Hello!
I think this is the right place to post, if not, please feel free to move it (it was between here and Suggestions/House Rules/Homebrew), powers that be - this is my first topic creation here.
Anyhow, I have a homebrew setting I'm formulating which is heavily elemental based, with humans and elves as being standard core races, and the other four races being the "elemental" core races:
Fire: Orcs
Water: Merfolk
Air: Djinn
Earth: Dwarves
For the orcs, I was thinking some fire resistance. Merfolk would be amphibious. Djinn would have a slowfall ability, and dwarves a stone-shape sort of ability or a tunnel ability.
I was initially basing off of the Advanced Race Guide, but I'm a little rusty about the actual playing. Amphibious is a 2RP racial trait, and I'm guessing aquatic elements would be situational to the campaign.
Fire resistance has been done to death for a lot of races, generally seen with stuff like Ifrits and Tieflings, but the orcs wouldn't get quite as many other goodies. It feels boring compared to the others, but hey, boring can be useful?
Gliding Wings is a 3RP ability, and gives permanent Feather Fall and an ability to move while falling, which I imagine is useful in situations with height at earlier levels but once flying becomes accessbile to most classes peters out a bit. Would a slowfall for X amount of feet that scales based on level be too outlandish?
Burrow, though a 3RP ability, feels like it could be a bit much depending on terrain being played on, so I'm leaning a bit more towards a stone-shape ability - something to feel more "at one" with the mountain. I would want advice for this the most.
So I'm definitely extremely open to advice, especially with the dwarves, but with all in general really. I want to do part familiar and part outlandish, make things interesting. So please, help me Paizo Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope!