Thursday, August 21, 2014

Planning for 5e: The Races

The traditional D&D races as presented aren't in many cases a precise fit for what I want to do with the campaign I'm planning, but I want to use more than I might otherwise to give D&D 5 a good trial, and to make things easy on my players.


Elves: They’ll be there, but I’m not sure quite how yet. Maybe some wood-elves with a Hobbit vibe to them. They will probably be rare, and in isolated places, at least within the Land of Azurth.


Dwarves: There probably will be something pretty much like the D&D standard dwarf, but these guys will be rare. The more common dwarf type will be something like the Kologor dwarves of Hollow World, i.e. the beer-drinking, ninepin-playing variety. There may also be something like the Dark Sun dwarf in the arid parts of Sang.


Halflings: Halfings will be in abundance, though they may not be distinguished from other “little people” races as much as in standard D&D. I suspect they may well have a chance of unusual traits like on the Dwarf Land trait tables.


Gnomes: Gnomes will just be another variety of little folk, distinguished only by their aptitude as tinkerers. There will be a number of them clustered around Viola, the Clockwork Princess of Yanth.


Tieflings: These will be the majority of the population in Daemonland beyond the borders of Azurth. They’ll show up elsewhere, but rarely. In appearance, they’ll typically be more DiTerlizzi than the 5e illustations.


Dragonborn: Though they may be a bit different, they’ll be found in Sang, but probably not elsewhere.

11 comments:

Gothridge Manor said...

Will any race you created be included?

Trey said...

Maybe. I haven't figured it all out yet. Bufokin (an adaptation of Evan Elkins' froglings will also be included.

Jack Guignol said...

Any tiefling that takes after 2e instead of 4e is all right by me.

Where does "bufo" come from? The frog people in Hellfrost were called bufomi but I can't place the etymology of it.

Trey said...

@Jack - It's the Latin word for "toad" and a genus of toads in modern scientific nomenclature.

Jack Guignol said...

Ah, I got all hung up on "batrachian" for some reason!

letsdamage said...

I made a grippli named Bufo once.

Trey said...

@Jack - That's Greek, but it always makes me think of Lovecraft.
@blizrack - I hope his name was Bufo Grippli, 'cause that has a good ring to it.

Chris C. said...

There are few things I love more than an afternoon of beer and ninepins! :)

jdh417 said...

Yeah, watch out though about who you bowl with, or you could end up taking a long nap, like old Rip van Winkle there in the drawing.

Scott Anderson said...

I like that elf illustration.

I could never really get in to tieflings or aasimar as common races (those presented as PC races). Dragonborn just reek of fan service to me. But to each his own and I hope you all have an awesome time with your dragonborns.

Trey said...

I've never used tieflings or dragonborn in a game. I figure it was worth giving them a try, what with new edition and all. Demihumans in general, if we take Gygax's account, are sort of fan service, so it's a line crossed long ago.