Quote from: Imperator;367554I didn't want to make demihumans as alien as in Glorantha, for example, but I wanted to avoid them to be humans with pointy ears.

And that right there is why I really like what you're doing with it.

I also think that given your approach so far, the other-worldly (or other planar) demihumans as disease angle is a great one. It completely explains why the entire races of demihumans would be "evil", and why it is important to fight them at every turn. One of the issues for some people is that the races get treated as simplistic cliches where each individual is the same as the next, and the PCs are constantly attacking, really without provocation. This approach makes the "evil" races actually irredeemably evil from the PC's pov, and if their goal is to at the very least irrevocably alter the world to suit their own needs then there's ample reason for the "good" races to take an extreme militant stance where they're concerned. It sounds pretty kick ass to me.

Quote from: BillionSix;367540I posted this on another site, and will cut and paste it here. It's for classic Rules Cyclopedia style D&D.

I call it: Level Limits: My Bulls**t Rationalization

Okay. Back in the long long ago of whatever campaign world you prefer. Back when there were only a few Immortals, the Creator Gods of the world. None of those later Deity-Come-Lately types around.

They had made the cats and rats and elephants and unicorns and all that. There was a lot of wild magic running around that they were still trying to tame. At some point they thought, "Hey, these animals are nice and all, but let's make some that are intelligent like us. Then they can make technologies, and build civilizations. It'll be great! They'll be, like, the Über-race that will bring order to the world!"

Über-Race- Beta Testing: These were the goblinoid races, basically. The orcs and ogres and goblins and stuff. The gods had never created an intelligent race before, so they worked with what they knew, and basically got Animals-Plus. They were reasonably bright, and could use tools and weapons, but never got past their own intrinsic savagery. They could not become more than what they were, basically.

Über-Race 1.0: At this point the gods got together and decided to get serious. Before this they had been pretty disorganized, and were all making different things. They decided to sit down and work out what they were doing first. So they made the Halflings. Yep, the Halflings came first. They weren't called the Halflings, of course. I believe in Mystara they called themselves the Hin. It was a pretty good success, at least in the short run. (No pun intended.)
They were given a general Lawful temperament, and most of the savage instincts of their animal forebears had been stripped out. They still had a strong connection to the land. They also had natural ability to learn and use weapons. And what's more, they had the ability to self-improve! This was the amazing part! They could go up in level! Pretty innovative. They could only go up to 8th level, which sounds sad now, but at the time it was a new and amazing thing!
They did okay. The problem arose over time. They weren't as adventurous as was hoped. Now and then, one would go out and explore, but this was strongly discouraged. Their natural affinity for the land made them stake out a territory and stick with it. They didn't spread across the world like the gods had hoped. And the few adventurers that went out often didn't make it back. The Beta Test races could be pretty nasty.

Über-Race 2.0: The next race was taller and more hirsute. The gods decided to make them more physically imposing. Also the leveling up trick that they thought was so cool was improved by 50%! The new guys, the Dwarves, could go up to 12th level! Astounding!
It could be argued that the Dwarves were an improvement. They were industrious, and creative. They had a longer lifespan. They had natural fighting ability. But, unfortunately they had a tendency to be rather hidebound. Still, the gods liked them, and things stayed pretty much the same for a long time.

Über-Race 3.0: Around this time, the gods had hammered most of the wild magic of the world into a more manageable form. And they thought of a cool idea. Spells! Focusing the magic into utilitarian forms, like attack, defense, and other useful stuff. Unfortunately, the first races weren't built with the capability for magic. So, the gods decided to create something really cool. The Elves! Even taller than the Dwarves. (Bigger is better!) They lived for a really long time. They had the same natural combat abilities as the Halflings and Dwarves. They had a more Chaotic nature, to encourage them to spread through the world. And, they could do magic! Pretty much any Elf could cast simple spells, and the ones who improved themselves could rise to higher levels of spell-casting power!, some of them even reaching the vaunted Fifth Level of arcane spell power! Like, wow! They could only reach 10th level, but they were Hella Levels! Fighting and Combat! Woo!

This worked for a long time. The different races stuck to their areas. The Halflings stayed in their pastoral homes. The Dwarves went to the mountains, and the Elves to the deep forests. Contact between them was minimal. The gods pretty much thought the latest version was the best one. The downside was the Elves Chaotic tendencies. Instead of causing them to spread, it was a much more passive Chaos. Mixed with their long lifespan, they fell into a pattern of letting things happen, and putting things off. They lived off the land well, and didn't feel they needed any more.

Über-Race 4.0: One day, one of the gods had an idea. It was pretty Zen.
"I have an idea for a new Über-race! I know how to make them better!"
"Okay, how?"
"By making them worse!"
"What?"
"Yeah, we can make them great by making them suck!"
"... are you high?"
"A little bit, yeah."

Basically, this new race would have to work for everything. Even the natural combat abilities would be removed. If they wanted to learn weapons, they had to decide to. They could learn magic, but it wouldn't be intrinsic to them as a race. Just possible. They would have the shorted lifespan. Maybe a hundred years, and that's if they were damn lucky!

It worked. Really really well. Most of the race stayed home and learned mundane professions. But some went out and achieved. The first indication of success was that they were blowing past the other races, level-wise. There didn't seem to be any limit! They started pioneering new combat techniques and teaching them to their demihuman friends, thus allowing them to become better fighters after hitting their maximum levels.
The next indication was when human magic-users actually started creating their own spells, and spell levels.
Next, the humans created their own discipline.

"Check out what our humans have done! I mean, all the other races have had members who stole and did sneaky stuff, but these humans have turned it into an art form! They've learned to gain levels for sneaking around, stealing, getting into places where they don't belong, and even attacking others unfairly from behind!"
"Um, good for them?"

But the clincher was when the humans started tapping into the divine. The other races had priests and prophets and such, but this was generally initiated by the gods. They would appear in a favorite person's dream or send omens or whatnot. But the humans could access this divine source themselves. At first this mostly helped them turn undead, but the gods immediately saw the potential of this, and began creating divine spells, similar to the magic ones already existing.

Shamans and wokani of other races are usually expressions of a small amount of human blood, but sometimes it's just copying a technique a human came up with.

I don't really feel level-limit justifications are necessary as such, but I like this right here quite a bit more than the OP, which was a little too artsy-fartsy.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Sigmund;367584And that right there is why I really like what you're doing with it.

I also think that given your approach so far, the other-worldly (or other planar) demihumans as disease angle is a great one. It completely explains why the entire races of demihumans would be "evil", and why it is important to fight them at every turn. One of the issues for some people is that the races get treated as simplistic cliches where each individual is the same as the next, and the PCs are constantly attacking, really without provocation. This approach makes the "evil" races actually irredeemably evil from the PC's pov, and if their goal is to at the very least irrevocably alter the world to suit their own needs then there's ample reason for the "good" races to take an extreme militant stance where they're concerned. It sounds pretty kick ass to me.

Cool

What I wanted was something that made sense from a mythic point of view, even if it makes little sense from a more 'realistic' point of view. As it hapen in Glorantha, where you have a bunch of different explanations on about what the Sun is, and all of them are true at the same time,because Glorantha is a world ruled by mythic rules, not by physics rules.

D&D is chock full of things that make no sense from a more 'realistic' point of view, but they work when seen through a mythic glass. That's what I aimed to do with this: create a good reason for the clash of alignments, good and evil and all that, even if 99.99% of the ednizens of the world don't know about it.

And from here you can explain why dungeons are ythic underworlds where everything is hostile an out to get you. And maybe the very soil gets corrupted near monsters, and forests become twisted, gothic versions of themselves and...

Well, possibilities are endless. Though I like BillionSix idea a lot

Now we just need a bulls**t rationalization for alignment languages.

Brian

Quote from: BillionSix;367701Now we just need a bulls**t rationalization for alignment languages.

Brian

tha`quali toknard

Oh? You didn't get that?  I'm sorry.  Maybe after you thoughtlessly slaughter some peasants and rape their horses you'll understand...  

Quote from: winkingbishop;367707tha`quali toknard

Oh? You didn't get that?  I'm sorry.  Maybe after you thoughtlessly slaughter some peasants and rape their horses you'll understand...  

hehe. Yeah. If I included Alignment languages at all, it would probably be restricted to clerics or other types who had a link to the divine.

Brian

Quote from: BillionSix;367722hehe. Yeah. If I included Alignment languages at all, it would probably be restricted to clerics or other types who had a link to the divine.

Brian

Meh, we always just ignored 'em. I'm sure some folks may have used 'em, but in all the years I've gamed, I don't recall ever actually using 'em in-game, even before we officially decided to ignore 'em.