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I was inspired by the Kokiri in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. They're a race of children who live in the forests, watched over by a magical tree, who never grow old. I thought it would make a fantastic option for a homebrew race option for small-sized creatures (Halflings and Gnomes get old after a while), but I wasn't sure what else I'd want to keep about them besides "eternally young" and "lives in the mysterious forests."
What sort of traits, abilities, and cultural elements might make a race like this both interesting and believable in a fantasy world?
You could make them natural thieves, with a wide-eyed sense of wonder about the world and a loose sense of what "personal property" is...?
Oh, and they're (somehow) beloved by everyone, even though they keep stealing everything.
That sounds like a thinly spray painted Kender.
Do you see them as adults-in-young-bodies or as mentally undeveloped throughout their life cycle?
The latter could be interesting.
You could halve their overland travel speed because they're always poking into things and in turn give them a bonus to finding hidden items (not unlike elven secret-door sense).
You could look at - with great care - doing something unique regarding multiclassing. Perhaps their caster level is always equal to the BAB (if higher). Perhaps their sneak attack dice or channel energy dice progress if they take other classes. This would require a lot of work, but it's an idea.
Basically anything that makes short-attention-span-theatre fun.
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I created a race of Innocent I named Shoray. Little Sheep-like people that were based around teamwork. They disturb the players who are used to my hardboiled campaign settings.
I'm going to post some stuff in another thread about them. But, their childish mindset and musical harmony made them almost disneylike.
On a side note I am playing one recently, and when he ran into a member of the party that had been feeble minded, this 5'2 fluffy sheep sorcerer failed his spellcraft, didn't realize it was a feeble mind, and tried to "hug the stupids away"
The way I reconciled their constant childishness, with their place in the world, was to make their subconscious/Id childlike in nature, while they are just as varied as any other race in the conscious mind.
So an actual Lawful evil necromancer they encountered, was a shoray, and in the middle of the "I'mma destroy the village for throwing stones at me." speech he was distracted by the scent of candy that one player had on him.
It made it hilarious when they actually bribed him with chocolate, then talked him down from destroying the village with skeletons. The conversation included him telling them he didn't raze zombies because he "thought they were icky"
After they'd been mauled and fought their way trough various skeletal undead, and were low on spells and health.
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That sounds like a thinly spray painted Kender.
Selunatic is on to me...
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Do you see them as adults-in-young-bodies or as mentally undeveloped throughout their life cycle?
The latter could be interesting.
The second one. Adults-in-young-bodies just makes Halflings again - we already have those.
I created a race of Innocent I named Shoray. Little Sheep-like people that were based around teamwork. They disturb the players who are used to my hardboiled campaign settings.
I'm going to post some stuff in another thread about them. But, their childish mindset and musical harmony made them almost disneylike.On a side note I am playing one recently, and when he ran into a member of the party that had been feeble minded, this 5'2 fluffy sheep sorcerer failed his spellcraft, didn't realize it was a feeble mind, and tried to "hug the stupids away"
The way I reconciled their constant childishness, with their place in the world, was to make their subconscious/Id childlike in nature, while they are just as varied as any other race in the conscious mind.
So an actual Lawful evil necromancer they encountered, was a shoray, and in the middle of the "I'mma destroy the village for throwing stones at me." speech he was distracted by the scent of candy that one player had on him.
It made it hilarious when they actually bribed him with chocolate, then talked him down from destroying the village with skeletons. The conversation included him telling them he didn't raze zombies because he "thought they were icky"
After they'd been mauled and fought their way trough various skeletal undead, and were low on spells and health.
This. A thousand times this. This is wonderful. I want to hear more about the Shoray!!
You could create a demiplane where they live out of a pirate ship protected by a giant sentient crocodile, and they never age. The old pirate captain (whose ship they live in) is their nemesis.
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guess something that could set them apart, that they are actual fey, not many playable fey creatures and they don't have the alien mind of most feys. I mean beside living in an idyllic community of children.
Something if you want to keep the ageless part in, you could simply make them immune to any effects that make them older, there are a couple of spells like that in pathfinder.
You could also add that an eternal child eventually reach a strange transformation stage for a reason or another: Skull children, little plant people (leshy would do) or even Monkeys (Twilight princess reference).
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guess something that could set them apart, that they are actual fey, not many playable fey creatures and they don't have the alien mind of most feys. I mean beside living in an idyllic community of children.
Something if you want to keep the ageless part in, you could simply make them immune to any effects that make them older, there are a couple of spells like that in pathfinder.
You could also add that an eternal child eventually reach a strange transformation stage for a reason or another: Skull children, little plant people (leshy would do) or even Monkeys (Twilight princess reference).
That's an interesting concept... but considering they'll be a player race, what'll happen when a player "evolves" to the next step? I'll have to think about that...