So after some good advice on setting I thought I’d feed this question to the forum for some guidance. I’m getting a Campaign ready for my wife and a few select friends and working on the skeleton of a setting. It’s magepunk with a strong exploration theme.

I’m not sure of the total number of species but currently have human, gnome and a primal race. (As well as a possible automaton race, 1 player is a warforged fan).

Here is where I’m a bit stuck though. I’m wondering whether is it a bit boring to just model my primal race on dalish/Warhammer wood elves or do I create something new from scratch?

Any thoughts from the group mind would be appreciated as I’m blanking at the moment.

Fabulous advice from my wife thankfully. 🙄

1 hour ago, HorusArisen said:

Fabulous advice from my wife thankfully. 🙄

Do share 😁

23 minutes ago, Archellus said:

Do share 😁

K.I.S.S. Aka keep it simple stupid.

She feels that by making the primal race ‘wood’ elven I’m making the race easier to understand, or as she put it if I’m not asking the possible players to add another concept to wrap their heads around alongside magepunk and post apocalyptic etc. It’s a fair point and if I made them as alien as I was thinking they’ll just default to a comfortable trope anyway.

3 hours ago, HorusArisen said:

K.I.S.S. Aka keep it simple stupid.

She feels that by making the primal race ‘wood’ elven I’m making the race easier to understand, or as she put it if I’m not asking the possible players to add another concept to wrap their heads around alongside magepunk and post apocalyptic etc. It’s a fair point and if I made them as alien as I was thinking they’ll just default to a comfortable trope anyway.

Yeah, it's gotta come down to what you and your players are looking for and are comfortable with. Lots of people want to explore familiar fantasy tropes rather than more alien concepts. Honestly, I would just ask your players what they prefer. As GM, you can always introduce them to your ideas throughout the campaign anyways.

Very similar to her thoughts. And good advice, I get a bit caught up in world building sometimes.

You can take for model the Grugach or Wild Elves, a sub-race of the wood elves, as they appearer in the Ad&D Monster Manual 2. They're completely uncivilised and unsophisticated elves living in the wild, wich imo fits well for adepts of primal magic.

12 hours ago, WolfRider said:

You can take for model the Grugach or Wild Elves, a sub-race of the wood elves, as they appearer in the Ad&D Monster Manual 2. They're completely uncivilised and unsophisticated elves living in the wild, wich imo fits well for adepts of primal magic.

I’ll grab my MM2 and have a look. Thanks 😀

I don't play anthropomorphic races, but you could use the Catfolk and/or Half-Catfolk species from Realms of Terrinoth. Flavor them as more a mystical shamanistic race and a free rank in Primal magic. The Catfolk species has a 3 in Cunning, so perfect for Primal magic.

There are the Grunge Elves from Hackmaster with a primal warcry ability too. More than likely very similar to the Grugach/Wild Elves from MM2 WolfRider suggested.

Anyways, good luck!

Z

2 hours ago, Zszree said:

I don't play anthropomorphic races, but you could use the Catfolk and/or Half-Catfolk species from Realms of Terrinoth. Flavor them as more a mystical shamanistic race and a free rank in Primal magic. The Catfolk species has a 3 in Cunning, so perfect for Primal magic.

There are the Grunge Elves from Hackmaster with a primal warcry ability too. More than likely very similar to the Grugach/Wild Elves from MM2 WolfRider suggested.

Anyways, good luck!

Z

We’re using the catfolk but great idea

Currently we’re at

Human

Gnome

Elf - Leaning on a high elven version of the Dalish from Dragon Age and the primary primal race.

Catfolk

Serpentfolk

The Crafted

I’ve told them any others they fancy have to replace one of those six and be agreed amongst them.

On 11/3/2019 at 3:54 PM, WolfRider said:

You can take for model the Grugach or Wild Elves, a sub-race of the wood elves, as they appearer in the Ad&D Monster Manual 2. They're completely uncivilised and unsophisticated elves living in the wild, wich imo fits well for adepts of primal magic.

I used that concept in a D&D setting I put together once.

There were a few "civilized" elven enclaves, but most were wild, aggressive, dangerous, and thought you tasted like chicken.

Makes for a good solution to the "to stereotype or not" question. Take the baseline stereotype, distill it to it's core concept, add a simple, easy to comprehend twist, call it good.

I mean, I wouldn't do that with EVERY race in a setting, but it's certainly healthy to change up a few of them...

We’re going with a fusion of Lord of the Rings Noldor and Dragon Age Dalish. My wife went nuts and has found hundreds of online art pieces to represent them 😂