This post was inspired by a comment from Jeremy regarding how he thinks it a bit odd that he can't really remember the main races of The Known World (seriously, that continent needs a name). Hopefully this won't just confuse the issue for him.
Technically speaking, the first race to occupy The Known World were the Eldumans (and perhaps the Uncout). If you remember a previous post, they were one of the three races that made up Kaleshmar, they're the lowest ranking of the three and were once sentient crystals. Now (in 9995 DK) they act all cryptic and pretend they were the mightiest of the mighty and that they ruled Kaleshmar. They also have crystalline bones and eyes and a prediliction for psychic powers and plotting. They live on the smaller landmass known as The Old Empire and their descendants populate The New Empire, the Plains of Dust, and The Fallen Empire. When I was writing out names and such I apparently had a thing for the word empire (Old, New, Fallen, Goblin, all empires). I blame it on the snobby pricks that do the mapmaking and naming in this particular world.
Human is a broader term in this world that in it is in the real world. The most human humans are those called the Uncout. They were a created race, designed to live in the mines and tunnels of the floating continent of Kaleshmar, they're squat and muscular and hairy and see rather well in the dark (better than this human certainly). The other "humans" of The Known World are more like half-breeds than anything else. There are those of Elduman descent, basically a sect of Eldumans that bred with Uncout long enough to have a less crystalline skeletal system and a shorter life span. There are those of Fell Human descent, creatures descended from Fell-Humans that bred with Uncout or those of Elduman descent enough to work out most of the extra appendages and funny skin disorders native to that race. The fourth of the human races are those that are descended from Uncout, essentially they are "civilized" Uncout. These Uncout have lost the short stature and night vision of their ancestors because they no longer need to see or crawl in the dark depths of Kaleshmarian tunnels or the shrouded trails of the Beast Lands.
Another of the older races of The Known World are the dwarves, also called the Dwenoren. They are short, pale creatures that are hairless and lack finger and toenails. They are perfectly capable of seeing in the pitch black cities of Whurent. In my GURPS campaign notes, they are actually blind, eyeless creatures that have long black sensory spines jutting from their lower jaws, these allow them to "see". I couldn't find a way to work that into DnD rules, so I just used dwarves and called them dwarves instead of Dwen. In both versions of the race they're also descended from a species of giant, bloated grub-like creatures.
The Children of Volung are an elf-like race that was once part of Kaleshmar. Long ago, the race had a schism. Some felt that the power of Kaleshmarian technology had made them soft and weak, others thought that their empire's technology was strength enough. One Kaleshmarian (a certain Volung) cast aside the technology of the empire and went north to the top of the world. There he and his cult destroyed every remnant they could of their former lives and started up from the stone age in about the harshest environment they could find and still survive in. They made a little empire for themselves living and dying by the sword and axe, fought some giants, met some Dwen. Kaleshmar exploded and something about that literally set the North on fire, so they fled south and ended up in The Known World. Whether or not the North is still on fire is an unknown. The Children of Volung are physically immortal, tan colored, dark-haired, tall, they have pointed ears, sharp teeth befitting carnivores, and they have pupiless black eyes. They also practice cannibalism, mostly because it is practical and means they don't have to waste time burying the weak and the dead.
I want to interject here that none of my elves are actually elves. You may have figured it out by now, but there are two versions of my world, the world I can hammer into DnD's rules, and the world as it exists in my brain. I copy and paste races like Eladrin and Elf because they're there and I need a framework. I alter stuff where I can, but at the time I was pushing the campaign into fourth edition I was a novice with it and didn't know what would make a given race unbalanced. So I kept most of the stats the same. It wasn't the best idea, but I was more concerned about actually playing the game and keeping things relatively fair than I was about preserving every iota of fluff from my world.
The Sereth and Vyanth can be fitted into one little section. I have written them as divergent lines of the same race, one desert dwelling and the other city dwelling. Neither branch has a real love of nature as depicted in typical elves, it is their environment and serves their needs. The Sereth have a bit more respect for it than their cousins, but they do not revere it and would happly terraform their desert lands back into the lush wilderness it once was if they could. In my head both races are not terribly elven, other than fancy pants reflexes. They're humanoid looking, but their limbs are longer in proportion to their torsos than a human's and they are about as tall as the Children of Volung, they have vertically slitted cat-eyes too. No pointed ears though. The Vyanth are decadent hedonists that make extensive use of slaves and settle disputes with gladatorial combats. The Sereth are a tribal desert dwelling society too busy trying to eke out a living to be in any way decadent. Both races are fairly xenophobic.
The Fallen of The Fallen Empire of Man are human in that same way that the "humans" of the New Empire are human, which is to say human looking but descended from Eldumans. They're also undead because a creature by the name of The Bleak Tyrant was hidden in the depths of a weird city they moved into and decided that they would serve him. The humans became immortal, but they can never die or heal so they get all rotted and ruined and icky looking. Even so, he won't let them die, not even when they get hacked into little bits and pieces.
There are the Abraxens, also called Greyskin Orcs or Greyskin Abraxens. They're a technologically advanced race that were once slaves to the other branch of Volung's race, those that stuck around with the mighty technology of Kaleshmar. They're technologically advanced because they were a created slave race much like the Uncout and thought that to fight off their "sorcerous" masters they needed to find a way to make themselves stronger without wielding sorcery themselves. They have an aversion to sorcery of any kind for this reason. Their homeland is a massive burned land, a grey desert of ash and dead earth and became that way due to the extreme measures they used to finally shake their race free from the grasp of their masters. Between their "extreme measures" and the shattering of Kaleshmar, the other sect of Volung's people are pretty much extinct. If there is technology in The Known World, the Abraxes are probably in some way responsible for it or the idea that inspired the dude that came up with it. They have ridiculously extensive pacts with Kusseth for all kinds of things and seem to favor that nation above all others for unknown reasons. They are also fascinated by their Greenskin cousins and the way their race diverged.
Hmm. There seem to be a lot of divergent races in my world. Never really noticed that till just now (Thursday night). I wonder why that is. Hmm.
Penultimate on the race roll, we have the Greenskin Abraxens. They're descended from Greyskin Abraxens that ended up shipwrecked on the coast of the Beast Lands and sort of went native. The color of orc skin is a sort of camouflage, the orc homeland being a grey desert of dust and ash and the forests of the Beast Land being green and leafy. If any orc tribes popped up in the Sereth desert they would have sandy colored skin. Anyway, these orcs are descended from greys and are as primitive and tribal as their Uncout neighbors.
There are also the Goblin empires in the Fell Peaks. Technically they are enslaved to the Fell Humans of the Fell Peaks, but they do have their own society and they once ran shit out west, until the Fell Humans conquered them. Anyway, in my head they are descended from A'lst's people, which were the head honchos of Kaleshmar. They're also egg laying mammals that evolve into the three races of that particular society based on the biological needs of the society. For instance, the "bugbears" used to be the leaders and warrior kings of the empire, but they have this sort of racial post traumatic stress syndrome/ennui thing going on because they can't wrap their heads around the fact that their ancestors were warrior kings and ran shit, and now they're slaves. Basically, the former leader caste of the goblin empires sucks. What it amounts to is that the whole race gives off "our leaders suck" pheremones, this triggers certain hormones and whatnot in the rookeries and alters the growth rates of the hatchlings so a larger percentage of the eggs hatch and become bugbears as the race attempts to find newer and more competent leaders. If the race were on a war footing and needed more gear, "we need more smiths" pheremones would get into the air and cause goblins to hatch. If they need more bloodletters, more hobs would hatch. I use DnD terminology for this race because it fits for the moment. If we were to switch to GURPS tomorrow there would be a few changes made. Goblins work for now, so I use goblins.
So there is a rundown of the races of The Known World. It excludes certain minor races like the mute giants of Whurent and other really small niche races that exist in the continent. To be honest, the continent is pretty well explored and populated and has very few secrets left to it. There is definitely stuff left to uncover in it for the PCs, but in terms of the continent's inhabitants, they pretty much know what's going on where and what each and every dark little corner is full of.
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