The Campaign Builder's Guild

One of my favorite things about my setting are its races. I am largely utilizing classic/standard fantasy races, with a bit of re imagining based upon the creative construct of the setting. It is my goal to make sure that these races are truly different from humans. I am exploring psychological elements of each race, trying to tease out ways (and reasons) for them to be different from humans, ways that aren't simply cultural.

For instance, Tritons are an amphibian race. While possessing the humanoid structure, they are true amphibians. At birth, they are a fish-like larva that quickly grows to the size of a large salmon. They remain in this larval stage for several years, lacking speech or hands but still showing surprising intelligence. The larva are tended to by nurses, who teach them as they begin to enter their young stage, where they grow limbs and, more importantly, lungs.

Their most striking psychological differences with people stems from their parentage. Females lay their eggs in water and males fertilize the eggs externally. Some Triton settlements keep communal spawning pools (the more unified groups), while others have females own their own pools and determine which males can fertilize her eggs. They lack familial bonds, and instead replace them with the bonds of friendship (friendships which often form in the larval stage). Further separating them from humans, all Tritons are born male and only become females late in their life; females are larger, significantly less agile, and are typically the rulers and wise people in Triton settlements. Tritons have no concept of marriage, though some friendships grow quite close and could be compared to human mated pairs.

Another curious part of Triton psychology stems from their regenerative capabilities. Tritons can regrow entire limbs, and they can even stop bleeding to arterial wounds quick enough that Tritons rarely die from accidents. Thus, Tritons don't consider injuries to be permanent, and are much more willing to fight physically. Arguements can quickly turn into fights, then revert back to words when one injures the other (and thus has won the right to speak uninterrupted).

Tritons do not have families; the words for "mother" and "father" are strictly biological/scientific words in their languages. The closest comparative bonds are between apprentices and masters. Tritons grow up in nurseries where they are given a broad but brief education. When they enter adolescence, they join apprenticeships (competing for the attention of professionals much in the way school age humans compete to join prestigious schools).

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That's just one example of a race which I think feels substantially different from humans. I'm having a more difficult time with Dwarves and Halflings, possibly because they are mammals and I have less physiological differences to draw upon. The whole egglaying thing (ifrit, triton, valkyrie) definitely allows me to think of them differently. Elves have been significantly easier, since they're fae and I can just get weird with their psychology (to help explain how an elf can take so many years to reach "adulthood", I am considering having young elves practically lack the ability to understand a situation unless they experience it).

I'd love some input on my dwarves and halflings. As starting points, dwarves on my world evolved from badgers. Taking from badgers, dwarves live colonially, with clans composed of extended families. Clans are largely self sufficient, but they band together for mutual benefit. Dwarf females rule their families, while males rule their clans. In contrast to human's trend for monogomy, a male dwarf may have multiple "wives" (though discretion of divorce is in the hands of the females). This leaves many mateless males, who often become wanderers, leading to the outside world's stronger familiarity with male dwarves.

Halflings, on the other hand, evolved from spider monkeys. On their home island, halfling communities were nomadic, living together in groups of families that could trace their ancestry back to a shared mother generations ago (tribes split off with a matron taking her family and leaving their tribe when resources became sparse and tribes grew large). They didn't develop permanent settlements because of the large predators of their homeland (called Draconia for self-evident reasons). They are vegetarians, lacking the ability to digest meat. Nomadic groups travel with pack animals (medium-sized wooly rodents) that provide wool and milk and riding birds that provide eggs. Their travels are guided by wise women with the ability to sense out fruiting groves. Males make up the permanent members of the group, with females being far more likely to leave the groups to form their own tribes. Bonds between mother and child are strong, but father/child bonds are almost non-existent; males are more strongly bonded with their friends, with whom they compete with.

I have little idea how Halflings could develop as they are first brought to, and then travel the rest of the world. In human settlements, I imagine them forming ghettos, as they are stigmatized for being "opportunistic thieves". I figure many would keep to their nomadic ways, turning into gypsy-like groups of wandering traders and performers. But what would they be like if they settled down on their own? How else could they be different from humans? Would it be okay for them to be very similar to humans psychologically, since they are both primates?

And so this thread isn't entirely about my setting, have you made races for your settings that you consider to be especially different form people? How do you wrap your head around a different psychology, or even an alien psychology?

I like how you've differentiated Tritons from humans.  One thing I see immediately that should have a huge impact on their culture that they have no sex drive the way humans do - they don't even have sex; their reproducive drive won't force them into competition over mates.  I don't see how their regenerative properties really change their psychology on a whole, though.  Yeah, they'll be more reckless in combat, but so is an angry rhino or a Norse Berserker in full battle-frenzy.

Halflings may have little concept of possession, which leads to them taking anything that catches their attention.  But this would be a learned characteristic.  I'm not sure how their psychology, or dwarfish psycology would really differ.  I'd try just throwing in something weird and unintuitive, like how elephants concede combat if someone puts thier foot on its chest.  It doesn't have to make a hill of beans worth of sense, but it could shape large swaths of their sociology (which is what I think you're driving more than psychology).

To give an odd example that similar to your tritons in its lack of mating, my dwarves don't really reproduce, per se.  Their spirits reincarnate into stone statues that come to life once occupied.  That's why there aren't any females - no one chisels female dwarves.  This leads to a lot of social weirdness and a very strong resistance to change.  My dwarves also happen to be fae, so yeah...lol.

Great thread; I think the problem of racial psychology, differentiation, and culture is a pretty major aspect of world-building.

Before I get to suggestions...

Quote from: XeviatIn contrast to human's trend for monogomy, a male dwarf may have multiple "wives" (though discretion of divorce is in the hands of the females).

This is very, very contestable.  In the Islamic world (over 1.5 billion people), many countries legally recognize polygamous marriages, and historically it's been practiced by hundreds of cultures, including Hindu, Hebrew, Buddhist, and other mainstream religious cultures.  Indeed, some research suggests that monogamous cultures may be the exception rather than the rule; the current prevalence of monogamy can be traced to the spread of certain cultural ideals (i.e. Christianity etc) rather than being a reflection of that always dubious referent, "human nature."

As for the Halflings, I'd imagine that many are getting into agriculture.  Most nomadic cultures are based either around hunting or around livestock herding (pastoralism), unless they focus on selling a set of crafts or services (i.e. Roma peoples, etc).  Given Halfling vegetarianism, the livestock-focused nomadic lifestyle is far from ideal.  It seems likely that some recent Halfling tribes will have settled down to establish Halfling farming communities in foreign lands where dragons aren't snacking on them and burning their buildings and crops every 10 minutes.  The other possibility is that Halflings have begun to specialize in certain types of tasks and so become a class of professionals in the cities of others.  Maybe small Halfling hands are especially useful in some crafts?  Or perhaps their ability to enter tight spaces makes them especially good chimney sweeps, burglars, sewer-scavengers (or maintenance personnel), or ratcatchers?  I imagine they're good climbers so I bet they'd be great sailors, clambering over rigging with ease.

The "in contrast" was more setting specific there. I was just reading an interesting article on the advent of monogamy and the advent of democracy. It recognizes the fact that monogamy is strange considering our history, both evolutionary and culturally, and goes on to hypothesize several reasons (mostly that it calms communities down when men don't have to fight over women as much).

Those specialized tasks (it's funny you mention chimney sweeps) were part of the reasons I'm having halfling ghettos in the big human republic. Being adept at the tasks needed in sailing and crafts are good ideas too.

Would you be fine with halflings having psychology similar to humans? I'm having a hard time figuring out things that would actually set them apart that aren't just cultural. Their physiological differences suggest different architectures and other physical things, but nothing jumps out at me that suggests any personality or mental traits.

And Humabout, the regeneration changes cultural norms. In human society, stabbing someone with a knife isn't really a forgivable offense. In triton society, it could easily be forgiven. Their sports could be considerably violent, their treatment of prisoners could be abhorrent by others standards, and all sorts of other things can be inferred from this difference.

And yeah, no sex drive is a huge thing. They have plenty more time to devote to other interests.

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One physiological thing about dwarves that could drive some differences are their senses. Their vision is poor, but their sense of smell is incredibly acute. This helps them in the darkness. They could tend towards not bathing, or only bathing when trying to be stealthy (and in that case, they wouldn't use fragrant soaps). They could very strongly think all humans look alike, will not favor ranged weapons in the slightest, and it would explain why they developed a chiseled alphabet that could be felt and read.

I have been content with how the Ifrit (lizard) and Valkyrie (griffin) have shaped out.

Yeah, I think it would actually be unrealistic not to have them be psychologically similar to humans.  After all they're basically similar to human pygmies, right?

EDIT: I think one way to approach it could be this: instead of emphasizing how biology shapes culture for a given race with similar biology to humanity, just make up a strange new culture, influenced perhaps by fantasy fauna, landscape, or magic.  Eberron's Halfling dinosaur riders are a good example.

I wonder if it's even worth bothering. Dwarves, halflings, and so on look basically human. Most "PC races" do. They may be taller, or shorter, or have pointed ears, or green skin, or whatever, but they're basically humanoid and they act basically humanoid. So, the answer may be, for these purposes, that they're not really that different.

Obviously, this is easy on the designer-- the alternative of thinking through a totally different race with a different path of evolution and how it might be different on a physiological/neurological/psychological/whatever level is a challenging mental exercise. It's even more challenging, and might even be working towards mutually exclusive objectives, if the goal is to both create something that stands out as strikingly different and yet at the same time is still the same "looks basically human" race from Tolkien/D&D/whatever. Sometimes designers try to weasel out of this by creating racial monocultures, but that is just basically taking some small cultural differences and acting like it's something that applies across the whole race. I don't think that approach is too good either.

I personally couldn't really come up with any races that seemed unique, which is why I do "humans only" settings now. :grin:
Well, aside from aliens who look like giant insect-squid hybrids and are basically incomprehensible to humans in every way, but they are definitely not a PC race.  :weirdo:

Sounds good Steerpike. I purposefully avoided having Halflings be drake riders in my setting for that reason. I do like the idea of them lacking a concept of property, but that's more cultural like you point out.

Apparently, Spider Monkeys don't groom each other like other monkeys do; mothers groom children, but that's it (They also don't have thumbs, but I think I'll have Halflings have thumbs). I could adapt that into having Halflings have taboos against touching each other; these are shared by some human cultures, but it could be strengthened by actual aversions or perhaps physical sensitivities.

They do have a prehensile tail, but I don't see how that would impact anything social. And this is just a visual queue, but apparently spider monkeys don't swing their arms when they walk; they sway their tail instead. It would just look strange.

I'm also imagining the gypsy-like Halflings planting fruit trees along their trade routs, so after a few decades they may take to settling down to protect these orchards. Where the Tritons control and police the trade routs at sea, Halflings could take to the same on land.

I also think the two species would have met very early in history, since Tritons could find their island. I'm already imagining the Tritons taking some Halflings to help on their ships. Then an advanced society grows up around Tritons exploiting a Halfling slave labor force, only to have a Halfling coup take them down. Then there could be a group of seafaring Halflings with some Triton cultural trappings.

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Sparkle, my setting wasn't an attempt at doing something wholly different. After the initial versions, which were just "my take on D&D", the setting has evolved into a project of building a fantasy world as if I were building a sci-fi world. I'm looking for believable explanations for fantasy tropes (badger dwarves explains their fits of rage, their burrowing, and their clans). I'm not looking for strikingly different (though The Hive were obscenely different from people), but I am looking to avoid the whole "angry people", "short people", "smart people" thing.

Interestingly enough, my dwarves don't quite look like misshapen humans. I mean, they have the same structure, but so do all mammals really, especially once reshape that into a humanoid. Having color striping, spade-nails, a mane, beady eyes, a huge jaw, and short arms and legs (proportionally) really changes the look.

I have been looking into other animals that have stark differences to humans. House cats, and probably most cats, lack circadian rhythms, so a race that evolved from cats would have settlements that operate 24/7 on a scale dwarfing even modern human cities-that-never-sleep. Lacking a sense or having an entirely difference sense could change more things than initially apparent.

Quote from: XeviatI'm looking for believable explanations for fantasy tropes

To be honest, I think this approach is completely the wrong direction. If it's something you really want to do, then please don't let my seeming negativity rain on your parade, but here's why I think you're just setting yourself up to fail.

Fantasy is fantasy because it's fantastic. The stuff is usually just out there, and people often like it that way. If it all starts to make sense and seem utterly mundane to someone living here and now, it stops being so fantastic, and starts just seeming like... I don't know, like when they start talking in nonsensical technobabble on Star Trek, or something. I'm all for worlds with a "realistic" historical feel to them or magic has actual ramifications on the society, but I think that's more about maintaining internal consistency. I definitely don't think everything has to be expalined, nor should it. If you try, I think you're just going to end up with a bunch of pseudoscience that looks like a boring textbook to most people and comes across as just completely wrong and stupid if someone is an actual scholar in whatever topic.

Quote from: XeviatInterestingly enough, my dwarves don't quite look like misshapen humans. I mean, they have the same structure, but so do all mammals really, especially once reshape that into a humanoid. Having color striping, spade-nails, a mane, beady eyes, a huge jaw, and short arms and legs (proportionally) really changes the look.

If the thing that you are calling a "Dwarf" isn't something that someone who has played a lot of D&D or whatever would look at and say "yeah, that's a Dwarf," it seems to me you're only doing yourself and your players a disservice by calling it a "Dwarf." I'm not directly accusing you of doing that, because I'm actually not sure. I couldn't really tell from your brief description. I think it's a worthwhile thing to point out, though.

Ah, sparkle, that's assuming the technobable explanations are going to be in the material. They're solely for me so that I can keep things internally consistent.

The dwarves are definitely dwarves. It's why I abandoned an old idea to make new races wholesale; they were quacking an awful lot like ducks to not be called ducks. They mine, they live underground, they have big bushy beards, they're short, they're surly, they're tough, many are warriors ... they just resemble badgers as much as we resemble apes. The world doesn't understand evolution, even magically or scientifically guided evolution, so the connection is never made in world.

When I told my players that halflings in my world had tails, they asked why. I told them, and they said "that's neat". One wanted to make a three-weapon-fighting PrC back in 3E.

It may not be your cup of tea, my approach, but I like structure. It guides me, otherwise I just meander about haphazardly.

If the halflings hadn't had time to plant fruit trees on the mainland, agriculture could provide a job for those migrant halflings. If they're displacing an existing system of renting serfs, it could explain not just distrust but extreme prejudice as their arrival heralds a major upheaval in the low levels of the economy. This may be cultural, but there could be a degree of justified paranoia and xenophobia amongst halflings at that point.

If halflings have become better established, that could still be a part of their history. Xenophobia and prejudice in older generations, with younger groups not knowing the reason, could have its own set of issues.

Also, really liking the ambhibeans you've got there.

Sparkle does raise a good point.  If you're looking to justify D&D fantasy dwarves, I'm not really sure why you're having them evolve from anything.  Remember that Dwarves are basically just short, stocky, bearded humans who all seem to be miners.  Making them evolved from moles, badgers, or anything else that lives underground isn't going to really work, because Dwarves are based on humans.  Note that most subterranean animals have horrible eyesight or are completely blind, while Dwarves can actually see in the dark.  Every other aspect of a fantasy dwarf boils down to culture, really.

Like Steerpike said, halflings sound like human pgymies.  I'm not really sure how they'd differ from humans, culturally, except where their actual lifes differ.  That is an issue with any humanoid fantasy race - they're mostly just stereotypical humans.  Justifying the stereotype is as simple as calling Dwarves short Scots (the way most people seem to play them, anyway).  Elves are pretty Welsh or Finnish people (usually).  If you want to differentiate them psychologically, there needs to be an actual difference in the concept, which introduces drift from the original concept and makes them less like what you're trying to justify.  It's a frustrating conundrum that usually leads me to running human-only games.

The idea of migrant halfling workers actually works great for the republic; not in the now, but before the founding of the republic, in the dark ages, they could have entered that way. Their smaller size means they'll eat less, and be willing to work for less, and could have easily displaced serfs who worked the land.

I'm also confident that my dwarfs feel pretty dwarven, even though they're badgers. Like I said earlier, I'm more than willing to give them poor eye sight and trade it for scent and maybe some tremorsense. In M&M terms, if their vision isn't acute (they can target creatures but not differentiate well), and their smell is acute (they can identify), they're only going to be out of luck with ranged combat. In D&D terms, I could trade out their low-light vision or dark vision for scent and tremorsence and just leave it at that. Still makes them feel like dwarves, just not the "carved from stone" variety (even though, in my setting, myth says they were carved from stone).

In the world, no one is going to even suggest that dwarves evolved from badgers or halflings evolved from monkeys, just like I don't think many medieval people were suggesting we were related to apes. People have probably made the connection that valkyries are birds and ifrit are reptiles, but considering they aren't just humans with an animal head attached, their exact ancestry wouldn't be theorized in the way we talk about evolution. I don't even know if medieval people could draw a distinction between amphibians and reptiles, either, so tritons might be considered reptiles.

Quote from: Xeviat
The idea of migrant halfling workers actually works great for the republic; not in the now, but before the founding of the republic, in the dark ages, they could have entered that way. Their smaller size means they'll eat less, and be willing to work for less, and could have easily displaced serfs who worked the land.

But on the other hand, they are not as strong, and so may not be able to work as hard as other races - I can see that they would eat less, but I'm not sure how that translates into reduced pay. The prices of things like housing, clothing, and especially services - healing and medicine, entertainment, transportation, education - wouldn't be affected that much by their size.

Maybe the fact that they eat so little and need such little space makes them very transient, as it would be fairly easy - at the very least easier - for them to live off the land and find little nooks and crannies to sleep and live in until they move again. I know the stereotype for halflings is what I just described, but if like they say: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Yeah; you can cram 4 halflings in the space that 1 human would find comfortable. Their climbing ability lends them towards bunk beds, and I'm even going as far as saying halflings built extra floors into human houses that became part of their neighborhoods.

For those unaffected items, though, I think many would either be affected by their size or their poverty (for the group we're talking about): they wear children's clothing, they live multiples to a house (with a family staying in a single bedroom), and luxury services would just be a non-issue.

And this is more to the new stereotype of Halflings, as opposed to their more Hobbity origins. If that's the way monkey people shape out through thought experiment, I'm fine with it. I just wanted to explore how their physiology would impact them. Being "little humans" is fine with me, in the grand scheme of things; they're different enough.

I like the idea of them adding floors to human houses.  It really brings halfling slums to life.  I'd expect halflings to be excellent at scrounging up anything they need.  They would probably have pretty accute senses of sight and smell to that end, and good hearing combined with excellent stealt abilities would help them escape danger (muggings, robbery, gangwars, etc.) in such conditions.  Your halflings are actually starting to sound pretty awesome.

If you're okay with dwarves not being as dwarfy as d&d dwarves, that's cool, then.  Accute senses of smell and taste could lead them to make extensive use of pheramones (and not just the sexual ones), as well as let them detect emotions in others, to an extent.  Actually, if you want a weird and creepy look at pheramone usage, read Hellstrom's Hive by Frank Herbert; it's an excellent book that delves into the idea of humans living like insects.  Pheramones play a pretty big role in the book.