How would you reinvent classic monstrous races

[Wizard_Lizard]

Dragons in my world have like an illuminati basically.

to elaborate. Most kings and rulers are dragons in their human forms. Most magic comes from dragons. WHen called upon, the kings can revert to their true forms and whatever.

[NovenFromTheSun]

So you would make them into undead creatures, so a cleric can turn them?

Possibly! I haven’t really been thinking of making a D&D world recently.

Were i to make something up on the spot, I’d say that recent fey would work like undead but eventually they’d get settled into their new existence and stop.

[Wizard_Lizard]

Possibly! I haven’t really been thinking of making a D&D world recently.

Were i to make something up on the spot, I’d say that recent fey would work like undead but eventually they’d get settled into their new existence and stop.

That sounds really cool!

[The Shoeless]

Orcs
I always liked to change the outlook of orcs without messing too much of what players would expect of them.

Orcs tribes are kingdoms of tens of thousands of orcs trying to force the world take on a form of their liking. Orc mines are giant fortresses in the making, with each tribe having their own vision of a fulfilling life once the rocky valleys are fertile grasslands and each razed mountain a monument to the determination of generations building a safe home. They raid nearby settlements to procure the resources for their massive tasks. They take slaves because they have a never ceasing need for fresh workers.
The Orc camps adventurers stumble over? Hunters and scavengers trying to keep the workforce fed. Raids on towns and caravans? They will bring those prisoners back to the construction site, but leave some humans so there will be a next generation of slaves. Giving them a purpose makes them actually interesting enemies instead of a species of being evil just because. This also gives grounds for orcs to be reasoned with, as they have a clear goal beyond burning and pillaging.

If we play D&D and alignment is of importance: The next Orc chieftain toppling the current one may have a radically different vision than what they are working on now, so who knows if and when the orcs will ever be done...

Trolls
I always liked how D&D Trolls are essentially immortal and hated how this was only a combat gimmick. So two campaigns ago I thought: "Why not make them proper immortals?"

A troll whose body is slain will be reborn a youngling in a hollow tree stump at one of the few places only the trolls know about. While they have to grow into adulthood again, they retain their memories. Trolls don't reproduce anymore, so there is only a finite and constanct number of them in the world.
While some trolls learn from many lifetimes of experience and become wise (if not smart) keepers of knowledge otherwise long forgotten, others are driven cruel or insane by dying uncounted times and remembering every time vividly.

Fighting a troll is always dangerous, but killing a troll is a very bad idea. Who knows if he will not see his death revenged 20 years from now, when you have stopped watching your back? Guards in settlements near places where trolls gather are trained in tactics to deter trolls or fight them non-lethally.

[Nifft]

Dragons in my world have like an illuminati basically.

to elaborate. Most kings and rulers are dragons in their human forms. Most magic comes from dragons. WHen called upon, the kings can revert to their true forms and whatever.

I did a world once where dragons were bankers.

They took all the gold (and sat on it, for secret reasons which might exist) and instead handed out paper-cloth money, each scrip of which was imprinted by the dragon's Arcane Mark and thus impervious to forgery.

Each dragon enforced acceptance of his or her scrip within the range of his or her flight, roughly a day or two out. This meant pretty large regional currency enforcement, and for particularly well-known dragons, further areas might accept the scrip.

Feudal lords would work with local dragons for economic prosperity, just as they worked with local druids for agricultural prosperity.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I did a world once where dragons were bankers.

They took all the gold (and sat on it, for secret reasons which might exist) and instead handed out paper-cloth money, each scrip of which was imprinted by the dragon's Arcane Mark and thus impervious to forgery.

Each dragon enforced acceptance of his or her scrip within the range of his or her flight, roughly a day or two out. This meant pretty large regional currency enforcement, and for particularly well-known dragons, further areas might accept the scrip.

Feudal lords would work with local dragons for economic prosperity, just as they worked with local druids for agricultural prosperity.

I've done the dragon-bankers-with-advanced-economic-ideas thing a few different times now, though they jumped past paper currency into what was basically modern electronic banking:

In a few of my homebrew settings, I have banking systems run by the older dragons who have decided that they're sick of the annual assassination attempts by local adventuring parties. You give the dragons your valuables, they catalog all the relevant ownership details, the valuables are added to the dragons' hoards, and you're given a tiny enchanted gemstone that works like a debit card to use instead of currency. The dragons charge a nominal upfront tribute fee to each polity in which they operate to set up the gemstone focus system, and humanoid artificers work together with the dragons themselves to ward the hoards even more than the dragons already do.

The public like the system because they don't have to carry around lots of heavy coins, merchants like it because they don't have to deal with nearly as much security as they would if they dealt in hard currency, dragons like it because they get more coins to lie on (and if some coins are eventually withdrawn, well, it's hard to part with them but at least their hoards are always bigger than they would have been otherwise) and any dragon who breaks the rules (by, say, refusing to give back some items from their hoard) forfeits its hoard to be divided up among the other dragons in the network, and governments like it because anyone who tries to mess with the financial system or the monetary supply itself via forgery or identity fraud or the like have a convenient tendency to die suddenly and painfully in a cloud of dragon fire without the government having to lift a finger.

[Nifft]

I've done the dragon-bankers-with-advanced-economic-ideas thing a few different times now, though they jumped past paper currency into what was basically modern electronic banking:

In mine, dragons did shared "replicated-ledgers" with branch offices, no ATM cards.

You could get money out of a ledger at any branch office. Your ID was either your Arcane Mark, or some of your blood.

The paper currency was necessary as an intermediate stage between coinage and trusting the replicated-ledgers. It was the foot-in-the-door that got people into a branch office in the first place. Then they'd hear that they could have paper now, or they could deposit the paper and take it out at their destination. Merchants and tax collectors liked this a lot, and that's how it became normal.


(In my setting any sort of ATM card would be too easily stolen, would be targeted by thieves even more if it looked like a gem, and replacing it would be annoying for the dragon. My dragons prefer to accumulate gold and not do work.)

[brian 333]

Lizardfolk

In my long-running campaign Lizardfolk are one branch of an ancient lineage which predates humans. When elven society began to rise from nomadic forest dwellers to villagers the lizardfolk society was already in decline.

The semi-aquatic swamp dwellers and the desert dwellers are the two purest branches of the family tree, though both have evolved due to the younger races pushing them away from more arable lands into the marginal zones.

One other branch which has prospered, though it has mutated the most through magical influence, is the yuan-ti.

The desert dwelling lizardfolk are usually nomadic. In locales affected by winter cold they may winter over in caves while the cold forces the cold-blooded reptiles to hibernate. Otherwise they may bury wicker huts in fine sand on south-facing slopes. They sometimes domesticate giant lizards as pets, food sources, or transportation.

The aquatic lizardfolk tend to hunt and fish the same areas, and are likely to live in villages composed of lodges of branches and other vegetable matter which are covered in mud and planted with native swamp grasses. Lizardfolk live in them year round, and stave off the worst effects of winter with central firepits that vent through a smokehole in the roof. These lodges are only accessible from underwater entrances, and the village streets are canals. Most such villages also have a mud flat or bank nearby with access to sunlight for social purposes and for sunbathing.

Both kinds of lizardfolk retain stone age weapons and tools, and both are likely to use metal tools which fall into their hands. Neither is likely to wear metal armor due to environmental reasons, though lizardfolk mercenaries may cobble together a set.

Of the three major branches of the species, only yuan-ti are likely to remember their glorious ancient past, but only in very distorted legends.

Aquatic and desert lizardfolk can interbreed freely. Their offspring may show odd color patterns compared to the tans of the desert folk or the green-black of the swamp folk, but otherwise can adapt to either culture.

Lizardfolk hybrids with yuan-ti are very rare and are almost always sterile. Rituals such as are used by the yuan-ti to conceive human hybrids are required to insure fertile lizardfolk hybrids.

Yuan-ti rarely get along with lizardfolk, whom they see as uncouth barbarians.

[Wizard_Lizard]

I like what eberron did with goblinoids.

[Grim Portent]

Not really a monstrous race, but I think people might be interested in my take on dwarves.

For the same celtic inspired panoply as my orcs I rolled dwarves back to their norse folkloric roots as greedy, reclusive craftsmen and wizards, then rolled them up with some qualities of leprechauns.

Dwarves live alone or in small family groups in houses concealed with illusions and glamours, paranoid that outsiders want to steal their property. Tree stumps, small hills, boulders and other such things can conceal the entrance to a dwarven household.

Like many magical creatures dwarves are bound to a code of conduct, they must honour the letter of all agreements, must provide food and shelter to travellers who ask for it at their door, must respect the rights of their guests so long as they respect the rights of the dwarves as hosts.

Dwarves are extremely greedy and suspicious, especially of humans who are not bound by the code, and resent the code of conduct and seek to subvert it where possible, their homes being concealed being one example. Dwarves also usually live in remote or dangerous locations, often made more dangerous by the dwarves over time. They will attempt to goad guests into violating the dwarves' right as hosts, provide only the bare minimum of hopsitality required of them and generally be rude and mean spirited.

Mortals can barter services from the dwarves and by common custom they will repair various items left near their home with payment over the course of the following night. In some villages it is customary to place damaged shoes, tools or clothes near the suspected home of a dwarf along with a few coins, the items always being in perfect condition the following morning. Particularly brave or foolhardy souls may seek out dwarves to perform greater works of craftsmanship, though the cost is high and the risk great.

[nijineko]

In one world I built, I had all life descended from primordial slime shapeshifters that gradually diversified and specialized.

• The more emotionally oriented became flora (this ties into the original shapeshifter cultures where some believed that when one experiences a particular state of being or consciousness, they should freeze in form and in place in order to perpetuate and fully experience the sensation)....
• The physically oriented became the fauna (these shapeshifters believed that to better understand a state of being or consciousness, they needed to compare it to other experiences, and so would deliberately seek harmonious cycles of states)....
• The mentally oriented became the various traditional "sentient" races (these shapeshifters believed in analyzing various states of being or consciousness, and eventually turned to external manipulation of the environment and surroundings in an effort to control and duplicate various states for further analysis, as well as disharmonious clashes of states in order to better understand the depths of a particular state)....

Though, in fact, all life remained sentient on that world, simply in different ways and different degrees based on their grouping's choices. Over time, many lost the innate ability to shapeshift entirely, though the potential remained to various degrees, which is why things like alter self and wild shape and polymorph worked without destroying or damaging the original creature. Also, it explained why there could be so many half-breeds and mixed creatures.

Categories of creatures in the D&D sense became natural metamorphoses of each other. In other words, the goblinoids were all actually the same species and race, it's just that as they mature and advance, or are exposed to certain conditions, they undergo metamorphosis into more advanced goblinoids.

Humanoids did something similar, only they were born as neuter genderless menir which would diversify into different sub-types based on talents and interests during puberty, as did dragons. In the case of humanoids, they eventually started breeding true to sub-types and menir became less common.

Advanced HD and Dire versions of animals (along with eventual titanic types) were similarly advanced metamorphoses.

[Grim Portent]

Been thinking about ghouls recently. Some stories from the old arabic folklore versions seem more akin to witches like Baba Yaga, who eat men and children, or various minor evil spirits from various cultures.



Ghouls are a monstrous race, kin to witches and evil spirits, though their exact nature is difficult to determine. Ghouls feed on the flesh and blood of humans, are adept at various forms of trickery and covet silver. Nocturnal and solitary, ghouls prefer to dwell in places they are unlikely to be disturbed, but still near human settlements. Graveyards, abandoned buildings, dense woodland, the fringes of deserts and other such locations are perfect places for a ghoul to take residence. Some particularly powerful and cunning ghouls take up active lives among their victims, often as sages, physicians or mystics, leveraging their magical abilities and ancient wisdom to anchor themselves in the community of their prey like a tick.

Most ghouls are capable of some magic, often shapeshifting or illusions, which are used to lure in gullible humans, such as drunks and children to kill and consume. If unable to catch fresh prey ghouls will instead dig up and eat buried humans, but being forced to do so for extended periods weakens the creature and may drive them to temporary madness, becoming detached from reality.

In their true state most ghouls resemble a human, with emaciated limbs and a sagging pot belly, thin lips and teeth similar to those of a canine, some bear canine or hyena-like features with the most grotesque examples being long hairless snouts filled with sharp teeth. As shapeshifters most ghouls can assume the form of any human, canine or hyena. They often turn into the form of lost or deceased people from the community on which they prey, using this guise to lure in victims to devour.

Ghouls cannot truly die, when killed their body dissolves into festering mould and damp sand, the spirit of the creature fleeing to construct a new body elsewhere. Despite their immortality ghouls have an unshakeable aversion to the light of dawn, refusing to go outside until the sun has reached it's zenith and returning indoors hours before the sun rises. They also fear fire, for wounds left by flame persist through any illusion or transformation they can perform. Beasts of burden, horses, donkeys, oxen and camels refuse to bear a ghoul as rider or as a passenger in a drawn vehicle, no punishment or reward can entice them to move the foul creature.

A concerted effort made by those who would end the predations of ghouls has resulted in many scattering from their native lands, spreading thin throughout the world to avoid being trapped or mutilated by those who hunt them. Ghouls can be trapped by various means, being buried alive in coffins, bricked up in rooms, chained and left to rot in cells unable to die. Some of the more mystically inclined hunters crafted leashes with spells of binding scribed upon them that can force a ghoul to stay in canine/hyena form and obey the commands of a master, turning the foul beast into a peerless hunting hound, albeit one that needs human flesh or blood to remain truly healthy, and which will break free if the leash if damaged or removed.

On rare occasions a ghoul will reveal itself to a select few humans, offering them magical tutoring in exchange for sacrifices. The pupils of such ghouls may be asked to offer their blood to their teacher as part of each lesson, or permitting their master to be to consume an eye or a few fingers, or to bring the ghoul humans or fresh human remains to feed on. In general the more extreme the price the less often it will be asked of the pupil.

It is unknown if ghouls reproduce in any way. While they possess gender there are no reports of ghoul children existing, or of ghouls mating. Some scholars theorise that ghouls can be created from the spirits of the dead through a time consuming and costly rite, others that those who learn magic from ghouls may ultimately transform into a new member of the race if given time to mature and grow in power, yet more claim them to be the offspring of humans and wolves conceived at the stroke of midnight. Whatever the answer, ghouls are rare but troubling creatures, their paths littered with the bones of countless victims claimed over centuries or millennia of unwholesome life.

[NovenFromTheSun]

So recently I played a game called Queen’s Wish, which had a type of creature called mirelings. The thing about mirelings it that they aren’t quite a sapient race, the closest parallel I can think of are parrots, in that they can mimic the speech and mannerisms of humans but don’t understand what the words mean (at least I think that’s the case with parrots but knew discoveries may have been made).

I feel like this could fit some sort of D&D creature but I’m not sure what.

[Wizard_Lizard]

Not really monstrous but my dwarves are divided rather heavily between the traditional mountain dwarves who are reclusive and don’t interact with anyone, and the hill dwarves who trade and have been adopted into most societies. Some elitist mountain dwarves view hill dwarves as not really dwarves at all.