Fantasy subraces and human ethnicities

[Millstone85]

I hope I am not taking too big a risk with that thread.

Which of the following statements would hold true in your setting?

A) If you ever meet an elf who looks just like a human from the inner lands, or the far east, or any other part of the world, only with pointy ears, they must be a half-elf. A true elven face, should you call it an otherworldly beauty or a disturbingly predaceous thing, is unlike that of any human.

B) It is not known why the dwarves look so much like the Northmen on their raiding ships. Most likely it is the other way around, the result of ancient dwarf blood coursing in some human veins.

C) Of course there are black halflings. Why would you even ask?

[Vinyadan]

I think that the Professor once wrote that Humans and Elves were technically the same species. So I am OK with Elves being black if they live in a region where men are black. Halflings too, some of them are darker and some are lighter (Frodo was unusually light, I think), so they could be black.
He also noticed that the Variags from Khand were Dwarf-looking, in spite of being Men, and used similar equipment. I think he could have been making a little hint to the fact that his dwarves came from Variag legends.

[Anonymouswizard]

Really it depends. I recommend not looking races/subraces to ethnicities, because I had a player who was annoyed that my (all human) world only had black people in it (because it was set slightly south of the world's equator, in a more jungle/savanna region than most settings). For the record me and the group were all white, and nobody else had a problem with their dark skinned characters, the player just had trouble spearing themself from their character.

Now, generally my settings are all human, but when I include non-human they do not have ethnicities. If someone sees a black elf they might be surprised, but only to the point where they'd be surprised at setting a black human or black orc, and they wouldn't assume it's a half elf (partially in my latest setting because humans and elves don't get along, half dwarves are more common). I haven't detailed the entire setting yet, but I plan to run a game in the 'southern continent' once I've progressed the setting to about the WW1-WW2 tech level (it currently being at the point where the pistol is a recent invention*).

* This entire setting came about because I wanted to things, ritual magic and elvish gunslingers.

[SilverLeaf167]

In my setting human/halfling skin tone mostly ranges from "Nordic" to "Mediterranean", since they all originally hail from a northern temperate continent and have only moved to other areas in recent centuries. Equatorial Wood Elves are somewhat darker than others, but the "dark elf" niche is reserved for Drow. Goblinoids, Lizardfolk etc. are obviously on a different spectrum altogether.

The main races are pretty easy to tell apart from facial structure alone, though there's internal variety of course and halfbreeds can blur the line at times. Areas with racial overlap often display signs of ancient mixing, and such theories are common in general.

[LongVin]

I probably would go more towards A.

In the setting I'm currently writing there is a large variety of human ethnicities. No such thing as a common tongue, though several languages are basically mutually understandable, either because they're dialects or similar languages(think the romance languages).

Elves(and to a lesser extent dwarves) though are basically considered a world apart and separate from humans. Elvish is a much more universal language with less drift between it. There are still dialects, but Elvish is generally Elvish wherever you go. Elvish therefore is used often as a trade or diplomatic language, much to the dislike of one of the world's largest empires which is notoriously anti elvish.

[GloatingSwine]

C: Variations in ethnicity are due to local conditions which apply to all species that live long enough in those conditions.

[Stealth Marmot]

C mainly.

I made it clear that in my game that humans tend to run the full spectrum, and there is no reason the other races wouldn't either. I also said that when you deal with orcs and elves and such, the differences in skin color barely merit a blip on the radar to most people.

[sktarq]

Since there are Ogres, Giants, Trolls, Goblins, Hobgoblins, Orcs, Gnolls, etc etc etc etc etc etc

There is only so many varieties and subvarieties of races I feel I can fit in a world. I may decide that all elves have skins in the same tones of sub-saharan african humans for a world but I generally find than unless I make a relatively large statement about it then the players revert to expectations in their heads about what they expect an "elf" or "dwarf" to look like and there are only so many people can keep in their head at once. .

[Nifft]

All people are changed by the environment into which they are born.

Elves and Dragons change the fastest: an Elf born in the woods is a "wood elf", a Dragon born in a forest is a "green dragon".

Dwarves try to be as isolated as possible, and only breed in one environment (mountains). Dwarves who are forced to live in areas without mountains -- for whatever reason -- are not happy about this fact.

Humans change more slowly, since humans are less in tune with Nature. So over 100 generations, a human tribe living in the tropics would become darker of skin & better adapted to the heat. Humans think this is "natural selection" but that sort of thinking has no place in a world of magical dragons and fire elves.

[BWR]

I mostly run Mystara , so I go with what they present, which has mostly been white-skinned demihumans, though there are the half-elves of Yavdlom, which are black-skinned (from presumably white elves breeding with the local black humans to make a true-breeding culture of half-elves). This doesn't mean that anything else isn't possible, just that there aren't anywhere people are likely to end up on the half of a continent or so that the setting describes.

When I ran Dragonstar, definitely C, though I suppose I should have made a point about this rather than just assuming that skin color wasn't a big deal and PCs and NPCs could be whatever.

[Frozen_Feet]

None of the above?

In my setting, how many subspecies and ethnicities a species has depends on how widespread it is and how many environments it occupies. Humans, being most widespread species along north-south-line, have most variety in skincolor, and due to distinct migration waves, have several subspecies (comparable to neanderthals and cro-magnon). For the same reason, they are multi-ethnic, as various populations have had a long time to develop their own cultures and languages. It is these variant humans who gave rise to myths about "dwarves" or "giants".

Some non-humans only have single ethnicity, (like elves), but that's because they're near-extinct and all live in a small area.

Whether such non-humans have any resemblance to human ethnicities, whether they look human at all, and when they do, whether the reasons for such are known varies. No single accurate answer can be given.

[slachance6]

Yeah I personally homebrew human subraces representing the various ethnicities in my games. It doesn't really make sense that there are usually so many types of elves and orcs but all humans, the most populous race, all have the same stats. I know the real reason game companies do it is to avoid accusations of racism, but some video games, like Elder Scrolls, have the balls to do it anyway which I appreciate.

[Millstone85]

Yeah I personally homebrew human subraces representing the various ethnicities in my games. It doesn't really make sense that there are usually so many types of elves and orcs but all humans, the most populous race, all have the same stats. I know the real reason game companies do it is to avoid accusations of racism, but some video games, like Elder Scrolls, have the balls to do it anyway which I appreciate.

Sorry but this isn't about whether or not humans in D&D should have subracial bonuses like a high elf's +1 Int, a wood elf's +1 Wis and a dark elf's +1 Cha.

It is about how in Star Trek: Deep Space 9 there was an episode where Captain Sisko was bothered by a holosuite program based on Earth's past not giving him any trouble for being black, something he found historically dishonest, and how it left me wondering what sort of conversation he would have with Mr. Tuvok from Star Trek: Voyager. It is a silliness of human-actor-plus-minimal-makeup I hadn't thought about before.

Do you embrace it in your campaigns or do you make it clear that no elf would ever look like Orlando Bloom? Liking the answers so far.

[Anonymouswizard]

Yeah I personally homebrew human subraces representing the various ethnicities in my games. It doesn't really make sense that there are usually so many types of elves and orcs but all humans, the most populous race, all have the same stats. I know the real reason game companies do it is to avoid accusations of racism, but some video games, like Elder Scrolls, have the balls to do it anyway which I appreciate.

I do the opposite, I only have one 'template' per race. This has a handful of consequences (all dragons breath fire), but it means that it's simpler. If you know you want to play a jungle elf you can take the elf template and the skills and advantages to represent growing up as a jungle elf (like 12+ in Survival (Jungle), the knives skill, and so on), while anybody who isn't sure what kind of dwarf they want doesn't have to pick a subrace.

[daniel_ream]

In my fantasy worlds we are Not At Home to Mr. Science, and that includes evolutionary biology. We are also Not At Home to Prof. Tolkien; I don't think I've used the standard D&D races in, oh, decades.

If I'm running something like Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed/Evolved setting, then the races are widespread enough that there are regional variations (this is explicit in the setting for some races) but it's because the dragon-demons of the setting's history were pretty profligate biomancers and shaped their slave races in ways that were appealing to them.

For my own settings, as a general rule I go light on non-human races anyway and where they exist they're generally limited to specific areas. Humans are ubiquitous and exist in infinite variations, but you only get the ljosalfar and the dokkalfar in Fake Britain/Fake Scandinavia. If the heroes go to Fake Hellas they get centaurs and satyrs and nymphs as intelligent non-human races; Fake Egypt has the Mai and the Petsuchos, etc. As a general rule, all intelligent races, human and non-human, look the way they do because the god that created them decided they should look like that.

[Mechalich]

This sort of thing would vary from setting to setting, depending on the specific constraints of that setting.

For example Resvier, the setting in my sig, is a country the size of France. How things are in the rest of the world isn't really known and isn't especially relevant. There are four human ethnicities in the setting but all fall within a broadly European umbrella. None of nonhuman species have ethnic variations, but this is mostly because their populations are small and live in uniform territories that serve to prevent differentiation. Elves and dwarves, though they are somewhat more numerous, maintain ethnic uniformity due to their longer generation times (remember that even in settings where evolutionary processes are occurring, the elven generation time is something like 6x the human one, which really constrains change).

Different settings will have different scenarios depending on the role of deities, the geographic scope, the nature of the magic system, and even potentially the nature of technology (for example: in Star Wars, the explanation for the proliferation of actor-in-suit species is genetic and Force-based meddling in the distant past).

[cobaltstarfire]

It is about how in Star Trek: Deep Space 9 there was an episode where Captain Sisko was bothered by a holosuite program based on Earth's past not giving him any trouble for being black, something he found historically dishonest, and how it left me wondering what sort of conversation he would have with Mr. Tuvok from Star Trek: Voyager. It is a silliness of human-actor-plus-minimal-makeup I hadn't thought about before.

Who is to say that Black Vulcans or Bajorans, or any of the other races in Star Trek who have been shown with many skin tones must have the same kind of skin color related historical baggage as humanity did? A conversation between the two would probably devolve into how Vulcans never had such a problem because it would be "illogical".

I rather liked that there were there are different skin tones shown in at least some alien species on DS9, and I wouldn't bat an eyelid at an elf or halfling or whatever else who was something other than white.

So I suppose option C it is?

[daniel_ream]

Who is to say that Black Vulcans or Bajorans, or any of the other races in Star Trek who have been shown with many skin tones must have the same kind of skin color related historical baggage as humanity did? A conversation between the two would probably devolve into how Vulcans never had such a problem because it would be "illogical".

There's a fan theory that given the environmental conditions on Vulcan and the star's position on the main sequence, they should all be black.

Doesn't explain the green blood though XD

[NichG]

This makes me realize that I almost never give a description of the physical appearance of NPCs outside of alien/non-human characteristics. Scales? Wings made of solid light? Sure. Hair color? Can't remember the last time I said...

Secretly, I think its because I don't want to risk getting it wrong the next time that NPC comes up.

[JadedDM]

C: Variations in ethnicity are due to local conditions which apply to all species that live long enough in those conditions.

Same for me. In my setting, there are black halflings, white gnomes, and so on and so forth. It all depends on the specific area the game takes place in. In the tropics, for instance, most everyone is dark-skinned, regardless of whether they are human, elf, dwarf, etc.

Even the goblinoid races have variations in skin tone, although that's more of a 'red/orange/green' than 'white/brown/black' thing.

[Jay R]

In my current world, goblins are white - like an albino, not a Caucasian. Being in the sun long causes serious sunburn problems, and so they are subterranean or nocturnal.

[2D8HP]

In my current world, goblins are white - like an albino, not a Caucasian. Being in the sun long causes serious sunburn problems, and so they are subterranean or nocturnal.

Ooh, I like that!

IIRC, In "The Hobbit" novel, Goblins were described as "dark and hairy, like gorillas", but from the clips of the Jackson films, it seems that Goblins are albino and mostly hairless, which I think better fits underground dwellers.

But for me I will always imagine Goblins as looking like they did in the '77 cartoon!

[Calmar]

I think the point of view of the campaign that is being actually played is critical:
Is the setting inspired by northern European legends and folklore, I try to view the world from a mediaeval viewpoint (basically The Known World of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea on one hand and the "Here be Monsters" rest that effectively doesn't really come up).
Is the setting inspired by Greek myth, everything is regarded through a Hellenistic lense (e.g. Horse-riding Skythian raiders become half-man/half-horse Centaurs, northern Europeans are simply primitive barbarians, etc.).
Is the setting resembling a historical period of, say, Japan, the world is coloured by the way and range of period Japanese world-view. And so on.

I am rather opposed to "Asian" of "African" elves or dwarves, because elves or dwarves* are, AFAIK, simply are no part of Asian or African mythologies and cultures; they have other wondrous creatures. It's not about inclusiveness, but about not wanting to shoehorn non-European cultures into the frame of European Mythology.

*their legends about little peoples are certainly different from Nordic and European dwarves

[2D8HP]

I really enjoy settings that mix and match fantasy "realms of Faerie", and nominally actual ethnicities, so as in the "Princess Bride", the action occurs in a "Land of Fable" fantasy kingdom, but you have characters that are "Sicilian" and "Spanish".
I think that makes it more fun, but doing it well is tricky.

[hymer]

If you ever meet an elf who looks just like a human from the inner lands, or the far east, or any other part of the world, only with pointy ears, they must be a half-elf. A true elven face, should you call it an otherworldly beauty or a disturbingly predaceous thing, is unlike that of any human.

Not entirely true. In most of my campaign worlds it'd be like this: While it's unlikely someone would mistake an elf for a human, the other way around could occur if you've never seen an elf. But it wouldn't be anything purely physical that makes this distinction.
On a sidenote, in one of my current campaigns, there are no half-elves. Whether there is a biological reason for this is unexplored.

It is not known why the dwarves look so much like the Northmen on their raiding ships. Most likely it is the other way around, the result of ancient dwarf blood coursing in some human veins.

Not so far. Dwarves are a race apart, and they can't interbreed with anything else. There was one case where the the 'vikings' of that world had a lot of similarities to dwarves. But it was for cultural reasons. The 'vikings' got nearly all their ironmongery from trading with dwarves, and so were particularly close to them, and absorbed a lot of dwarf language and culture.

Of course there are black halflings. Why would you even ask?

Was true at least in one campaign world. For the rest, I think it might have been, but it never came up. Except one that springs to mind, where the halflings were something else entirely, more akin to evil gnomes, and not really related to humans at all.

[digiman619]

There's a fan theory that given the environmental conditions on Vulcan and the star's position on the main sequence, they should all be black.

Doesn't explain the green blood though XD

I hadn't thought about that, but given what we know of Vulcan, I could see that.

And Vulcan blood is green because they use copper in their hemoglobin rather than iron.

[daniel_ream]

[...] as in the "Princess Bride", the action occurs in a "Land of Fable" fantasy kingdom, but you have characters that are "Sicilian" and "Spanish".

Umm.

The Princess Bride is explicitly set in a fictionalized version of pre-Renaissance Italy. In the real world.

[Noje]

I don't think that ethnicity has a place in D&D. the fantasy races take place of that. So, if you must ask, no, there are no black halflings. Tallefellows and Stouts yes. There are no black people in general. Nor are there white people or yellow people. There are Humans, Dwarves, Elves, Halflings, Gnomes, and a whole trove of playable races. Their skin tone is often described in their monster manual entry and what areas of the world they originate from. each also has sub races that live in other environments.
Humans are a little different in that they are incredibly adaptable and their loyalties lie with smaller kingdoms and groups rather than race. but Discrepancies aren't made between skin tone because 1) they don't matter in the setting and there isn't any conflict based on it and 2) they simply don't exist.
given I use first edition and things are a lot more clear cut with that edition, but I think my point still stands.

[2D8HP]

....There are Humans, Dwarves, Elves, Halflings, Gnomes, and a whole trove of playable races. Their skin tone is often described in their monster manual entry and what areas of the world they originate from....

Speaking of skin tones, something that frustrates me is that I can't find any images of a Wood Elf with complextions that match what's in the 5e PHB ("tends to copperish in hue, sometimes with traces of green").

[Noje]

Speaking of skin tones, something that frustrates me is that I can't find any images of a Wood Elf with complextions that match what's in the 5e PHB ("tends to copperish in hue, sometimes with traces of green").

That's a bummer. first edition had an excuse because it was black and white. but 5e? Not a chance. I personally really like it when the other races are drawn to look nothing like humans, it makes them more interesting and it emphasizes how biologically different they are. Skyrim does a pretty good job of that imo.