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Maat Mons
2020-12-13, 05:02 PM
I'm trying to come up with unorthodox variations on common D&D races. The laziest way to make a fantasy race is to rip off some real-world group, and then slap on fantasy elements. So that's what I'll be doing.

Feel free to post your own weird cultural reimaginings of classic D&D races ... or critique mine ... or both.



Viking Dwarves
I'm fond of the dwarven subraces from cold environs, Arctic Dwarves and Glacier Dwarves. The robust, stock build of dwarves seems very well suited to the cold. And icy winds would explain why they're so keen on growing beards.

There have been many cultures that dwelt in cold regions, but dwarves make me think of Vikings, probably because of the axes. Vikings were, of course, a seafaring people, but fortunately I already liked Seacliff Dwarves too.

Maybe dwarves could be the only iron-working race in the setting? Everyone else would have bronze at best? It would give me an excuse to rip of the name "Iron Isles" from George R. R. Martin.

But who would the dwarves plunder and pillage? Giants? Or just everybody? Make them the bad guys of the setting?



Grecian Orcs
Orcs have a bit of a warrior culture thing going. There were quite a few warrior cultures in history, but I choose to focus on the Spartans, because my knowledge of history is bad enough that they're the only ones I can name off the top of my head.

Now, orcs are traditionally portrayed as dumb brutes, but ancient Greece was a center of learning and stuff. So I think it would be fun to turn orc stereotypes on their head and do smart orcs. They'd keep their strength and athleticism. "Mens sana in corpore sano," and all that. Yes, I know that was Latin.

Of course it wouldn't be ancient Greece without the inhabitants being divided into citizens and slaves. I propose using humans as the underclass here. It would explain where all the half orcs are coming from. Though half orcs would probably necessitate a three-tier society. Orcs, who are citizens and get to vote and hold office. Hal-orcs, who are free men, because it would diminish orc-kind as a whole if someone even partly orc could be owned, but who can't participate in governance because there's no telling how much their human blood inhibits their cognition. And, lastly, humans, who obviously can't be trusted to do anything without orc supervision.

It would be kind of fun to do different orc subraces for different city-states. Maybe have bonuses to different mental ability scores, depending on whether that region is known for its mathematicians, philosophers, or orators.

Elves are the traditional enemies of orcs. And when I think of enemies of Greeks, I think of Persians, because of the movie 300. From what I understand, the Persian military favored lighter armor and skirmish tactics, as opposed to the heavy infantry and phalanxes of the Greeks. Lightly-armored, mobile warriors seems fitting for elves, so why not go with that?

Maybe just plop the orcs and elves down next to eachother, each occupying terrain that suits their style of combat more than that of their adversaries. Let's say, flat, open land for the elves, and mountainous terrain for the orcs. Does that match Persia and Greece? My geography is terrible. And then you can have humans live as the underclass in both regions, and explain why it is that it's only orcs and elves that keep cross-breeding with humans. (Because humans don't live anywhere else in substantial number, if that was unclear.)

So, Google says the social structure of ancient Persia was royal family > priests > nobles > merchants > artisans > peasants > slaves. Though Google also says that ancient Persia wasn't as into slavery as ancient Greece. So then the royal family, priesthood, and nobility would be purely elven. Half-elves be merchants, artists, and and other skilled professions. Humans would be peasants by default, but some would be slaves.

This would make the orcs more egalitarian with regard to other orcs that elves are with other elves. "Every orc is created equal," and some form of democracy. Whereas the elves have a strict hierarchy amongst themselves, and a monarchy. On the other hand, most humans would have more rights under elven rule.



Egyptian Kobolds
Kobolds have crocodile heads. Egypt has crocodiles. And reptilians are well-suited to deserts. Makes sense to me.

Plus, stereotypical movie Egyptian tombs are full of deadly traps.



Aztec Elves
Elves are supposed to be living in harmony with nature. It seems to me like metal is the antithesis of nature. So if any race is going to lack metalworking altogether, it's elves.

And who are everyone's favorite no-metalworking people? Meso-Americans!

Well, they're my favorite non-metalworking people.



Gnomes on the Bayou
The other day, I realized that D&D needs airboats. No, not boats that can fly. Boats with giant fans propelling them. And who else but gnomes would invent them?

And shotguns. If you have airboats, you need shotguns. That's just common sense. And who else but gnomes would invent shotguns?

Plus, if you live on the Bayou, you've gotta watch out for 'gators. Specifically, kobolds with their 'gator-heads... and the 'gators they train as mounts. ... Those little buggers with their spearguns, swimming stealthily below the water's surface.

PairO'Dice Lost
2020-12-14, 04:28 AM
Viking Dwarves
I'm fond of the dwarven subraces from cold environs, Arctic Dwarves and Glacier Dwarves. The robust, stock build of dwarves seems very well suited to the cold. And icy winds would explain why they're so keen on growing beards.

There have been many cultures that dwelt in cold regions, but dwarves make me think of Vikings, probably because of the axes. Vikings were, of course, a seafaring people, but fortunately I already liked Seacliff Dwarves too.

Maybe dwarves could be the only iron-working race in the setting? Everyone else would have bronze at best? It would give me an excuse to rip of the name "Iron Isles" from George R. R. Martin.

But who would the dwarves plunder and pillage? Giants? Or just everybody? Make them the bad guys of the setting?

Something to keep in mind is that "the Vikings" were not a culture, the Norse people became "víkingir" (raiders) only for a small part of the year and were regular ol' farmers and fishers and such the rest of the time (and often traded quite peacefully with the same cultures that they would occasionally raid). A people that did nothing but raid all the time wouldn't be able to sustain themselves, both because their raid-ees would quickly run out of resources to plunder and because everyone else would quickly get tired of the constant violence and band together to do something about it. So positioning them as the all-raiders-all-the-time bad guys of the setting wouldn't really work that well.

But making them the all-adventurers-all-the-time race, in contrast to the typical stodgy-and-isolationist portrayal, would be interesting. Standard dwarves already have racial traits representing having trained for years to fight certain monsters, and Norse warriors gearing up for a yearly raid looks a lot like adventurers gearing up to go clear out a faraway dungeon, so what if the dwarves have a sort of compulsory adventuring system the same way some real-world cultures have compulsory military service?

Several times a year, all dwarves of a certain age sail out to the nearby islands or up the nearby rivers, climb the nearby glaciers and mountains, and so forth to find and slay any monsters that have taken up residence there, keeping the roadways and seaways safe for travelers. They can clear out even particularly strong threats like storm giants and elder dragons because they send out dozens of dwarves at a time to tackle each one, but they can't completely get rid of all the monsters (and leave other adventurers without a job) because they can only afford to do this periodically lest the losses outpace their slow birth rate and their vaults run dry. This would give them a more active Viking-ish feel when they're on-screen while still preserving some of the "mysterious dwarves hiding in their halls of stone" flavor the rest of the time.


Grecian Orcs
Orcs have a bit of a warrior culture thing going. There were quite a few warrior cultures in history, but I choose to focus on the Spartans, because my knowledge of history is bad enough that they're the only ones I can name off the top of my head.

Now, orcs are traditionally portrayed as dumb brutes, but ancient Greece was a center of learning and stuff. So I think it would be fun to turn orc stereotypes on their head and do smart orcs. They'd keep their strength and athleticism. "Mens sana in corpore sano," and all that. Yes, I know that was Latin.

Actually, I'd suggest making goblinoid races Greek and orcs Roman. Different goblinoid races can serve as different city-state analogs (hobgoblins and blues for Athens and bugbears and goblins for Sparta, say), with the poor xvart and perhaps mongrelfolk serving as the slave underclass. Meanwhile, the orc/half-orc/human dynamic fits Rome a bit better than Greece, since Rome was much better about integrating new peoples into its empire and half-orcs are a logical outgrowth of that, where the Greeks were rather picky on who counted as one of them.

Plopping both of those down alongside the elves gives you a nice little three-way tussle where both the orcs and goblinoids share a lot of aspects of their culture and both oppose the elves, but are opposed to each other as well so they don't just gang up and stomp on the other races.


Aztec Elves
Elves are supposed to be living in harmony with nature. It seems to me like metal is the antithesis of nature. So if any race is going to lack metalworking altogether, it's elves.

And who are everyone's favorite no-metalworking people? Meso-Americans!

Well, they're my favorite non-metalworking people.

Counterpoint: Aztec halflings! Halflings are also supposed to live in harmony with nature, but they're small and stealthy (ideal for hunting in the jungle and avoiding being hunted in return) and have bonuses with thrown weapons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_ballgame). Also, Dark Sun did cannibalistic halflings, and Aztec halflings kinda splits the difference between standard "lazy hobbit" halflings and crazy Dark Sun halflings in a unique way.

Amechra
2020-12-14, 02:38 PM
The real question: would Roman Orcs use the tria nomina (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_naming_conventions)?

To translate the basic concept into a more fantasy context:


Orcs would be referred to with a personal name, a family name, and a nickname.
Half-orcs would have a family name and maybe a nickname if they had earned one. If you need to be specific about which half-orc you are referring to, you'd just use their orcish parent's personal name. "Yeah, you know, Martha's kid."
Non-orcs would just get a nickname, and it would probably be pretty dismissive. They are not orcs, and therefore their families are irrelevant.


Since the Romans also practiced a lot of adult adoptions for political purposes, there could be a system where a half-orc could be "adopted" as a full orc if they showed enough merit, or where a human could be "adopted" as a half-orc if they were sufficiently orc-y.

(Sorry, I'm a bit of a naming practices nerd. Random name charts make me cry inside.)

sandmote
2020-12-14, 03:37 PM
Let's say, flat, open land for the elves, and mountainous terrain for the orcs. Does that match Persia and Greece? My geography is terrible. For greek orcs it's more important they're separated from persia by sea. I agree with the roman orcs suggestion; the Persians (although two different Persian empires, neither of which are the one that fought the greeks) ruled on the open areas and the romans had the advantage where infantry could meaningfully outmaneuver horse archers.


This would make the orcs more egalitarian with regard to other orcs that elves are with other elves. "Every orc is created equal," and some form of democracy. The greek states weren't united. Although I think "every tribe is independent" fits traditional orcs a bit better so you might want to drop it. Anyway, the spartans specifically restricted all power to the ruling class, with most of the population as slaves and a few "immigrant" craftsmen (whose families immigrated generations ago, but the greeks were picky like that). Meanwhile Athens gave democratic rule to the "Athenian" men (again, excluding a bunch of people whose families had lived in the city for generations) and functioned as an imperial body ruling all their allies & subsidiaries.

If you want intelligence orcs and a society good at warfare to crib from Sparta doesn't actually qualify on either count, but if I start explaining why I'll be here all day. Very generally:

The only schooling was to create child soldiers, and even then ones with no real advantage over any other professional army.
The Spartan concept of "freedom" meant refusing to do any labor, which reduced them to laughably short military campaigns.
When we first get written records of spartan society a minimum of 85% of the populace would gladly see the ruling class dead, and this figure only increased over time.
Their economic policies eventually reduced them to Persian enforcers to avoid complete economic ruin. I think this was after the other greeks broke their power, but don't actually recall the timing.



Whereas the elves have a strict hierarchy amongst themselves, and a monarchy. On the other hand, most humans would have more rights under elven rule. If they're persian, a bureaucracy would be more appropriate. Satrapies shared rule between multiple bureaucrats (so as no one could seize power), with the King of Kings serving primarily as a federal authority.


(Sorry, I'm a bit of a naming practices nerd. Random name charts make me cry inside.)
I think they're justifiable if you don't have internet access. Otherwise I prefer to look up the meaning of names either based on the conlang or the IRL culture the names come from.

Amechra
2020-12-14, 09:08 PM
My real issue with random name tables is that names aren't just random words. There's an overall structure to them that can say quite a bit about what the culture prioritizes.