Wednesday 16 October 2013

A few quick thoughts on PC races...


PHB Races:
The player races presented in the D&D 4e Player's Handbook are the first ones I want to tackle for the setting, and honestly the easiest to work with given the familiarity everyone has with them. Backwoods elves, Dragonborn privateers and emo Tieflings are all appealing to me right now, and I think they'll be a lot of fun to play with.


Human- The most common folk in the world are humans, found everywhere and tending to be easily cowed by powerful entities, many claim they were formed by the Gods to serve the needs of their betters. A claim often violently refuted by humans themselves.

Dwarf- The closest allies to humans, the dwarf race are powerfully built and tend to be gruff of manner. At one time they lived in the mountains, but many years of war with giant-kin have seen the majority migrate to the lowlands.

Elf- Long lived, beautiful of body and naturally drawn to the woodlands, elves also have a tendency to bear grudges and answer insults with violence, even as they feel free to speak their minds to any and all without answer.

Eladrin- The ancestral rulers of elvenkind, the eladrin hail from the ‘Far Isles’ across the sea. Their ability to warp space is but an outward sign of their alien nature, these immortals are inscrutable to many and their manipulative games have doomed entire nations.

Half-Elf- Outcasts from the woods, half-elves find themselves as homeless wanderers or destitute street dwellers in the cities of the coast. Despised by elves, pitied by men, few of them aspire to anything more than a simple life.

Halfling- Found wherever humans and dwarves dwell, common lore holds that they are a halfbreed race of folk, though the halflings have their own legends in which they are gifted to the world by the goddess Avandra. Wily, nimble and courageous to a fault, many halflings make a living as couriers and messengers between villages in the wilds.

Dragonborn- Scions of the Dragons who rule over the southern desert kingdoms, the dragonborn are seneschals, courtiers and favoured servants of those powerful and ancient beasts. They are the public face of dragonkind, whether walking the streets clad in their finery, or sailing as privateers against the infernal church led city states of the northern coast.

Tiefling- Born servants, natural rebels, the tieflings are a living sign of mortal corruption by the Nine Hells. The result of pacts between the Archdevils and mortal men, they are mistrusted and feared in the north, seen as dangerous criminals in the south and rarely given the chance to prove their individual worth before being judged for their very nature.
Wow, so much for my big spooktober idea eh? On the upside I got my job situation sorted, made headway on diploma stuff and now have a couple of solid campaigns running again.

So to make up for the lack of updates for my imaginary readers, I'm going to be doing some new campaign setting stuff.

I like 4e a lot, and don't much care for what I've seen of Next. So I'm going to do a new setting for 4e, riffing on the implied setting, the assumptions of 4e play and my own love of monsters. Because monsters are frickin' awesome.

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Basically, I'm thinking about taking the story of Grendel and applying it as the norm across the lands of men and dwarves. There isn't a village or town without a local monster claiming dominion over the territory, whether that's as mindless predator or the rare cunning tyrant such as Giants, Dragons or even the occasional Demon or Elemental.

The coast cities are free of monster borne tyranny, but only because the king sold his soul (and firstborn) into infernal bondage. The people are beholden to the church of Asmodeus and the Nine, drafted into the border watch for their endless war on the Orc hordes of the highlands and elven rebels of the Aelderwood. And still the waters of the sea are plagued by Dragonborn pirates, the Kraken and ancient shark gods of the depths.

The southern cities are ruled by ancient Dragon lords and the Tiefling nobles who chafe under their greedy rule. Dragonborn agents of the lords do battle constantly with cults, infernal warlocks and shadowy cabals seeking to end the rule of the Dragons.

So the frontier and wilderness is claimed by giant monsters, civilised lands are either falling into corruption or ruled by tyrant Dragons, and things are bad all over. Cue the heroes...