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Conners
2011-11-08, 08:09 AM
Seen this page before?: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OurMonstersAreDifferent
It applies to monsters, elves, orcs, vampires--just about any "standard" fantasy things. Some people will have a race of brutish dark-green orcs, some will have a race of noble pale-green orcs. But they are orcs, all the same.

Thus, I thought it'd be fun if we talked about differences between creatures in different media, as well as the touches we add in our respective campaign settings.


As a kick-starter topic: Do you have vampires? What are their weaknesses and strengths, if so?

I like mine closer to the source-material, personally. Weakness to water, sun-light, and stakes through the heart. They also fear Garlic, and can't enter places without permission. Still, the ability to command animals of the night, turn into mist, and being really strong and fast is a pretty good trade-off.

GenericGuy
2011-11-08, 10:53 AM
My Vampires: You can only become a vampire by choice, bite does not equal transformation, and it involves a ceremony. They’re not stronger than they were before they were changed, but because of how quickly they regenerate wounds and a deadening of the sense of touch means they feel little to no pain (along with having no sense of taste). Sunlight and holy objects still repeal them. And finally, although their bodies are immortal the brain has a limit to how much information it can store. It’s predicted that the human brain has around 2,500,000 gigabytes of memory, and could hold up to 300 years of information, but after that…So my vampires grow ever more insane and animalistic as they age, becoming pathetic parasites in the wilds and back alleys of large cities.(Suck it Twilight :smallamused:)

My Elves: Instead of forests and having a western culture, my elves are more of a mish mash of Persian, Arabic, and live in the desert. They were created directly by their gods and instructed to care and civilize the world. They have an “Elf Man’s Burden” mentality, so for some societies having elves come in can improve their “savage” ways, but for others it means cultural genocide and a handy excuse for the elves to exploit weaker cultures. The Elves are also matriarchal in way that current society is patriarchal, not constant avert discrimination, but an assumption that women are more likely to be in possessions of authority.(Elves are Jerks:smallyuk:)

My Orcs: They’re far more lawful than chaotic and a utilitarian mindset over honor before reason. They were bread from human slaves (with the assistance of magic) to make a slave race of laborers and soldiers. The ones not still enslaved by their imperial masters flee to human lands and try to find work and a place that will have them. But Orcs pose a big problem for any society that accepts them, although Orcs can breed with one another after 3 or more generations of pure Orc breeding the resulting children will get dumber, more aggressive, and animalistic. The only way to prevent this is to occasionally add a human parent( the empire that originally bread the Orcs would constantly kidnap humans and force them to mate with Orc slaves to ensure this wouldn’t happen). Orcs also breed far quicker and have far more children than humans. Because of these factors many human societies worry that allowing too many Orcs to live in their communities will mean they will inevitable be overrun and be absorbed by the Orcs, and so drive out Orcs if their numbers get too large.(poor Orcs:smallfrown:)

Hyudra
2011-11-08, 11:41 AM
I like to mix things up to keep people guessing.

Vampires? A wooden stake through the heart doesn't cut it. It's a myth perpetrated by vampires. The idea is that you're providing an outlet or a vent through which the vampire's stored lifeforce can flow out. Wood works only for the very weakest of vampires... The stake needs to be bone, to really count. For the oldest and most powerful vampires, you need specific kinds of bone. A moderately powerful vampire might need one of the same race he is. A very powerful one might need a bone from an older dragon, or the child of a god.

Gensh
2011-11-08, 12:05 PM
In the only setting I've had where vampires particularly matter, a vampire's traits depend on the individual. The curse can be passed on at will during feeding, so it appeals to the common downtrodden masses to become more powerful, even if it means becoming enslaved to an older vampire. The original vampire keeps a strict control over the numbers and kills any excess, having established an empire where vampires are the elite and are considered to be a higher form of life. A vampire gains a certain number of weaknesses as a result of trading its soul to its patron in exchange for being brought into the fold but likewise gains power as it gains thralls. Only "independent" vampires such as the original and a certain mad scientist are able to endure direct exposure to sunlight, however. Additionally, dhampyrs aren't half-vampires in that they're the child of a vampire but are instead the failed result of an experiment to create a type of partial vampire immune to sunlight. Well, technically the experiment was a success, but they lack any power until exposed to the noonday sun, which coincidentally fries their brains.

Eldan
2011-11-08, 12:12 PM
Vampires? I always liked the myth that not only humans can be vampires, but anything. Not just animals. Vampire plants. Vampire tools. Vampire common household objects.

Yes, your frying pan is out for your life and will try to suck your blood.

Spider_Jerusalem
2011-11-08, 12:13 PM
The only vampires seen in my campaign were actually a few vampire spawns, locked in eternal sleep in a tomb in a place called The Infinite Desert. I actually decided that the vampire character (who was never seen or heard of) was an ancient sultan who offended Horus, and his punishment was never being able to walk under the sun again. Swearing revenge, that sultan turned to Set and begged for help. He was then blessed by the darkness, and became unkillable by all things but sunlight. The blessed waters of the only river that crossed that desert are also deadly to him. Other running water sources are ok, though, but it doesn't matter much, because he is bound to the land (in order to accept Set's blessing, the sultan had to give away his soul, thus becoming an undead). Blood is the only thing that nourishes him and etc. There's nothing about garlic or other such stuff that could stop him, and the only holy simbols that keep the vampire at bay are the ones related to Sun deities.

My elves were once all from a single kingdom, but treachery against Corellon and a war between mortals and gods splitted the elves in four major variants, each dedicated to a phase of the moon. Elves also age differently from the standard rules - they age depending on their maturity. There is no exact age in which an elf becomes an adult, it depends on the growth of their souls and minds. Each kind of elf has a specific power source to keep them eternal, and every elf needs to be attuned to a power source in order to prevent from aging. Attuned elves never die of old age. Elves withouth a link to any power source grow old at the same rate as humans. As for the variants of elves:

The Crescent Moon Elves are exactly as the PHB elves, but their favored class can be chosen between wizard or duskblade (the sword-and-spell style which they claim to have created). Their land is where the heart of all elvenkind was, before they were divided, and it's an ancient forest in the middle of the central continent. Their power source is the Well of Life, in the center of the elven kingdom, where the Tree of Elvenkind stands eternal.

New Moon Elves are desert-dwellers, and descend from the ones who turned away from Corellon. After escaping the elven kingdom, these elves went to the eastern continent, where they found a gargantuan purple rock inscribed with ancient runes and infused with the power unknown, extinct beings. By studying this rock, the only remain of a civilization possibly older than the dragons, the desert elves managed to attune themselves to this rock. While the purple rock is a strong power source, the elves could never estabilish a complete link to it, and thus, each desert elf needs to be constantly wearing a purple necklace - made from a desert stone which is used in a ceremony that draws the power of the Purple Stone to it. A desert elf that travels too far from the Purple Stone and doesn't wear a purple amulet suffers a -1 withdrawal penalty to saves, initiative checks, caster level and attacks. Being more than one year and a day completely separated from the purple energy makes the elf mortal. Adapting to the desert and their new power source changed these elves: Their Ability modifiers are +2 Str -2 Con, they gain Heat Adaptation, +2 against illusion effect (instead of the usual enchantment), their skill bonuses are +2 to Spot, Listen and Sense Motive, the scimitar is a racial weapon for them, instead of the longsword, they do need to sleep and are not immune to sleep effects, and a desert elf with a Purple Amulet has a +1 morale bonus to initiative and can cast Command as a spell-like ability using the character level as caster level, once per day. Their favored classes are Duskblade and Hexblade (they claim they created the duskblades; and the hexblades are actually a sect of duskblades who applied some orc curses to the sword-spell study. Hexblades are outcasts even among the desert elves)

Full Moon Elves are an aquatic variant of elves. Their power source is a sacred moonshard that lies in their deep city. They haven't been statted yet. They are good friends of the Crescent Moon Elves.

Waning Moon Elves departed from the mainland to the north more than half a century after the new moon elves rebelled. They were the ones who didn't want to turn their backs to Corellon, but also weren't satisfied with the way the elven kingdom was being ruled. The first war between the desert elves and forest elves was enough for a portion of the forest-dwelling ones to decide to leave. They became neutral in the war, and retreated to the northern wastes in order to keep isolated from their kin. They later attuned to the White Dragonpool, where the White Elder (the sage and protector of all white dragons) lives. Attuning to a Dragonpool gave them resistance to the cold mountains in the north, and centuries of living in a harsh environment turned these elves in a military-arcane society. Their appearance changed a lot (their hairs are always white, and their eyes range from light gray to deep blue, their skins have a faint blueish tone) and they became more resistant than the other elves, though isolation has made them less sociable (+2 Dex, -2 Cha). They have cold resistance 5, +2 on saves against cold effects, -2 on saves against heat effects, survival is always a class skill for them. Their favored class is wizard.

I also changed goblins a lot, but I'll describe them later, or else this post would be way longer than it already is.

Systole
2011-11-08, 12:30 PM
My kobolds (Campaign #1): Have discovered engineering. They are the crazy mad scientists on the world (which has a bit of a steampunk vibe to it).

My elves (Campaign #1): Are an NPC race (Like, LA +3) of arrogant jerks. Dark elves look exactly like elves, and in fact the split between them was entirely political and only happened a few hundred years ago.

My hobgoblins (Campaign #1): Are intelligent and erudite, with an inborn taste for the finer things in life. The tragedy of their existence is that hobgoblins are born to ordinary goblins -- about 1 in 200 or 300 goblin births grows up to be a hobgoblin. Goblins are stupid, disgusting, cannibalistic psychopaths.

My elves (Campaign #2): Are violent, smelly, feral barbarians living in a jungle of death that spans a third of a continent.

My Great Old Ones(Campaign #3): Are super-sized versions of the weird crap from the Cambrian Period (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucigenia), who sleep for aeons in the depths of the ocean, then awake to feed and destroy.

Friv
2011-11-08, 01:25 PM
In one setting I was working on, elves and dwarves were pretty different.

I designed a LA +1 variant for elves whose rules I don't quite recall anymore, but it involved bonuses to Dex, Con, and Wis. These elves were physically fit and rugged, and were forest-dwellers. As such, they despised magic, believing that it was an abomination against the world. Elven sorcerers were killed or exiled the instant their power developed, there were no wizards or bards, and the elves spurned the use of magical objects. They did have rangers and druids, who used their powers in harmony with the natural world, but the result was a bunch of xenophobic *******s who assumed that since they could get by just fine without magic or advanced tech, anyone who couldn't was a lesser being not worthy of existence.

Dwarves, on the other hand, loved magic. Dwarven wizards were almost as common as dwarven warriors, and their arcane lore was the envy of the other races. They made the best artifacts because they mixed their crafting skills with their magical abilities gleefully.

shawnhcorey
2011-11-08, 01:58 PM
My orcs are based on the African lion. The females stay together but the young males are driven out by their fathers when they reach pubescence. They form roaming bands that eventually can take over a harem. The first thing they do is kill the young of the previous males so the females can spend all their efforts raising their young. They then settle down to the domestic life of males: protecting their harem from other roaming bands. It's these bands that attack human farms, homesteads, and isolated villages, to either their steel weapons and goods or out of sexual frustration. It's these attacks that give the orcs their violent reputation.

Is that different enough for you?

Anderlith
2011-11-08, 07:08 PM
My vampires are evil bloodsucking parasites, that burn in daylight & don't look like angsy teen boys.

Brauron
2011-11-08, 08:51 PM
In the campaign setting I'm currently designing, "Goblins" are Medium Fey, unspeakably ugly, with long, sparse greasy hair, warty pale skin, bulging eyes, and rows of shark-teeth crammed into their mouths. They dwell underground, especially in places where Evil Magic has been cast, drawn to it like moths to a light. While more than capable of subduing prey with their teeth and claws, they all seem to carry long, curved knives with serrated blades. These "Goblin Knives" are never seen outside the possession of a Goblin -- the blades are attuned to some magic inherent in the Goblin that owns it; take a Goblin Knife after killing its owner, and you'll soon find that the blade deteriorates and becomes brittle, crumbling to dust within a span of 1d2 weeks.

Shadowknight12
2011-11-08, 09:28 PM
I live and breathe this trope. I absolutely loathe the anthropocentric school of thought that puts monsters as tools for the author/creator/DM/etc to evoke conflict, emotion, drama or plot in its human audience. It's extremely easy to spot: "This is scary, fear it!" "This is sexy, lust after it!" "This is weird and bizarre, be intrigued!" "This is not human, discriminate against it!" "This is a monster! It needs no three-dimensionality or fleshed out personality and backstory! It exists only for you, THE MIGHTY HUMAN CHAMPION, to defeat it!"

It aggravates me heavily, but I suppose it's a subset of the hedonistic "It exists to please me" philosophy that pervades current media. Anyway, some examples:

Vampires:

They're so customisable I can't really get tired of inventing new kinds. However, I tend to avoid vampires in general nowadays due to the latest craze. Vampires are to me what Portal is to Yahtzee.

First kind:

They can only be created by another vampire, who must sacrifice some of its power in order to do so (hence why they are uncommon). They aren't set on fire by the sun, they are merely rendered powerless by it, and their skin is particularly sensitive to sunburns. They have more mythological powers, like mistform, animalism and domination, though garlic and other antibiotic/antiviral/antifungic substances are poison to them, true faith repels them (because true faith repels everything), stakes paralyse them, fire and decapitation kill them, and they don't need to sleep if they haven't exhausted themselves that day (but when they do, they must have grave dirt below their resting place). Aimed at modern times.

Second kind:

They can arise by the suicide by blood loss of a person who has suffered great losses, or they might be spawned by another vampire at a great sacrifice. They can grow to be very powerful in time, but they are usually hunted down and slain before that can happen. They have a fixed resting place, sunlight kills them, they recoil from garlic and holy symbols, they cannot cross running water, stakes don't kill them (decapitation + burning heart, head and body separately and spreading ashes on holy ground does the trick), all the classical things from mythology.

In exchange, they are very good at using blood to power strange magic and augment their deadly abilities. They are somewhat hard to kill and rather resilient. Aimed at standard fantasy setting.

Third kind:

Vampires are near the bottom rung of the undead hierarchy. The only advantages they receive upon transcending to undeath are superb regeneration, extraordinary beauty/handsomeness and supernatural allure. That makes them useful only as infiltrators, spies, assassins, diplomats and/or distraction/cannon fodder. Nobody counts on them to get anything done.

Sunlight knocks them out, stakes have to be made of a specific type of wood to kill them, they can die of starvation if they don't feed for three days, healing magic and disintegration overcome their regeneration and they can actually reproduce sexually (though their fertility rates are incredibly low). Aimed at standard fantasy setting.

Fourth kind:

Vampires are echoes that come back when someone commits suicide after long years of chronic depression. To make a long story short ("TOO LATE!"), someone can only commit suicide while depressed when they've made just enough progress to gain some modicum of motivation and willpower but not enough progress to actually break through depression.

A vampire is not a real person, but a shadow cobbled together from the psychic energy left behind by the victim, amplified by the grief and guilt of their loved ones. They don't look like they used to in life, so they can't be recognised, and they don't have the entire set of memories the victim used to possess, so they can't convince others of who they used to be because they lack a significant amount of knowledge from their former, living selves. Also, there's the dead body still around, which tends to disprove the whole thing. They exist in a constant state of physical, mental and emotional numbness, being quite literally dead inside and out. They can only feel and look alive after they've drank fresh blood, which fades after a few hours.

Weaknesses-wise, they are vulnerable to whatever other undead are vulnerable to, and they recoil from (or can be outright damaged by) things that symbolise joy, hope and happiness (like sunlight, laughter, certain flowers, etc).

This was born from a challenge presented to me in the form of "Give vampires something to be REALLY angsty about." Or, basically, ANGST OVERDRIVE TO THE MAX.

Elves:

First kind:

They are somewhat inspired by post-WWII Germans. Their first and only emperor rose to godhood after proclaiming ideals of racial superiority, world domination and ethnic cleansing. A terrible war ensued and the other deities intervened to depower their god-emperor. This led to the elven defeat. After that, they've turned over a new leaf and started acting diplomatically and apologetic. Anyone caught espousing old ideals is shamed and ridiculed. But old habits die hard and it's very common to find haughty elves that have the social skills of a dead rat when it comes to other races.

Second kind:

They are exiles from a doomed world. They were tasked with keeping an eldritch horror sealed, but they failed and it almost got loose. However, its influence corrupted their nobility and turned them against their race. When confronted with civil war, the remaining elves split in two groups. Those who wished to stay and set things right, and those who wished to hide and/or flee. The latter were exiled from their world by the others, who remained behind to fight a losing war.

The exiles made their new homes in an ancient forest, where they spent several years undiscovered by the rest of the world. When they were found, they were quickly dominated by a martially-stronger, highly religious race (picture medieval knights and peasants with a penchant for healing magic) and so they were forced to become vassals for their conquerors, sending their spellcasters away for the kingdom to use as it pleases and keeping them supplied with wood and other forest goods. Their attitude is cowardly, shy and resentful.

Third kind:

They are corrupted by an eldritch horror (no, not the same from the previous kind, another one) who has developed a magical disease that turns intelligent races into highly appealing, animalistic elves who have a seasonal cycle (Winter: Hibernation. Spring: Village-raiding for kidnapping and turning other races into their own through a gruesome ritual-orgy. Summer: Village-raiding for plain old murder and slaughter. Fall: Village-raiding for supplies and goods.). The eldritch horror does its best to suppress higher brain function in the victims of its plague and keep them acting on an animal-level of intelligence, perpetuating the aforementioned cycle out of spite against the world.

They are empowered and healed by heat, the sun and fire, but they are deathly vulnerable to ice and cold. They cannot cross running water if it's under their body temperature (which thankfully keeps them confined, for now, to a single continent). They are designed to be the perfect vector for the eldritch horror's pathogen. They are extremely comely and secrete powerful pheromones, they have very sharp teeth, retractable claws and are rather fast and agile, if prone to lethargy when the ambient temperature is inferior to their body temperature (which isn't often, since they dwell in the tropics).

Third kind:

They are the bottom rung of the Fey hierarchy, acting as soldiers to protect incursions in their forests. Fey are hunted down by practically everyone with a business sense, due to them making excellent slaves and their body parts being usable to greatly enhance spellcasting. They tend to be the most serious of the Fey, stoic and rarely feeling joy or any sort of positive emotion (since they tend to be quickly soured by the horrors of war). They resent other Fey for the thankless job they've been assigned, and rebellion is only held in check by the fact that such major in-fighting will probably doom them all.

Fey:

I don't have much to say here, except that I try to make Fey more than just "pretty creatures for adventurers to bed" and give them actual societies, reasons to exist and do what they do, logical conclusions to the power they possess and so on. I tend to favour folklore and mythology here as well, which is a wellspring of ideas for how to make Fey actually realistic.

Undead:

I invariably end up going to town with these guys. Even more than with vampires. Everything I said in the Fey category applies here as well, only that undead are clearly meant to be slaughtered rather than romanced (usually). This is probably the type of creature I have to fight the most for. Typically, I'm given something to work with when it comes to vampires, elves, Fey and the like, but undead are portrayed even worse than fiends. They are always, always invariably portrayed as irredeemably evil and worthy only of destruction. The only exceptions are (sometimes) vampires and (sometimes) ghosts.

This portrayal irks me immensely, by the way.

Werecreatures:

Recently, I created a nation in a campaign populated exclusively by werecreatures, anthropomorphic animals and all those creatures in the Monster Manual that combine animals and humanoids. Then I gave them lycanthropy as a dreaded curse/disease that turns them into weak, naked humans during the full moon. They got that disease from humans themselves, who are apparently unknowing carriers, and have since done their best to isolate themselves from the world.

Jallorn
2011-11-09, 12:45 AM
Well, let's see:

Orcs: Bestial and emotional, sure, but tempered by heavy lawfulness, though only kind of since I don't use the DnD alignment system in this world. They have a caste system, but it's relatively fluid for a caste system. Also the most technologically advanced.

Elves: Wild, bestial, emotional, and usually very short lived due to conflict. Tribal.

Halflings: Tribal, somewhat wild, brave warriors, tricksters.

Hobgoblins: Noble warriors.

Dwarves: Nomadic desert dwellers with by far the most lawful society in the world; everyone has a job to do, and if they screw it up, the entire clan could die.

Centaurs: Individualistic, music loving arctic dwellers.

Togath
2011-11-09, 02:19 AM
edit; spoilers are to keep parts of it compact
my vampires; come in one of two kinds, either nosferatu style ones(down to being hideous and the weird hunch, that burn in daylight or the second kind; older style ones (which don’t burn in daylight, as early vampire myths didn't have that) and have to have most of their body burned to ashes or some other extreme in order to be gone for good, in addition they have stronger control over animals then the standard vampire(3.5 dnd vampire anyway), being able to summon rats, dogs, cats, bats and wolves to do their bidding, or shape-shift into any of those, some of the strengths of the first kind(the nosferatu ones) are natural spell casting ability and improved stealth and senses, the main strength of the second kind is greatly increased strength and ferocity, along with improved reflexes.
my trolls; are large grey skinned humanoids standing about 12 in height, they possess rough skin the texture of stone and head like a cross between a pug and an elf(so pointed ears and a kind of squished looking face) with slits for nostrils, they live for about 1500-2000, slowly turning to stone as their death approaches, once they entirely petrify they shatter into a cloud of dust, and another(smaller) statue forms somewhere else in the world and animates over the next week into a new troll(who possesses vague memories of their past life), they are also highly intelligent and are skilled at magic(mainly dnd wizard style magic, learned through knowledge gained from their long lives), in addition they are usually neutral in alignment, preferring to watch rather than act most of the time, they are also more agile then standard(3.5 dnd) trolls, having evolved in thick jungles and swamps
my goblins; are close relatives to my trolls, and look a lot like smaller(3-4 foot tall) trolls with full sized ears, they are at least as common as humans in my campaign, and in some places even more, they usually are good aligned, acting much like Halflings do in 3.5 dnd(without the stealing aspect), they also greatly enjoy exploring and are skilled at sailing(mostly using galleons), their culture is also strongly Spanish themed.my ogres; possess greater intellect then standard ogres(and slightly more than the standard human), they stand about 10-11 feet in height and have black to grey coloured waxy skin, they are also skilled swordsmiths and armour smiths, they are also usually neutrally aligned, and focused heavily on trading with other cultures/races/countries, in addition, they are one of the few races in my campaign to possess their own country(one that has stood for 5000 years, and is based on ancient china geography wise and with regards to technology)my orcs; are primitive brutish and rather stupid(stat wise in dnd 3.5 they have an int of 3-4) standing about 4-5 feet in height and possessing waxy black skin, as hinted at by their skin they are a relative to the ogres(in fact they are the ancestor of the ogres), due to their stupidity they are often used as slaves by the ogres, in order to row ships or carry goods

my fairies; stand about 3-4 feet in height, with exceptionally tall fairies standing up to 5 feet in height, they possess moth-like flexible wings, which often bear complex patterns of stripes and spots.
They are highly skilled at stealth and assassination, and are often thieves or assassins.
In addition they possess a home country[making them one of the few races to possess one](a small island nation, on which I had been planning to call “Yamato” until I found out that is an older name for Japan), which is heavily influenced by ancient Japan(hence why I am thinking of re-naming it).

my elves(elve not elf); usually stand about 6 1/2 to 7 feet in height and are lean and muscular, they posses only slightly pointed ears(closer to what some humans have).
they are also a non-native race of my campaign world, having literally fallen out of the sky(about 500 feet above the ground, along with their forest top village) about 2000 years before the current year in my campaign, they often act as diplomats and ambassadors to other cultures and countries in the current year of my campaign.

Kol Korran
2011-11-09, 05:58 AM
i've made a few alterations to less used monsters, mainly in the terms of fluff, but also a bit in the terms of mechanics.

the Monster Compendium link in my sig leads to the thread. warning- each entry is a bit long i've been told.

i almost never used vampires myself... don't know why exactly. :smallconfused:

jseah
2011-11-09, 07:24 AM
Currently writing a magic system/fantasy setting

Apart from humans, some plants (mostly crops + trees + grass) and some domestic animals (farm animals + pets + mice), nothing much is the same.

Cinque-Vassa are the other intelligent race I have created. I haven't made any more since I can't think of any interesting names.

Vassa are a bit like monkeys. Long limbs relative to bodies. Fur over most of the body and a long furry tail for balance and extra limb. Evolutionarily close to humans but further away than primates are in RL.
Vassas are tiny compared to humans, roughly the size of a small dog.

Cinques are intelligent parasites that infest Vassa hosts. Vassa themselves are intelligent and but an infested Vassa is subsumed into the Cinque. The Cinque gains the Vassa's memories and takes on a bit of its personality. It is essentially one creature at that point, the gestalt having access to the skills of both the Cinque and Vassa. The infested Vassa never learns new skills, but the Cinque infesting it can learn and expand its own skill set, although it cannot use the Vassa's skills to qualify.
The Cinque infestation eventually kills the host. (mean survival time is roughly two years)
There are no independent Cinques. Cinques cannot survive outside a Vassa, lacking in any digestive system.

Vassas grow like monkeys. Sexual reproduction can occur when females go into heat, ala monkeys. This happens every two weeks or so when the female has enough food, with a gestation time of ~7 months and a litter size of 4 on average. Food stress often prevents Vassa females from going into heat.
Unlike humans, Vassa children are born competent and can care for themselves in the wild or in society.
Vassas, when un-infested, have a natural lifespan of around 40. Being sexually mature at 2, and tailing off around 30, Vassas can bear litters virtually every year when there is enough food.
An infested Vassa is sterile and never goes into heat if female.

Occasionally, a Cinque may produce another Cinque. Cinque reproduction is asexual and occurs at random during infestation. This happens roughly every four years but never happens more than once per infestation.
When reproducing, a Cinque can cause its host to inject a Cinque egg into another Vassa. A Cinque in a host Vassa will cause rejection of any eggs and no double infestations occur. If a Cinque, by choice or circumstance, does not inject its egg, the egg eventually gets rejected and dies.

A Cinque may leave its host at any time by injecting itself into another Vassa. Doing this kills the host. A Cinque that is killed also kills the host.
The Cinque retains some memories of its previous host if it has made them part of its own memory. Learned skills tend not to get transferred although it has happened rarely.
Cinques regenerate all the time and have no maximum natural lifespan. They do die when their host dies however.

If you haven't noticed, this interactions are actually quite similar to the vampire-human interactions. Just rewritten and made a bit more robust.

DoctorGlock
2011-11-09, 07:33 AM
Lets see, I have used...

Elves.
Desert tribesmen with a semi Bedouin/Arabian feel. Mostly nomadic with a few fortress citadels. The part that really threw my players off was the cultural focus on masks. From the moment an elf reaches adulthood he is given a mask. It is blank but for a red tribal marking. Accomplishments are inked onto the mask over the course of the elf's life. Outsiders are given blank masks with no markings when they visit. To speak to someone without your mask on is considered an insult as you have just called the person a barbarian. When an elf is exiled he is stripped of a mask and branded with a broken tribe mark.

Angels
And other good outsiders. These are not "peace and goodwill unto man" angels but "mysterious ways" angels. Columns of fire and wings studded with eyes. If "good involves driving your town to madness or just striking the place with brimstone, they do it, regardless of words like "pure souls" and "innocents"

Also had them as space aliens once.

Dragons
I try to avoid standard dragons, even if it is only through a retexture.
I have used the Norse dragons, the vast wyrms that gnaw on the roots of the world tree, the lindworms, linnorms and assorted serpents whose breath is poison and death brings a dire curse upon the slayer

I also confused the heck out of my players in the same game with the mask elves by having a huge blue-green lizard with feathered white wings and a woman's head swoop down and start posing classic trickster shenanigans to the poor gnome that teleported to the wrong desolate waste. At the end of the session they were still wondering what on earth the thing was. It was a from the book blue dragon.

Dwarves
Same game as above. No longer the cave dwelling neckbeards they once were, they have a senate and very advanced military. They bring culture, technological advancements and a revolutionary system of military organization. Also a huge amound of hedonism and rejection of cultural norms. There were in the middle of a civil war against a general turned emperor named Julius. Roman dwarves!

Jinn
Ok, these guys were semi traditional in the trickster aspect, but not as malevolent as in most media. Once again, same game as the elves. The party is traveling through the correct barren wastes this time after getting a warning from the elvish guards stating "The aurora is in the sky tonight, beware the dancing Jinn"

Well, when the party is invited to share the fire with some cavorting figures in red masks covered in strange red marking and sheathed in robes, all in various hues of yellow to red, it became apparent that there were not listening. Over the course of a meal they get to discussing the nature of desire and purpose and the leader flat out asks "what then is your wish" One of the players answered "That our enemies meet the blades of our swords" (them tracking down some "man who would be king" type)

They get horribly drunk and begin to dance around the fire with the Jinn before the player with the highest wisdom score makes his will save and realized something is wrong. He pulls the others away, though not before one of the charmed party takes a swing at him as the Jinn all tears their masks off, revealing blood red skin, horns and fangs, along with manes of bright red hair

They flee into the distance with the laughter at their back. When they return hours later there is no sign of the encampment. It's about then that the wisher realized that he had accepted a wish from the Jinn.

This led to a sandstorm delaying their quarry and the wisher drawing most of the fight's aggro. He got the ghost class for his efforts though.

Seharvepernfan
2011-11-09, 02:41 PM
Vamps For the past couple months, I've been trying to decide exactly how my vampires should be. I think the ones straight out of the MM are a bit too powerful, but then I guess they could be the rare "elder" vampires leaving vampire spawn to be normal vampires. Fluff wise, I haven't changed them much, but I did drop the whole garlic/crosses/running water/can't enter a house uninvited/control animals stuff. They are few in number because the world can't support many of them without them ruling, and there are too many powerful non-vampire beings out there for that to happen. So, they hide in cities and caves (and the underdark), picking away at the weak who live at society's edge.

They were created by a long-fallen master race in a search for immortality, but since that empire's fall they were let loose to keep the current races in check (humans, elves, dwarves, etc).

They don't play a big part at all, I just keep them around for variety.

Elves I took most of the normal elf races (wild, wood, high, grey) and labeled them "elf" with the same racial traits. They might live as wilderness savages, sylvan fey-friend rangers, nomadic fair folk, or forest-city building sophisticated wizard erudites, but all that is just a cultural difference. I keep drow as they are. I don't know if I even have aquatic elves or not.

My elves are pretty vanilla. They are predominantly CG (except drow), love the wilderness (especially forests), dislike and avoid industry/business/empires, living simple responsible lives in tune with their environment, and aim for quality of life and joy. They are basically a race of libertarians.

They have smaller populations than other races, but a much higher percentage of leveled characters. They are deadly guerilla warriors, prime archers, and often-times magically capable. They have a sense of racial brotherhood, and never have wars among themselves (except drow), and very, very rarely start wars with other races. They almost instinctively cooperate, though loosely, with little need for leadership or nations.

Whenever other races invade or start preying on the elves, the elves gang up and guerilla the hell out of the instigators, making any victory too costly and embarrassing. Then individual elf heroes will hunt down those responsible and end them.

The forests of the world largely belong to them (with few exceptions). They let nature run its course, only tending their living areas (warping/speeding plant growth to suit their purposes), and let other races have the new growth outer edges of the forest, which they replant and regrow (and force other races to do the same). This satisfies the needs of the other races and ensures the safety of the true forest.

There are virtually no elf commoners, the only ones that are were raised in human lands, usually by humans. The vast majority are experts at least. Warriors are rare too, most "warrior" elves are actually a variant of fighter, or a wilderness rogue/scout/wilderness ninja/ranger. The wild/wood elves are usually just "warriors" with some druids thrown in, high elves are typically gish "warriors" with levels of enchanter/diviner/illusionist/transmuter who sometimes take eldritch knight/spellsword/bladesinger/arcane archer, and grey elves are mostly casters, sometimes duskblades.

Stat-wise, I made them a hair faster (35ft.) to represent their faster fast-twitch reflexes and light/slender/agile bodies, +2 caster level checks against spell resistance, +2 spellcraft, +2 craft (bowyer/fletcher), +2 on turning checks against undead, and +2 caster level with positive energy spells. This makes them magically capable in addition to guerrilla warriors, they are expert bow crafters like they should be, and they are innately gifted with "life" magic.


Orcs My orcs mostly look like the dudes from pg. 23 of the DMG, some are uglier and more like lockwoods drawings, others are nobler looking like azeroth orcs, but they are all the same race. I dropped thier charisma penalty (I pretty much lowered all charisma penalties by 2), and gave them a few more "brute" bonuses.

Their gear is usually subpar, unless they just got their hands on some new stuff (which swiftly goes into disrepair). A normal orc will be wearing hide armor or peicemeal equivalent to studded leater, using a greataxe with less hp than a normal one, and a few javelins. They virtually never create their own magic items.

Pretty much every orc is a warrior, and the elite "warriors" are usually barbarians. The wisest orcs end up being clerics (typically war/strength), many of which multiclass as barbarian (they usually prepare buffing spells). The same goes for charismatic orcs and sorcerer (who overwhelmingly prefer blasting spells). If they take any ranger, usually its a few levels at most. Very few have skillmonkey classes. The orc strategy is mass charge doing as much damage as possible at any cost as quickly as possible.

Orcs virtually never have sophisticated classes, like ToB.

Orc shamans cultivate a variety of drugs that increase "berzerker" qualities in their warriors, who are largely addicted to these drugs. They sometimes trade these drugs in the black markets of other races (usually humans).

Frank's orcs match up with mine pretty well. I haven't changed them much from how they are in the books, except more of them are sorcerers.

My ogres and giants are largely the same. Ettins are just two headed ogres. Trolls look more like lotr trolls (but leaner and clawed).

My dwarves are largely the same, except there are more spellcasters (but mainly utilitarian non-pc builds). Dwarf commoners are actually warriors, warriors are actually fighters, and fighters are actually crusaders. Artificers are common.

I got rid of halflings.

Gnomes My gnomes are completely reworked, but provide pretty much the same fluff.

Gnomes
+2 Cha, -2 Wis
small
base speed 20ft.
lesser low light vision (x1.5)
treat light repeaters as simple weapons, heavy repeaters and calculi as martial
a gnome who merely passes within 5ft. of an illusion is entitled to a save to disbelieve the illusion as if studying it
+1 attacks with thrown weapons
+2 will saves vs. illusion
+1 dc to any illusion spells cast
+2 craft alchemy
+1 to any two craft or knowledge skills (except alchemy)
+2 decipher script
+1 disable device and open lock

Their society is split into two groups, the hidden, and the wanderers. The hidden are your typical fantasy gnomes, living in hidden burrows in wooded hills or hard-to-find sections of the cities of other races. They are mostly crafters and casters, making the lions share of the worlds magic items/alchemy/technology (including smokepowder and rifled flintlocks).

The wanderers are more roguish. They live as bands of nomads, usually in large enclosed wagon caravans, boat caravans along large rivers and coastlines, and even in airships (which are new and rare). They do the trading and black-ops/secret agent/spy style work for the race.

Gnomes are virtually never warriors, they just don't have the natural capabilities for combat. Many are rogues, but that is largely the extent of their martial capabilities. They instead rely on stealth, superior items and gear, and constructs. Warforged exist in my world, but only as the servants and protectors of gnomes (they are free, but 99.?% choose to stay with their creators).

Other than this they are largely the same as the PHB gnomes, except they are a bit taller and about twice as heavy. They have a lot in common with eberron gnomes and rock gnomes from faerun.

Also, my svirfneblin are NE. They are as highly feared as drow or duergar, if not more so. They make prime stealth agents and smugglers.

Hobgoblins (Rhuuka)

HOBGOBLIN CHARACTERS
Hobgoblin characters possess the following racial traits.
+2 Constitution, -2 Wisdom. Hobgoblins are disciplined and punished harshly since birth by a highly dominating society, developing healthy enduring bodies but lacking personal strength and the mental ability to block influence. A hobgoblin instinctively follows commands and orders.
A hobgoblin’s base land speed is 30 feet.
+2 to Grapple checks
+2 to all Art of War checks (Bull Rush, Disarm, Feint, Overrun, Parry, Sunder, & Trip)
+2 vs. all Art of War checks (Bull Rush, Disarm, Feint, Overrun, Sunder, & Trip)
+2 to Knowledge (architecture & Engineering) & Proffession (Seige Engineer) checks
Any hobgoblin who is adjacent to an ally hobgoblin gains a +1 shield bonus to AC against melee attacks from opponents adjacent to both hobgoblins.
Treat dire flails as martial weapons.
Automatic Languages: Goblin. Bonus Languages: Draconic, Dwarven, Infernal, Giant, Orc.

Half-hobgoblin
+2 Wis, -2 Cha. Half-hobgoblins are looked down upon and ignored by their parent races and thus have weaker personalities, but develop greater self-control and perception by learning for and teaching themselves. They tend to say little and listen much.
A hobgoblin’s base land speed is 30 feet.
+2 on all endurance checks.
+2 to Concentration checks.
+2 to Grapple checks
+2 to all Art of War checks (Bull Rush, Disarm, Feint, Overrun, Parry, Sunder, & Trip)
+2 vs. all Art of War checks (Bull Rush, Disarm, Feint, Overrun, Sunder, & Trip)
+2 to Knowledge (architecture & Engineering) & Proffession (Seige Engineer) checks
Treat dire flails as martial weapons.
Automatic Languages: Common, Goblin. Bonus Languages: Draconic, Dwarven, Infernal, Giant, Orc.

Physically, hobgoblins are human sized but typically broader and thicker of frame, squarer, and as a result, heavier. They tend to be tighter or harder to the touch than man. Their skin is darker and ruddier, more leathery and tends to be reddish, orangish, brownish, gray, or some mix of these. Their hair is thick, stiff and hard, and mostly dark or muted in color. Their features are typically bonier or more pronounced, with a harder cast. Their faces are typically flatter than a humans, and wider. Their eyes are usually yellowish, reddish brown, brown, or black. They are rarely, if ever, blue or green. Their lips are thin and hard.

Hobgoblins are a conquering race that inhabit areas that used to be occupied by other races, usually a receding tide of humans. Hobgoblins live wherever they find suitable defensible dwellings. They add superficial fortifications and dwellings onto a base structure that they cannot replicate, though some powerful hobgoblins tribes and nations use slaves to build fortresses and cities that they design, and these fortresses and cities are often of higher structural quality than the majority built by humans and tend to be more tactical/strategic in layout. Some of the largest and strongest fortresses in the world are in (or bordering) hobgoblin lands. Any hobgoblin leader would go to great lengths to own a dwarven fortress. Hobgoblins living near water often pirate and raid from fortified battle-ships with siege weaponry (their ships tend to be very large, often with wide platforms, but aren‘t quite seaworthy).

They exist in tribes which occasionally, under the right leadership, form into small (but strong) kingdoms. They raid the communities of other races (and their own) for slaves, whom they use for menial labor, agriculture, crafting, animal handling, mining, battle fodder, and other miscellaneous (and often horrible) things. Hobgoblin society leans heavily on the use of slaves. Hobgoblins rely on other cultures for resources, as they lack the skill to make what they need (except for armor, drums, siege engines, and weapons), relying on their martial prowess to take what they need. Hobgoblins will sometimes trade with cultures they cannot dominate (yet) for things they cannot create or greatly desire (often fueling black markets in those cultures).

Most hobgoblins share a life goal/dream of becoming a warlord. Most often, this means serving one first, rising through the ranks with loyal service and dedication, then backstabbing and overthrowing. Most never get close to this goal. A warlords closest and most valuable advisors are typically his most dangerous enemies (because he needs and relies on them more than anyone else and they desire and are closer to his power than anyone else, and thus more likely to attempt a coup). The life of a warlord is typically short and bloody.

However, some warlords rule long enough for their children to mature before they die in battle (or when their children overthrow them - either of which makes a hobgoblin father proud). This leads to a royal line. If a line lasts (which is rarer still), a kingdom is born. If a kingdom lasts, it conquers its neighbors (other small kingdoms or individual warlords) and becomes a nation. A nation will typically amass armies composed of several tribes and set out to conquer the lands of other races. Successful nations become empires, which are usually considered world powers. A hobgoblin empire is a war machine unmatched by any other terrestrial mortal race and is universally feared and respected. Hobgoblin empires that aren't brought down by their own byzantine infighting are brought down by a coalition of enemy races who overcome their own differences to bring down such a dangerous enemy.

A hobgoblin warlord lusts after personal power (in battle and leadership ability), powerful weapons (armament, spell, magic artifice, armies, intelligence), slaves, the favor of his god (through sacrificial offerings if not deed), a line of numerous and strong descendents, territory, trophies of his enemies, respect and loyalty from his followers, fear from his enemies (and allies), and most of all, a mighty stronghold. Hobgoblin fascination with castles and fortification usually crosses the border into obsession. The wet dream of every hobgoblin warlord is a gigantic impregnable fortress on a mountaintop standing over the entrance to a conquered dwarven stronghold with his personal banner waving from the battlements, especially a blood coated stronghold with blood stained (or soaked) banners.

Hobgoblin decoration is dominated by one color. Red. If anything else it is red on black, occasionally in addition to gold, which is more common once a hobgoblin community reaches nation status. Red is a religious color to hobgoblins, it emphasizes strength and power, aggression, pride, and most importantly, blood. Hobgoblins often use blood as decoration, whether the blood of slaves, prisoners, enemies, or merely the unlucky. They use it on walls and armor as paint (this is actually false, hobgoblins never allow blood to stain their armaments, though they are commonly painted or enameled in red), and in fabric as dye. Sometimes it is drunk in celebration or ritual. It is even used as war paint. If blood is not used, then red paint or clay is used to imitate it. Hobgoblins favor red gemstones. A clear sign of a successful hobgoblin warlord is a stronghold painted in the blood of his enemies, with blood soaked banners. Elf blood in particular is craved. Often the first thing done after winning a battle is the stringing up and draining of a fallen enemy's blood (some do this to their fallen as well).

They are almost constantly skirmishing with orcs, whom they acknowledge as dangerous, but lack respect for. They are just as often at war with other hobgoblins, usually over territory, slaves, or some defensible location. They occasionally fight with dwarves, whom they regard as fierce and dangerous enemies, but can rarely defeat them on their home ground (which is where the vast majority of dwarf vs. hobgoblin battles take place). They rarely fight with elves, whom they have an almost fanatical hatred for, and will go far out of their way to kill when they catch wind of them (often meaning huge losses if in an elven forest). Hobgoblins consider killing an elf a great achievement, and many make trophies of the elves they have slain. If a hobgoblin is a ranger, they will almost surely pick elves as their favored enemy.

If a hobgoblin tribe is successful enough, they will breed their slaves to ensure a second generation. This sometimes means that whole generations of other races live and die as slaves to hobgoblins. Whole human cultures exist as hobgoblin slaves. Occasionally, when a hobgoblin society lasts long enough for a multi-generation human slave culture to form within it, trusted children of trusted slaves might grow up among and train with hobgoblin youth, creating a bond sometimes resembling friendship (though this is harshly punished if discovered). Some of these human slaves serve in hobgoblin militaries and clergies, some even become ambassadors to the lands and nations of other races. Plenty of half-hobgoblins spring from these mixed cultures. Some hobgoblins hire themselves out as mercenaries to humans and other races. Most human leaders are loathe to go to war with hobgoblins, as such always leads to heavy battlefield losses.

Most hobgoblins are of the warrior class (usually with a focus on phalanx fighting), with siege engineers being experts (who double as sentries, guides, and sometimes trackers). Many Hobgoblins are fighters, usually of the combat expertise feat tree and specialize in flails. Hobgoblin leadership typically includes clerics of Maglubiyet (Hextor), warmages, or marshalls, and often a triumvirate of the three, with evokers taking an advisory role. Hobgoblin adepts are almost always smiters* and serve in the same role as warmages. Hobgoblins have a strong tradition of ninja/monk hyrbids, although an individual hobgoblin may only have levels in one of the two. The highest regarded class of any hobgoblin, however, is the blackguard. Many champions and heroes of the race are blackguards. They heavily favor crusaders and war blades, and half breeds favor swordsages, but the ruukha have many swordsages as well.

Hobgoblin clerics and evokers have a strong relationship with barghests through the planar ally/binding spells, and the barghests are held in high regard in hobgoblin society, existing outside the usual hierarchy. Barghests often sponsor blackguards, and half-barghest hobgoblins are usually blackguards (half-fiend with the barghest ability to turn into a wolf instead of having wings). Hobgoblins usually feed low worth slaves to barghests in return for being called. Hobgoblin warbands under a barghest leader will usually ally with a pack of wargs.

Strong hobgoblin nations will sometimes breed small armies of skull crusher ogres for use as elite heavy infantry and shock troops, or, rarely, as heavy cavalry mounted on war elephants. Hobgoblins rarely ride horses (hobgoblin mercenaries in foreign lands are a big exception), instead, they ride either dire wolves raised for battle, or wargs enlarged through a permanancied first level spell created by their evokers. Magic hobgoblin armor usually has the shadow and silent moves enchantments. Hobgoblins favor flails, tower shields, and armor spikes. The most common template for hobgoblins is half-fiend (barghest).

*The smiter is an adept variant from a third party book, "Ultimate NPCs". It's basically what you would get if you crossed an adept with a warmage.

Bugbears My bugbears are orc/rhuuka hybrids called Uruks. They have no bonus HD, and their traits are a mix/match of orc and hobgoblin traits, but are LA+1. They usually have purpleish or maroon skin. They live like bands of werewolves (in fact, most werewolves are uruks) in between hobgoblin and orc lands, and often hire themselves out as mercenary skirmishers/rangers. They look like lotr uruk-hai. They worship an aspect or erythnul called Hruggek, though many are NE.

Kobolds Largely the same, except a bit more urbane and sophisticated (despite living in tunnels and holes).
small
base speed 20ft.
-2 con, +2 cha
darkvision 60ft.
poison use
+1 nat armor
+2 craft (poison), +2 craft (traps)
+2 search

They favor necromancy. They look like MM kobolds mixed with 4th ED dragonborn. They are gnome sized, though lighter and a bit thinner.


Gnolls As Frank's description, but:

+2 str, -2 int, -2 cha
+5ft. reach in one direction per round (not on AoOs)
35ft. speed
low light vision
treat greatbows as martial
+2 spot, listen, survival

They are long and lean, favoring reach weapons like spears, and using hit and run tactics. Most are warriors, scouts or rangers. A few are druids. They worship an aspect of erythnul called yeenoghu.

Dragons I did away with the color coded dragons from the MM, opting instead to make each dragon unique. In my world they have extremely morphic DNA, making each and every dragon different. Not all are "true" dragons with wings, a long tail, 4 legs, a long neck, horns, and all that, however those that are are the most powerful. Some are snakelike, some are like crocadiles or komodos, some are thick and bulbous like frogs, some are sea serpents, etc. They do all have some sort of mouth based attack, whether as a breath weapon, a poison bite, or even a fang dragons increased damage and con drain. They do mostly have innate spellcasting, but some are stupid like wyverns and can't manage it. Some have druidic casting instead.

I try to keep most monsters from being overly large, and dragons are no exception. The largest flying dragons will be huge or smaller, the largest land dragons will be gargantuan, only sea dragons will be colossal (exceptions to the first two cases exist, but are very rare).

Basically, I tailor whatever dragon I decide to use to whatever specific need I have for it in the adventure.

Most live like beasts or MM dragons, some live among the societies of lesser races, even openly. Some rule nations.

kieza
2011-11-09, 03:50 PM
My ghouls: Rather than carnivorous undead, they're carnivorous living humanoids. They first appeared about two hundred years ago, living as carrion-eaters. (They lived near graveyards, which gave them a nasty, but deserved, reputation.) Eventually, they adapted to modern society, and now about half of the total ghoul population is "civilized." Aside from their carnivorous teeth, they look completely human, so a lot of people think that they were bred or magically altered from human stock by some anonymous wizard.

My orcs: Orcs don't come from the same genetic ancestor as elves, humans, dwarves, and halflings, or at least, they split off earlier. They have markedly different brain chenistry and psychology; most notably, they have a fight response rather than a fight-or-flight response, and they massively overproduce adrenaline even when calm. The end result of this is that they fly into berserker rages at the drop of a hat. However, their modern society tries to counter this: about five centuries back, the orcs were involved in a war from which most of a generation didn't return. A few shaman from the older generation took the opportunity to reshape orc culture, emphasizing self-control and restraint, and channeling their cultural aggression into bloodless competitions like hunts and a version of the Olympics. Orcs are still berserkers, but aside from a few outcasts, they fall into a cold fury rather than a frothing rage.

My dwarves: Dwarves are a stagnant race. Their culture has always revolved around tradition and respect for ancestors, but after a war 500 years ago (the same one that the orcs were in) that destroyed their capital and royal family, tradition became their overriding concern. Whenever a dwarf makes some achievement, the expectation is that he will dedicate it to the founder of his clan, and take no glory from it himself. The problem with this is that, once something is dedicated to an ancestor, it is considered a great dishonor to stop using it, much less destroy it. As such, the dwarves have passed up many recent advances in industrialization and mechanization. While dwarf mastersmiths are still the finest craftsmen in the known world, sought after for heirloom-quality work, all of the mass-produced goods that the dwarves used to make are now produced by human foundries. The dwarven economy is in shambles, and more and more young dwarves abandon their clans to seek training and employment abroad. Many elders fear that the collapse of dwarven society will occur within the next two generations.

My angels and demons: Angels are constructs which not only lack free will, but also lack true sentience. They are created as needed by the greater servants of the gods (archangels and the enigmatic Observers, who do have sentience, and in the case of Observers, free will) and given only the knowledge and decision-making ability necessary for the task at hand. As an essentially limitless resource, created from the endless material of the Astral Sea, angels are simply thrown at a problem until it goes away with no concern for losses. Demons, on the other hand, are created ad infinitum by a corrupted version of the same process which creates angels. On the Astral Sea, around the mouth of Hell, endless legions of angels and demons are eternally created, thrown at each other, and destroyed, neither side making progress.

A note on my cosmology: The gods are absent, having moved on to the next world on the docket. They left behind a council of Observers, enigmatic beings who serve all of the gods equally, and their domains on the Astral Sea. The Observers coordinate the archangels, who coordinate the legions of angels to defend the world against intrusion from the Far Realm.

However, uniquely among all the worlds designed by the gods, this world's Observers had an ideological split, which led to the corruption of the demons and the destruction of many of the gods' works and facilities. The loyalist faction maintains control over the angels, but the usurpers have erected a defense against transit from the Astral Plane, preventing both loyalist Observers and angels from attacking them on the Material Plane while the usurpers advance their own agenda.

(This is all a variation of the Ancient Astronaut hypothesis, with lots of MAGIC! and SCIENCE! thrown in.)

Anderlith
2011-11-09, 08:18 PM
My angels cannot create, that is the sole trait of humans & god(s), this means that they are limited in ideas & cannot lie (this does not stop them from thinking you are lying, nor make them ignorant of the concept of a lie.) Angles are however very powerful.

Fallen angels hate humans because of our power to create. Fallen angels use the same rules as normal angels except they are really good at not lying. They also seek to harvest human souls because it is an energy source. The lead Fallen Angel wants to accumilate as many souls as he can to rival any power that exists (perhaps even god(s))

Demons are corrupted souls of humans, fallen angels corrupted them because they cannot create & so a demon is a way to circumvent that. It is thought that the idea for the first demon was from a man. Demons are stronger than humans power-wise.

My goblins are my pet race, I love me some goblins. I like them as cowardly cunning greenskins with football heads. They do have Goblin Heros who are smart or brave or such. The most cherished Goblin Hero is Gnish, a goblin warrior/blacksmith who wields a greatsword (goblin sized). Gnish is based on a happenstance NPC that turned into my first & only GMNPC.

Conners
2011-11-09, 10:00 PM
My angels cannot create, that is the sole trait of humans & god(s), this means that they are limited in ideas & cannot lie (this does not stop them from thinking you are lying, nor make them ignorant of the concept of a lie.) Angles are however very powerful.

Fallen angels hate humans because of our power to create. Fallen angels use the same rules as normal angels except they are really good at not lying. They also seek to harvest human souls because it is an energy source. The lead Fallen Angel wants to accumilate as many souls as he can to rival any power that exists (perhaps even god(s))

Demons are corrupted souls of humans, fallen angels corrupted them because they cannot create & so a demon is a way to circumvent that. It is thought that the idea for the first demon was from a man. Demons are stronger than humans power-wise. By, create, you mean think up new ideas...? Hard to imagine a being that can't think of ideas... that's similar to not being able to think.

Anderlith
2011-11-09, 11:46 PM
By, create, you mean think up new ideas...? Hard to imagine a being that can't think of ideas... that's similar to not being able to think.

Yes. Look at a bird or a spider, they can make a nest or a web that is beautiful & complex, but every bird or spider makes the same kind of nest/web. Only humans actually have new ideas. The way I portray angels, they are immensely powerful entities but they are created to serve. They are soldiers & messangers, they don't need to have ideas.

Without trying to push religion, using religion just to flavor & fluff gaming...In the bible angels are portrayed as mostly autonomous things, some of them serve no purpose other than to chant "Holy, holy, holy". & you could interpret the line in the bible "god made man in his own image" as God creating man as a creator

Conners
2011-11-10, 05:13 AM
Yes. Look at a bird or a spider, they can make a nest or a web that is beautiful & complex, but every bird or spider makes the same kind of nest/web. Only humans actually have new ideas. The way I portray angels, they are immensely powerful entities but they are created to serve. They are soldiers & messangers, they don't need to have ideas.

Without trying to push religion, using religion just to flavor & fluff gaming...In the bible angels are portrayed as mostly autonomous things, some of them serve no purpose other than to chant "Holy, holy, holy". & you could interpret the line in the bible "god made man in his own image" as God creating man as a creator Not true... I taught a wild bird to stand on my hand, and peck chicken off of it (cannibalism, I know). Animals don't understand the same way humans do. But they still can understand in their own way (our brains literally work differently from animals').

? Not sure what you mean. The angels were often sent to deliver messages, save people from cities, and that sort of thing. Unless it's some particular parts I haven't read recently.
"Image" would seem to refer to appearance (that's the way the word is normally used).


One thing I'm noticing in the thread, is the roles of orcs and elves being reversed (elves being made savage, orcs being made noble). What appeal do you see in doing this, out of question?

jseah
2011-11-10, 06:13 AM
I think I will do an elf for my setting.

It will not be savage elves, like others, sticking to the high civilization style. And they have to stay in the forest. And they have to have infinite natural lifespans.
EDIT: looks like I didn't get all of that.

So... *cracks knuckles*

Elf/Elves used below is a placeholder name. I am now looking for a name for this species. Any suggestions?

Elves are strange kind of plant.

Young elves grow from seeds and live for an indefinite period of time. When they sexually mature, which always happens after 20 years and before 60, they morph into a tree. This requires the elf to eat rather alot (and get fat) beforehand, so the transforming elf in its cocoon doesn't starve before it finishes tree-ifying.
Young elves can choose the time they mature by stuffing themselves with lots of food and finding a place to take root. Young elves are bipedal humanoids, but have a tough outer skin not unlike what you might find on a plant stem. Young elves are omnivores and can digest plant matter.
Instead of haemoglobin, young elves use a protein to transport oxygen. Their blood is clear as water, although just about as viscous as human blood or tree sap.
Young elves do not photosynthesize. Skin colour is usually pure white (which is really transparent but refracted too much, like a really misty day)

Elf-trees are non-sentient but retain the ability to wield magic, and young elves can draw on elf-tree magic. This connection is too complex and in-built into elf biology that no other species can use an elf-tree's magic.
Other than young elves requesting elf-trees to use magic, elf-trees will also use magic in self-defence.
Young elves can request an elf-tree to grow wood in a certain shape and then detach it. Only elves can do this.
Of course, elf-trees only use magic or grow wood upon request if they can actually do it without comprising their magic and nutrient levels.
Elf-trees have no maximum natural lifespan.

Elf-trees are bisexual and can self-fertilize. Elf-tree pollen has a soporific (calming) effect on mammals, although unless concentrated, cannot serve as a sleeping powder or general anaesthetic. Note that this doesn't work on young elves.

Elf-trees drop seeds through the year. Elf seeds grow as a plant for a short time (a few years) before morphing into their intermediate stage of the mobile young elf. This morph happens in the large tap root the elf-plant grows (far larger than would be expected out of a plant that size)
Only mobile young elves are sentient. The plant forms of elves lack a nervous system at all.
Young elves never exit their tap root during winter. Development of the elf-plant is timed so that they exit from late-spring to mid-fall.

Conners
2011-11-10, 06:26 AM
Names? You could use the Norse name, "Alfr".

Thinker
2011-11-10, 06:43 AM
One thing I'm noticing in the thread, is the roles of orcs and elves being reversed (elves being made savage, orcs being made noble). What appeal do you see in doing this, out of question?

It's the trendy thing to do after the LotR movies. I guess people feel like they're getting back at Legolas by making elves terrible. As for orcs, they always seem like they're an underdog. Everyone loves underdogs.

Lately I've been experimenting with having no fantasy races and monsters are unplayable. "Oh, you got turned into a vampire? Better roll up a new character..."

mint
2011-11-10, 07:06 AM
My group has a running gag about elves. They're everywhere because if they ever end up in a place too long they get this urge to go "into the west" at the drop of a hat.

"Arîevnir, did you take out the garbage?"
"Alas, I did my love"
"'Tis truly the end of an era. Let's fade into the west"
"'kay"

So if we go somewhere really off the map or metaphysical, chances are there are some elves around.
The corollary is that some elves don't move on. What happens to them? They become Hillbilly Elves. They have sweet stills, mouth accordions and interesting handshakes.

Conners
2011-11-10, 08:25 AM
Lately I've been experimenting with having no fantasy races and monsters are unplayable. "Oh, you got turned into a vampire? Better roll up a new character..." Interesting. What have you discovered form your experiments, so far?



My group has a running gag about elves. They're everywhere because if they ever end up in a place too long they get this urge to go "into the west" at the drop of a hat.

"Arîevnir, did you take out the garbage?"
"Alas, I did my love"
"'Tis truly the end of an era. Let's fade into the west"
"'kay"

So if we go somewhere really off the map or metaphysical, chances are there are some elves around.
The corollary is that some elves don't move on. What happens to them? They become Hillbilly Elves. They have sweet stills, mouth accordions and interesting handshakes. Wow. Everyone seems to hate elves, these days :-/. I never liked them that much, but still.

Yora
2011-11-10, 08:35 AM
The only real problem with elves are the very vocal fanboys and fangirls. Unfortunately, quite a few of them are also writers who occasionally work for RPG companies.
It's not so much the things that elves do, but that some writers claim that these things make the elves superior to everyone else. And when you also have the writers make all the other races agree with that, you have a real train wreck.

Conners
2011-11-10, 09:07 AM
Yes... that often can be annoying.

Yora
2011-11-10, 09:10 AM
I tried reading Races of Faerûn again to get some ideas for my wild elves. It's sickening to read.

Conners
2011-11-10, 09:17 AM
Can you give us a sickening quote, for what not to do when writing about elves?

Yora
2011-11-10, 09:37 AM
With sick pleasure.

Elves are graceful, lithe, and beautiful. Regardless of their particular heritage, they are viewed by other races as a highly magical and wondrous people. This awe and respect has an unexpected corollary—many people view elves as haughty and shamelessly introverted as a race. The reasons for this are numerous, including jealousy, envy, and religious hatred.


Elven cities, even without the common magical enhancements that many carry, are beautiful sights indeed. To an elf, a building is little different than a mountain or a tree. They strive to fashion their homes and structures in such a way that they blend completely with their natural surroundings, adding to the natural beauty and purity of the landscape rather than detracting from it. The squat, functional buildings constructed by most humans strike most elves as ridiculous and intrusive.


Wood elves live at ease with nature, using what naturally occurs in the world to shelter or defend themselves. They are not nomadic, and claim large territories in the deepest woodlands of Faerûn. Some wood
elves choose to do without houses, furnishings, and any possessions they can’t carry, using the high branches of great trees or natural caves in their
roots for shelter and storage. Most wood elves instead prefer to dwell in
small villages of permanent homes of natural fieldstone and lovingly carved
wood, so carefully concealed among the surrounding wilderness that a
human hunter might walk through the center of a wood elf village and not
even notice that he had done so.

jseah
2011-11-10, 09:45 AM
Continuing with my elf-trees:

One of the more basic food sources for a young mobile elf is the acorn-like seeds that elf-trees drop. Young mobile elves can subsist indefinetly on a diet of only elf-seeds.
Yes, its cannibalism, but most seeds never survive even their first winter and if they all did, elves would have the highest reproduction rate among all land predators.
Since the young elves are sentient and intelligent, they use this as a form of birth control. And food source.

Since young elves pretty much came with orchard farming inbuilt, they started agriculture long before humans did. Plus, elf-trees need less tending compared to crops, give a stable supply of food (and population) and provide a defensive environmental advantage to resident young elves. (pollen induced drowsiness reduces predator aggressiveness, elves can draw on elf-tree magic for emergency defence)
Not to mention, in an elf population boom due to allowing many seeds to sprout, soon, you also expand the forest when all those new elves take root.

Basically, they have a developed civilization centered around forestry as a food source instead of farming.

mint
2011-11-10, 10:02 AM
Elves have, at their core, a little note that says "better'n u". What is interesting about that?
I mean, I can relate but for all of you people, what is there?
Joking aside, elves are defined by being better than everyone else. That doesn't exactly set the stage for an interesting character with conflicts, flaws and triumphs.
The tropes that cause trouble for elves aren't internal.
Their trees are being cut down by some bad dudes to illustrate the ravages of industrialization. Or they've been the bestest for a long, long time and now some vague power like time or prophecy is writing them out of the show so the new kids can have a go (exactly like Oprah, who was also foiled by prophecy).

So I like elves who go full on fascist, imperialist bastards who are all about racial supremacy because they make great villains by slightly subverting a deeply ingrained trope: Elves are better than you, but they're nice about it.
I like wandering elf swordsmen named Joe Jimbob who carry jugs of moonshine next to their bastard swords.
And I like elves in steampunk who pick up guns and become master marksmen and shrewd timber magnates.
I'd like to see more done on elves who lose their fiat (their innate juju and great works from the first age begin to fade or whatever) and have to deal with the loss and make their own way. That's a conflict I can be interested in.

Anderlith
2011-11-10, 10:24 AM
Not true... I taught a wild bird to stand on my hand, and peck chicken off of it (cannibalism, I know). Animals don't understand the same way humans do. But they still can understand in their own way (our brains literally work differently from animals').

? Not sure what you mean. The angels were often sent to deliver messages, save people from cities, and that sort of thing. Unless it's some particular parts I haven't read recently.
"Image" would seem to refer to appearance (that's the way the word is normally used).


One thing I'm noticing in the thread, is the roles of orcs and elves being reversed (elves being made savage, orcs being made noble). What appeal do you see in doing this, out of question?

The bird didn't suddenly have the idea to do it. I can assume you used traditional training techniques? At first it was relying on instinct, & then through positive reinforcement it adapted it's behavior to a new environmental. It didn't suddenly have the idea to eat chicken from you hand

"Image" is an English word & even then, it has a lot of different meanings, you have to understand that the bible was originally written in ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, & Latin, then was translated into English. Add to the fact that words can subtly change over time. Also, this is only my interpretation of the script as I apply it gaming lore

The Reverend
2011-11-10, 11:14 AM
My world relies heavily on a couple of notable features, no Native draft animals and very few suitable for riding. The hobgoblins have giant bats but only the smallest of goblins fit on them and are used for non magical communication. No half anything unless its magically created.


My elves
elves in my world are somewhat like your standard run of the mill elves, but with some important differences. First off they are Carnivorous, meat makes up more than 80% of their diet. The rest is composed of fiberois fruits and vegetables and berries and spices. Alcohol is also ingested for recreational purposes. Certain plants are also collected for pickling and preserving meats as well. This meat based diet has determined in large part tje life styles available to them, elves tend toward one of three primary bases for their society: forestry based hunting, plains based herding, and coast based fishing settlements. It is in the fishing settlements where the elves culture truly flourishes. A steady supply of food without the need for constant nomadic movement means this is where the great cities of the elves thrive and have thrived since time immemorial. These are also the centers of elven magical arts and crafts. The tree villages hold to a clan structure and move about between village sites on a tri annual basis allowing for renewal of the forest. These villages keep to ancestral holds and patterns producing great druidic wisdom. The clans while constantly on the watch for incursion from each other will pull together to deal with outside invasion.

All of the major elven population centers are in the North, think Canada/Russia/Icelandic weather patterns.

Physically the elves are 6-7.5 feet tall with a weight about 40% leas than a human of that height. They are descended from a sort of predatory bird and retain many bird like features:feather like hair, large pupils, enlarged color range(indigo and ultraviolet), hollow bones, and unsettling stillness with bouts of jerky movements, backwards knees, bill like section where teeth would be, and they dont sleep only torpor.


My humans

My humans are literally from another world and are non native outsiders, they cannot be banished or controlled just injured by outsider type riders on effects. Humans are the only species with a divine connection as this new world Has No Gods and they brought some of their own with them on the walk over. Humans also have a SR against arcane spells, but not against other types as the Arcane Source was removed from their world. They are the only species allowed to take divine classes and may not take arcane classes.

Gensh
2011-11-10, 12:07 PM
Actually, what I did to fix the "better than you" elf trope is I made them scavengers. The universe goes through cycles of creation and destruction, and the previous elves were heavily industrialized when the reset button got pressed. As a result of their sprawling empire and mass production techniques, a bunch of things they made were left behind. When elves in the new universe first became civilized, they gathered up all the old artifacts they could and convinced everyone, their future generations included, that they had long ago been a great and powerful race. As time passes, occasionally certain types of undead from the previous run of the universe (usually liches) will have survived the apocalypse and start to make things difficult for the current elves, causing them to hire adventurers to eliminate these "horrible monsters."

Yora
2011-11-10, 12:54 PM
I have something similar. In my setting both elves and lizardfolks were very often captured and made slaves by the ancient civilizations. When those disappeared, the slaves returned to their people and managed to preserve some of the more basic and simple skills and technologies they had been tought. This gave the two races a great advantage over other primitive humanoid races when it came to create the first new civilizations.
Elves don't have any special abilities compared to other races. They can live three to four times as long as humans if they can escape accident, combat injuries, wild animals, and disease for that long. Since it's Pathfinder, they have a slight boost to intelligence, but that evens out with the advtanges humans have. Elves are forest people, while humans are plains people and later arrivials. In direct compairison, elves are in no way superior.

Gnomes are made up from the best parts of dwarves, halflings, and gnomes, fantasy races that I think rarely if ever see any new interpretations.
They grow up to 4 feet tall and look like slightly stocky or chubby humans with round faces. While they are surface people, they build most of their homes underground. The basements are usually much larger than the surface buildings. Stables and pastures for animals, as well as some workshops are outside, and pretty much all gnomes spend some time of almost every day outside, or even most of their lives if they are farmers or shepherds.
Taking the alchemist and engineer ideas to a less advanced setting, gnomes are also good at mining and metalurgy. Most mines are family businesses and have only a few dozens or up to one hundred miners. However, gnomes almost have a monopoly on steel making and supply most of the other races with the raw material for steel weapons and armor.
There are a few major gnome cities that are located entirely underground, but it rarely takes more than half an hour of walking to reach the outer gates to the surface from the city center.
Gnomes are not tricksters, but rather optimistic pragmatics. They know they are smaller and weaker than pretty much everyone else, so they rarely put up a fight when facing stronger opposition. Instead they retreat, get some guys for assistance, and then strike back when their opponent doesn't expect it. Since most people have a hard time believing that a tiny pushover would plan any revenge or retribution, this tactic works almost all the time, even with people who have been warned about it. As a results, gnomes fight really dirty. Many of them don't enjoy it or are particularly proud of it. Desperate times require desperate measures.

Jay R
2011-11-10, 12:59 PM
Back in the late 1970s, there was an article in the Dragon that began with a hypothetical encounter:
"You see three Clickclicks."
"Hey, I read about them in a recent supplement. I shout out 'NOVEMBER!'"
"That's right. The Clickclicks fall over dead."

Based on that notion, I started a project to rewrite all monsters and races, based on the theory that everything in the books was the legends that men told around the campfires. But that most men had never seen a hippogriff - how would anybody know what they were like? (Note - there were a lot fewer monsters and races then.)

What I do has changed over time, but the basic idea remains - the books tell you what people believe about other races. A lot of it is true, some of it is exaggerated. And some parts are false, but everybody who found out, then died. (How do you find out that wolvesbane doesn't work on werewolves? By walking up to a werewolf with wolvesbane in your hands, right?)

This allows me to build new weaknesses, that could be discovered, but aren't known yet.

Most of my elves are Tolkien variety, but there is a single culture of Elfquest elves.

My dwarves are basically Tolkien / Norse. But they have a weakness, which is that they cannot stop themselves from working (it's semi-instinctual). This, of course, makes them superb slaves. It also explains their distrust of other races.

Vampires? I try to avoid the modernist approach and get back to the basic myth, but I mean something different from most people when I say that. I want to get past the modernist Dracula version back to the bloated corpse version. There were several conflicting methods to end their unlife forever, and I conclude that they came from real situations, misunderstood. Somebody killed one with a stake through the heart, so now people believe that this always works. In truth, it wasn't the stake; it was (pick one):
a. A blow delivered by three people (two happened to be holding the stake that time).
b. The stake happened to have been part of the vampire's possessions when living.
c. Vampires only live for a year and a day, and that was the right moment.
d. Pounding in the stake, he hit his own thumb. In pain, he shed a single tear, which fell on the vampire.
e. There was a bit of lichen clinging to the stake. Putting life inside his body destroyed his unlife.
f. Or anything else that seems like an appropriate weakness.
Someday I plan to put the players in a region being slowly overrun with vampires, with a few clues to find about what works. Over the course of a few adventures, they should slowly work out what really kills them. But once their true weakness is known, vampires will pretty much die out in that country.

Hippogriffs can get addicted to coffee beans, and will serve somebody who feeds them coffee every day. But don't lose your source of beans - a hippogriff in withdrawal is a fearsome beast indeed.

I have included tommyknockers in old mines, based on one of the various conflicting legends.

I don't have halflings or treants; I have hobbits and ents. TSR got sued because they were making money off it, but I'm not, and I don't have to file the serial numbers off of my inspiration.

Just changing the colors of the various slimes causes serious trouble for experienced players. Better yet, the colors are based on their environment, rather than their species. All slimes are green in a copper mine, reddish in an iron mine, for instance. Now what weapon will you use?

And in a darkened chamber in the Mines of Doom, there is a creature about whom nothing is known. No light will work in that room, and none who have entered have ever returned to report. All that is known is that a quiet noise emanates from the darkness.

Click-click, click-click...

Seharvepernfan
2011-11-10, 01:25 PM
With sick pleasure.

Wut.

How in any way is that sickening?

How does any of that make them "superior"?

I think it's the way you interpret it, not what it says.

If anything, it's always the humans that are superior. I can't imagine why...:smallamused:

Shadowknight12
2011-11-10, 01:26 PM
Wut.

How in any way is that sickening?

How does any of that make them "superior"?

I think it's the way you interpret it, not what it says.

It's "Mary Sue" (or "Canon Sue" in this case) type of sick. If you aren't revolted by Canon Sues, you probably won't be revolted by that. But take our word for it, for those of us who find Canon Sues sickening, that was a kick to the gag reflex.

Seharvepernfan
2011-11-10, 01:29 PM
It's "Mary Sue" (or "Canon Sue" in this case) type of sick. If you aren't revolted by Canon Sues, you probably won't be revolted by that. But take our word for it, for those of us who find Canon Sues sickening, that was a kick to the gag reflex.

I promise not to argue, but could you explain how it's revolting to you?

Yora
2011-11-10, 01:33 PM
It's a german expression. Maybe it doesn't translate that well.

But to highlight the relevant parts:

Elves are graceful, lithe, and beautiful.

Regardless of their particular heritage, they are viewed by other races as a highly magical and wondrous people.

The reasons for this are numerous, including jealousy, envy, and religious hatred.

Elven cities, even without the common magical enhancements that many carry, are beautiful sights indeed.

To an elf, a building is little different than a mountain or a tree. They strive to fashion their homes and structures in such a way that they blend completely with their natural surroundings, adding to the natural beauty and purity of the landscape rather than detracting from it.

The squat, functional buildings constructed by most humans strike most elves as ridiculous and intrusive.

Most wood elves instead prefer to dwell in small villages of permanent homes of natural fieldstone and lovingly carved wood, so carefully concealed among the surrounding wilderness that a human hunter might walk through the center of a wood elf village and not
even notice that he had done so.
OMG! Elves are so awsome! They do everything better and everything they make is so superior!

Shadowknight12
2011-11-10, 01:39 PM
I promise not to argue, but could you explain how it's revolting to you?

It's somewhat tricky to explain. It's disgusting on several levels, actually. On the most basic level, it's disgusting because it's offensive. Mary Sues are offensive because they bend stories to their whim, lack flaws and are a cancer upon any narrative. It's the same disgust you feel for a rat or a vermin, the disgust you feel towards a source of filth and pathogens.

On another level, it's disgusting because reading that feels like you're getting an unwanted view of the author's private fantasies. And it's not the kind of fantasy that has been processed and self-censored for public viewing (also known as fan fiction), but the unrestrained, shameless fantasy of someone who is so caught up in their self-gratification that they don't see anything wrong with inflicting upon others their blatant wish fulfilment dreams.

Then it's disgusting because they're actually selling you this, lying straight to your face and telling you it's actually quality material worthy of your time and money.

Then it's disgusting because it doesn't even hide its rampant one-sided fanboyism and its unprofessional racial inequality.

Then it's disgusting because you just read that and it can't be unread and now you know what the author gets off on.

Then you feel dirty and sick and you wish Brain Bleach actually existed. But it doesn't. So you feel a little worse.

That's the gist of it.

Seharvepernfan
2011-11-10, 01:50 PM
I never saw it that way. I like a lot of things that get called "mary-sue" around here, I guess I just share the shameless fantasy.

How did the elves I posted earlier come off to you? Did it give you the same feeling? I don't think I used any biased adjectives.

jseah
2011-11-10, 01:52 PM
Thinking of doing some sort of sea creature now.

Humans are humans. Cinque-vassa are parasites with a population problem. Alfrs are plants that have a walk-and-talk phase.

Hive mind fish... taking name suggestions now?
These things are called mermaids for this post.

Mermaids are basically fish. They can grow up to 6 feet long. Individual mermaids have a natural lifespan of only ten years.
Mermaids eat smaller fish and scavenge when alone or in small groups. Large hives of mermaids develop pack hunting behaviour and even tool use.

They have a tentacle inside their mouth they can use to manipulate objects. This tentacle is quite thin but long. It regenerates if cut off and the mermaid survives, like most of their body. At the end of the tentacle is a single sharp tooth that complements the set of teeth and powerful jaw of the mouth. When regenerating from a cut tentacle, the tooth regenerates at the new end and the tentacle slowly grows back to its full length.
The muscles in the tentacle isn't powerful and the tentacle is more of a fine manipulation tool. However, it is flexible and long enough to tie knots by itself. It can't push very well but it can withstand stretching forces larger than the mermaid can exert by swimming, and large mermaids can even tow rocks and heavy objects through the water in this manner.
They can emit a high-pitched click that acts very much like a sonar. Its also their language. Their scales contain various luminescent proteins and may emit light of various wavelengths when activated.

Individual mermaids aren't very smart, being somewhere on the level of a smart dog. They do have a language (pattern of clicks) that they can use to communicate with, although it isn't very complex. The light from their scales are often used as signals and to augment the language when within sight range.
Another communication channel is through the sharing of lifeforce. Mermaids are unique among living things in that their lifeforce (the magic portion of living things) does not end sharply where their physical body does. A mermaid's lifeforce extends out to around three meters from their actual body. Overlapping mermaid lifeforces can transfer memories and communicate at the speed of thought. (which admittedly, isn't very fast for mermaids)
The intelligence of mermaids arises from this communication between a pack of mermaids. Mermaids are inherently cooperative and their communication is fast enough (and their hearing can differentiate from multiple sources of clicks) and parallel enough that mermaids collectively can decide on things.
It doesn't work so much like a committee as more like a hive. Mermaids are dumb enough that individual mermaids do sacrifice themselves if the hivemind thinks its worth it. The individual survival instinct is highly muted.

Mermaids sexually reproduce. Sperm is released into the water near eggs and after ~two months, tiny mermaids hatch. Young mermaids develop the sonar and communication at around three years, but they can hear and obey the hive mind even three days after birth.
Young mermaids are transparent, small and hard to spot, and since they are born in large amounts, the hivemind often uses them as scouts and lookouts in pack hunting.


Mermaids pose an interesting problem for philosophers. One problem is that packs of mermaids generate a hive mind that is independent of its component mermaids, and even remembers things beyond the lifespan of any one mermaid. (hive memory tends to get scattered around the swarm, with redundancies that prevent loss of memory through accidents) The exact line where a hive of mermaids gets big enough to support a true sentience is blurry.
The other problem is one of individuality. Mermaid hives are sentient. However, two hives within communication distance share memories and increase intelligence as if merging. The mermaid hivemind has no conception of identity and hives split and merge fluidly, with no obvious transition point between multiple separate hives and one big hive.


Like the differences between individual mermaids and hives, mermaid magic is limited alone. Each individual mermaid is weaker than any other intelligent race. Classically trained human casters can easily overpower even small groups of mermaids.
However, mermaids instinctively know how to cooperate when casting spells and hive mind spells are a conglomerate of the entire swarm's magic that can achieve incredible feats. More than one unwary fishing boat has met a watery end after accidentally netting part of a mermaid hive.
One recorded case involved a hivemind, having been told where a particular lake was, swimming up a river and shooting a breeding pair of mermaids cannon-style over more than a kilometer of land to reach it. And sending enough magic to protect that pair upon landing. The resulting mermaid hive that arose in that lake fired another pair back to report the success to the mother hive that remembered to visit that place in the river over twenty years later.

Shadowknight12
2011-11-10, 01:57 PM
I never saw it that way. I like a lot of things that get called "mary-sue" around here, I guess I just share the shameless fantasy.

I clash with a lot of people on that particular subject. Nothing new there.


How did the elves I posted earlier come off to you? Did it give you the same feeling? I don't think I used any biased adjectives.

Your elves were not outright sickening as the ones from Yora's quotes (since you used more neutral language), but once you look at the big picture, you realise that your elves are pretty much wish fulfilment too. You pick that up right from the first paragraph and the rest is just confirmation (the bit about elf commoners being virtually non-existent was particularly evident).

As the obligatory disclaimer, I have to state that I do not criticise your choices, I'm simply telling you my own personal opinions and not passing judgement over your creation. Just because I wouldn't want to play in that campaign setting doesn't mean it's bad.




EDIT at below: That is an excellent point. I couldn't have said it better myself and I'm a moron for forgetting to mention it.

GenericGuy
2011-11-10, 02:00 PM
I promise not to argue, but could you explain how it's revolting to you?

Although the question wasn’t directed at me I would like to explain what I find disgusting about Mary-sues, and by extension Utopian (Mary-sue) societies that elves typically live in.

First the most obvious, there is no such thing as perfection and whether or not something is perfect will always depend on personal taste and perspective. When a writer creates something and intends for us to be in awe of how “prefect” and wonderful it is, he/she is presumptuously assuming we share his/hers view on what is perfect. And the author, whether intentionally or not, will always insinuate that those of us who don’t share his/her view on how wonderful the person, place, or race is, must be deficient, whether morally or intellectually. This leads to the crux of the problem with Mary-sues, the author is using them to preach to the audience, and only the choir enjoys being lectured to.

Yora
2011-11-10, 02:20 PM
I think it also comes down to show, don't tell. If we are supposed to like a character, we will do so because of how we evaluate the characters actions. We hate it when people tell us what we have to think of something.

kieza
2011-11-10, 02:48 PM
Since we're on the topic of elves:

My elves were once the greatest of the three empires of the east (although not by a huge margin), but their hubris indirectly led to the downfall of all three. While fighting a war (a pointless war, over a triviality) with the humans to their south, they simultaneously antagonized the orc tribes to their east, causing them to come west in numbers never before seen. The orcs overran the empires of elf, man, and dwarf, ending the first age of the world and ushering in a dark age.

Modern elves are split into four races: the sidhe, or true elves, retreated into the Feywild, where they live in luxury and ignore the material world. They retain many of the inherent powers that have faded from elves that remained behind: they are undying, and powerful sorcerers as well, but they are also amoral and jaded by their long lives.

The wood elves abandoned their dreams of empire and resettled in the deep forests. They care not for the outside world, and only deal with others when absolutely necessary. Their society is ruled by a handful of nobles who occupy themselves with revelry, while most wood elves are simple hunters and craftsmen.

The high elves rebuilt, and now surpass, their old civilization, but retain the memory of the atrocities they once performed at the behest of the sidhe. While many of their citizens still revere their former leaders, the rulers of the new empire remain independent of them. The high elves have the greatest magical understanding of any nation, and eschew modern technology such as steam power in favor of magical methods.

The dark elves turned against sidhe and mortals alike after their empire was destroyed; they even went so far as to forcibly sever their tie to the Feywild and make a pact with a dark god. Since then, they've been hunted down whenever they appear, but their numbers are continually replenished by disaffected high elves.

Morithias
2011-11-10, 02:50 PM
It's a german expression. Maybe it doesn't translate that well.

But to highlight the relevant parts:

OMG! Elves are so awsome! They do everything better and everything they make is so superior!

And yet ironically, they are HORRIBLE races for any sort of munchkin. Their being better is literally nothing but fluff.

Anyways in my campaign setting uses a special type of alignment chart where you can't just "Be evil" you have good and evil drow, good and evil humans, even good and evil devils. Most of my changes took place in the afterlife where Baator is now a mountain of paperwork revolving around soul transfering to either the prison of the abyss, or the heavens.

Elves are actually one of the weaker races. Basically in this setting, research, science, and technology are constantly evolving. Your race isn't better in any way unless you actually have a +2 to that stat. Changlings make the best spies, warforged the best soliders, dwarfs the best miners, gnomes the best alchemists, and so on.

Elves having no racial traits besides "+2 dex -2 con" are basically known for their ability to find secret doors, so they make good rogues but of course are out done by the tieflings and halflings.

Also it's important to note that since this is a setting where the afterlife is more heaven/hell instead of alignment based, it uses the dragon magazine 306 rules of temptation and redemption. So "Pride" can and WILL get you sent to the abyss in this setting.

If you play an elf like you would in faerun in this setting, even if you don't do anything like murder, you might still get sent to the abyss for a short while for to be blunt. Being a fricken arrogant jerk.

So yeah, V would be in the abyss in my setting as would most wizards. Ironically if he didn't have such a large body count Xykon would be free to enter Heaven or at least Limbo. Necromancers aren't considered evil in this setting, just unholy in nature. (Which basically just means your truename is tied to the underworld, your alignment is part of your truename).

Dr.Epic
2011-11-10, 03:22 PM
Let's see...

Cyclopses: The race traded their other eye in a bargin with a powerful entity long to see the future, but all they can see is their own death.

Hobgoblins: Outsiders with the ability to make one live out their fantasy until said fantasy consumes them and ends up taking their life.

Goblins: They're often mistaken for trolls and use a weird plant substance to turn people into plants so they can eat them because they hate meat so much.

Elves: Tiny, magic users who are enslaved to real wizards and gain their freedom in a very odd manner.

Homunculi: Created during a failed ressurection attempt, have superhuman abilites, regeneration, and are extremely difficult to kill and take their identy after one of the Seven Deadly Sins, which would be weird if there were any more than seven of them at one point.

Dwarves: They can carry more stuff, mainly Big items.

Let's see who can get all of them. Oh, and I typed this on a computer that doesn't have spell check for the forum, so pardon any such errors.

Conners
2011-11-10, 10:55 PM
The bird didn't suddenly have the idea to do it. I can assume you used traditional training techniques? At first it was relying on instinct, & then through positive reinforcement it adapted it's behavior to a new environmental. It didn't suddenly have the idea to eat chicken from you hand. Might be so. But then another bird of a different species flew down right next to me, and asked for food. It got the idea that it too could be fed. And that's quite similar to human ideas... It's rare for us to come up with an idea at random. Either we see or do something with stimulates the idea, or it comes from concentrating for a period of time. Birds don't usually have spare time to think of ideas for novels, though.

Thinker
2011-11-11, 12:24 AM
Interesting. What have you discovered form your experiments, so far?

It makes it easier for players to identify with characters. It is easier to insert non-human, sapient creatures because I can make them use a mindset incompatible with our own. Players tend to play up their cultures/background/nationality more since that ends up filling the niche of races.

The Reverend
2011-11-11, 12:13 PM
In one of my worlds I gave dwarves an interesting feature, they couldn't hear music. The heard it literally like anything else, it just sounded like a bunch of noise to them. They understood rhythm and rhyme but melody just made no sense, it was a noisy babble to them. This was one of many points of disconnect and conflict with elves.

Brauron
2011-11-11, 04:31 PM
Goblins: They're often mistaken for trolls and use a weird plant substance to turn people into plants so they can eat them because they hate meat so much.



They're eating her! And then they're going to eat me! OH MY GAWWWWWWDDDDDD!

You, sir, just won yourself a shiny new Internet.

Winter Light
2011-11-11, 09:57 PM
Not to join on the elf-hating or anything, buuuuut....

In my most-commonly-used homebrew setting, elves!

Elves were, well over a millenia ago, everything fans would like them to be. They never died of old age, they were all beautiful and magical and the like. Accordingly, they were also conceited (perhaps justifiably so) and wound up dominating the world. The elven empires extended basically indefinitely across the world. The elves were also favored as the gods, being the last of the major races created, and so endowed with all the awesomeness that the other races were just prototyping.

Which was great and all for them, less so for everyone else. No other races got to play at being big and important. The lucky ones got to be slave labor. Really, it was utopian, so long as you were an elf and didn't mind politics unfolding over the course of decades to centuries.

This lasted until the elves got the notion into their heads that they ought to rule over the gods as well. They concocted a plan to siphon off the divinity of the gods, which worked just well enough to provoke an immediate and decisive response.

Elves as a race were cursed to become deathly allergic to metal. In an instant, most of the race died--rings, bracelets, earrings, necklaces, gold-embroidered clothing, all became a death sentence, the owners of such things dying in agony in a matter of minutes. Attempting to handle metal belt buckles or take off metal armor, or even operate a doorknob, was fatal more often than not.

It took less than an hour for the elven empire to collapse.

Thus leading to the elves of today: They've retreated to the forests, and are very big about their whole "in tune with nature" thing, and haughtily superior to other races who can't realize how great it is to respect trees. Of course, they're also deeply bitter about their origins.

The curse on the elves has weakened slightly over the centuries. Metal burns them, they can't supernaturally heal any injuries inflicted by metal weapons, and something like iron shackles will still kill an elf in a matter of hours. They've lost their immortality, albeit indirectly: trace amounts of metals in their diet slowly kill them, preventing elves from living more than a few centuries. There are also very few elves around.

Frankly, one of the main reasons I tend to be hesitant to use that setting is because it relegates elves to NPC status, for more-or-less obvious reasons.

FatJose
2011-11-11, 11:40 PM
With sick pleasure.
-Quotes and Quotes and Quotes-

I'd like to see a book that describes the races like they do the alignments in the PHB. All races have extremely biased, positive propaganda that tout their superiority over the others. Even if the crunch doesn't back it up. You can cover how they actually suck in the Relations section of a rival race.

Gnomes are the best race you can be because....

Morithias
2011-11-11, 11:46 PM
Not to join on the elf-hating or anything, buuuuut....


Will you marry me? XD

JK, I love you setting though, it's so deliciously ironic! I Love it!

Gensh
2011-11-12, 12:34 PM
I'd like to see a book that describes the races like they do the alignments in the PHB. All races have extremely biased, positive propaganda that tout their superiority over the others. Even if the crunch doesn't back it up. You can cover how they actually suck in the Relations section of a rival race.

Gnomes are the best race you can be because....

That would certainly be interesting from an abstract standpoint, but I can't help worrying that it would turn out poorly in the end. Exalted (the game) does this with its Exalt type splats, and there's a bit of faction-based warfare between the fans as a result, with the biggest issues being pro-/anti-Solar and pro-/anti-Infernal. I figure splitting up the traditional races like this would only exacerbate the fanboy situation.

Yora
2011-11-12, 12:46 PM
I think it works much better to only state oppinions that people within the setting have about a thing and stating the most basic facts.
When describing a setting, you get into the akward position that you don't describe things as they appear from one point of view, but it's generally assumed that you state facts. It is however really not that difficult to write down oppinons instead and I find that it's really easy to discern between factual statements of the creator and personal oppinions of fictional characters.

If you think you really, really have to, you can describe how a certain people or culture views itself, which only makes the people appear as arrogant, ignorant, and narcistic, but at least its the readers and players who will be the judge of if they like it or not.

Vknight
2011-11-13, 02:22 AM
OK well for my current setting

Goblins

Males: They age until their 5now physically being a adult. Male goblins cannot grow smarter or stronger or faster or gain any new skills after getting to the age of 5. To progress they have to stitch the flesh of other dead goblins onto their body. The new flesh holds more information which lets them grow stronger etc. So you can tell how strong a goblin is by the amount of scars, and tumors etc covering their body. Physically they look like 4e Goblins with bristle hair and sand paper textured skin. They live to be 30 with or without the stitching of flesh. Male are mostly idiotic and can barelly speak common if at all. If they do speak common its something akin to Jar Jar speak.

Females: Sexual Dimorphism (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BizarreSexualDimorphism) at its best. People thought a Goblin female was some mutated halfling. To put it simply female goblins look pretty so males won't hurt them. There thin, smooth skin, silky hair, extraordinarily large ears(A weakness in goblin culture), soft bodies(Again weakness goblins think strength means scars tumors etc). To make up for this the females are well smart they operate trade and well everything besides hunting down food.

Goblins cannot make war bands. Males fight each other and won't listen to females even if their a powerful sorcerer. Occasionally a smart male will for a unit akin to a mercenary force at the end the goblins apart of this group usually kill each other to be the leaders replacement.
The bizarre beliefs and ideals has made no nation for goblins and they can be found throughout the setting in small communities. Its easy to tell which section of a city has goblins because its the one with a fight going on or a murder were the body is stripped of flesh and possessions.
Strangely Female Goblins can breed with Gnomes.


Gnomes

Fey strange skin color, large eyes, small curled ears, and flat noses. Gnomes are quite and are separated into 2groups. Feywild Gnomes and Material Plane Gnomes.
Fey Gnomes are those that stayed in the Feywild as well the Feywilds equivalent of Dwarves. Miners and metal workers with masterful skill and the ability to force illusions into the magic. They are also expert spell weavers and illusionists so they can hide mines.
Material Gnomes have become more inquisitive and have been touched with madness. Their skin still has that peculiar off white. But their hair is blues and orange with pink streaks they have a eccentric look as they try to find new things to do to keep themselves occupied. Pranks, jokes, exploration, new things to try keep a Gnome occupied so he doesn't try to see what Magic Missile does to that puppy.
All Gnomes breed with Goblins it is thought that Goblins were the first Gnomes to come from the Feywild. None are sure how they came to be Goblins but no success has been made in understanding if that is true or just myth.

Fey Gnomes go about there work nothing else to do and why should there be a job needs doing! Fey Gnomes set a goal and will accomplish it and once done improve it and maybe then get lunch and come back and fix a few things. Its said a Gnome artist may paint your portrait but you'll be dead before he's finished. So Fey Gnomes have slow lives and well slow everything things take time and patience.
Gnomes on the Material couldn't form a working community. When Gnomes enter a city they build a section and live in it for 20-40years before leaving taking important things. A new Gnome family often takes the old Gnomes home and the process continues. Material Gnomes go out of their way to do things and be active. Many people have wondered if Fey & Material Gnomes can even successfully breed with one another.
The answer is both yes and no. Yes it will work, no because the resulting offspring becomes a powerful Undead Spirit.


Hobgoblins

Ancient Japan. Yeah they follow those traditions and similar beliefs using my settings gods.
Hobgoblins in my setting are blue in coloration. Highly lawful and prestigious honor discipline Hobs demand a persons head if they don't bow in respect.

Kobolds

Well Kobolds are best described in my setting as Piranha Reptiles. Yes they look like draconic lizards, with large black eyes much like a fish and a huge maw of needle like teeth with has 3 rows. They have long claws, fingers and toes with thin skin membrane connecting them. The tails are thick and muscular for quick swishing motions making Kobolds natural swimmers. Their bodies are smooth in the way a sharks is.

Kobolds worship primarily powerful creatures, Krakens, Dragons, and other things to scare people away. This worship is actually a clever tactic to get their master to fight so the Kobolds can finish survivors. Problem is Kobolds are also pack hunters and will charge in to help what should be their soon to be dead master.
Kobolds are not trap experts they swarm and use claws, teeth, and other weapons to surround and beat the target until it stops moving. They are ambush predators often setting up in a cave system to store food between attacks or hunts.

Vampires

Oh boy you opened a big bag.

1) The strongest type. Stronger, faster, smarter, heals from things, bodies like rock, and able to use their own body to create blood and flesh whips and swords. Can use the blood to mind control or just move your body against its will.
Sunlight nothing, Stake well it hurts yeah just like stabbing me with a dagger hurts, Holy anything? Unless its divine magic to attack nothing.
There actual weakness none and they continuously grow stronger.
Good news there's only one and he's Unaligned.

2) You come back after the deal faster and stronger
Sunlight slow regeneration, Divine belief hurts but nothing special, staking the heart can kill them just like anything else, but the moment the stake is out the vampire will start to regenerate so you got to take there head as well. You can't enter without promotion or if you intend to do harm.

3) Sunlight burns slowly and too long kills. Your as strong as #2 but carry more weakness's that stake from earlier? Well your gone after that.

4) You die instantly in sunlight. You can't sleep outside of your native soil. Your weaker then #2 & 3 but you can still take down a human or other humanoid with ease. Your and Undead

5) Congrats the 2nd most sucky Vampire type is your destiny. You have no immortality your lifespan increases by 500years. Outside of that you have all the same bonuses and weakness of #4

6) Welcome to bottom tier you have 100years to be a vampire. Sunlight does not kill you but the fact your skin is continuously drying and crystallizing so that when your in sunlight you look like a diamond is a problem. The process is long and painful and your skin tears and you bleed. The proper application of ointments can give you maybe 10more years but that's it because eventually you'll lose all of your skin and your flesh starts going through the same process.
Your benefits? Well you age rate goes from normal to 100times slower and you are above average for a member of your race physically. Problem is your skin is pale and deathlike also very brittle and physical contact hurts.

More later

Fortuna
2011-11-13, 03:33 AM
Let's see...

Cyclopses: The race traded their other eye in a bargin with a powerful entity long to see the future, but all they can see is their own death.

I see what you did there...

Yay Krull!

Cerlis
2011-11-13, 04:59 AM
some like the "our --- is different". except most people dont. Because the only reason i can give for the freakish hatred of twilight vampires is that they dont like vampires that arent standard vampires.

Togath
2011-11-13, 05:26 AM
some like the "our --- is different". except most people dont. Because the only reason i can give for the freakish hatred of twilight vampires is that they dont like vampires that arent standard vampires.

I'm pretty sure the hatred of the twilight vampires it due to the book their from(which sounds like a piece of *manure* to me from what I've heard about it), though "sparkles in sunshine" is still a rather lame gimmick

PersonMan
2011-11-13, 07:23 AM
some like the "our --- is different". except most people dont. Because the only reason i can give for the freakish hatred of twilight vampires is that they dont like vampires that arent standard vampires.

I think it's more because(this is all secondhand, I've only read two sentences of the series, so...) they're Vampires+. Strong, fast, sexy, all-around awesome, unaging...oh, and they don't have those pesky weaknesses.

Anyways, a few things from various settings/quasi-settings of mine:

Elves:
In the setting I call FeyBurn, elves are creations of the fey, who have the job of guarding the border and keeping the other races in line, as well as doing that communication is necessary between the two groups. They're strong, fast, very aware of their surroundings and have incredible discipline. In short, they're as close to the perfect soldier as anything in the setting.

And that's it. They don't know how to do much of anything but fight or prepare to fight. They don't make anything of theirs, as the fey provide them with food, weapons, etc. and the elves only have to take care of their weapons for a few months before they get new ones. Without the fey, the elves' only chance of survival would be to conquer people who did know how to do these things, or they'd collapse, as the other races don't feel that good about them as they're often the bearers of bad news(or orders to bring 100 of your people to be massacred because you annoyed the fey).

Elves aren't especially magical, the most magic they use is at the gish buffing level.

Vampires:
In a setting I've yet to name or fully put together, vampires don't really exist. In their places are people with the ability to manipulate blood: the more injured they or things near them are, the stronger they get. They can also control their own blood, to an extent, allowing them to do the whole 'super fast super strong' thing. This doesn't stop people from thinking that they drink blood and can be killed by steaks, though.

Goblinoids:
Goblinoids are, in FeyBurn, primarily under the control of the Red Fur Tribes, a recently-created nation that is working to pull together the fractured people on its home island and recover from the 50 year long war to win it from the gnomes(they used to be in control, but lost because they lost basically all of their soldiers in massive battles designed to destroy the enemy's armies...it worked, but the goblinoids made more armies). At this point they're loath to go to war again, as 50 years of conflict have all but destroyed the land.

Shadowknight12
2011-11-13, 07:31 AM
some like the "our --- is different". except most people dont. Because the only reason i can give for the freakish hatred of twilight vampires is that they dont like vampires that arent standard vampires.

HAHAHAHAHA. No. Nooooooooo no no no no. No. Nope.

That's not the main reason people hate Twilight. The main reason people hate Twilight is the fact that it sets up teenagers to have impossible expectations of romance when they grow older, the fact that it glorifies and romanticises extremely unhealthy stalker behaviour, the fact that it portrays a female lead that is the absolute opposite of a role model for teenagers (she's bland, passive, indecisive, needlessly self-sacrificing (in the sense that all her attempts to 'help' end up making things worse), rather stupid and vacuous), the fact that her vampires have no weaknesses (they can go out in the daylight just fine, for crying out loud) and there's literally no downside to becoming one of them.

Sparkly vampires are just easy to mock, but I am 100% sure that if a more competent author had had that idea and used it on a story with actual quality writing behind it, nobody would've batted an eyelash.

So no. That's most definitely not it.

Togath
2011-11-13, 11:25 PM
HAHAHAHAHA. No. Nooooooooo no no no no. No. Nope.

That's not the main reason people hate Twilight. The main reason people hate Twilight is the fact that it sets up teenagers to have impossible expectations of romance when they grow older, the fact that it glorifies and romanticises extremely unhealthy stalker behaviour, the fact that it portrays a female lead that is the absolute opposite of a role model for teenagers (she's bland, passive, indecisive, needlessly self-sacrificing (in the sense that all her attempts to 'help' end up making things worse), rather stupid and vacuous), the fact that her vampires have no weaknesses (they can go out in the daylight just fine, for crying out loud) and there's literally no downside to becoming one of them.

Sparkly vampires are just easy to mock, but I am 100% sure that if a more competent author had had that idea and used it on a story with actual quality writing behind it, nobody would've batted an eyelash.

So no. That's most definitely not it.


ah, so aye, the author was a piece of c*manure*, even more so then I realized.
And aye, my point was more the author was bad than the sparkly vampires were bad


they can go out in the daylight just fine, for crying out loud
that part doesn't strike me as too odd, as the original Dracula had him wandering about in daylight(though most more recent vampire releated things have had them burn in sunlight, that mainly started due to the movie "Nosferatu", in which it was used as a way of avoiding copyright infringement)

Vknight
2011-11-14, 01:45 AM
Though when the original Dracula went into the sunlight he got hairy palms

Shadowknight12
2011-11-14, 05:39 AM
ah, so aye, the author was a piece of c*manure*, even more so then I realized.
And aye, my point was more the author was bad than the sparkly vampires were bad

That would be correct, yes.


that part doesn't strike me as too odd, as the original Dracula had him wandering about in daylight(though most more recent vampire releated things have had them burn in sunlight, that mainly started due to the movie "Nosferatu", in which it was used as a way of avoiding copyright infringement)

Actually, no. The original Dracula was powerless in sunlight except at dawn, dusk and noon. He couldn't turn into a wolf, bat or mist during the day, and he couldn't command animals or the weather. All those things had to be performed at night or at the times of the day I just mentioned. He was most definitely not "just fine" when walking out in the sunlight.

Knaight
2011-11-14, 05:57 AM
Actually, no. The original Dracula was powerless in sunlight except at dawn, dusk and noon. He couldn't turn into a wolf, bat or mist during the day, and he couldn't command animals or the weather. All those things had to be performed at night or at the times of the day I just mentioned. He was most definitely not "just fine" when walking out in the sunlight.

Sure, but he was still a particularly dangerous immortal human for all intents and purposes. Its not like the sunlight killed him outright.

Shadowknight12
2011-11-14, 01:35 PM
Sure, but he was still a particularly dangerous immortal human for all intents and purposes. Its not like the sunlight killed him outright.

I never said "killed." I said that he wasn't "just fine." Twilight vampires are literally just fine under the sun because all they do is sparkle, which is only dangerous when beset by tidings of magpies. This particular case of 'our monsters are different' deserves some amount of backlash because it removes a fundamental weakness in the creature without replacing it with an equivalent, thereby making the 'monster' objectively better than a human, which has disadvantages we already discussed (in the vein of the conversation we had previously about elves).

Dracula had plenty of disadvantages even without bursting into flames under the sun, which other vampire adaptations swiftly forgot (like the need to carry a coffin with grave dirt from his homeland, for example).

The Reverend
2011-11-14, 02:48 PM
One interesting race I was told about by my uncle that was featured in a Sci fi game were these ninja turtle looking aliens. Normally they were.....dumb no two ways around it, but when their flight or fight kicked in the became super geniuses. So the leaders of their society were those whose f&f was kicked of the easiest. They were really jumpy basically. Thought that was just an interesting thing, making aliens more Alien and not just people with funky eyebrows and ears.

kieza
2011-11-14, 03:58 PM
Dragons
Dragons are, like angels, creatures left behind by the gods with a purpose. They are teachers and repositories of knowledge; when young, they find some interest which will define the rest of their lives, whether it be history, chemistry, magic, or martial techniques. As they get older, their knowledge gets more and more specialized. Like many of the gods' creations, they have strayed a little bit since the Observers' schism. While they start out willing to spread knowledge, they get more jealous as they age, and become picky about who they teach. While young dragons are commonly found as visiting professors at various universities, older ones usually only accept students who can find them and pass various tests first.

They have two peculiarities: First, they can create dragonspawn, mindless creations born of a dragon's blood. The spawn serve as mindless extensions of the creator dragon's will; they are nonsentient and do not possess free will, but the creator can see and hear with their senses and give them directions from any distance. Different dragons create spawn along different lines; some are gigantic and armored, some are serpentine and nimble, and some share the creator's breath weapon or magic.

Second, dragons never stop growing, although their growth slows down after the second century. They eventually get large enough that the square-cube law becomes a problem (they can't support their own body mass), at which point they start using magic to move and fly. Around five centuries, it becomes necessary for them to create a sanctum laden with spells to ease their burden, and they leave this place less and less. At around a millenium, even this is not enough, and they gradually die as their enemies close in, forcing them to use up their reserves of power until they eventually die of overwork.

Kobolds
Most scholars think that kobolds are a strain of dragonspawn that was created with enough complexity to reproduce and enough potency to survive the death of their creator. Unfortunately, kobolds are entirely unsuited to being on their own. Except for a tiny minority, they have no ambition or sense of self-preservation, and just enough free will to get them into trouble. These exceptions either escape the tribe at the first opportunity (around the age of 5; kobolds mature quickly) or rise to lead it. In the absence of a kobold leader, kobold tribes seek out a dragon. Dragons' reactions to being "adopted" by kobolds vary. Some treat them like a surrogate family, some use them as labor and cannon fodder, some try to get rid of them. In extreme cases, the kobolds may wind up on the menu.

Dragonborn
Like kobolds, dragonborn are thought to be some ancient dragon's spawn. They seem to have been given more of the creator dragon's essence, and inherited more draconic characteristics such as a breath weapon and, in a few cases, wings. This greater potency comes at a price, though; dragonborn reproduce far slower than the fecund kobolds, and are very few in number. Unlike kobolds, they are eminently suited to independence, and have a tendency towards wanderlust. The earliest records of dragonborn cast them as wandering swordmasters, who arrive with no warning in the middle of a siege, train and direct the defenders, and then leave with no more warning than they arrived. Based on this, and the degree of power that would be necessary to create them, many scholars believe that their creator was an old dragon who was still willing to teach, but could no longer leave its sanctum.

Wardog
2011-11-16, 03:28 AM
Vampires:
http://verydemotivational.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/demotivational-posters-wrong1.jpg

Blacky the Blackball
2011-11-16, 09:18 AM
One interesting race I was told about by my uncle that was featured in a Sci fi game were these ninja turtle looking aliens. Normally they were.....dumb no two ways around it, but when their flight or fight kicked in the became super geniuses. So the leaders of their society were those whose f&f was kicked of the easiest. They were really jumpy basically. Thought that was just an interesting thing, making aliens more Alien and not just people with funky eyebrows and ears.

That's the Kafer species from the Traveller 2300 game. They're actually more insectoid than turtle-like (the name "Kafer" is German for "cockroach" or "bug").

Smokin Red
2011-11-16, 01:09 PM
In my current setting:

Elves: Don't exist, because I don't like immortal, arrogant tree huggers :smallamused:

But there is a homebrew race, which is similar to some aspects. It is basically a mixture between humans and gnomes (see below). Very into nature magic and arts. They brought civilization to a big part of humanity.

Gnomes: Are the arcane masters and have a innert affinity to stone (instead of the dwarves) especially gems.
They live in huge underground cities, ruled by a magocracy of academies.
Non-casters are seen as third class beings, partial and divine casters (with an exception to those of the god of magic) as second class. This is the reason, why a lot of those gnomes went to the surface and started trading and nation building in the lands of the humans.

Orcs: Aren't really existent either, although I ike them. But there also is a homebrew race.

Descendants of a dwarves and (medium-sized :smallwink:) goblinoids, those came into being as the result of war-rapings (a method used frequently by the goblinoids, because the dwarves would see the victims as unclean and force them out)
Quite a few fled persecution and left the continent where most of the campaign takes place. It's only recently that some of them have returned, and only the dwarves even remember how they came into being.
They are now a hardy desert folk, with a strong tendency to lawful good alignment. Most of them help people in need, as they were raised in a society/ an environment, where not to help would mean certain death.

Oh, another one about orcs, I always liked this saying about them(believe it's from WH40K):
"We see a strong, healthy culture, and in our arrogance dismiss it as barbaric."

Dwarves: Very religious and lawful. Have an ancestor cult, which uses necromancy as a tool to speak to their wise ones.
Really stuck up and in a constant cold war with the gnomes, semi-hot with humans and hot with goblinoids.

GungHo
2011-11-16, 05:23 PM
In my homebrew world, I have a lot of "real"-world analogs.

Orcs
are quite civilized. Their roots were, like WoW orcs, alien primatives. Initially warred with the humans they first interacted with, conquered them, and then assimilated into the human's Central Asiatic horse culture. Within a few generations, the Orcs and Half-Orcs then expand westward and ended up running a blended Seljuq culture, serving as Orcish-Turkic patrons of a Human-Persian culture that they have adopted and greatly admire. Religion is loosely based on Zoroastrianism with some pre-Islam Arabic flavoring, though more 1,000 Nights than "reality". There was no analog to Alexander the Great, though, so there are no Hellenic influences beyond those gained by tradesman ("Europe" and "Asia" are not separated by water, but by a very large mountain range and connections are made via tunnels which can support caravans, but are limiting for large armies). Their magical tradition is based on the highly mathematical tradition of the human culture to which they belong, as the world they came from possessed little real magic. They aren't evil at all. They will crush you if you threaten them, but otherwise just want to trade and advance their cultural rennaisance. They possess gunpowder and aren't afraid of technology, though they aren't great inventors by any stretch. They are almost naive to some of the more nasty aspects of the world, though if mobilized, they fight to bitter end.

Elves
are Britons. They have strong Pictish, Gaelic, and Norse roots. They are rumored to be cannabalistic, but they left blood magic behind eons ago for the runecasting, which they learned and perfected from the gnomes, which is far more enduring. They are rarely seen beyond their trees and standing stones except for traders and woad-covered mercenaries, who tend to be either lightning-throwing shamans or sword/club swinging berserkers. They are technologically behind and look at gunpowder and machinery with great suspicion, as they're two steps away from barbarism. No one has any idea how many elves there really are in their forests, and the elves like it that way.

Gnolls
control a portal between the West side of the world and the orc-dominated East, though the west is more or less arranged like Europe and Africa... and the Gnolls were in Africa. They learned blood magic from the elves millenia ago, before the elves migrated to the far north and west, but were never a threat, as they tended to kill (and eat) each other more than anyone else. This all changed when the orcs secured their side of a portal and began to "organize" the gnolls. The orcs had no real purpose for this except to help better the gnolls, as they had been bettered themselves, but the gnolls saw this as their way out of their crapsack part of the world, especially when they saw naval technology again for the first time in two thousand years. They accepted the orcs "technology", then poisoned the orc ambassadors and then disappeared across the shallow sea to the north. The orcs set up a base at the portal should the gnolls return and occasionally send scouting expeditions out to map the Southern Continent and find the gnolls. In the meantime, the gnolls have enslaved the halflings across the sea. Despite the historical similarities, they aren't Almoravids, and are instead a tribal Jackal-people. They have no technology that someone else didn't teach them how to use or make. Their magic is also limited to what they were taught eons ago, though it is supplimented by demons who "ride" willing gnoll participants.

Halflings
who have not left in a diaspora into human lands have lives that are brutish and short. They are used as slaves, food, and playthings (don't ask) for the gnolls. Those that have left look and sound a lot like Antonio Banderas and Paz Vega. They're short, but they're hot, and are favored in many courts. They are allying with the Frankish and Germanic humans to retake their homeland. Their leader is a cross between the Most Interesting Man in the World and Don Quixote. No one ever knows how full of crap he is at any moment... probably not even him. I have a lot of fun playing him. His aide de camp is a cross between Sancho Panza and Tony Plana/Jefe from Three Amigos. I have to be careful with them because I can steal a whole session just having them talk to each other. Considering "each other" is "me", that's distubing. They are on the same level of humans technologically. What magic they have tends to be bardic, illusory, or divine. There is not a strong arcane tradition, which is why the gnolls were able to overwhelm them with sheer numbers and blood demons. They are working to address that and many young halflings are attending arcane towers in order to take part in the coming battles, and while they didn't possess gunpowder until they ran, they are now some of the finest cannoneers on the planet.

Dwarves
are hanging out in the mountains between the two halves of the world. They make a great deal of money operating the tunnels and keeping trade flowing through tolls, acting as middle men, acting as guards, etc. They have the least analog to any real-world culture because they live underground and I saw no reason to give them the culture of someone that lived above ground. They all have Slavic names/accents. I dropped all the weird Scottish/Norse trappings because they live underground... and Scottish people don't. They are quite advanced technologically, but refuse to share. They use a lot of steam and geothermal power, and there are many rumors (some accurate) that they are holding back a tremendous number of technological advances. They invented gunpowder and are quite angry that it was promulgated out of their control. They use runic magic, but they don't really understand it. It augments keeping the tunnels open, but they abandoned it for the lure of steam. If they ever feel threatened, they will let an army into the tunnels only to drop the tunnels on the army... one human kingdom who felt over-taxed found that out the hard way.

Shifters
East Asian. Think Usagi Yojimbo. Have access to gunpowder but have not incorporated it into personal arms for fear that it could put the skilled samurai class out of power. Magic is divine and shamanistic. There is some arcane magic, but it's usually viewed with suspicion.

Kobolds
6ft tall and Indian. Their warrior class is analagous to Sikhs, and they are respected by the Orcs, as they were the first people not to immediately attack them on sight. They make fine tea and finer steel. Rather than elephants, they use giant lizards in battle. The Orcs brought them gunpowder and now they make the finest guns that Dwarves won't sell.

Gnomes
Rather than avoid the possible stereotype, I embraced it the hell out of it. They're all over the world. They're nomadic tradesmen, tinkers who are far ranging, but still insular and who have large economic muscles. They have a mathematical magical tradition from which many human traditions originate (and thus the orcs), and they are the inventors of runic magic, which the elves adopted. And if you screw with them or rip them off, they have sentient, but obedient, rune-covered golems who will beat you to a pulp. They were recently turned into spriggans due to a deific calamity. Now they're a lot more aggressive and are gathering together, and it's likely that they'll finally retake their homeland... which happens to be in the hands of the Orcs and their allies. They posess gunpowder and even arm their golems with "wrist cannons". They probably balance the best between technology and magic, but they're not organized enough to take real advantage.. yet. And, the orcs have no idea that the gnomes are plotting against them.

Monsters
I have many unique monsters. Like in mythology, there's only one Medusa (one of three Gorgons). Only one Cerberus. Only one of each kind of dragon (who can be "slain", but will just reappear somewhere else the next day). Only one Chimera. As such, their CR is considerably buffed. There are however tribes of lycanthropes, greenskins, and other "disposable" nasties. Some monsters aren't unique, like vampires, liches, mummies, but are very rare. Elementals are plentiful, but are usually under the control of a wizard/sorceror. Generally, the worst monster you can encounter is other people.

PetterTomBos
2011-11-18, 05:53 AM
My fairies are cribbed from Changeling::the Lost. My players have met one true fay, and are inclined to avoid meeting her again.. :smallcool: The range of Changelings, and other hedgebeings do exist..

My Dragons really love xorvintaal. Most play it, those that do usually dring a polymorphpotion and turn into humans for ingame reasons, the silver's really love this. The game holds them at bay, the humans revere the moment the rules stopped to favor the eating of humans.. There are none-xorvintaal dragons, you should really watch out for those..

My Dwarfs are more mysterious. They live in a huge, underground, tunnel system. Underneath the mountain there are roads, wilderness and dwarwen cities. What we humans call dwarven cities are really gates, (port in Norwegian), where they trade with the outside world. Usually these gates evolve into quite big cities, but seldomly are outsiders allowed into the tunnels below. They are seldomly going to war with the peoples outside, but when they do they usually jump out of the earth in a strategic sweetspot and turn the tides.

Cerlis
2011-11-18, 12:16 PM
Hmm, well its hard to have any positive opinion to Twilight critics when -for -ever -SINGLE- ONE- the FIRST thing they say is

"sparkles"

There was an actual logical reason for who and what they are and why they can do what they can do.

A creature that is a highly evolved form(hence powers based on their attributes) of a human with independant hard as diamond (hence the sparkles) Cells.

And as i think i said in some other topic, most other vampires are undead creatures who for no explained reason can geas people, fly, breed, create new vampires, and burst into flames. Though the original vampires had most of this explained as sorcerous powers gained through satan (hence the aversion to sunlight and holy items) Most modern renditions of vampires seem to skip on that (which is why i loved how in Red riding hood the element of unholyness in the monster was there). So they just have all those powers and weaknesses because they are playing to stereotype with no originality or reason what so ever (if you cant be original at least have a reason you are playing to type :smalltongue:). Like trueblood Vampires. Can touch holy objects, so not satanic, but origins unknown. No explanation of weakness to silver unless i missed it (and Silver has become like the 3rd most significant character in that series). and they still explode when you stab em or go into the sun. Hell it sucks to be a vampire in that series IMO. I'd at least like to leave a decent corpse. Anyone can kill you if they suprise you with a silver key chain.

I liked the series because of certian reasons, and if the book had bad writing i didnt pay attention to it. But its good to see that maybe if it was done by someone else it might be supported.

I can see how the "perfect" image might be a downer for some(though with the number of vamps killed in the series, i wonder about that "no weakness" thing, after only 2 important characters are non vampires) and wonder if people view Thor the same (unless after that first time, his powers are permanantly tied to his hammer). or superman, come to think of it, thats probably why i dislike him and why people who hate superman also dislike him.

Anyways, i was a bit wordy, but wanted to say i can understand your points and glad to see someone actually give a reason other than "Rawr, hate moody pretty vampirz!"

And I will need to come back and check the rest of this topic for what yall where talking about regarding elves. (though i think i saw some of that at the beginning)

Shadowknight12
2011-11-18, 02:28 PM
Hmm, well its hard to have any positive opinion to Twilight critics when -for -ever -SINGLE- ONE- the FIRST thing they say is

"sparkles"

There was an actual logical reason for who and what they are and why they can do what they can do.

A creature that is a highly evolved form(hence powers based on their attributes) of a human with independant hard as diamond (hence the sparkles) Cells.

I have no problem with sparkling vampires. I'm too used to fan fiction to be bothered by such a triviality anymore. Like I said before, sparkles are just very easy to mock and therefore make primary targets for derision.


And as i think i said in some other topic, most other vampires are undead creatures who for no explained reason can geas people, fly, breed, create new vampires, and burst into flames. Though the original vampires had most of this explained as sorcerous powers gained through satan (hence the aversion to sunlight and holy items) Most modern renditions of vampires seem to skip on that (which is why i loved how in Red riding hood the element of unholyness in the monster was there). So they just have all those powers and weaknesses because they are playing to stereotype with no originality or reason what so ever (if you cant be original at least have a reason you are playing to type :smalltongue:). Like trueblood Vampires. Can touch holy objects, so not satanic, but origins unknown. No explanation of weakness to silver unless i missed it (and Silver has become like the 3rd most significant character in that series). and they still explode when you stab em or go into the sun. Hell it sucks to be a vampire in that series IMO. I'd at least like to leave a decent corpse. Anyone can kill you if they suprise you with a silver key chain.

I liked the series because of certian reasons, and if the book had bad writing i didnt pay attention to it. But its good to see that maybe if it was done by someone else it might be supported.

*shrug* I don't like that pile-up of powers either, but I chalk that up to myth conflation. Practically every culture in the world has had some form of vampire myth, and globalisation being what it is, it all tends to get muddied in the mix.


I can see how the "perfect" image might be a downer for some(though with the number of vamps killed in the series, i wonder about that "no weakness" thing, after only 2 important characters are non vampires) and wonder if people view Thor the same (unless after that first time, his powers are permanantly tied to his hammer). or superman, come to think of it, thats probably why i dislike him and why people who hate superman also dislike him.

I agree. I can't stand superheroes in general (X-men being an exception due to the fact that they're a metaphor for oppressed minorities and therefore have an actual use for storytelling purposes) precisely for that reason. But I hate Superman the most.


Anyways, i was a bit wordy, but wanted to say i can understand your points and glad to see someone actually give a reason other than "Rawr, hate moody pretty vampirz!"

Yeah, I don't mind the vampires that much (they're just Canon Sues, you see tons of those in plenty of YA works), it's the underlying message that disturbs me greatly. Especially the way it tries to glorify abstinence without actually exploring the subject in-depth. But it's mostly the way it romanticises stalking and plays all of its horrible misinformation about gender, sex, romance and life completely straight.


And I will need to come back and check the rest of this topic for what yall where talking about regarding elves. (though i think i saw some of that at the beginning)

Let me save you some time: We like elves, we just don't like it when they're Canon Sues and the author's blatant wish-fulfilment race.

Orzel
2011-11-18, 08:25 PM
I can do the werewolves and vampire of my current DM's setting.

Vampires
Vampirism is an undead curse.The only benefits are that vampires don't age, can only be killed by the weaknesses, and they aren't alive. The lack of aging gives them time to learn magic and that's where they get flight, shapeshifting, hypnotism.

But the lethal weaknesses are sunlight (After 1 second per year as a vampire, BOOM!), disconnecting the heart from the brain (decapitation or stake to heart), fire (blood inside of a vampire is flammable), lack of feeding (can only last one day per decade), magic, and dragon's blood.

Vampires value age. The oldest are loved and having old friend are worth more that gold. This is due to the love of the acquired knowledge of the old. Memory erasing spells were as scary as the Sun to them and even claiming to know one puts you on the "Kill on Sight" list of all vampires. They hate illusions to as they are false knowledge. Lying is okay though... as long as they don't catch you doing to the them (or it's "KoS for you").



Werewolves
Lycantropes packs contain werewolves of four ranks, based to the intensity of the cursed disease they can withstand before dying/going mad. Lycantropy is a magical disease caused by an enchanted bacteria in this word and werewolves embrace the germ.

The base and most common Lycantrope is the Delta. They are pretty much the basic werewolf.
-Can shapeshift between human, wolf, and hybrid wolfman.
-Shapeshifting easier during new moon, forced into hybrid form under full moon.
-Resistance to nonsilvered weapons
-Allergic to wolfbane. Cured or die when ingested/injected.
-Upon death, a werewolf will revert to human form.
-Slow regeneration of injuries

The bottom of the rung are the Omega. These are werewolves who have bodies that let the disease spread to their brain before their heart. Same as Delta but
-Other werewolves can control their transformation and have minor mind control over them.
-Slower regeneration (most omegas are scarred with broken bones)
-Better at magic due to clearer mind.

Above Deltas are Betas. The each pack as a few Betas who do all the management of the pack. Same as Delta except
-Full control of shapeshifting
-Increased strength and speed in all forms
-Can only be killed by silver weapons, fire, electricity, magic, werewolf claws, and wolfbane.
-LASER EYE BEAMS and ENERGY MOUTH CANNONS!

The leader(s) of the pack is the Alpha or the Alpha family. Alphas are lazy and let the Betas hunt and manage the pack. Same as Beta except
-Do not age
-Super strong in human and pure wolf forms (One hand dragon tossing)
-Immortal under full moons.

RedWarlock
2011-11-19, 03:31 AM
Well, I've got two settings:

One is D&D+other stuff, using a 4e-like modified 3e (maybe going straight-up 4e, depending on my players). The biggest changes I make are how the gods are defined, using a defined hierarchy of gods. (They're very active, not just in history or overall sweeps but in modern-day life.) This carries over into how the races are defined, because the gods *created* the races.

Greater Deities (2^2)
The Father of Winter
The Mother of Summer
The Daughter of Spring
The Son of Autumn

Intermediate Deities (2^4)
Asmodeus the Betrayer (LN, tragic figure, served but killed an evil devilish god, but originally good himself, leaving him neutral)
Bahamut the Platinum Lord (LG, borrows the 4e idea that Bahamut and Tiamat are the split divinity of Io)
Cenarius the Stag (TN, similar to WarCraft's Cenarius, but also their Malorne, more of a general elves-and-druids god.)
Gruumsh the Reaver (CN, explained below)
Llolth the Spider (CN, explained below)
Ner'zhul the Lich King (NE, using the WarCraft III version)
Raven the Trickster (TN, god of storms, travel, fate, and death, inspired by the native american mythic figure)
Thariz'dun the Chained (CE, using the 4e-style cosmology, where Thariz is the core of the Abyss in the Elemental Chaos.)
Tiamat the Dragon Queen (CE, she never really came across as lawful outside of dragonlance's counterpart.)
Wee Jas the Beloved (LN, as 3e's version, also a vampire goddess in the anne-rice sense, hedonistic, yet disciplined)
Ysengrin the Wolf (LN, goblinoids, explained below)
Zehir the Serpent (LE, borrowed out of 4e, yuan-ti, poison, assassins, etc)

I borrow the 4 core greater deities from The Curse of Chalion series, in general description (Father of Winter, Mother of Summer, Daughter of Sprint, and Son of Autumn) who fill the same general role as the Sovereign Host from Eberron, acting as the generic all-races gods.

Then I have a number of other intermediate gods, with named I borrow from all over to provide context, but also play against definitions.

So, for instance, Lolth is the main elven goddess, and not evil. Think more along the lines of the MM1's Aranea in divine form, spidery, fey, forest-borne, mysterious but not evil. This means Elves and Drow in my setting aren't enemies, just cousins. Drow not being inherently evil, just more prone to violence and cruelty, as the Underdark is a very hostile place. The main elven country has a forest with a deep chasm at its core, which leads to the underdark and the country of the Drow.

Most of my races picked up an animal themed deity. The goblinoid god is Ysengrin the hunting wolf, a (non-evil) god of hunger and survival. (non-evil barghests are his angel-like agents in the mortal world.) Hobgoblins get a military-roman theme, as the civilized core, the other goblinoids (goblins, bugbears, and varags) existing more on the fringes.

The Orcs worship Gruumsh as a god of strength, but in their distant past Gruumsh was the mate or son of the old Orcish goddess, (name undecided, either Bastet or Sehkmet). (Yes, my orcs are actually catfolk, favoring big cats like tigers and lions, though they still have lower tusks.) When their old goddess was killed, they were forced out of their warmer homelands and into colder steppe, edging on tundra. This makes them rather cranky and aggressive, wanting their warmer homelands back.

The other big theme is that the gods might have actually created their worshipper races by adding their respective (often animal-themed) traits onto humans, or otherwise evolved baser animals into human-like forms. (So Lolth either modified humans into more spindly, graceful elves/drow, or evolved spiders into sentient, humanoid forms, resulting in elves/drow. This means the spider/humanoid creatures like aranea, driders, ettercaps, spellweavers, etc are either evolutionary steps leading towards the evolution of elves, individuals more-blessed by their goddess (the 4e version of driders), or cursed by their goddess in the only way she can (the 3e-and-earlier version of driders).

This means that any group of creatures along a theme has a common deific influence.

For my other setting, I won't get into the majority, it'd take too long, but just for my vampires and werewolves:

(Just to set up, it's a modern, urban fantasy setting, much like Urban Arcana and World of Darkness)

Vampires are an infection of the soul. Literally. The soul is made from a type of material called Aether, which can absorb and grow from energy derived from positive and negative emotions (called Eos and Nyx, respectively). Vampirism is actually an infection of this Aether by another material, called Erebus. Erebus grows when it feeds on Nyx energy, but is killed off by Eos energy.

The infected vampire needs to feed on Eos to keep themselves alive, which they can do passively (a harmless process, picking up ambient energy or absorbing it by touch) or actively (drinking blood). If they absorb enough Nyx, however, their soul will be completely corrupted, and the person will die, becoming merely a host to the Erebus wearing their face, a true vampire.

One other thing: Sunlight emits Eos, and moonlight contains Nyx. Thus, infected vamps are weakened by the sun (but if they can survive it, they might be cured!), while true vamps will burn, and be destroyed by it entirely with nothing left.

This also extends to the other types of evil undead. Ghouls are corpses animated by erebus (functionally the same as true vamps, just dead first), while wraiths are erebus spirits without a host body. (Ghosts are disembodied souls, but not evil.)

Meanwhile, werewolves and other shapeshifters are humans who've made a pact with an animal spirit (most often generations back, making it inherited) to further the animal spirit's goals, protect territory, and defend the spirit. This includes defending the spirit, which is also made from Aether, from Erebus spirits, which means that one of the goals of any 'shifter is to hunt down vampires, ghouls, wraiths, etc.

Chief amongst the pact's benefits are the ability to take on an animalistic form, starting off with the WolfMan-style werewolf, and getting more animalistic as the shifter's power grows. (this isn't limited to wolves, but they do tend towards predatory or physically-aggressive animals) Depending on the powers of the original spirit, 'shifters also get other magical powers.

FatJose
2011-11-19, 10:16 AM
-LASER EYE BEAMS and ENERGY MOUTH CANNONS!

That's my kind of werewolf.

Alright.

Dwarves
Based in appearance on the ancient Greeks, they live in solitude practicing the arts. In a setting that was almost devoid of elves they had taken many of the traits of a nature race. They weren't smiths in the usual sense. They could simply coax stone and earth into shapes. Think of someone working boulders like clay until they're in the shape of a hammer or blade. This innate terrakinesis is also the cause of their stonecunning. Their bodies have a natural earthy skin tone and texture. Other cultural pastimes including gardening (Some will actually grow vines on themselves), pancreatian style wresting

Dr.Epic
2011-11-19, 02:14 PM
They're eating her! And then they're going to eat me! OH MY GAWWWWWWDDDDDD!

You, sir, just won yourself a shiny new Internet.


I see what you did there...

Yay Krull!

No one else? Are they really that obscure?