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stolenchariot
2007-10-28, 09:37 PM
Okay, strange as it may seem, I've been experiencing a block on these two sub-races for months, so I decided to get some help. I have the cultural concepts roughly down, but nothing crunch wise.

Our first sub race dwells in tropical jungles, building cities reminesent of Aztec and Mayan cultures. They are renowned for their wisdom and for the colorful furs and skins they peddle. The culture centers around the reverance of serpents, and members of therace aretypically good. I think typical weapons favored by the race are bows (Long and short), spears,and daggers/ shortswords. They should also have some benefit or protection against poison.

Our second race dwells in the hills and mountains overlooking the jungles in cities of stone that are formatted in a series of elevated rings. They peddle in rarefeathers and gemstones,which they mine. Their revered animal is the eagle, but they pay resect to any avian. Their elite troops are mounted on giant eagles and giant ravens (Frostburn), and they are skewed evil. (I'm making giant eagles usually NE in this setting). Any and all help is greatly appreciated.

EvilElitest
2007-10-28, 09:49 PM
Give me more fluff, and I'll give you more Crunch
from,
EE

stolenchariot
2007-10-28, 10:03 PM
Okay, originally both subraces originated from the same stock. This was before the major gods of the setting came into being. After the fact, their two gods divided their people on philisophical disagreements, each idealizing a different animal. The two cultures are constantly at each others' throat. I believe the mountain dwelling evles will have pacts with raptorans, perhaps raptorans are elves who've undergone a magical transformation. Below the god of the mountain elves, they reverea thunderbird (Homebrewed variant of a phoenix from MM2) that lies dormant under their capital's temple. Because the scant gem deposits are what little wealth these elves possess, they constantly strive to expant their territory. many who leave their ancestral homes become mercenaries, seeking to carve out a fortune for themselves.

As for the jungle elves, they have a veritable empire comprised of their cities as well as their vassals of reptillian humanoids. Many of their priesthood consist of yuan-ti and lizardfolk as well. (Again, I'm fixing the alignments to suit my purposes). The serpent temple is a dormant collossal snake-shaped elemental created by their god before his departure to protect his people. Many of these elves who leave their jungles are assassins and spies, seeking to bring knowlege of the outside world to their people.

The Neoclassic
2007-10-29, 12:10 AM
It's 1am, but I'll come back later and post something useful tomorrow. Have I seen you on another forum? I remember evil elves lived in the mountains and revered eagles, whereas the good ones (who revered serpentine creatures) lived in jungles, providing a nice mix-up of cliches.

For good elves, get rid of proficiency with longsword and add in the most common type of spear instead. Throw in dagger too if you want; I think only commoners start out not proficient with it, so it won't affect crunch balance at all, but will reflect that even peasants/farmers in that society can use them.

Are you using the default/typical language system in your setting? Just to help with suggesting bonus languages...

MagFlare
2007-10-29, 02:59 AM
Do the races have names yet?

I'm guessing the jungle elves, being good, won't have the Aztec civilization's proclivity for human(oid) sacrifice, but maybe that might be a good thing to foist off onto the evil mountain elves. It might be nifty to work in something about the Aztec's obsidian-working abilities, though - if no splatbook has yet worked out the abilities of obsidian weapons, I'd say that any slashing or piercing weapon made from obsidian is effectively keen even if nonmagical.

It occurs to me that feather fall once per day would be a handy racial ability for the mountain elves, as would a bonus to all Handle Animal and Ride checks involving giant birds (although you've probably thought of at least the latter idea already).

stolenchariot
2007-10-29, 06:05 PM
All these ideas are a great help, and I also posted some of this on WOTC, so you may have seen it there. My campaign has a thread on this board as well, the link's in my sig if you'd care to look at it some time.

As for my language systems, I'm thinking of breaking most of the racial languages up into dialects, as well as dividing Draconic into a few dialects; one for reptilian races, a more informal dialect used primarily by dragons and Half-dragons, and old Draconic, used in only a few obscure rituals and some ancient ruins dedicated to worship of dragons. Note that while the focus of the campaign isn't on dragons, they still play a significant role in certain regions as religious objects, rulers, and opposing forces.

Edit: No, as of now I have no race names. Any and all suggestions on this matter are also appreciated.

stolenchariot
2007-11-04, 09:21 AM
It's been a while, so I decided to shamelessly bump this thread.