As a writer I feel that the internet has very little in the way of interesting races to rp as or to write about. They have wierd creatures that only barely resemble humans and aren't really human enough to be a good protagonist. They also have very cliche races such as vampires fairies and werewolves. While these are ok once in a while they can get to be just too much.elves and dwarves can also get to be that way but not as much. elemental are interesting but many people write elemental as inhuman which kind of deters me from them. END RANT.
ok so could any of you help me brainstorm some cool races to do or write about, or even point out some existing ones that I've missed. thanks!
ok so could any of you help me brainstorm some cool races to do or write about, or even point out some existing ones that I've missed. thanks!
Well, if you want interesting races.. I would look to mythology and folklore.
What you listed is mostly mass media, tolkien and DnD related.. things you see commonly. But there are hundreds if not thousands of different types of creatures all around the world.
I'd pick a culture you greatly enjoy... for example... in Celtic folklore you have the Selkie; mythical seals who shed their skins on land to become beautiful human women... human men steal their skins to keep them on land and marry them for their beauty. There was a beautiful animated movie on netflix for a while that portrait this folklore in a wonderful way.
But I mean you can pick things like Russian folklore, or Romanin, German.. ect.. just google something like "German mythical creatures" and you'll get pages with a ton of ideas.
You can write about that sort of creature per the myth or you can take your own artistic spin on it.
Really there isnt alot you can do that hasnt already been done. - that is unless your making a new alien race for more Scifi settings. What really matters is that artistic spin in how you build your character and write them
Personally i like to write from two different standpoints that are themes to all my rp characters in some way. I call this my ultimate RP Goal:
1) What is it to be human as a human(and what does it mean to become less human through action)
and
2) what does it mean to be human as a non human (like the struggles of doing human things, pretending to be human ect)
more often then not those themes of struggles add a great amount of depth and interesting interactions. So really, you might want to think about what sort of topic you want to explore, then apply a culture, then design a character to write about that fits those things and run your experiment to see what happens.
What you listed is mostly mass media, tolkien and DnD related.. things you see commonly. But there are hundreds if not thousands of different types of creatures all around the world.
I'd pick a culture you greatly enjoy... for example... in Celtic folklore you have the Selkie; mythical seals who shed their skins on land to become beautiful human women... human men steal their skins to keep them on land and marry them for their beauty. There was a beautiful animated movie on netflix for a while that portrait this folklore in a wonderful way.
But I mean you can pick things like Russian folklore, or Romanin, German.. ect.. just google something like "German mythical creatures" and you'll get pages with a ton of ideas.
You can write about that sort of creature per the myth or you can take your own artistic spin on it.
Really there isnt alot you can do that hasnt already been done. - that is unless your making a new alien race for more Scifi settings. What really matters is that artistic spin in how you build your character and write them
Personally i like to write from two different standpoints that are themes to all my rp characters in some way. I call this my ultimate RP Goal:
1) What is it to be human as a human(and what does it mean to become less human through action)
and
2) what does it mean to be human as a non human (like the struggles of doing human things, pretending to be human ect)
more often then not those themes of struggles add a great amount of depth and interesting interactions. So really, you might want to think about what sort of topic you want to explore, then apply a culture, then design a character to write about that fits those things and run your experiment to see what happens.
ok thank you, and yes I've read about wellies I just didn't know if anyone else would know what they were. there was a really cool book about one selkie boy ( they took a spin on it) was called the turning. Thank you for giving that advice and I'll be sure to try and use it.
One tabletop game that I played years ago sticks in my mind because the races were different, interesting, and fun! The game is a mix of Greek mythology and sci-fi. It's called Hellas - Worlds of Sun and Stone
A review of the game (including short descriptions of the races) can be found here: https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14207.phtml
I played one of these Myrmidons. Turned out to be really a lot of fun!
A review of the game (including short descriptions of the races) can be found here: https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14207.phtml
I played one of these Myrmidons. Turned out to be really a lot of fun!
Quote:
Myrmidons are actually insect hive minds that emulated Hellenes by forming gestalt colonies in the shape of humanoid soldiers. (In the Greek myths, Myrmidons were actually groups of soldiers magically created from ant colonies.) "Myrmidons love Hellenes and try to imitate them at every opportunity." The colony state allows the "individual" character to have a lot of neat powers, such as regenerating the rest of the body, shifting through small spaces or splitting off a "homunculus" that can act remotely from the central hive.
cool I'll make sure to look into that. Thank you for helping me!
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