[Merged] The races of the world, Please something other then Elves/Dwarves/Orcs/Humans?

[zimcub]

I just want to point out, that although OP and some other people don't like the basic races, there are people out there who do.

I don't play every other game with these fantasy setting and don't have much experience past Bioware and with dwarves and elves, however i simply loved the lore and setting in them. Just because some people play every fantasy game that comes out, doesn't mean others do too.

 

However i really do like some interesting ideas posted here with more exotic races like werewolfs etc, however the idea is completely lost to me if the world doesn't actually acknowledge this. It feels so pointless to add such exotic races if the world treats you like you were a human.

 

 

(Someone asked why dwarves used axes when they live in moutains.

The reason they use axes is because they also chop a lot of trees for their forges which is exactly why elves hate them.)

[Luckmann]

Meh.....humans, elves, dwarves and orcs are fine by me. They are a staple, recongnizable, relatable..and make more sense than other races anyway.

 

Originality? LOL.

Like a <insteranimalhere>-human hybrid is original. Like picking parts of animals and gluing them on a human is original.

Dranei? Pffft.

Pandareans? Pffft.

Quanri? Pffft.

It's just an illusion that these "new" races are new at all, or any better than the standard ones. It just seems that way.

 

Frankly mixing extreemly humanoid (human, elf, dwarf - they are basicly anatomicly the same) with some really weird stuff jsut comes across as weird.

Honestly though; As far as literary works, appreciation, etc; Isn't it the illusion that counts?

 

When you're doing "new" things just to seem new, you've fallen into the trap of modernism and the increasingly baroque. I don't want elves, dwarves, and humans not because they're old or because they are inherently bad. I don't want them because I've grown increasingly bored with them.

 

I don't remember my suggestions anymore, but assuming that I suggested, like, Thri-Kreen, Warforged, Dragonborn, Kobolds and Illithids, I don't want these because they are amazingly original. I want them because I like them, they don't get enough exposition, and I think that you could do genuinely interesting things by subverting their tropes rather than subverting, say, the dwarves, or create elven concept #2341 (Sadistic elves, no wait, that's drow, fascist elves, no wait, been done with blood elves; what about phaseshifting elves? No, wait, that's Fey. Dammit!).

 

Once on 4chan /tg/, 'couple of years ago now, we created a community setting that I liked a lot; especially the dwarves. They were a mish-mash between Egyptian, Aztec and Mayan motifs, who travelled the world is massive flying city-temples, constructed of of the tops of mountains, on top of which they performed bloody sacrifices. Deathly afraid of the surface world, they considered the entirety of the earth unhallowed and unclean. At what point is a dwarf not a dwarf? Our orcs were obsessed with architecture, influenced by the Babylonian and Sumerian, trying to construct towers to the heavens, producing the finest engineers and architects of the realms.

 

We all know the subverted races. We all know the traditional races. Why can't we take the non-traditional races - not necessarily unique ones - and toy with those for a bit? Tribal Thri-kreen with a multitude of insectoid subraces, inhabiting forests instead of deserts. Deeply religious warforged, turning to religion after losing their meaning in life, worshipping the Clockwork God of Logic (such as Primus, in DnD)? Lawful Neutral Paladins/Knights, anyone? Druidic or Fey Dragonborn that reveres nature, but keeps the highly inventive, industrious (and rebellious) kobolds under an iron (wooden?) heel of oppression? Illithids controlling a desert empire, living in pyramid-temples with jungle-like interiors, monopolizing all water, acknowledging no borders and claiming all humans as slaves by their very nature.

 

I don't need unique. I just want something that hasn't been done to death. If I see another "underground <elf, gnome, halfling, dwarf> race" or another arboreal half-dragon vampire, I fear I might end up stabbing myself in the eyes.

 

Addendum:

I liked the Qunari... until they turned them into "lolitskindademons lol".

I liked the Draenei... until they turned them into "lolitskindademons lol".

...I never liked the Pandaren, because it was a joke that was taken too far and then it all ended up just being goddamned retarded. But the idea of bear-men by itself.. I mean, it could be worse - at least it's not Wolfoids or Cathar.

Edited September 28, 2012 by Luckmann