I'm redoing races in my homebrew campaign setting. I feel I want something a bit different than what I have.
Here is an idea I want to use: racial groupings. Basically, I have a lot of races that I want for this campaign setting, but a lot of them are very similar to each other. So, instead of having, say, 7 Planetouched races and 6 human races I have the Human and Planetouched racial groups. The races in these groups share the same stats, with maybe slight differentiations between individual races. I don't use mechanically distinct subraces. An Elf who lives in the arctic is an Elf who happens to live in a cold environment, NOT a member of an Arctic Elf subrace.
The races are:
Human
-Hominin (Your classic Human)
-Elf
-Dwarf
-Orc
-Wildkin (Bestiary 3 Catfolk, plus Dogfolk)
-Hybrid (Crossbreeds)
Planetouched
-Aasimar
-Tiefling
-Oread
-Ignan
-Undine
-Sylph
-Fetchling
There are also two races that lack racial groups:
Merlin (Merfolk, allowed by GM approval only and usually only for Merlin-only campaigns)
Changeling (Children kidnapped by Fey, not Golarion style Changelings)
I also split things into major and minor races. A major race has a large populations over multiple regions, is dominant in at least one civilization, and does not rely on crossbreeding for its existence. Hominin, Elves, Dwarves, Wildkin, and Merlin are major, Planetouched, Hybrids, and Orcs are minor (Orcs lack large enough populations to be major, despite being dominant over their own civilizations and multiregional).
What I need is one set of racial features for Humans, one for Planetouched, one for Changelings, and one for Merlin. I do not want situational bonuses, and I do not use racial ability score modifiers. The balance point is 10 points on the Advanced Race Guide playtest with ability scores and languages being ignored.
Any ideas? I want races within racial groups to be highly similar, but I want Humans, Planetouched, and Changelings to differ from each other.