Kainenchen pointed out that the veytikka and the beruch are both written as minorities in a human society, which is another part of what brought up the whole topic of unfamiliar races and how races are used in games that we’ve been talking about off and on for the past couple of weeks. We talked around it a bit more, and I decided that I wanted humans in this theoretical setting, but another roughly-equal-population race would be good. In theory, when you meet a random group of travelers in this setting, you are just as safe assuming they are kagandi as assuming they are human. I’ve had a hell of a time sorting out my visual image for this race; with these guys, I’m trying to start with the visual and work backward, the way I did for the beruch, rather than starting with a brief phrase and seeing where that phrase took me, as I did with the veytikka.
In my head, Kagandi are a little larger than humans (averaging a little over 6′) and commensurately broader. They have either leathery skin or scales (don’t know which) ranging in color from jet black to dark green. They are sort of like lizardmen and sort of like 4e’s dragonborn, so I’m not sure how I’d want to distinguish them from those two types. My main problem with lizardmen is that I only ever see lizardmen unarmored or in very minimal, Conan-like straps of armor, and I really want a race that (in terms of image) is comfortable in all types of armor – primitive is directly counter to my goals here. AE has two player races that are nominally similar here – the magically gifted but frail mojh and the beefy dracha. It would be fair to wonder whether there exists any clear conceptual ground for me to stake out. Oh, and there’s also the yuan-ti – I’m not interested in making the kagandi be snake dudes.
At least for 4e purposes, I could probably satisfy my goals by applying a culture to the dragonborn. Their breath attack is neither especially wrong nor especially right for what I have in mind. On the other hand, I might completely shift them away from being the least bit reptilian. Zoomorphic races are for some people, but typically not for me, which is as good of an explanation as I can give for why I don’t want relatively straightforward snake dudes or crocodile dudes.
Inasmuch as this thinking is kind of getting me nowhere, I’ll try the “brief phrase” method with a number of different phrases. Reader comments will help me select one of the phrases to develop further as the “official” kagandi.
- Slightly smaller than humans, lithe, with golden scales, completely black eyes, and tails; they came from beneath the mountains and return there briefly at the age of majority, at the hatching of their first offspring, and when they enter into a long phase of senescence.
- Taller than humans, bulky, with skin tones ranging from jet-black to emerald green; the “whites” of their eyes are distinctly silvery, and have no irises. When they consume a certain poison from the Fens of Vashtal’s Gift, they briefly gain sorcerous power, but it sickens them for a long time afterward and costs them some of their natural lifespan.
- Dwelling chiefly by the sea, they are unusually dependent on certain nutrients found in fish. Their skin is a deep brown, and most of them paint decorative patterns onto exposed skin. They are most recognizable from humans by their pointed teeth, as they are predominantly carnivorous (though they would regard eating any sentient as cannibalism and an abomination). They practice advanced alchemy in very secretive guilds; these guilds do sometimes accept other races, but require certain binding oaths of secrecy from them.
(Note that 2 and 3 are not reptilian at all, but have basically human-like skin.)
If any or all of these sound like a race you would want to play, I’d particularly like to hear that.
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I like 2 best in all details; I like 1 or 2 physically (assuming that brown is in the potential spectrum for 2). It seems like the most versitile, which is important for a baseline race.
I'm curious now about humans in this setting. Do they have specific limitations on where they are from? How they interact with the world? Their cultural habits? Are they all one culture, or are they diverse cultures? I figure that most of the answers would be the same for the Kagandi as the Humans, but the differences would be quite interesting.
This may sound contradictory to things I have said before, but in this instance, since they're pretty well blended, starting with how the two races should interact, and then interact with the minority races, might be a better starting point.
I'm against #2 because the Fens of Vashtal's Gift sounds too specific, a certain plant in a certain swamp that gives them magical powers. That'd work for a minor race, one too weak to expand but strong enough to defend (with the plant's help); it doesn't work for an expansionist. It'd be like saying a key trait of humans is that drinking the waters of the Nile gives them superpowers for a day.
I like #3 because its traits are broader. Fish & alchemy cover a broad range of things that would adapt to different settings. I'd suggest combining the sorcerous powers part of #2 with the type of fish eaten in #3, which may give them a reason to hunt & revere the giant beasts of the sea. (Potential shamanistic ties in there.)
The secretive alchemy could be developed by one of their cultures which moved further inland & had to make do without their fish. That could set up a spiritualism vs analysis conflict similar to the Renaissance science vs magic struggle; it'd be a good way to put that into a fantasy setting without bumping up the tech level with rifles & telescopes.
You may even incorporate part of #1's emphasis on the mountains into it, with some tribes following the salmon upstream as they spawn. It'd be a hunter-gatherer culture, compared to the fishermen's religious coastal culture, compared to the inlanders' alchemy culture.
Of course, in order to stand toe-to-toe to humans, they'd also need a basis in metalworking, agriculture, and technology. Agriculture is the most important to flesh out; you can't support a thriving civilization on fish alone. If fish are extremely important to them, they might also figure out ways to make gigantic fish farms to stock up for lean times. Major cities could have giant artificial lakes filled with an assortment of fish. They could be masters of waterworks, aqueducts, and dams. Their Pyramids would be the Hoover Dam and the Hanging Gardens.
They could even encourage massive strip mining operations, converting them to giant lakes afterwards by diverting a nearby river into them. (Which would run the river dry for a few months and piss off anyone downstream. A bone to pick between the alchemists & the fishers?)
I would suggest building up their relationships like so:
1. Inner-race relations. The important step. To feel as dynamic as humans, they need a good half-dozen to dozen nations with vastly different philosophies and a few religions. If you can't milk a few millenia of wars, revolutions, and philosophies from them alone, they aren't toe-to-toe with humans yet.
2. Their minor races.
3. The humans. In order to stand a chance against another superpower, they would need to have some time isolated from them to build up & diversify.
4. The humans' minor races. The constant tug-of-war between the two races for influence amidst the minor races should make for interesting "verge-of-war" plots.