Kobolds and Goblins and Bugbears
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Kobolds and Goblins and Bugbears, Oh My!
I created a crazy kind of family tree for the races I want to put in my first book — which is mainly based around dwarves and gnomes. Dwarves are one of the progenitor races, from which sprang the gnomes, and later trolls — halflings are a hybrid of dwarves and gnomes, and gnolls are a hybrid of gnomes and trolls.
They’re all “earthy” races, which is kind of the point of the exercise.
I started wondering about how “robust” character creation would feel with only five races — especially considering that I didn’t include pretty much any of the other standard fantasy races. Also, I wondered where continued application of the weird logic I was using to generate races could take me.
I like monsters, and I like monstrous races. Two races that I’m rather fond of are goblins and kobolds, and they’re both “earthy”-type creatures.
Since I’m going to have some more time to codify things in my system before publication, I started looking seriously at incorporating a couple additional races — likely three, giving me a total of eight — namely goblins and kobolds.
I determined that dwarves gave rise to gnomes and trolls via a form of cultural parthenogenesis, and I started thinking about how often that sort of thing might occur, how radical the changes would be, and so forth.
I settled on a kind of “rule of three” for parthenogenesis — a given race couldn’t spin off more than three original races in a given era. So with the dwarves giving rise to gnomes and trolls, they were limited to one more.
Gnomes seem like a shoe-in for the progenitors of goblins and kobolds, what with the simplified lore I’ve attributed to each. That sort of leaves me with one more race to choose, and I’ll admit I have my eye on bugbears.
Not sure exactly how I’m going to determine their ancestry though — probably some mixture of troll? I don’t know.
Discussion (6) ¬
With that racial setup, it gives one more of a chance to look at the cultural nuances, lifestyles and worldviews within each specific race in ways that aren’t necessarily informed by typical fantasy tropes.
Having a relatively ‘common’ race (where in this case, fantasy race = species or at least genus) means that racial traits and distinctions will likely have origins based on regional adaptations which suit cultural and survival demands. While it’s not entirely relevant to what you’re wanting to do, Random Wizard linked to an interesting re-interpretation of Horror on the Hill which you may find inspiring; in it, the demi-human monster races are reimagined as humans that have been variously corrupted by the presence of the titular Horror, and how that affects their physical forms, beliefs and interactions with the other factions present on the hill.
http://dungeonofsigns.blogspot.com/2014/01/horror-on-hill-b5-review.html
I was encouraged by my reading of ES lore (with the men/mer division) to create a vastly simplified version of relationships between the various fantastic races — and I think at the same time it “complicates” matters as one considers the others to be “not so different.”
Dwarf and troll relations will doubtless break down, leading to violent conflict in relatively short order — if not regularly — and despite sharing a great deal of similarities (one race having given rise to the other), there will be a wedge between them that will persist for generations or longer.
Gnomes and goblins will be in fierce competition with one another, given their similarities — it’s almost a given that any one race that spins off from another will find itself in conflict with its parent race until it establishes a cultural identity of its own.
It also gives me an opportunity to explore “hybrid” races — those created through a union of two others — hardier than either parent, sharing many benefits of both with the weaknesses of either.
There’s a bit of a joke on the kender, what with hybrids being supposedly “better” than their parent races, and halflings being a hybrid of dwarves and gnomes. I kind of picture them as a “Wesley Crusher” race.
It will be a personal challenge to “rescue them from the Scrappy Heap.” http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap
Lol.
The key is to come up with a plausible reason why relations will break down. “Always Chaotic” or “Worship evil gods” just isn’t good enough.
Just what the Halflings end up being should be determined heavily on how you are defining your dwarves and gnomes. Being influenced by the Greeks, I expect that antithesis will come into play in defining the races; halflings might make for a nice middle ground (maybe even a playground) for the ideas inherent in each parent group, if they’re comprised of disaffected dwarves and disaffected gnomes. Maybe they’ve introduced a flexibility of thought and philosophy lacking in the progenitors in such a way that they can take advantages of both cultures in ways which the progenitors would not have thought of because of a belief of incompatibility. The “X? and Y? It would never work!” formula. All you need to do is define the Dwarves’ Chocolate and the Gnomes’ Peanutbutter and you’ll have the Halflings’ Reeses cup.
My current model pits dwarves as rigidly matriarchal and having large extended family-clans, vaguely inspired by Indian culture. They’re one of the more static and stable cultures, but consequently have among the fewest notable adventurers (everyone stays at home, mostly).
Gnomes are a morally flexible meritocracy, where one can be expected to climb the social ladder by achieving more and better, and also being able to show it off — in a way, the two races compose (for me anyway), some of the traits that make the LEAST sense combined in D&D drow.
Halflings are the “awkward teenagers,” despite being chronologically third-born out of eight total races in the region. They are hardworking and often take jobs working the less desirable jobs of their parent races — they have the dwarves’ hardiness and the gnomes’ grace.
The rest of the races are roughly defined by which side of the dwarf/gnome divide — or if they’re another of the hybrid races:
Dwarves — dwarves, trolls, kobolds
Gnomes — gnomes & goblins
Hybrids — halflings, gnolls, bugbears
The “family tree” is littered with little in-jokes that will probably be lost… on everyone, everywhere, but me.
In that case, I’d imagine that Halflings might have some sort of quasi-patriarchal meritocracy. The patriarchy would be primarily nominal, a cultural revolt against gynocentric hegemony, and family structures would have appeal to those leaving gnomish society who might have wanted more rigidity. As a whole, meritocracy would still pervade halfling culture. One chooses one’s “family” freely, and moves up and down within one’s own family. There would be an expected respect for the authority of those who’d proven themselves superior within one’s own family. More enterprising individuals might establish their own family, and new houses are primarily founded when a dispute of merit within a family cannot be sufficiently settled. I’d expect them to be slightly gynophobic, and might either react with hostility or be easily cowed by strong female adventurers/leaders of any race. That’s how I might run them in my game, anyway, given the information you’ve already supplied.
I’m not sure how that would affect their classes, though I’d expect that Dwarves would have Charter magic, gnomes would have free magic, and halflings might have some sort of combination of the two. I might restrict dwarves to book only spells. Halflings/gnomes might be able to change the ‘school’ of book spells, like a fireball that’s Necromancy instead of Evocation.