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[D&D 4E] Let's Make a Race!
Alecthar
Alan ShoreWe're not territorial about that sort of thing, are we?Registered User regular
Alan ShoreWe're not territorial about that sort of thing, are we?Registered User regular
Alright Critical Failures, here's the deal:
I'm currently in the process of putting together a homebrew campaign setting. I'm trying to be fairly ambitious, so I've altered, reflavored, shuffled around and otherwise fiddled with races in order to get 16 I'm happy with. 1 for each possible combination of Ability Score bonuses, and of course the wild card Human race. I tried to streamline the races somewhat. That is, rather than having 16 different species, I went the route of 3E (or 3.5E or whatever, all I know is that the notion occurred to me largely because I'm replaying Icewind Dale II, so whichever edition that is) and made sub-races rather than try to come up with 16 more unique concepts.
Names in quotes are placeholders, currently I have 15 races:
Dwarf
Elf
Human
Drakkhar
Other Races
The final remaining race is Cha/Wis. Currently there is not a Cha/Wis race available at all, which sucks, because in all the cases above, there were a lot of racial feats/material available to cobble things together. Even in the case of races like Duergar (Con/Int does have a race, Githyanki, but it hasn't yet received a write up, so currently I've cobbled together a patois of racial abilities from Dwarves and other Int focused races) and Feral Dwarf (currently only Gnoll meets this combo, so I fiddled with the racial feats a bit to add some Dwarven flavor while maintaining the mechanical bits) there were still good starting points.
So what we've got here today, fellow forumers, is a kind of open Critical Failures race creation brainstorm/contest/collaboration/etc. I don't know if this will work, but my aim is to provide you guys with some basic background and guidelines, the possibility I'm currently exploring in my head for the race, and any background information on the setting you'd like to hear. I originally had some background prepared for this post, but it got huge, so I'm going to give you some basic stuff about the races (still kinda huge) and ask you guys to please ask questions about anything you might need to know. I can always go back and modify the OP or the following post to be more informative, I'm just wary of turning people off to the idea by making them believe they need to wade through my wall of text to get in on this.
It's still a bit wallish, but here's some background:
So you've got some background on the races, here's some basics to start thinking about creating our race:
This race is going to be Cha/Wis, so it will be well suited to playing some kinds of Paladins and Clerics. It will also probably be a fair choice for playing Sorcerers and Bards because of the Cha bonus, and Invokers and Avengers because of the Wis bonus. Keep this in mind while you think about things.
Generally speaking, the Deities of this campaign setting will be very hands-off. Making a Deva-like race (in the sense that part of the race's identity is a close relationship with the divine) is not particularly recommended. I realize this might be irritating, given that this race will be at least moderately well suited to all of the divine classes, but please bear with me on this.
I would prefer a Medium sized race. I feel like the Small races are mechanically disadvantaged, and generally I'm not a huge fan, but if your race is Small and awesome, go for it. I'm not interested in fooling with Tiny or Large races though.
I'm looking to create a complete race. This means we'll be look at how much movement this guy gets, defensive bonuses, perhaps cool little static abilities (+1 to attacks while bloodied for example), general height and weight ranges, as well as the racial power. We'll even be looking to make some racial feats, I'm hoping to get at least 7 of those put together. Naturally we've also got to create an origin/background for our race, as well as a general personality and physical look for it.
I'm hoping to come up with something fairly original. I realize that nothing in fantasy is really original at this stage, but I'm hoping to avoid another sub-race, and I'm hoping to avoid turning this into “let's add in an older D&D race that isn't in 4th yet!â€
With all that in mind, here's what I'm playing around with currently:
This is the kind of thing I have in mind for a first idea. A basic slice of the origin of the race (you can certainly have the race already in existence at the earliest stages of history, we can figure out a way to write that into the background) some basic attributes and possible motivations for the race, and some clues as to what you might base abilities and feats on for the race. Here it might be an power that references the accumulated experience one might have thanks to immortality. Or, it could be a power that references their desperation as they search for a method of preserving their small, dying race. I was thinking about an encounter power called “I've Seen it All Before†or something similar. It'd be an immediate interrupt, triggered on being hit (not damaged) by an enemy attack, and would force a reroll with an attack penalty, and would give the Non-Man a basic attack against the attacker if the reroll is a miss.
Keep in mind I'm in no way wedded to this idea. I'm really not all that fond of it, it's very derivative of a race from a different series of novels (who were called Non-Men) which is a mark against it in my mind.
So hit it! Start brainstorming, give me some ideas, ask me some questions about the background (I've got lots of material, and the more questions I get about the background, the more holes I can find to fill in). If you have suggestions for a good name for the Magister race, or for the name of the world as a whole, or for a good name for an awesomely powerful malignant daemon king who is slumbering at the heart of the world, please feel free to add those in. Please ask me questions, this is a long post and I'm really not sure everything was clear, but I did my best. Let's create a freaking race!
I'm currently in the process of putting together a homebrew campaign setting. I'm trying to be fairly ambitious, so I've altered, reflavored, shuffled around and otherwise fiddled with races in order to get 16 I'm happy with. 1 for each possible combination of Ability Score bonuses, and of course the wild card Human race. I tried to streamline the races somewhat. That is, rather than having 16 different species, I went the route of 3E (or 3.5E or whatever, all I know is that the notion occurred to me largely because I'm replaying Icewind Dale II, so whichever edition that is) and made sub-races rather than try to come up with 16 more unique concepts.
Names in quotes are placeholders, currently I have 15 races:
Dwarf
- Feral Dwarf [Con/Dex]
- Stoneheart Dwarf [Con/Wis]
- Duergar (Tainted) [Con/Int]
Elf
- High Elf [Dex/Int]
- Wood Elf [Dex/Wis]
- Dokk'Alfar (Tainted) [Dex/Cha]
Human
- Freeholder [Ability Choice/Free Feat]
- Dar'Shagai [Str/Dex]
- Blackblood (Tainted) [Int/Cha]
Drakkhar
- Ironscale Drakkhar [Str/Con]
- Daemonbreath Drakkhar [Str/Cha]
- Daemonsoul Drakkhar [Str/Int]
Other Races
- “Magisters†[Int/Wis]
- Half-Elf (Human/Wood Elf) [Cha/Con]
- Drakk'Alfar (Drakkhar/Wood Elf) [Str/Wis]
The final remaining race is Cha/Wis. Currently there is not a Cha/Wis race available at all, which sucks, because in all the cases above, there were a lot of racial feats/material available to cobble things together. Even in the case of races like Duergar (Con/Int does have a race, Githyanki, but it hasn't yet received a write up, so currently I've cobbled together a patois of racial abilities from Dwarves and other Int focused races) and Feral Dwarf (currently only Gnoll meets this combo, so I fiddled with the racial feats a bit to add some Dwarven flavor while maintaining the mechanical bits) there were still good starting points.
So what we've got here today, fellow forumers, is a kind of open Critical Failures race creation brainstorm/contest/collaboration/etc. I don't know if this will work, but my aim is to provide you guys with some basic background and guidelines, the possibility I'm currently exploring in my head for the race, and any background information on the setting you'd like to hear. I originally had some background prepared for this post, but it got huge, so I'm going to give you some basic stuff about the races (still kinda huge) and ask you guys to please ask questions about anything you might need to know. I can always go back and modify the OP or the following post to be more informative, I'm just wary of turning people off to the idea by making them believe they need to wade through my wall of text to get in on this.
It's still a bit wallish, but here's some background:
Basically the setting involves a world where the peoples of the world are threatened each night by the materialization of daemons, who travel from the world's core to attack anyone they can find undefended. If you think this sounds familiar, you're right, it's an element from the setting of a recent fantasy novel. The setting is not a direct translation of that book, though obviously certain elements are inspired by it. As in the novel, the mortal races who are endangered by the daemons are protected primarily by Wards, magical symbols and patterns that create various forms of protection (shields and the like) against demon attack.
As to the races: The Magister race created the Drakkhar to function as servants and soldiers against the daemons. The Drakkhar are not precisely slaves, and it isn't unusual to see them outside the Magister's floating mage city, but the majority of them are concentrated there. Aesthetically the Ironscale Drakkhar look much like Dragonborn from regular 4E. The Daemonbreath Drakkhar all possess black scales and red eyes, but are otherwise very similar in conformation to their Ironscale cousins. Daemonsoul Drakkar are similarly dragonoid in appearance, but possess physical characteristics based on a certain elemental essence within them. Think "Stormsoul Dragonborn".
High Elves live almost exclusively in the Feywild, though a few keep watch in the Seelie'Tor, the small forest that houses the only natural entrance to the Feywild in this world. Daemons tend to stay the hell away from the Seelie'Tor, because their master possesses no power in the Feywild. Wood Elves are a group of Elves that stayed in the world when the rest of the Elves (the High Elves became known as High Elves partly as a backhanded commentary on their isolation) left after the daemon's arrival. They remained behind to fight the daemons, primarily in defense of the forests that were once their home (the daemons tend to wreak havoc on wildlife, and the natural order in general), but they aren't isolationists like the High Elves, they just don't possess the manpower to defend their homes and offer meaningful help to other races.
The Dwarves have similarly retreated to their subterranean dwellings, which are protected from daemons by extremely powerful rune-wardings that only a handful of dwarves know how to make. None of the other races have any clue how to preform those wardings, or if they would even be effective outside the underground kingdoms. These underground Dwarves are known as the Stoneheart Dwarves. The Stonehearts will say that they are so named because of their strength, which is like unyielding stone before daemonkind. The surface dwelling races generally say it's because they have hearts like stone, worthless craggy things utterly devoid of empathy for the peoples they abandoned. Feral Dwarves are dwarves that possessed homes on the surface that they have refused to abandon. They are not feral or wild in any real sense, the name springs from the Stoneheart Dwarves, who call them feral as an insult, considering them anathema, and not true dwarves because of their desire to live on the surface. Like the Wood Elves they offer battle against the daemons in defense of their homelands. It's more common to see Feral Dwarves around, because they are more numerous than Wood Elves, and are more likely to have settled in areas occupied by humans.
A note on Feral Dwarves and Wood Elves: In the years before the return of daemons, the Elves and Dwarves essentially abandoned the knowledge of traditional warding. Elves considered them useless, because they could simple retreat to the Feywild, and Dwarves perfected their rune-wards. Thus, Feral Dwarves and Wood Elves possess only rudimentary wardings, mostly those given to them by Freeholders living in nearby hamlets. Generally speaking, Feral Dwarves and Wood Elves rely on an in-depth knowledge of the battleground (it is their home after all) their rudimentary warding, and their own racial advantages to fight the daemons. Despite these attributes, they tend to die young, and Feral Dwarves and Wood Elves are generally very fertile populations out of necessity.
Humans live primarily in Freeholds, large cities with warded walls. Humans can also be found scattered about the world in small communities (hamlets, villages) that are often dependent on Freeholds in some respects, though generally the relationship is more interdependent, with hamlets harvesting resources to offer to their “mother Freehold†with the city offering finished goods and necessities in return. Hamlets also possess various wards and protections placed on dwellings and storage buildings. These “Freeholders†are the most numerous of the races in the world, and are our jack of all trades race. The fortress city of Dar'Shagan in the southern desert is the home of the Dar'Shagai. Each night the Dar'Shagai open a warded gate in their city to allow daemons into the Great Labyrinth, a maze of traps, wards, and hiding places designed to allow the warriors of the Dar'Shagai to kill, incapacitate, or trap daemons, in anticipation of the sunrise (Daemons turn to dust in direct sunlight). The Dar'Shagai are the only group of humans who actively attempt to do battle with daemonkind.
The races labeled as “Tainted†in the list are darkened versions of their kin, transformed by the first arrival of daemonkind to the world. The Duergar are a race of dwarves. Their skin tones are grayish in tone and darker, they often have small horns or tusks. They possess a gift for knowing leylines, and are able to use them to traverse short distances in mere moments, mimicking teleportation. The Dokk'Alfar are a race of elves. They joined the Duergar in the deep caverns, deeper even than the kingdoms of the Dwarves. As a result, the Dokk'Alfar are an extremely pale race, and their eyes are well-adapted to the dim light of the deep caves. Many experience day blindness for a time in the surface world, unless their eyes are protected in some manner. All Dokk'Alfar possess jet-black hair, and jet-black birthmarks. Some of these birthmarks are simple, others are elaborate, covering much of their body in jagged tracery. All of the birthmarks feature, somewhere, a stylized skull with demon horns, the symbol of the daemon king. Dokk'Alfar are gifted with the ability to manipulate darkness itself, either to designate an enemy, or conceal themselves. Blackbloods are a race of humans, distinguished from normal humans by their eyes, which are completely black. Blackbloods draw their name from the fact that their blood runs black, rather than red. Blackbloods are gifted with the ability to turn their very blood into a weapon against their enemies. When used it battle, a splash of blood on a foe will call to the Blackblood, guiding his strike and inflicting additional wounds as it eats at the flesh of the enemy. Tainted races experience a certain call to serve the daemon king, and are generally inclined toward cruelty and evil, but just like the Drow in regular 4E, there are members of these races who serve good in exemplary fashion, in defiance of their heritage.
Magisters are a race of beings infused with magical knowledge. Originally they were themselves members of the 3 main mortal races (humans, elves, dwarves) back before there were any splits. However, a great ritual by the founders of their mage city created the network of magical leylines that the daemons now traverse, and also altered the citizens of the city, changing their physical forms (I haven't yet decided on exactly how) and giving them great power. Later events would reduce that power, but the descendants of the original Magisters are still a race well-suited for magic.
Finally, we come to Half-Elves and Drakk'Alfar. Half-Elves are regular old Half-Elves, though it's worth noting that, if they are the offspring of a Human/Elf pairing, the Elf is almost always a Wood Elf. Drakk'Alfar are the result of the experiments of some mad arcanist. It is unclear if the Magisters are responsible, or a rogue member of their race, or even a cabal of the tainted races, serving their daemonic master. If it was the Magisters, they certainly aren't telling. Drakk'Alfar possess attributes of both the Ironscale Drakkhar, and Wood Elves. They generally tend to be Elven in appearance, but are often more stocky or muscular, reach greater heights, and have a number of Drakkhar features, possibly including short talons instead of fingernails, patches (large or small) of scales instead of skin, bony ridges (often at the eyebrow or jawline) sharp, dangerous looking teeth, and reptilian eyes.
High Elves tend to regard these half-elven races with poorly concealed disgust, and even a little hatred. Wood Elves consider them to be members of the elven race, regardless of their half-blood heritage, and the half-elven races are at least as common among Wood Elves as they are in Human settlements, where they are also generally accepted without issue.
As to the races: The Magister race created the Drakkhar to function as servants and soldiers against the daemons. The Drakkhar are not precisely slaves, and it isn't unusual to see them outside the Magister's floating mage city, but the majority of them are concentrated there. Aesthetically the Ironscale Drakkhar look much like Dragonborn from regular 4E. The Daemonbreath Drakkhar all possess black scales and red eyes, but are otherwise very similar in conformation to their Ironscale cousins. Daemonsoul Drakkar are similarly dragonoid in appearance, but possess physical characteristics based on a certain elemental essence within them. Think "Stormsoul Dragonborn".
High Elves live almost exclusively in the Feywild, though a few keep watch in the Seelie'Tor, the small forest that houses the only natural entrance to the Feywild in this world. Daemons tend to stay the hell away from the Seelie'Tor, because their master possesses no power in the Feywild. Wood Elves are a group of Elves that stayed in the world when the rest of the Elves (the High Elves became known as High Elves partly as a backhanded commentary on their isolation) left after the daemon's arrival. They remained behind to fight the daemons, primarily in defense of the forests that were once their home (the daemons tend to wreak havoc on wildlife, and the natural order in general), but they aren't isolationists like the High Elves, they just don't possess the manpower to defend their homes and offer meaningful help to other races.
The Dwarves have similarly retreated to their subterranean dwellings, which are protected from daemons by extremely powerful rune-wardings that only a handful of dwarves know how to make. None of the other races have any clue how to preform those wardings, or if they would even be effective outside the underground kingdoms. These underground Dwarves are known as the Stoneheart Dwarves. The Stonehearts will say that they are so named because of their strength, which is like unyielding stone before daemonkind. The surface dwelling races generally say it's because they have hearts like stone, worthless craggy things utterly devoid of empathy for the peoples they abandoned. Feral Dwarves are dwarves that possessed homes on the surface that they have refused to abandon. They are not feral or wild in any real sense, the name springs from the Stoneheart Dwarves, who call them feral as an insult, considering them anathema, and not true dwarves because of their desire to live on the surface. Like the Wood Elves they offer battle against the daemons in defense of their homelands. It's more common to see Feral Dwarves around, because they are more numerous than Wood Elves, and are more likely to have settled in areas occupied by humans.
A note on Feral Dwarves and Wood Elves: In the years before the return of daemons, the Elves and Dwarves essentially abandoned the knowledge of traditional warding. Elves considered them useless, because they could simple retreat to the Feywild, and Dwarves perfected their rune-wards. Thus, Feral Dwarves and Wood Elves possess only rudimentary wardings, mostly those given to them by Freeholders living in nearby hamlets. Generally speaking, Feral Dwarves and Wood Elves rely on an in-depth knowledge of the battleground (it is their home after all) their rudimentary warding, and their own racial advantages to fight the daemons. Despite these attributes, they tend to die young, and Feral Dwarves and Wood Elves are generally very fertile populations out of necessity.
Humans live primarily in Freeholds, large cities with warded walls. Humans can also be found scattered about the world in small communities (hamlets, villages) that are often dependent on Freeholds in some respects, though generally the relationship is more interdependent, with hamlets harvesting resources to offer to their “mother Freehold†with the city offering finished goods and necessities in return. Hamlets also possess various wards and protections placed on dwellings and storage buildings. These “Freeholders†are the most numerous of the races in the world, and are our jack of all trades race. The fortress city of Dar'Shagan in the southern desert is the home of the Dar'Shagai. Each night the Dar'Shagai open a warded gate in their city to allow daemons into the Great Labyrinth, a maze of traps, wards, and hiding places designed to allow the warriors of the Dar'Shagai to kill, incapacitate, or trap daemons, in anticipation of the sunrise (Daemons turn to dust in direct sunlight). The Dar'Shagai are the only group of humans who actively attempt to do battle with daemonkind.
The races labeled as “Tainted†in the list are darkened versions of their kin, transformed by the first arrival of daemonkind to the world. The Duergar are a race of dwarves. Their skin tones are grayish in tone and darker, they often have small horns or tusks. They possess a gift for knowing leylines, and are able to use them to traverse short distances in mere moments, mimicking teleportation. The Dokk'Alfar are a race of elves. They joined the Duergar in the deep caverns, deeper even than the kingdoms of the Dwarves. As a result, the Dokk'Alfar are an extremely pale race, and their eyes are well-adapted to the dim light of the deep caves. Many experience day blindness for a time in the surface world, unless their eyes are protected in some manner. All Dokk'Alfar possess jet-black hair, and jet-black birthmarks. Some of these birthmarks are simple, others are elaborate, covering much of their body in jagged tracery. All of the birthmarks feature, somewhere, a stylized skull with demon horns, the symbol of the daemon king. Dokk'Alfar are gifted with the ability to manipulate darkness itself, either to designate an enemy, or conceal themselves. Blackbloods are a race of humans, distinguished from normal humans by their eyes, which are completely black. Blackbloods draw their name from the fact that their blood runs black, rather than red. Blackbloods are gifted with the ability to turn their very blood into a weapon against their enemies. When used it battle, a splash of blood on a foe will call to the Blackblood, guiding his strike and inflicting additional wounds as it eats at the flesh of the enemy. Tainted races experience a certain call to serve the daemon king, and are generally inclined toward cruelty and evil, but just like the Drow in regular 4E, there are members of these races who serve good in exemplary fashion, in defiance of their heritage.
Magisters are a race of beings infused with magical knowledge. Originally they were themselves members of the 3 main mortal races (humans, elves, dwarves) back before there were any splits. However, a great ritual by the founders of their mage city created the network of magical leylines that the daemons now traverse, and also altered the citizens of the city, changing their physical forms (I haven't yet decided on exactly how) and giving them great power. Later events would reduce that power, but the descendants of the original Magisters are still a race well-suited for magic.
Finally, we come to Half-Elves and Drakk'Alfar. Half-Elves are regular old Half-Elves, though it's worth noting that, if they are the offspring of a Human/Elf pairing, the Elf is almost always a Wood Elf. Drakk'Alfar are the result of the experiments of some mad arcanist. It is unclear if the Magisters are responsible, or a rogue member of their race, or even a cabal of the tainted races, serving their daemonic master. If it was the Magisters, they certainly aren't telling. Drakk'Alfar possess attributes of both the Ironscale Drakkhar, and Wood Elves. They generally tend to be Elven in appearance, but are often more stocky or muscular, reach greater heights, and have a number of Drakkhar features, possibly including short talons instead of fingernails, patches (large or small) of scales instead of skin, bony ridges (often at the eyebrow or jawline) sharp, dangerous looking teeth, and reptilian eyes.
High Elves tend to regard these half-elven races with poorly concealed disgust, and even a little hatred. Wood Elves consider them to be members of the elven race, regardless of their half-blood heritage, and the half-elven races are at least as common among Wood Elves as they are in Human settlements, where they are also generally accepted without issue.
So you've got some background on the races, here's some basics to start thinking about creating our race:
This race is going to be Cha/Wis, so it will be well suited to playing some kinds of Paladins and Clerics. It will also probably be a fair choice for playing Sorcerers and Bards because of the Cha bonus, and Invokers and Avengers because of the Wis bonus. Keep this in mind while you think about things.
Generally speaking, the Deities of this campaign setting will be very hands-off. Making a Deva-like race (in the sense that part of the race's identity is a close relationship with the divine) is not particularly recommended. I realize this might be irritating, given that this race will be at least moderately well suited to all of the divine classes, but please bear with me on this.
I would prefer a Medium sized race. I feel like the Small races are mechanically disadvantaged, and generally I'm not a huge fan, but if your race is Small and awesome, go for it. I'm not interested in fooling with Tiny or Large races though.
I'm looking to create a complete race. This means we'll be look at how much movement this guy gets, defensive bonuses, perhaps cool little static abilities (+1 to attacks while bloodied for example), general height and weight ranges, as well as the racial power. We'll even be looking to make some racial feats, I'm hoping to get at least 7 of those put together. Naturally we've also got to create an origin/background for our race, as well as a general personality and physical look for it.
I'm hoping to come up with something fairly original. I realize that nothing in fantasy is really original at this stage, but I'm hoping to avoid another sub-race, and I'm hoping to avoid turning this into “let's add in an older D&D race that isn't in 4th yet!â€
With all that in mind, here's what I'm playing around with currently:
Ruined Ones/Non-Men: The first effort at the creation of a new race by the Magisters, the Non-Men were created in an attempt to win the first Daemon War. When the Magisters discovered a small, out of the way town of about a thousand persons that the rest of the mortal races thought had been lost, they took advantage of the situation and used the population as guinea pigs. The ritual drastically altered the townspeople, giving them certain gifts, including immortality. However, the resultant race is also completely non-fertile. Dismayed by their failure to create a race that could multiply, the Magisters went back to the drawing board, abandoning their creations to whatever fate found them. Centuries later, no one knows how many Non-Men still walk the earth. They are slowing dwindling, but every Non-Man lives in desperation, hoping that somewhere, somehow, they will find the key to preserving their race.
This is the kind of thing I have in mind for a first idea. A basic slice of the origin of the race (you can certainly have the race already in existence at the earliest stages of history, we can figure out a way to write that into the background) some basic attributes and possible motivations for the race, and some clues as to what you might base abilities and feats on for the race. Here it might be an power that references the accumulated experience one might have thanks to immortality. Or, it could be a power that references their desperation as they search for a method of preserving their small, dying race. I was thinking about an encounter power called “I've Seen it All Before†or something similar. It'd be an immediate interrupt, triggered on being hit (not damaged) by an enemy attack, and would force a reroll with an attack penalty, and would give the Non-Man a basic attack against the attacker if the reroll is a miss.
Keep in mind I'm in no way wedded to this idea. I'm really not all that fond of it, it's very derivative of a race from a different series of novels (who were called Non-Men) which is a mark against it in my mind.
So hit it! Start brainstorming, give me some ideas, ask me some questions about the background (I've got lots of material, and the more questions I get about the background, the more holes I can find to fill in). If you have suggestions for a good name for the Magister race, or for the name of the world as a whole, or for a good name for an awesomely powerful malignant daemon king who is slumbering at the heart of the world, please feel free to add those in. Please ask me questions, this is a long post and I'm really not sure everything was clear, but I did my best. Let's create a freaking race!
Alecthar on
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Posts
Step 1: Brainstorming
Here's where we come up with ideas, and I offer background information that might aid you in fleshing those ideas out. It's entirely possible that this step will bleed into the next step...
Step 2: Discussion, Critique, and Modification
Where we take a look at our brainstormed ideas and discuss their various attributes, modify them based on our discussion and how they might fit into the setting, and take a slightly more critical look at their strengths and weaknesses.
Optional Step 3: The Culling
Depending on how many ideas we're tossing around, we might have to take a hard look at which one's we're going to pursue and which ones we aren't. This is the step where you put aside false modesty and tirelessly advocate for the race(s) you think would be a valuable contribution to the setting.
Step 4: Refinement
Where we take our chosen few and really develop them, fitting our race(s) into the setting more permanently, giving them a place in the overall narrative, and finalizing their various attributes as a people.
Step 5: Design
Where we take off our Storytelling caps and put on our Math Hats, and give our race the mechanical power to work in the game. So racial powers, feats, and other mechanical stuff.
Step 6: Balancing
Maybe we'll run a small PbP, or I'll ask people to take a swing at the race in their home games, maybe in a short delve. Basically we want to know if our powers and feats are working as intended.
Step 7: Finalization (only not really)
Here we'll iron out the last few issues and wrap our new race(s) in a nice pretty bow. Only we'll have to untie that bow a lot in the future when we find issues or want to add new things. Progress...
I say races because, the more I think about it, the more I think there might be at least a couple ideas I'm not willing to choose between. A race might not make it into the setting immediately, but as I expand the setting to encompass more of the world, there'll be room for additional races.
Battle.net
For the Cha/Wis race -- how about a nomadic culture of some sort? All of the other races seem to be wedded to the wardings in their physical homes. This new race could have developed small-scale personal wardings that they carry with them. These wardings might only be effective (or be more effective) in groups (so that the members of this race aren't completely immune to demonic attack, but must clump together for safety).
The personal wardings might, also, eat away at the magical tissue of the world. This would require a nomadic lifestyle, as if this group stayed in one place for too long the wardings would fail (eventually the skein of magic would heal itself, obviously). This 'eating away' could also be used to create a general low-level resentment towards this nomadic race ("The nomads will destroy our wardings and let the demons get us!") from the general, uncomprehending population. This resentment would make it sensible for the members of this race to be diplomatic and even unctuous in nature, as they need to be constantly smoothing feathers ruffled by their very presence.
More to come as I think.
I'll have to think for a while about this, but the first thing that springs to mind is that a bonus to Wis/Cha is perfect for most primal characters. So you could have the race be some direct reaction from nature or the spirit world to the demonic invasion. Something like the wilden that were previewed earlier in DDI, though those specifically don't have a Cha bonus thematically. Maybe something where a particular tribe of humans/elves/whatever made a pact with natural spirits and fused with them, creating something new?
You could also have a race that comes from an aquatic background, like slaads or kuo-tua (except unaligned instead of evil) that has generally left the surface world alone in the past, but now has risen up and invaded the surface world in order to protect their homes from demons, taking over large sections of coastal land.
Maybe a Shifter-esque race of Lion-men, Eagle-men or some other animal that is traditionally associated with leadership or mystical abilities. They are the peace-makers and organizers of the various tribes and races that dwell in their natural habitat, but they aren't particularly martially capable on their own.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Some notes about daemons:
Additionally, one of the features of wards is that they do not rely on leylines for their power. That's not to say I'm vetoing your idea, Grimmy, I actually think it's fantastic because having a race come up with homegrown wards that depend on the leylines (and deplete what little magic flows through them as they do so) was something that never occurred to me.
So yeah, I'm loving the idea. Currently the thoughts in my mind are figuring out a way to distinguish the nomad wards from normal portable warding (I feel like nomad wards might have additional properties based on their use of leyline power, perhaps even possessing a daemonic bent?).
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Wow, this is already pretty awesome.
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How do daemons and (settlement-style) wards usually interact? Are the daemons repelled by wards? Hurt by them? Is it simply that the daemons can't see warded things?
Perhaps the latter category could be the one that the nomads fit into.
It would be interesting to have a race that was basically members of other races that were just born different. So they still look like Dragonborn, Elves or whatever, but they all share a temperment, specific natural capabilities and a calling. And probably a physical marker like hair or eye color, or supernatural "tatoos" or something.
Kind of like the races of the world creating anti-bodies to fight off the Daemonic infection.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Ward stuff:
There are also wards against daemonfire (hurled by fire daemons, obviously) and other threats like that. These wards don't actually repel daemons, but they can neutralize the powers they wield.
I really like the idea of wards that draw on the leylines and hide the bearer(s) from sight.
The "natural response" race idea continues to develop nicely as well. Having a race defined by no real physical commonality, but rather by a purpose and drive is something that I think would be pretty cool.
Also, keep in mind that I'm not unwilling to alter some of the features of the setting to make things work. As we I go along, and as we create this race, it may fit the races and setting better if I make wards a bit more self-protecting or the like. Things are still in flux.
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Was it really necessary to come in here and pee on my parade? Maybe this will only be an exercise in fluff/world creation. Either way, I think it'll be pretty cool.
Besides, the first 15 races were fairly simple, just a bit of short fiction and some renaming/reflavoring of some things and they work quite well.
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No peeing involved! The answer to the question could easily be 'yes' and if so, carry on. I was just commenting that you might be able to save yourself some work was all.
Certainly nothing on the order of even... ahem... Gub. *A single tear rolls down his face.*
Anyway.
The 'natural response' race idea works. Allow people to choose the physicality of any of the existing races (without any of the benefits) and instead play as a ... whatever they're going to be called (Nomads). When it's discovered that these young'uns possess the Nomadic traits, they'd be excluded from their settlements or something -- or leave voluntarily as they realize that staying in one place is, for them, a Bad Idea.
Hmm. At this point I'm just babbling.
Gub really needs to return in a different game. There was just too much potential for that to go to waste.
I like the idea of some of these "nomads" being born with these markings and being forced to leave their homes (whether through rumor or disaster following in their wake). I also think there should be some way for people to choose to have these markings put on them if they wish to join the nomads, or if they want to be better at slaying demons, or be better at hiding from demons, or whatever. I think giving that option allows for more flexibility in backgrounds and could lead to some interesting characters.
Maybe protected ships and such. Ship-cities.
I'm serious. They're humanoids with sporadic barky skin and little twigs growing here and there. As they get older, they begin to lose their humanoid features and become more tree-like, until finally when they die they stiffen and become a tree.
TREE DUDE KICKS ASS!
Their death and sad and yet lovely
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
And charisma? I never met a tree I didn't like.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
1) Exterminator (The Slayer-esque thing)
2) The Non-Men (The changed, Highlander-esque ones)
3) Something vampirey
4) Something else
But I am just posting without reading the other posts in detail so, entirely possible to ignore me.
You could then give them concealment bonuses, in keeping with the natural wards ability, and might help with survivability. Give them something like the sniper ability where missed attacks and critical hits don't take them out of concealment.
I also like the idea that the general populace doesn't like them either due to misunderstanding how their wards work (ie beliving that it conflicts with the town's wards) or simply due to suspicion. I mean, if they can live so long out of warded areas they MUST be in collusion with the demons.
Another possibility might be as Grimmy mentioned, where normal folks and races get a kind of callling, only instead of being driven or focused, it's more of a fading away. As the demons come out at night, these people get kinda insubstantal and ghosty at night. They get that 1000 yard stare and just wander off, following some kind of trail or song or something and meet up with others like them. People aren't prejudiced against them or anything, it's just that they tend to just wander away from the towns following... whatever it is. Townsfolk might worry about it being some kind of sickness and try to keep afflicted loved ones locked up to keep them from leaving, but they always escape eventually, often by just simply walking through locked doors.