Humanoid Category

[Hilary]

So, I am trying to categorize the sentient humanoid races for my world. I have seen 'goblinoids' and 'giants' as categories. Are there others?

I also like to know if there is a list somewhere that shows all of the 'uplifted' races - those created by turning animals into sentient humanoids - for a category called 'uplifts'.

Thanks for sharing any information you come across.

[Joe the Rat]

For the most part Giant is a separate category than Humanoids.
A good place to start would be to look at the Ranger's favored enemy feature. When you select humanoid, you get two subtypes - and it has a decent list of the humanoid types.

For your purposes, you could probably just introduce "Uplift" as a humanoid type. The Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica did something similar with their Simic Hybrids.

EDIT:
Technically there are no Uplift races in the base, but if you are looking for animal hybrid races, I'd start thumbing through the Monster Manual.
theramorphic playable races: Aaracokra, Grung, Kenku, Lizardfolk, Loxodon(GGtR), Minotaur(UA&Others), Tabaxi, Tortle, plus a few random options out of the Plane Shift articles.
Dragonborn and Kobold are borderline, being dragon-adjacent.

[Monster Manuel]

The categories of Humanoids are a little different in 5e than they were in 3.5. Not sure you're going to get an official categorization that covers what you're looking for.

In 5e, Giants are not Humanoids, but "Giant" is its own category apart from "Humanoid". The Humanoid type is divided up into a separate subtype for each of the races, so usually it's something like Humanoid (elf) or humanoid (orc). The only one that's really a comprehensive category all its own is (goblinoid), since goblins, hobgoblins and bugbears are all subraces of the same thing. (Gith), too, covers both Githzerai and Githyanki. You'll also find that lycanthropes are all some flavor of "Humanoid (Shapeshifter)". But otherwise, most humanoids are their own thing.


That said, the Types mean very little in the current version of the game. It's not like earlier editions where "Undead" all had the same traits (no need to breathe, immune to poison, no CON score, etc), or all fey had a d6 hit die, or whatever. Mechanically, the only impact is a handfull of spells, and the ranger's Favored Enemy ability (maybe some other small facet of the rules I'm not thinking of).

There is also, in the DMG, the table on NPC Features that lists out all of the modifiers for a list of humanoids and modifiers to the basic NPC stat block. This could come in useful, but isn't comprehensive or particularly organized.

So, the good news is, without a lot of structure in the rules, go ahead and set up whatever categories you want in your game! In mine, I give all reptilian races the "lizardfolk" subtype. No real impact, except that Rangers that choose "lizardfolk" as a favored enemy can get their bonuses against Lizard Men, Kobolds, Tortles, etc. I also make the Tortles kind of prickly about being called "lizards".

I don't think there is anything in the existing rules like the "uplifted" concept that you mention, but it's a cool one. Lots of candidates for this, depending on the origins of creatures in your world. Maybe Aarocockra, Kenku, Shifters (if you have them), maybe minotaurs? Maybe fit lizard folk and kuo-toa in as well. Have fun with it.

[Kane0]

So, the good news is, without a lot of structure in the rules, go ahead and set up whatever categories you want in your game! In mine, I give all reptilian races the "lizardfolk" subtype. No real impact, except that Rangers that choose "lizardfolk" as a favored enemy can get their bonuses against Lizard Men, Kobolds, Tortles, etc. I also make the Tortles kind of prickly about being called "lizards".


I do something similar, splitting humanoids into broad categories.
Bluebloods (‘scaleykind’) are dragonborn, lizardfolk, kobolds, yuan-ti, tortles, etc.
Redbloods (‘mankind’) are humans, dwarves, elves, halflings, goliath, etc
Greenbloods (‘beastkin’) are goblinoids, orcs, gnolls, kenku, etc
Planetouched are tieflings, aasimar, genasi, gith, etc
And I let rangers pick one of these as a Favored Enemy if they want.

But yeah as above it isn’t as concrete as it was in previous editions.

[Greywander]

So, I am trying to categorize the sentient humanoid races for my world. I have seen 'goblinoids' and 'giants' as categories. Are there others?
Potentially infinite. There's no set list, and each new book that gets releases that contains new monsters could introduce something new. Flipping quickly through the Monster Manual, I can find the following humanoid subtypes:

Aarakocra
Goblinoid
Bullywug
Dwarf
Elf
Gith
Gnoll (interestingly, the Fang of Yeenoghu is a fiend, rather than a humanoid, with the subtype of gnoll)
Gnome
Grimlock
Human
Shapechanger (I don't think this is a strictly humanoid subtype, shapechangers generally have special rules for thing like Polymorph)
Kenku
Kobold
Kuo-toa
Lizardfolk
Merfolk
Orc
Quaggoth
Sahuagin
Thri-kreen
Troglodyte
Yuan-ti (only the pureblood is humanoid, the rest are monstrosities)
Any race (from the NPC section, implies any playable race can be a humanoid subtype)

And that's just from the Monster Manual.

Also, giants are a separate creature type from humanoids, rather than a subtype of humanoids.


I also like to know if there is a list somewhere that shows all of the 'uplifted' races - those created by turning animals into sentient humanoids - for a category called 'uplifts'.

Thanks for sharing any information you come across.
If you mean things like awakened animals (i.e. an otherwise normal animal with human-level intelligence), I believe they still retain the beast creature type. If you're talking about full humanoid races that were originally created from animals, I don't know enough about the origin of each race to help with that, I'm afraid.

Creature types are a bit tricky to quantify, as there don't seem to be any hard rules for sorting a creature into one category or the other. Perhaps the easiest to sort are the "outsider" creature types, i.e. creatures native to other planes than the Material Plane. Anything native to the Upper Planes is generally a celestial (though see unicorns), anything native to the Lower Planes is generally a fiend, anything native to the Elemental Planes is generally an elemental, anything native to the Feywild is generally a fey (are any fey native to the Material Plane, though?). Some undead seem to be native to either the Shadowfell or the Negative Energy Plane, while the majority are created from the remains of creatures native to the Material Plane. Some aberrations are native to the Chaotic Planes, or the Far Realm, but some might be native to the Material Plane.

I typically see "humanoids" as creatures that (a) are native to the Material Plane, (b) have a "soul" (whatever that means), and (c) don't fall under another type, such as giant or dragon. Beasts are native to the Material Plane, but lack a soul. It's debatable if an awakened beast gains a soul or not. Monstrosities can be native to the Material Plane (but sometimes aren't?), with their hallmark being that they are unnatural, whereas beasts and humanoids are natural. That is, a beast or humanoid that gets twisted into an unnatural state can become a monstrosity.

As far as what it means to have a "soul", it probably carries certain moral and ethical connotations. It's okay to kill a beast, but killing a humanoid is murder. You can eat a beast, but eating a humanoid is cannibalism. The life of a humanoid carries greater value than the life of a beast. Perhaps the "soul" allows humanoids to empower the gods through worship, something beasts can't do. Perhaps those with a soul go to an outer plane afterlife when they die, while beasts are reabsorbed into the Material Plane. There's probably some existing lore on this subject, but I'm not familiar with it.

One aspect of D&D lore is that outsiders have no body-soul duality, which is to say that their physical body is also their soul. If you kill them, they are destroyed, no afterlife for them. Humanoids have a body-soul duality, so when their body dies their soul can depart for the afterlife. Perhaps this is why e.g. tieflings are humanoids rather than fiends; they are both native to the Material Plane rather than the Lower Planes, and they have that body-soul duality. I'm not sure if this holds true in all cases, though. The Fang of Yeenoghu is a gnoll that becomes a fiend, but are they native to the Lower Planes, and do they lack body-soul duality?

[Devils_Advocate]

The Monster Manual lists the monster types starting on page 6.


Beasts are native to the Material Plane, but lack a soul.
Well, not traditionally. In 3rd Edition, animals even explicitly could become ghosts.

Humanoids differ from beasts by being bipeds with arms and legs who have language and culture.


As far as what it means to have a "soul", it probably carries certain moral and ethical connotations. It's okay to kill a beast, but killing a humanoid is murder. You can eat a beast, but eating a humanoid is cannibalism. The life of a humanoid carries greater value than the life of a beast.
Well, cruelty to a beast and cruelty to a person are both cruelty, so no difference as far as the Good/Evil alignment axis is concerned. But Law/Chaos, sure.


One aspect of D&D lore is that outsiders have no body-soul duality, which is to say that their physical body is also their soul. If you kill them, they are destroyed, no afterlife for them.
To quote Haley, I think they keep changing it.

[Hilary]

So, based on the lore, I figured Gnolls were uplifted.

[Greywander]

Well, not traditionally. In 3rd Edition, animals even explicitly could become ghosts.
Perhaps, hence me being rather vague on what "having a soul" actually meant. Perhaps animals do have souls, but then what, fundamentally, is the difference between a beast and a humanoid? My own personal conception of this issue is that humans, and similar creatures, have some sort of divine spark that elevates them above mere animals. As the gods are to humans, so are humans to beasts, more or less. What exactly this divine spark is is anyone's guess. Maybe it's what we call a soul, maybe it's something else. It sounds like in D&D it's probably something else.


Humanoids differ from beasts by being bipeds with arms and legs who have language and culture.
I kind of don't think humanoid necessarily refers strictly to anatomy. Merfolk are one counter-example, as they explicitly lack legs (and thus can't be construed as bipedal by any stretch).

One way to think of this is that, for example, in a sci fi series, you could have aliens with truly alien anatomy, but because of their human-like personality we would still think of them as "human". We also do this with pets and other animals, though typically with the acknowledgement that they are not, in fact, human, even if we treat them as such.

Another convenient example would be the characters from My Little Pony. On the face of it, you might mistake them for awakened or uplifted animals, except that they don't act like animals, they act like horse-shaped humans. You might be inclined to file them under fey or celestial, but if we assume that they're native to the Material Plane then it seems like we'd have to class them as either beast, humanoid, or monstrosity. They don't seem to be monstrosities, and they're clearly elevated above beasts, so should they count as humanoid? For both mechanical and thematic reasons, I'd say yes.


Well, cruelty to a beast and cruelty to a person are both cruelty, so no difference as far as the Good/Evil alignment axis is concerned. But Law/Chaos, sure.
Sort of. By "cruelty" I assume you mean cruelty for its own sake, rather than in the service of some greater purpose (e.g. testing drugs on animals). That said, you could have a character who loved to torture animals, but was horrified at the thought of harming a human, or vice versa. Either way, they would have to have some kind of odd moral system, perhaps one that views animals/people as somehow wicked by nature. It's easy to delight in the suffering of someone if you believe they're guilty of some great crime, and therefore deserve it. This is probably a corruption of our desire to see evildoers brought to justice.

[Devils_Advocate]

My own personal conception of this issue is that humans, and similar creatures, have some sort of divine spark that elevates them above mere animals.
Well, that's just silly. Birds can easily get up higher than humanoids, because they can fly!

What, in clear and literal terms, are you talking about? Maybe you don't know, but if you don't know what you mean, isn't it possible that you don't mean anything?

(The above paragraph is my position on a lot of stuff.)


I kind of don't think humanoid necessarily refers strictly to anatomy. Merfolk are one counter-example, as they explicitly lack legs (and thus can't be construed as bipedal by any stretch).
I was going by what the Monster Manual says about Humanoids on page 7. I wouldn't read too much into the rather inconsistent application of said Types. (Do you honestly think that merfolk ought to have a different Type than centaurs?)


One way to think of this is that, for example, in a sci fi series, you could have aliens with truly alien anatomy, but because of their human-like personality we would still think of them as "human".
In the simplest case, non-humans are psychologically identical to humans because they're written by human writers. Fantasy can generally manage some sort of in-universe explanation, if the author cares to bother. ("For lo, though they were beings of great power, the gods were lazy and unoriginal.") "Science fiction" that does this with extraterrestrials is effectively fantasy in space.

But obviously any mind is similar to a human mind somehow. If they had nothing in common, they wouldn't be the same type of thing, so they wouldn't both be minds!


Another convenient example would be the characters from My Little Pony. On the face of it, you might mistake them for awakened or uplifted animals, except that they don't act like animals, they act like horse-shaped humans. You might be inclined to file them under fey or celestial, but if we assume that they're native to the Material Plane then it seems like we'd have to class them as either beast, humanoid, or monstrosity. They don't seem to be monstrosities, and they're clearly elevated above beasts, so should they count as humanoid? For both mechanical and thematic reasons, I'd say yes.
Centaurs are classified as Monstrosities. That's 5E's "miscellaneous" Type, like Aberrations in 3E. (Aberrations, meanwhile, have been given more specific fluff of their own! How things change.) Ain't no way that straight-up quadrupeds would be Humanoids. Merfolk are the weird exception here, and their classification as "humanoid" probably should be counted as a mistake.


Sort of. By "cruelty" I assume you mean cruelty for its own sake, rather than in the service of some greater purpose (e.g. testing drugs on animals).
No, either way. Cruelty to a beast in the service of some greater purpose and cruelty to a person in the service of some greater purpose are both cruelty in the service of some greater purpose.

[False God]

5E, and D&D's monster classification system is and always has been terrible.

There's no reason a "giant" isn't a humanoid. "Giant" isn't a a species, it's a size. You can have giant redwoods, you can have giant salamanders, you can have giant humanoids. Calling a "giant humanoid" a "giant" is just short-hand, because it's spoken from the perspective of another humanoid, like calling someone a brunette. It's short-hand for calling someone by an obvious characteristic.

As an MTG player, I take heavily from MTG and the idea of subtypes, to use giants for example....
A regular giant (a hill giant) is a Humanoid, Giant.
A storm giant is a Humanoid elemental(air) giant. It has humanoid traits, elemental traits, and giant traits.
An Empyrean(or as 3.5 called them, Titans) is a humanoid outsider giant.
A half-dragon fire giant is a humanoid elemental (fire) half-dragon giant.
A were-bear earth giant is a humanoid elemental (earth) shapechanger(bear) giant

They can be affected by anything that targets any one of their respective types. A "big humanoid" should not be immune to spells that target humanoids simply because it is big. They gain the respective protections and weaknesses of all their types.

If it has a class, it gets a class tacked on at the end of that string.

So you can have a Lich who is a humanoid elemental (fire) shapechanger (wolf) giant undead cleric.

It may be silly to read, but it's effective for knowing what should and shouldn't affect a creature, and avoiding big catch-all categories.

"Humanoid" has been expanded to include any creature with 50% or more humanoid features and structure. So merfolk and centaurs are humanoids, this is also to indicate that they are not monsters, a category of "It's okay to kill them because they're different." I have great desire to eliminate completely. They have humanoid emotions, speech, civilization and behaviours. "Monstrous" now applies to any sort of creature that is strongly deviated from it's natural base in an unnatural way. Aberrations are now limited to creatures that are massively deviated from their original, often in tentacled and misshapen ways to a degree it is difficult to even identify the original creature.

So yes, an illithid is no longer an aberration. I mean really, what is it aberrated from? They're pretty consistent in size, shape, build and capacity. Humanoid old one illithid is fine. It is largely humanoid in shape and function (it eats, it breathes, it has organs and a humanoid limb configuration), so there is no reason not to treat it like one. The "old one" category exists to indicate origin, much like "outsider". It comes from monsters outside/before this realm? It's an old one.

If it's a regularly naturally occurring species, it's not a monster and it's not an aberration, no matter how "weird" someone thinks it is. A natural lycanthrope is a humanoid *species* shapechanger. A cursed lycanthrope is a magical humanoid *species* shapechanger. Because the first one is the result of natural causes (even if breeding with an unnatural creature) and the second is the result of magic (curse). Being cursed doesn't make you a monster. It makes you a cursed creature. Being a loud talkative jerk at the movies makes you a monster.