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Peoples of the Forgotten Realms
This
website is devoted to character design for my Forgotten Realms campaign.
I designed it to help players create their characters
and develop their background. I included information about the various
races, playable classes & PrCs, personality traits, tips for creating a character's history, and other assorted odds
& ends.
The Forgotten Realms is a very diverse, detailed, and sometimes overwhelming campaign setting. My hope is to help clear
up some of these complexities and help facilitate a character's identity. I have a pretty extensive collection of Forgotten
Realms stuff to assist us.
While I encourage player creativity, as the GM, I reserve the right to have the final say on character creation. That
way I can insure game balance, campaign suitability, and to discourage Munchkinism*.
A Quick Note About Ethnicities and Sub-Races
It is important to note the difference between ethnicity
and sub-race. In game terms, human ethnic groups will not have bonuses and/or penalties to abilities or special racial features**
(the one possible exception are the Imaskari). However, they may have bonus languages, equipment, and/or access to regional
feats.
Sub-races are just that - offshoots of a particular race***. Due to isolation, the environment, and/or longevity,
sub-races typically have modifiers to abilities and/or special racial features that reflect their particular lifestyles.
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Return to The Recountal
* Munchkin (noun), 1: (considered derogatory) A player who creates
an extremely unbalanced and over-powered character by using ludicrous loopholes in the rules or by outright breaking them.
2: (considered derogatory) A player whose gaming style the user of the term disapproves of; often including, but not limited
to, power gamers, min/maxers, Monty Haulers, hack’n slashers, metagamers, rules lawyers and/or twinks. Etymology: Modern
American, refers to a race of midgets in The Wizard of Oz. http://boards1.wizards.com/showpost.php?p=1487045&postcount=1
** In non-game terms, ethnicity typically emphasizes the cultural,
socioeconomic, religious, and political qualities of human groups rather than their genetic ancestry. It may encompass language,
diet, religion, dress, customs, kinship systems, or historical or territorial identity (Cornell and Hartmann 1998).
*** Personally, I prefer the term "species" better than "race."
Species can be defined as a distinct and recognisable group that satisfies two conditions:
1. Members of the group are reliably distinguishable from members
of other groups.
2. The flow of genetic material between the group and other groups
is small and can be expected to remain so because even if the two groups were to be placed together they would not interbreed
to any great extent.
For example, Homo sapiens, Homo neanderthalens, and Homo habilis
all both belong to the same genus, Homo, but are classified as different species. While some of these species might have been
ancestors of H. sapiens, many were likely our 'cousins', having speciated away from our ancestral line. Throw in the possible
effects of divine magic (Intelligent Design?) & arcane magic on evolution and, voila, you have the species (or "races")
of D&D!
Scientifically speaking, half-elves and half-orcs would be fertile "interspecific hybrids." Other interspecific
hybrids would be infertile (couple this with cultural differences and this is why we don't find any "half-dwarfs"). We can
find examples of infertile and fertile interspecific hybrids in the animal kingdom. For example, horses and donkeys are two
different species. When interbred, they produce infertile mules. However, lions and tigers are also two different species.
But when interbred, they produce fertile ligers.
Along that same line of thinking, "sub-races" would actually be "subspecies."
Lets look at a specific species, like a leopard. The leopard has the widest distribution of all wild cats. It is found in
the deserts of Africa to the jungles of South East Asia to the cold area of Eastern Russia. Because the leopard lives in these
different geographic areas they have different physical characteristics. They are still of the species "leopard" but the leopards
of the deserts will have short and light colored fur. Whereas the cats from Eastern Russia will have longer and darker fur
to be able to survive cold winters.
Applied to humanoids, it would be these physical adaptations that set them apart
from other subspecies. It is also why they wouldn't be classified as ethnic groups. While they may have separate cultural,
socioeconomic, religious, and political qualities, it is these physical adaptations that make them more unique.
A
lot of this is just postulation and my personal speculation - by no means is it official. I have a degree in Anthropology
and this approach just makes more sense to me ;-)
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