Indagare |
Everyone likes using the standard races, but I was wondering about non-standards that could be used in their place. For instance, Kobolds (adjusted) would be a good substitute for Dwarves since both are mining races and the wandering Ratfolk might make good substitutes for Halflings.
Any suggestions? My thought is to replace all seven standard races with as close to an equivalent non-standard as possible (even if it means some adjustments might need to be made).
Cyrad RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16 |
Another idea is use a different theme. Core races use the theme of Tolkien human-like races. You could use elements (all elemental planetouched races), hell versus heaven (tieflings, aasimars, and variants of them), anthropomorphic (catfolk, kitsunes, gnolls, ratfolk, lizardfolk), land versus sea versus air (human, merfolk, strix), or take the Zelda approach where races are exotic but mostly keep to their native locations.
Amanuensis RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8 |
When I debated which races to pick for my homebrew setting, I realized that each non-human race in the CRB represents a basic concept of how man (in the broadest sense of the term) interacts with his environment: halflings adapt, elves are evasive, dwarves endure, gnomes are innovators, half-orcs are aggressive.
For my post-apocalyptic setting, I ended up with kobolds (adaptive), trollkin (enduring), mutants, and androids (both different versions of an evolutionary concept, which I decided would play a very important role in my campaign - even the underprivileged trollkin proletariat has its labor leaders promoting social change).
Indagare |
Dwarf - Oread
Humans - Lizardfolk (you'll have to cook 'm up)
Half-elves, half-orcs - I don't know... tieflings?
I do like Lizardfolk. Aasimar and tieflings could work nicely. I like oreads too.
Use other trade offs aside from fast/weak versus slow/strong.
I didn't know I was using those as a base?
Another idea is use a different theme. Core races use the theme of Tolkien human-like races. You could use elements (all elemental planetouched races), hell versus heaven (tieflings, aasimars, and variants of them), anthropomorphic (catfolk, kitsunes, gnolls, ratfolk, lizardfolk), land versus sea versus air (human, merfolk, strix), or take the Zelda approach where races are exotic but mostly keep to their native locations.
*nods* I do like themes, but I'm also interested in seeing what folks here might suggest. All your suggestions work very well for me (I particularly like the idea of having oreads, sylphs, undines, ifrits, suli, aasimars, and tieflings as PCs).
The 'reverse dungeon' scenario could also work for a good base involving heroic hobgoblins, goblins, orcs, kobolds and drow - though I wanted to avoid using this.
When I debated which races to pick for my homebrew setting, I realized that each non-human race in the CRB represents a basic concept of how man (in the broadest sense of the term) interacts with his environment: halflings adapt, elves are evasive, dwarves endure, gnomes are innovators, half-orcs are aggressive.
For my post-apocalyptic setting, I ended up with kobolds (adaptive), trollkin (enduring), mutants, and androids (both different versions of an evolutionary concept, which I decided would play a very important role in my campaign - even the underprivileged trollkin proletariat has its labor leaders promoting social change).
That's really cool! It's a nice way to look at it. One other idea is, of course, to go by specialization. Dwarves are miners and smiths. There could be a race of farmers and crafters, another race of fishers and sea explorers, another of merchants and wanderers.
SilvercatMoonpaw |
Humans = Anumi
Humans = Furries who can interbreed between "species" (I once wrote up a setting that had no humans and instead had full furries descended from anumi created by elves who then bred with merfolk. Because.)
Humans = half-weres/were-blooded/skinchangers/whatever-the-heck-you-call-them
The theme of these three is that there is a much more massive emphasis on the race's adaptability/versatility via appearance.
Halflings/Gnomes = Entobian
Elves+Dwarves = Minotaurs (instead of savage they're boisterous, with an edge of intelligence and wisdom from the whole 'labyrinth' thing)
Half-orcs = Gnolls (actually done for an Egyptian-themed setting by Green Ronin called Hamunaptra)
Gnomes = Ponykind (I would substitute deer for horses, but I'm weird about cutting too close to source material)