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Am I the only one who hates how humanocentric Golarion is? Out of the entirety of the Inner Sea region, only 3 areas are predominantly non-human, Belkzen, Kyonin, and the Five Kings Mountains (4 if you count the worldwound). Not only are there only a handful of non-human regions, but they barely get ANY attention. Why have all these interesting and cool races if you're going to shove them into the corner and let the boring old humans have the spotlight all the time?
(and I'm sure this will get a lot of responses along the lines of 'humans are the most relatable' and all that jazz, but it won't change my line of thinking)
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An easy fix for that sort of thing is to completely replace human ethnicities with 'demi-human' races.
Every Ulfen is exactly the same mead-swilling linnorm-killing longboat-raiding viking pastiche that they ever were, but they are all Dwarves.
Every Shoanti is every proud tattooed might-makes-right noble-savage-in-touch-with-nature kinda-Klingon stereotype is was before, but they are, each and every one of them, Half-Orcs.
The Varisian 'gypsies' started out as Halflings, and are still majority Halfling, but being as much 'lifestyle choice' as ethnic culture, they include humans, elves, half-elves and gnomes, in some caravans, and it's entirely possible to run into a 'Varisian' caravan that doesn't have a single Halfling (the original 'Varisians').
Every Mwangi could be an elf, if the idea of replacing the settings African analogues with non-humans doesn't run the risk of stirring controversy at your gaming table. (If you're group is fine with replacing 'Gypsies' with Halflings and 'Norsemen' with Dwarves, it shouldn't be any more or less racially-charged, but you know your gaming group better than I.)
Replacing half of the Osirion Garundi with animal-headed tieflings (varying cat, dog, hawk, bull, snake, etc. headed), descended from Rakshasa blood, could be funky, as well, and explain all the animal headed statues they keep digging up...
That's the 'quick fix.' Just assume that all members of human ethnicity X are nonhuman race Y, and run with it.
The 'feel' of the Land of the Linnorm Kings not only doesn't radically change if every Ulfen is a Dwarf, it actually feels even *more* 'on-theme,' IMO!
Changing Varisians to (mostly) Halflings makes a dent in the human populations of Varisian-dominant countries as well, with Halflings suddenly being a much larger percentage of the Varisian and Ustalavan populations.
And if Taldor was once a heavily elf-influenced land, it's possible that the ruling families of Taldor, many centuries later, when elves are a rare sight indeed, are Half-Elves. The long-lived half-elven nobility are the source of much of the creative stagnation that Taldor suffers from, as traditions take many times longer to fade away, when the wealthy patrons of the arts can live twice as long as their human peers in other nations, whose elven blood has grown so thin that they are 'merely' human. Taldan families might jealously hoard their thinning elven blood, arranging marriages between each other and in-breeding themselves into ever increasing degrees of eccentricity. True elves would be regarded with exagerrated politeness, and ushered away as soon as possible, as nobody wants to be reminded that they are 'half' anything (although someone who fears that their 'noble' bloodline has thinned too much may seek a full-blooded elven paramour to 'strengthen' their blood, all under cover of great secrecy, as to take an elven lover is to admit to all and sundry that one's own blood is not as noble as one claims... Scandalous, really.).
Yet another sign of the dire state of affairs in rabble-controlled Andoran is how they have overthrown the natural rulership of those with 'noble' (i.e. elven) blood and allowed the bloodless hoi-polloi to have their unworthy say in affairs of state that are far beyond their comprehension. Filthy peasants, putting on airs! If they were meant to be heard, they'd have points on their ears!
The one I was thinking of changing in my version of Golarion was Alkenstar. If the dwarves of Dongunn Hold invented firearms, where the hell did all these humans come from?!
And for the other ideas, thanks! I might take it into consideration. But it does still bug me that almost all of the material Paizo pumps out, though still awesome, is mainly geared towards humans. That is one of the reasons I'm looking forward to the Advanced Race Guide, that is, unless everyone gets a few pages but humans get double.
EDIT: My idea for Alkenstar (which I realized I forgot to explain) was basing them off of Dark Iron Dwarves from warcraft. After spending centuries in the magic-tainted Mana Wastes the dwarves of Dongunn Hold had become warped and changed, their eyes glowing red with magical energy and their skin becoming as ashen and grey as the surrounding landscape. They would be entirely focused on engineering, and would have invented marvellous that bordered on the magical (i.e. giant subterranean drilling vehicles, primitive 'gyrocopter', and other such technological wizardry). Of course, unlike the dark iron dwarves, they would not be evil.
I'm not asking for 'Star Wars Cantina' sort of stuff, just not 'Humans are the be all and the end all! Nothing of importance involves anything but humans! HUMANS ARE GOD! BWAAAAH!!!!'
In my opinion, you're in a fantasy world! Why be something you can be in real life when you can be something fantastical. I play RPGs to escape from reality, not just dive in further.
For example, Sargava. There are tons of adventure ideas about the tension between chelish colonists and mwangi natives, but I don't want to play an RPG that is essentially colonial africa with crossbows instead of muskets. I want to play adventure with dwarf/orc wars or tension between giants and elves, stuff like that.
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In my opinion, you're in a fantasy world! Why be something you can be in real life when you can be something fantastical. I play RPGs to escape from reality, not just dive in further.
For example, Sargava. There are tons of adventure ideas about the tension between chelish colonists and mwangi natives, but I don't want to play an RPG that is essentially colonial africa with crossbows instead of muskets. I want to play adventure with dwarf/orc wars or tension between giants and elves, stuff like that.
There are dozens of settings s that cater to your expectations. Golarion is one that's for those who enjoy themes that are inspired by history and myth of our civilization. Orcs vs. dwarves was done to death thousand times, white colonists vs black natives is something you don't see often in fantasy worlds.
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I agree wholeheartedly... I started writing up a adventure based a few Decades in the future... after The pallid princess' priestesses refined blood veil to be more resistant and deadly to only humans. they then unleashed it... .killing off all humans, and creating a void in the ladder of power of the world
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Now, to be completely fair, up until a century ago, Golarion was heading in the direction of a golden age of humanity, considering that the God of Humans was at the height of his power and predicted to return and lead them to their mightiest golden age. Now that the God of man is no longer alive, the other races ought to catch up in importance...or rather, they would, if humans didn't have the advantage of breeding like rabbits on viagra in comparison. Biologically speaking, it makes sense.
I DO dislike how common and more important humans are, but background-wise, it makes perfect sense. The beautiful thing is, however, that Aroden's death allows a GM to make a plot-line that changes this, for instance, the whole Serpentfolk re-appearance, or the elves finally deciding that mankind isn't worth cooperating with, so they go to war, etc. If you don't like Golarion's human-centricity, its current state of affairs is ripe for a reversal.
Also, to be fair, only the Inner Sea Region is so totally human-centric. Tian Xia has a much better distribution of races, and the Darklands have pretty much zero humans (in fact, humans can technicly be considered the only race not to have a legitimate "dark version" other than the dark creepers and what not, so there's something), Casmarron is implied to be more racially diverse, as is southern Garund.
And if you look, a good number of significant NPCs in adventure paths and other paraphenilia aren't human, and the most memorable of these definitely aren't.
As far as the "all elves (dwarves, gnomes, etc.) are the same" canard goes, you should probably look at the Pathfinder Companion line: specifically, Elves of Golarion, Dwarves of Golarion, etc. Just for elves, there are issues between the forlorn elves and the returned elves (not to mention the drow).
If you think of a non-human as a stereotype, that's not necessarily a setting problem.
An easy fix for that sort of thing is to completely replace human ethnicities with 'demi-human' races.
Every Ulfen is exactly the same mead-swilling linnorm-killing longboat-raiding viking pastiche that they ever were, but they are all Dwarves.
Every Shoanti is every proud tattooed might-makes-right noble-savage-in-touch-with-nature kinda-Klingon stereotype is was before, but they are, each and every one of them, Half-Orcs.
The Varisian 'gypsies' started out as Halflings, and are still majority Halfling, but being as much 'lifestyle choice' as ethnic culture, they include humans, elves, half-elves and gnomes, in some caravans, and it's entirely possible to run into a 'Varisian' caravan that doesn't have a single Halfling (the original 'Varisians').
Every Mwangi could be an elf, if the idea of replacing the settings African analogues with non-humans doesn't run the risk of stirring controversy at your gaming table. (If you're group is fine with replacing 'Gypsies' with Halflings and 'Norsemen' with Dwarves, it shouldn't be any more or less racially-charged, but you know your gaming group better than I.)
Replacing half of the Osirion Garundi with animal-headed tieflings (varying cat, dog, hawk, bull, snake, etc. headed), descended from Rakshasa blood, could be funky, as well, and explain all the animal headed statues they keep digging up...
That's the 'quick fix.' Just assume that all members of human ethnicity X are nonhuman race Y, and run with it.
The 'feel' of the Land of the Linnorm Kings not only doesn't radically change if every Ulfen is a Dwarf, it actually feels even *more* 'on-theme,' IMO!
Changing Varisians to (mostly) Halflings makes a dent in the human populations of Varisian-dominant countries as well, with Halflings suddenly being a much larger percentage of the Varisian and Ustalavan populations.
And if Taldor was once a heavily elf-influenced land, it's possible that the ruling families of Taldor, many centuries later, when elves are a rare sight indeed, are...
As usual, Set, your stuff is AWESOME!
Every Shoanti is every proud tattooed might-makes-right noble-savage-in-touch-with-nature kinda-Klingon stereotype is was before, but they are, each and every one of them, Half-Orcs.
That will only work if you reskin Half-orcs into a race of their own instead of a half-breed. Hybrids do not breed true. Two half-orcs mating could have a child that looks almost entirely human, and then a child who looks almost entirely orc, just due to random genetics.
You could make the Half-orcs 'High Orcs' for example, and consider the bestial, backwards traditional orcs a related race with some similarities. The more orcish traits that a half-orc can take could be signs of low-orc heritage in a high-orc family.
Well, judging from the response, I am in an extremely small minority. I shall admit defeat to the obviously more numerous human-lovers, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. I will simply grumble under my breath until the chance for my revenge presents itself, just like a true Duergar would. And this is extremely disheartening for my homebrew setting that I was writing (that perhaps I had the false hope I might get published).
I hope you are happy with yourselves, you have made the Duergar King cry. :(
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That will only work if you reskin Half-orcs into a race of their own instead of a half-breed. Hybrids do not breed true. Two half-orcs mating could have a child that looks almost entirely human, and then a child who looks almost entirely orc, just due to random genetics.
For whatever reason, this is not true in Golarion. Half-Orcs do indeed breed true.
Indeed, it even makes sense genetically if you assume that the racial traits are not only for precisely half/half mixes but almost any human/orc mix (which they'd pretty much need to be, barring being sterile, which they are apparently not).
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That will only work if you reskin Half-orcs into a race of their own instead of a half-breed. Hybrids do not breed true. Two half-orcs mating could have a child that looks almost entirely human, and then a child who looks almost entirely orc, just due to random genetics.For whatever reason, this is not true in Golarion. Half-Orcs do indeed breed true.
Same in the Scarred Lands, where there was a smallish country that was heavily settled by the half-orc shock-troopers of a former army, who had settled down and formed their own communities.
The ability of humans to crossbreed with orcs, elves, dragons, demons, devils, celestials, etc. pretty much cements the notion that fantasy genetics are not the same as real-world genetics.
Actually some hybrids can breed true, some can only breed true for a few generations before they can't anymore, while others can breed back into one of their parent species. It depends on the parents species.
I don't mind the prevalence of humans that much. I would start to mind if non-human races were considered so rare that townsfolk might go their entire lives without ever seeing an elf, dwarf, halfling, or gnome (unless the region has a good reason for it). At that point, being a nonhuman starts to have social repercussions.
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I don't mind the prevalence of humans that much. I would start to mind if non-human races were considered so rare that townsfolk might go their entire lives without ever seeing an elf, dwarf, halfling, or gnome (unless the region has a good reason for it). At that point, being a nonhuman starts to have social repercussions.
Yeah, human prevalence is at, what, 75% to 90% in human cities? It's a majority, but not one so great that non-humans are looked at askance (well, not unless they're really weird anyway).
I actually like Golarion's human-centric-ness. But that's because it allows the various nonhuman races to stand out as interesting by contrast. Dwarves and Elves turn heads when they show up, most places. It has a genuine old world feel to it in that regard, and I'm rather fond of it.
Well, judging from the response, I am in an extremely small minority. I shall admit defeat to the obviously more numerous human-lovers, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. I will simply grumble under my breath until the chance for my revenge presents itself, just like a true Duergar would. And this is extremely disheartening for my homebrew setting that I was writing (that perhaps I had the false hope I might get published).
I hope you are happy with yourselves, you have made the Duergar King cry. :(
Do not despair, for I am on your side in this!! :D
Am I the only one who hates how humanocentric Golarion is?Yes. Most of us realize that most of the other races are generally played by people as Humans with either long ears, warts, short and eternally drunk, etc.. etc.
If Golarion is a major problem, try out Talislanta. No elves there either.
Did you ignore all the posts that showed that Golarion's humanocentric era could be coming to its end as of Aroden's death? And did you also ignore the post where I said Kazarath isn't the only one hating (or at least disliking the humanocentric nature of most campaign worlds?
Hell, anything an elf/dwarf/gnome/jabberwock can do, humans just do better. While it is not said outright, it's certainly implied a lot. All outsiders and monsters want human-born babies, which is also another thing that gets on my nerves. Where are the halfing aasimars, dwarf tieflings and elf changelings?! Lastly, telling someone to go play something else over story elements that a good DM can change is a pile of bull feces.
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Where are the halfing aasimars, dwarf tieflings
Actually there is a halfling Tiefling in the blood of fiends player companion Which actually says you do get Tiefling from the other races but rules whys they all use the tiefling stats (Exception being tieflings from small characters who then get all the small size modifiers) I would assume it is the same with all the other race combinations you mentioned.
Actually I like that humans are currently vastly predominant on Golarion as it makes the "fantastic" races less mundane.
We all have a fairly good idea what to expect from the various shades of human societies represented by Andoran, Cheliax and Galt and all the others which makes adventuring/campaigning there easier.
Actually there is a halfling Tiefling in the blood of fiends player companion Which actually says you do get Tiefling from the other races but rules whys they all use the tiefling stats (Exception being tieflings from small characters who then get all the small size modifiers) I would assume it is the same with all the other race combinations you mentioned.
Where are the halfing aasimars, dwarf tieflings
That is okay now, but two years ago my pal didn't let me play an Elf Aasimar, and his reason was just because. Seeing this in retrospect, I realized I was going along in a game run by a tyrant. Thankfully he's changed his ways, but for some reason he insists that I buy the Blood of Fiends book or else he might not let me play my Daemon-spawn Tiefling Wizard. Make sense of that, if there is any. And Micman, personal preferences (both mine and yours) are okay, since opinions aren't fact and thus nobody's wrong or right. That's something people sometimes forget.
Am I the only one who hates how humanocentric Golarion is?
In some respects I feel you're correct, but the areas you've outlined fall more into the major powers/major players and are noteworthy due to their size and in some cases political cohesiveness. This is not to say that demi-humans etc. don't have small enclaves, decent sized communities or petty kingdoms sprinkled across the map.
I do think, however, that it reflects a certain amount of shortsightedness on the design side and that it's more a symptom of a larger issue, in that I don't know how much Golarion was designed as a cohesive, living breathing world, as opposed to a somewhat slapped together entity that's 'to be continued in our next product.' I don't begrudge Paizo for it (it's only a game, after all and fitting the whole kitchen sink in can get tough), but I think a more thorough approach at the outset would have yielded a world with a more organic feel.
I don't think there is much of an issue here. The inner sea is relative a small place compared to the whole of Glorion. There are whole contents that are not detailed where non human races would be more abundant and humans would be the minority. There could vast halfling empire in the far south. Maybe a whole different cultures of elves over the Arcadian Ocean in Arcadia. Who knows what races would be dominant on the southern polar region or on continent equivalent to Australia. As well what is East of Iobaria. There could be all kinds of stuff between the inner sea region and the dragon kingdoms.
I hope they do expand on the races in those yet to published regions. I'd be very interested to see what they do with Arcadia.
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I don't think there is much of an issue here. The inner sea is relative a small place compared to the whole of Glorion. There are whole contents that are not detailed where non human races would be more abundant and humans would be the minority.
Even in terms of those already detailed, Humans seem somewhat less dominant in the Dragon Empires than they are in the Inner Sea region (though they are still a definite majority).
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