Races and Monsters, 5E Style
by Blacky the BlackballMy thoughts for the races so far are:
- Humans - These are the default race for most of the setting. I'm assuming that an Alphatian PC would be "human" rather than having separate stats for the Alphatian race.
- Elves - Alfheim would mostly contain Wood Elves, whereas Glantri and Minrothad would mostly contain High Elves. Drow seem to be best used as a simple replacement for Shadow Elves (drow stats but shadow elf culture/history).
- Dwarves - I'm assuming that the Rockhome dwarves are Mountain Dwarves, and that the dwarven diaspora that have travelled to other regions and "gone native" a bit would be Hill Dwarves.
- Halflings - I'm having trouble differentiating between the two halfling sub-races culturally, so I'm going to assume that they're mixed together in The Five Shires for the moment.
- Dragonborn - I'm not sure where to place these yet. Perhaps they don't have a single homeland but are scattered throughout the world. I haven't decided yet.
- Gnomes - Good question. Should the gnomes have a homeland of their own or should they just live in Rockhome with the dwarves and Alfheim with the elves?
- Tieflings - Similar to dragonborn, I need somewhere to put these that was their homeland before they "fell" and that now only contains ruins. Possibly the Great Waste of Sind? I haven't decided yet.
- Half-Elves - These can be from anywhere there are elves and humans mixing. Interestingly, the politics of Alfheim mean that half elves are more likely to be descended from High Elves than from Wood Elves.
- Half-Orcs - These can be from anywhere that humans and orcs mix, so anywhere surrounding the Broken Lands or other mountains.
Most monsters don't need changing at all, but the extraplanar ones will need to be shoehorned into the Known World's cosmology instead of the Great Wheel cosmology that's assumed by 5e.
The first thing that springs to mind here is that clearly Aberrations are from the Nightmare Dimensions rather than being extraplanar as such.
I'm not sure what to do with Modrons, Angels, Demons, Devils, Slaadi and Yugoloths if we don't have the Great Wheel.
Trying to fit these with the five Spheres is probably the best.
- Modrons - creatures from an Outer Plane that has a strong Matter bias (because Matter is strongly lawful and its association with the element of Earth seems to fit their "construct" nature).
- Angels - these are a bit tricky to place. I'm tempted to associate them with all four main Spheres (Energy/Time/Thought/Matter).
- Demons - with their penchant for destruction, Demons are clearly associated with the Sphere of Entropy.
- Devils - these aren't as out-and-out destructive as demons, but are more into control and domination. I'm struggling to align them with any particular Sphere, and thinking they might be better as simply creatures from some Outer Plane that has a mild Energy(?) bias.
- Yugoloths - again, these aren't really destructive like demons but more generally evil and nasty. I'd probably peg these as being creatures from an Outer Plane that's Entropy biased, but not actually being directly minions of the Sphere of Entropy.
- Slaadi - interestingly, the 5e Monster Manual pegs these as Aberrations. This could make them creatures from the Nightmare Dimensions rather than aligned with any of the Spheres.
So this gives us the following niches:
Servitors of Immortals of Energy/Time/Thought/Matter: Angels (these Immortals make few servitors, but those they do make are powerful)
Servitors of Immortals of Entropy: Demons (these Immortals make many more servitors)
Creatures from miscellaneous Outer Planes: Modrons, Devils, Yuggoloths (none of these are the direct servitors of Immortals)
Creatures from the Nightmare Dimensions: Aberrations, Slaadi (technically these aren't outer-planar creatures at all)