Arkhios
2020-04-27, 12:34 AM
First, a little background (inside spoiler, due to being a bit TL;DR)
A while ago, there was this thread about removing humans entirely from the OP's campaign/setting, and a little after I had an inspiration from it to envision a world of my own based on this premise: Humans don't exist and never have (or at least, not per sé, see later on)
My thought process began from the reply I posted in the aforementioned thread, suggesting that instead of removing half races along with humans, you'd make them actual races in their own right.
In short, half-elves would become a race of their own, something like Low-Elves. Similarly, half-orcs could become (I admit I was being a bit sarcastic), High-Orcs.
This brought up an idea: what if this was, in fact, a mark of racial (d)evolution.
What if, in the beginning of time, there were these "proto-races" for each race we know.
Elvish lineage:
Proto-elves, who devolved into elves, who in return devolved into low-elves.
Orcish lineage:
Proto-orcs, who evolved into orcs, who in return evolve to high-orcs.
From this, my thought process (as well) (d)evolved to include dwarves as well.
Eventually, when I started to wrap this idea, I came up with an idea to start writing a "Creation myth" that would explain the origins of each race.
Obviously, this would entail the hands of the gods had a role in all this. To make another long story short, gods wanted to create the proto-elves in their image, but the material they used (I called it Mythic Mass, mostly because I found it both epic and amusing) had a will of its own, and put a spanner in the works, resulting a creature the gods disliked. This, I admit, owes credit to Tolkien, as the unwanted creature became the proto-orc, whom the gods quite rudely threw away like trash. In any case, the gods would repeat the process for a while, keeping the proto-elves they were satisfied with and discarding the proto-orcs (this, obviously, created enmity towards the elves in the hearts of orcs). Once the gods felt they were finished, they left behind the "moulds" they had carved out of Mythic Mass and used to create both elves and orcs, and since the Mythic Mass had a will of its own, it tried to regain its original form and crush the moulds, but the touch of the gods was too powerful and it only managed to compress them, and fill the cavity. This resulted in proto-dwarves.
All three proto-races had a connection to the gods. Elves, whom the gods had wanted, Orcs, whom the gods discarded, and Dwarves, whom the Gods, amusingly, knew nothing about for a long time.
I tried to imply in the creation myth that this Touch of the Gods was a metaphor for granting a living creature a Divine Soul.
Fast-forward a few millennia, the gods and elves having lived side by side for a time, forcing the orcs away, and the gods, dwarves and their cousins completely unaware of each other, the gods decided to retreat the mortal world back to the high heavens they came from. This event caused the divinity fade a little in each lineage and lesser races emerged. At this time, the gods still kept contact with their children and even these lesser races had a small connection to their divine progenitors. Then, after another millennia or so, the gods, suddenly, disappeared even from the heavens, and the mortal races lost all contact to their divine origins. This event brought the least races into the world. They had no connection to the divine progenitors and would have no magical racial abilities whatsoever.
In my current version, the (d)evolution is more or less like this:
While Gods Live Among the Mortals:
Proto-elves (Drow and Eladrin; being the most magical subraces of all elves)
Proto-orcs (now extinct extremely violent and aggressive race; not sure which magical creature to use as the base)
Proto-dwarves (galeb duhr and azer; being more or less related to dwarves in various editions)
While Gods Live in the High Heavens:
Elves (all subraces except drow and eladrin)
Orcs (all varieties from several books)
Dwarves (all subraces, except hill dwarf; including some new subraces [reason for this thread!])
After Gods Disappear:
Low-elves (using half-elf stats)
High-Orcs (using half-orc stats, with some changes [reason for this thread!])
Hill Dwarves (Using Hill Dwarf stats, potentially with some changes as well)
Regarding humans' existence, one idea was to alter the above races' aging so that the elder the race is, the longer they live, meaning that Low-elves, high-orcs, and hill dwarves would live approximately as long as humans normally would, and in a way, take the humans' role in the world.
Alternatively, humans could be a result from the "Least" Races producing half races between each other; the reasoning being that divine spark prevented the earlier races from having half-race progeny. In this case, I would have to make three variations for each combination, because, at the very least, I would prefer to avoid allowing Variant Humans, but similarly the standard human would feel out of place.
Is there any precedence in existing races where a subrace completely replaces or weakens a base racial trait?
Several races enhance a base trait, such as darkvision by giving a drawback in the form of sunlight sensitivity, so I began to wonder is there any subrace that would make a racial trait weaker compared to the others, or replace it entirely.
A while ago, there was this thread about removing humans entirely from the OP's campaign/setting, and a little after I had an inspiration from it to envision a world of my own based on this premise: Humans don't exist and never have (or at least, not per sé, see later on)
My thought process began from the reply I posted in the aforementioned thread, suggesting that instead of removing half races along with humans, you'd make them actual races in their own right.
In short, half-elves would become a race of their own, something like Low-Elves. Similarly, half-orcs could become (I admit I was being a bit sarcastic), High-Orcs.
This brought up an idea: what if this was, in fact, a mark of racial (d)evolution.
What if, in the beginning of time, there were these "proto-races" for each race we know.
Elvish lineage:
Proto-elves, who devolved into elves, who in return devolved into low-elves.
Orcish lineage:
Proto-orcs, who evolved into orcs, who in return evolve to high-orcs.
From this, my thought process (as well) (d)evolved to include dwarves as well.
Eventually, when I started to wrap this idea, I came up with an idea to start writing a "Creation myth" that would explain the origins of each race.
Obviously, this would entail the hands of the gods had a role in all this. To make another long story short, gods wanted to create the proto-elves in their image, but the material they used (I called it Mythic Mass, mostly because I found it both epic and amusing) had a will of its own, and put a spanner in the works, resulting a creature the gods disliked. This, I admit, owes credit to Tolkien, as the unwanted creature became the proto-orc, whom the gods quite rudely threw away like trash. In any case, the gods would repeat the process for a while, keeping the proto-elves they were satisfied with and discarding the proto-orcs (this, obviously, created enmity towards the elves in the hearts of orcs). Once the gods felt they were finished, they left behind the "moulds" they had carved out of Mythic Mass and used to create both elves and orcs, and since the Mythic Mass had a will of its own, it tried to regain its original form and crush the moulds, but the touch of the gods was too powerful and it only managed to compress them, and fill the cavity. This resulted in proto-dwarves.
All three proto-races had a connection to the gods. Elves, whom the gods had wanted, Orcs, whom the gods discarded, and Dwarves, whom the Gods, amusingly, knew nothing about for a long time.
I tried to imply in the creation myth that this Touch of the Gods was a metaphor for granting a living creature a Divine Soul.
Fast-forward a few millennia, the gods and elves having lived side by side for a time, forcing the orcs away, and the gods, dwarves and their cousins completely unaware of each other, the gods decided to retreat the mortal world back to the high heavens they came from. This event caused the divinity fade a little in each lineage and lesser races emerged. At this time, the gods still kept contact with their children and even these lesser races had a small connection to their divine progenitors. Then, after another millennia or so, the gods, suddenly, disappeared even from the heavens, and the mortal races lost all contact to their divine origins. This event brought the least races into the world. They had no connection to the divine progenitors and would have no magical racial abilities whatsoever.
In my current version, the (d)evolution is more or less like this:
While Gods Live Among the Mortals:
Proto-elves (Drow and Eladrin; being the most magical subraces of all elves)
Proto-orcs (now extinct extremely violent and aggressive race; not sure which magical creature to use as the base)
Proto-dwarves (galeb duhr and azer; being more or less related to dwarves in various editions)
While Gods Live in the High Heavens:
Elves (all subraces except drow and eladrin)
Orcs (all varieties from several books)
Dwarves (all subraces, except hill dwarf; including some new subraces [reason for this thread!])
After Gods Disappear:
Low-elves (using half-elf stats)
High-Orcs (using half-orc stats, with some changes [reason for this thread!])
Hill Dwarves (Using Hill Dwarf stats, potentially with some changes as well)
Regarding humans' existence, one idea was to alter the above races' aging so that the elder the race is, the longer they live, meaning that Low-elves, high-orcs, and hill dwarves would live approximately as long as humans normally would, and in a way, take the humans' role in the world.
Alternatively, humans could be a result from the "Least" Races producing half races between each other; the reasoning being that divine spark prevented the earlier races from having half-race progeny. In this case, I would have to make three variations for each combination, because, at the very least, I would prefer to avoid allowing Variant Humans, but similarly the standard human would feel out of place.
Is there any precedence in existing races where a subrace completely replaces or weakens a base racial trait?
Several races enhance a base trait, such as darkvision by giving a drawback in the form of sunlight sensitivity, so I began to wonder is there any subrace that would make a racial trait weaker compared to the others, or replace it entirely.