I know, the worldbuilding section has been pretty quiet as of late. But! I have been toying with some ideas, and want to toss one of them out there. Not really something for this specific world, but an example of how you can play around with races to change the stereotypes. For example… dwarves.
Dwarves. AKA Short Scotsmen. C’mon, we all know it’s true – 99% of dwarves are played as ugly, stereotypical Scotsmen – surly, angry, drunk, bearded, and willing to chop you off at the knees. Oh, and greedy.
Yeah. Let’s change them up a bit, shall we? But without going full-blown comical, or parody. I’m not saying the dwarves should be hippies, or something like that – I’m saying they should be a logical race for growing up underground.
Primary crops? Mushrooms and mosses. Particularly mushrooms – they replace wheat, basically. Mushroom flour, mushroom beer, all sorts of things that use various varieties of mushrooms. Indeed, some varieties of beer are potent hallucinogens to non-dwarves, if not poisonous (and the ones that *are* hallucinogenic to the dwarves, largely restricted to religious ceremonies, are downright dangerous outside of dwarven systems.)
Primary duties? Let’s stick with the mining, but work on it a bit. Dwarves are miners, largely – miners, smiths, and mushroom farmers. They live underground, and their entire economy is built around digging on one level or another. Axes aren’t a good weapon for them – so let’s scrap that. Why do you need axes? Now *picks* you’ll need… and hammers. So the main weapons would be large hammers, and the occasional repurposed warpick – the last thing somebody in heavy armor wants to see on the battlefield is a dwarf.
In the interests of giving us an intriguing, dwarf-specific weapon, let’s even combine the two. Yes, the dreaded double-weapon… but not the Urgrosh (axe-spear) that we see in the standard rulebook. No, that’s a combination of weapons that aren’t likely to be adopted by dwarves, at least not ones who really do live mostly underground. Instead, the Dwarven Flail.
Dwarven Flail, M Exotic Double-weapon (Martial for Dwarves). 1d8/1d6, x3/x4. The Dwarven Flail is a unique double-weapon comprised of two common dwarven tools – the pickaxe and the hammer – joined by a length of chain. The Dwarven Flail can be used as a double-weapon, or the grip can be shortened and either end of the weapon can be used as a single weapon with 10′ Reach. Like the Spiked Chain, the Dwarven Flail can be used at 5′ without penalty even when being used for reach, and it can be used for Trip attempts at a +2 bonus.
Now, that’s all d20 terminology, but I’m sticking with it. Ranged weapons aren’t something the dwarves would use much – they’re underground, in the dark, and can’t see foes that far out. Further, in cramped tunnels, ranged weapons aren’t that handy. Crossbows and slings are good enough for their purposes However, sometimes you want to be able to hit a charging foe before they reach you, and being able to switch your grip and use your weapon at a longer reach is a handy trick – and a suitable one.
Visually, the dwarven flail is like a really, really long nunchaku – a long length of chain with a heavy mallet on one end, and a pick on the other. It’s basically a weaponized version of an ancient dwarven tool, used in mining. When you’re in the mines, you have a use for both of them – and you really don’t want to be able to drop things and lose them too easily, when you might have a sudden drop turn up in a natural cavern. So, since you’re usually not using your hammer and pick at the same time, tying them together becomes a handy way to let you keep one on your belt while you use the other, so if you accidentally drop it down a crevasse, you can pull it up. And, when the Underground Nasties come around to attack… well, the miners and warriors of the dwarves figured out how to use them as nasty little weapons against them.
Primary animals? Here’s where we’re *really* going to digress from Dwarves as Scotsmen. I’m actually going to go to Australia as an example here. Why?
One word. Wombats.
Wombats are fairly cute, incredibly hardy little burrowing critters that range from docile enough to let kids roam their tunnels to hellacious fighters that’ll chew your face off if you give them too much trouble. And, perhaps oddly, from behind they’re almost impossible to hurt – there’s a thick later of muscle, fur, skin, and fat there that serves as natural armor.
Natural mounts and stock-animals for dwarves. Some of them are trained to be haulers. Others are trained to be mining-animals, digging tunnels that the dwarves can clear out and search for precious metals. Others are trained as herd animals. And you don’t *want* to hear what an overworld architect has to say about dwarven battle-wombats tunelling under a castle.
Sure, it sounds a little silly… but that’s something we’ve attached to it. Otherwise, it makes perfect sense. And, in a way, the Australian culture as it existed early on – heavy on opal mining and hard living – is very much in keeping with dwarven culture as it’s usually portrayed. Also, you have long distances where sound carries very well that you need to communicate over… the didgeridoo (or something similar) is a perfectly sensible instrument for dwarves to use. The low-toned sounds could carry for miles, sending messages over long distances through the rock, particularly given dwarven sensitivity to rock and vibrations.
Now, let’s take a brief look at beards. I could see dwarven miners having thick, luxurious beards – the thicker the better, and the better kept the better. But dwarven smiths? No way in hell would they have beards. Do you want a fire hazard on your face WHEN YOU’RE SLAVING OVER A HOT FORGE?!? I don’t think so!
Dwarven deities and a pantheon can be worked on more gradually, but you’d probably have a creator-deity based around smithing and craftsmanship, as well as deities dedicated to mining, to community, to the animals and nature, to earthquakes and fire (a major concern when you live underground), and several other things. And, of course, your typical gods interested in love (probably a counterpart to the community one, to base it off of the Norse pantheon), death, and similar “common” elements that need to be explained/controlled. But this is a good start, I think.
Play around with your races – take them out of the standard stereotypes. Your game world will thank you for it!
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Now just what do I mean by *that* title, do you suppose?
Well, one of the fine arts of building a world is being able to steal ideas from other sources – but doing it while putting your own spin on it. It’s sometimes difficult – you have to take the basic idea, without committing wholesale plagiarism, especially if you’re planning on selling your material. Ideally, you do it while reinforcing your own themes and messages. But everybody does it – it’s called “inspiration.”
Taking a look at the world we’ve been working on – one where magic is rare, where eldritch abominations from beyond time and space once ruled, and where people are supposed to get by on their own skill and strength. What would be a good source to nab some ideas from? Well, what do we need for the world yet?
In this case, just about everything – most importantly though, we need places and plots. So what I’m going to do is borrow from a favorite musical album of mine – The Protomen’s Act II: The Father Of Death
. In Act II, we discover how Dr. Wily created Monsteropolis, framing Dr. Light for a murder created by one of Wily’s robots and dominating the city by creating a utopia where robots did everything, and there was no need to work yourself… at the price of eternal subjugation to Wily’s will.
How do we draw on this, a cyberpunk future, for a fantasy world? Step 1 – switch sorcery in for science. Step 2 – file off the serial numbers. Step 3 – adjust shape to fit into an open hole in the world.
Act II presents a city that was ‘saved’ from having to actually work by an idealistic scientist and his megalomanical partner. The fantasy world version, of course, would be a city where magic does *everything* – magical constructs doing the work of hundreds or even thousands of people. Even in a low-magic world the concept can work, as long as it’s isolated somehow. We’ll also draw on some ideas from Lovecraft and, more importantly, Howard for this – the concept that Howard and Lovecraft used in the creation of Hyboria and Kadath.
I’m not entirely sure why, but the name ‘Theilas’ is coming to mind – we’ll go with that for the city, for now. Theilas exists far to the north, in the heart of the frozen tundra there. High walls of mountainous ice block Theilas off, a verdant valley that exists in the middle of a vast plain of ice. In this valley, legend has it, magic still thrives. It is used not for war, but for peace, the tools of man’s labor enchanted to do their own work, drudge labor performed by silent, satisfied golems of gleaming brass. In the center of the valley, the Citadel, where the great archmage who makes all of this possible continues his studies, and has for centuries in a land beyond labor, despair, and death.
Worst of all, the legends are true… or at least nearly so. In Theilas, the men and women do live without the need for labor. It is a verdant paradise, farmed by the brass golems of the Archmage, whose name has long since been forgotten, whose status in the valley has become nearly deific. But they do not worship him out of gratitude for freeing them from labor – they worship him out of fear, because he alone can protect them from the Fiend.
Centuries ago, there were two archmages, crafting the golems and constructs that work within Theilas. One of them created a new type of golum – the Fiend – and it went mad, killing a woman. The archmage who created the Fiend was exiled for his crime, and is only spoken of as the Dark Mage. The remaining Archmage swore to research a way to hunt down and destroy the murderous golem. Since then, the Fiend has stalked the streets of Theilas, and any who steps down the wrong alleyway or is out too late at night is never seen again – only their bloody remains, where the Fiend found them. The Archmage has made certain decrees, as he has identified how the Fiend works – decrees meant only to protect the people of Theilas as he works hard to save them, and create a true utopia. The people of the city only pray that he succeeds in time – for, as of late, rumors have begun to spread of new types of Fiend, and they fear that the Dark Mage has returned from his exile to take over Theilas.
Obviously, this is taking amply from the ideas of Act II, and how Wily claims his control over Monsteropolis. Is it too close? I think there are enough differences there, particularly with the recent developments in this city, and particularly given the role that the characters can end up playing.
Theilas exists, from the outside, as a gleaming city on the hill that everybody who hears about it only wishes could truly exist. A legendary paradise that some fools hope to reach before their deaths. Inside, it is a true dystopia – paradise, tainted by the stain of greed and power-lust. Now, when creating any major story element like this, there are a few rules that ought to be considered – one of them, that you need to create secrets about it that can be discovered.
I’m not going to count the fact that the Archmage is the true villain as one of those secrets, personally. Instead, I’m going to create the following:
1: The ‘Dark Mage’ still lives – frozen in the icy plains that surround Theilas. If found and freed, his power would be nearly gone, but he could tell the characters the truth about Theilas – that the Fiend is an Iron Golem created by the Archmage, who murdered his wife when she refused to leave him for the Archmage. He could even give them a few pointers for fighting the golem, when they reach Theilas.
2: The Archmage is not only a villain, he is a truly foul one. He knows full well that the magic he uses for Theilas’ prosperity is tainted by the stain of the Old Ones. He just doesn’t care. He is the source of the blasphemous creatures that are beginning to crawl through the sewers and streets of Theilas – his debts are coming due. He long ago swore to serve the Old Ones in exchange for immortality, and the time to finish his researches. Not into creating golems – he has mastered that. Instead, he studies the secrets of life and death. He has not given up on his obsessive love for Elizabeth, the Dark Mage’s dead wife. Her body is preserved by magic, kept in his Citadel in a place of honor, waiting for her chance to become his Queen. The Archmage only had the Fiend kill her in a fit of rage at her refusal of him. He now searches for a way to return her to life, knowing that she will love him for his dedication and his steadfast efforts when her eyes open again.
That, until then, she is being used as the incubator for the crawling monstrosities that are beginning to terrorize Theilas matters to him not at all.
3: Those monstrosities are the creations of the Aboleth, a handful of whom have been born anew into the world by dark rituals the Archmage has conducted, their eggs planted into Elizabeth’s womb to fill the loophole in the spell that imprisons them – that no Aboleth can be born into the world of a living creature. Now, they taunt the Archmage with tantalizing hints that he can restore his Elizabeth to life, knowing that they will never truly unlock the secret for him – not until enough of their kind have been brought back into the world that they can conquer, and defeat the ancient spell that locked them away.
I have to head home now – if I have more ideas for Theilas, I’ll probably post them later. But this is the sort of thing that happens when I start to borrow from other sources.
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Well, I’m going to start talking about a few of my favorite TV shows from yesteryear… what does this have to do with worldbuilding? Well, mostly, the main reason I love them is for their worlds!
It also helps that they illustrate several of my world-building principles well, and so I can bring that up. Today, I’m going to start out with Thundarr – a show from the late 70′s/early 80′s by Ruby-Spears, featuring a post-apocalyptic world rules over by mutants and ‘evil wizards,’ where former-slave Thundarr adventures with his friends, Ookla the Mok and Ariel the Sorceress.
The world itself is pretty self-explanatory. “In 1994, from out of space comes a runaway planet, hurtling between the Earth and the Moon, unleashing cosmic destruction!” It also split the moon in two, and basically led to civilization collapsing. Now, of course, this didn’t happen in 1994….
But the world that we get, set in 3994, is a world of science and sorcery both, something that I happen to enjoy. Robots are fairly common – particularly among the evil wizards – powered by recovered super-science and dark magic. The “Seven Citadels of Sorcery” and “Council of Wizards” seem to be the rulers of this new Earth – which implies seven Wizards, the most powerful ones, who rule over portions of the Earth and determine rank among their lessers. Each episode expands on the world, never fully detailing it, but always giving you new pieces to work with.
All in all, for a blatant ripoff of anything popular at the time, it’s darned good.
Blatant ripoff? Well, yes.
There’s Thundarr – whose constant pledges to the Lords of Light might as well be exclamations of “by Krom!”
There’s his Sun Sword – which might as well be a lightsaber. It even deflects blaster bolts!
There’s Ookla – who might as well be Chewie.
There’s the post-apocalyptic world, which could easily have come out of any of a dozen different popular movies of the time, including Mad Max. Most episodes have sly nods to inspirational material – like the giant mechanical ape that is built in one episode being defeated by Thundarr, Ariel, and Ookla flying a biplane. There’s even a slight nod to Alien, and other sci-fi films of the 70′s and earlier, when a mysterious alien crashes on Earth and begins stalking people through the ice caves they live in, cocooning them and taking them back to its ship.
And yet, despite the blatant rip-offs, the show remains *fun* more than anything else. Cheap, cheesy, enjoyable *fun* – and that’s really what the best game worlds are built out of.
Can’t wait for Thundarr to end up on DVD – but until then, you can (for now) watch it on Boomerang, at 5:30 PM, CST. If you don’t have Boomerang… well, get hold of the folks who put out these DVD’s and tell them to get on it!
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Well, we’ve got a world concept… now we need some people on it.
We also need a name for the world which is, sadly, something I do not excel at (any suggestions?)
So, races for this world. Iron Heroes actually makes this easier, since it largely doesn’t muck about with races – most characters are human, and any customization is cosmetic, or done through picking different Traits (in the core book).
However, I’d like to slip a specific non-human race for this one. One of the things that I usually do when I’m working with a new world is that I look at mental images I have for the game – scenes. Well, one of the things that I have going through my head is a world that has airships – galleons sailing through the sky overhead on great oar-wings, ornithopters carrying single passengers, a world that has, to some extent, the fantasy-world equivalent of advanced technology. Adapting that sort of idea in, most worlds would use elves as the people to develop that sort of technology. Despite that… well, frankly, I don’t really like the idea of just trotting out elves again. Instead, I’m going to swap in another species.
The Greys.
Yeah, those little guys we all met in Close Encounters – the fellas with the spaceships and the anal probes. What would they be like in a fantasy world, albeit a low-magic one? They’d be masters of the sort of fanciful, clockwork machines that Davinci designed. Given materials that would behave the right way (which, of course, we can create), they’d be able to make airships and the like – and all sorts of other ‘fun’ toys.
In the interests of changing the name up a *little* bit, we’ll rename them the Gree (modified from the French for ‘grey’) – I’ve actually got some ideas for ways to put that name to use later on, too.
Given the description of them – scrawny intellectuals – we’ll give them a -2 to Strength, and a +2 to Dexterity and Intelligence. They’re great watchmakers, not so hot as blacksmiths. Their large eyes give them the benefits of Low Light Vision, but they also suffer a -1 penalty to all skill and attack rolls when in bright light, unless they’re wearing protective eye gear (which we can design later.) And, in keeping with the creatures of alien-abduction lore, they’re telepathic – they don’t normally communicate verbally, but instead with any intelligent being who speaks a shared language within 100′. In keeping with their Davinci-era technology, I’m going to have them dress accordingly.
I’m going to work on a class later that lets their advanced tech work, but that’ll take a while – not going to worry about it for now.
So, in game terms, here’s what we’ve got:
The Gree (Humanoid)
-2 Strength, +2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence
Low Light Vision (Ex): The Gree can see twice as far in low lighting conditions.
Light Vulnerability (Ex): In bright light (daylight or brighter), the Gree suffer -1 on all attack rolls and skill checks.
Telepathy (Su): The Gree don’t speak a normal language; instead, they communicate telepathically with any intelligent being that can understand a language they do. They can hear just fine, and are capable of speech, but they typically communicate telepathically for the sake of expediency (and because they’re more used to it.)
Description:
These short (4′ average), smooth-skinned individuals look like classic “Third Kind” aliens – their name is based off the French for Grey. Rather than hyper-advanced individuals, though, the Gree are based off of “Davincian” technology and culture – they live along coastlines, in the mountains, and in forests, and craft exquisite artwork there. They also craft intricate clockwork devices and machines that blur the line between science and sorcery. Gree sky-galleons are a fairly common sight, sailing through the sky on the winds, massive sails billowing in the jetstream, oar-wings beating to steer the ships. Smaller vessels, powered by pedals or delicate springs, carry individual passengers, while the galleons are used to move trade goods, money, and the feared war machines of the Gree.
Oddly, the Gree refuse to live in jungle regions, or do business there – nobody’s entirely sure why, and they get touchy whenever somebody asks about it. However, the general theory is that it has something to do with why a largely peaceful race that deals in high-stakes trade and diplomacy has put so many resources into incredible war machines that allow handfuls of men to wipe out small armies.
This technology is made possible by three key ingredients – incredibly light yet resilient woods (darkwood), and metals (mithril), and the fantastic ingenuity that the Gree are renowned for.
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I’ve been asked by a couple people how I build a game world when I’m working on it (mostly my brother, who’s trying to break into game design, but it’s a good place to start). So, for a little fun, and to talk about my world-building ideas with examples, I’m going to walk through the world-building process that I use.
Now, I know that some guides suggest you start small, and work out to get bigger from there. But when you’re coming up with the world’s basics, you need to start a bit larger… for example, what game system are you going to use?
I’m going to opt for three, actually – Iron Heroes
, Pathfinder
, and Arcana Evolved
. Why three? Because they’re all variants on d20 3.5 – my main focus, at this point, will be on the Iron Heroes era.
Iron Heroes is a very low-magic, high-”heroism,” version of 3.5. There are magic wielders, but magic is very dangerous to use. There are no clerics channeling the power of the gods to heal the sick and raise the dead. The world that it works best for is, thus, one that doesn’t use a lot of magic, one where it’s still a very young science, rather like chemistry in the first millennia… or, if not a young science, then one that was only recently rediscovered.
That idea appeals to me, actually. There was a time when magic was more common – however, for whatever reason, it went away, or at least regressed. This isn’t a young world, it’s one that’s very old… and that had a massive catastrophe in the past.
I’m actually going to delve into two different sources for inspiration here. First, questions about how the moon of our world was formed. Second, one of my favorite inspirational sources, Lovecraft.
Earth’s moon is an oddity – compared to all other worlds, it’s far, far too large… and too lonely, being the only one. Astronomers simply aren’t quite sure how it got there, or where it came from. Well, I’m not going to go for *exactly* that set of issues – I like the idea of multiple moons – but I will go ahead and raise the question of where the moons came from.
The ancient civilization that came before did have a moon in the sky… but they raised more. Why did they bother to put that much effort and time into building new moons? Obviously, because there was something that needed to be put Somewhere Else. Maybe cities, maybe creatures… and that’s where Lovecraft comes in.
Lovecraft’s work is rife with ancient, eldritch beings that can only be contained, not defeated. It’s also full of cities that are hard to reach, and parts of fantastical worlds – Kadath, for example, or R’lyeh. Let’s say we’ve got a world that *had* a series of wars like the ones Lovecraft outlines in Shadow Out of Time. Ancient beings, Aberrations in d20 terms, warring against each other… and, eventually, against their own rebelling slaves. Eventually, our ancient races managed to score a victory, but they couldn’t destroy their former masters entirely. Instead, they wielded powerful magic, that sent their cities into the sky, encased in massive orbs of stone, imprisoned for eternity. Of course, such powerful magic always exacts a price – the sheer amount of magical energy involved in such an act largely impoverished the rest of the world. What magic does remain is used at a potentially disastrous price – it weakens the bonds holding the Old Ones in their prisons. Worse, after so much time, the very energy of magic has been tained by the evil of the Old Ones – those who use Their power are slowly warped and changed by the exposure.
So, that’s the Iron Heroes (core) magic system explained, in this world. It also gives us things to build on later in the game.
At this point, our world has been rebuilding from the ‘cataclysm’ brought on by the loss of magic. Without magic, people have had to learn to maximize their skills and abilities – to do for themselves what wizards and clerics used to do regularly. This explains the pumped-up abilities of the classes in Iron Heroes.
How we tie this into the other systems later… I’m getting some ideas, but those are for much, much later.
So, are you getting any ideas? What sort of things would you like to see in this world? Let me know – maybe I can work them in through later posts.
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So, you’re running an RPG – or playing in one. I’m going to assume you’re not in one set in the modern day; building a modern-day world for your game is pretty simple, in a lot of ways, though I’ll go into it more in a later post.
No, for our purposes, you’re running sci-fi or fantasy – and you need a world. Now, there are many worlds available for you to borrow from game companies – everything from the classic, Tolkien-esque fantasy of Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms (albeit much more magically pumped up), to the “low” fantasy of Lankhmar and Iron Heroes, to the science fiction settings of Justifiers (if you can find a copy), Hero Games’ Terran Empire, and the venerable Traveller.
But let’s say you’re trying to create your own world, for whatever reason. And, more importantly, you don’t want it to come off as just another Tolkien or Heinlein ripoff. How do you pull that off – especially if you’re using a rules system that has races straight out of Tolkien?
Well, this is where it’s the little things that count. Lord of the Rings was so basic in the tone of its world that it’s almost impossible to make a high fantasy world that doesn’t feel like it’s ripping it off, especially since it’s so well known (ironically – D&D wasn’t originally a Tolkien ripoff, it was based more off the works of Vance, but those didn’t have nearly the same popularity in the long run, so….)
However, one of the reasons Tolkien doesn’t really feel generic is because it was rife with small cultural elements – things that made the people unique. That’s the key behind making any fantastic world feel different from the others in its genre – you have to have small details, elements that you don’t normally see. These can range from purely cosmetic all the way to minor social details – but they’re the sort of things you need to think about. So! With that in mind, let’s look at a few examples.
Races
Elves, Dwarves, etc are so common as to be cliche, these days. And yet, they’re what we’ve got rules for. This poses a problem, if the GM wants to drop the standard races and still have his rules. So, what do I do?
Well, several of my friends are furries – they like playing anthropomorphic animal characters. So, for the sake of simplicity, I just throw out the names, and replace them with new ones.
Dwarves become Badgers, halflings become Mice, gnomes become Squirrels or Chipmunks, elves become Foxes, half-elves, humans, and half-orcs become… well, pretty much anything you want to tack the stats onto. You don’t change the rules, but you do change the visuals, which is a pretty big step right there.
Of course, you don’t have to use furries – that’s just a handy example for me. You can tack the stats onto whatever you want, it’s just a matter of coming up with new names and a few other things to make them more than name-swapped Tolkien-races.
Cultural Elements
Here’s where things get a bit more involved, and a bit more fun. One of the big things that makes any world unique is the culture you use… and you should start getting away from the idea of a homogenous culture, too. Not all dwarves will be honor-obsessed, greedy, horse-and-elf-hating SOB’s. Heck, establish a group of dwarves that’s got great relationships going with the elves. Establish one that mines as a holy purpose, rather than as an industry. Or establish one that doesn’t mine at all – they could be traders, or they could even have nothing to do with money and trade at all. Remember Moria? Well, what if we have a colony of Dwarves that *did* mine too deep… and has since become a holy order of monks, defending the world from the horrors they nearly unleashed, and becoming ascetics in penance for the greed that nearly released the demons?
Of course, it’s not just the races you need to – or can – tweak with. The Dark Sun setting was notorious for alternate takes on all the races. Dwarves were enslaved craftsmen, halflings were cannibals, elves were xenophobic, holier-than-thou savages… they did all sorts of things to go with a fantasy world that was now a harsh, unforgiving wasteland. But they also tweaked the classes, making wizards into Defilers and Preservers, bards into canny Assassins, paladins into Templars upholding the will of the wicked God-Kings, and clerics into nature worshippers.
The culture of a setting is often its heart, and it doesn’t have to be obvious things like those mentioned above. When you’re changing culture around, there are a few areas you can look at that can lead into all sorts of changes… and not all of them have to be addressed in big, thudding terms.
Food Supply
So, you’re a dwarf, or other mountain-dweller. You live underground. You can’t farm, not traditionally. Your hunting options are somewhat limited, since you can’t really use a bow that well underground. What do you eat?
Probably a lot of mushrooms, cave fish, and mosses – things that don’t need light to grow, and that don’t need to be harvested at a distance. You might even find other types of meat largely unpalateable… or, alternately, you might love them. When you’re at a tavern, you might find yourself ordering all sorts of ‘exotic’ foods that, to everybody else, are perfectly normal. But to you, beef is something that only the very wealthy can afford – potatoes are fairly common, but bread made from wheat or rye? Cheese and butter? Those are rarities for you – rarities that you might take the chance to savor, even as everybody from the upper world is getting knocked off their chairs by the potent beers and ales your people brew from mushroom spores (possibly ones that are slightly hallucinogenic.) The very concept of seasons might be alien to the dwarves, since their realms are always climate-controlled by the earth itself – snow might be a terrifying idea, or it might be something that invites a childlike sense of wonder. All of these are things that most people wouldn’t even think of introducing – Tolkien certainly didn’t bother – and can be introduced easily as a brief character scene.
Elves live in the forest. Well, they have much more in the way of options – they might be vegetarians, they might be carnivores, either way they’ve got plenty they can eat, and nature’s bounty ensures that they never have to worry about getting bored with a particular food. Every season brings them new options – sweet, ripe berries, fat elk and deer, plump winter-birds… variety itself could be monotonous, in a way. An elf wandering the world might still enjoy a variety, something new that he couldn’t get in the woods… but at the same time, he might delight in doing things until they bore him, instead of until nature decides to change its tune. He might eat the exact same thing every chance he has, until he finally reaches the point where he understands monotony. He might overeat, never having had the chance when his people had to be noble guardians of the forest. There are all sorts of responses he might have – and these sort of things are small enough that a player can do them, instead of counting on the GM to do it.
Death Rituals
Ah, the funeral… something so often neglected, unless it’s to commit a noble hero to the skies in a funeral pyre. But who says that the only two options are funeral pyres and burial?
Maybe the Dwarves gild their fallen heroes in precious gems and metals, leaving them as statues encased in the precious bounty of the earth that they spent their lives gathering and defending?
Maybe Elves send their dead off to the distant land they all hope to one day see, sending them off across the see, trusting to nature to see them through to a suitable destination and fate?
Maybe Halflings (AKA Hobbits) bake the deceased into special pies to be served at the funeral?
Yeah, I’ll bet you did a double-take when you read that one, but funereal cannibalism is a time-honored tradition in some parts of the world, a way to keep the deceased with you, make them a part of you. And since the deceased is… well… deceased, what’s so horrible about it?
Indeed, for a culture in a harsh environment, cannibalism might be viewed as an honorable way to be sent along – giving the fallen one last chance to serve their friends and family. In a culture like this one, a dire insult might sound very odd indeed to outsiders.
After all – who in their right mind would be offended when they’re told that somebody wouldn’t eat the brains out of their head? And that brings us to….
Insults and Curses
Again, these are a very personal thing, though something that’s seen more often in fiction. After all – what the heck does Conan mean when he’s bellowing “By Krom”? Well, we all know. But as mentioned above, insults can become stranger over different cultures – sometimes downright baffling.
In a culture that views cannibalism as an honorable send-off, a sign of being loved and valued by the community, being told that even the most nutritious (kind of) meat in your body isn’t worth eating would be a harsh statement indeed.
For dwarves, maybe it’s not so much stereotypical cracks about beards that get them riled, but calling them a chasm-jumper – somebody who pays so little attention to what he’s doing that he could dig straight into a chasm and not realize it before he was falling in.
Even apparent compliments can be insults – telling a warrior that he’s princely might earn you a fight, as he lashes out at somebody who’s calling him soft and unable to defend himself. That the intent might be entirely different doesn’t matter – that sort of thing happens all the time in our world, so why not in your game world?
At any rate, I hope that gives you a few things to think about. Any other ideas for how to make your characters and cultures more unique?
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