#i decided all gnomes have tails and long sideburns (but not beards)

[harlequinfrog]

My DnD group's DM is collaborating with the players on worldbuilding and I'm the only one playing a gnome so she gave me the go-ahead to make up whatever the hell I want as long as it doesn't affect gameplay too much. MY CITY NOW

[beingatoaster]

okay, here we go

I know that Moon and Void and Hunter’s Children take place on different continents. I have not named either yet. Moon and Void takes place in a much more interconnected region with more advanced technology and more complex governance; Hunter’s Children takes place in a much more sparsely populated and less-connected region, with a lot of wilderness and isolation and fairly basic governance. This gives the impression that the continent of M&V has more sentient species and more diversity, and HC has less, but that’s not necessarily true--I know general stuff about those regions specifically, not about the continents as a whole, and there may be a lot more to the areas outside of where HC, so far as I’ve contemplated it, takes place.

The names of these sentient species get complicated, because while they each have names they call themselves, they also get called various things by the other species around them. Some of these names arise from mistaken assumptions (”petty-elves”) or imperialism (”wood elves”), and some from translation errors (”knockers”) or just innocent ignorance (assume any variant of “-folk” arose from people not knowing the correct term and trying to use an innocuous descriptor). I’ve tried to put the name the species uses itself in the front. Some names are also catch-alls for a group of separate species--”smallfolk,” for example--and I’ve stuck them at the end with a star.

These species either are all from the same root stock and all able to interbreed to some extent, or actually different species that cannot interbreed at all. I haven’t decided (though I have played with a combo wherein they were from the same root stock, but speciated so far that they can’t interbreed anymore).

Note that “elves” (a catch-all for several species) are politically dominant in the region of M&V. Woodlings are the most populous race in the region of HC, but less politically dominant than elves because of a greater tendency towards self-isolation.

High elves (mountain elves, shining elves, eldenfolk; elves*)

Tall (6′-8″), slender, graceful humanoids, with very little body hair and no beards or sideburns, delicate features, very long limbs, and long, mobile, pointed ears. Skin tones range from pale silvery grey to dark steel grey with a side-trip through the metallic browns (copper, bronze, or brass), and on a healthy high elf has a faint sheen, though it’s not as bright as actual metal without cosmetic aid. Their hair is always black, fading to grey and then white as they age. Naturally diurnal. Extremely long-lived, topping out between 700 and 800 years, and as a result view themselves as having a long series of life phases, each expected to last between 50 to 200 years, in which they take on a different social role and are considered in many ways a different elf (for example, marriages, apprenticeships, and many legal contracts are not expected to carry past the single life phase in which they were undertaken). The exception is if they find their “calling,” a passion for a role that’s intense enough to keep their interest the rest of their life; all high elves seek their calling, but most find them so late in life that a disinterested outside observer might just take it as their final role, from which they don’t have time to move on before death. Their recorded history goes back further than that of any other species, which causes some people to view them as the eldest of the world’s inhabitants.

Eidalh (wood elves, wood gnomes; elves*, petty-elves*)

Medium-sized (4′-5′), slender, graceful humanoids, with huge eyes, long, pointed, mobile ears, and thin prehensile tails. They don’t have a lot of coarse body hair, but do have delicate, downy hair on their ears (including lynx-like tufts), tails (also ending in tufts) and wrists and ankles. The hair on their heads is similarly downy and doesn’t grow very long, both genders can grow sideburns, and males usually have beards. Skin tones range through most shades of yellow, brown, green, and olive, and hair color ranges through red, brown, and green. Naturally crepuscular. They live between 350 and 400 years and have great respect for their elders, who get much furrier in their old age. Culturally, most eidalh revere the woodlands in which they dwell and the forest creatures they live alongside, having a strong understanding of their ways that looks like a supernatural connection to outside observers. They tend to be reclusive and reject any technology that would disrupt the nature around them, which makes them vulnerable to invasion (e.g., the annexation of an eidalh nation by Pelldea’s high elf nation that she took part in). High elves in particular consider them a debased strain of elves and use that to justify a... fair bit of imperialism.

Gnomes (rock goblins, shadow gnomes; petty-elves*, smallfolk*)

Small (3′-4′), lightly-built, very quick humanoids, with ridiculously huge eyes, rounded features, and long, pointed, immobile ears. They have very wispy, curly hair, and males can grow sideburns but not beards. Skin tones are faded shades of grey or brown, and sometimes olive, and their hair tends to be blue, brown, grey, or yellow, also in faded shades, always grey-toned. Coming from a world without a sky, they don’t seem to have a natural biological rhythm. They live between 250 and 300 years. Gnomes, as a species, fled from one of the Outworlds long ago, where they were enslaved by an underground-dwelling people akin to giants; more gnomes come through every so often, in ones and twos and little groups, following in the footsteps of the Great Exodus that for most modern gnomes is now just legend. They tend to outwardly adapt to the culture in which they live, while secretly maintaining their own rituals, practices, and holidays within the community of their own burrow. While they like to live low to the ground or underground, often practicing a philosophy they call “hiding underfoot,” they dislike truly deep caverns (such as those dwarves prefer) and any place without an escape route. As Outworlders, they generate small magics just by existing, and theirs tend to be of illusion and escape.

Trolls (giantkin, stonefolk, scalefolk; bigfolk*)

Large (7′-9′), broad-shouldered, thick-limbed, usually hulking and muscular humanoids, with blunt features, large eyes, and rounded ears half-sunk into the sides of their heads. Though proverbial wisdom calls them “grey-skinned,” they in fact take on the colors of the stone around them, meaning that their skin can be grey, brown, red, black, or any other hue appropriate to their environment, and often mimics the grain of the stone as well. They do not grow hair of any kind, and their thick hide has a pebbled texture that’s not far from reptilian scales; however, they are warm-blooded, and bear live young. Nocturnal. They live between 80 and 120 years. Culturally, most mountain troll communities value physical strength more highly than cunning or artistry, which sets them back a bit technologically, though they don’t hesitate to adopt what proves useful. They strongly emphasize the community over the individual, and the web of a troll’s relationships is essential to their sense of self; however, actions and physical, concrete objects are what matter, not words, creating societies that are based in exchanges of gifts and acts of service rather than promises or contracts. When they live among other species, or troll communities form strong bonds with non-troll communities, they tend to re-define their prioritization of actions over words and comrades over self as “honor,” which has gotten them stereotyped as a peculiarly honor-bound people.

Dwarves (stonefolk, stoutfolk)

Medium-sized (3′6″-5′), broad-shouldered, burly, barrel-chested humanoids with blunt or rounded features, lots of hair, and squared, pointed ears that naturally fold in a way that makes them seem more triangular or even rounded (they basically have Scottish-fold ears). Skin tones range from dark brown to tan. Their hair can be any shade of brown, red-brown, or black, and is thick, often curly, and copious; both genders grow beards, and they usually have a lot of body hair. Like gnomes, they don’t have a celestially-oriented biological rhythm, but culturally, their habit is to live in shifts, so that there are always dwarves sleeping, or working, or taking their leisure at any given time. A dwarf identifies heavily with their shift as its own social group, much as they do with their profession or their clan. They live between 300 and 400 years. They’re... dwarves, really, I like the fantasy dwarven stereotypes. They’re not a dying race, though, they’re quite a thriving one, and are the only species that have a heavy presence in the regions of both stories, albeit as two different cultural groups: dwarves in the M&V region are usually just called “dwarves” by other species, since they don’t bruit it about, but they call themselves knocker-dwarves (or just knockers), and migrated to that continent years ago. They were “knocking around,” having self-exiled after dwarven civilization in the HC region nearly suffered a disastrous civil war over religious differences (the knockers were in the minority, and chose to leave rather than let heated conflict become outright warfare), and eventually settled in unoccupied territory under the multiple mountain ranges that fostered the trolls and high elves. Still dwarves, though.

Noskvorr (woodlings, treefolk)

Tall (6′-8′), skinny, gangly humanoids with sharp features, short, immobile pointed ears, and leaf-bearing branches sprouting from their heads instead of hair. Their skin tends to be kind of... veiny... in the sense of having visible leaf-veins, and usually shades of green, yellow, or brown, thickening to a bark-like texture in places. Though they don’t exactly parallel to real plants, there are distinct racial differences between communities, in facial features, branch structure, leaf shape, veining, etc. Diurnal. They live 150 to 200 years. Despite the tendency of other species to make assumptions, they don’t have any particular connection to or cultural reverence for plants or trees in particular. Woodlings, in fact, have the most complex political organizations in their region, and almost as much infrastructure within their individual cities as dwarves, though as mentioned in the intro their region is much less interconnected and politically complex in general, and it’s mostly because of woodling tendencies to self-sufficient communities that this is so. They don’t go in for any government beyond the local, and they also tend to self-segregate by race to an extent that other species that have visible racial variations do not, as well as more forcibly segregate out other species in their communities. Their culture, like trolls’, values the welfare of the community over that of the individual, but most woodling communities are much more “us versus them” when it comes to their interactions with the other communities around them. They also have very strong social enforcement of community standards and norms, with those who stray outside the lines ending up outside the community entirely. Social power is privileged over codified legal structures, which are mostly only codified for the sake of making that social power explicit in the first place, and the ebb and flow of influence in a woodling community can be bewilderingly complex to outsiders.

Dwanier (wanderlings, stoutlings; smallfolk*)

Small (2′-3′6″), stoutly-built, often chubby humanoids, with rounded features and rounded ears. Skin tones range from warm, bronzed brown, to shades of light brown and pink, to very pale, and they’re usually quite hairy, with curly hair in all shades of brown, red, and blond. They often strike other species as disproportionately strong for their size, and have high metabolisms, eating a lot and sleeping a lot to sustain their high levels of waking activity. Naturally crepuscular, but very good at adapting to other biological rythyms. They live 100 to 140 years. There is a popular misapprehension among larger races that they’re related to dwarves in some way, which leads to both of the common names for them, but nothing in dwarven or dwanier history suggests this is actually so. Which doesn’t stop some dwanier from going along with it, just because they think it’s funny; they’re mostly good-natured, by other species’ standards, going along to get along, which may arise from their nomadic tendencies. Dwanier rarely put down roots longer than a few generations, and many live entirely as nomads, moving from one place to another in a constant quest for new resources and challenges. They don’t seem to outside observers to have much of a concrete culture, since they pick up bits and pieces of the cultures they visit in the same way that they pick up goods and materials and techniques, but dwanier caravans meet and interact frequently, and over time trends and beliefs and customs, as well as knowledge, spread throughout the species.

...okay it’s 2:45 am so! I may add to this later, when I have more knowledge on more races (I’m pretty sure there are merfolk, and I know there are orcs or orc-equivalents, who originated in the deserts and share the moniker of “bigfolk” with trolls, and goblins, who are the third type of smallfolk, but I don’t know much about any of those species yet, and I still have no fucking clue if humans exist here). for now I am calling this done and going to bed.

things I should do tonight now that I’m home from work:

do the dishes

brush my teeth

go to bed so I can wake up at a reasonable hour

things I’m GONNA do tonight:

eat ice cream

write up a partial list of races for the Moon and Void/Hunter’s Children setting