Friday, August 15, 2014

Wilderpeople

This page describes the various races that may serve as PCs - and some only as NPCs - in the Viridistan campaign.  This page will be updated when new races become available.

Human Ethnicities
All of these ethnicities use the rules for humans found in the Basic D&D pdf.


Altanians
Altanians are red skinned (ranging from rusty clay to coke can) barbarians from the jungles of Altanis.  Some sages believe they may be related to the Orichalcans who ruled an empire that stretched the entirety of the Pazidun Peninsula before the kingdom of Kelnore.  Now they live in tribal groups and hunt the ruins of their(?) glorious  past.  Antilians and Viridians often use them as slaves, and they may also be found throughout the Wilderlands of Swords and Devilry serving as mercenaries and body guards.  Women and men are, unusually for the Wilderlands, more or less equal among these people, but women more often fill spiritual roles while men fill martial ones.


Antilians
Antilians are the inhabitants of the city of Antil, though their merchant ships may be found slaving or selling slaves in nearly every part of the Wilderlands.  Men typically shave their heads and wear outrageous sword & sorcery badguy armor rather than anything practical.  They are known for their highly sexist society and their hatred of Amazons.


Ghinorians
Ghinorians were the dominate ethnicity of the Kelnore Empire and they are still the dominate ethnicity in the area surrounding Viridistan.  They most closely resemble the Greeks of our world during the period after the death of Alexander.  They still rule several kingdoms in the southern part of the Wilderlands, but these are small and so constantly at war with eachother that they rarely effect politics in the north.  The Overlord of the White Throne, the ruler of the newly independent Damkina, is a Ghinorian and is attempting to rally the northern Ghinorians around him against the Viridian Emperor.


Tharabians
These barbarian people originally hailed from somewhere north of the Valley of the Ancients.  They were invited several generations ago by the Viridian Emperor to serve as mercenaries against the Invincible Overlord.  Since then they have settled land now known as the Tharabian Coast, and are now also found in the service of Bjorn the Mighty, the Invincible Overlord.  Their material culture is a mixture of Celtic and Scythian.


Common Viridians
These are the descendants of the inhuman True Viridians and their Ghinorian subjects.  Since only a few True Viridians exist in the world, the "common" Viridians have taken over most of the administration of the empire and the temples of Armadod-bog and Natch Ur.  They resemble the Persians of our world, particularly the Sassanians, but their greenish skin and fantastical weaponry would immediately show them as being not from Earth.

Non-human PC Races
These races function as their D&D counterparts except where noted below.


Dwarves
Most Dwarves in the North hail from either Thunderhold or the recently reconquered Majestic Mountains.  As the picture implies, they are more or less like the dwarves from the Hobbit cartoon.  The stats for Hill Dwarves represent those from Thunderhold while the stats for Mountain Dwarves represent those Dwarves from the Majestic Fastness.


Elves
All Northern Elves possess blue skin, though the "high" variety tends to be more of a deep blue while the "wood" variety is kind of a blue green.  High Elves are likely from Valon or from some other bastion of the old elven kingdom in the Elephand lands.  Wood Elves found in Viridistan usually come from the Elsenwood, but they only rarely visit the city since the Viridians have great antipathy for them. "Dark Elves" of the Wilderlands are different from Drow and are not available as player characters.


Halflings
Halflings are Hobbits, though both stout and lightfoot varieties are found in the Wilderlands.  They are very rare in Viridistan, and are more commonly found around Eastern cities such as Tarsh and on the Ebony Coast.


Tieflings
The ancient Markrabs, a long extinct race, bred many of their servitor demons with human stock.  The descendents of these mating experiments still exist throughout the urban areas of the Wilderlands, and new parings are still made in the distant Demon Empires of the South.  Tieflings tend to show more subtle signs of their heritage than their normal (5e) D&D counterparts.

Non-human(?) NPC Races
These races are not available as PCs yet.  This is mostly because I haven't worked up stats for them, but in the case of True Viridians it is because their population is not large enough to support a flow of PCs.


Amazons
Amazons are a strange race which sages believe was created many years ago by a strange wizard named Lurr.  He supposedly saw a vision from a distant world depicting a savage warrior woman, and decided to construct his own for reasons I'd rather not get into.  Amazons produce with gynogenesis and thus are all identical in appearance, resembling the woman of Lurr's strange dream. They are all female and almost all powerful warriors. 


Elephan Cavemen
The Elephan Cavemen are the neanderthal-like inhabitants of the Elephand Lands and posses a strange affinity both for Wilderlands "mammoths" and for elves.  They have been subjugated by the Viridian Emperor, though this has allowed them to best their fellow cavemen with the superior military technology of that strange race.  There is a significant population of them in the city of Viridistan itself, where they have their own quarter.


True Viridians
These are the green-skinned, chosen people of Armadod-bog - though even they must whip themselves with silver fish tails for the crime of being born land things.  It is believed that the Viridian Emperor and his handful of sister-wives are the last of their race.  These wives are, unfortunately for the Viridians but perhaps fortunately for mankind, so inbred as to be infertile.  The man pictured above may have resembled the emperor in the distant past, but now he is twisted and bloated, and it is believed he has scarred his face to more closely resemble the visage of his master.

2 comments:

  1. Argh, stop it! You're making me want to drop everything and return to the Wilderlands!

    (Actually, I was thinking about running the Wilderlands with 5e just a few days ago--prior to your last post--and ended up deciding I'd use Runequest instead. I'm going to venture a conversion of Uresia: Grave of Heaven for my 5e needs, I think.)

    All the same, it's great to see your notes in progress, and wonderful image-sourcing, as always!

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