I think elves evolved from wolves (pointy ears), halflings from cats (wide grins), dwarves from bears (hairy), orcs from boars (tusks), goblins from rats (fecund).
I tend to suspend my disbelief entirely when I play, or plan, or think of, or read fantasy.
I am an evolutionary science geek and physics fan. I am a militant atheist. I collect meteorites and fossils, and I like to know the genus of the beautiful living things around me. I value the billions of years old dance of chance that led to our complicated, but consistent world. I do not believe in ghosts, souls, gods, monsters, an afterlife, luck, or the many other filters that reality is often strained through by most people. Stars are fusion furnaces, and the date of my birth determines nothing special about my time on this gorgeous ball.
My game worlds are different. They operate on totally superstitious laws. Gods are real. Planes are real. Monsters are real. Magic is real. The world was made by a deity. People can overcome thermodynamics. Creatures can breathe fire. Creation myths are real.
I take it a step further. The sun is a glowing light set by the gods to warm the creation. Other worlds are possible that have no sun. Creatures and trees can be larger than Earth physics would support. The continents were sculpted, and there are only volcanoes where the gods placed them. There was no continental Pangea or Gondwanaland. Dinosaurs and Dire animals are exactly as old as any other creature. There are no fossils in the rocks. Chemistry is irrelevant. elements behave as the gods will them to. Gold is more common than should technically be possible. Reactions that make perfect sense here on our world, are irrelevant on a fantasy world. One cannot make phosphorous from urine, unless the DM wills it so.
If I don't compartmentalise, the strain of rationalising the irrational would reduce my enjoyment of the game.
Now, it is entirely possible that a fantasy world can keep the periodic table, thermodynamics, genetics and evolution. It could be billions of years old, with burgess shale like protodragons and pleosticine carrion crawlers. Birds could be saurians, while the lizardmen were the first sentients, and Dragons ate brontosaurs.
That just sounds like a waste of time to figure out.
Where is mithril on the periodic table? ;-)
That's kind of a fun question, though I imagine it could get controversial. I've never heard of any "official" write-ups on that.
I've always read that in mythology, Dwarves originally carved themselves from the rocks when the world was new...so sort of created, though possibly evolved to be more "fleshy" with the passage of time?
Elves, gnomes, and anything related to fairy folklore, my understanding is that they are just supposed to be nature spirits that have just sort of been around as long as the world and that belief in fairies is a form of animism. This implies that as long as there has been water and wind, there have been mischievous water and wind spirits.
I suppose if it was really important for a campaign, I'd probably say that "Yes, all humanoids evolved from something, though only in the case of humans did they evolve from animal-like creatures, the rest came from things somewhat like elementals." The idea of a dwarven man-ape just sounds too ridiculous to me.
Then it gets tricky, though. Since we're mixing fantasy with science, the fact that humans and elves can breed implies common ancestry. I guess that's just "magic" for you!
Where is mithril on the periodic table? ;-)
92 + 1d20 +profession(alchemy)
Just after Infernium.Mithril is an alloy of Moradnium and Vergadanium, Duh!
Where is mithril on the periodic table? ;-)92 + 1d20 +profession(alchemy)
Just after Infernium.
Mithril is an alloy of Moradnium and Vergadanium, Duh!
My mind?
Blown!
Here's my two bits. I tend to think in general (every setting being different, with it's own backstory) that the first independant race was probably the dwarves. They were created by the gods in a pretty rudimentary way, clay and stone creatures probably more like galeb duhr than modern dwarves. Over the centuries these creatures developed into things more and more flesh and blood--possibly by the introduction of Dao blood, but the further back into dwarven prehistory you go, I'd imagine the less like living beings the dwarves would seem.
Elves, by contrast, started out as fae creatures, immortal, amoral creatures from a strange realm beyond. There are a spectrum of such creatures that have flitted into the mortal realm, from ephemeral nixies and dryads to more mundane creatures like satyrs. Presumably as is the case with others of their ilk, the transition is mostly a one way process. Presumably the elves brought a lot with them, and much of what is currently concidered civilization probably dates to first contact with the elves. The first elves were probably a lot scarier than the elves of the current age. They likely didn't know how to act and were even more imperious and arrogant than today. I could imagine entire wyld hunts against the younger races driven by nothing more than the desire for sport and some dire misunderstandings.
Humans, by contrast, do appear to have had a primative form--much like dire wolves or other such creatures. Their first incarnation was the neandertal, big brutish creatures from artic climes that tended to raid for the necessities of life. Introduction into other regions developed a broad range of human subtypes, but most human cultures started as barbarian raiders. Only after many generations did human societies settle, usually under the watchful hand of a number of patron deities--though it's a very uneven process in many settings, with neandertals still roaming around and groups of barbarians at the corners of the world.
And while we're at it, the world is flat!
... the neandertal, big brutish creatures from artic climes that tended to raid for the necessities of life...
Like Grimcleaver himself!
;)
Bwaaar! You know it! *flexes muscles, rips the head right off a yak and eats it*
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Interesting question. I've actually an answer for that in my homebrew world(links in my profile), where both science and magic exist. Think of them as two sides of the same coin, they do the same thing, just in different ways.
Anyway, with my world, the basic ideas are as follows. There are those who are created, those who evolved, and those in between.
Any creature with a racial deity is a member of a created race. These races are essentially at the peak of their potential, they do not change naturally. Examples: Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes
Those creatures without a racial deity is a member of an evolved race. These creatures are not the best they can be, but they have the potential to grow as a species. Humans are currently the only ones who fit this niche.
Then there are those few in between, the half-breeds. Depending on the racial deities, they may or may not be accepted as well as the full breed versions of the races. After all, they are not what the gods created. Example: Errants(Half-Elves), any being with partial Draconic Heredity.
Aberrations are a specific subset of those in between. Part of the history of the game world is that there was world-wide event which caused things to change. This was the event which caused an ice-age, thusly ending most prehistoric life. Some survived by being on an volcanic island, but due to the nature of the event, they were either radically changed(thusly creating the Aberrations); or grew a resistance to the effect, and in turn lost their ability to grow as a species.
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I tend to suspend my disbelief entirely when I play, or plan, or think of, or read fantasy.
I am an evolutionary science geek and physics fan. I am a militant atheist. I collect meteorites and fossils, and I like to know the genus of the beautiful living things around me. I value the billions of years old dance of chance that led to our complicated, but consistent world. I do not believe in ghosts, souls, gods, monsters, an afterlife, luck, or the many other filters that reality is often strained through by most people. Stars are fusion furnaces, and the date of my birth determines nothing special about my time on this gorgeous ball.
My game worlds are different. They operate on totally superstitious laws. Gods are real. Planes are real. Monsters are real. Magic is real. The world was made by a deity. People can overcome thermodynamics. Creatures can breathe fire. Creation myths are real.
I take it a step further. The sun is a glowing light set by the gods to warm the creation. Other worlds are possible that have no sun. Creatures and trees can be larger than Earth physics would support. The continents were sculpted, and there are only volcanoes where the gods placed them. There was no continental Pangea or Gondwanaland. Dinosaurs and Dire animals are exactly as old as any other creature. There are no fossils in the rocks. Chemistry is irrelevant. elements behave as the gods will them to. Gold is more common than should technically be possible. Reactions that make perfect sense here on our world, are irrelevant on a fantasy world. One cannot make phosphorous from urine, unless the DM wills it so.
If I don't compartmentalise, the strain of rationalising the irrational would reduce my enjoyment of the game.
Now, it is entirely possible that a fantasy world can keep the periodic table, thermodynamics, genetics and evolution. It could be billions of years old, with burgess shale like protodragons and pleosticine carrion crawlers. Birds could be saurians, while the lizardmen were the first...
I was just thinking about the flores man "hobbit" again, and started a chain-of-thought brainstorming exercize.
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Actually, in the "greatest campaigns never run" thread, somebody mentioned a stone age campaign, then that made me think about the flores men,....which got me thinking about the Isle of Dread which originally had neanderthals, who were written out because their presence made no sense; not that the glyptodons being in Frostburn made any sense either...
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And while we're at it, the world is flat!
DUDE!!!
In my campaign cosmology the world IS flat!
Prime Material is like the heads-up side of a coin, facing the Astral. When you look up at night and see the "stars" what you're really looking at is the Astral.
Shadow Plane is the tails-side of the same coin. When you look up at night you see dark swirls of nothingness -- the Ethereal.
-W. E. Ray
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A long long time ago a wizard needed an army.
So he created trolls.
Much later another wizard took pigs and humans and made orcs for an army.
Then that idea caught on: gnolls/humans, bulls/humans, birds/humans, etc.
Another wizard discovered Negative Energy and created an undead army.
But In The Beginning, the Powers created Dragons and True Giants. Dragon "Druids" created the Fey.
Humans, Dwarves, Goblins evolved from early hominids. Exactly like in real life.
-W. E. Ray
In game, do you think there were "neanderthal" elves, or "homo erectus" versions of dwarves, or some deity just created them?
Creator deities -- that's just how swords & sorcery fiction works.
In my current game, the Material Plane is actually the Material Universe. It is sort of a SpellJammer game. On different worlds different humanoids existed, and those humanoids fit that environment. Whether that is due to a deity making them that way or they evolved that way is not even really relevant. The deities exist and thus can direct evolution or allow it to follow its natural course, all that matters is that they are worshipped.
The only thing I leave up in the air is humans. They are found on many worlds and there is no clear place of origin for them or deity of origin.
I presume both magic and evolution exist side by side essentially. Most of my main character races would be created Gods but we see evolution at work in the world as well as the world itself is far older then the humanoid races that currently inhabit it. Lots of apocalypse mythology in my home brew as well. Essentially there is a fair bit of evidence that progenitor races once existed and thrived but eventually vanished or were destroyed. Should it come up these progenitor races might exist in tiny pockets in far corners of the world.
In part to support this I keep Dinosaurs very rare in my home brew. They are far to much fun to eliminate completely but you only encounter them on lost islands or in valleys that time forgot.
Creator deities -- that's just how swords & sorcery fiction works.Well, sure, in some sword & sorcery fiction. But most certainly not all!
I know Steven Brust's Dragaeran world has a lot of genetic engineering in it. But it's mostly subtext.
I also prefer an almost total divorce from science and real-world knowledge. I'm not fond of the concepts of neanderthals or a neolithic era in D&D, and can't even wrap my head around the thought that elves and dwarves and other "elder" races evolved from anything. At least not in the way we know it; ancestral races may have given rise to more modern forms, but this is much more akin to biblical begats and creation myths than evolution.
The following is my homebrew's creation story:
In the beginning, the heavens and the hells were created and between them was Void. Fiends from the hells entered the Void and became warpped and twisted creatures which still linger today as aboleths, grells, mind flayers, and the other "aberrations." The gods cast down these Void-beings, burying them beneath a titanic stone. Then this stone was drown beneath water until only the highest places remained dry. The titans, children of the gods, saw the newly created world and desired to craft it. To aid them, they breathed life into the elemental stones and the first dwarves awoke. The titans eventually completed their work, but many stayed in the world. Their descendants gave rise to the various giants. Other elements then awoke with life as well: from the air came elves, from fire came orcs, and from the water came the sea peoples who have since divided into many races. Gnomes are a race of mortal fey. Ages ago, a band of gnomes crossed the horizon looking for the answers to everything. Years later, they returned as the first halflings. They gained no answers; only an unending wanderlust.
Humans are a mystery. No one knows where they came from, but when they first appeared, they were enslaved by the giants. The elves, ancestral enemies of the giants, fought to free the humans and gain them as allies. Humans first learned the arts of magic and civilization in this way. Then came the great war with the fiends, in which the civilizations of the elder races were crippled, crushed, or even swept away. Afterwards, the world was a blank slate which humans rushed to fill. For the last three thousand years, the race of man has held unquestioned dominance simply by virtue of numbers and their rate of discovery.
Of course, I've switched to the FR for my current game to save myself preparation time. Luckily, the Realms don't really attribute the modern world to a slow evolution; many beings simply arrived mysteriously through portals from other places. I don't know if there is more to the story or not, and I really don't care. That works for me. Even if there are/were elements attributing the way of the world to processes known in the real, modern world, I would change them in favor of something more "fantastic."
I'm also not much of a fan of the half-and-half route, mixing the slow, evolutionary development of races and cultures with magic and gods. I like it more than throwing full-blown science into the scene, but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Humans, by contrast, do appear to have had a primative form--much like dire wolves or other such creatures. Their first incarnation was the neandertal, big brutish creatures from artic climes that tended to raid for the necessities of life. Introduction into other regions developed a broad range of human subtypes, but most human cultures started as barbarian raiders. Only after many generations did human societies settle, usually under the watchful hand of a number of patron deities--though it's a very uneven process in many settings, with neandertals still roaming around and groups of barbarians at the corners of the world.
Not to start an arguement or be nitpicky, but . . . scientists have come out and said that humans did NOT evolve from Neanderthals, but that in fact they were a different species that died out.
But to the main topic, while I haven't used them, yet I am working on a primitive elven race, they are physically more powerful, but have wild magic that can go wrong on them, I am going to introduce them with a short time-travel arc in my campaign.
Small, indestructible, canvas tents.Ah, the wonderful world of Saern; I'd always wondered.
So, where are Dragons from in Saern?
-W. E. Ray
Precisely!
I have worked out origin stories for all races and monsters in my homebrew setting (which goes by the name of 'Ryad' (as it was originally created by a friend=Ryan, and, myself=Adam).
Re, Dwarves and Elves, they are both derived from faeries (elves distantly, dwarves less so), which are a mix of the Faerie Shees of Vance's Lyonesse books and the Faeries of Castle Falkenstein.
Dwarves only came into being as a race about three thousand years ago, after becoming too 'heavy' with earth matter to return beyond the Faerie veil. Rather than drift aimlessly for eternity, like most 'earthbound' faeries, the earliest Dwarves chose mortality and a place in the world, in effect becoming a race overnight.
The Duergar were one of the earliest Dwarven clans, indeed the noblest of the clans and the closest to their faerie origins and relatives. About eleven hundred years before the setting present, during the reign of a rare Dwarven tyrant King Ballir I, 'Clan Duergar' (meaning 'of the Deep Home' in Dengarl - Dwarven) were unjustly exiled en masse, after being accused of dallying with demons (which are essentially dark faeries in Ryad), in an effort to clear the debts Ballir owed to the Clan Duergar moneylenders.
This evil act drove a wedge between the dwarves of Clan Duergar, the most faerie like of all their race (hence their inate magical powers), and the rest of the Clans. Perhaps this brought a curse down upon the Dwarven Kingdom ('Rockheim'), for some centuries later a terrible civil war broke out between the Clans of Rockheim which continues to rage to this day...despite having started some three hundred years ago!
Dwarves in Ryad are thus seen by humans as unbelievably warlike, belicose, belligerant, and more than a little mysterious. The Duergar live some way south of Rockheimr, in Modrigsheim under a mighty range of mountains, but their spies (and a secret society known as the Bursyth -'the Quiet Fire' - which roams far and wide, bribing human blacksmiths to act as their spies and agents in exchange for forge-secrets and arsenal-magics).
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Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes and Goblinoids I made 'post-fey' (they were fey once, but had adjusted to this world now, although Elves and Goblinoids are the most likely to attempt to 'recapture' their mystical otherworldly heritage by entering into pacts and mixing their bloodlines with other mystically powerful beings. Dwarves and Gnomes are much more comfortable with their worldly natures, with Dwarves being the least likely to yearn for the 'old ways'). Bugbears and Goblins who take on primal fey characteristics become even stealthier than normal, and oft-times develop a 'fey step' power, similar to Dimension Door (through shadows only). Elves tend to embrace elemental spirits, except for Dark Elves, who consort with fiends, and, more rarely, aberrations or even vermin... Hobgoblins do not seek out their fey heritage as commonly as the other Goblinoids (or the Elves), and there is no standard choice for them. Anything that makes them (or their children) more powerful is popular.
[One tribe of Hobgoblins, for instance, has sworn service to a Red Dragon, and become 'mamelukes,' slave-warriors, ritually scarred with hot pokers and molten metal, attempting to curry favor so that they can fuse it's power to their own through interbreeding (as it is already doing with the Fire Giants and Kobolds under it's sway). So far, the Dragon is stringing them along and has taken no Hobgoblin wives...]
Humans and Orcs and the reptilian races are all 'local boys' and have something like evolution going on. Humans and Orcs come from the same bloodline (explaining their interfertility), and the only reason Humans are interfertile with Elves is because the people who today call themselves Elves have quite a bit of Human blood in them... (Being a far cry from their fey roots, even if you'll never get one to admit that.)
Most of the retilian races are offshoots of each other as well, with Lizardfolk, Sahuagin, Yuan-Ti, Troglodytes, etc. coming from a proto-race called either the 'Serpent Folk,' Valossans or Asaatthi, depending on who you ask.
Kobolds are completely unrelated to the reptilian races, being spawned from unfertilized dragon eggs, and, historically, being servants to 'dragon queens.' They have, over millenia, become interfertile with each other, and 'free-range' Kobolds are now more common than servant Kobolds. On the other hand, Kobolds directly born from Dragon eggs are colored similarly to their broodmothers, have weak energy resistance and are tougher (being outfitted with the equivalent of the Draconic creature template).
Elves on the other hand, though in some similar but more distant way also faerie descent, have existed as a race beyond even their own racial histories.
Ryad Elves are basically all one racial type (i.e. no Moon Elves, Flippered Sea Elves, winged Hawk Elves, or whatnot). Though there are four or five seperate Elven nations.
Elves are short, petite, slight of build, and uniformly youthful and beautiful. A Ryad elf can live between 1200 and 1500 years, maturing at roughly human rates, but ceasing to age physically in their late teens or early twenties. An elf then does not age physically, at all, until they experience 'the decline', a very rapid aging process which finally causes them to age and die in the span of a few months.
Drow have a pretty standard origin, i.e. one half of a splintering of the elven race far in the past (about four and a half thousand years ago in Ryad), and are basically baddy elves who live deep underground, as per usual. However I have overlaid an Indian (that's Asian-Indian, not red-Indian) flavour over the top of their usual spiders, matriarchy, evil, dominatrixy, type stuff.
By this I mean, not in naming (they speak standard Drowic, or Aluari 'the Perfected Tongue') or costume, but more in some of the traditions and attitudes of Mughal India.
For example;
The Lands of the Aquamarine Sun
'I've known warm lands of the surface world, but there the heat comes unquestionably from the sun. In Drowheim it is as if the air is warmed in some vast oven, for it touches every part of you the same. There is no hiding from it, no shade. It is as if the heat is collected in the very rocks, stored somehow, year after year and it is a heat that heals rather than scorches, invigorates rather than weakens.
Even the fine white cave dust that can be kicked up as one moves through the Land of the Four Queens seems heavy with spices, indeed it seems almost to carry the essense of Drowheim, like the light which transforms the way you see things, or the heat which feels like hands moving all over you. It is not possible, even momentarily, to be insensate in Drowheim, for the presents to each and every sense are so potent as to be almost compelling. No noise is restrained, no taste -in any sense- is mild. No smell is anything but pungent. No belief incredible, no notion too outlandish.'
-Drowheim (or the Land of the Four Queens') is warmed by an ancient and dangerous magical power source that predates the Drow. This magical radiance is what burned the Drow's skin dark brown (I don't like blue-grey coloured Drow btw), and imbued them with inate magical powers.
'The princesses are carefully ranked and ordered, are obsessed with protocol and the number of sacrficed slaves they receive in salute before the Queens. They delight in flamboyent assertions of ritual soveriegnty and extravagant contests for symbolic precedence.'
'Drow society depends far less on justice and good administration than on precedence, honours and minute distinctions of dress.'
Here are some other snippets;
'In Drow courts, from pot to plate food is tasted for poison at three different stages, after which each dish is locked with the seal of the master of the kitchens, whose seal likewise had to be on every bag containing bread-stalks (mushrooms), prickle-pears, curds, pickles, fresh ginger or underlimes in the long procession, accompanied by guards to the table.'
'Boatloads of ice call daily at many cities, in an unending convoy. As do caravans of sugars, melons, transparent sea-grapes from the Toa and limes.'
(The Toa 'the White Sea', is an underdark sea, home of the 'Kuo-Toa' ('Guardians of the White Sea') Sahuagin.)
'Every noble in a Drow court holds a military rank, even painters or poets, which is expressed and paid for in the number of Drow soldiers the noble is expected to muster when required for parade, hunt, or war.'
'Malressian cave-panthers are captured in pits or whicker cages and within a month are trained to obey their keepers, being released to stalk and kill game and then to return after the kill, much like a hunting-hawk of the surface world. Malressians take their hunting-panthers very seriously, each noble keeps his pride-stables divided into eight grades, their rations of meat being set accordingly. They wear coats studded with jewels and specially crafted magic items of many types and are taken to the hunt sitting blindfold on beautiful carpets. Panthers of the highest grade are called Princess-Panthers are gifted with slaves to care for their every need and have a drum beaten before them in procession.'
(Malressian Drow, are from the Queendom of Balthys, and worship Malress, rather than Lolth. Thus having a more feline motif generally.)
'Drow hunting expeditions sometimes take the form of 'enclosure-hunting' where large numbers of Drow soldiers act as beaters, driving the game slowly towards a selected usually mid-sized cathedral cavern, where all exits are then secured by the troops, and the hunting party enters and begins the killing. Though even this is organised in extremely strict rules of precedence; royalty present first enters alone with their immediate retinue and hunts for up to five days, then nobles are allowed access, then the priesthood and finally the troops themselves are granted entry and proceed to mop up. By the final stages this crowded sport becomes highly dangerous and on many occasions Drow use the confusion to settle private scores.'
What don't we have;
No Halflings (too overtly LOTR imo),
No Gnomes (never interested me),
No orcs or goblins (a debased currency as far as humanoid villains go imo) - we do have hobgoblins though, which are the original inhabitants of the setting, humans having originally been brought from Earth 20,000 years or so ago by the wicked and now mysteriously vanished Slaadi - Ryad hobgoblins are master arms-smiths, and militarily agressive - I use a zulu theme - though visually they have their own style of course and wear metal armour etc),
No Kobolds (I didn't have anything against these personally, but the concensus was they were too weak and weedy and didn't really add much by their presence),
No Greek Mythical monsters (Ryad isn't a Greek mythological setting - they jar in our opinion)
Generally speaking many of Ryad's monsters derive from the elemental planes - anyone who is interested my buddy has made a truly staggering 'Elemental Monsters' spreadsheet, which shows Ryad's 'elemental monsters' and how they relate. This spreadsheet references practically every D&D supplement ever produced.
We have five elements btw - the usual four, and 'Shadow', which is a magical element (not necessarily any more evil or life-opposed than any of the other elements).
We also have Hybrids - human-creature type humanoids (such as Gnolls, Ettercaps, Aaracocra, etc), which were bred originally from human stock by the Slaadi as differing soldier types. Humans were brought to the planet as kidnapped slaves and experimental breeding stock originally - though naturally most Ryadians have no idea of that, it was so long ago.
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Drow have a pretty standard origin, i.e. one half of a splintering of the elven race far in the past (about four and a half thousand years ago in Ryad), and are basically baddy elves who live deep underground, as per usual. However I have overlaid an Indian (that's Asian-Indian, not red-Indian) flavour over the top of their usual spiders, matriarchy, evil, dominatrixy, type stuff.
[snip]
The Lands of the Aquamarine Sun
Are people who aren't Nick Logue allowed to swear here? 'Cause this is ****ing sex-hot awesome.
Amazing.
Drow have a pretty standard origin, i.e. one half of a splintering of the elven race far in the past (about four and a half thousand years ago in Ryad), and are basically baddy elves who live deep underground, as per usual. However I have overlaid an Indian (that's Asian-Indian, not red-Indian) flavour over the top of their usual spiders, matriarchy, evil, dominatrixy, type stuff.
[snip]
The Lands of the Aquamarine SunAre people who aren't Nick Logue allowed to swear here? 'Cause this is ****ing sex-hot awesome.
Amazing.
Heh heh. Thanks. I'd post more, but it's probably a bit off topic for the thread.
Another 'origin' model I use is elemental origins for Dragons and Giants.
Tens of thousands of years ago there was a great war across the Elemental Planes, a dozen or so titanic near-god-like creatures known as 'the Elemental Worms' attempted to conquer the Lords of the Elements (aka the Genies).
The war eventually turned against the Elemental Worms, who were forced to flee into the Prime Material Plane ... Ryad. Chased by the genie, the war continued for centuries, with each side spawning races of soldiers to fight for them; the Worms created Dragonspawn, Elemental Devils (the Troglodytes are Earth Elemental Devils for example, the Sahuagin Water Elemental Devils, and so on), while the Genie created the forebears of today's giants to fight for them.
Eventually the Worms were beaten, one by one, until only one wakeful Worm remained, lairing at one spot and remaining to this day as an unmoving god to human followers. The dragons were the offspring of the Elemental Worms, with older unique dragons being referred to as 'high coil', and closer in power to their ancient progenitors.
Ogremoch was an Earth Elemental Worm, who was badly wounded and went into a permanent torpor, dreaming beneath a mountain that came to be named after him.
By ancient agreement, the dragons were allowed by the genie to remain in the southern continent, while the genie's restricted their visits to Ryad to the northern continent. (Though individual genie criminal outcasts are sent 'south' and barred from the elemental realms; these immortal wanderers include some notable figures in their number ... such as Kursmagr (D- Black Smoke), an Efreeti who became a forge-lord of the Dwarves, and now heads a clan of his own from Rak Hwyr (D- 'Castle Bellows').
I don't know if it is really an "evolution" thing, but in my world, the offspring of goblinoids is always the same race as the mother. So there are no half-goblinoids (except through magic or something, such as half-fiends, half-celestials, half-dragons).
Human father - hobgoblin mother = hobgoblin offspring
bugbear father - goblin mother = goblin offspring
orc father - bugbear mother = bugbear offspring
goblin father - halfling mother = halfling offspring
No matter what they mate with, the race of the offspring is always that of the mother.
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Elf is to Drow what
Dwarf is to Duergar what
Human is to Troglodyte what
Gnome is to Derro what
Ogre is to Grimlock.
Goblins didn't change.
Troglodytes are cave-men. NOT Reptiles!!! I don't know if there's anything more stupid in D&D than trogs beeing reptiles.
Halflings don't exist. They just don't.
I hate "Deep Gnomes" and I love Derro.
-W. E. Ray
In part to support this I keep Dinosaurs very rare in my home brew. They are far to much fun to eliminate completely but you only encounter them on lost islands or in valleys that time forgot.
We had no dinosaurs in my homebrew campaign until the most powerful wizard attempted a "Jurassic Park"-like experiment on his home island -- the goal was to domesticate herds of brontosaurs, engineer them to eat weeds and scrub, and end world hunger. Unfortunately, the bad guys imprisoned the wizard, and his dinosaurs got loose all over the place. Fun!
I was just thinking about the flores man "hobbit" again, and started a chain-of-thought brainstorming exercize.
This is a pretty awesome thread, but I feel the knee-jerk need to point out that the conclusion that the Homo floresiensis is a separate species within Genus Homo i hotly contested, mostly due to the limited fossil record. Personally, I'm certainly not qualified to say which claimant is correct.
I would also like to note that level of technological development within a culture is not necessarily tied to species. Humans only began to emerging from the "Stone Age" 12,000 or so years ago, but were walking around as a species for nearly 200,000 years prior to the mesolithic.
In my homebrew attempts, I usually tie technology development to environment and access to resources, and take a page from Civilization for tech trees/advancement.
Carry on.
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Not to start an arguement or be nitpicky, but . . . scientists have come out and said that humans did NOT evolve from Neanderthals, but that in fact they were a different species that died out.
Beat me to it.
And by the way, Neanderthals were actually shorter than stone-age humans, albeit stockier. In fact, a few historians have speculated that sightings of lingering bands of Neanderthals gave rise to legends of dwarves living in the mountains.
Mr Shiney, you ninja'd my post!
As it is here is the rough breakdown of evolution/creation of races in many of my campaign worlds, not that it matters to many of the plots themselves.
Humans: Same evolution as IRL
Dwarves and Orcs: Split evolution of the neanderthals adapted to differing environments, the common ancestry is actually the soruce of the ancient feuds as both saw the other race as a corruption of the bloodline
Halflings: Evoltionary decendants of the pygmy-like peoples of ancient australia
Gnomes: Genetic mutation of dwarves roughly as common as albinoism is in other races
Elves: these are the only truly created humanoid race as they sprang out of the infusion of human stock with significant fey energies as a result of birth near ancient sources of natural power now mostly vanished
The dragons are primordial, they have always been and always will be, watchign from the sidelines, aloof from mortal squabbling.
Holy CRAP, Saern, the Dragons of Saern Shall, FROM THIS DAY HENCE, replace the Dragons in my homebrew.
I love it!
-W. E. Ray
Thank you! It is an honor to have my ideas pilfered. :)
I just don't like the evil scheming mastermind type dragon who reaches out and meddles in mortal affairs. The way I see it, if any of them had such an inclination, they all would, and it would take about .3 seconds for the wyrms to take over everything. An interesting idea for an alternate campaign setting, perhaps, but not one I wish to develop and play in long-term.
Saern and Rocheim, do you have a webpage of some kind for your stuff? I'd like to look it over at my leisure.
Saern and Rocheim, do you have a webpage of some kind for your stuff? I'd like to look it over at my leisure.
Fraid not (speaking for myself). Here's a write up on Derro though from my files;
The Derro
Aka; The Abandonderro, 'The Abandoned Ones'-
They are a most strange people, to the outsider there is no crueller race in all the world. They enjoy torturing their captives savagely, even decorating their homes with living amputees as 'art'. They sacrifice hundreds of slaves to demons from the Black Lodge in their eternal quest for ever more power and even enjoy tormenting the faeries and demons they summon to act as their servants.
And yet...there is little to no internal crime in derro society. For a derro to harm, or steal from, another derro is almost unthinkable to them.
Their leaders, the savants, are most strange of all, they can seem moronic, imbecilic even, yet all possess vast stores of lore and knowledge in their minds. They can trap demons with complex magics of machines and numbers ... yet are typically drooling idiots in more mundane matters. Many derro savants seem selected for their very subnormal intellect, so long as they possess the unique mental storage and recall ability a handful of derro in each generation seem to possess.
Their cities echo with the screams of their tortured slaves, yet architecturally are as well constructed as any Drow or dwarven underground hold...and their knowledge of machines is second to none, though their machines are entirely demonic in nature and are usually geared to generating pain or twisted pleasures, and through such emotions demonic summonings.
From the Journals of Bannestir Corser, one-time slave in Kagerakmagar.
Overview/History-
Contrary to common belief the Derro are not related in any way to dwarves, rather they are of human descent. Their true history is known to few, even amongst themselves, but can be revealed here.
Before the cataclysmic 'Planet-Shift' C3500 PA, (about four thousand years ago) the Flaemerik ('People of the Fire') were nomadic hunter-gatherers wandering the grassy lowlands of what would one day become Lagnati. An innocuous barbarian people of little note, they were in danger of being wiped out by the hardships of the Ice Age which followed the Planet-Shift until, out of sheer desperation to escape the ice and snow, their chief of the time led them into caves in the foothills of the Kursh Massif mountains.
Finding a tunnel that led into the Underdark, the Flaemerik lived below the ground thereafter for several generations, rarely venturing up into the ice-locked wilderness the surface had become.
Sometime around the year 3200 PA however the glaciers began to retreat and the snow and ice to thaw in northern Ryad. The Chief of the Flaemerik of that time, Arbatan 'True Flame', then decided that it had become safe to return to the warming lands of the surface and for his people to live under the sacred sun once again.
However Arbatan was a hard, ruthless man who wanted to see his people grow and increase in power in future generations and he had a dark plan he felt would ensure a better chance this would happen. When the Flaemerik made the long trek 'up' they left behind those members of their tribe Arbatan pointed out as 'weak-in-the-blood'; the insane, the sick, the lame, perverts and criminals. These genetic undesirables were tricked into a deep tunnel and sealed within by Arbatan's shamans and then left there while their tribe deserted them and returned to the sunlit surface.
Amongst these unfortunates was Seramakus 'The Blind', an evil, clever man who had learnt many secrets by dabbling in demonism and trade with 'the Black Lands'. Uniting the dregs of the Flaemerik tribe under him he named them the Abandonderro (F- 'Abandoned Ones'), a name that soon became shortened to simply 'derro'. This motley rag-tag tribe was unified by two driving factors; hatred of those who had deserted and trapped them below the earth and a desire to avenge themselves upon their treacherous kinsmen.
Seramakus taught his followers the secrets of the Black Lodge, while ruling them for several decades, and set out the basic modes of derro society that more or less continue to this day, nearly three thousand five hundred years later.
The derro learnt to summon demons from the Black Lodge, tempting them with those things the dark-faeries desire the most, that is; fear, pain, lust, and sacrifices. Aided by their demonic allies, the derro prospered and expanded in numbers, but inbreeding and their dubious genetic base, mixed with the demonic powers surrounding them and debased them physically.
Within a thousand years or so of being abandoned the derro were as short as dwarves, with pallid blue-white skin, sickly seeming pale-yellow or tan hair and staringly pupil-less bug-eyes. Venturing above ground only by night, usually to kidnap humans, who were carried back into the derro realms of the Underdark where they are subjected to the most hideous tortures, slavery and eventual sacrifice to the demonic servants and allies of the derro.
Although the derro do have a capital, that is the black basalt walled city of Seramakol in the Third Deep, the various disparate 'Derro Nations' are spread across the Third, Second and First Deeps below the Kursh Massif and as far north as areas below the Median Sea.
Derro Language - 'Abando' -
Derro speak and write in a language they call abando, this is derived from the same root-base as Flaemish, due to the joint ancestry of the derro and the Flaems. Though abando also includes words from many different languages, derro savants seeming to draw words into it from listening to slaves, demons, faeries and other Underdark races. This strange polyglot menage of a language can thus sound harsh at times and melodious at others.
What the Derro say of themselves;
'We of the Brethren still record and preserve the paths of our past, that justice may eventually be meted out to those who have wronged us, pain shall pay back our long injuries, agony shall wash away the indignities we have suffered and none of our ancient foes shall see the 'evil light' again come the day of resolution.
By the diagram, binding and supplication I record herein the Tale of the Beginning...taught to me in the Panos Archada (Der- Citadel of Fallen Words) and come from Seramakus himself through all our generations.
Of old we were kin with the People of the Flame, we moved under the evil light, worshipped the burning death and were not imbued with the gifts of clarity, speed, and unity we now know thanks to the Blind One's teachings.
The Powers Outside were unknown or feared by our flame worshipping forebears and perhaps offended by the lack of knowledge in these ill-led people the Powers Outside (or mayhap some other unknown power) brought the evil light down into the land in two places. Great pillars of fire could be seen far away, terrible winds ripped up forests, the evil light went out for a time and a great freezing began.
The People of the Flame hid from the freezing below the mountains for many generations until the coming of Arbatan 'The Evil One'. Shunning the life of peace his people enjoyed in the warm-dark he led them back to the lands of the evil light and treacherously left our ancestors trapped in a deep, dark place.
Only Seramakus 'the Blind' saved our ancestors and led them to Agrathisz, where he laid down the laws of our people and the foundations of Seramakol, the very stones of which whisper tales of his power and wisdom.
The Derro Foundation Story - From adando script engravings in the Closed Lakes.
Derro philosophies/world view-
'Harkrass' (Der- Cause of Retribution) do we live and abide by. Harkrass is our religion and creed. None who have wronged us will go unpunished, none who harm us shall live er' after in peace.
From abando script engravings in the Closed Lakes.
As can be deduced from the above fragment of engravings the derro follow a religion-philosophy based around a deep sense of ancient injustice against them and perhaps deeper paranoid fears that such crimes suffered by their ancient forebears constantly threaten them too. They see no contradiction in basing their society around a philosophy of vengeance and 'justice', whilst kidnapping, brutalising, torturing and murdering thousands of surface dwellers, because they believe all surface dwelling humans are 'descendants of Arbatan' and thus are being punished for the actions of those ancient Flaemerik barbarians of Ryad's distant post-cataclysmic past.
Derro savants do not encourage the worship of deities, though they do pay appeasement to many of the more powerful demon-lords of the Black-Lodge, but rather encourage the veneration of Seramakus and certain other important savants as well as blind obedience in normal derro towards their savant. Derro savants regularly recount tales stretching back down all the centuries of derro history, great word-of-mouth epics of derro heroes struggling against 'unjust' persecution and ultimately overcoming their struggles. It is but one more strange thing about this degenerate race that normal derro seem to have terribly short memories and forget much about their race's lore and history and thus rely upon the encyclopaedic memories of their savants. Captives who have escaped derro slavery often recount seeing savants tell the same stories week after week and none of the derro audience seemed to recall ever having heard the tales before.
Derro hate all humans instinctively, they also tend to hate any surface dwellers come to that, but with perhaps less pathological venom. They are known to respect and trade with the Drow, but keep away from most other races and stay within their own regions of the Underdark, which shift here and there over the centuries, but are known collectively as the Derro Nations.
Derro Sadism-
Many who have suffered the horror of slavery in the Derro Nations recount being unable to comprehend why they were tortured so sadistically, unceasingly, and mercilessly. They could not understand what the derro could gain from so much cruelty. Some just assumed the derro were monsters without any purpose save the pursuit of making others suffer ... they are wrong. The derro deliberately seek to foster intense feelings of pain, suffering, and most of all fear in their slaves so as to make the Derro nations a veritable beacon for the attraction of demons.
'Derro Crystal'-
Also known as 'Black-Crystal' or 'Black-Quartz', this hard grey-black crystal is found in most derro settlements and is regarded with caution by Underdark explorers and folk of other races. Some call it 'Whisper-Stone' as it seems to conduct sound in bizarre ways.
It is apparently in some way an almost 'living' storage material to the derro (it is said if it is scratched it 'heals' over time) and is a conductor and amplifier of demonic magic and energy, said to perhaps be the result of a demon actually having merged his form at some distant time with a great crystal. Whisper-stone is known to be mined from the sides of the great caverns of Agrathisz (Der- The Lightless Gardens) where it actually 'grows' raw on the rock faces.
Derro savants know spells which can call recorded sounds from black-crystal, or can send sounds along shafts lined with it. Thus derro settlements are often linked by very long, slender shafts clad with black-crystal, which are used to keep constant contact between the 'Nations. Such crystal-shafts are typically four sided 3' by 3' tunnels carved with numerological and arcane formulae that sometimes ripple and change as sounds and magics travel along them. Some slaves have escaped along such shafts from derro settlements and report that whispering voices seem to pass along them and at times the crystal itself seems to watch and become 'aware'.
Most derro savants carry polished palm-sized levitating balls of black-crystal which they use to record spoken messages and which can fly at up to ninety miles per hour to a named other person and play back the message to it's recipient. Larger floating globes of black-crystal (known as savant-spheres) are often centrally located in derro settlements, in 'Sphere-Shrines' maintained by the savants, which are linked to the Panos Archada and Kordabaz (see below) at all times, as well as possessing other more secret powers.
Kordabaz, (Der- The Time Demon)-
Like all advanced Underdark civilisations the derro long grappled with ways of keeping track of the passage of time without having access to the movements of the celestial bodies. For many generations the derro tried fallible and rather basic methods, before the great savant Lopatragus 'Clubfoot' bound the demon-lord Kordabaz into a great machine wrought of adamantite and black-crystal. Kordabaz was a Black-Lodge greater demon, said to be a master of moving through and controlling the flows of time and was prior to his capture by Lopatragus one of the most feared of all the demon-lords.
In the centuries since Kordabaz's spirit has been firmly bound to the service of the Derro Nations, located at the centre of Seramakol in the great spherical revolving 'clock-machine' devised by Lopatragus the demon keeps track of the passage of time and his whispered counting is projected by the black-crystal to other connected black-crystal savant-spheres across the 'Nations. The derro savants monitor Kordabaz's calculations and formulate them into a highly complex, yet supremely accurate, calendar called 'The Revolutions of Kordabaz'.
Derro Savants-
Calling themselves the Seramak'usili (Der- The Brethren of Seramakus), the Fraternity of Savants, or simply the Brethren, savants are in effect the 'scholar-kings' of the derro. Every derro settlement is 'guided', or, more accurately, ruled by a savant and their word is law. Though the Brethren select, train and deploy the savants out across the 'Nations, once a savant is ensconced amongst 'his' charges he is totally in command of them until he either dies, steps down by retiring to Seramakol, or is replaced by the Brethren.
Wandering savants travel the Derro Nations and carry out testing upon all derro children within their first couple of years of life, if the child being tested is found to be one of the rare few 'savant-derro', i.e. one of those derro with the memory-recall skills of the savants, then he or she will be taken to Seramakol and the Panos Archada (Der- The Citadel of Fallen Words), the Great Fortress-School of the Seramak'usili. There for the next twenty to thirty years the child is trained to hone their memory, magical abilities, mechanical skills, and is taught the epic largely verbal history and stories of the derro. Once fully trained the new savant is dispatched to replace an ageing savant out 'amongst the people'. One savant will typically rule a village, a 'cabal' of five savants will govern a town, and a 'cabal-council' of between twenty and two hundred savants govern the rarer large derro towns and cities.
Known locations in the Derro Nations-
Agrathisz (Der- The Lightless Gardens) - The great caverns in the Third Deep, below the Shining Peninsula, where the black-crystal grows and is mined, and at the centre of which lies the seat of the Seramak'usili; the great derro city of Seramakol (Der- Place of Seramakus). Agrathisz is located over deep volcanic shafts that heat it to a pleasant constant warmth, which seems to help the growth of fungi-fields and mulch farms maintained here by the derro. Great grazing herds of rothé are also to be seen here, which the derro purchase from the Skarmians (Der- Hard Wanderers), nomadic human Underdark dwellers who raise and drive great herds of deep-cattle. Strangely the derro have no animosity towards Skarmians and some speculate that they may be related distantly to them.
Seramakol (Der- Place of Seramakus) -
Kagerakmagar (Der- The Rusting Fields) -
Norshek (Der- Scourging Walled) -
Hedrakar (Der- The Wasting Shafts) -
Torsherakol (Der- Place of the Petitioning) -
Sadrinkzar (Der- The Thin Borders) -
Hofindreer (Der- Windgloom) -
Known derro ruins -
Joppargafal (Der- Grinding Waters) -
Hoykuyol (Der- The Transfixed Place) -
Saern and Rocheim, do you have a webpage of some kind for your stuff? I'd like to look it over at my leisure.Fraid not (speaking for myself).
For the love of god why?!??! This stuff is too good to keep to yourself- share it with the world on blogger.com or something!
I'm afraid I don't have any sort of website, either. While I normally wouldn't mind writing it up and posting here on Paizo, my notes are a bit too scattered and my schedule this summer a bit too hectic to compile that kind of info in depth. Sorry!
A guiding principle for me has been to try to find unity in the D&D game. When I look at races, monsters, deities, etc., I usually wonder "Where is this supposed to fit exactly, and how does it relate to the rest of the game's lore?" Often, there is no answer. It's just "there" because the designer thought it would be cool. Maybe, but that annoys the hell out of me. I know that the real world it huge and diverse and has countless facets great and small that have nothing to do with any other given facet, but that's not what I want in a game world. I want something that has a sense of cohesion to it. Therefore, I try to come up with one unified, "organic" story for the creation of the gods, the planes, the physical world, the races, and the reason that world and those races are the way they are. Sometimes that means limiting what actually exists/can be found in my homebrew; it doesn't follow the early stated philosophy of Eberron ("If it exists anywhere in D&D, you can find it somewhere in here!"). I'm okay with that. My lore is necessarily open enough that I can always find a little niche to expand or detail more if I should need to, and therefore allow my homebrew to grow and develop in complexity as far as I could ever want.
Of course, the players never understand or care about even half of what I come up with, but I'm okay with that, too. I do it for myself and that's all that matters.
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I'm afraid I don't have any sort of website, either. While I normally wouldn't mind writing it up and posting here on Paizo, my notes are a bit too scattered and my schedule this summer a bit too hectic to compile that kind of info in depth. Sorry!
A guiding principle for me has been to try to find unity in the D&D game. When I look at races, monsters, deities, etc., I usually wonder "Where is this supposed to fit exactly, and how does it relate to the rest of the game's lore?" Often, there is no answer. It's just "there" because the designer thought it would be cool. Maybe, but that annoys the hell out of me. I know that the real world it huge and diverse and has countless facets great and small that have nothing to do with any other given facet, but that's not what I want in a game world. I want something that has a sense of cohesion to it. Therefore, I try to come up with one unified, "organic" story for the creation of the gods, the planes, the physical world, the races, and the reason that world and those races are the way they are. Sometimes that means limiting what actually exists/can be found in my homebrew; it doesn't follow the early stated philosophy of Eberron ("If it exists anywhere in D&D, you can find it somewhere in here!"). I'm okay with that. My lore is necessarily open enough that I can always find a little niche to expand or detail more if I should need to, and therefore allow my homebrew to grow and develop in complexity as far as I could ever want.
Of course, the players never understand or care about even half of what I come up with, but I'm okay with that, too. I do it for myself and that's all that matters.
I have to agree that I like there to be a reason for why something is there, even if it boils down to "The elder god Whosit said he wanted ostriches to have wings, even though he doesn't want them to actually fly."
As a related note: I was working on the deities when I noticed I've never seen any mention of male pixies in D&D(at least, not in any of the source books I've read). Therefore, the Fey god's reason for making all Pixies female, and yet still giving them breasts is because "it makes him laugh when they jiggle".
pervy god, that one is
I second the call for you to put your stuff online somewhere.