I've been working on my home-brewed setting lately. Currently, I'm working on my world's races.
Right now I've got two sets: the elder and younger races.
The elder races are all either dead, dying, or gone.
The younger races (I want a better moniker than younger races...) are supposed to be some of your standard fantasy fare.
Humans
Elves
Dwarves
Orcs
Minotaur
Possible additions to the list include halflings, gnomes, half elves and orcs, dragonborn, and the warforged.
I was wondering if I've left any interesting options out. Pretty much anything is up for consideration.
Campaign World Races
Moderator: Stik
The elder races are beings that came along and flourished before the younger races did. They emerged (or were created/spawned) into my world during the first war in heaven. Many of them participated in the battles between the gods. The younger races didn't come about until long after the second war in heaven had begun. While the elder races were powerful enough to participate in the wars in heaven, the younger races were not.
Some classic fantasy examples of the elder races: Dragons, Vampires (I'm not sure about vampires for a few reasons.)
Note that the elder races are not playable, (at least I have no plans to make any of them playable)
I've also been brewing up a few of my own.
Another note: My campaign world has some pretty strong Lovecraftian influences.
The Kritheen: A race of insectoids that rose up independently of the gods and were likely the children of the great creator. The Kritheen were the most highly advanced species to live on the planet to date, and created an empire that covered much of the planet at points and even reached out into the stars. Much of the dark lore and forbidden magic that floats around the planet today originated in the Kritheen empire. This lore was gleaned from the habitual trafficking with daemons, the fae, and the star races. Eventually, this dangerous converse resulted in the races's extinction at the hands of one of the star races.
I've drawn up plans for another five.
Basically, these ancient civs are around to draw the players into the greater, lesser known universe, or into the third "war" in heaven (which is a pretty quiet war), or to provide excuses for exploring cool ancient civilizations and then being driven mad by it.
Some classic fantasy examples of the elder races: Dragons, Vampires (I'm not sure about vampires for a few reasons.)
Note that the elder races are not playable, (at least I have no plans to make any of them playable)
I've also been brewing up a few of my own.
Another note: My campaign world has some pretty strong Lovecraftian influences.
The Kritheen: A race of insectoids that rose up independently of the gods and were likely the children of the great creator. The Kritheen were the most highly advanced species to live on the planet to date, and created an empire that covered much of the planet at points and even reached out into the stars. Much of the dark lore and forbidden magic that floats around the planet today originated in the Kritheen empire. This lore was gleaned from the habitual trafficking with daemons, the fae, and the star races. Eventually, this dangerous converse resulted in the races's extinction at the hands of one of the star races.
I've drawn up plans for another five.
Basically, these ancient civs are around to draw the players into the greater, lesser known universe, or into the third "war" in heaven (which is a pretty quiet war), or to provide excuses for exploring cool ancient civilizations and then being driven mad by it.
So just in terms of brainstorming here:
The elder races were born onto the prime material plane during a conflict on a higher plane of existence, and then wound up participating in said conflict. Why/how did they come into existence? Were they perhaps spawned for that purpose, to serve as soldiers in the war? And following the war, the survivors returned to the prime material plane to live out their lives (and I'm talking lives as a species, not individual lives). Devastated by the wars, they never truly recovered, gradually fading away, for the most part, until present times, where they exist only in small pockets.
The newer races (the "Secondborn" perhaps?) could have come about in a similar manner. The extraplanar entities which created the elder races, weakened by the first war, were unable to create minions as powerful as the first time around. Lamenting the damage to their home planes caused by the first war, they did not bring these minions to the higher planes to fight, content to use the prime material as their battleground for the second war. And once again, the war devastated the participants, leaving the remnants behind to rebuild their civilizations.
This arrangement would favor quick-breeding races with short life-spans, such as humans and the various orc-types. Longer-lived races, like elves, would take longer to repopulate and thus their numbers would lag behind. If you picture a graph of population over time, you would get a steep curve for the fast breeding races and a much flatter one for he slower ones. As a result, the population disparity would mount up higher and higher over time.
The elder races were born onto the prime material plane during a conflict on a higher plane of existence, and then wound up participating in said conflict. Why/how did they come into existence? Were they perhaps spawned for that purpose, to serve as soldiers in the war? And following the war, the survivors returned to the prime material plane to live out their lives (and I'm talking lives as a species, not individual lives). Devastated by the wars, they never truly recovered, gradually fading away, for the most part, until present times, where they exist only in small pockets.
The newer races (the "Secondborn" perhaps?) could have come about in a similar manner. The extraplanar entities which created the elder races, weakened by the first war, were unable to create minions as powerful as the first time around. Lamenting the damage to their home planes caused by the first war, they did not bring these minions to the higher planes to fight, content to use the prime material as their battleground for the second war. And once again, the war devastated the participants, leaving the remnants behind to rebuild their civilizations.
This arrangement would favor quick-breeding races with short life-spans, such as humans and the various orc-types. Longer-lived races, like elves, would take longer to repopulate and thus their numbers would lag behind. If you picture a graph of population over time, you would get a steep curve for the fast breeding races and a much flatter one for he slower ones. As a result, the population disparity would mount up higher and higher over time.
"No matter where you go, there you are."
Quick explanation of my mythos:
A great creator fashions the universe and the gods and sets it into motion. He also creates the gods and various spiritual beings to aid them. After that he "withdraws" (or at least stops talking to the gods. He makes contact with some of the other races at various times)
The gods receive a great deal of instruction at the feet of the great creator and then the creator withdraws, leaving the gods in charge.
As the universe progresses (at first lifeless until the dragons come) the gods are divided on how it should be governed and the role that they as gods should play in it. This eventually becomes the cause of the various wars in heaven.
Now, on to your questions:
How do the races come into existence.
It depended on the race.
Each came about in one of three ways:
1) The creative action of the great creator. The creator would set times for each of the races he had fashioned to emerge.
2) The creative action of the gods. The great creator never gave the gods the right to create new races (something that was held as extremely controversial ) but they did it anyway for various reasons (for soldiers in the war is one example. That is how the Sagari came about.)
3) Some races seem to have arisen as cosmic accidents. The creator nor the gods intended them to come about, but they came anyway. (Though, there is debate on this subject. Some say accident, others say there is nothing the great creator did not intend, only things he did not foretell.)
As for why the younger races haven't been involved in the Wars in heaven
1) The war in heaven is waged all over the universe, not just on the main world of the campaign. There's plenty of space out there, so the younger races often didn't even know the war was going on. And when it came near, it might only be as lights and signs in the sky.
2) The younger races were all foretold by the great creator. While the gods do try to effect them to their own ends, they did avoid involving them in the war to a certain extent because they are regarded as special in some unknown way.(this also has to do with the peace accords that ended the first great war in heaven. The Sagari, a warrior/slave race created to fight in the war eventually became independent and, along with the dragons, forced the end of the first war when several of the gods died. The death of these gods caused the universe to fracture, among other things, and for the sake of creation, the Sagari stepped in to end things.)
I'd continue to babble on, but I need to go get some foo. If you have any other questions, I'll answer those too.
Thanks for the help.
Tempest
A great creator fashions the universe and the gods and sets it into motion. He also creates the gods and various spiritual beings to aid them. After that he "withdraws" (or at least stops talking to the gods. He makes contact with some of the other races at various times)
The gods receive a great deal of instruction at the feet of the great creator and then the creator withdraws, leaving the gods in charge.
As the universe progresses (at first lifeless until the dragons come) the gods are divided on how it should be governed and the role that they as gods should play in it. This eventually becomes the cause of the various wars in heaven.
Now, on to your questions:
How do the races come into existence.
It depended on the race.
Each came about in one of three ways:
1) The creative action of the great creator. The creator would set times for each of the races he had fashioned to emerge.
2) The creative action of the gods. The great creator never gave the gods the right to create new races (something that was held as extremely controversial ) but they did it anyway for various reasons (for soldiers in the war is one example. That is how the Sagari came about.)
3) Some races seem to have arisen as cosmic accidents. The creator nor the gods intended them to come about, but they came anyway. (Though, there is debate on this subject. Some say accident, others say there is nothing the great creator did not intend, only things he did not foretell.)
As for why the younger races haven't been involved in the Wars in heaven
1) The war in heaven is waged all over the universe, not just on the main world of the campaign. There's plenty of space out there, so the younger races often didn't even know the war was going on. And when it came near, it might only be as lights and signs in the sky.
2) The younger races were all foretold by the great creator. While the gods do try to effect them to their own ends, they did avoid involving them in the war to a certain extent because they are regarded as special in some unknown way.(this also has to do with the peace accords that ended the first great war in heaven. The Sagari, a warrior/slave race created to fight in the war eventually became independent and, along with the dragons, forced the end of the first war when several of the gods died. The death of these gods caused the universe to fracture, among other things, and for the sake of creation, the Sagari stepped in to end things.)
I'd continue to babble on, but I need to go get some foo. If you have any other questions, I'll answer those too.
Thanks for the help.
Tempest