Given capabilities and lifespan of D&D races - who is best to rule?

[Pinjata]

So ... given that we know stats of all creatures of D&D verse, which race is, by its abilities and traits(mental traits, desire to conquer ...) most likely to build planes-spanning empire? One that consumes all planes. Perhaps they even get some gods to act as their agents?

How could this be done?

[dropbear8mybaby]

Goblins, because they outbreed everyone else and overrun the economy and institutions and all aspects of society with sheer numbers.

[Mastikator]

Whoever is the most industrious, ambitious, opportunistic while still being willing to self sacrifice for the greater good of the community.

So humans.

[Lord Raziere]

Whoever is the most industrious, ambitious, opportunistic while still being willing to self sacrifice for the greater good of the community.

So humans.

I say this is an inherent bias that we should disregard. Its also incredibly boring.

I say we should ask this question again but say "minus humans". Don't go for some obvious "oh humans because we are well-rounded" answer, lets explore the possibilities.

[Cernor]

Dragons. They already have the desire to rule, the power to conquer, and the followers to back up their threats - The only reason they haven't done so already is their lack of opposable thumbs. Makes it tough to cast spells (e.g. Plane Shift), and by the time their lackeys are able to help them make a multiplanar empire, they're probably also powerful enough to defeat said dragon with little more help than 3-5 similarly powerful people.

Or illithids, because they can enthrall the leaders of existing empires and run the universe from the shadows.

[gkathellar]

A multi-ethnic, cosmopolitan meritocracy composed of those with diverse skill sets and tremendous power.

So ... adventurers.

[Mastikator]

I say this is an inherent bias that we should disregard. Its also incredibly boring.

I say we should ask this question again but say "minus humans". Don't go for some obvious "oh humans because we are well-rounded" answer, lets explore the possibilities.

Humans aren't the well rounded race, humans are the gets stuff done race. But if we exclude humans then I concur with goblins.

[Pinjata]

I say this is an inherent bias that we should disregard. Its also incredibly boring.

So much this. I can not emphasize how boring "humanity **** yeah" trope is. Its pure humano-centricity and really a sad attempt at anything. Humans are just some average sods average at all things. Not to mention their constant erosion of knowledge due to short lifespans.

I'd think Illithids - if there was no gith/ghytanki insurection, those guys would probably already rule all known worlds/planes.

[Vizzerdrix]

Flumphs. Only they are kind hearted and noble enough to lead.

[Red Fel]

You need a race that is long-lived, ruthless, and orderly. Someone who will create expansive civilizations that operate on a system of rules that allows them to almost run themselves. A race that recognizes the inherent value in diversity, while prioritizing the need for cooperation and unity, from each according to their means, to the whole empire according to its needs. A race that will be unafraid to make the hard choices, but pragmatic enough to do so for the benefit of the empire as a whole. A meritocratic race that will offer room for growth to those clever, strong, or ambitious enough to seize the opportunity.

And all this can be yours, if you'll just sign here.

[LibraryOgre]

Me.


Ok, more seriously....

The Jann are strong contenders. They naturally are able to plane shift, can spend a couple days comfortably on any of the main elemental planes, and don't have any real weaknesses.

[gkathellar]

I'd think Illithids - if there was no gith/ghytanki insurection, those guys would probably already rule all known worlds/planes.

Ugh, not with that ECL.

Species that can mass-produce characters with PC class levels will always come out on top of those that can't. The only reasonable non-humanoid contenders are 3.5E Sharn, who I have heard described as, "that's not a race, that's a series of typos."

[LibraryOgre]

Ugh, not with that ECL.

Species that can mass-produce characters with PC class levels will always come out on top of those that can't. The only reasonable non-humanoid contenders are 3.5E Sharn, who I have heard described as, "that's not a race, that's a series of typos."

ECL is largely irrelevant if the game system doesn't have it. It is only relevant in discussions of 3.x.. an edition that's almost 10 years out of print.

For most purposes, Illithids ALL have class levels. Several. In some creepy combination of psionicist, mage, and cleric which lets them eat normal people for lunch (literally and figuratively).

[Vizzerdrix]

You need a race that is long-lived, ruthless, and orderly. Someone who will create expansive civilizations that operate on a system of rules that allows them to almost run themselves. A race that recognizes the inherent value in diversity, while prioritizing the need for cooperation and unity, from each according to their means, to the whole empire according to its needs. A race that will be unafraid to make the hard choices, but pragmatic enough to do so for the benefit of the empire as a whole. A meritocratic race that will offer room for growth to those clever, strong, or ambitious enough to seize the opportunity.

And all this can be yours, if you'll just sign here.

Like I said, Flumphs. :smallsmile:

[hymer]

I'd think Illithids - if there was no gith/ghytanki insurection, those guys would probably already rule all known worlds/planes.

Isn't this their fluff, anyway? They conquered the world, but then ended up somehow screwing it all over, and they sent themselves back in time to do it right this time around? Which makes me think illithids are a later version of someone we know already...

I disagree with the idea of goblins. They're much too prone to fighting amongst themselves, and I certainly don't see them as the kind to hold to a many generations long goal. There's viciousness and cowardice to be done, what good is it to me if my distant descendants may rule the world.

[Telesto]

Nothing has ever gone wrong with the followers of deities ruling.

Actually, I'd vote for any of the long lived races after they reach Venerable age.

Edit- No, wait... A counsel of all the venerable members of each race. Each race gets 1 vote, as determined by a 2/3rds majority vote. Let the old make the calls.

[Rockphed]

Let's see what races I can think of:

Humans: The size of a human empire is determined by how effective communication is across the empire, how ambitious the rulers are, and how likely the ruler is to have powerful magics at their command. In the default state of the world (where getting access to magics to go between planes requires gaining experience by going off into the world and fighting monsters), a human empire that spans planes is unlikely. Humans just aren't magical enough. But, an empire that has since fallen might have been run by humans. I could even see an empire (or city-state depending on how far it has fallen) that has control over a planar gateway. It possibly even maintains a presence on both sides of the gateway.

Elves: While elves have a natural penchant for magic and the long lives to allow individual elves to build large empires, they are generally not portrayed as nearly ambitious enough to do so. The only exception is the Drow, who are typically trapped in a struggle for survival in the depths of the earth. Drow getting chased into the depths of the earth as their last empire fell would explain all sorts of things about them. If the last elven empire's fall also taught most elves not to be too ambitious, that could explain the elven contentment as well.

Dwarves: Dwarves are actually a good candidate for a race that establishes an empire and keeps it going. They are typically very traditional, so once the empire rises, it would stand until overthrown. Their magic is normally artifact, rather than spell, based, so their modes of planar travel are more likely to be durable than a human or elven empire's. Their natural lust for mineral wealth would lead them to colonize across the planes. I can even see them creating a system of tunnels in the elemental plane of earth for (relatively) secure travel between locations on different planes.

Halflings: Due to the source of halflings being the content and chubby Hobbits, I do not see halflings as a contender for any empire, much less an interplanar one.

Goblins, Hob-goblins, Bugbears: With their varying levels of strength and size, goblins run quite the range in terms of abilities. However, they are typically depicted as cowardly. They might be nearly as inventive as dwarves and breed faster than humans, but the more inventive they are, the less diplomatic they become. Also, their artifice tends to run toward the haphazard rather than the methodical.

Dragons: Any one dragon is an army in his (or her) own right. Dragons are natural spell-casters, incredibly intelligent, and love to acquire shinies. However, they also tend toward living in small groups. An old dragon might conquer an empire and use it to funnel wealth and food his way, but they would be unlikely to expand said empire. Dragon kings, yes. Dragon, emperor of a thousand planes, not so much.

Jann: I would not have thought of them, but the native Janni are native to the material plane. Their lifespan is, as memory serves, slightly longer than human. Also, they are somewhat resistant to several extreme environments. Finally, as genies, they have in-build spellcasting. If your astral plane is more endless desert and less sky-ocean, then Jann even fit as the prime force between the planes.

Illithids: The squid-faced brain-munchers have it written in their story that they used to rule somewhere. Where this is is often left to a best guess, but normally it is assumed to be somewhere in the planes. At the very least, they are incredibly intelligent, ambitious (but not back-stabbing), and inately magical.

Orcs: An orc empire is a cult of personality of the current leader. Like the mongols, they might periodically sweep forth and conquer the world, but, like Alexander, their empire will fracture the moment the current leader dies. Also, no magical potential means they have all the same problems that humans do.

Giants: Innately magical beings who are (relatively) civilized and personally very strong? Very yes. The vulgar giants (stone and hill) probably couldn't run even a small kingdom for more than a few generations, but Storm and Sky giants could probably build an empire between the planes.

That is all I can think of off the top of my head, but I hope that several ideas came out of it.

[hamishspence]

Elves: While elves have a natural penchant for magic and the long lives to allow individual elves to build large empires, they are generally not portrayed as nearly ambitious enough to do so. The only exception is the Drow, who are typically trapped in a struggle for survival in the depths of the earth. Drow getting chased into the depths of the earth as their last empire fell would explain all sorts of things about them. If the last elven empire's fall also taught most elves not to be too ambitious, that could explain the elven contentment as well.


That's pretty much how the Forgotten Realms handled it with the Crown Wars. Sun elves in particular had an on-off approach to empire building (sometimes their empires ended up being even more evil than the drow ones).

[Guancyto]

Rating races by their level of ambition is a little sketchy because it's dependent on culture, which is malleable. Saying halflings are too content with their lot to create an empire is true by "default," but all you need is to piss off the little buggers enough and it's slingstone death for everyone!

But yeah, I'm with Red Fel on this one, Devils are 100% the best contender for this. Especially if it's a multiplanar empire! Other races have to work to get the ability to travel through the planes (and really hard, to boot). Devils get to do it mostly by virtue of being Devils, which lets them function not only as the rulers of the empire but also as its backbone.

[neriractor]

I can´t believe nobody has mentioned formians. Shame on you, shame on you all :smalltongue:
except for Red Fel, I don´t wanna piss it off with a joke.

[Fable Wright]

Its pure humano-centricity and really a sad attempt at anything. Humans are just some average sods average at all things. Not to mention their constant erosion of knowledge due to short lifespans.

Ahem.

That is wrong on pretty much every level. The reasons why, in fantasy, humans are average is because we define every race in terms of ourselves. There's a reason they're called demihumans—their stats take our impressive baseline stats and tweak them in more or less every direction. Evolutionarily speaking, humans have some serious advantages. We've got arguably the best developed visual processors in existence built into our heads, our ability to sweat and bipedal motion gives us unparalleled endurance in the animal kingdom, and the fact that we can continue to function after losing an arm or a leg is just mind-boggling compared to more or less any other animal.

Also, you're ignoring the fact that our racial knowledge constantly expands, rather than erodes—in old times, through oral traditions, then written script, then through the internet—and our knowledge expands much further than that of any long-lived races. Why? High birthrates generate many different perspectives, and we record the best of them. Long-lived races get stuck in local optima of 'good enough' traditions, while humans have more random sampling of different conditions and more rapidly converge towards a global optimum than any other traditional PC species.

With that in mind, Hobgoblins are the race most likely to rule the multiverse.

They have the same mental ability modifiers as humans, a more rapid birth and maturation cycle, organize easily, improve on our baseline constitution, and generally take all the advantages that humans have to another level, without any downsides aside from being labeled as a 'monster' race. Hell, in Eberron, they did take over the known world, and ruled it for far longer than humans have. Evolutionarily speaking, they have the largest edge over anyone else. Kinda like the Protheans from the Mass Effect franchise, the only known race to manage breaking the Reaper's cycle.

[Frozen_Feet]

If we expand the scope to truly cover ALL D&D races, all core races like humans are hopelessly outclassed by all those races which get effects like Wish or Planar Binding for free. There are some monsters which apparently come to being as equivalents of 18th-level-full-casters.

I think (black) Ethergaunts were mentioned in a previous thread like this as a strong contender. Efreeti, Pit Fiends, Solars etc. Are likewise strong contender. For Illithids it's pretty much their default fluff.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I'm with Redfel and Guancyto, the only thing standing between the Baatezu and concquest of pretty much everything is their obligation to keep the infinite hordes of the abyss in check. If they didn't have to waste so many resources on the Blood War they could bring their full power to bare against everyone else and it wouldn't be much of a fight.

Bright side; at least -some- of the rapid-breeding humanoid races wouldn't be exterminated so they could continue to fuel the infernal engine.

[Lorsa]

Undead Dragon-liches will one day rule the world. It's foretold in prophesy. The sooner we bow down to our new masters the better.

[Sun Elemental]

I can´t believe nobody has mentioned formians. Shame on you, shame on you all :smalltongue:


It's not D&D, but I was just remembering how WoW has so many old Nerubian empires. Something about sentient insects means that a hive could grow and grow, forever in harmony. Easy empire.
The closest D&D analogues to sentient insects would be Abeils, Dromites or Thri-keen.

Outsiders like Formians and Devils are easy mode, their very essence has no choice but to cooperate.

And canonically, mind flayers are going to conquer everything near the end of the universe.

[Fable Wright]

If we expand the scope to truly cover ALL D&D races, all core races like humans are hopelessly outclassed by all those races which get effects like Wish or Planar Binding for free. There are some monsters which apparently come to being as equivalents of 18th-level-full-casters.

I think (black) Ethergaunts were mentioned in a previous thread like this as a strong contender. Efreeti, Pit Fiends, Solars etc. Are likewise strong contender. For Illithids it's pretty much their default fluff.

I will disagree with this, primarily based on one point:

Numbers.

There will always be more goblinoids, humans, and likely even dwarves and elves than any of the more powerful races, like Ethergaunts or powerful extraplanars. In D&D 3.5 (which is not the only edition), those mean less, but there are a few big implications there.

First, the humanoid races will have far, far more potential adventurers than any of the other races. All it takes is one set of high-level adventurers swatting down just a few Black Ethergaunts or Efreeti to make an enormous dent on their population; meanwhile, all wiping a city off the map does for the Ethergaunts is generating more adventurers who have a strong drive to defeat them. Total extermination of the humanoid races discounts chances of ruling an empire, so they're facing a significant uphill battle.

The second big factor is divinity. Every humanoid race will at any given moments have more gods, and more powerful gods, than Aberration races will have at their peak. Beings far more powerful than Efreeti and Ethergaunts could ever hope to be, with the ability to affect the fate of entire universes at a time, the gods would fight tooth and nail for their own survival against a conquering society. If you subscribe to the bigger numbers equal bigger influence school of thought... really, the weak humanoids just win that game based off the patrons they create for themselves. Pit Fiends and Efreeti would rather deal with gods than directly oppose them, disqualifying them from truly ruling the material. Solars can't rule because they are tools of the Gods, pure and simple.

The third big factor is logistics. Put simply, there aren't enough Ethergaunts to effectively manage a multiverse-spanning empire. Nor are there enough Noble Efreet, nor any of the really slow-breeding races, really. The high-CR monsters may be able to rule over kingdoms, but collectively, the humanoid races win out.

The only race I could see maybe subjugating the humanoids is the Illithid race. Use of the Lords of Madness emotion-radiating crystals to shatter belief in Gods, a rapid reproductive cycle only kept in check by their unique dietary requirements, and the ability to effectively manage populations? If they ever figure out how to make more Elder Brains, it could work. Not counting on it, though, and they'd have to be very, very careful about their plans so as to not face divine retribution.

[Knitifine]

Given the rate of reproduction, longevity and innate powers, I'm going to have to throw my vote in for dragon.

As a side note, the title of this threat is phrased a little uncomfortably.

[2D8HP]

Undead Dragon-liches will one day rule the world. It's foretold in prophesy. The sooner we bow down to our new masters the better.I for one welcome are skeletal reptilian overlords.
Someone needs to say it! :amused:

[Belac93]

I would say that Dragons or Devils are probably the most likely to rule. Extremely long lived, very powerful, and devils are theoretically immortal.

However, hobgoblins would be my first pick. They have a short enough lifespan that a single ruler won't be able to destroy the kingdom to the point where a later one cannot fix it. They are very ambitious, at least as smart as humans, at least as strong, and willing to do what it takes. They can even (in some editions) be adventurers.

Actually, if we get down to it, hobgoblins are not-so-nice-but-smart-and-ruthless humans, with all the dials turned up to 10. The only place they are worse than humans (at least from my perspective), is the looks department.

[2D8HP]

Actually, if we get down to it, hobgoblins are not-so-nice-but-smart-and-ruthless humans, with all the dials turned up to 10. The only place they are worse than humans (at least from my perspective), is the looks department.:redcloak: Worse?

[LibraryOgre]

Actually, I'd vote for any of the long lived races after they reach Venerable age.

Edit- No, wait... A counsel of all the venerable members of each race. Each race gets 1 vote, as determined by a 2/3rds majority vote. Let the old make the calls.

www.schlockmercenary.com/2002-03-29

On Dwarves, I would point to Barsaive's Throal Empire. After a magical apocalypse, the Dwarves were some of the first to emerge from their dungeons and establish a trade empire.

[awa]

The problem is we don't know how fast many of these monsters breed.

We know goblins breed fast but how fast? If they breed 10 times faster with multiple births and short generation time it won’t matter if they can’t build an empire because nobody else will be able to either.

a storm giant probably breeds slower but how slow, if it breeds only half as fast but live to the age of 600 then they probably won’t even be losing out in terms of raw numbers not to mention power and raw intellect.

But my vote is races that can skip breeding. Lycanthrope, certain undead, entomanothrope
Anything that forces other people to join your group allowing you steal all their powers knowledge ect for their own.

[SirBellias]

While lycanthropes are a good option, I prefer Hobgoblins as well. They usually get the support of their goblinoid cousins (either way), and they have dominion over others built in to their mindset.

[Âmesang]

Awakened permanent animated ruler.

A good -THWACKING- against the knuckles for any who misbehave!

[awa]

While lycanthropes are a good option, I prefer Hobgoblins as well. They usually get the support of their goblinoid cousins (either way), and they have dominion over others built in to their mindset.

that's the beauty of infection though, lycanthrop hobgoblins have every advantage of normal hobgoblins but are more powerful and can expand their numbers both by normal reproduction and by infecting others. You have the power to force all members of the society conquered or naturally born to share the same alignment and ideals

[NecroDancer]

This is a tad off topic but in my campaign/world humans only live to age 50 (if they are lucky). This means they evolved to adapt faster than any other race and they can learn new things (or old thing that were forgotten) faster than any other race. This means humans are more likely to create a new weapon (guns) or discover a spell. The major problems humans have is that they are so varied they can't help but come into conflict with each other but the survivors of that conflict are usually smarter, tougher, or stronger than normal (aka adventurers). Humans fail then learn from their failures so fast that success becomes imminent. In fact the only reason humans haven't conquered the world is because whenever they get close they usually fall to inside conflict or a fatal mistake in their plans.