant Moradinites as opposed to the Church of England/Catholic Church to draw a comparison to earth history, but it doesn't have to be a difference in religion, could also be the capitalist/communist/socialist dwarves NOTE: The important thing I'm trying to lay out here is not that they've basically stopped reproducing due to a lack of females, but more that they very strongly feel the fact that societal/civilization level collapse is a real threat to them if not outright extinction, or at least, they feel threat of society collapsing more strongly than others and are acutely aware of how close to extinction anyone is in such a hostile(?) world... gah... I hope I've been coherent.x.x]

Additionally, something to consider is who the citybuilders will be if the elves have the bulk of their civilization in the deep forests (seemingly guarded and shaped by powerful magic so they can't be found) and humans are mostly nomads. Since if the builders of the cities are people like halflings (perhaps held in check/in conflict with the gnomes?), things will be built on a smaller scale...

Or at least it seems like elves don't build cities that others can get to from what you said and the humans don't have the will/ability to establish them (unless you put in more ethnic groups anyway)

Though on the other hand you could have a variant of dwarves that saw the world and decided to teach certain 'lesser' races the tools of Building and Civilization and Law and Order (basically they uplifted species X rather than the more usual interpretation of elves doing it) and maybe Gnomes or Halflings developed conventional agriculture as compared to the Elves, or the Elves gave others agriculture, just that no other races could imitate the skill with which elves turned plants to their purpose.

An important thing in world building can be who gives the gifts/fruits of civilization to others since it's usually...less likely that the races will develop things independently of one another unless they first establish themselves with no knowledge of other senient races.

Hell, it could be that originally, say, humans had a couple of groups but orcs enslaved a group of 'em, but found them prettier than them so preferred to mate with them and didn't establish a whole lot of taboos about half-breeds so eventually orcs bred themselves out more or less leaving the race of half-orcs and only a few isolated incidences/holdouts of full-blooded orcdom.

Tempest Fennac
2009-06-05, 03:09 AM
I've never classed Half anythings as proper races due to how they are just half breeds, Gnorman. Also, Apefolk were designed to specifically replace Half Orcs in my games due to my tendancy to bad half-breeds.

Gnorman
2009-06-05, 03:16 AM
I've never classed Half anythings as proper races due to how they are just half breeds, Gnorman. Also, Apefolk were designed to specifically replace Half Orcs in my games due to my tendancy to bad half-breeds.

Yeah, but why deviate from core when you don't have to? They fill the Strength role quite nicely, and the Apefolk you've presented aren't too much of a change.

So it can go two ways: sure, Apefolk are easy to introduce and fulfill the same design space, so to speak.

But half-orcs have plenty going for them in the whole "Being a standard part of D&D since 1st edition" department. There's built-in support that you don't have to adapt.

If it's the whole half-breed thing, then just call Half-Orcs... Orcs. Make them a separate race. Leave the stats the same. It just means your orc hordes are now a little wiser and slightly weaker.

T.G. Oskar
2009-06-05, 03:30 AM
Perhaps it's because of the webcomic of the same name, or because of the proud nation of Darguun, but I incline my favor towards the stronger goblinoids. Goblins are small and apparently weak, but in the eyes of the goblinoid nation, they aren't the representation of strength. Hobgoblins or bugbears are what you probably want, since they are both strong (and the Bugbear more so), and they have a militaristic bent that provides credibility to their placed importance on Strength.

Also, you could attempt a first, and remove all traces of "Orcs are evil" from the setting. Consider them as probably bad-tempered or misunderstood, but otherwise equally capable of good or evil as other races. Use the full orc instead of the half-orc, and consider the half-orc and the half-elf as part of the orcish and elven cultures.

The 3.5 half-orcs are known for being notoriously weak compared to their peers. In fact, it should be part of every DM to provide half-orcs with some sort of benefit; if they go against their usual choices (barbarian and whatnot), you should actually give them an extra level or something. Orcs as-is are pretty fine and shouldn't need more tweaking.

As for Gnomes, I find it hard to remove them from their elemental ties. It's pretty hard to find Gnomes as a humanoid race instead of the elemental spirits of Earth, and the representatives of covetous nature. Certainly in that sense, Wisdom fits; however, it seems that you wanted to assign fluff after you assigned the stat-race representations, but you ended assigning fluff before. It would do good to make a choice (fluff before crunch, or crunch before fluff; crunch doesn't have to be complete and it can serve as a guideline) to plan the stat-race association, and then work on those parameters.

Also, I'm still intrigued on how the Shadefolk are. Recall that the Shadar-Kai are drawn from 3.5, actually (either Fiend Folio or Monster Manual II), and they're dark fey from the Plane of Shadow, and not tied to the god/dess of death but to the plane itself. In that regard, fey races also have unnatural charisma.

rogueboy
2009-06-05, 03:36 AM
I'm not sure if you were soliciting active ideas for other races... but... this struck me after reading what I had and I got so excited I just had to post it...

My goals with this thread are two-fold. First, get feedback on the stuff I have currently, and second, solicit ideas for expanding the weakly-defined (or undefined) races that I have currently.

As to the Half-Orc/Orc/new race question, I agree with Tempest that it makes no sense to have a half-race as one of the base races (you may have noticed I dropped half-elves as well). Additionally, I have ideas for how to use Orcs and Goblinoids, but those ideas relegate those races to NPC status, which is why the slot that Orcs typically fill is vacant.

tl;dr version: My goal is not to make minor tweaks to make the races interesting, but to make the races truly unique, even if that requires significant reworking or designing a new race entirely.

Long version: As to Gnorman's question of "why deviate from core when you don't have to?" Simply put, because I can. More to the point, however, is that I'm not happy with fluff of the core races, which is why I'm going through this whole process to radically change (some of) the races, redefine which are "core" in my campaign world, and how those races interact with the world and each other. Several of the races I've explored already (Elves come to mind pretty strongly, since I am moving from a nature-'worshipping' race to a nature-manipulating race) are enough of a change from core that most of the built-in support (remember that, at least for now, I'm looking at fluff, not crunch) is made largely useless to me (without adaptation). And the whole "Being a standard part of D&D since 1st edition" means nothing to me - I'm not going for a minor change, I'm looking for an interesting set of races, with odd twists to them (if they're normal races) to make them unique to my campaign world.

As to the dwarves/ape-folk ideas: both are interesting, I'll have to think about them tomorrow. I'm too tired to do much analysis of them tonight, though.

Thanks for the ideas and feedback so far, please keep it coming.

Coidzor
2009-06-05, 03:45 AM
I think I forgot to mention it earlier, so I'll say it here. I like what you have so far in the human fluff. Especially the sophisticated honey culture they have. That's a nice touch, pure fluff, that I would probably never have thought of for any culture, much less a nomadic-to-semi-nomadic one...

This came to mind while reading up on their raptor-ostrich mounts... If you have access to Eberron materials there is a template known as, I think, "Magebred" which is fairly similar to what you're describing with the best-bred of the mounts being more prized, magebred animals are literally a cut above even pedigrees of their breed(though, depending upon how common magebreeders are, they would probably actually be all of the pedigree animals with none of the real-world concerns of pure-bred animals... like inbreeding)

A possible addition to be commented on the fluff of humans... if they have the wherewithal but not the real temperment for it, they could have a "fortress city" that is basically the only target they have other than their easily mobile tribes/clans/caravans. It seems like a large fortified city from the outside but is, in reality a labyrinth, possibly partially dwarven-made with a sort of city-within-the-interior-walls of the labyrinth from which they sally forth/ambush those who seek to take the city/ferret their occupying force out. This is basically cribbing notes on the Algarians (http://belgariad.wikia.com/wiki/Algaria)(nation of horse-nomads, had natural magic people/telepaths who could speak to/read the minds/emotions of horses and were basically rare enough that it was instant fame and nobility to be discovered as one) from David Edding's Belgariad/Mallorean series' world.

The only time they come close to having a "real city" is when there's a gathering of clans of a tribe or a gathering of the tribes together in a huge trading bazaar/religious festival/marriage season(helps cutdown on inbreeding so much to marry outside your immediate sept) along with their own version of the olympics (probably more focus on feats of agility/dexterity/accuracy than strength... though probably with some kinda variant on less-deadly gladiatoral combat/dueling to give the fighters some fun times if they really have to beat on others) At least for this ethnic group...

And it might not even be a yearly occurence... Maybe have it set as an event every half-decade or so (any further seems like it would be a bit too long to wait to marry/breed unless clans had more regular encounters with one another in a setting where genetic exchange could occur in the form of intermarrying.)

Oh, and I noticed from reading the other thread that someone suggested powerful build for dwarves... Something about the idea of basically having Dwarves actually be Small but with Powerful Build keeping them on par with humans (and possibly an unmentioned +2 to strength just to alleviate any difficulties from their small size, though not necessarily) seems like an interesting idea to me.

In Regards to Strength: An additional possibility to think about in terms of races would be to take the basic idea of Goliaths (Big, Strong Medium creatures that can count as Large for weapon sizes and such... I think they're even Giantkin) and having them basically be birthed out of the confluence of Earth and Sky, which would allow them to both work stone and such but also have the desire to build structures and towers and... well, pyramids/ziggurats in order to reach the skies, providing a possible out if you want to have a group that is the "citybuilders" without having something like my idea of shanghaied/crusading dwarves coming in and building 'em before having other civilized races flooding into 'em.

Although, having the dwarves originally come from a technology level akin to Modern Earth getting displaced onto this new world either by fleeing a cataclysm or by sheer accident shanghaing them here and them using their tech to build great cities/fortresses and bestow a modicum of civilization upon surrounding species before having their imported tech basically run out before they could come up with stuff to keep it going and so they're basically trying to preserve as much as they can of their knowledge of the past in their lore to see if they can rediscover it or something similar in this world due to having slightly different though similar physics for instance... Basically they could've made something futuristic but they knew they wouldn't be able to maintain it, so they went with great cities of stone that they could make and then maintain afterwards even if it was rough compared to their old standards, they had to become rough and tough to survive anyway...

That might be interesting, and provide a potential source of conflict between them and some of the others for being "aberrations"/invaders or what they did that actually displaced other species/nature when they came in.

Tempest Fennac
2009-06-05, 03:53 AM
If you wanted to deviate from core more, I have another race called Vulpines which would will the Wis roll well: http://forum.mydndgame.com/index.php?topic=136.0 (there's a 4th Edition version as well). I tend to take Light Sensitivity and the Wis penalty off normal Orcs for anyone who wants to use them in games which I'm DMing.

RTGoodman
2009-06-05, 07:55 AM
It's not Core, but for me the race that most epitomizes Strength is the Goliath race from Races of Stone. They're big, hulking (giant-descended?) nomads from the mountains that survive by strength alone. Not only are they ridiculously strong (+4 Str), they also get the Powerful Build ability, meaning they're treated as being even BIGGER under certain circumstances. They're LA +1, but there're probably a few ways to tweak that down to +0 for your campaign.

rogueboy
2009-06-05, 01:08 PM
it seems that you wanted to assign fluff after you assigned the stat-race representations, but you ended assigning fluff before. It would do good to make a choice (fluff before crunch, or crunch before fluff; crunch doesn't have to be complete and it can serve as a guideline) to plan the stat-race association, and then work on those parameters.

I have been trying to do fluff before crunch (at any level), with the concept that I would end up with one race meshing fairly well (fluff-wise) with each of the stats. The list in the OP is one that came after having designed at least a basic concept for each of the 6 races that I have currently. As I stated earlier, I'm not entirely convinced of where Gnomes/Elves fall into the stat-race associations.


Also, I'm still intrigued on how the Shadefolk are. Recall that the Shadar-Kai are drawn from 3.5, actually (either Fiend Folio or Monster Manual II), and they're dark fey from the Plane of Shadow, and not tied to the god/dess of death but to the plane itself. In that regard, fey races also have unnatural charisma.

I had either never seen Shadar-Kai in 3.5 or had forgotten about them... In 4e (MM, specifically), they are closely associated with the Raven Queen (goddess of death) - "They are a bleak and sinister humanlike people that inhabit the Shadowfell and serve the Raven Queen" (4e MM, p230). I like the idea of having the charismatic race (the approach I am taking with Shadefolk) being associated with death in some manner, so that's where the (at least initial) connection with death came from. I'm not sure if I'll maintain that association, however.


I think I forgot to mention it earlier, so I'll say it here. I like what you have so far in the human fluff. Especially the sophisticated honey culture they have. That's a nice touch, pure fluff, that I would probably never have thought of for any culture, much less a nomadic-to-semi-nomadic one...

Thanks for the feedback. I'm almost surprised (pleasantly so) by the purely positive response I've gotten to the honey culture (I feel the need to thank DannyAlcatraz on ENWorld for that idea).


This came to mind while reading up on their raptor-ostrich mounts... If you have access to Eberron materials there is a template known as, I think, "Magebred" which is fairly similar to what you're describing with the best-bred of the mounts being more prized, magebred animals are literally a cut above even pedigrees of their breed (though, depending upon how common magebreeders are, they would probably actually be all of the pedigree animals with none of the real-world concerns of pure-bred animals... like inbreeding)

I do have access to most of the Eberron materials, and had the Magebred template in mind when I used that phrase to describe them. I like the idea of having Magebred mounts, since it shows that the races are willing to use magic as a form of technology (something I find sorely lacking in non-Eberron settings); though I do find the lack of balance between magic and technology bothersome, and am trying to rectify that (some non-magical means to impact spellcasters) - but that is a separate issue, and one I'd rather not sidetrack this thread with. I'll probably post something about that later on.


A possible addition to be commented on the fluff of humans... if they have the wherewithal but not the real temperment for it, they could have a "fortress city" that is basically the only target they have other than their easily mobile tribes/clans/caravans. It seems like a large fortified city from the outside but is, in reality a labyrinth, possibly partially dwarven-made with a sort of city-within-the-interior-walls of the labyrinth from which they sally forth/ambush those who seek to take the city/ferret their occupying force out. This is basically cribbing notes on the Algarians (http://belgariad.wikia.com/wiki/Algaria)(nation of horse-nomads, had natural magic people/telepaths who could speak to/read the minds/emotions of horses and were basically rare enough that it was instant fame and nobility to be discovered as one) from David Edding's Belgariad/Mallorean series' world.

The only time they come close to having a "real city" is when there's a gathering of clans of a tribe or a gathering of the tribes together in a huge trading bazaar/religious festival/marriage season(helps cutdown on inbreeding so much to marry outside your immediate sept) along with their own version of the olympics (probably more focus on feats of agility/dexterity/accuracy than strength... though probably with some kinda variant on less-deadly gladiatoral combat/dueling to give the fighters some fun times if they really have to beat on others) At least for this ethnic group...

And it might not even be a yearly occurence... Maybe have it set as an event every half-decade or so (any further seems like it would be a bit too long to wait to marry/breed unless clans had more regular encounters with one another in a setting where genetic exchange could occur in the form of intermarrying.)

I like this idea. Having an Olympics-type event every so often (I'd probably end up going with every 7 years, since 7 is a major theme in my campaign world) would be interesting, and could make for some unusual adventures if the party gets involved.


Oh, and I noticed from reading the other thread that someone suggested powerful build for dwarves... Something about the idea of basically having Dwarves actually be Small but with Powerful Build keeping them on par with humans (and possibly an unmentioned +2 to strength just to alleviate any difficulties from their small size, though not necessarily) seems like an interesting idea to me.

For some reason I had the impression that they were suggesting adding Powerful Build to a medium sized dwarf, but making them small may make more sense... I'll have to think about that.


In Regards to Strength: An additional possibility to think about in terms of races would be to take the basic idea of Goliaths (Big, Strong Medium creatures that can count as Large for weapon sizes and such... I think they're even Giantkin) and having them basically be birthed out of the confluence of Earth and Sky, which would allow them to both work stone and such but also have the desire to build structures and towers and... well, pyramids/ziggurats in order to reach the skies, providing a possible out if you want to have a group that is the "citybuilders" without having something like my idea of shanghaied/crusading dwarves coming in and building 'em before having other civilized races flooding into 'em.

This could be an interesting take, and is one that I like, at least initially. I'll have to keep thinking about these possibilities during the day, but so far this is the closest to something I like for a strong race. And the Earth/Sky bit is an interesting twist, which I like.

As to the LA and tweaking races bit (rtg's post made me think of this), I am not worried about what the stats are according to RAW, as I am more likely than not going to redo the crunch of each race once I have a good idea for the fluff of each race.

Optimystik
2009-06-05, 01:33 PM
Warforged (or an equivalent) for STR would be my suggestion.

I tried and failed to read the opening post in its entirety

Tetsubo 57
2009-06-05, 02:26 PM
My Apefolk homebrew race would probably work for Str: http://forum.mydndgame.com/index.php/topic,191.msg4006.html#msg4006 .

I like this race, nicely done. I think I would drop the Weapon Focus though, it doesn't seem to fit thematically.

Tetsubo 57
2009-06-05, 02:30 PM
Or, you know, Half-Orcs.

I have an idea for a campaign without any 'half' races. But I like the half-orc idea. So I thought of renaming them the Harak and making them rather pragmatic and Klingon in nature. I would add in the ability to use their Str bonus rather than Cha bonus for Intimidate and give them a +2 on Intimidate and Survival.

Devils_Advocate
2009-06-05, 03:22 PM
I like how you made elves good at manipulating nature as opposed to just living in it. I think it nicely reconciles the whole wild/sophisticated dichotomy. (The other possibility there is giving them distinct, separate cultures and maybe subraces.) You also reminded me of something I've been reading lately...

"Middling enclaves are fluid bodies. We leave our children to their own devices for eight decades, and during that time they create their own culture, their own identities and rules. It is a way of introducing a little freshness into our stagnant, hidebound society, and of shielding the young against the malaise and ennui of adulthood."

I can see the tough dwarves as being masters of protection: Fortifications, armor, abjurations, all that good stuff. Building things to last. Which doesn't necessarily leave a lot of room for change. Of course, you might want to break away from the stereotypical traditionalist, conservative, Lawful dwarves. But you can also take that and run with it.

For Strength, you probably want a race of big, powerful warriors and hunters. Orcs or hobgoblins or something similar, most likely.

Set
2009-06-05, 03:40 PM
Most of the races could readily be pulled in different directions as well.

Elves might be known for their ages old insights and keen senses (Wisdom) or they might be known for their elegant words, forceful personalities and blinding beauty (Charisma). Perhaps almost every Elf seen in the lands of Men is a Bard, a wandering storyteller, tasked with gathering lore about the short-lived humans, so that it is not lost forever, as perhaps was lore about some races that predate humans and aren't around anymore... They arrive in town, mysterious and yet always welcome. To attack or insult a storyteller is a subject of ancient taboos and superstitions (although any Elf who abuses that may find no shortage of non-superstitious humans eager to put the prettyboy in his place!), and, as a Bard, the Elf, like all elves, is skilled in magic, skilled with the blade, a little bit sneaky, widely-skilled and capable of producing works of beauty that bring tears to the eye, perhaps with music, perhaps with inspiring tales of wonders past.

Dwarves might not just be associated with sturdy stone (Constitution), but with the clever engineering projects, fantastic alloys and ingenious armors and weapons that they devise (Intelligence). The dwarves might be the only race in the setting to have anything like firearms (using alchemical fire in seige weapons only, certainly no man-portable guns!), and their fortress-cities in the mountains might be considered unseigeable (which may not stop their ancestral enemies from trying to prove that theorem false...).

Gnomes could similarly be known for their cunning, mastery of alchemy and love of unecessary complexity (Intelligence), but also for their love of unecessarily complex social intrigues and affairs of high politics (and, occasionally, low humor), leading to a Gnome race more like that of Eberron, social movers and shakers (Charisma).

Perhaps different 'sub-races' could reflect the differences, just as Greyhawk and the Realms seemed to have 'quick elves,' 'smart elves,' 'pretty elves' and 'strong elves.' Or, perhaps each race has two different attributes of advantage, one of which they might more specifically embody.

I'd probably want to avoid going too far with a 4E/Pathfinder version, where every race has +2 to two stats, as it might become something of a 'fill in the grid' exercise, like the source / role thing. "Quick, we need a race that has +2 to Str and +2 to Int to fill that hole in our three-dimensinal matrix!"

Coidzor
2009-06-06, 12:22 AM
I'd probably want to avoid going too far with a 4E/Pathfinder version, where every race has +2 to two stats, as it might become something of a 'fill in the grid' exercise, like the source / role thing. "Quick, we need a race that has +2 to Str and +2 to Int to fill that hole in our three-dimensinal matrix!"

Although I find the idea of a spelljamming, planeswalking campaign where the party has to do just that to be highly intriguing...

Though it just occurred to me that the Elves' basic domination of nature is still considered harmonious enough by druids and fey due to the fact that they don't really suffer for it and the elves leave enough untouched wilds alone that it hasn't occurred to them to worry about that (could take a page from earth history and look at the development of conservationism/environmentalism so that druids and such aren't instantly completely crazy humanoid-hating 'hippies') Possibly with some lore/religion that nature was created to be tamed by the Elves and that the Elves were created to rule nature.

V: Apefolk weapon focus: I think the contention is there because weapon focus is a bit unusual of a thing to think to give them as opposed to say, giving them free weapon proficiencies or sommat in the way of bonuses due to combat style. Hell, since they're basically smarter, upright chimps they probably could get improved grapple and unarmed strike easily due to their natural musclature/anatomy, as they'd be both ideal wrestlers and probably have a strong unarmed fighting tradition at least for times like showing off to the tribe. Maybe something like a free skill focus: survival (depending upon how survivalist they are) instead *shrug* *dizzy*

But yeah, I do agree with you that improved unarmed strike wouldn't equal to the weapon focus either in terms of the race construction or power... Perhaps Weapon focus is fairly powerful of a thing for a race to give as well, I'm not really sure and not too good at thinking right now so good either. x.x

Tempest Fennac
2009-06-06, 01:17 AM
Why don't you think Weapon Focus suits Apefolk, Tetsubo? A lot of people thought Improved Unarmed Strike would be better, but I didn't think it was that good for a raxe with a lot of warriors in it.

Devils_Advocate
2009-06-07, 02:24 PM
Hey, I wrote up a some flavor text for dwarves recently, as it happens. I'll repost it here, in case any of it is something you might want to use:

Dwarves: Classic Rock

Elves may be the oldest demihuman race, but dwarves proudly boast the oldest civilization. They were carving elaborate underground complexes into the mountains and elaborate codes of law into the walls when their woods-dwelling allies were still mastering "How do I shot bow?" Dwarves tend to be very dedicated to certain standards, and are famous for resolve as strong as the armor and weapons they forge. They're also famous for building things to last. And I'm not just talking about tools and architecture, here. I'm talking about stuff like communities and governments.

To most dwarves, honor is everything. Because if you do something dishonorable, you get Shunned. This doesn't mean that other dwarves won't talk to you, or won't trade with you. It means that they won't treat you as a friend. They won't invite your around for drinks, they won't start up a pleasant little conversation with you (or respond to your attempts to do same), and they won't speak to you or even look at you with respect. (Dwarves need respect.) And that's the way it'll stay until you earn back your clan's good graces.

Strangers get Shunned by default. They're on probation until they can win a dwarf's trust by showing that they're trustworthy. So, if dwarves often come across as standoffish, that's because they are. They don't trust you, because odds are that you're very dishonorable by dwarven standards.

The exception to all of this is dwarves who live away from most dwarves. There was a time when these consisted entirely of outcasts who had each done something so dishonorable that they couldn't possibly hope to make amends. You can still encounter some of these; almost every dwarf who originated in but doesn't live in a predominately dwarven area is an outcast. Warning: They do not like to talk about this!

At some point, though, there got to be enough outcasts for them to set up little communities of their own, within the towns of other races, or in little out-of-the-way places. These tend to vary, depending on the nature of their initial members, in their attitudes toward the Old Ways and traditional dwarven culture. This may vary from family to family. That's certainly the case for dwarven minorities mixed entirely into the communities of other races.

For more on dwarven culture, see Races of War (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=681572).

Rowan Arquest
2009-06-07, 05:57 PM
I haven't had time to read all the posts yet so forgive me if I repeat an idea.

There are currently an abundance of optios you could take. The dwarf as the Con race makes perfect sense but it also seems that your crunch is subservient to your fluff. Yet you don't have any background on your dwarves. You could make them the main city builders and militant race, which would also fit in with strength. (but not as well as some other races.) Prehaps you can look into some of the non-core races such as warforged, shifter (also for Str), half-giant (could also work for Wis), and many more.

Right now you have many options, and with the backgrounds of your races being the most important, your current priority should be to find the missing niches in the world and it's history. If you find that, the races will probably fall into line.

Dixieboy
2009-06-07, 06:46 PM
(i'll post this and then read all the nice posts that have been made, i am devious, this way it will be okay for me to just re-tell you stuff you already know)

I don't think Gnome for Wis makes sense, if anything gnomes are known for notoriously LOW wis, even the nature focused ones are more about exploring stuff and poking to stuff that should not be poked than careful contemplation within the heart of the forest

But i see you reflavored them (Though i do not know to what extent) so i may be wrong.

Devils_Advocate
2009-06-07, 08:00 PM
Yeah, traditional gnomes are an Int race. You could easily switch them around from how rogueboy has them now and make gnomes the master botanists, and also inventors and arcane spellcasters.

Elves could still be quite intellectual if made into a Wis race. They'd just be more philosophical and contemplative and less scientific. And, hey, they could easily serve as Clerics of a variety of faiths. If you're going to make one race the race of choice for a Cleric of any faith (by giving it a Wis bonus), it makes sense to give it a culture with a diverse assortment of belief systems.

Although the way that rogueboy has elves and gnomes now is also fine, and plays up the traditional role of elves as an advanced culture.

Upon reflection, whether elves or gnomes work best as a setting's most advanced culture may come down to whether its most sophisticated works are more of an art or a science.

rogueboy
2009-06-07, 08:29 PM
I haven't had time to read all the posts yet so forgive me if I repeat an idea.

I'd rather have an idea repeated than left out - the more feedback I get, the more interesting I can make things.


There are currently an abundance of optios you could take. The dwarf as the Con race makes perfect sense but it also seems that your crunch is subservient to your fluff. Yet you don't have any background on your dwarves. You could make them the main city builders and militant race, which would also fit in with strength. (but not as well as some other races.) Prehaps you can look into some of the non-core races such as warforged, shifter (also for Str), half-giant (could also work for Wis), and many more.

Right now you have many options, and with the backgrounds of your races being the most important, your current priority should be to find the missing niches in the world and it's history. If you find that, the races will probably fall into line.

This is a good point, and one that I had somehow managed to not think of, so here goes some off-the-cuff brainstorming...

We'll start with a short phrase that describes each race, and see what holes that leaves us...
Elves - manipulators of nature
Gnomes - protectors and preservers of nature
Halflings - urban information gatherers
Humans - plains-dwelling nomads who trade (honey and information, in particular)
Shadefolk - huh, so I realized that while I have an idea for how they look, I don't have a good idea (without looking back at notes) what role the shadefolk have in the world... let's see what my notes have... nothing specific as to role, but some things that may push us in the right direction: comfortable in heat/cold, contriving them as the Cha race (more on this below) makes me think they may be diplomats, but I'm not entirely sure.
Dwarves - I haven't come up with anything particularly good here, so my current leaning is to just use the 3.x/4e fluff for them, which is reasonable, but (and perhaps this is just me being petty) I'd rather have something that makes them unique to this world
[Strong Race] - I'm leaning towards Goliaths (as written in RoS); they're used rarely enough (from what I've seen) that I don't feel as strong a need to alter them as I do for Dwarves; but perhaps that's just the fact that I haven't thought about them much talking... I'll come back to Goliaths later.

For the Shadefolk, I just realized that while I initially conceived them to be the Charisma race, there's nothing holding them to that, specifically. And since I'm having issues nailing down Gnomes and Elves in terms of which stat fits best, perhaps moving one of those (Gnomes seem more likely to me) to Charisma would make more sense? Perhaps having Gnomes use Cha, Elves use Int (for some reason the manipulation of nature says Int more strongly than Wis to me), and Shadefolk use Wis would work...

Gnomes are generally well-liked, and campaign amongst other races to help the Gnomes preserve the natural world as it is. This puts them in natural conflict with the Elves, who see the natural world as a resource best utilized through manipulation. They have learned ways to manipulate the trees to form their cities without any (traditional) building of any sort - their buildings, from houses to jails to public buildings, are formed from the alteration of trees to fit the needed purpose. This ability is useful to nearby towns, who can use this type of construction to make long-lasting, elegant buildings [this seems like a bit of a stretch to me, but can probably be made to work fairly simply]. This would leave Shadefolk as the Wis-based race, which... means something :smallannoyed: Well, if I can figure out how Shadefolk work as the Wis race, I think this may an interesting direction to go with these 3 races.

As for Goliaths... as written (in Races of Stone - http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20040711b&page=5 has some of the info if you don't know them) are mountain-based hunter-gatherer nomads, and I'm a little leery of having 2 nomadic races (why? I'm not sure, to be honest). I like their heavy emphasis on competition, but dislike of war despite being a very strong race. I'm not sure what I'd like to see changed, but I think there's a lot of potential with Goliaths, with only (initially) minor changes to the fluff presented in RoS.

Now, as to the initial point of this: to find the missing niches in the world and it's history. Let's see, we have 2 nature-based races (elves and gnomes), 1 plains-dwelling nomadic race (humans), 1 urban race (halflings), and 3 fairly undefined races (shadefolk, dwarves, and goliaths [or alternate strong race?]). What niches does this leave? Underground, desert, aquatic, mountains, and arctic are the ones that come to mind quickly. I have no problems throwing out aquatic for the primary PC races, since having an aquatic race suggests a dependence on water, which is just awkward for PCs. That leaves:
Underground - I like the idea of having a race that is comfortable underground, even if they don't live underground exclusively - and in fact, I dislike the notion of having a race that lives underground exclusively
Desert - I don't have a problem throwing deserts out as a niche that needs to be filled by a PC race... I don't see it adding a whole lot to the race, and it adds a lot of issues to deal with (dehydration and overheating are the first 2 to come to mind)
Mountains - I could easily see going either way on having a mountain-based race, so I'll leave it in there for now
Arctic - similar to the desert, I don't particularly see what having an arctic-based race adds... so I think I'll toss it aside as a niche to be filled by one of the PC races.

OK, so this may be a fairly biased list (in that it started with only 5 options - 2 inspired by races under consideration and 3 basic extremes of the world), but that leaves me with only 2 environmental niches that could need filling - underground and mountainous. Dwarves and Goliaths fit fairly naturally into these... what happens if we switch them, just for the sake of making them different? Goliaths live in semi-underground fortresses, and Dwarves live on mountains... I'm not really sure where that would leave us, so I'll leave it at that for now.

This hasn't addressed social/functional niches, and that's largely because I'm not entirely sure how to address those... so with that, I'll pose a few questions to the playground:

What non-environmental niches are there? Which need to be filled by a PC race?
What environmental niches (besides Underground, Arctic, Desert, Aquatic, and Mountainous, Urban, Nature, and Plains) are there that could reasonably support race?
What interesting twists could be added to Dwarves or Goliaths to make them unique?
For each race that is focused on one of the mental stats (Int, Wis, Cha), what is a defining feature of that race? In other words, what does a race need to have/be in order for it to make sense as the [Int/Wis/Cha] race?

And now that I've written all that, I realize I haven't posted in a while, so now to make sure I've addressed anything relevant...

When thinking about other potential races, a few that come up regularly (goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears, orcs, and warforged, in particular) I have been writing off since I have other ideas for how they will work into the world. The Warforged are a created race, used to supplement various armies. The goblinoids, on the other hand, hold onto a remnant of an ancient empire in a corner of the world often forgotten and ignored. Both of these will come into play in my overarching plotline*, though exactly how they will play in, I'm not quite sure yet. Orcs are inspired by a thread I saw (on these boards, I think... if you know what thread I'm talking about, please point me to it again, since I can't find it), and are risen from the bodies of those who fall in battle - they aren't quite undead (I think), but they're pushing the boundary. There's a lot of weirdness that can be achieved when you decide they don't feel pain and heal quickly, and I'm trying to take advantage of those traits to make them somewhat creepy and bizarre.

*Overarching Plotline (which is somewhat cliched, to be honest) - stop the BBEG from destroying the world, though hopefully I have a few interesting twists for my players that will keep them guessing and give them some difficult decisions [eg, the BBEG's not really a bad guy, just not entirely aware of what he's doing for various reasons]

As to the actual crunch (which I'm just starting to sort of think about), I'm leaning towards having each race get a +2 to the appropriate stat, but having several options for each race after that. For example, have 5 things that each race can choose from, but you can only have 3 of them. Or perhaps have a couple abilities to choose from that vary in both strength and cost (so you can have 1-2 powerful racial features or 4-5 weaker ones). I'm looking at having things that aren't biological features (such as bonuses to AC/attacks against a specific race) be feats.

And now that I've probably put everyone (myself included) to sleep with this post, I'll stop typing, and just finish by saying: Thanks for the responses, and please keep them coming!

Devils_Advocate
2009-06-10, 05:26 PM
Well, obviously, you gotta have Stouts, Fairies, Mundanes, High Men, and Cutes (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FiveRaces). :smalltongue: These are probably covered by the dwarves, gnomes, humans, elves, and halflings respectively.

There are 6 non-Evil alignments that your six non-Evil races could have affinities for, so that's something to work with. Also, the six elements of earth, air, water, fire, light (positive energy), and darkness (negative energy). Just in case you wanna work those in. I can see them corresponding to dwarves, halflings, gnomes, shadefolk/other, elves, and other/shadefolk respectively.

Based on what you've already said about the Shadefolk, they would go in the desert and the arctic, due to a general resistance to extreme temperatures.

Int: intellectual, cunning, sophisticated, well-educated
Cha: persuasive, charming, beguiling, attractive, creative
Wis: perceptive, philosophical, meditative, rational