Idea for player races. (I want to see monsters.), Scratch the humans, cut the elves, burry the dwarfs!!! Options

[Alexander]

I’ve noticed something disturbing in this Idea’s section.

Races! There has bin some meagre talk about it and I get the point that the project hasn’t come to the point where there shut be active discussion about it but still I have to write what I have to write about it.

Aren’t you sick if seeing humans in fantasy games? I sure am. How about elves? Or dwarfs even? Aren’t these three creatures not the most common and over used playable races in fantasy games? I want to see a game where fantasy is really done way over the top.

First of all I don’t want to see a single human in game, this is fantasy and those creatures don’t belong here, if I see one I’ll make it my personal quest to exterminate them all from the face of the game world. The same goes for Elves and Dwarfs and Orcs, throw them away.

What I want to see in a game is more along the lines of this selection and lest start of big:

True blood Dragons
You know what I’m talking about, not those little things people tame to have a cool mount no, I mean the real big suckers where an Ogre could walk upright inside its open maw without ever bumping its head, I’m talking Colossal sides doom machines that destroy a kingdom overnight. And I want to see them in every variety, every colour and every sub-type you can think up. And lets not forget their magical talent, they shut reek and ooze with sorcerer power.

Mind Flayers / Illithids
Anyone who’s ever played D&D knows what a mind flayer is and I say I want it as a playable race. Hailing from the far future these brain sucking horror once dominated the entire universe after having enslaved all forms of life until disaster struck and all they could do was escape to the past. They now seek to rebuild that once vast empire one race at a time, one world at a time. Who doesn’t want to play a race that is feared by all others? Living completely in the darkness of the underground with the purpose of enslaving all other creatures and ruling the world.

Gibbering Mouther
An intelligent blob of semi-human flesh randomly spawning myriad eyes and mouths. Cool no? Look up its abilities in your Monster Manual and see its possibilities for a playable race. You don’t always need hands to build buildings and some buildings don’t even have to resemble buildings that we could recognise. With some inspiration I’m sure we can come up with a way to make them able to build their own settlements making them an interesting choice.

Marilith
Better known as a powerful species of Demon but in a world of your own creation you can make them a natural race if you want. Consider playing a creature easily slithering 9 feet tall and 20 feet long, lower body of a large snake, upper body of something half human/half demon and having 6 arms, three on each side. Think of what you could do with something like that, a powerful and smart race with some innate magical talents as well.

Cyclops
Because giants are dull. The concept art of the Wish Cyclops got me hooked to them. Strong and resilient survivors capable with heavy arms. They have the size and a single weird feature that sets them apart from humans while still having the same basic shape. Perfect material for a character race. Keep them about two times as big as humans and I’ll like them.

Sahuagin
Weird creatures but a nice race that lives underwater yet can raid the shorelines and surrounding land to make things interesting, to pose a thread. Having two arms and legs which is the same build as a human these things shut be capable of constructing underwater cities and are therefore capable of forming and expanding a settlement. They are the fish people and still the best sized and strengthened of all the above named races.

Aboleths
Strange beings that occupy the deepest ocean floors. While the mind flayers came from the future these hail from the past though not thro time travel. They where the first race ever to be created on this planet and they once ruled over all its surface. Today though they only haunt our nightmares and our waters. Aboleths are huge fish-shaped beings that have 4 long tentacles 2 on each side. Alto seemingly incapable of building anything their tentacles work as good as any human hand and their great talent for magic allows them many wonders. Though they look like fish on dry land they move about their bellies and push with there tentacles.

But we also need brain food for our Illithid friends so some land or deep dwelling human sized creatures have to be added. There for!

Gnomes
Lunch! Er, I mean I love these little inventors. Smart and technically gifted. Though they make their homes under the dirt they are a surface race unlike dwarfs who mine deep underground. Gnomes live under hills in well hidden homes where they do their tinkering. Seriously I like gnomes no sarcasm there.

Kobolds
Small scaly humanoids who despite their appearance are actually true dragons. Much like the dwarfs they are a race of hard workers and mostly miners only far more industrious and in higher numbers.

Ethereal Doppelganger
Worse yet then the ordinary doppelganger we all know. These have not only the ability to disguise themselves perfectly as another race but can also wink to the ethereal plane where it is safe from most other creatures. It is on this plane that their main settlement truly lies just out of reach from the other races and still so far away.

That’s just some of the cool things you can really go for as playable races and there are many more to be found in other games if you look hard enough. Naturaly it is evident that I’ve bin talking a close look in my D&D monster manual and why shouldn’t I? It holds the greatest repertoire of unused races I know of so why not steal the really cool ones to make a really interesting game?

For those that think some creatures are either overpowered (and I wouldn’t tell you otherwise) you can still use them by having them age long periods of game-time before they truly become what they can become at maturity. There are those races that carry with them so vast a bank of spell power or special abilities that short tutorials are needed to comfort starting players, this can also be done by having those creatures go thro a maturing process only in the form of short quests. With each quest you learn to use one or more of its abilities slowly before being thrown in the deep.