What races came first?

[pwykersotz]

As part of building the history of my world, this has suddenly become a relevant question to me...what races came first on the Prime Material Plane? Afrokuma's planar questions thread made mention at one point that Aboleths are extremely old, is there an extensive list of old races, or merely a handful?

Edit: I should mention that I'm looking for non Eberron and non Faerun answers.

[CaladanMoonblad]

Cthulu and the Old Ones always come first. : D

Elves and Dwarves are generally regarded as older races in DnD type worlds with Humans as the new masters... but you can seriously choose anything you want for a GM crafted world... just make sure you remember Cthulu. Or Cthulu will remember you.


The game world for my heroes is based upon 3 separate epochs; Legends, Silver Age, Dark Ages (current!). The huge number of races is based upon the Old Ones bringing slaves from across the multiverse to populate their empires, and their slaves eventually allied with the New Gods to put the Old Ones to sleep... somewhat similar to the classic Palladium RPG.

[ArqArturo]

Well, I can give you an example from my campaign world:

The Material Plane 'self-formed' from bits of the other planes (as it is in the center of them all), and I'll go back to this later.

The order in which the races were created was:

1.- Dragons
2.- Giants
3.- Goblins, Elves and Dwarves
4.- Gnomes (they argue they were born as ofshoot dwarves, but no one believes them) and Halflings
5.- Humans (they argue they self-formed, as the Material Plane did, drawing aspects of all the races, especially the 'draconic greed').

[Fouredged Sword]

I think the default flavorless DnD world is ageless, with history extending ad infinium.

Then you have the tolken side of things that we have elves>dwarves>orcs>humans, with a side of really old elder beings from outside the universe.

I dislike aboleth being the first beings in the universe. That would make them magical beasts, not aberrations. They are the oldest beings from OUTSIDE the universe.

[pwykersotz]

I appreciate the insight into custom campaign worlds, it's always interesting to see what other people set up. :smallsmile:

My question is a little more based in what has been established by the books though, since I prefer to take the path of least resistance when it comes to the origins. If the books offer fluff for a particular species origin and I don't disagree with it, why bother changing it? Naturally I can change anything I disagree with.

[Yora]

I use both elves and lizardfolk as the oldest humanoid civilizations. Lizardfolk being humanoid reptiles really make good candidate for a very early civilization.

D&D doesn't really cover fey very well, but I also like the idea of humanoid spirits predating the civilizations of mortal humanoids. In the D&D rules, genies can fit that role well, as do yuan-ti. Outside the Planescape multiverse, Eladrin also make very good fey people.

[Kyberwulf]

The books don't generally go into that kind of detail. There are an infinite amount of worlds in the Prime Material plane. So literally ANY race could come first on any world. It all depends on the DM's perspective. Although most of the time it is assumed that Dragons come first, then elves, Dwarves then humans. Orcs are also one of the first races for some reason. As a lot of the lore of the Orc's god Grummish and the Elves god Eldomari fighting.

[CaladanMoonblad]

Well the default DnD world is a Greyhawk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greyhawk) type setting.

[Psyren]

Depending on setting, Dragons or Fey are usually first, followed by Elves and Dwarves with Gnomes, Halflings and Humanity bringing up the rear. Orcs follow either the elves or the humans out of the gate for some spicy conflict, and goblins are not far behind them.

[Eldan]

By the book, you can't look the Aboleth. They are older than this multiverse.

[karkus]

BoVD stated that centuries or so after most other races were already in existence (but I believe still before the Drow), many gods came together peaceably and made humans using bits of their own styles.

Grace and frailty from elves, fortitude from dwarves, strength from orcs, and so on. Granted, they screwed up the first time around, but they fixed it up later and "humans" which were the walking melting pots of all other humanoid races.

Ever notice how we're pretty much averages of all other races, and have an inborn ability to adapt? :smallamused:

[Annos]

According to general draconic lore, the dragons came first because Io said so. BTW does anyone know where a rulebook reference to Ao is? Also, Why does every overdeity have a vowel then an "o" in their name?

[Feralventas]

By the book, you can't look the Aboleth. They are older than this multiverse.

While that's true by Lords of Madness, the same book states that the Illithids (Mindflayers) survived to the end of this multiverse and then popped back for round 2. We don't know how many times they've done this, or if they may well have spent more time than the Aboleths simply kicking the same can to themselves over and over again.

[Darth Stabber]

I think the default flavorless DnD world is ageless, with history extending ad infinium.

Then you have the tolken side of things that we have elves>dwarves>orcs>humans, with a side of really old elder beings from outside the universe.

I dislike aboleth being the first beings in the universe. That would make them magical beasts, not aberrations. They are the oldest beings from OUTSIDE the universe.

Abberations are not neccessarily from outside the universe, they are creatures with physiology or anatomy divergent from the norm, given that their native habitat is completly dissimilar to the current arrangement of the laws of the universe. Aboleths are among the oldest creatures in the multiverse, and definitely the oldest on Oerth, their physiology was originally adapted to survive in a much different environment than exists in the world currently. The universe was different at the time, thus they are as much at variance with the current world as any creature from outside it. The mindflayers similarly are from a future where conditions are at significant variance from the current state of the universe.

There is a real world parallel to this. It is theoried that the earth had liquid water on it's surface 4.5 billion years ago, but due to the cataclysmic even that created the moon and mantle subduction there are no remaining strata from that era remain. The world could have supported life during that time frame, but that life would have evolved under very different conditions, and would be alien to the life that arose later. If some life from that universe were preserved and reintroduced to the modern world it would be as abberational as an aboleth.

The sad thing is that, barring time travel, we'll never know much about this time frame as any information containing strata from that era are now molten.

[pwykersotz]

Abberations...

That's a pretty fascinating outlook...I never really considered the parallels before.

[mabriss lethe]

Some of the ideas I've used in the past:

"standard" goblins are the decadent and corrupted remnants of a once powerful world spanning civilization.

Elan are members of a race that predates the gods themselves (and in fact lost a war with the gods for the fate of all reality.) In this version, psionics are the remnants of the elan's elder powers that persist through the gods' tampering with reality. In this version, Elan look down on mindflayers as a corrupted branch of their own family that forsook their own heritage in a quest for power.

Celestials and fiends were the first beings, and the material plane was born out out of the constant carnage and bloodshed of their battlefield. The gods were born out of the blood of felled outsiders and then waged their own war, eventually barring both the higher and lower planes from directly interfering with the world they shaped into their own playground. The other races were created as weapons to use in the war to drive off angel and devil alike.

[CTrees]

There isn't a ton of info that I'm seen. Other than the usual Tolkien ordering, aboleths are generally the oldest known race to enter the multiverse, followed by the mindflayers. Whether or not they originated there is immaterial to whether they moved in and staked a claim

[ArcturusV]

Well, among various DnD sources, here's what I've found myself.

One: Elves and Dragons THINK they were first. It's often mentioned as a common belief or a bit of lore. But there doesn't seem to be too terribly much to actually back it up. Dragons do have a racial memory that might support it as they can just say "Well our race remembers a time when no one else was around". But then again would you trust something that considers you as a Food Source for the truth?

Two: The book of vile darkness actually has one race they say is the original mortal race created by the Gods. That would be the Vashar. Their entire lore is that they were the first mortal life created by them. But their evil was so disturbing to the Gods that they struck them down. A demon squirreled away the bodies, revived them, and helped them form a small society of their own, dedicated to wiping out the Gods.

Three: I've seen signs suggesting in some DnD worlds that Humans are actually the "First" race. This kind of makes sense, if you think about it. What's pretty much the one thing that defines humans... okay, two things? They're practically everywhere in any setting world, living in a variety of climates, cultures, etc, and they can breed with practically anything, a trait they do share with Dragons, but their wide spread nature compared to Dragons gives them the edge here. The fact that they can breed with Elves, Orcs, Horses (Centaurs), Cows (Minotaurs), Fey, Archons, Demons, Devils, etc, etc, etc, suggests that they are some common link between all races. That, since the offspring is viable, they are in fact the same species as all those other races. Then again, you never see "Half Orc/Half Elf". So maybe they aren't. But they are some sort of common link between them all. And it's suggested that other races were merely a mutation (Magically or divinely inspired) upon humans to spawn a new race.

[Zombulian]

I dislike aboleth being the first beings in the universe. That would make them magical beasts, not aberrations. They are the oldest beings from OUTSIDE the universe.

Well there's an issue with D&D's definition of Aberration. Instead of always being from somewhere else, (be it time, space, or alternate dimensions) Aberrations are more like things that don't abide by the regularly accepted rules of life and understanding that the new inhabitants of the material plane abide by. Aboleths came from a time unimaginable to mere mortals, as they have been around since before the universe.

[Hecuba]

Forgotten realms:
Creator races first.

Sarrukh
Humans
Batrachi
Fey
Aearee and/or Dragons

Then all others

Dragonlance:
Dragons first.

Then the original races:

Elves
Ogres (Irdas)
Humans


Then the ogres fall. The fallen become the current Ogres, the unfallen are called Irdas instead.

Then the Greygem races come into being.
From Humans:

Gnomes
Dwarves
Goblins
Kenders

From the elves, the sea elves and shoal elves.
From the Ogres, the Minotaur (specifically on the Night of Cruel Transformation in 4100 PC).

The various Dwarven and Elven sub-races arise at various other points during the Second Age (and occasionally 3rd age).
The Draconians arise just before the War of the Lance during teh Age of Dispair.


Greyhawk
The Aboleths arose first during the Age Before Ages. If they are to believed, the predate the gods (and most everything else except the Elder Evils).
The other races or their progenitors arose out of the experiments of the Aboleths during the height of their empire.

I don't know the Eberron timeline very well: I'm sure others can do better there.

[ArqArturo]

In a friend's campaign setting, slimes came first, and from the slimes came the other races (can't remember the order).

In my campaign setting, dragons came first (as an experiment by the God of Magic, who took two lizards and infused them with magic), then the giants came to be by the Goddess of Nature, to protect the natural regions from the goblins (who simply sprouted), and when that backfired (the giants were tempted by the god of poison and disease), she created the dwarves and elves to protect the wilderness above and beneath, when that backfired (drow, duergar, etc) slightly, she created gnomes and halflings.

Humans simply sprouted from the earth.

[Emmerask]

Forgotten realms:
Creator races first.

Sarrukh
Humans
Batrachi
Fey
Aearee and/or Dragons

Then all others


The Cormyr saga (Forgotten Reams) tells a different story though
It has the rather generic dragons -> elves -> dwarfs -> humans thing going
though I do not know how "canon" it is considered ^^

[Darth Stabber]

In my own campaign setting most of the sentient races came into being at the exact beginning of the universe as a consequence of the "chronomancer's war". The chronomancers war was a contest between various factions, the final campaign of the war was a series of attempts by the combatants to cause their foes to never have existed. The problem of doing so is that they had existed leading to nightmarish armies of creatures twisted by their non-existence, and confused by their inablity to comprehend their own existance, but still in full possession of the powers they would have had were they to exist. And if events changed to allow their existence the twisted shadow still existed. Eventually seeking to stop the war from ripping apart the very fabric of the multiverse a group of mages developed a device to strengthen the time dimension of the universe, denying the combatants their most terrible weapon. The problem was the device had to be used before any thread of multiverse's time web was broke, leading them to the beginning of the universe. Upon activation it did not function as intended (since they had to time travel to that point thus snapping the first thread), it sent forth a massive ripple forward through time causing some individuals to be dragged into a new multiverse, but without memory of the events that had not yet happened. There were several other consequences: magic's ability to affect time ws severely restricted, the old universe's laws snapped in half creating the far realm, two of the most fearsome races in the old universe maintained a dim awareness of their origin (the aboleths and the mindflayers) but misinterpreted the meaning of those memories (the aboleths believing they were here before anything else, and the mindflayer's belief they come from the future). Even the gods lost much of what they remembered and guided reality based on the assumption that they hd just created it. The sentient species felt a massive wave of amnesia, and began creating civiliation all over again on pristine, unspoiled copies of the old worlds.

[Hecuba]

The Cormyr saga (Forgotten Reams) tells a different story though
It has the rather generic dragons -> elves -> dwarfs -> humans thing going
though I do not know how "canon" it is considered ^^

FR can be complicated, depending on how you interpret the question. The list I gave indicates, to my understanding, the canonical races that first arising on Toril.

There are other older races, but they immigrated from outside Toril. Some of the Elves qualify to my understanding.

Of course, I'm not a big FR fan: this may have since been changed.

[themourningstar]

According to general draconic lore, the dragons came first because Io said so. BTW does anyone know where a rulebook reference to Ao is? Also, Why does every overdeity have a vowel then an "o" in their name?

I would guess that "Ao" is an abbreviation for Alpha and Omega.. beginning and the end.

Oh- also, the Deathgate cycle had an interesting backstory for the various races- they were all human mutations. Humans came first. :)

[nedz]

Whatever you want of course.

I like the idea of Humans being a hybrid of several earlier races since this would explain why they can breed with anything. I'm not sure where that leaves the Dragons however ?

[Kelb_Panthera]

From my understanding of the canon lore, which I'm only drawing from the 3.X generic sourcebooks, it goes something like:

demons, gods, celestials, devils; for the outerplanes.

Aboleths, Dragons, Kobolds, Vashara, Elves or Dwarves, Dwarves or Elves, Orcs, halflings, humans for the material, with gnomes' placement being unclear. Drow fit somewhere between elves and humans but I'm not sure if it's before or after halflings.

In the mind-flayer tangent it's something like Neothelids, elder brains, gith, illithids, githzerai and githyanki. Except for the githzerai and githyanki, this all happened on an alien world as the multiverse approached its end and the illithid empire grew vast enough to encompass multiple worlds, including the primary campaign world. They then travelled back in time to somewhere between dragons and the so-called mortal races at which point the gith, who had been subjugated by the illithids for quite some time, rebelled and schismed into the two gith-descended races. The illithids subjugated the duergar as a replacement but they too have revolted and are mostly their own people again, though many duergar still toil under mind-flayer rule.

Most of the other abberations don't hail from the material in anything resembling a native fashion, though I think beholders and their kin fit into the picture somewhere.

[Agent 451]

I like the idea of Humans being a hybrid of several earlier races since this would explain why they can breed with anything. I'm not sure where that leaves the Dragons however ?

Essence of the dragons allowed them to mate with everything, maybe?


In the mind-flayer tangent it's something like Neothelids, elder brains, gith, illithids, githzerai and githyanki.

Are there 3.0/3.5 stats for gith anywhere? I've seen them mentioned before, but have never seen any stats.

[LOTRfan]

Athas.org has statistics for Gith, but I think the Gith detailed there are actually degenerated Githyanki raiders rather than true progenitors to both the Githyanki and Githzerai races.

[TuggyNE]

In my own campaign setting most of the sentient races came into being at the exact beginning of the universe as a consequence of the "chronomancer's war". The chronomancers war was a contest between various factions, the final campaign of the war was a series of attempts by the combatants to cause their foes to never have existed. The problem of doing so is that they had existed leading to nightmarish armies of creatures twisted by their non-existence, and confused by their inablity to comprehend their own existance, but still in full possession of the powers they would have had were they to exist. And if events changed to allow their existence the twisted shadow still existed. Eventually seeking to stop the war from ripping apart the very fabric of the multiverse a group of mages developed a device to strengthen the time dimension of the universe, denying the combatants their most terrible weapon. The problem was the device had to be used before any thread of multiverse's time web was broke, leading them to the beginning of the universe. Upon activation it did not function as intended (since they had to time travel to that point thus snapping the first thread), it sent forth a massive ripple forward through time causing some individuals to be dragged into a new multiverse, but without memory of the events that had not yet happened. There were several other consequences: magic's ability to affect time ws severely restricted, the old universe's laws snapped in half creating the far realm, two of the most fearsome races in the old universe maintained a dim awareness of their origin (the aboleths and the mindflayers) but misinterpreted the meaning of those memories (the aboleths believing they were here before anything else, and the mindflayer's belief they come from the future). Even the gods lost much of what they remembered and guided reality based on the assumption that they hd just created it. The sentient species felt a massive wave of amnesia, and began creating civiliation all over again on pristine, unspoiled copies of the old worlds.

That's pretty cool, honestly. Serves as a good warning not to pull unlimited time shenanigans. :smalltongue:

[CRtwenty]

From what I recall it's something like:

1. Aboleths, whether they are the first mortal race or just the sole surviving race from way back in the day is up for debate. Things were wonky in the early days of the multiverse, lots of things were created only to be sucked back into Primordial Chaos. Early Gods form at this time.
2. Ancient Uber Races like the Vaati or the Lashae who built giant powerful empires eons ago but are now only remnants. By this time the ranks of the Gods and the form of the multiverse has effectively stabilized.
3. Dragons, lizard/dinosaur types like lizardfolk and Kobolds
4. Elves, Dwarves, other long lived races. Orcs and the bestial races show up.
5. Humans and Halflings.

[Darth Stabber]

That's pretty cool, honestly. Serves as a good warning not to pull unlimited time shenanigans. :smalltongue:

It means that all sorts of terrible things happening are entirely logically consistent with in the setting. Also the occasional "bleed through" of the previous reality makes for an interesting story. This actually explains a lot about the campaign setting, the players just don't realize it yet.

[Tvtyrant]

In Skies over Atlantis (my current setting) each continent has a series of related sentient species that can interbreed. Elves, Humans, Orcs, and Hadozee are one. Dwarfs, Gnomes, Goblins, Hobgoblins, Bugbears, Halflings, yeti, and ogres are another called Folkyer. Folkyer descend from an ancestor similar to a hairy Hobgolbin, which split into a branch that got smaller and a branch that got larger. Ogres and Yetis are the largest Folkyer, and Gnomes, Halflings and goblins are the smallest.

[Clistenes]

The Cormyr saga (Forgotten Reams) tells a different story though
It has the rather generic dragons -> elves -> dwarfs -> humans thing going
though I do not know how "canon" it is considered ^^

Elves, Orcs Dwarves existed for a long time in other planes before reaching Abeir-Toril, but when they arrived Humans and the other creator races (Sarrukh, Amphibians, Avians, Fey...etc.) were already there.

Dragons came from outside too, they came from space, their eggs carried by meteors.

It isn't possible to know how old elves and dwarves really are, since their gods created them in their Godly Realms and stayed there for milleniums before travelling to Toril.

[Souju]

it's a bit of a general rule that the longer something can live, the longer its been around. It's a strange bit of unintentional logic, since the only conceivable way something with the birthrate of a dragon could have a sustainable population is if they've been around for a long, long time.
Or they're biologically compatible with everything that moves. That's always fun.

[themourningstar]

In Skies over Atlantis (my current setting) each continent has a series of related sentient species that can interbreed. Elves, Humans, Orcs, and Hadozee are one. Dwarfs, Gnomes, Goblins, Hobgoblins, Bugbears, Halflings, yeti, and ogres are another called Folkyer. Folkyer descend from an ancestor similar to a hairy Hobgolbin, which split into a branch that got smaller and a branch that got larger. Ogres and Yetis are the largest Folkyer, and Gnomes, Halflings and goblins are the smallest.

Feel sorry for the gnome that gets bred by an ogre :l Sounds like Gene Wolfe's world, where the giant Viking people were stealing human women to breed with.

[Lapak]

I think I've mentioned it here before, but I'm fond of how the old-school-style Red Tide setting handles this question; almost all sentient races are spinoffs from a human population trying to avoid death in one way or another, with most of them not working out. It feels organic and gives the spectrum of people a consistent thematic tone.

The elves came from a group of mages seeking immortality; they're a small pool of souls that are reborn into a human child immediately after their death every time they die. Gives them a changeling-type feel.

The dwarves are descended from a group that sold themselves and all their future generations to a goddess of Death to be servants in the afterlife in exchange for long and hardy lives; modern dwarves hoard gold because only golden grave goods translate into the beyond and they need weapons to fight off her spirit recruiters.

The 'savage humanoid' types are actually alternate-plane refugees who were from a highly advanced civilization in the process of magically re-engineering themselves to fight off a world-devouring Far-Realms style horror when they lost the fight and their world was destroyed.