#some sort of goat...orc...creature?

[leftski-art]

gonna be honest idk what to tag this one because idk what he even is but I hope you enjoy him anyway ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[pangzi]

A day in the life of Pangzi, a half orc who has a farm in the mountains.

The sky is only barely tinted a soft pink when Pangzi steps out of his cabin. The sun still has a long way to go before it peaks out from behind the mountain tops. It’s a sight that greets him every morning, but it never fails to take his breath away. 

As always, he takes a moment to appreciate the view. He takes a deep breath, letting the cold morning air fill his lungs and clear his head. Only when he feels fully awake he finally steps down into the soft, wet grass and makes his way towards the barn.

Just like every other day, his bison are already eagerly waiting at the fence to greet him. He gently pets as many of them as he can as he passes them by. Most of them are satisfied by a gentle pat on the nose, while some of the younger ones follow him until the fence stops them. Pangzi gives them one last scratch on their heads as a goodbye and then steps into the barn. 

He barely gets to crack open the barn door before Lingling is crawling up his side already. He scoops him up quickly and sets him on his shoulder, where he curls up happily, his head tucked under Pangzi’s chin. 

“Clingy creature,” he chuckles fondly.

After getting saved from a poacher, the poor hurt pangolin was left on Pangzi’s doorstep by a kind soul and hasn’t left his side since. He tried to release him back into the wild once he was fully healed and ready to fend for himself again, but each and every time Lingling would find his way back to Pangzi, no matter what Pangzi tried. Eventually he had to give up and allow the creature to stay. Not that he wanted him to go, he had long gotten attached to him when he first tried to release him.

With Lingling heavily but happily settled on Pangzi’s shoulder, Pangzi carefully checks up on his sheep and goats before releasing them into the meadow. The sheep need to be sheared soon. He cannot wait, he’s running out of yarn and he really needs some new socks.

With a soft hum he continues his rounds on the farm.

He doesn’t know why he’s surprised when he finds the chickens out of their coop and fed already. A basket full of freshly collected eggs is placed ready for Pangzi to pick up and take inside. He hasn’t collected a single egg himself in ages, not that he would ever complain about it. It’s nice to finally have some help on the farm, it was long overdue. 

When he passes the barn to make his way into the fields, he carefully peels Lingling from his shoulder and puts the sleeping creature back in his burrow. He lets out a small, pitiful sound as Pangzi sets him down but he quickly shuffles deeper into his burrow and goes to sleep for the day.

His next harvest seems to be doing well too, it’s looking like another big one. He cannot help but smile as he thinks about how much he will be able to bring down to the village. They might not appreciate it, but he knows they need it and he likes helping.

He still has to bring a share of the early harvest down. He only just finished sorting and rationing all of it. 

One batch of produce is already carefully wrapped up in a piece of cloth. From what’s left, he picks out the best and carefully puts it at the bottom of his basket. Then he puts a divider in so the rest doesn’t touch it and carefully fills up the rest of the basket. 

On his way down the mountain he makes a small detour. He makes his way higher up first to leave the small cloth wrapping in a tree hollow at the edge of the woods. 

The closer he gets to the village, the more his heart starts racing. Not because he is afraid. He won’t go far enough into town to get any of the villagers after him. Or he shouldn’t at least. 

With shaking hands he carefully knocks on the door of her house. He really hopes she’s home. She wasn’t home last time and he’s been wondering how she and Xiao Mei have been. Last time they spoke Xiao Mei was ill. He has seen her running in the fields, so Pangzi knows she’s doing better, but that doesn’t stop him from worrying. 

“Pangzi! I hadn’t expected you for another week or two,” Piaopiao smiles warmly as she opens the door. “Let me get your basket, I noticed the shoulder straps were getting old so I put some new ones on!”

He’s at a loss for words immediately. He barely manages to get her name over his lips as a greeting. He always thinks he’s getting better at talking to her, but then she smiles and he cannot help but stumble over his words. She’s patient with him as always, which only makes him more nervous. She’s so kind and it only makes her more beautiful to him.

“Early harvest,” Pangzi mumbles eventually, stumbling over his words immensely. “I’ll have more in a few weeks.” 

He takes the basket from his back and puts it on the ground for her to see what he brought. That’s when he feels the first thud against his back. He doesn’t think much of it and proudly shows her some of his produce. 

“You have more coming, really?” Piaopiao asks in surprise as she sees how much he brought. “I can feed the whole town with this! Are you sure you aren’t overworking yourself? Are you keeping enough for yourself?”

Pangzi shakes his head, his cheeks warm. “I have help, don’t worry about me.” He scratches the back of his neck and that’s when he feels the next hit. It’s sharp and hard and quickly followed by another one hitting him in the head.

“Get away from her you monster! Leave her alone!” A voice screams from behind him as he gets hit in the head again and again. Rocks. Someone was throwing rocks at him.

Instinctively Pangzi hunches down, which doesn’t change much, he’s still bigger than the average adult human. He’s too big to miss even when he makes himself as small as he can be. 

Pangzi looks over his shoulder to see the culprit. When he sees it’s just a young child, his heart sinks more than it usually does. Is he really that terrifying? Do they hate him so much that even their children get poisoned against him from early on? 

He feels rage bubble up in his chest but he presses it down. No matter how much he would like to give this child a piece of mind, he can’t. Piaopiao wouldn’t want him to and it would just make things so much worse. As long as he keeps to himself the villagers tend to leave him alone. If he were to even raise his voice at this child… Every village in the vicinity of the mountain would probably rise up against him.

“Get away from her! Don’t hurt her! Don’t worry, ayi, I won’t let him hurt you,” the child screams. He swings a small wooden sword in the air before throwing another sharp rock at Pangzi’s head.

Pangzi has no other option than to look at Piaopiao for help. She just looks back at him, her eyes full of pity. Pangzi can feel his heart sink in his chest. He knows it’s safer for the both of them if she doesn’t interfere, but still…

“I think it’s better if you return home,” she says quietly. “Thank you for sharing your harvest with us again, I will make sure it goes to the people who need it most.” 

Biting the inside of his cheek hard, Pangzi lowers his head and nods. “I added extra berries for Xiao Mei,” he whispers, “I’ll see you in a few weeks then.” He grabs his basket, the straps looking newer than they ever had, and walks away.

The kid continues his assault as Pangzi makes his way out of the village. Several others joini him even, following to the edge of town. “That’s right, coward. Run away and stay away! We don’t want your kind here!”

He knows…

[scourge-lover]

Tavern in the Mists

Sapphire’s first Encounter with the Black Prince.

An inn, in the mountains, was not a hiding place Sapphire would have imagined. She would have picked a cave, or the deep parts of a forest. But she was not the prince of Stormwind. She did not have plenty of guards to look over her. As she climbed the stairs, she saw only one person, high on the rocks, with a crossbow in their hands. It was not the visible guard that concerned her, but the ones she couldn’t see.

If there was not active warring going on, Sapphire would have liked to spend a bit more time in Pandaria, enjoying the sights. It was nothing like anywhere she had been before. Horned goats grazed the short stubby grass that grew on what little soil was clinging to the rock mountain faces. Scraggly pale trees with thick needles sprang up stubbornly from the rocky outcroppings. The cold mountain air was a welcome sensation. 

The Tavern in the Mists was a quaint little place. None of the few pandaren looked twice at the girl walking. 

Not many people were in this Tavern of the Mists. Two fierce women, one orc and one human, were lurking in one corner. A few pandaren were at the bar. A man, heavy with Stormwind armor, stood at the bottom of the stairs leading to the second floor. Sapphire nervously approached him, pulling out a letter with fine writing and a lion wax seal.

“Hi, there. The Prince of Stormwind sent me this and-”

The stern guard just glanced at the paper before stating matter of factly.

“He’s in the room on the left.” 

Sapphire nodded shyly and ascended the stairs. Another guard sat at the end of the hall, seemingly asleep. The one back down at the base of the stairs probably wouldn’t like to see that, but Sapphire didn’t find it necessary to sell out the poor guard. She went to the doorway on the left, and peered in curiously. 

She saw two people sitting at a low table, with some sort of game going on. The splash of golden hair on the one whose back was turned to Sapphire helped her recognize Anduin. He moved a small piece from the game and leaned backwards.

Anduin could not see her, but his companion now took an interest in Sapphire. 

Though he appeared human, there was something about him that made Sapphire doubt that he was one. He was similar in age to both Anduin and Sapphire, with dusky skin and even darker hair. The clothes he wore looked even finer in quality than Prince Anduin’s. He cupped his cheek in one hand thoughtfully. His eyes glowed a menacing blood red. His lip raised into an arrogant smirk. When his gaze moved up to her antlers, Sapphire felt heat rise up into her face. This seemed to amuse him even more. 

“I don’t remember ordering venison,” He said in a loud, confident voice. 

Anduin lifted his head, leaving his concentration. He glanced back. He recognized Sapphire instantly.

“Lady Sapphire!” Anduin started to say cheerfully...until he connected the dots to her and Wrathion’s comment. He whirled onto his commpanion, furious.

“Why...You should apologize immediately, Wrathion!”

This Wrathion character just leaned back in his chair and spread his hands open. 

“I knew that would set you off.”

“Seriously, you insult someone just to annoy me?” Anduin said, voice raised in anger.

Wrathion’s smirk widened and he opened his mouth to say something, but Sapphire beat him to it.

“You should apologize. To Anduin,” She said. 

This brought Wrathion’s full attention to her. He sat there for a second, just staring at her. Then he sighed.

“Dearest apologies, your Highness,” He gushed with emphasis. Anduin rolled his eyes. 

Wrathion got to his feet and went to leave the room but stopped just at Sapphire. With him much closer, Sapphire could smell a faint hint of smoke and sulfur. She bristled defensively as Wrathion took her hand in both of his.

“Apologies to you as well. Sapphires are seen as promoters of good health and a symbol of innocence. An apt name for such a beautiful creature such as you.”

He leaned forward and kissed her hand, lingering for a moment. Out of the corner of her eye, Sapphire saw Anduin scowl deeply. 

Wrathion released Sapphire’s hand and glanced back at Anduin. 

“I’ll let you too catch up!”

With that he left. Sapphire had a feeling there was something bigger going on, judging on how irritated Anduin looked. But he tried to hide it with a warm smile. 

“I’m glad you are here! He’s been my only companion besides the guards. Oh, and Jasper.”

The Prince pointed to a little cushion in the corner of the room with a black ball on it. Sapphire immediately went over to the cat, who meowed in recognition. She stroked Jasper enthusiastically. 

“He’s gotten big!” She giggled, plucking up the cat and carrying him over to the table. She sat down where Wrathion had sat.

“I’m afraid I can’t deny him anything. That includes the food off my plate,” Anduin teased. Jasper purred happily. At least Arthas would be less grouchy to hear Jasper was more than pleased with his new owner. 

“Is the only reason you invited me here was you were bored?” Sapphire asked. 

Anduin’s eyes widened. “N..no! Of course not. I thought perhaps you would enjoy a bit of Pandaria? You left so quickly the last time. I assume you didn’t linger.” 

Sapphire shook her head, and glanced around at the unique surroundings she was in.

“I basically came, gave you that letter, and left. The journey up to here was quite beautiful. It’s nice and cold here.”

Anduin nodded. “There’s hot springs just out back. They’ve been wonderful for my recovery.” 

Sapphire leaned sideways to look at his leg and the cane sitting next to it. She bit her lip. 

“The pain is still bad?”

Anduin shrugged nonchalantly. “I have good and bad days.” 

Sapphire knew all about causing pain, but not really much about taking it away, so she felt a bit helpless. Anduin seemed to sense her sudden mood change. 

“I’m fine, really! I am lucky to be alive, thanks to the Light.”

Despite all the pain Sapphire had gone through, they seemed to pale in comparison to what Anduin experienced. What’s a broken rib, or a slashed face compared to near death and practically every bone in one’s body broken? She only knew what happened from secondhand accounts. He had not said much about it to her.

The Warchief of the Horde, Garrosh Hellscream, had been the cause.  Sapphire wasn’t following the conflict much. The only “faction” she’d ever had loyalty for was the Scourge. Her old orc friend, Volugg, had once said Garrosh’s name with open disgust but he had still spoke of the Horde with pride. The sight of Anduin lying in a bed covered in bloody bandages and unable to even sit up, had soured her previously neutral opinion of the Horde. 

Jasper jumped out of Sapphire’s arms and walked boldly across the table, knocking the flat pieces off the board. Hopefully Wrathion had not been too invested in that game. Anduin didn’t seem to mind. The prince reached out and Jasper rubbed his head against him. The cat pawed at him until Anduin picked him up. The prince held the cat up to his face and rubbed Jasper’s cheek against his with a smile on his face.

He changed his attention back to Sapphire. “Have you had any Pandaren cuisine yet?”

Sapphire shook her head, confused. This gave Anduin all he needed. 

“We should order everything then! I love the bean buns, fish cakes, and of course the stir fry-”

He went on a tangent about all the different kinds of food. She let him. Nothing sounded unappealing to her. Anduin called in a guard to bring them food. After a short time, the small time was overflowing with all kinds of pandaren food.

Peaches, sweet and juicy, quickly became Sapphire’s favorite. She ate them raw but dripping with honey or inside the crust of a golden pie. Despite being in the mountains, there was fresh seafood. Poor Chompers and Ethan were missing out of good food. Sapphire imagined them back home in Icecrown, either suffering from Arthas’s cooking or resigned to military rations.

She reached over to grab some of the bean buns Anduin had complimented so highly, but was caught off guard by movement. A small shadow high in the corner of the room inched closer to look at the both of them.

Sapphire had only ever seen undead dragon whelpings, but some of them had enough flesh on them for her to connect the dots. Most of the ones in the Frostwing Halls had been of the blue dragon flight, but this dragon whelp was black as penguin feathers with a belly of honey. He glowered down at them with blood red eyes. Wrathion. 

[eamonorus-blog]

Battle of the Five Armies

I am afraid I am going to have to rant about why I hate tBOTFA

The elves are all wrong to begin with. These are elves who are "more dangerous and less wise" than their western kin, who are less armoured. They don't have the martial traditions of the Calaquendi. They should not be an elite well-oiled fighting machine that moves in perfect sync like an army of robots. They should be a force of fierce and fey forest elves, who do what they do in the books, unleash a volley of arrows before charging recklessly into battle with their weapons glowing like they are aflame, so fierce is their hatred.

As for the Dwarves, well. In the books the Dwarves are able to come to answer Thorins call so soon because they are especially hardy and strong members of a strong and hardy race. They are armoured in mail head to toe, and armed to the teeth, round shields, beards plaited into belts, a short sword at their side and a two-handed mattock in their hands, and despite all that heavy packs with supplies to reinforce the mountain with. They came on foot carrying all that equipment, which is an impressive feat. But Dwarves did not tame beasts, that is what men and elves do! There should be no warpigs or goat cavalry. And the Legendarium should be low tech, the Dwarf smithing feats come from forging incredible jewellery, armour and weapons, not through incredible technological innovations. They shouldn't have anti-arrow artillery, or chariots with machine-crossbows, or anything of the sort. They are angry beard men who will crush your skull, not technologically advanced hoplite wannabes.

When it comes to the men, instead of getting tall nordic dudes with ancient Dwarf forged swords standing as a totally legit army alongside the other two races, we get a faction of useless dirty hobos. Because PJ decided that Lake Town was going to be a commentary on class struggle, instead of the bustling and fairly prosperous town it was in canon, which made Smaug destroying the town all the more of a loss. As for the Orcs and Wargs, well, where to begin?

Instead of the treasure hungry horde of nasty cave creatures from the books, we get another nazi-esque legion of PL*TE armoured Uruk-hai wannabes. Breeding half orcs is a unique and terrible thing in middle earth? Not anymore apparently, since there was a whole massive army of them that Sauron unleashed before he even knew the ring had been found that is greater than the army he unleashes in the WotR in all sorts of ways. It has trolls that are way bigger than the later ones for some reason, and the orcs are all cgi which doesnt help.

Instead of being their own faction of malevolent wolves, the wargs are simply the ugly hyena-esque mounts. Thats not great, but Beorn, who single handed saved the day and killed Bolg in the books gets totally sidelined. Instead of sweeping a few orcs off of the high places like they do in the books, these eagles dive bomb compact pike formations with no problems whatsoever. Apparently in the PJ universe having a tightly packed formation of infantry with heavy armour and spears gives you no ability to resist the charge of anything larger than an elf with a katana. And lets not get into the way the actual layout and playing out of the battle is butchered. Instead of being a historically coherent melee back and forth of heavy infantry which would make sense visually and logically, a bunch of our characters take time off from the battle to go fight the big bad, in such a way that if this was real the battle would be well over by the time they even got to Azog. We have super trolls getting all owned at the same time with some kind of thrown weapon, javelins I think? I dunno but it doesnt make sense. We have elven archers jumping the phalanx (jumping the phalanx is what I say now whenever a battle in a film jumps the shark) We have Alfred gobbling up screen time like a Boffin or a Bracegirdle eating snacks during Bilbos party. All in all the whole thing is something I can't even bear to watch its so bad. All of PJs worst instincts are allowed full space to flourish.

[ofcowardiceandkings]

UH WHOA not only am i posting art but theres so much of it lmfao

ive been meaning to do this for mmmm a long time, and i decided to get it cleaned up so i can present folks with my homebrew/headcanon/thingy for the d&d playable races !! i know ive missed a few off but these are ones ive seen more of over all in my own travels in Nerd Game lol

ive only DMed one thing so far (our lost mines of phandelver adventure was a total blast but oh boy the shenanigans) but im like ... drowning in it all, have been for a loooonng time since i first played Neverwinter Nights when i was like 11, i just didnt have a party to mess with yet lmao (fingers crossed our schedules get sorted so the campaign goes ahead soooooonnn).. so ive been developing some of these various homebrewy headcanons for uh over half my life

getting them all together in one place like this was unbelievably fun !!

gonna yell under the cut for a bit about it more but very shortly i’ll be opening for d&d character / item / creature commissions so watch this space or pop me a message to get in a queue <3

these headcanon things are half based on “that looks cool” and Sciencing. a lot of the more humanoid in some way races ive really pulled on human ancestors a lot, as well as muscle development in different sports. And Animals, because ye

i haven’t included humans in this mammoth endeavour because we should all know what a Human People looks like, and their proportions aren’t any different in the world of D&D i run at least lol similarly, because they’re an exact intersection between humans & either elves or orcs, the half-species arent included on here either [shrugs] i WILL talk about them some here though !!

i might eventually update this with some npc generators ive made using my own descriptors and headcanons >.>

ELVES av height; 5′6 | heads-high; 8.5 generally long limbed, with fine wispy hair, elves senses are very heightened. helping in this, their eyes are almond-shaped with slightly narrow pupils, their large radar-like ears are very mobile, and the underside of their noses are covered in a lightly damp pitted leather. part of their ability to maintain grace with an elongated frame, aside from longer springy feet, is aided by a tail built somewhat like a horse, with a skirt of hair down its length, only with a slightly longer bone to it than would be seen in the typical pony. excepting a very light dusting on their lower limbs, they typically have very little body hair. sometimes their skin shimmers, or freckles sparkle.

GNOME av height; 3′6 | heads-high; 6.5  gnomes are almost like diminutive elves with a few key differences. their hair tends to be wild if left alone, but is often styled wildly anyway. set rather low on rounded but long faces, their large almond eyes are keen, and small hands very nimble. it’s not sure if its due to their close environments or frequent encounters with accidents in experiments, but their skulls are surprisingly hard, and they possess small horn nubs made of bone and coated in keratin. their small petal-shaped ears are set low and point outward, and are able to move a little to catch sound. they may look fragile due to their size and build but they are pretty hardy and more than capable.

HALFLING av height; 3′ | heads-high; 6 a very hardy but soft and welcoming folk, halflings are built for walking and surviving well, often coming from a semi-nomadic tradition. they typically have round faces with stronger jaws and soft round eyes, and their large ears are pointed upright. their figures easily get a little curved and chubby, especially when they have easy access to decent food, in preparation for harder times and the odd period of hunkering down for some downtime, say in poor weather. truly the most functional part of a halfling is their short powerful legs with big fairly flexible hard feet, and lion-like tail for balance, both insulated by hair.

DWARF av height; 4′3 | heads-high; 6.5 dwarves are accustomed to life in tougher terrain, typically with large parts spent in the ground. their broad frames are also squat down with thick short limbs, for huge power and for life in tunnels. wide feet keep them steady and sensitive to significant seismic energy in the earth, and wide hands aid in their work and the feel of the rock. their large round ears stick outward and are slightly mobile, large noses help condition the air, and high-set eyes with huge irises aid their vision in darker spaces and the ability to peek over things without being fully exposed. their skulls are also very thick just in case of falling rocks. all dwarves are very hairy and grow beards, taking pride in keeping and styling it.

GOLIATH av height; 7′6 | heads-high; 10 a totally different variety of rock & mountain people to dwarves, they do share a few traits. a goliath’s thick limbs are long with a big reach and huge stride, with big hands and feet for steady movement. as well as being hugely tall, they are broad, especially in their shoulders, with a long neck elevating their head further. their facial features tend to be very sharp, but long. they have little to no body hair, and they often dont grow head hair either, but decorate their skulls with tattoos. as they get older, the upper surfaces of their body develop pebble like growths under the skin, often in similar patterns to their habitats.

FIRBOLG av height; 7′6 | heads high; 9 firbolg typically live in deep forests but are actually a giantkin - although not too unbelievable given their huge height and thick build. large parts of their body are hairy, nearly furry, and their head hair is thick and wild, and they often have facial hair too. their large heads have long thick noses with an almost bovine leather to their top lips, and wide set eyes. their fluffy ears are very mobile, but when relaxed they drop and point downward. their nails are thick and sturdy, aiding in being even more dexterous while being so big. sometimes they are covered in layers of clothing, but they possess a tiny goat-like tail.

DRAGONBORN av height; 6′6 | heads-high; 8 dragonborns diverged from true dragons in the ancient past, likely due to a strong magical influence of some kind, but not so long ago that the bloodlines of dragons are absent from the race of dragonborn. (the illustration shows the typical head-shape and placement of ears, each bloodline has its own features). their chest is still very round like an animal, with deep chest muscles, a slightly less mobile shoulder, and short upper arm. their 4 clawed hands and feet somewhat resemble that of a true dragon, but smaller and a little less dangerous. the length of a dragonborn’s tail can vary from just the length from hips to floor, or up to their full height, and as well as being very useful for balance and dexterity, can be used for fighting. different bloodlines can interbreed, with it being a matter of chance which line is present in offspring (although metallic is more dominant over gemstone, and chromatic over both ... (ah yeah gemstone, ill get to that soon))

AARAKOCRA av height; 5′ | heads-high; 8.5 as an avian species, especially one capable of flight, the aarakocra’s bones are hollow, making them on the one hand very agile but a little fragile. their large wingspan nearly brushes the floor, and their wings attach high on their back, through to a deep avian keel. their arms have a long forearm, which is covered in bird-like scutes, and their 4 clawed hands are still remarkably talon like which quite short palms and very mobile thumbs. their legs are very long and powerful, and backed by a typically wedge shaped tail. more often than not, their physical appearance takes after raptor species of birds, but different populations can trend towards many different appearances, including parrots and waterfowl.

TABAXI av height; 6′6 | heads-high; 9 tabaxi are an unusual sight in many places still. their cat-like bodies are very flexible and suited to their athletic climbing lifestyle. their long hands and feet have very a powerful grip, and they can retract their front claws. their long feline face is something like a cheetah or a clouded-leopard, with large highly mobile ears, large eyes and a strong nose. 

ORC

av height; 6′6 | heads-high; 8

orcs are very powerfully build, with heavy muscles and thick bodies overall. compared to other humanoids they can look a little gorilla-like. their short legs are usually a little bent to carry weight better instead of busting knees when locked. their course wiry hair grows profusely all over their body. their strong nails often grow out a little pointed. their large thick heads have high heavy brows and protruding lower jaws, short round noses and low bud-shaped ears which stick outward. the lower jaw and sometimes upper contain tusks, sometimes multiple tusks, which are greatly cared for and very impressive.

HALF-ELVES av height; 5′6 | heads-high; 8.25 a half-elf’s build will be somewhere between human and elf, often inheriting something of an elf’s eyes and nose leather, shorter elf ears, and maybe a small tufted tail something like a rabbits

HALF-ORCS av height; 6′ | heads-high; 8 a half-orc’s build will be somewhere between human and elf, often inheriting something of an orc’s skin colour and dark and profuse wiry hair, shorter orc ears, and some small tusks.

GOBLIN av height; 4′ (stood straight) | heads high; 5.5 bat/cat-like ears, nose something like bear/cat, domed head, arms/legs same length, sparse wiry hair, claws, short digits, lithe but very strong and hardy

HOBGOBLIN av height; 5′3 (stood straight) | heads high; 8 bat/cat-like ears but pinched at the base, nose something like bear/cat, very domed head, arms slightly longer than legs, claws, sparse wiry hair, quite broad

BUGBEAR av height; 7′ (stood straight) | heads high; 7.5 bat-like ears, long domed head something like a lion/bear, arms very long, nearly totally covered in thick fur, big tusks and often fangs, very bear-like hands/feet, big claws, very broad

TRITON av height; 5′2 | heads high; 7.5 lithe but well muscled, quite streamlined for a humanoid, frilled ears, pretty flat face, fins on limbs/back, “hair” is tendrils/fins/etc, short strong legs & long arms, long webbed fingers, long flipper feet, gills along front/side of chest

YUAN-TI PUREBLOOD av height; 5′9 | heads high; 9 domed angular faces, lips are not humanoid, triangular eyes, scales, quite flat nostrils with sense pits following along underside cheekbones, very little cartilage in ear, some may have cobra hoods extending out of ear instead, very tall and thin with small hands/feet, reptilian claws

CENTAUR av height; 7′ | heads high; 10 fairly stocky pony body (usually about 4′10 at withers), very muscled front end, long neck & sloping human-shoulders, long faces with long broad noses, prominent lips, horse-like ears sticking up and out, their whole scalp can grow hair but shaved sides are common, can grow hair nearly all down human-spine

KOBOLD av height; 2′6 | heads high; 5.5 almost alligator-like head & eyes, tiny nub horns, quite animal-like chest, arms/legs same length, thick stubby tail same length of body, 4 digits with stubby claws, lithe but strong for their tiny size

KENKU av height; 4′ | heads high; 5.5 corvid features, deep chest but no keel, longer arms than legs, 4 digits with talons, hands human-like but scaled, wedge-like tail half of leg height, not-quite fully bird feet.

LIZARDFOLK av height; 6′6 | heads high; 7 iguana-like, egg-shaped head, neck wattle, line of back spines varies in height, long arms and legs, very reptilian hands and feet with long claws, elbow spikes

GRUNG av height; 3′ | heads high; 6.5 large heads, neck leads nearly directly into torso, super flexible, very long limbs, triangular body, short upper arm, shorter thigh, large hands/feet, 4 digits

LOXODON av height; 7′6 | heads high; 5.5 large head, trunk as long as torso, short legs / long arms, huge bones under thick muscle, thick skin, 4 digits with thick nails, large hands / rounded cushioned feet, v e r y broad and thick build, small tail with tuft at the end, 

TORTLE av height; 7′6 | heads-high; 7 thick wrinkled skin encased in huge shell, stooping posture with neck extending forward, very long arms & short legs, 5 digits with reptilian claws, boxy head, heart shaped from above with features set far forward, tail to balance stoop

MINOTAUR av height; 7′ | heads-high; 9 powerful build with thick bones, typically well muscled, bovine head on thick neck, often very large horns, fairly long tufted tail, big hooved feet, broad 4 digit hands with thick nails, hair length varies

PLANE THINGS ???

listen this was a lot easier in the edition i first encountered lol anyway, until anything else comes up in extra material im just applying a few square & rectangle venn diagram rules

a useful word; planetouched. i dont really know why WotC seems to have dropped that term for at least 5e (i missed 4e entirely) but it refers to a “mortal native outsider” with lineage or influence from a plane other than the material, so “a material plane native creature with non-native plane influence, which can die”

GENASI height depends on material plane parent the result of a material plane / elemental pair (usually genies). they usually take after their material parent in build and broader features, but their elemental heritage comes through in features like magical hair, bright coloured eyes, unusual body temperatures, innate magics, etc.  genasi can interbreed with themselves, and the crossing of two elements can produce some interesting results (im working on that :>)

TIEFLINGS height depends on material plane parents this is the first of the squares & rectangles, and tbh its basically canonical. a tiefling is the result of a material plane humanoid being born with fiendish* influence. the word ‘tiefling’ refers specifically to a human with fiendish influence, but is also an umbrella term for ALL fiendish planetouched creatures. these DO have some names mentioned in the play material ! fey’ri = elves, tanarukk = orcs, wisplings = halflings, maeluth = dwarves, etc. so all fiendish planetouched are tieflings, but not all tieflings are human-based. the fiendish influence can be dormant for years or just string along for decades. AnyWay, all of them have horns, most have tails, odd skin or eye colour, and others can have all sorts of extraplanar features. *(fiends are another venn diagram thing in D&D, its an umbrella term for both demons and devils) 

AASIMAR height depends on material plane parents aaand this is the second of the squares & rectangles, the not-strictly-canon one. okay duplicate what i said about tieflings, but make it about celestials not fiends, basically lmao. aasimar is an umbrella term, but also a human/celestial planetouched specifically! unlike the above, since its my homebrew concept i dont have other words specifically for other races’ celestial planetouched, but i’ll get there watch this space lol EnyHoo, they all tend to have a strange glow about them in general, but usually in their eyes, and maybe hair especially. it isnt uncommon for them to have a kind of halo around themselves, or glowing glyphs/runes/sigils on or around them either. while MOST dont have full wings, a dusting of feathers isnt unusual. the features of celestials can vary a lot more. for example, unicorns and leonals are actually celestials!

aaand the slightly odd-ball;

WARFORGED height depends on build purpose these are an interesting case, as warforged are actually constructs, brought into this world by the fusing of organic muscle (like wood or leathery material) to an inorganic shell (like stone or metal), imbuing a life-giving fluid of some sort to act like blood, and bringing life to it by a powerful ritual - a unique glyph etched into their heads. as their name suggests they are usually created to become soldiers, or other army positions, although they could be suited to other purposes. unlike most constructs, they are fully self-aware and have a mind on par with humans. they do not need sleep (but require rest) and they also do not naturally reproduce. if they live longer than their purpose, then they are turned loose to deal with the world as they wish. as they are MADE they can vary greatly depending on who made them, and for what exact purpose - although they tend to have beak-like mouths, and 3 digit hands and 2 toed feet.

AV. HEIGHT CHART FROM LEFT TO RIGHT !!! human - elf - dwarf - gnome - halfling - orc - goliath - firbolg - dragonborn - aarakocra - tabaxi - kenku - hobgoblin - bugbear - yuanti - triton - kobold - grung - lizardfolk - tortle - centaur - minotaur - loxodon

oooboy that was a lot of waffle :L

[waeziverse]

Royal Punch (chapter 16)

Louis the Faun had a fussy goatee. He was a cute little goat-boy of the age of fourteen, but it was his little beard that had gotten him a lady-friend. She lived in this little town called Jadedale that fortunately wasn't far away from Onyxville and a carriage drove to it four times a day.

As he got of the wagon, bidding the coachman good day, he looked at the stream that surrounded the small houses that Amethyst had told him formed a circle. Louis took in a deep breath. The air was clean unlike in Onyxville and he could see plenty of grass around that practically begged him to eat it. He would take a bite after his ride drove away, but a short woman with a sort of hat that covered her ears was sitting at a stump, sharpening an arrowhead. She had a pair of big round glasses and was not much taller than him. She looked like a human, something Louis found curious as not many of those were left after the orcs took over.

And he was even more surprised to see two more. They came from the forest.

Dimi marched in haste. She was pissed, even more so when she realized she had left her skipping rope behind. She looked past her shoulder and saw the human guy had caught up to her. He was gasping after air as he had been running, he was apparently not in the best of shape.

“My... my love...” The guy took off his hat and dried his forehead. “Please, maybe we got off on the wrong foot-”

“Oh yeah?!” Dimi glared at him. “When would that be, when you gave me that bull about meeting in dreams or when you started grabbing me?”

“Oh, do not be cross with me, my lady.” The guy reached for Dimi’s hand. “Are you telling me that you did not feel a spark between us as I-”

He didn’t get to finish his sentence since Dimi’s fist connected to his face.

“Last warning!” Dimi nudged her hand. “Back the hell off!”

Louis the Faun had watched the whole thing, he couldn’t help it. When Dimi passed him and she noticed him, she gave him an annoyed look. “What are you looking at?”

“Nothing.” Louis blinked twice as the angry and embarrassed human girl walked over the bridge that led to the entrance of the village. The fishing woman raised an eyebrow and raised a hand to wave. But she got ignored.

Louis looked at the male human who nudged his face. He had a black eye. Louis decided to leave the guy alone and walked over the bridge to Jadedale.

... and then he noticed he could smell something. He was unsure what, but it smelled.. amazing!

***

"- so me and Billy actually got a gig at the Undersea Temptress tavern.” Ruby washed some tomatoes she intended to bake as the dish of the day in her restaurant. “There were suppose to have been some exotic dancers performing, but they had all got stomach trouble. So we were the replacement. And get this... there were actually eight or nine of the creatures in the bar pumping their fists to our music!”

“That’s awesome!” Amethyst had just finished washing the dishes.

“Yeah... but then they asked for our autographs... and this one guy, a minotaur, thought Billy was some harpy named Hitomi-”

“Hey, I know Hitomi the Harpy. She rocks!”

“Yeah, the minotaur guy thought so as well. So here is the thing... they were all high on mushrooms.”

Amethyst laughed. “Oh noooo...”

“Yeah, they only liked us because they were living in their own little drug world. And that was the only successful concert the Human Guts ever had. Not long after, me and Billy disbanded the duo and I threw my love and passion toward the kitchen.”

“Aw, that’s too bad...”

“Eh, we weren’t that great. But me and Billy are still good. He became the drummer of a new band called-”

“Girls, you gotta hide me!”

Ruby and Amethyst turned and saw Dimi enter the kitchen. She looked pissed.

Amethyst jumped down from the stool she stood on to reach the sink and walked over to her human friend. “ Sheesh, did you get into a fight with someone?”

“Worse! I met this human guy-”

Ruby tilted her head while her snake hair blew raspberries. “Wait, there are other humans in the area?”

“Dude! Not the point! This guy that I never met before just starts talking to me and says shit like that we met in a dream or some crap.”

Amethyst smiled. “That’s sort of cute. You have an admirer. About time!”

Dimi glared at Amethyst. “No, it’s not cute! He’s a creep and he won’t leave me alone! I even punched him! He’s nuts!”

“Did you punch him again?” Ruby adjusted her shades. She hoped the answer was yes.

“Yeah, and I accidentally gave him a black eye. He won’t back off, I might hurt him or-”

“My love, are you here?” A male voice could be herd from the dinning room.

“Aw, shit, it’s him...” Dimi nudged her temples. “I swear, it’s like he can smell me-”

“I will take care of this.” Ruby opened the door to the dinning room. A human guy in expensive clothes and a rapier attached to his belt. “Hey, you. We are closed for at least two hours.”

The human looked at Ruby and almost reached for his weapon. “A mon- I mean, begging your pardon, madam, but I have not come to this establishment to dine. Perhaps you could provide me information?”

Ruby narrowed her eyes as she crossed her arms. Her snakes softly hissed. “I’m a cook, not a book. Go get info somewhere else. Also...” She pointed at her head. “Eyes up here.”

The human blinked and turned his eyes from Ruby’s shoes to her face. “Madam, I’m in search of a lady of my own kin, it is of the utmost importance that I find her, a matter of lov... ah, life and death. Have you seen her? She has hair as golden and lovely as the sun itself.”

Ruby felt as if she was about to barf. “No, sorry. I haven’t seen her. Guess you have to ask somewhere else.”

“Madam, you must be mistaken, I have been told she often comes here to enjoy her meals, you must have seen this lovely creature, and I would appreciate you telling me how to locate her. As a matter of fact...” The guy reached for his coin pouch. “I would show my gratitude if you were to know of her whereabout.”

“Look, pal, I don’t like your attitude or the fact that you don’t get the meaning of the word no. You can take your gratitude somewhere else.” Ruby stopped herself from saying Preferably shove it where the sun doesn’t shine. “Good day and piss off.”

“I must insist that-”

Ruby’s snakes hissed loudly.

“Ah... have a good day, madam.” 

When the guy left, Dimi came from the kitchen and hugged Ruby. “I owe you!”

Ruby smiled as she padded Dimi on the back. “No you don’t. That guy WAS a total creep.”

“I don’t know.” Amethyst shrugged. “Maybe he is just passionate?”

The human girl and gorgon stared at Amethyst.

“Yeah, alright, he was a bit much.” Amethyst laughed.

“Too much if you ask me. I better get to work.” Dimi walked toward the door. 

Ruby and Amethyst returned to the kitchen. Ruby looked out the window and noticed that the human from before was hiding behind a tree, looking at the window. Ruby aggressively knocked on the glass, giving the guy a scare as he walked away.

Amethyst adjusted her apron and the string she had tied around her beard before getting started on drying the dishes she had just washed. She noticed the human as well. “Wow, he is persistent, huh? You know, I think this must be the first time Dimi had a boy related problem. About time, if you ask me.” She snickered.

Ruby narrowed her eyes as she from the window watched the human guy walk away, probably looking for Dimi. “Man... can you believe that douchebag?”

Amethyst looked at Ruby. The snakes on her head were hissing, clearly as annoyed as Ruby apparently were. “Ah... what do you mean?”

“Hey, look at me!” Ruby made a mocking imitation of the human’s voice as she grimaced. “I’m rich and pretty by human-standards, so girls probably throw themselves at my feet! Gods, he pisses me off!” Ruby chopped her already chopped up tomatoes, turning them into a wet mess. “As if he would be Dimi’s type.”

Amethyst studied Ruby for a second. She couldn’t recall seeing the gorgon being this annoyed and frustrated. “Ruby... are you jealous?”

“What?!” Ruby blushed, and her snake hair ceased to hiss, instead hiding behind her neck. She stared at Amethyst with wide eyes. “What are you talking about?!”

The dwarf girl shrugged. “I mean... I guess he is sort of cute for a creature without a beard, but... I don’t know, tall guys just doesn’t do it for me.”

Ruby blinked. “What are you- Oh. Oooh...” She made a sigh. Her snakes relaxed. “No, not a chance. He is just some rando.”

“Yeah, you are right. Sorry, I just... eh, forget it.” Amethyst dried the clean dishes. She rolled eyes at herself for thinking Ruby was jealous of Dimi.

... but then she stopped up, thinking of something Ruby had said:

As if he would be Dimi’s type.

Amethyst took a glance at Ruby who had discarded the tomatoes she had pulverized and chopped up a new one.

Amethyst was about to ask... but then she got distracted by a familiar face.

“Am! Babe! Surprise!” Louis the Faun had made a leap up to the ledge of the window and managed to grab a hold of it with his left arm while holding  a bouquet of dandelions in his right hand.

“Honey!” Amethyst was about to hug the head of the little goat guy, but he lost his grip and fell to the ground. He landed on his back, but held the dandelions above his head, saving them from being crushed. “Louis, are you okay?! And what are you doing here?”

“Wanted to surprise you... ouch...” Louis still held the flowers above his head with stretched arm.

Amethyst looked at Ruby. “I will be right back, I just need to-”

“Hey, screw it!” Ruby smiled. “Be with your boy, just promise me you will come back when I open up.”

Amethyst went outside. Louis had gotten himself up and sat on his tail. It had been a short fall, but he still felt sore. The dwarf girl sat next to him and hugged him, pressing him against her fluffy beard. “What are you doing here, don’t you have work?”

Louis snickered, the beard was tickling him. He loved it when it did. “Na, madam Pin Pin got a flue, and she won’t let me or the other sewers get near a piece of cloth or needle unless she is there to observe us. So I thought I would surprise you.” He sniffed. “Hey, something smells amazing.”

Amethyst snickered. “I will be sure to tell the chef you said so.”

Louis decided not to say that it wasn’t food he had smelled. He quickly realized that it was that scent from before. And it smelled even more lovely, almost making him giddy.

***

The anvil spat sparkles and clinked as Dimi's hammer hit it. The steel that was cherry-colored due to how hot it was had started to take a shape that resembled a shovel head. Dimi stroke it at the horn of the anvil to make the sides, then back at the face of it. She kept doing so for a while till she was somewhat satisfied with the result. She stuck it in the water bucket next to her, cracking her neck and drying her head with a slightly dirty rag. Dimi stretched out and left the forge with the shovel head and a file. She sat on a stool next to the forge and began to clean the edges of the head with the file.

“Looks good.” Ivan came with a bucket of water and studied his protégé at work.

“Yep...” Dimi kept filing. “Guess I have to stick to this to make an honest coronet.”

Ivan shrugged and leaned against the door to the forge and crossed his arms. “Look, I don’t know how to get you a new fight, I mean, I do know of a few places, but are too far away from Jadedale.”

“So...” Dimi blew on the shovel to clean it. “I have to move somewhere else?”

Ivan sighed. “It’s not that simple. Even if you hit the road, I couldn’t go with you, you would have to find a new trainer and corner guy, one who actually demands payment. I started my career traveling a lot, doing a ton of odd jobs and I couldn’t get the proper training needed. I was lucky. And besides, you are suppose to keep a low profile.”

“Right.” Dimi studied the shovel head she was just about done with. “In case an orc soldier or something sees me and goes all Hey, that human is blond and have freckles, we looked for one of those years ago, right? Yeah, I get it, I need to not get too much attention.” Dimi narrowed her eyes. “Hey... you know there is an alternative to the Highway Hippogriff, right?”

Ivan raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“Well...” Dimi smirked. “I could try get in one of those fight clubs that are.... less than... legit?”

Dimi stopped smirking. Ivan looked at her as if he had been told that eating pie had been illegal.

“Ah...” Dimi made a dumb smirk. She felt like she had said something inappropriate. “Look, I’m not sayin it would be ideal, but underground boxing matches could be an option. And it would be totally keeping low profile-”

“Dimicatio.”

Dimi blinked twice. She couldn’t recall when the last time anyone had used her full name. Iven looked at her with a stern and downright angry glare.

Ivan kept speaking. “You will never... EVER, talk about underground boxing under my roof. Understood?”

“Well...” Dimi smirked, but more like a nervous reaction. “Technically, it’s Aura’s roof.”

Ivan didn’t look amused by Dimi’s attempt at humor.

“Ivan.” Dimi groaned. “I need to keep fighting to get better, and we can’t hire a sparing partner for me. Sure, I realize they fight dirty in those sorts of fights, but that would make it more challenging, right? It might even be fu-”

“Never again.” Ivan’s glare became furious. “We will never have this conversation again. Ever.” Ivan went inside the forge. “Go help Aura in the stables.”

He slammed the door shut.

“Sheesh...” Dimi had realized Ivan would most likely be against the idea, but she had expected a lecture about sportsmanship or something, not this... overreaction.

But then she got something else to think about. Dimi saw the human guy from before in the distance.

“My love!” The guy came running toward Dimi with his arms open, ready to embrace her.

Dimi evaded him and then made him trip with her left foot. He landed on the ground with his pretty face in the dirt.

Dimi was about to boil over. “How do you keep fining me?!”

The human slowly stood up and dusted himself clean while spitting some dirt out of his mouth. “My heart is filled with love and I could find you anywhere. Also...” He pointed at the direction he had come from. “That lovable older gentleman told me where you lived. A splendid chap.”

Old man Sunmut the Satyr waved as he leaned against his cane. Dimi felt like snapping the can in half. She took three steps backward as she glared at the human guy. “Look, I don’t even know who the hell you are-”

“Oh! Where are my manners?” The human chuckled. “My name is earl Justin of-”

“Dude! I don’t care who you are!” Dimi cracked her knuckles.

“What’s all the ruckus about?!” Ivan stepped out of the forge, his face covered in sod. He noticed Justin. “What’s th-”

“Oho! Now I understand perfectly!” Justin took a hold of the hilt of his blade and drew his weapon. “This be the beast that has forced you to slave for him day after day! You pretending not to return my affection was simply a clever way of keeping me safe from your capturer.”

Dimi nudged her eyes. “Gods, this is getting dumber every second...”

Ivan was completely lost. He looked at the sword. “Hey now, put that knife away. Kid, you could get someone HOLY SHIT, WHAT?!”

Justin’s sword was on fire. “Do not test my patience, ox. I know of your sort and your violent temperament, but I have been trained in sorcery and swordsmanship.” Justin smirked as he aimed his blade toward Ivan. “And I have mastering both with excellency.”

Ivan held his hands up. “Kid, someone’s gonna get hurt if you aren’t careful. And it will most likely be you.”

“Ho ho! Such confidence you have in yourself, barbarian. But there is something else you should know-”

Justin dropped his sword and collapsed after Dimi had hit him on the head with the shovel head. She blade seized to burn.

Dimi and Ivan looked at the unconcise Justin and then at one another.

Aura arrived with a pitchfork and had hay all over her clothes. “I heard yelling and DID YOU TWO KILL A HUMAN?!”

“Relax, I just knocked his lights out.” Dimi looked at the shovel head. It had luckily not been damaged. “Sooooo... What do we do with him?”

***

After tying up Justin and locking him up in the shed till they figured out what to do with him, Dimi decided to go to her customers with their orders, including the shovel that Amethyst’s mom Agathe needed.

As she went through Jadedale and crossed the town square, Dimi had this suspicion that someone was looking at her in a weird way. But she couldn’t put her finger on it.

When she arrived at Agathe’s house, she was greeted warmly, especially since the dwarf lady really needed a new shovel for her kitchen garden that provided her vegetables.

“Ouch!” Agatha grinned as she cut her finger on the shovel head. “I’m gonna get rid of those pesky roots in no time. Thanks, Dimi. Could I tempt you with a cup of tea before you head home?”

“Always.” Dimi always made sure the dwarf house was the last one on her route so she could accept the invitation.

“There is a warm kettle already, Amethyst’s gentleman is paying us a little visit. Go in, I wanna try this shovel right away.”

Dimi went inside the house and went straight to the kitchen, finding Louis the Faun with a cup he was sipping from. “Oh, hey!” Dimi recognized the little goat man. “So you are the guy Am is seeing? She told me about you.”

“Hopefully good thing. Dimi, right?” Louis poured a cup to Dimi... and he sniffed.

It was there again.

“Where is Am?” Dimi took a seat and leaned a bit down due to the table being designed for shorter creatures.

“In her room, she is changing. I invited her to a night at the theater.” Louis noticed that the sent got stronger. “Say, Am keeps telling me you don’t want to be introduced to my friend Dar.” He smirked. “You too good to go out with a harpy?”

Dimi rolled her eyes. “I’m sure this Dar is a nice bird, but I’m not looking for guys.”

Louis hesitated. “Well... I also know this faun girl named Enid if-”

“NO, I’m not looking for anyone! Gods...” Dimi drank her tea. “Is it so unrealistic that I like being single?”

“Well...” Louis was now sure that whatever it was he could smell, he had never smelled something so incredible and would never find a scent like it again. “I think you do the rest of the world a dishonor with that choice.”

Dimi almost chocked on her hot tea. “Ah... excuse me?!”

“I mean, come on.” Louis grinned. “Those lovely freckles, those muscular arms... I wouldn’t be complaining if you were my girlfriend.”

Dead silence.

“Dude... ARE YOU-” Dimi bit her lower lip, no reason to let everyone in the entire kingdom hear her, or at the very least Amethyst. “Did you just hit on me?” She glared at Louis as she practically hissed.

“Would it be so strange it... if...” Louis stopped smiling and his face turned red. “Holy shit, I think I did?”

“What the hell?!” Dimi slammed her cup on the table. “We are in your girlfriend’s house. Are you nuts or just stupid?”

“I have no idea why I just did that!” Louis grabbed both of his horn as he looked completely confused.

Dimi stormed out of the room, hitting her head because she forgot to lower her head, leaving Louis who was completely confused. As he wondered what on earth had possessed him, he realized that the scent was getting weaker.

“I’m ready!” Amethyst entered the kitchen with a dress she had made for herself with dandelion patterns embroidered on it. She had decorated her fluffy beard with the flowers she had just received from Louis. The faun looked at her and felt ashamed. Amethyst noticed that Louis looked like something was wrong. “What's the matter, hon?”

“... Nothing. You are just unbelievably beautiful.”

***

Dimi decided to go home right away and shut the door to her bedroom and scream. She was furious. Men where apparently way more rotten than she had assumed. She thought for herself that this day could not get any worse.

But as she crossed town square, she realized how wrong she had been. She was right earlier that someone were watching her.

It was seemingly every single male creature in town that at least took a quick glance at her.

“Oh, shit...” Dimi mumbled for herself as she walked as fast as she possibly could without running, no need to attract more attention than she already had, especially since a few female creatures gave her mean stares due to her getting their guy’s attention. Dimi was so frustrated that she didn’t see did man Sunmut and bumped into him.

“Angels on fire, I’m so sorry!” Dimi helped the old sheep man up on his feet. “Are you hurt, sir?”

"Ah, I’m not a paper doll, dearie.” Sunmut laughed as he took his cane that Dimi had picked up for him. “Say, now that I got ya, maybe you could... could...”

“Yes?” Dimi looked at the old satyr who looked paralyzed. She wondered if something was wrong... and then she realized that the old man was blushing.

“Oh deer, look at the sun.” Sunmut evaded eye contact with the young woman who could have been his grandchild. “I best be getting home, I have herbs I need. See ya around.”

As the old sheep man humped away as fast as his old bones would allow him. Dimi realized she probably had to have a talk with Nora.

***

Nora placed a bag with plants she had just collected from the local forest. “Right, so obviously, Dimi getting hit on by guys is her princess puberty kicking in again.”

Dimi stood at the corner of the living room, looking extremely embarrassed. “So, what? I make creatures fall in love with me randomly?”

“What? No.” Nora shook her head as she took off her hat that hid her pointy ears. She accepted a cup of tea Ivan offered her. “Don’t be ridicules. You can’t just make someone fall in love with you. But you can use your newest magical ability to manipulate pheromones, making them infatuated, tricking them into thinking they are in love with you.”

Ivan, Dimi and Aura looked at Nora with blank stares.

“Pheromones...” Dimi was afraid to ask. “So... pretend I don’t know what that means.”

Nora sighed. “Alright... members of the human royal family have the power to have control over the pheromones, a secreted or excreted chemical factor that triggers a social response in members of the same species or species close enough to humans. So that would include releasing pheromones that induce attraction between subjects, to exuding pheromones strong enough to induce sleep, influence emotions, yada yada yada.”

Aura narrowed her eyes. “Should I... take notes for this, or-”

“Look, what is important here is that Dimi is using this power through instinct.” Nora adjusted her glasses as she gave Dimi a look as if she had taken a bit of a lemon. “Dimi, you basically make guys with the right genes horny.”

Dimi lost all color in her face. “Ewwwwww... WHY?!?”

“Welp, it’s actually because of the side effect of your plantmancer powers. See, when your descendent Queen Dornröschen had gone into a coma and became a thorn monster, she decided to call in magic experts to adjust the power of pheromone control to go off by its own to attract a male who would...” Nora rolled her eyes. “... love her enough to put himself in danger and go through the plants to save her and the kingdom. And she also thought it would help her decedents to find mates so they wouldn’t have any problems producing even more decedents. So, with the help of both humans and elves, Dornröschen managed to give birth to boy with such a power. Sure, this new skill was not as strong as the one you have... but through the proper... medication, his child and the child after that was born with the same magical talent that grew stronger for each generation.”

The human, minotaur and sphinx stared at Nora with disbelieve all over their faces.

“Yes, yes, I know.” Nora nudged her eyes. “It’s extremely fucked up.”

Ivan shook his head. and he kept shaking it. “Why... why would anyone DO THAT?!”

Aura looked like she was about to get sick. “See, this is the sort of shit that makes everyone dislike humans!” She instantly felt guilty saying so as she gave Dimi an apologizing look. “Sorry, that came out wrong.”

“Hell no, I’m with you!” The human girl looked utterly horrified. “Can’t we just get... that... out of me?!”

“Eh...” Nora shrugged. “Yes and no.”

Dimi grind her teeth. “What do you mean yes and no? And is it mostly yes?”

“Dimi, no one can just get something out of you that has been written into your genes as effectively as this spell has. It’s not a zit. If your stomach gives you trouble, I can’t just pull it out of you, can I now? But...” Nora patted the bag with plants on the table. “I can however create a potion that will make creatures completely uninterested in you on a sexual plane.”

Dimi winced. “You make it sound worse.”

Nora opened the bag and took out a blue mushroom. “This is actually used as a curse where I come from. Mostly for revenge if someone stole your boyfriend or something along those lines. Basically, you make a potion and whoever drinks it will make creatures find you... undesirable, so to say. It works for about two days, so I will have to start making enough for about half a year. But according to my research, that’s when your body should stop making its mating call automatically-”

Dimi slapped her face. “Don’t call it that, you are making this weirder than it already is!”

“... and the problem should be solved.”

Ivan and Aura exchanged looks.

“So...” Ivan scratched his muzzle. “Dimi would be... undesirable... for six months? That doesn’t sound fair.”

Aura nodded. “Yeah, don’t you think you could find another solution? What if Dimi actually finds a nice boy and-”

“Actually, I’m okay with it.”

Ivan and Aura looked at Dimi. She looked calmer, less unsettled.

Dimi smiled. “I’m super okay with it. I thought this would be a pain in the ass to solve, but I just have to take a potion ones a day-”

“Once every second day.” Nora corrected her.

“Even better!” Dimi grinned. “Man, I’m so relieved.”

Aura hesitated. “Dimi, sweetie... you get that you won’t be able to get a boyfriend for half a year, right?”

Dimi nodded. “Sure. I don’t care.”

“Dimi, you can’t tell me you don’t want to find a nice young man for yourself eventually.”

Dimi pouted and shrugged. “Maybe I don’t need a so-called nice young man.”

Ivan laughed. “Dimi, it would be weird if you didn’t!”

Dimi narrowed her eyes and glared at Ivan. “Oh, great. I’m weird.”

The minotaur blinked. “Ah... um...”

Aura coughed. “We are treading dangerous waters.” She mumbled.

Ivan’s tailed started to swing nervously. “Look, ah... I’m not saying that if you at the moment don’t want... or later, or... um-”

“At the moment? What, you have a deadline for me or something?” Dimi rolled her eyes.

Aura decided to step in. “Dimi, none of us thinks that your relationships is any of our business-”

“Dangit, you don’t get it either!” Dimi slammed a fist into the wall. “I don’t HAVE a relationship and I will never have one because I... because I lack desire! THERE! You happy now?!”

 Aura and Ivan exchanged looks. Nora took a sip from her cup.

Dimi blinked. “Aw, no, no, no...” She groaned as she nudged her eyes. “Why did I say that?”

Deep silence.

Dimi covered her face in her hands while looking like she wanted to sink into the corner she was leaning against. Ivan looked begging at Aura who just shrugged. Nora finished her tea.

“Well...” Nora placed her cup on the table. “I sense that we are about to have an intimate conversation about the feeling and thoughts of a young woman. An insensitive and possibly cynical statement could turn an already awkward situation to downright hellish.” She stood up and walked toward the door. “So I should probably just go home and make potion.”

Dimi lifted her hands from her face and looked at Ivan and Aura who stared back. They looked confused, but mostly worried. “Look, I want Nora’s potion, and I don’t want to talk about.”

“Well...” Ivan shrugged. He very much didn’t want this conversation. “We don’t have to unless you-”

“Yes we do.” Aura elbowed Ivan.

“I mean, yes we do.”

“Sit.” Aura pointed at an empty chair at the end of the table that was opposite to where she sat with Ivan. Dimi groaned and did as she was told. “So...” Aura’s wings were twitching. “What exactly do you mean with lack desire. Lack desire for what exactly?”

Dimi shrugged.

Aura made an awkward smile. “Do you like... girls?”

Ivan blushed and stared at his wife with disbelieve. “Aura, you don’t ask someone something like that!”

“Oh, grow up, Ivan.” Aura rolled her eyes. “Lesbianism is a thing.”

“But that’s the thing, I’m not a lesbian.” Dimi threw her hands up in the air. “I’m not interested in creatures, not romantically or... you know, that thing!”

Ivan tilted his head. “Not at all? You sure you just haven’t-”

“Ivan, I swear on my mom’s grave!” Dimi glared at the minotaur. “Use the words met and right guy in the same sentence and I will break your other horn!”

“Alright, sorry.” Ivan held his hands up. “That was patronizing. My bad.”

“So, you don’t have a desire for romance, is that all?” Aura smiled. “You made it sound like it was something embarrassing.”

“Well, it is, isn’t it?” Dimi sighed. “Amethyst keeps trying to set me up on dates. I know she means well, but I know she thinks I’m not complete because I don’t want to try and get a romantic relationship. Worse, she pities me, she thinks that it’s sad that I’m...” Dimi rolled her eyes as she made air quotes. “... alone.“

“Does that... bother you?” Ivan asked. “What others think of you?”

Dimi didn’t answer right away. “I think... I think what bothers me is... what if she is right? What if... What if I become an old weird and lonely lady and I realize I only lived half a life because I didn't get married and got kids?” The human girl sighed. “What bothers me is... what if there is something wrong with me?”

Ivan and Aura looked at Dimi who looked exhausted.

“Dimi...” Ivan cleared his throat. “Well.. first of all, if you live a life where you so happen not to get married, do you honestly think you would be alone? Or does friendship and family not count? Love can be many things, I find it hard to believe that you would be unloved.”

Dimi didn’t respond.

“Second, I don’t think you should think of your worth depending on what others think of you. Trust me, I very much cared what others thought of me when I was your age and that...” Ivan’s face turned grim. “That blew up in my face, let’s leave it at that. And for what’s it worth, I can’t think of someone who is as perfect as you.” Ivan stood up and nuzzled Dimi’s hair.

Dimi snickered as she pulled herself free. “That’s gross, Ivan.”

“Also, if someone thinks less of you for being the way you are...” Aura made a wide smile that exposed all of her sharp teeth. “Well, I guess I would have to eat them.”

Dimi made a smile that went from one ear to the other. “You guys are great!” But then she stopped smiling. “Wait, what about the asshole in the shed?”

“Well...” Ivan scratched his hair. “I guess we could bring him to the authorities and tell them what happened, or some of it... but we were technically the ones who assaulted him, so...”

***

Dimi had taken her first potion from Nora. She went inside the shed to untie earl Justin. “So...” She looked at the human guy. “Do you still love me?”

Justin looked completely confused. “I do not. I must confess, I have no idea what on earth possessed me, I feel so very embarrassed. It is ill suiting for a gentleman to-”

“Yeah, yeah, enough of that.” Dimi cut the ropes with a knife, freeing Justin. “Look, for what’s it worth, it wasn’t completely your fault.”

Justin stood up, dusting himself clean. Dimi handed him his sword. “Right... well... I should... ah-”

“Leave.”

“Right. Right....” Justin went outside the shed and looked confused as he walked away. But he stopped up, turning toward Dimi. “Look, I would like to say-”

“Just piss off already.” Dimi slapped her forehead.

“I shall, but... It was, despite the circumstances... nice to finally see another human. After the invasion, you know.”

Dimi blinked. She had forgotten to think of earl Justin as a member of her race. “Yeah... I guess. Do you... do you know what happened to all the humans?”

Justin shrugged. “There are few of us left in Nesredna, but we are scattered. The orcs won’t allow humans to live here unless they like yourself have foster families of another species. My family left me in the care of some satyr merchants. And that is not always enough, I have to leave the kingdom.”

“Oh?” Dimi looked confused.

“I happen to be of wealth, but my wealth is about to be used up. I lack the skills to be working class, so I intent to leave the kingdom and attempt to find my family.”

“Well... have a good trip?” Dimi could kick herself, that sounded so lame.

Justin smiled as he took off his hat and bowed. “Well, one can hope. Farwell.”

Dimi felt relived once Justin was gone... but she also felt alone for some reason.

[cmweller]

Challenge #03104-H196: For Great Justice

She was a nanny who was required to care for a Tiefling child. She disliked Tieflings, the whole race were nothing but demons, but her lord ordered it. It was his daughter after all. The child rarely got smiles, save from her parents, rarely got a kind word, except her parents, and then a stranger came to the palace and gave the nanny a hard, cold, lesson in caring for children. One the nanny ever forgot, especially after what that man did, and now she had horns and tail, too. -- Anon Guest

Goodie Hardweather had to obey the word of her lord. It was, in some ways, her own fault for having a good reputation for fostering so many otherwise unwanted children. According to the good word, she took in all sorts. Half-elves, Half-orcs, even Goblinoids and Kobolds. She took in all sorts, except one. Tieflings. She just couldn't stand those little demon-spawned devils. Monsters, every single one of them.

But now, because of that good word, she had to look after one of those horrible little creatures. The young Duchess Merrimeet Goldstaff Crucible VonSchaulten, fourth of her name, had sharp teeth and claws to match. She bore crooked, twisted horns and a wickedly evident tail that lashed about at all times. Only her parents spoke of her golden skin or luminous emerald eyes that were slotted like a goat. Her parents were busy, running the Duchy. Which was why his lordship had sought out the kindest and most generous woman in the realm to be the young Duchess' nurse.

Goodie Hardweather immediately set about fixing the little monster to at least attempt to be less monstrous. Every day, there were rigid and firm lessons about being more human than she was. Couched, of course, in the formalities of also being a lady. "A lady does not permit others to see her teeth," Hardweather snapped. Or, "A lady would hide that tail under her skirts." Little could be done about the horns. Thank the many gods for the invention of fashionable hats. Elaborate braids could conceal the devils' points of her ears, but no power on this world or beyond could make Hardweather touch that black void she called hair. Then that damnable Cleric arrived.

[Check the source to see the full story]

[quasieli]

happy sleepover saturday! top 5 silly dnd moments?

Ooh, this should be a fun one!

1. (Frostmaiden) At the start of this campaign, my wonderful DM Ace allowed us to choose a couple magic items to start with and I wanted something that would sow a lot of chaos. I chose the Bag of Beans, which, when a bean is planted, you roll percentile and some sort of magical effect happens. On more than one occasion, we ended up with the effect of pink toads appearing that, when touched, become a small, medium or large creature for the next minute. These fights have been so fucking funny. Sometimes, we'll get some scary shit, like a woestrider, but in that same fight, we got some Lumiere ass sentient candelabra and I love that those two things can just coincide in D&D.

2. (EWF) This is a game I DM and I just love my players so much (they're all very close IRL friends of mine and just the best goofuses lol). We've had a lot of really silly moments in that game, but the king of goofs is our monk, an owl Aarakocra named Swoop. His goofs include: starting a secret knock that he told no one about; trying, and succeeding, to hug a smoke monster out of an NPC; eating a handful of acorns he found on the street, even though the party was actively in the process of getting food (this was an early session and he thought he had to eat like an actual bird); and just the litany of disguises and personas he comes up with literally almost every session. Best boy, 10/10, love him.

3. (SICL) Oh I have so many moments in mind but for some reason the first thing that popped up was this one time in a very early session where our party came across a band of half-orc bards while we were travelling. We all got drunk together and they told us stories. What made this particularly memorable was JD doing an amazing English accent for all of these half-orcs. Best of all, anytime e needed to anchor emself back to the accent, e would just yell "'Arry Potta!' very loudly lmao

4. (Azica) Wild magic pie eating contest. This was a while ago now so I don't remember all the effects that happened but I do remember our rogue accidentally getting turned into a goat and I believe they also got a pie that started insulting them. Brilliant idea from my awesome DM, Ciara. Man, I miss that game. (Honorable mention moment from this game: the party ragging on our warlock, and the player, because he didn't know that sugar gliders were real animals. TBF the drawing our rogue produced of one did look like a gingerbread man with skin, but that's neither here nor there lmao).

5. (Frostmaiden) This was from a recent one shot with my character, Sparks, and my party's lovely druid, Ambrose, where we ended up in the plane of air, trying to saving our little baby bear friend, BB. While we were in the plane of air, we encountered some elemental guards (I believe myrmidons?) and just, shoutout to @quantum-lesbian for the whole convo between Ambrose and this guard. Probably my fave bit of that convo was "Does air have pronouns?" Love that funky lil elemental, hope we get to meet them again.

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Humans are Space Orcs, “Eating Everything.”

I am working my way through the list of suggestions that you guys left me, so this is the first installment from a Anon ask. I don’t know if this is what you wanted to read or where expecting to read, but this is what I came up with.

Intergalactic Journal of Biology and Medicine

Humans have one of the most resilient digestive tracts in the known universe. As an Omnivorous predatory species, humans are capable of digesting muscle , fat, carbohydrates (simple and complex), proteins and fibers taking many nutrients and extreme energy from them. Their use of carbs gives us an explanation as to why humans are so powerful because they require a lot of energy to use their bodies. Additionally, the stomach acid of a human is capable of digesting, non-food items though no nutrients can be pulled from it.

Generally speaking, the rule is that if you can eat it, a human can eat it, though, whether it is to their taste or not is questionable.

Furthermore, the human body reactivly ejects toxic substances once detected, so within reason, humans are capable of trying many foods without the negative consequences many of us would associate with sticking foreign substances in our mouth.

There GA intergalactic summit was held, on what was Earth time, November 5th, 4022. All members of the GA council were expected to attend, or at least a representative for every species in the known universe. At this time that would include the Rundi, Gibb, Tesraki, Bran, Vrul, Drev, etc. but worst of all, the humans. 

The Rundi steward, a class of government official who was specifically tasked with dealing with the drudgery of bureaucracy, was not pleased in the slightest. It was primarily his job to put everything together, and depending on how well he did, it could either make or break him in social hierarchy of his species. The Rundi were a primarily governmental planet, everything they did was based upon a structure of hierarchy and rule. Government was the greatest form of service, and Anarchy wasn’t even an afterthought in philosophical debate. The rundi were not capable of anarchy.

It was a planet of politicians in some form or another, every interaction had political underleanings, and their speech was always heavily guarded. For this reason, the Rundi had been the first in suggesting an intergalactic system of government. The terasaki had agreed only upon realizing they would be tasked with overseeing economics, but had benefited from the Rundi system of government seeing as they tended a bit towards social anarchy, a thought that the Rundi had seen as horribly barbaric, especially since their system was based primarily on the equal distribution of goods to support government structure. 

The Vrul had only agreed to join based on their own personal interest in survival. Generally they wanted nothing to do with intergalactic politics and would have been happy to maintain their own peaceful homeworld, but the introduction of other species into the galaxy had offered a great threat to them, and they had decided, out of necessity, to join the GA as being friends with the other species was in their own self interest. In turn that had meant sending their very, very skilled workers to help the rest of the galaxy, and that included their scientists and their doctors, and their mechanics.

And then of course there was the issue of the Drev and the humans, both scarily similar in social hierarchy and temperament. The Drev were warlike and honor bound, but once choosing a leader, they had been surprisingly willing to join in as long as they were given the opportunity to participate in any and all armed conflict that happened to take place across the galaxy. 

The humans….. The humans were another story. There was no one characteristic that helped to identify their motivations. The humans themselves were well versed in war, politics, economics, and science, but they did everything to the extreme. Where the Drev practiced war for honor,when humans waged war, they did it to kill, while the Rundi maintained government and played games within their own circles, the humans played against each other often mixing war and government into one. Their economic practices varied widely, but their current system played for keeps and focused on the greatest accumulation of wealth possible far beyond what the Tesraki did. Then when it came to science, they never considered WHETHER they should do something, but only if they COULD do something. 

And now here the steward was forced into the position of setting up this summit for all the different types of species. The catering alone had been a complete nightmare, and he had been forced to ship different sorts of food for thousands of miles in order to feed everyone in the proper manner. There were some species he did not have to worry about, like the Vrul, who were more plant based and so did not eat, but there were others, and that included the rundi and the Tesraki, who had every strict diet consisting of only very specific foods to eat. He found that he could tack the Drev onto some other species, seeing as their bodies were capable of metabolizing almost any plant as long as it retained a similar structure to human plants and fruit.

However, the humans themselves were the hardest part, because the range of food was so wide, he could hardly determine what was going to work and what was going to be a massive disaster. He honestly didn’t know, different sources said different things, and he couldn't bare to think about putting MEAT on the table…. That was just against his constitutions.

In fact, he was scrambling right up until the council had convened for the evening, and the mass tide of bodies came pouring into the room filling the vaulted ceiling with rockus chatter in dozens of different languages.

He could hear the humans coming a mile off.

The humans and the Rundi had a similar register when it came to hearing, and humans were known to be able to mimic Rundi vocalizations to some degree simply because they generally tended to communicate in deep grunts, hums and guttural vocalizations. The humans, wlel their language was just as varied as their culture clicking, hissing, snapping, humming and grunting filling the air with discordant and somehow, rhythmic quality..

Their presence turned heads.

They walked with the Drev delegation, which was no surprise to anyone. The humans had been unable to send their usual representative due to a social disagreement between earth and its neighboring sister, Mars. So who had they gone and sent….

Them….

The rundi Steward knew all about them….. Crewmembers of the UNSC Harbinger, the widest ranging vessel in the entire galaxy, and home to a crew that was indisputably certifiable. They were the most reckless, most dangerous, and most terrifying amalgamation of creatures in the galaxy somehow including one Drev, and a rather out of place Vrul whose behavior suggested he had caught whatever brain malady had overcome the humans, and was just as insane as they were.

He cringed horrifically at the sight of them.. Humans were a destructive force, and were known to cause chaos and mayhem wherever they went, even at the best of times, so this was bound to get interesting.

The delegates were seated, and the Steward welcomed them with gracious words of introduction he had spent months preparing. It was a very political thing for him to do, and included subtle compliments to all delegations involved, laid down some ground rules but made sure not to undermine the authority of the people he was speaking too..

However, to the humans, the attempt was obviously heavy handed brown nosing, though none of the other delegations seemed to notice.

He invited them in for refreshments and encouraged discussion between the parties.

Of course, the humans weren’t exactly ones to pass up the idea of food and were some of the first to the table examining the contents with great interest even the food that was not theirs. They seemed very amused watching the other delegations pick up their specific food and then move away to sit.

“What is this.” one of the humans commented holding up a rather stringy green tube that wriggled and squirmed in his hand, “Are these worms?”

One of the Tesraki looked over, “No, it’s a Cavestalk, a kind of plant. Probably not to your taste, they are known to be poisonous to other species. In other words, not human food.”

The human raised an eyebrow, “Buddy, humans are the sharks….. Or wait…. Maybe that's the goats of the universe, we can eat anything within reason, and even a couple of things outside of reason if given enough time.”

The Tesraki made a sort of shrug and wave with its large ears and then walked away. The steward watched the humans with a worried expression. It wouldn’t due to allow the humans to make themselves sick on his watch, but it seemed as if that idea was only becoming more and more likely as the humans poked and prodded at the leftovers of other species hardly bothering with the food that had been laid out for them…. Mostly strange fibrous plant materials.

And that is when it came, “I dare you to eat it.” 

The two humans locked eyes, one still holding the wriggling Cavestalk, “What.”

“I said, I dare you to eat it.” The human stuck out his chin at the other human in a primitive position of posturing, “How much do I get if I do.”

There was a moment of thought before, “Twenty credits. I’ll give you twenty credits to eat it.”

“What happens if it poisons me?”

There was a hand wave, “We have a doctor on board, he can just pump your stomach…. Chicken.”

A moment of silence passed between them, and the Rundi steward began moving towards them to stop something horrible he felt was about to happen. He wasn’t fast enough, and before he knew it, the human had thrown back his head and dropped the wriggly green thing into his mouth swallowing it whole like an alligator or a snake. 

People around looked on in somewhat fascinated disgust as the predator’s throat bobbed and he smacked his lips making a face, “Eh, I can still feel it moving…. Eh.” He paused, “Though, taste wise it isn’t so bad kind of like a wiggly asparagus.” After a moment his eyes narrowed, and he smacked his lips again, “Spicy asparagus, uh, that’s really really weird.” 

He reached the table just as the Vrul came running up shoulders squared in a very un-vrul way, “HE LITERALLY JUST SAID IT WAS POISONOUS TO OTHER SPECIES, AND NOW YOU’RE EATING IT! AND YOU OVER THERE.” A human looked up at him from where it had been prodding the Drev coiltree berries, “GET THOSE OUT OF YOUR MOUTH!”

They had attracted the attention of some of the closer tables now who were looking on in entertained confusion and worry.

A human waved a hand, “It’s alright Doc, we have you don’t we”

“I AM NOT THE MAGIC CURE FOR NEUROTOXIN.”

Another shrug, “Well it’s a good thing that I’ll throw up before anything really bad happens.” 

The rundi steward tried to intervene as the humans began prodding through the other food, “Drev can eat human fruit, so I bet these things are like fruit.” one of them pointed out popping the berries into his mouth and chewing with a contemplative look on his face, “Not bad.”

“Please, please, if you would remain within your own food groups.” The Rundi begged. HE was now realizing he should have written up some legal documents to avoid litigation if the humans were to be damaged on their property, but now was too late.

A human waved him off, “Don’t worry, everyone else is done eating, besides.” He Pointed towards the human food, “That's literally a pile of lettuce, I am a man, not a horse.”

“Horses don’t eat lettuce, also that’s not lettuce,it’s spinach.” Another human piped up prodding at a strange squishy red ball sloshing with a strange pink nectar, “This looks like candy.”

“Please don’t put that in your mouth.”

The humans swarmed away from the two dissenting voices. One of them picked up the strange pink orb and licked it. It’s eyes lit up and it bit into the piece wiping pink juice from it’s face as it did, “Ok, this, this is good 10/10 would try again.” And that only caused all the other humans to move over to try one.

“I SAID GET THAT OUT OF YOUR MOUTH!” The vrul demanded. 

The Rundi steward looked on in horror and worry. Vrul didn’t behave that way, everything here was just wrong. 

A Drev joined the party just then pointing to the pink orb, “I love those, but you should definitely try these too.” 

“No, no they should not.”

He was ignored, and the humans scooted over to look. It was a strange spiral plant in a light yellow color that made  a distinctive crunching sound as the humans bit down. They shrugged, “Sort of just like space celery if you ask me.”

Did these creatures have no sense of self preservation!

A group had gathered around the table strangely amused at the humans, who just ate…. Everything.

The Rundi steward almost keeled over watching his future go down the drain as other species began offering humans food. Whatever it was, they seemed unable to resist putting it in their mouths. A human made a face spitting something back out into his hand, “Ax bleh, tastes like Satan’s feet.” “Quick question. When was the last time you licked Satan’s feet.” “The last time I was at your mom’s house.” 

The humans made strange noises at each other as the Rundi stepped in and began grabbing things from the humans only to find the Vrul to be doing the same, “Stop it! Stop it all of you!.”

The human’s paused, as did the other delegates in surprise.

“STOP PUTTING THINGS IN YOUR MOUTH THAT YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE.”  The intervening silence was broken as one of the humans loudly crunched on one of the pink orbs. Everyone turned to look at her and she just glanced around the group.

“What?” She wondered past a mouth full of food.

A human waved a hand at him, “Keep your shorts on, we promise you won't get in trouble if one of us dies.” 

The Rundi stared on incredulous.

They were going to kill themselves, they were really going to kill themselves.

Maybe it was best if he resigned before being fired, at least he would be able to keep his dignity

[internutter]

Challenge #03104-H196: For Great Justice

She was a nanny who was required to care for a Tiefling child. She disliked Tieflings, the whole race were nothing but demons, but her lord ordered it. It was his daughter after all. The child rarely got smiles, save from her parents, rarely got a kind word, except her parents, and then a stranger came to the palace and gave the nanny a hard, cold, lesson in caring for children. One the nanny ever forgot, especially after what that man did, and now she had horns and tail, too. -- Anon Guest

Goodie Hardweather had to obey the word of her lord. It was, in some ways, her own fault for having a good reputation for fostering so many otherwise unwanted children. According to the good word, she took in all sorts. Half-elves, Half-orcs, even Goblinoids and Kobolds. She took in all sorts, except one. Tieflings. She just couldn't stand those little demon-spawned devils. Monsters, every single one of them.

But now, because of that good word, she had to look after one of those horrible little creatures. The young Duchess Merrimeet Goldstaff Crucible VonSchaulten, fourth of her name, had sharp teeth and claws to match. She bore crooked, twisted horns and a wickedly evident tail that lashed about at all times. Only her parents spoke of her golden skin or luminous emerald eyes that were slotted like a goat. Her parents were busy, running the Duchy. Which was why his lordship had sought out the kindest and most generous woman in the realm to be the young Duchess' nurse.

Goodie Hardweather immediately set about fixing the little monster to at least attempt to be less monstrous. Every day, there were rigid and firm lessons about being more human than she was. Couched, of course, in the formalities of also being a lady. "A lady does not permit others to see her teeth," Hardweather snapped. Or, "A lady would hide that tail under her skirts." Little could be done about the horns. Thank the many gods for the invention of fashionable hats. Elaborate braids could conceal the devils' points of her ears, but no power on this world or beyond could make Hardweather touch that black void she called hair. Then that damnable Cleric arrived.

[Check the source to see the full story]

[jxmieswxnter]

sergeants as mythical creatures

(with some modern twists where i see fit)

Gavin - Faun bipedal creatures with the legs and tail of a goat and the head, torso, and arms of a man forest-dwelling; ram horns and pointed ears; impeccable night vision; horns a bit chipped because he forgets to look after them; clumsy; trips over rocks; lives in the woods; wears knitted leg warmers in the winter; likes to sit on one specific big rock and look out across a pond, watching the fish; has panpipes but is actually kind of terrible

Dan - Orc large, humanoid creatures, often depicted as big and muscular with large teeth seven and a half feet tall; thick metal septum ring; large lower tusks; pale complexion; short, scruffy hair and a braid with a bead at the end; forest dweller; can wield an axe; looks intimidating but actually very kind and gentle; just wants friends but most are scared of him; not Charlie though, they’re close; sleeps in the sun; makes fun of Gavin’s bad panpiping

Ben -  Draugr an undead creature, often guarding treasure buried with them in their burial mound except in his case, he’s got no treasure; was killed in the 1800s and been stuck as the undead since; can only stay within a certain radius of his death sight, and so is stuck within the forest; used to look pretty terrible - black, putrefying skin, smelled like a dead body, that sort of stuff - but randomly stumbled across Charlie who helped him look presentable; shapeshifter

Charlie - Ghillie Dhu a male fairy with a kind heart to children who lives in birch wood, protecting nature lives in wooden hut/cabin in the woods, made of birch; doesn’t really leave the forest unless he has to; helps kids lost in the woods; will teach the kids about the magic of the forest; has magic and makes potions; home-made broth; sweaters and boots; sings to himself; sees the good in everyone despite appearances; moss garden; talks to his mushrooms

Jamie - Salamander a fire spirit or elemental can create and manipulate flames; fire breather; worried about going into the forest in case he loses control and sets a tree on fire; lives in the city but gets lonely; semi-shapeshifter; when in extreme emotional states, good or bad, his eyes will shift yellow and scales will manifest along his arms, back and legs; mainly uses his powers for mundane stuff, like lighting can candles

[c-is-for-circinate]

“What the Fuck is Up with the Elves” (or, more worldbuilding for C’s D&D game)

So the thing is, I call myself an ecologist, and I am, really, or at least I’ve been working as one when I’m not working as a general all-math-and-science teacher for the past ten years.  But that’s not, quite, technically, what my degrees are in.  Technically, as per my master’s thesis, I’m an evolutionary biologist.

Which means that when I run a D&D game?  We start from a place of hominid evolution.

Gnomes and dwarves evolved on the continent of Nokomoris, where most of our game takes place.  Some 50,000 years ago, humans came up out of the neighboring continent (which has a dozen different names, but we can call it Kekiris, that’s as accurate as any) and joined them, and together the three races learned to master fire and metalwork and gods and demons and the four Great Schools and the two Minor Schools of arcane magic (for those were the days before the elves, before the discovery of abjuration, when it was thought that only the gods could conjure and transmutation was limited to minor tricks and divine crafts).

Elves, and their cousins the orcs (though no elf alive today would admit that they are cousins in truth, and the orcs themselves have all but forgotten it) evolved side by side on the continent of Priyl, a fifteenth the size of Nokomoris and isolated in the middle of the ocean, beset by storms and reefs on all sides.

Well.  The elves of the Ascendancy call it Priyl, and so does everybody else, these days, in respect to them.  The orcs and half-orcs remember that it was Getirka, and still is to those of their brethren still living there.  The people of Nokomoris have all but forgotten the days when they called it Thidoris, when it was nothing more than a myth.

(There are other continents, beyond those three, of course--but time enough for that later.  Nobody on Nokomoris remembers the continent of Calladia these days, and that might be for the best, for now.  But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.)

Six and a half thousand years ago, the continent of Priyl, called Getirka by the orcs and Thidoris by the gnomes and humans and dwarves, disappeared from the ocean.  Five hundred and twelve years it appeared again.  And that was enough to change the world.

.

Priyl, then, because we’re talking about elves.  Priyl is such a small continent, really, surrounded by such very storm-like oceans, full of so much desert and so many mountains and so very, very many things with sharp teeth and venom spines.  The spiders and snakes can kill a beast a thousand times their size.  The fish on the reef around the continent, who look like stone or coral or sand or squirming tentacle-beasts, have spines and teeth with venom that can kill ten times faster than that.

Half of Priyl is worn thin between planes, or at least it was so many hundreds of thousands of years ago, when lithe thin agile elf-ancestors took to the trees and the mountains to run from their fierce unstoppable orc cousins.  They were barely more than beasts themselves, either of them.  The elves were perhaps a little more clever, but perhaps they were only quicker, lighter, lither in the branches of trees.  The orcs were more determined.  They invented fire first.

Fire doesn’t mix well with trees, particularly not in the long dry drought of a Priylan summer, and the elves died, and died--and survived, some of them, always.  Through trickery and luck, some elves always survived.

And the fey noticed.

There are a thousand different ways planes can brush up against each other; a million years later, in the present day of 512 HA, the scholars of Nokomoris will have names and categories for half a dozen.  One of those is what they call a seep--a place as small as a few square yards, as huge as a dozen square miles, where two planes wear as thin as over-used linen cheesecloth next to each other, and ooze one into the other in bits and pieces and fragments of magic over years.

It’s not meant to be possible, for an entire continent to be a seep, but many things that are not meant to be possible are nonetheless true.  Priyl was thin before the elves and orcs even came to be there.  Fey roamed the lands, called them home, before they ever took forms with two legs and two arms and a face that could speak a language of people.  They noticed the thin little cousins-of-orcs fleeing through the trees, and they saw the invention of fire and the forests that burned, and a few of them decided--well.  There’s a game worth playing.

Half a million years ago, the fey taught the first True Elves about magic.  Nothing has ever been the same since.

.

Fifteen thousand years ago, when dwarves and humans and gnomes were only just learning to turn stone tools into plowshares and turn goats and sheep and aurochs into tame animals, the elves of Priyl had cities that stretched halfway to the sky.

They made war, of course, of course they did.  They waged it against each other, because nothing else was worthy of their conquest.  Ten generations of orcs could live and breed and die before an elf could even count themself arrived at adulthood.  The world beyond Priyl was strange and distant, far beyond notice or care.  The vast universe of the planes, and beyond--that drew the elven attention far more than anything on the world of Onde.

There were in those days two kinds of elves, or perhaps three, or perhaps a thousand.  In fact, perhaps the easiest way to divide the elves of that time is by how many sorts of elves they themselves believed existed.  In that case it was the three-sort elves who were correct, which makes their fate even more dark irony in the end.

They were the Day Elves, the Night Elves, and the True Million; High Elves and Bad Elves and those fuckers in the woods, I guess.  They were, according to a third of their number, the elves of Sun, Moon, and Twilight; and this is how the self-styled Moon Elves would explain the difference:

During the day, with the sun bright and desperate overhead, it is easy to believe that light and dark are opposites, the only two options.  It is easy to believe in sun and darkness and no other in-between.  It is easy to believe in Your Own and then also The Rest Of Them.  It is easy to believe in your own power.  And so the day elves, the sun elves, as silver and gold as though no other color existed in the universe, studied the foundations of their own powers and ignored all else.  They were wizards and full of magic, and they built the cities that towered to the sun, and they wrote the laws and warred each other, and they gave polite nods to the fey if they passed but they did not bow to them, for they accepted only the opposing ideas of Subservience and Mastery, and they refused to be servants.

At dawn and dusk, with all the shadows grown long and small lights flickering from every direction, it is easy to confuse lies and honesty everywhere, to lose sight of any firm reality.  It is easy to believe that nothing is quite real in the first place and anything is as good as anything else.  It is easy to believe in tricks and riddles, and to toss aside that belief a moment later, to cling to nothing but artifice and bargains and boundaries on trust.  The twilight elves, the wood elves, red and green and brown and gold and silver and white and black and gray, ran with the fey who’d once taught and married their ancient ancestors.  They were warlocks and full of trickery and half-truth, and they studied math and logic and ventured from city to city slipping in between the bounds set by the daylight elves as though they had not spotted them in the dark.  They wrote contracts and twisted reality around themselves, for they believed in everything and nothing, just like their masters, and could not see far enough to grasp the reality of anything.

At night, in clear moonlight, it is easy to see the truth: there is light, and there is dark, and there is everything in between.  There may be master and servant, and that may be firm and unchangeable, no matter how the shadows hide it--but for every servant on his knees in the dirt, there is always one more, lower still than them.  Every master lording over her servant has yet another master.

So it was that the moon elves discovered the gods.  Priyl was not a good land for gods, with the blurring of its boundaries, its fade between reality and not.  They did not often feel welcome there.  Still, in the middle of the night, with one or two or all three moons full and bright overhead, they could find their way down.  Even the fey had to be overmastered by someone.

There were three gods that the Elves of Night found, as they searched and studied and prayed, there in the moonlit dark on the continent of Priyl, where the smallest creatures were full of venom and might.  They found the queen of spiders, and the king of serpents, and the prince of fish and tentacles and uncharted depths.  The elves of the moon went to their knees and prayed.

.

In those days the elves had boats, of course.  They had not quite mastered the art of teleportation that would join their cities in the future, and they did not most of them quite care about the world beyond the boundaries of their reefs, but curiosity has always been an elven trait.  The moon-elven worshippers of the god of the sea, and the twilight adventurers whose fae patrons implored them to spread chaos and wonder, they learned to sail and venture forth.  They mapped the world of Onde while the humans and gnomes and dwarves of Nokomoris were still just learning to put stylus to clay and charcoal to tanned leather, while the humans of someday-Calladia were singing their sky-song and building empires of ritual and sound.

(Orcs invented boats first.  Orcs have been on Nokomoris for tens of thousands of years, coming few by few, interbreeding with humans until barely any sign of them was left to meet the next ship to arrive.  Few enough of them ever made it back over the reefs to return to Getirka, even before the High Elves Ascendant erected the Stormwall.  But we’re getting ahead of ourselves again.)

.

Here is the thing that every elf known on Nokomoris today will say, to anyone who asks them, about their history: 6,703 years ago, by the calendar reckoning of humans, gnomes, and dwarves, the Elven Ascendancy rose to shepherd all of the elves of Priyl, and closed the continent away from all the world to protect--

And that’s where the story will pause, because what protection could the elves ever have needed from the rest of the world?  The elves appeared in Nokomoris five hundred years, and shook the world on its foundations.  Every kingdom on Onde was tumbled before their power.

‘To protect you all from us,’ so many elves would say.  They would be correct, of course, and altogether wrong, all at once.

.

Spiders are not evil.  Neither are serpents, or stonefish, or krakens.  Neither are the gods of them.

They shed their skins, though, all at once or piece by piece.  And sometimes they demand the world do the same.  Sometimes they demanded apocalypse and rebirth.  It wasn’t such a very far stretch, really, after all.

The dark elves of black and white and gray believed in nuance as an article of faith.  They also believed in duty, and truth, and fortitude across an ever-changing night.  They believed in a lot of things.  That was, a little bit, the point.

It took a thousand years of war for the cities of Sun Elves to come together to agree, at the very last, that even should it take all their power they must see the Night Elves driven entire from the continent of Priyl.  They must see it done, and they would unite themselves to do it.  It took another century of war first, with all the united might of the Elven Cities bent against the god-worshippers, the moonlight elves with their huge pale eyes and their unglowing skin.  It could be their only salvation, before the gods of venom and rebirth called for the destruction of everything they loved and knew.

And so it was, 6,602 years ago, that all of the very most powerful wizards of the Elves of Day, the Sun Elves, high and ascendant and triumphant, joined their power as one to join nature and force and illusion all bound together in one great wall.  The Stormwall, sixteen thousand miles long, encircling all of Priyl in its arms.

(Did the Wild Elves, the twilight elves, the forest warlocks, did they help?  Oh yes, my friend.  Oh yes, of course they did, for the Sun Elves--they only ever saw two sides, don’t you remember?  Two sides, dark and light, and the twilight elves trapped on the in-between--well.  They always did know how to deal oh-so-very carefully with a master that little bit stronger than them.  So the wild elves helped, and the Stormwall--the Stormwall worked perfectly, to keep anyone outside of Priyl from venturing in.)

6,703 years ago, the Empyrean Ascendant became the very first sovereign on the seat of the Elven Ascendancy.  6,600 years ago, the elves of Priyl found peace.  More or less.

.

And what became of the moon elves, the night elves, the elves of the dark?  What became of them, and their spider-queen, serpent-king, fish-prince?

They went to Calladia, of course--though it was called Thiel then, once upon a time.  They went to Thiel-that-would-be-Callida, and Thiel found itself unmade.

There is a great deal to say of old mythical Thiel, and the lands it became and then unbecame again, and again, and again, cycling once and twice and more and more over the thousands of years between now and then.  There is a great deal to say, and some of it is about the elves that live there, and some of it is about the humans they found when they arrived, and some of it is about the changelings that sprung up between them, faceless shapeshifters learning to live just as everyone else.  Right now, in the year 512 HA, five centuries after the fall of the Storm Wall, the continent is nothing but a thousand-island archipelago.  It remembers, barely, that it was Callida nine centuries ago, and had merchant ships and commerce to the east and west, with Nokomoris and Kekiris and beyond.  It remembers being shattered to pieces in hopes of rebirth.  It does not remember that it ever was Thiel, not in the deepest dimmest history, save in the oldest of records.

There is a great deal to say, but what I will tell you now is this: the fish around the continent that once was Thiel do not sting with venom spines that kill in the space of a breath, and the tentacle-armed creatures that swim their bays are small and soft and cannot kill at all.  There is very little for the Prince of Depths to do here, little space for him to make himself known.

There are frogs here, instead.  They do not bite except ants and flies, but they glow bright, red and yellow and violet and blue.  They poison nobody except the unwary hunter who does not leave them as they sit.  (The unwary hunter, they will kill.  The wary hunter learns to use them, instead.)

They change, from fish-spawn to frog-grandmother, to eggs, to spawn again.  It’s easier to believe in the Frog Daughter (who is also the mother of all, wide-mouth frog devourer of all) than any unfamiliar lord of depths and venom.

The Frog Daughter is, perhaps, a kinder god than her predecessor-brother.  There’s some kindness in all three of the dark elves’ gods, if you know where to look.  They’re all three of them gods of transformation, and that can always be a kindness, for some.

.

And what of Priyl, then, in their absence?

The Ascendancy has held strong for six thousand years and nearly another thousand after that.  Eleven elves Ascendant, after the Empyrean, each of them chosen and sworn to the good of all before more than two centuries of life have passed them by, each of them sworn to rule for a thousand years if they can.  Each of them have made that oath, and under them the Ascendancy has flourished.

Throughout Priyl, throughout its mountains, there are the Cities of the Ascendancy, and each city is vast and towering, halfway up to the skies, and each city is within itself world and shining garden.  Each city is full of sparkling crystalline fountains and waterfalls, parks and fresh water to drink, home to a thousand sparkling silver fishes that are art and food and life all at once.  Vines climb up the dazzling towers from terrace to terrace and grow fruit and berries and grain.  Shimmering pigeons of red and purple iridescence bred for perfect accent color beauty soar between golden bridges and balustrades, and lay their eggs, and nobody in an elven city ever goes hungry.

(And what became of the twilight elves, then, when the sun elves rose up on high and claimed their world?  They retreated to shadow and stayed in the in-between, of course, just as they always have.  Their feytrap labyrinths deep in the mountains and deserts and woods of Priyl are sprawling and inescapable temples to artifice and knowledge and math, and their acolytes strike deals and take powers from their Lady Whispered and Lord Gloaming, and their children grow in the shining towers of the cities of the ascendancy and pay their dues to the elves on high.  The warlock elves, the fae-friends, the elves of the woods, they have always understood the needs of survival.  They remember the dark elves.  They remember the price of loss.  Even if the high elves themselves won’t.)

And so it was for six thousand years, until the Halcyon Ascendant rose to power, five hundred and twelve years ago.  And the Halcyon Ascendant, who was wizard and diviner, who was young and brave and as wise as she was clever, who looked into the world and saw the future--

the Halcyon Ascendant said, it is time to lower the Stormwall and venture forth to know the world.

.

Nobody knows, exactly, why the Halcyon Ascendant gave such an order.  Few elves know exactly what it cost to fulfill it.  Fewer still would ever admit it.

What is known, by everybody on Nokomoris, is this: the elves appeared on their great silver ships out of nowhere at all, five hundred years ago, and changed everything in the world.  Cities and nations rose and fell.  The elves knew magic nobody had ever heard of before.

The elves brought transmutation and conjuration and abjuration that could be studied and learned from books instead of summoned from gods and the incomprehensible overwhelming power of nature.  They brought potions and alchemy and science.  The elves brought to Nokomoris the very first teleportation circles (and Nokomoris as it is now, with the Nine Cities and their reign, could not exist without teleportation circles.)

Today, the elves live in every major city on the continent.  They live west of the mountains of the Western Wall, and in cities on the continent of Kekiris.  Always in sweeping, curving, tall shining towers, in their own elven enclaves, part of every city but not beholden to it.  Always full of wonders to sell, perhaps, if their leaders in the Ascendancy deem it proper; always rich with the wealth of their nation, which is free to all elves, and nobody else.

There are elven advisors and elven investors and elven ambassadors.  There are elven students in the universities, and professors there, as well.  There are no elven kings or governors or lords, of course there aren’t--no elf could truly be a citizen of Nokomoris, not honorably.  Every elf born is a subject of the Ascendancy. 

.

And finally, here is what the orcs know of elves.  The orcish story is their own, and long and varied and rich, the orcs of Getirka-called-Priyl and the orcs of New Gettik on Nokomoris, and it is also long, full of diaspora and resilience and art and culture and many, many thousands of generations of twins.  It is another post for another time.

But what the orcs know of elves, for they do come from the very same land, from its opposite sides, is: there are whole universes beyond what the elves consider worthy of their attention.  It’s true that no ship or desperate swimmer arrived on the continent of Getirka or Priyl for all the six thousand years that the Stormwall soared.  It is not true that no ship ever left.

The orcs say it, and the orcs know.  The orcs of New Gettik and Clure, here on Nokomoris, know it especially.  They were here before the elves arrived.  Even the rest of Nokomoris realizes that.

Every gnome, dwarf, and human on Nokomoris knows that all elves everywhere in the world belong to the Ascendancy.  Every orc knows that there are worlds below the elves’ notice, that they forget about conveniently, that they pretend not to see.  Some orcs may think to wonder whether they’ve forgotten about other elves, too.

[rotten-games]

do you have notes on how each species look's varies? like what they typically look like, the impossibles, the common signs, etc. also iirc every dwarf can sport facial hair regardless of sex?

Yes, all dwarves can grow facial hair. I’ll put my notes under the cut.

Humans: Much like you or I. Can reproduce with most mortal races with little issue.

High Elf: Like all elves, high elves have very little sexual dimorphism. Due to their sensitivity to magic and more direct connection to the Fae, High elves usually sport paler shades of hair that glow in darkness--just how bright the glow is can vary from very little to almost blinding. Moreover, natural markings such as freckles and birthmarks can also sometimes glow. Usually best suited to pursuits in magic, it’s not entirely uncommon for high elves to sometimes be seen with animal-like traits such as the antlers of a deer or slitted eyes. All types of elves can reproduce with most mortal races with little issue.

Wood Elf: Wood elves look perhaps the most like humans, with more natural hair and skin tones than their Fae-touched brethren. The shortest of all the elven subspecies, wood elves very rarely stand taller than 5′5″ though they more often than not have larger birthmarks or other discerning features. They tend to have an easier time putting on muscle. The elven race most compatible with humans.

Sea Elf: Sea elves are an odd sort, and may not even be elves in the first place. They are considered amphibians, with gills that close up shortly after hitting puberty and webbed fingers and toes. They live off an all-meat, primarily fish, diet, and often have more blubber and body fat than other elves. Their skin and hair vary the most amongst all the elven subspecies, often resembling the skin markings of fish and other water creatures. Tend to have the most trouble reproducing with other races, even other elves.

Mountain Elf: Larger and bulkier than their kin, Mountain Elves were thought not to exist at all for a very long time. Their skin is rougher, thicker, and like Sea elves they often have more body fat due to the harsh climates of their homes. Their hair is primarily kept long, and often covers most if not all of their body just to keep themselves warm.

Half-Elf: Depending on the non-elf parent, half-elves can vary widely in appearance. This is also dependant on the type of elf their elven half is. Often a grab bag of different racial characteristics and traits, a half-elf with a wood elf mother and an infernal father may have horns sprouting from their head and fangs in their mouth, but may not sport the typically brighter skin tones Infernals are known for. If one has an elf father but an orc mother (or vice-versa), they are a half-orc. Half-elves only occasionally have trouble with fertility, unless half sea elf. In which case they are often completely infertile.

Orc: Often huge in both height and width, Orcs are made of muscle and fat. Their skin is often rough and thick, and tusks jut from their mouths. Some have even been documented as having horns atop their heads. Their skin tones vary but are primarily shades of greens and greys, while their hair is often darker shades of black and brown. Often both male and female orcs can have grow facial hair. Reproduction is possible between orcs and other mortal races, however, the act is often hazardous to the other party due to the sheer size of Orcs themselves.

Half-orc: Half-orcs primarily take after their larger parent, however they can, and often do, take characteristics from their other parent as well. They usually still have tusks and green-ish skin, but it isn’t unheard of to find a half-orc with blond hair and pointed ears. Like half-elves, often a grab bag of characteristics. If the half-orc’s mother is not an orc usually they perish in childbirth and it is recommended that the child not be born through the usual means. Most half-orcs have trouble with fertility.

Dwarf: Short and compact, Dwarves are perhaps the hairiest of all the races save for perhaps the mountain elves. They are comprised of muscle and fat, with skin that often is marked with bioluminescent patches and markings that may have aided their ways when they lived underground. Their hands tend to be larger than other races, their beards regardless of sex usually very majestic and well-maintained. For the most part, it is difficult to discern a female dwarf from a male one, as the race has very little sexual dimorphism. Often have trouble conceiving with other races.

Infernal: Some have described Infernals as goat-like due to the horns atop their heads, while others may call them reptilian due to the colourful scales that adorn their bodies. Their teeth are often razor sharp, their ears able to swivel and rotate back and forth, and their scaled tails aid them in keeping balance (It is not unheard of to find an Infernal with more than one tail but it is an incredibly rare occurrence). Their eyes are often slitted and come in a wide array of colours much like their scales, while their hair is most often ether silver or completely black. Infernals with other hair colours are not unheard of, however, although the race is rather rare in and of itself. Fertility rates amongst Infernals is quite low, and they often can’t reproduce at all with other races. It isn’t unheard of, however.

[ckret2]

I like reading those posts where humans and other earth creatures are basically Space Orcs in terms of being hard to kill, or eating various 'poisons' for flavoring and spice reasons. Do you think Ghodorah has ever seen the humans, or Rodan for that matter, bounce back from or eat something he's quite sure should be lethal?

Did you know that holly berries are fatal to humans but a bunch of birds eat them happily? And capsaicin, the chemical in peppers that makes them spicy, is actually intended to be painful enough to drive mammals away from eating a food that plants want birds to eat instead—because birds aren't affected by capsaicin.

Deadly nightshade, which is so poisonous it had "deadly" in the name, is eaten happily by cattle, horses, goats, and rabbits, with no ill effects.

Monarch butterflies eat toxic milkweed plants, which makes the butterflies toxic to other species.

Conversely, some foods that are harmless to humans, like chocolate and grapes, are toxic to dogs, who evolved on a carnivorous diet.

Mongooses are extremely resistant to the venom of the cobras they hunt.

There are birds that eat coca seeds and insects that eat coca sprouts—parts of the plant that produces cocaine.

Parrots in western South America swarm to clay walls to lick up the dirt, and scientists think it's because there's a lower salt content in parrots' food in the west side of the continent than in the east, so they get the salt they need straight from clay.

There's a species of bacteria that's evolved for one purpose and one purpose only, and that is eating the Titanic. Eating the Titanic is the one thing this bacteria does. Within a couple of decades the wreck of the Titanic, a giant man-made metal ship, is gonna be dust, because there are a bunch of bacteria deep deep down in the cold dark sea that have decided to specialize in devouring it and only it.

A lot of "humans are space orcs" posts rely on the assumption of human exceptionalism—that some feature we evolved is just so damn weird that aliens across the galaxy will stand up and take notice—and, most particularly, those posts rely on the universal assumption that aliens, despite being aliens who are intelligent and sentient and explorers of the universe and know lots of other aliens, are so sheltered and inexperienced that they've never encountered other creatures with different physical/mental capabilities, different cultural mores and philosophies, different food habits, different tolerances for different substances...

We're surrounded by space orcs on our own planet, and the space orcs that surround us aren't flabbergastingly astounding Unique Creatures that we Just Can't Believe can do This Thing That We Can't. They're just animals with an ability we don't have. Kinda neat but ain't mind blowing. Nobody looks at a cow eating deadly nightshade and goes "HOW can this CREATURE eat POISON, that's ASTOUNDING!!" They go "oh, so that plant's not poisonous to this creature." Because we know that other creature have capabilities and limitations that we don't, and that there aren't any single species loaded down with traits so impressive that they stand out from all the other species with odd traits.

And that's just what we see on our own planet.

Ghidorah's been to, and destroyed, countless worlds. Everything that something could possibly evolve to eat, somewhere he's seen someone that evolved to eat it. And if for some reason there's one weird thing on Earth that something can eat that he hasn't seen eaten somewhere else? Well, it's not going to be weirder than anything he has seen. Mammals can't eat capsaicin without burning, but birds can? Plants and animals on billions of planets evolve odd relations so that what's poison to one predator isn't to another. One animal is immune to another's venom? Sure, common defense. Animals that can't eat super common foods? "Super common" is relative, everything's toxic to someone and every toxin is harmless to someone else. Birds that eat dirt, and bacteria that eat metal? Ghidorah eats dirt and metal, so what. Ghidorah gets drunk on gasoline, he's not gonna bat an eye at humans munching on ghost chilis or snorting coke. (At least, he wouldn't bat an eye at seeing it if 1) he ever had the slightest inclination to watch a human long enough to see it stick something in its mouth, and 2) he had the slightest idea that they considered their bland-ass local plants to be some sort of terrible irritants or powerful drugs.)

He sees Rodan eating still-molten lava, and he doesn't go "WHAT, creatures can't eat LAVA, that's IMPOSSIBLE." He goes "His species has way higher heat tolerance than me. Makes sense, if they evolved in volcanoes."

Ghidorah sees other species eating things all the time that would be toxic to him—at least, he does when he bothers to pay attention to mere aliens eating things—and what does that tell him? Just that he's a stranger in a strange land, as he had been for millions of years. Earth is, of course, unique, but so is every other planet Ghidorah's visited. Earth's not more unique than the rest.

[waeziverse]

Royal Punch (chapter 8)

“Okay…” Nora took off her glasses and cleaned them. “This is on me. I should have seen this coming and I didn’t warn you.”

Ivan looked at the plants that had ruined his windows and slowly retracted themselves, like some sort of snakes that returned to their cave. “Yeah, I would have liked to be prepared for this.”

“Honestly, I never thought this would happen. Dimi’s mother wasn’t a plantmancer, neither was her grandmother.”

“So, Dimi can create plants? Why is she attacking us.”

“She is not. Well, not exactly, it’s a defense mechanism. It takes a toll on her body and drains her for energy as her body adjusts to her new power. And if she becomes TOO tired and even falls asleep, she will have a hard time waking up again. And as a defense mechanism she will unconsciously create plants to guard her.”

“Okay, but how do we stop this mechanism?” Ivan asked.

“First thing first, we need a way to be prepared for when the situation escalates. NO, Ivan, the situation hasn’t escalated just yet.” Ivan closed his mouth, he hated it when Nora answered his questions before he got to answer them. “Your house being the home of a plant octopus is small potatoes. Plant magic is rare, but it is also very powerful. One of Dimi’s ancestors, queen Dornröschen, spread terror and destruction-“

"What in tarnation happened here?!”

Nora and Ivan turned their attention toward the old satyr Sunmut who had picked the absolute worst day to drop by for a visit. The old goat looked as if he was about to have a stroke as he stared at the plant monster that had made its home in Ivan’s house.

“Um.” Ivan couldn’t say anything else as he tried to come up with an explanation that did not involve the words it, is or complicated. “Well, sir, you see-”

“A wizard did it.” Nora interrupted Ivan before he made a bad situation worse.

Sunmut looked at the house for a moment. Then he looked annoyed. “Those dang humans! You would think the orcs had done something about that cursed lot!” Then he looked at Nora. “Ah, no offence, young lady.”

“None taken.” Nora scratched the hat that hid her pointy ears and the fact that she was an elf. Once the old creature had left, she turned her attention toward Ivan. “As I was saying… Queen Dornröschen spread terror and destruction since no one stopped the defense mechanism in time. Her plants grew bigger and bigger and it became impossible to try and save the castle. But there is another problem: Dimi’s young body is not ready for magic of this size. It takes energy and stamina, part of why she falls asleep, and if it goes on for too long, she might actually die.”

“DIE?!”

“Yes, OR she will be stuck in there for at least fifty years. So we have more than one reason to do something quickly. The plants will grow and try to get out of your house. When they do, we must cut them down.”

“Alright.” Ivan pondered for a moment. “Then we need backup.”

“Ivan, no one can know who Dimi really is!”

“Don’t worry, I trust her with my life. I will be back as soon as possible, man the fort till I’m back.”

Nora wanted to protest as the minotaur ran for the so-called backup. The short elf looked at the chopping stump where an ax had been left on. She took the ax and looked at the house. “Don’t mess with me!” Nora yelled half-heartedly. The whole house creaked, making the elf take a step backward while tightening her grip on the ax.

***

Aura tied the griffin Hothoof with a rope to the fence. The big animal was displeased by this but accepted it since it respected the sphinx as it’s “pack leader”.

“I know you don’t like not being allowed to fly around as you please.” Aura stroke the giant half-bid-half-lion animal as one would stroke a cat. “But you can't fly properly with a damaged wing. But the nice faun doctor will come and have a look, then you will get back in the sky with the others in no time.” The griffin purred as Aura rubbed it on it’s beak.

Once Aura had made sure the rope was tied properly, she went to take a look at two of her other griffins that flew over her farm.

Magnificent animals, but difficult to raise. They needed freedom to fly, but you also had to make them respect you enough so they wouldn’t fly away. Only after you had made them understand who was in charge could you try and make them like you. The fact that Aura had three grown griffins that liked her said a thing or two about her abilities with animals. Then again, she had worked with them ever since she had left the army as a young girl and moved to the kingdom of Nesredna. She had worked from the bottom as stable-girl till five years ago where she could finally afford starting her own farm near the village of Jadedale.

She was quite happy that she had picked Jadedale for several reasons.

One of these reasons actually came, half an hour before he had promised to come.

“Ivan!“ Aura smiled as she waved at the minotaur who came running as if something was on fire. “Relax, you came way to earl-”

“Aura, I need help!” The giant bull-man looked terrified. “You have to come with me to my house! I will explain later.”

Aura did not hesitate and transformed to her beast form. “Hop on, I will fly you home.”

Ivan hopped on the back of the sphinx and the creature lept from the ground. She flew to Ivan’s home as she saw something that looked like a tentacles coming out of the doors, windows and holes that the thing had made in the house. And it moved it’s “arms” with red thorns left and right as if it was desperate to get out. She recognized Nora who looked like she tried to attack the things with a household ax. Nora looked up and noticed them. “FINALLY! I’m just about to get a heart attack here! Dimi has become worse.”

Aura looked at the insane scenario as she was about to land. She had just reacted on Ivan being terrified. Now she began to wonder what was going on as she saw the problem.

“Wait, I’m sorry, WHAT?!” Aura turned back to normal and looked baffled at Ivan. “Dimi is a what now?! What the hell is going on?””

Ivan sighed. “Okay, how do I explain this… You remember when the orcs conquered the kingdom?”

Aura shrugged. “Sure, that happened. And life went on.”

“Remember how we were told the human king Pater had gotten captured?”

“Um… yes?”

“And do you remember that the king had a daughter?”

“Ah, yes? Sure, her name was Dama-something-something.“

"Dimicatio.”

“Oh, right. Dimicatio. Kinda sounds like a fancy version of Dimi’s-” Aura paused herself as her eyes grew wide. “Dimi… Dimi…” The lion-lady pointed at the garden nightmare. "Dimi?”

“Yep.” Ivan groaned as he pointed once again at his plant-infested home. “Dimi. Long story short, now she does human magic without controlling it.”

Aura looked at the house. Then she looked at Ivan.

And then she punched him on his right arm.

“OUCH!?“ Ivan rubbed his arm. “What was that for?”

“You lying rat!” Aura growled at Ivan. “You told me she was your god-daughter!”

“She is my god-daughter!”

“What? HOW!?”

“It’s complicated.”

Aura made a terrifying and VERY angry face at the bull-man. “I AM SICK AND TIRED OF YOU COMPLICATED BULLSH-”

“Ahem.”

Ivan and Aura turned their attention toward the short person who looked tired and sweaty who dropped the ax. “Sorry to interrupt.” Nora said. “But can this… thing wait till after we got Dimi out of that mess? Preferably before the townspeople arrive and start to ask questions.”

Aura sighed. “So is she even Dimi’s aunt?”

“I’m not even human.” Nora took off her hat, revealing her pointy ears. “Long story, can wait. What is important now is that I need time to figure out how to solve this mess. So we need to cut down as much of that plant as possible.”

“So you need me to do some gardening? Not a problem.” Aura stretched her arms as she rocked her head left and right. She gave Ivan a glare. “When this is over, I’m gonna have a word with you, Mr. Minotaur.”

Ivan sighed and shrugged. “That’s fair.”

The winged stout lion-woman went down on all four and was moments later replaced with the human-faced winged lion-monster that roared as it charged toward Ivan’s house. One of the vines tried to strike her as if it had been a gigantic whip, but Aura simply buried her razor-sharp teeth into it and shook it violently as if she were a dog pulling a rope. And she DID pull, she pulled the vine so hard that she ripped it off. As several smaller vines attacked her, Aura’s claws appeared on her massive paws as she went nuts on her botanic foe.

Nora was stunned as she watched from a distance. “She is bad-ass!“

Ivan smiled like a love-sick idiot. “I know… But what do we do about this? How do we… wake up Dimi? Would that be enough?”

“Indeed it would and the solution is somewhat simple yet almost impossible.” Nora put on her hat again and looked rather annoyed. “Dimi just needs a true love’s kiss.”

Ivan looked at Nora with disbelief written all over his face. “Sorry, what?”

“You heard me. As I said, the plants are a defense mechanism. She is tired and weak and feels very vulnerable. So a kiss from a loved one will make her feel safe and calm her down… And yes, it sounds odd, but that’s human magic for ya. It’s something that should not be a problem since a parent who loves their child can provide said kiss. But-”

“But Dimi’s father is in prison, COME ON!!!!” Ivan lifted his fists threatening toward the sky. “GIVE ME A BREAK!”

Yeah, and I doubt the orcs will let Pater out for a few hours if we ask them nicely. So, we have to get that kiss another way. So…” Nora coughed. “Do you know if Dimi is… dating anyone?”

“What? Ah… I don’t think so?” Ivan did not like the way this conversation was going. Then he took a look at the woman of his dreams fighting a losing battle against the vines from the house with her claws, fangs and guts. “I asked her once, but that annoyed her.”

Nora slapped her face. “You asked a teenager if she was dating anyone?! Ivan, COME ON! YOU SUCK!”

“I was curious.”

“You don’t ask a young girl questions like that. Dear lords, you suck!”

“Nora, that is not-”

“Never mind.” Nora sighed. “Look, I will go to Onyxville and pull some strings, hoping to find an alternative solution to this problem. You must go around town and hopefully find someone who loves Dimi. It doesn’t even have to be mutual.”

Ivan gave Nora a tired look. “Yeah! Big, tall bull-guy walking around and asking people if they love his protégée is a great idea.”

“We have no better options! I’m gonna get myself a horse or something.”

As Ivan watched the elf leave as fast as she could and then took a look at the violent creature that was the love of his life trying her best to fight the plants, he decided that the best place to start would be at Agate’s place.

***

The dwarf woman raised a thick eyebrow at the minotaur at her front-door.

“That’s… an interesting question, Ivan.”

Ivan felt ridicules. “Look, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t an emergency. Did she mention to you or your daughter anything about being romantically involved with anyone?”

“Why are you asking? Oh no, is Dimi preg-”

“NO, SHE IS NOT!” Ivan felt as if he was about to explode. “There is a problem, but it’s not… that. But it is important for me to know.”

Agate looked at Ivan. It was clear that it was of the greatest importance to him.

“Wait here, I will get Amethyst.

Moments later, the girl with the fluffy beard stood in front of Ivan and looked up at the tall minotaur.

“Amethyst, you HAVE to tell me, right now, if you know about anyone that Dimi loves. Don’t” Ivan stopped Amethyst from starting a teen girl rant. “I have to know. I can’t tell you why, but I have to know. Please.”

Amethyst groaned. “Mr. Ivan, Dimi is not in love with anyone. Actually, now that I think about it, she gets sort of defensive whenever I wanted to ask her. Not as if she was embarrassed, she just did not want to talk about it.”

“Dammit.” Ivan grabbed his own horns as if he wanted to rip them off his own head. “Dammit, dammit, DAMMIT!”

“Right…” Amethyst gave Ivan a concerned look before closing the door. “Have a nice day, Mr. Ivan.”

***

Aura huffed and puffed as she reverted to her humanoid form. Dead plant parts were scattered everywhere as she had gone crazy on the damn thing that was growing out of Dimi. But the plant vines kept growing and the vines she had cut down or chewed off were quickly replaced with new one before a minute had passed. Aura licked the wounds on her arm as Ivan returned. He did not look happy as he grabbed his ax.

“How did it go?” Aura dried her forehead for sweat. “What is it that can… fix this?“

“It doesn’t matter.” Ivan cracked his neck. “I just have to cut down the whole thing to save Dimi.”

Ivan charged toward the thicket from hell before Aura could object. He chopped and slashed like a mad man as he got whipped and got scratches all over his forearms. Aura returned to her monster-form so she could bite Ivan’s collar and drag Ivan away like a mother-cat would drag away a kitten.

“Ivan, stop.” Aura dropped Ivan on the ground after getting far enough away from the house that was more like bricks and wood that somewhat still resembled the shape of a house. “You are gonna get yourself killed.” As Ivan was about to stand up, Aura placed one of her massive paws on his chest and pinned him to the ground.

“My little- I mean, Dimi is still inside. I have to save her!”

“Ivan, I mean it. Stop.” The face of the giant lion monster looked at the minotaur with pity and sympathy. “We wait for Nora, she MIGHT have a solution. I’m sorry, I know you care for that girl as if she were your own, but you can’t do anything besides maybe getting yourself killed.”

Ivan sighed as he stopped trying to get himself free. But then, his eyes widened as he realized something. “Wait… You are right. I really do, don’t I?!” Aura looked confused as Ivan began to laugh in relief. “Aura, you wonderful woman, I LOVE YOU BEYOND BELIEF!”

Aura lifted an eyebrow. “Ah… I love you as well, but what are you talking about?”

“I have a plan!” Ivan looked determined as he stood up from the dirt. “I need you to fly me across the roof. Trust me.”

Aura bent her forelegs so that Ivan could get up on her back while armed with his ax. As they flew above the roof, the plant-tentacles tried to reach for them like a hungry animal.

“Here. This is perfect.” Ivan looked at the roof as if he was aiming for something. “I’m getting off here. Wish me luck!” And then he jumped off of Aura’s back and landed on the roof. Then, he began making a hole in said roof.

“IVAN, WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?” Aura roared as she landed on the roof as well. Plants began to reach for them and Aura did her best defending her beloved that had apparently lost it as he kept chopping the roof.

“YES! That’s it!” Ivan succeeded in making his hole to Dimi’s bedroom. He jumped down the hole and saw that Dimi still lied on the bed. Her body was covered by greenery the same way a child was covered by sand when they buried themselves with it on the beach. Only Dimi’s face was still free. A big branch was connected to Dimi that had crushed a hole in the wall that it then moved through. Ivan’s guess was that it was the root where everything else grew from.

But that did not matter. What mattered was whether or not his theory was right. “Please let this work.” Ivan whispered to himself as he took a step closer to the unconscious Dimi. “Please, please, please let this work.”

Then he screamed in pain as smaller vines appeared from Dimi’s “quilt” whipped him and then tied themselves around him. Ivan pulled his arms free as he took another step closer and now stood at the bedside.

Ivan took in a deep breath and then breather out as he slowly placed his lips on Dimi’s forehead.

***

Aura desperately clawed her way out of the vines that had covered her as if they were a cocoon. She growled as she saw a massive branch about to hit her.

And then, it just stopped moving.

Aura studied the thing that had been just about to try and kill her. Cautiously, she stepped closer, sniffing the damn thing. It was completely still.

“AURA!” Ivan yelled from his hole. “Aura, please come help me! It’s all over now!”

The lion-creature smashed the roof above Dimi’s bedroom so a hole big enough for her would appear. The floor creaked as she landed on it. Ivan held Dimi in his massive and bloody arms. The human girl looked as if she was half asleep and sea-sick.

“I feel awful…” Dimi coughed. “And I’m hungry.”

“It’s okay, girl.” Ivan smiled as if he repressed a laugh of joy. “I’m here, I’m taking care of you.” Ivan looked at Aura who looked relieved as she turned to her usual form. “Could you help me get her down to the kitchen?”

***

Dimi devoured the whole bread as if her life depended on it and then attacked the mushroom salad. Meanwhile, Aura and Ivan studied the house that had been ravaged. The ton of plants lied lifeless around. Ivan had removed enough of the green to open his front door. Outside, Nora stood and explained to a couple of the townspeople what she wanted them to think had happened.

“What a disaster!” Sunmut the old satyr looked at the blacksmith’s home with his old weak eyes. “What sort of wizard does such a thing?”

“The cheap kind that refuses to pay his bills.” Nora shrugged. “It makes me sad to speak about my species like that, but humans can be rather relentless as well as petty.”

The gathering of creatures all agreed that humans could be quite petty, especially now after the orc’s takeover.

“I’m so sorry.” Dimi had finished eating and had been told what had happened.

“Not your fault, girl.” Ivan patted Dimi on the head. “All that matters is that you get better, you need to rest as much as possible.”

“Yeah, I have to get ready for next week’s fight.”

“NO. Absolutely not. I won’t let you work for a week, AND I won’t let you fight before at least two have passed.”

“What?! But-”

“No buts. You are benched till I say something else. You could have gotten killed, I won’t let you do anything too energy require for a while and boxing as it is is not harmless even WHEN you are in shape.”

Dimi pouted. “Whatever mom.”

***

They all went to Aura’s farm.

Dimi had been sent to bed after she had to her great annoyance been kissed goodnight by Ivan who took no chances. She slept in Aura’s guest room. In the kitchen, Ivan had just finished explaining everything to Aura.

“And you honestly think it is a good idea to let Dimi get into a fist-fight with an orc?” Aura asked.

“Honestly? I don’t know at this point. She surprises me, she is extremely stubborn and she is actually a talented fighter. And besides, once she reaches the age of eighteen, I can’t tell her what to do. I might as well prepare her as best as I can.”

“That’s not the same as saying that you should encourage her.”

“It gives her hope. I don’t know how I would feel if it was MY dad who was in the slammer.” Ivan sighed. “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. But I have been sworn to secrecy.”

“I get it, I get it. Still…” Aura frowned. “You should know that you could have trusted me.”

Ivan nodded, looking ashamed. Then, he yawned. “I better get some sleep. I just lost my home, I have to figure out what to do tomorrow. The forge is still somehow intact, so I can still work… Can we live here? Just… for a few days?”

Aura did not answer right away. Then, she smiled. “You know… the two of you could just… live here. Period.”

Ivan blinked. “Oh?”

“Yes, but I have a condition.” Aura smiled as she stood up from the table. “You have to do it right. You have to get down on your knees and… Well, you can probably guess the rest.”

It took a moment before Ivan realized that Aura was serious. Ivan smiled from one ear to the other as he got down on his knees and grabbed Aura’s left hand and held it as he asked her the question.

[askkrenko]

On Animals vs Animalfolk

The conclusion makes me realize: I don’t think you ever took an explicit stance about animal/human hybrid races.

Obviously, the current situation is a mess, with Leonin and Aven being Cat and Birds respectively, but Snake-people being sometimes Snake sometimes Naga, Lizard-people being their own things, Siren and Harpy mostly not Birds, but sometimes Birds, and this is only those we talked about recently. I don’t even remember what Loxodon and Rhox are tagged as…

So, what do you think would have been an good solution, if we didn’t have to deal with all the inertia of history? Are you strongly in favor of one or the other? Or do you think it should be decided on a case by case basis? Based on what other factors?

~ @death-burst

A very good question was asked in response to my Krenko’s Guide: Birds, and rather than just continually reblog that, I thought this deserved its own thread for people to answer.

The question of whether animal-people are their animal types (Like Leonin and Aven) or their own types (like Minotaur and Naga) is a pretty major one, and there’s multiple ways to deal it out, each with benefits and drawbacks. I’ll get into them below the break.

Option one: All animalfolk are the same type as their animals. 

That is, Minotaurs would be Oxen, Nagas would be Snakes, and Harpies and Sirens would both be Birds.  Now, the big benefit here is cutting down on creature types and letting it be easier to make decks of those types. “Cat” deck is easier than “Lizard” deck because cat people and cats are the same race, while lizard people and lizards are not. Oxen sharing a type with Minotaurs would give them the benefit of all that Minotaur tribal. It should result in the best gameplay response, but it’s also going to wind up looking the weirdest when you try to make sense of it.

 First off, as we see with Leonin and Aven, it creates this weird flavor option where a Leonin is happier to work alongside a housecat than alongside a Loxodon, which is just... a bit odd. Should Brimaz feel some sort of primal unity with a saber tooth tiger? Or a Leotau? Does it even make sense for a Siren like Malcolm (who needs a card ASAP) to think of a Bird of Paradise as one of “his people”? 

The second problem with this option is that not all ‘beast men’ as they are have a unified equivalent animal. Viashino are spread among Lizard, Crocodile, and Dinosaur. Most Merfolk are Fish, but Shadowmoor has the Seal-like Selkies. And then are Dryads and Treefolk supposed to be creature type “Plant?” Are Gorgons Snakes? Some of them certainly seem to be, but not all.

The third problem is that it makes a few creature types less immediately understandable. While people are accepting Leonin as cat people, declaring that Satyrs are actually Goats feels a bit off, as does seriously calling a Merfolk a Fish. We do it as a joke, sure, but actually writing Fish on the card would feel... off. Minotaurs as Oxen are more forgivable, but calling a Centaur a Horse just feels like a downright lie, even though a Centaur is more Horse than a Minotaur is Ox. It creates a disconnect where you actively feel certain things are mislabeled.

Option Two: All beastmen get their own race

That is, anything that uses the race/class style gets its own type. The big benefit here is that everything is clearly labeled and it makes perfect sense what works in tribe. Avens like Avens, but not birds. Minotaurs like Minotaurs, but not Oxen. Everything is exactly what it says it is. This is probably the most reasonable from a flavor perspective... but is awful for gameplay.

The first problem here is type splitting. Splitting Rhino from Rhox takes you from one type underused at 27 to two races under used at 11 and 16.  Splitting Aven from Bird is more comfortable, as both can survive on their own, but now you have an issue of future cards that care about them need to choose one or the other, no longer hitting both. This gets especially weird for one-offs. 

The second problem here is that some beastmen are one-offs. Scandalmonger is the only boar person. Wishmonger is the only unicorn person. Amphin Cutthroat and Pathmage are the only Salamander people, and that creature type is already tiny. There’s likely other instances here as well, but it certainly raises a question for the future. Would a lone turtle-person need their own type? 

Option Three: Mythological creatures get a type, invented ones do not

This tends to be the trend current Magic has stuck with, though there are a number of exceptions. If the creature is one from actual mythology and has some sort of expectation that the audience has heard of it before, it gets its own type. Otherwise, it uses its animal-men type. This is designed to be the easiest on the audience, as creature types are then what people instinctively think they are. When someone sees an ox-man, they know it’s a minotaur. When someone sees a cat-man, they don’t have anything else to call it, so it’s a cat-man. Magic can call it a Leonin, but that’s Magic’s made up word for it.

The major problems here come when invented races border mythological races. Orochi are Snakes because Wizards made them up, but Naga are also snake-men who are not snakes because they’re from mythology. This means we have two groups of snake-people who do not share a creature type, which is made all the more egregious by the fact that Orochi have a huge amount of tribal support as Snakes. A similar problem hits on Harpies and Sirens not being the same type as Aven. Further, a bunch of Dryads are clearly trees, but not Treefolk, which is a supported creature type. Wormwood Dryad, Gnalrwood Dryad, and Dryad Arbor, specifically, are just trees shaped like women.

Option Four: Purely case by case

Purely case by case is a reasonable idea, and would allow for the best mechanical and flavor balance for each type as it needs it, but this still results in major inconsistancy as a result, with players having no idea what’s what. Magic’s done a lot of this in the past, which is why we have Viashino and Cephalids.

This gets really messy really fast, and its biggest problem is that when deciding whether to make a new creature type for something is necesarry, one thing that should be asking is “how often do we plan to use these?” Lets assume a new world has a race of turtle-people. We can either label them as “Turtle” or as “Kappa.” The set’s got eight of them, because they’re a decent part of the world but not so big as to be planning a deck around them. A big question as to whether to give them their own creature type or not is if they’ll be iconic and memorable, and it’s really hard to know that until after the set has come out. If people really like them, they’re going to come back on many worlds, and as their forms change for different planes, it’ll be nicer to have the freedom to make different Kappa than just “turtles.” However, if people don’t attach to them, having their own creature type that most don’t immediately get will just be offputting and weird.

Option Five: Pipe Dream: Complete overhaul with wider types

So, I’m going to throw out first that I know full well a complete overhaul is unreasonable. I’d like one, but it’s just too much in  a game that’s mostly physical. That said, here’s how I’d do it:

All Beastmen are of a Beastmen type... But those types are wider. We’re starting to see this with Minotaur, which includes a number of rams on Amonkhet, and Zedruu, Having other suites of beastmen share typings would be a complete restructuring, but I think it’d work best for everyone.

Minotaurs would include all Ungulates here. This means Rhox, Scandalmonger, Wishmonger, but also easily opening the door for Elk-people to just randomly show up somewhere under the tag Minotaur. This would still only apply to bipeds, though, so Centaurs are still Centaurs (but a Centaur could include something with the lower body of any Ungulate.)

Aven would split from Bird, but absorb Siren and Harpy, and include any humanoid that has feathers and flies.

Ainok, or another name, would include Ainoks, Khenra, and Kitsune, as well as any other Caniform Beastman. Possibly also Feline beastmen, but I think Leonin are getting big enough to have all catfolk just be Leonin. Werewolves stay as Werewolves because they’re really not the same as other animalfolk.

Merfolk would absorb Cephalids. I don’t expect us to see enough different aquatic races that we need more than one type for aquatic animal-person.  Homarids are inhuman enough that I think we just want to tag them as Crustaceans. 

Amphin for any Amphibious Humanoid. 

Reptilians would get Viashino and Naga, because we really do recognize a difference between snake-people and lizard-people, and any turtle people would also become Viashno if they showed up. Orochi would become Naga.

And while I’m at it: Kobolds, Orcs, and Ogres are all Goblins.

This is more of a “if starting over” approach, of course, as too many gameplay effects exist to really encourage splitting pre-existing creature types.  Adding Siren and Harpy to Bird would be obvious and clear, but splitting Avens from Birds would be a logistical nightmare, and would require fighting for custody of old Bird tribal rewards.

Final Notes:

My actual suggestion at this point is, because they’re riding history, just... try not to make any new creature types, and fold in the old ones that didn’t get traction. Homarids can be Crabs now. It’s okay. We get that Homarids aren’t coming back in force, even if we still want to see a few. And when you introduce something like Naga, well, you’ve already got so much snake tribal sitting around, just let them use it.

You’ve got Viashino. Make use of it. Seriously. Viashino are inherently cool.

If you want to use a thing and really can’t find a proper type for it, like say deciding you want to do a set with lots of dinosaurs and not feeling right calling them lizards or beasts, or a set with lots of werewolves, or just needing Pilot as a new class because nothing else fits right, okay, but introducing the type Naga instead of using Snake or adding in Sirens that were visually very similar to Aven but were not Birds just doesn’t do anything because now you have a new type that you’re not even giving us the tools to use.

At least Aetherborn and Servo had lords.

I think “tools to use” is the real key here. I want the tools to use any creature type that exists, so if you’re adding a new creature type it should either be a clear label of mechanical similarity, like Processor or Pilot, or come with a card that lets me take advantage of that word. 

If you put a word on a card that does LITERALLY NOTHING, not even remind me how that card works, you’re wasting my time.