Good Adventures taking place in nonhuman lands

[Yora]

Something I rather dislike in most settings and adventures is that humans are almost alway treated as the default race and in addition there is one elven forest and one dwarven mountain, but rarely does any adventure take place there. And if they do, it's for some elven spring festival or a dwarven beer festival. Or a halfling "let's anoy the **** out of everyone" festival.

I rather want to run games that also take place in lands in which humans are not the default humanoid race and the nonhuman party members are among their kind and the human characters are strangers. But without having the local race dumbed down to a single stereotype that nobody except possibly the players whose characters are from that race like (and maybe even not them).

But just doing a human campaign and giving everyone beards or pointy ears doesn't do it. So I am looking for adventures, campaign journals, or whatever, that take place in the lands of a race other than human. Is there anything good out there?

[Flickerdart]

Castle Ravenloft might look like it has humans, but they're really really not.

[Yora]

Undead humans?

Ravenloft is really one of the very strongly human settings in which nonhumans are almost nonexistant.

[Flickerdart]

Undead aren't humans, though.

[Kansaschaser]

I played in a campaign where we were required to make a non-human. Humans were used as slaves and food in this campaign. We were playing races like Minoutars, Orcs, Lizardfolk, etc...

One of the players tried to make a human and keep a disguise on, then after only two game sessions, we saw him without his mask, and we killed and ate him.

Playing in a "Monster Campaign" was pretty fun. We were not playing evil monsters. We just treated humans like most humans treat cattle. In fact, most of us were good or neutral.

[Flickerdart]

Playing in a "Monster Campaign" was pretty fun. We were not playing evil monsters. We just treated humans like most humans treat cattle. In fact, most of us were good or neutral.
Eating intelligent creatures is a capital-E Evil act.

[Kansaschaser]

Eating intelligent creatures is a capital-E Evil act.

We didn't have the Book of Vile Darkness at the time. The DM said it was no more evil than eating dolphins, elephants, or apes.

[MesiDoomstalker]

We didn't have the Book of Vile Darkness at the time. The DM said it was no more evil than eating dolphins, elephants, or apes.

I'm pretty sure other's can make arguments why this is as evil. I don't feel like it though.

[Seharvepernfan]

I'm pretty sure other's can make arguments why this is as evil. I don't feel like it though.

Would D&D characters know that those animals are so intelligent?

[MesiDoomstalker]

Would D&D characters know that those animals are so intelligent?

The point I was making that those animals, in our world, are rather taboo to eat because of their scarcity. I admit this was a presumption on my part and please correct me if I'm wrong. But without ranks in K: Nature, they won't be able to determine any animal is smarter than any other.

[Yora]

Now this derailed quickly.

[Coidzor]

Playing in a "Monster Campaign" was pretty fun. We were not playing evil monsters. We just treated humans like most humans treat cattle. In fact, most of us were good or neutral.

You still don't get it even after your DM went out of his way to make an evil monsters won world. :smallconfused:

OP: It's not altogether clear exactly what it is you're wanting, but you may want to check out this villain workshop article (http://www.giantitp.com/articles/rTKEivnsYuZrh94H1Sn.html) by The Giant.

[Safety Sword]

Now this derailed quickly.

Lots of campaigns could work around the ideas that:

You live/work/play underground - and so do others (think the Underdark, not everyone gets along)
You come from an ANCIENT forest dwelling society (ruins, lost empires, powerful magic of days gone by)
The world could be older than history records (think lost empires but you get to add races that may be overwhelmingly powerful and can lead to apocalypse scenarios)


Elves especially I find lend themselves to this kind of campaign. It's pretty fun to do a "stop the humans" campaign. You know, fast rising human empires bump heads with the elves in the forest, but the elves say "No" instead of the default where humans dominate. Feel free to add elements in the list to aid with the slaying of the human scum.

It can be especially fun if the humans aren't even evil. And the elves aren't either, but they have obviously competing differences that can't be resolved without the stabbing and the magic flinging :smallbiggrin:

[Seharvepernfan]

I DMed a short campaign for my cousin who was playing a half-orc in the spine of the world in faerun. It never got off the ground, but I had a few pages written up in plans for it. It started off with him as part of an orc horde assaulting a dwarven hold, he ends up fighting a couple dwarf warriors in some tunnels, and one orc from his tribe, but from then until mid levels, it was only orcs, a couple more dwarves, and underdark races. The only time he was going to go into civilized lands was as part of an orc horde or in undercover mercenary missions. He was evil and it was an evil campaign.