The Campaign Builder's Guild

I second the notion that any region's creator have control of "racial diversity" within said region, as long as the discussion continues with the assumption that certain races even exist.

What I mean by that is, if I create Region X, and in that region, we have a colony of dwarves who are excellent fisherman and sailors.  That's diverting a bit from the standard Core Dwarf, and that is perfectly fine.  It's even possible that dwarves in that region may have slightly different stats, weapon familiarities, etc.  But it's all assuming that over in the main Race thread, we don't decide that, for the betterment of the entire project, Dwarves Don't Exist.  So, when you're adding these racial minorities to your region, just have a couple notes to the side somewhere on what changes you'll need to make if we decide on the whole that your races doesn't even exist in the world.

I'm also thinking that we may want to consider some optional rules (that Forgotten Realms uses) such as Regional Feats.  However, we could do something more like "Cultural Feats."  And the first thing I'll do is make sure we're all clear that Race does NOT equal Culture.  If dwarves in my region for the most part follow a similar culture (religion, mythology, way of life, government) to dwarves in an entirely different region, they would still have the same Cultural Feats available.  However, if dwarves in a different region are cannibalistic, tree-dwelling, body-painting, dart-blowing, fire-dancing, animistic barbarians, most likely they will have an entirely different set of Cultural Feats available, even though they're the same race as my fisherman sailor dwarves.

Gnomes keep getting brought up... I was thinking that it's kind of odd that I can see gnomes fitting in very well in human society, but can't figure out what a "gnome homeland" would be like...

...and I got what is either the coolest or lamest idea ever...

...gnomes on the moon.

Just thought I'd throw it out there.

Do we really need to say _____ don't exist?

If this thread says there are no dwarves, what is to stop a region creator from creating a dwarf like race?

Should we put a cap on the number of homebrewed races? There are about 40 regions right now, excluding the ones already controlled by the Empire. There is the (very unlikely) possibility to have 40+ homebrewed races. Is that ok?

If we do have a cap on homebrewed races, how do we handle who gets to make them? First come first serve? Community built? Lottery?

I don't remember how regional feats worked in Realms can you enlighten me? Were they free feats or just feats you could take for being born in a region? Was there only one, or some you could pick from?

They were basically feats you had available based on what region you lived in/ were born in.  They weren't free, but they were often times only available to a few select places.

I see no problem with Cultural feats if that is the way you want to work them.

The problem with Cultural Feats is that every culture would have to have some. This may or may not be a problem (I for one do not much feel like designing feats for the city-state I'll create).

The "sidebar" Ishy suggested seems unnecessary to me. I see no reason why we would decide in this thread to disallow anyone from using dwarves (or whatever) in their regions. If we were to do such things, we should finalize those decisions before we get into creating regions. But I restate, why would we do this?

The only thing that should be kept in mind is that the race you're using might be decided not to appear in the Empire, and may not exist outside your region at all. This means that contrasting statements (such as 'Unlike other dwarves, dwarves in region X...') should be used with care.

My personal opinion on races in the Empire is to come up with between one and three races (human, other core or even homebrewed) that are dominant, and have a couple of enslaved minorities. For example: humans and elves might form the citizen and upward layers of the Empire, while dwarves, gnomes and homebrew races X and Y are slave races. Any of these races may or may not appear in the non-Empire regions, and may or may not share culture with their Imperial cousins.

Túrin

Oh, what I meant by that was not that we would be saying, "You can't use dwarves," but we may decide in this thread to use all homebrew races, or use all humans, know what I mean?

Quote from: TúrinMy personal opinion on races in the Empire is to come up with between one and three races (human, other core or even homebrewed) that are dominant, and have a couple of enslaved minorities. For example: humans and elves might form the citizen and upward layers of the Empire, while dwarves, gnomes and homebrew races X and Y are slave races. Any of these races may or may not appear in the non-Empire regions, and may or may not share culture with their Imperial cousins.

Since a few people wanted all human or at the very least human majority setting, I propose the following:

Three human regions united (whether willingly or through being conquered) to form the original Empire. With a united army the other regions didn't have the manpower to stop the Empire's expansion and many were soon swallowed. The Emperor decided that these races were inferior to humans, thus they would have no rights in the Empire. Those that were not killed became slaves. When the Empire conquered human lands, the inhabitants were given the opportunity to become citizens, if they renounced their Totem (or Idea). The Empire continued its expansion quickly, killing and enslaving many people. Unfortunately they expanded their borders too fast. The large empire was putting a strain on itself. Many slaves saw their opportunities and began to revolt. Poorer cities suffered from plagues and famine. After sixty years of continually expanding his border the Emperor died. He left behind three sons, all of which wanted the throne. Each of these events could have been dealt with by themselves, but all at once they lead to the Empire crumbling. It was now only a little bigger than the three regions that it began with and sunk into chaos.

Three hundred years later, a new emperor has taken the throne. This one brought order to the Empire. His vison of the Empire was the same as the original Emperor. He believes Humans are the dominant race, but is wiser than the original Emperor. He starts the expansion once again, but he does things differently. He offers non-human races citizenship, but they can never hold positions in government and high level military positions. Only humans can hold these positions. He also doesn't march to the next civilization, until he is sure the region recently conquered is stable (lords are in place and such). He had taught his son to continue with these methods, and after his death the son has done just that. After a hundred years of expansion the Empire may not be as big as the old, but it is more stable and ordered.

I had posted in the Empire thread (first post second page) about stages of citizenship, but the only response was 'slaves definitely". Was this a horrible idea? Was it good?

Summary for Empire: Only humans are dominant in the Empire, though the other races are given some rights, they can never be in a position to command others, especially humans.

I agree with the summary, but not with your reasoning. I really think we should be aiming for an 'Old Empire = good', 'New Empire = good if you're for, bad if you're against'. The New Empire would be (ab)using the name of the Old Empire to gain good credit, but is in fact a bit more questionable (a bit harsher, I'd say).

My timeline would be more like (BP=before present):

450 BP: Old Empire founded, slowly expands until it covers most of the continent. Generally benevolent, mostly accepting of other races and cultures, etc.
150 BP: Due to unforeseen circumstances (even well-run Empires can fall, possibly one or more of the following causes apply: natural disaster, feuding over the throne, overexpansion) the Empire crumbles into a smattering of totem-worshipping tribes and city-states.
50 BP: an ambitious leader reinstates the Empire (at least in name) and starts conquering land rapidly. Saint-worship is invented(?) to unite the conquered lands culturally.
0 BP: It has grown fast and harsh measures keep it intact, but overall the Empire seems slightly overstretched. The number of slaves (including many non-humans) is rather high and might lead to problems.

Túrin

Quote from: TúrinI agree with the summary, but not with your reasoning. I really think we should be aiming for an 'Old Empire = good', 'New Empire = good if you're for, bad if you're against'. The New Empire would be (ab)using the name of the Old Empire to gain good credit, but is in fact a bit more questionable (a bit harsher, I'd say).

My timeline would be more like (BP=before present):

450 BP: Old Empire founded, slowly expands until it covers most of the continent. Generally benevolent, mostly accepting of other races and cultures, etc.
150 BP: Due to unforeseen circumstances (even well-run Empires can fall, possibly one or more of the following causes apply: natural disaster, feuding over the throne, overexpansion) the Empire crumbles into a smattering of totem-worshipping tribes and city-states.
50 BP: an ambitious leader reinstates the Empire (at least in name) and starts conquering land rapidly. Saint-worship is invented(?) to unite the conquered lands culturally.
0 BP: It has grown fast and harsh measures keep it intact, but overall the Empire seems slightly overstretched. The number of slaves (including many non-humans) is rather high and might lead to problems.

Túrin

Old Empire = good is fine by me.
New Empire = harsher, is also fine by me.

I don't care for the Old empire conquering the entire or even half of the continent. The further it reached the less regions that can be made that were not under the control of the Old Empire.

I like the saint worshiping being invented during the new Empire.

I don't like the New Empire being close to crumbling either. With a stronger New Empire adventures can be written to continue the conquering in the name of the Emperor, or trying to take down the Empire before it grows to big.

I like an Empire that is expanding more slowly to try to keep from collapsing on itself, bbut this should be continued in the Empire thread.

Basically we both agree that Humans control the Empire and non-humans have little to no rights.

QuoteBasically we both agree that Humans control the Empire and non-humans have little to no rights.

True. I continued the rest of the discussion in the Empire thread.

Lets see if I can summarize few posts here so that we can continue the discussion. I apologize if I misunderstood anything.

Ideas:
Each region can pick/create their own dominant race.
     These may be core races or homebrew races.
     These may or may not be represented in the Empire
     Currently we are not looking to exclude any race (no gnomes).


The Empire will be human-centric with some slave races to be determined.
     These slave races may or may not gain citizenship depending on how the integrate into the empire.


Is that were we stand on races?

That is basically it so far. The only concern I have is what do we do with homebrewed races? Should their be a limit? If there is a limit then who gets to do those homebrewed races?

So uh... yeah... if there needs to be a gnomish homeland I'll volunteer. And if it's okay for it to be on the moon I'll volunteer again.

I can see no reason for a limit on homebrewed races. Most of them will be marginal and limited to a single region anyway.