10,000 years ago...

[mlnunn]

My Pathfinder group has been sent 10,000+ years in the past. I have the adventure all planed out and the main protagonist will be ancient Elves.
No Humans or Orcs are around yet. I am looking for some other ancient races, Dwarves are the main "worker" race for the elves. I am thinking, Lizard/Dinosaur men for sure. Maybe Gith? Any suggestions on other Ancient races?

[Yora]

Snakemen and lizardmen are the classic choices for this. Another common choice are giants, but how well that might work for gameplay depends on the relative strength of the PCs at that point. Little sense in having numerous giant NPCs when even the typical giant civilian can take on the whole party by himself, and accordingly steamroll most of the other competing factions in the region.

I think those are the main ones that come with ancient civilization as part of their archetype. But taking any other people that doesn't have such associations and making them a major power should also be interesting in a new and unexpected way. You could pick pretty much anything for that.

[Telwar]

As Yora said, non-mammalian races are the typical antediluvian go-to.

Really, anything would be appropriate, but if someone put a gun to my head, I'd choose:

Aarakocra - non-mammals, and they've been pushed to the edge of the world in modern times.

Goliaths - Also pushed to the edge of the world, and you get that "there were giants on the Earth in those days" feel without having actual giants.

Kobolds - Non-mammals, and this would let them actually justify their self-importance.

[Grim Portent]

Sahuagin could make sense. Sharks are very old creatures and Sahuagin are basically shark people. They also have beef with the sea elves as I recall.


Another route would be that the past is dark and full of nightmares. Neogi, Mind Flayers and other horrifing abberrant species, building nightmarish civilisations in an echo of Lovecraft's works, in which the Earth was once ruled by powerful eldritch horrors and covered in their non-euclidean cities. In this case the elves and their dwarven servants would be the first force of 'normality' to establish a foothold in the writhing, screaming chaos of the world.

[Anonymouswizard]

Honestly, you're in the right timescales for modern humans, and even early agricultural societies. There's no need to remove any species unless you're going back by another order of magnitude or two.

But was you do, the classical pre-humanoid dominant races are generally reptilemen (with optional dinosaurs) and/or giants. Beastnen of any kind are good in general though, if you've introduced any already then you could have them running an empire well into decline, with maybe a few centuries to a millennia left.

[clash]

I would have a lot of elementals running amock. Maybe add some celestials and friends as well to really give it a different feel.

[Khedrac]

Do check out the old Companion D&D module "CM6: Where Chaos Reigns"
The beginning of the module has the party sent to another world where at the point when humans first came on the scene and elves were already civilized (if primitive). It might give you some ideas.

I agree though, that if you go by real world history 10,000 years simply takes you back to the earliest stage of city-building for modern humans and is probably pre-writing.
For fantasy history it can be anything you want, of course.

Are you setting this on your own game world or an existing one? If the latter we need to consult the various experts on the various worlds.

[SimonMoon6]

I'm thinking Kuo-Toa, as stand-ins for the Deep Ones of the Cthulhu Mythos. On that note, any other eldritch horror type monsters from before the rise of the humanoids who would later beat them back into the shadows. Mind Flayers, Aboleths, etc. On a less Lovecraftian note, also consider Yuan-Ti.

[LecternOfJasper]

My vote is for ancient and large gnome clans living above ground that were fixated on the fragility of beauty, and as such never made grand/permanent creations of stone or metal. Reinforcing why there's very little evidence of them in the modern day. Maybe they dove underground when the big folk started taking over, who knows?

[Pauly]

Reptilians or amphibians are the go to version of pre-human civilizations in many fantasy settings.

Giants are also common pre-history fantasy/mythic trope. This raises the possibility of using mega fauna such as Mammoths or Wooly Rhinos as domesticated animals for them. Also then you can use animals such as Cave Bears, Saber Tooth Tigers and so on as encounters.

Humans may exist, but in a Hollywood inspired cave man existence. Communicating in grunts and with stone tools. They would live a nomadic or semi-nomadic existence in the absence of cultivating crops.

Many fantasy worlds have Dragons being much more common in ancient times.

What stops Dragons and Giants obliterating any other civilization is internecine struggles. They view the human sized critters as an irritant that they only bother to deal with if they are directly attacked, and dealing with them leaves their backs unprotected against the real threat (other Dragons or Giants).

[Wintermoot]

human pc: "why do elves 10,000 years ago have bumpy foreheads?"

elf pc: "We don't talk about it."

[hamishspence]

Or alternatively, you could have mixed tribes comprising both elves and orcs, with offspring that look very humanlike, except for being slightly greenish with tiny tusks - drop hints that humans evolved from these elf-orc hybrids.

[Jervis]

Sarrukh Are a good choice, but nerf manipulate form to make for fewer apotheosises.

[LibraryOgre]

Are you dealing with a custom world, or the core Pathfinder world of Golarion? If it's Golarion, there's timelines out there that cover a couple of the major events... 10,000ybp is about the time the human Azlant society got started, and right around the Earthfall.

[mlnunn]

It is a custom world, but very much a standard Pathfinder - DnD world. Lots of great ideas in here and I certainly have decided to change a few things and use some of these ideas. Lovecraft mythos is now a part of my worlds ancient history. The PC's have run into Mindflayers twice as major foes in the campaign, so adding them into the past makes sense. The game is this Friday I will drop an update here afterwards.
Thanks to you all!

[mlnunn]

Game went well, players were not prepared to be looked at like, "Dogs who put on cloths and started talking" to quote a player. All in all quite successful, thanks again for all the great suggestions.