Races of Blackmere
My overriding goal in adapting the standard character races of D&D for my Bloodlines campaign was to give each race a clear role in the setting. This was really a twofold task.
First, I wanted to pare down the number of sentient humanoid races present in the game world from the more than a dozen in the Monster Manual to about a half-dozen. This in turn helped me accomplish the second half of the job, which was to make each race unique and different from the others present.
I started the task by looking at the core character races presented in the Player’s Handbook. Since I wanted the bulk of the characters to be of a similar age, I wanted to favor the shorter-lived races over those with long lifespans. Humans would be my default dominant species, though they would be relatively "new" to this area of the world. Theirs would be the Kingdom of Blackmere, a nation built up by settlers from the ancient and decadent Empire of Tarsis (a name I shamelessly "borrowed" from Monte Cook’s exceptional Ptolus campaign).
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Human Game Data: As Player’s Handbook. |
Along with humans, I thought that halflings would make a strong addition to the game world, giving starting characters another option while still being in the same age range as their human comrades. Enamored by the Player’s Handbook-inspired vision of halflings as clannish wanderers, the halflings of Bloodlines would be a culture without a land of its own, adapting and fitting into whatever roles the human society would offer. Most halfling clans are wandering bands of performers, taking what they can and surviving on the fringe.
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Halfling Game Data: As Player’s Handbook, with the following additions:
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Since I had a clear picture of the role of elven society in the setting—a culture reluctant to face its lessening power and influence—I definitely had to make a place for them. Thus was born the Forest Kingdom of Brithonen, its boundary marked by the ever-shrinking extent of the largest forest on the continent. But even as their beloved forest receded seemingly before their eyes, the elves would not easily relinquish their role as a dominant force in the land.
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Elf Game Data: As Player’s Handbook, with the following additions:
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Despite the cooling relations between the elves and humans of the setting, half-elves are not an uncommon sight. To encourage their presence, I stretched the definition of half-elf to include any character of human descent with significant elven blood in his or her ancestry. Thus, while some half-elves might indeed have an elven parent, most would have to trace back to their grandparents, great-grandparents, or even further in order to find someone of elven blood. But despite this, half-elves have no place in Blackmere. They are too human to fit into elven society, and yet the humans see them as untrustworthy outsiders.
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Half-Elf Game Data: As Player’s Handbook, with the following additions:
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The natural counterparts to the elves in any D&D campaign are the dwarves, and Bloodlines would be no different. Like the elves, the height of dwarven influence in the lands has passed, and now only a single dwarven kingdom, Undermountain, survives. But rather than sit quietly in their dark caves like the elves in their shrinking forest, the dwarves ventured out into the human lands, creating the basis for the artisan middle class in many cities. Content to go about their crafts, the dwarves’ mere presence among humans has allowed them to have a greater influence on the world at large than the xenophobic elves.
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Dwarf Game Data: As Player’s Handbook, with the following additions:
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In this limited setting, I had no place for gnomes. I was comfortable with the dwarves occupying the bulk of the engineering- and craft-based occupations, and halflings filled the niche of the trickster. Thus, the gnomes got the axe from the Bloodlines campaign.
My cutting of races didn’t stop there. Not only did I want each of the core character races to have an individual and unique culture, but I wanted the same for my "monster" humanoid races. After much thought, I decided to focus on the goblinoid races. Goblins became my "savage tribal" humanoid race, harrying human towns but rarely becoming a significant threat, while their larger cousins the hobgoblins became the primary foe of the good-aligned races. The hobgoblins even got their own kingdom of sorts: the Ten Tribes, a loose-knit group of hobgoblin clans ruling a swath of the Shard Mountains (the border between Blackmere and its parent empire, Tarsis). Twice in recorded history, a powerful warlord has united the Ten Tribes to sweep down upon the eastern frontier of Blackmere and wreak havoc, but each time they were turned away by the united front of humans, elves, and dwarves.
With the hobgoblins occupying my primary evil humanoid niche, I had little use for orcs (and thus no half-orcs). Though I like gnolls and lizardfolk, I didn’t have a place for them in Blackmere. For subterranean races, I chose kobolds (since I wanted to keep the central struggle in Sunless Citadel) and troglodytes (though these are rarely seen above ground). I haven’t really ventured into aquatic cultures, so there may or may not be merfolk, sahuagin, and/or locathah. Finally, the role of hobgoblins as "high man" on the goblinoid totem pole left no room for bugbears . . . for now (more on that in a later column).
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