Player Races | Creatures (Aberrations | Beasts | Celestials | Constructs | Dragons | Elementals | Fey | Fiends | Giants | Humanoids | Monstrosities | Oozes | Plants | Undead)
open/close all folders
Alseid
- Horned Humanoid: Alseid have antlers growing from their foreheads. Antlers grow very slowly, branching every 10 years for the first century of life. Further points only develop with the blessing of the forest.
- Our Centaurs Are Different: Alseid are woodland cousins to centaurs, blending the torsos of elves with the lower bodies of deer.
- Overly Long Name: Since their names are often extremely long, many alseid choose shorter nicknames for themselves when speaking with other species.
Bearfolk
- Beary Friendly: Bearfolk are people of iron resolve and deep nobility, who put their trust in family and tribe to stand against the world. Despite their brutish appearance, they are deeply spiritual and artistic.
- Beast Man: Bearfolk are broad-shouldered, bipedal humanoids that strongly resemble upright bears, but have longer legs than any bear and their massive hands are more like a human hand than a bear paw.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Bearfolk are predominantly good, mistrusting and shunning evil. They also have a deep and impressive capacity for violence when roused to anger or in defence of their own.
- In Harmony with Nature: When establishing homes, bearfolk gravitate toward striking a balance with nature and their impact on it. Even the most urban-minded ones prefer parks and greenery, and take pains not to disrupt the surrounding countryside any more than necessary.
Catfolk
- Animorphism: Nkosi can assume the form of a lion.
- Cat Folk:
- Basteti are lithe and slender humanoids possessing many feline features including cat's eyes, a long tail and a coat of soft fur often accented with markings. Their hands and feet end in retractable claws. Basteti can resemble almost any type of Felidae, but Bastet ensures none of her people ever look like lions.
- Nkosi are humans with large cat's eyes, sharp teeth and fur. Their flat noses and wide jaws give them a leonine look, and they are stockier than basteti. Their fur varies from light brown to golden to reddish blond. Males have a thick mane of fur and both sexes possess retractable claws.
Centaur
- Our Centaurs Are Different: Centaurs blend humanoid and equine aspects. They are born with grace befitting a human king, but are possessed of the fierce savagery of a wild stallion.
Darakhul
- Breath Weapon: Darakhul who were dragonborn in life retain their breath weapon, albeit corrupted by the necrotic energy of their new undead form.
- Fantastic Racism: The prejudice of the living against the undead is powerful and visceral. Humanity views the darakhul with suspicion if not outright hostility, and it is difficult (but not impossible) for a darakhul to allay those fears.
- Human Disguise: A quality disguise is one of the best tools for a darakhul trying to make its way among the breathing. On the surface, almost all ghouls maintain a disguise kit and a concealing outfit to match their cover identity. With a good costume, a ghoul might pass unchallenged among humans for a long time.
- Our Ghouls Are Creepier: The darakhul are ghouls with intelligence, necromantic power and the ambition to rule everything below the earth. Though smarter, stronger and more ruthless than ghasts or common ghouls, darakhul are fewer in number.
- Supernaturally Delicious and Nutritious: Mushroomfolk find darakhul tasty—even when still undead, but especially after they have been destroyed. This is disconcerting to the darakhul.
Derro
- Body Surf: When a derro witch queen dies, her spirit transfers to another in the clan, transforming that derro into the next witch queen.
- Multiple-Choice Past: The true history of the derro is an incomprehensible tangle. When they keep records, their accounts conflict with each other and with observable reality. The various cults and clans embrace a wide variety of myths, mostly passed along by oral tradition and mind-bending artwork. Every new teller of a given tale twists or rewrites portions of the story to fit their own warped view of the world.
Dhampir
- Dhampyr: Dhampirs are the half-living children of vampires and human mothers.
- Meaningful Rename: Dhampirs that join a nomadic band universally take the new surname Crow.
- Then Let Me Be Evil: Driven toward evil by the bitterness and suspicion their parentage thrusts upon them, evil dhampirs lash out at the world in a rage of bloodlust and hatred.
- Walking the Earth: Some dhampirs choose to band together for safety, camaraderie and understanding. These groups are nomadic, travelling from town to town and making their living off the land.
Dragonkin
- Draconic Humanoid: Dragonkin are humanoid in form, but their connection to dragons is unmistakable thanks to the scales that cover their bodies.
- Fantastic Racism: Dragonkin are fiercely proud of their draconic blood, and look down with disdain on other humanoids, including kobolds.
- Tail Slap: Female dragonkin have longer, lashing tails.
Dwarf
- Arch-Enemy: Though the reasons why are lost to history, trollkin are implacable enemies of dwarves; the two races despise one another.
- Fantasy Gun Control: Cantonal dwarves are the only race with access to gunpowder in Midgard. Only characters with a connection to the cantons have access to proper guns, powder and related materials, or to teachers who can train them in their proper use.
- Nemean Skinning: Northern dwarves' society of bear-shirted berserks is celebrated for its ferocity.
- Pirate: Northern dwarves sometimes take to the sea in their longships and raid the coasts, from Vidim through the Donnermark and Krakova to northern Dornig.
Elf
- Half-Human Hybrid: Elfmarked are the result of unions between elves and humans. Elvish blood running through their veins ties the elfmarked to the realms of the fey.
- I Have Many Names: A true elf of the Arbonesse lineage has three names. The first is a birth name given by parents, the second is a common name adopted by the elf upon maturity, and the last is a lineage name, akin to a family name taken from a list of a few hundred great heroes of the Elflands known as the Wild Hunt.
- Our Elves Are Different: Midgard elves are splintered into four nations, each corresponding to (and using the traits of) a classic elven subrace:
- Windrunner elves (wood elves) are nomads and herders, weavers, archers and hunters, quick to speak with the sky spirits, and have largely abandoned civilisation.
- River elves (high elves) built many castles, roads and cities throughout Midgard, but are now confined to the Arbonesse forest beyond the western wasteland, and all the land where the leaves' shadow falls. Sometimes a river elf is exiled to wander the outside world for a few decades; otherwise, other races rarely see them.
- Dark elves dwell under the surface of Midgard, and were once a great and terrible power before falling to the rising Empire of the Ghouls. Only a scattered handful of miserable survivors remain, huddling in remote caverns.
- The shadow fey no longer draw power from Midgard. Their court resides in the Shadow Realm, which darkly reflects material Midgard. The glory of the shadow fey is faded and twisted into a legacy of deceit and illusion.
- Vestigial Empire: The elves once ruled over much of Midgard. Their mighty empire stretched from Thorn and the Arbonesse toward the east and south along a network of slender spires and magical roads. A few centuries ago that glory crumbled, and today the elves have splintered into three remote, waning nations.
Erina
- Beast Man: The erina are a small-statured race of creatures resembling bipedal hedgehogs.
Gearforged
- Soul-Powered Engine: Gearforged are machines with souls. All gearforged were once creatures with flesh-and-blood bodies, before their minds were transplanted into articulated ones. The destruction of a gearforged's soul gem means the death of that gearforged.
- Starfish Language: Machine Speech is a whistling, clicking language that's incomprehensible to non-gearforged ears.
Gnoll
- The Bully: Although gnolls are cowardly at heart, they like to disguise their fears by abusing others.
Jinnborn
- Amazing Technicolor Population: Jinnborn skin tone ranges from sky blue to light violet and from golden to brick red.
- Exact Words: Jinnborn rarely lie outright to outsiders, but they speak in terms that allow them to twist their meaning.
- I Gave My Word: The jinnborn keep their word meticulously between themselves.
Kobold
- Trap Master: Kobolds create simple, deadly traps and wildly impractical ones as a hobby. Few kobolds leave home without string, springs, simple latches, and other bits and pieces that can be quickly fashioned into triggers for traps.
Minotaur
- Big Eater: Minotaurs consume enormous quantities of both meat and vegetation. Great banquets mark important social and religious occasions, and a successful feast is often a point of regional pride.
- Fantastic Slurs: A minotaur who loses part or all of a horn suffers considerable stigma and must strive to prove his worth. The word brokehorn is a fighting insult to any minotaur.
- Horned Humanoid: The most valued accessories of any minotaur are his or her horns, grown by both sexes.
- The Maze: Minotaur architecture and city planning always incorporate a particular design: labyrinths. Every settlement and structure of any size created by the bull-folk sports a twisting labyrinth of switchbacks and dead ends.
- Non-Indicative Name: Since minotaurs' descriptors given by the parents when the minotaur is still an infant, they might or might not turn out to be accurate.
- Our Minotaurs Are Different: The bull-folk exhibit many of the same characteristics as the bulls they resemble. Both genders have a great deal of muscle mass even for their considerable size, and horned heads covered with shaggy hair.
- Spirited Competitor: Minotaurs delight in competitions, proving their worth through deeds of strength or skill. These contests are seldom to the death; demonstrating superiority over a rival is enough. They believe defeat should not bring shame, only a renewed determination.
- Was Once a Man: Most minotaurs fear the Ravening with good reason, as the disease regresses them into monstrous beasts.
Mushroomfolk
- Acid Attack: Acid cap mushroomfolk use acid spores to protect clanmates and territory.
- Mushroom Man: Mushroomfolk have evolved appendages resembling limbs, as well as organs for taking in sensory information. Beyond that, they can be as different from one another as normal fungi are from each other, even within the same clan. Some mushroomfolk are tall and thin with caps like toadstools, while others might be short and squat like puffballs.
- No Biological Sex: Mushroomfolk are sexless and capable of both sexual and asexual reproduction.
- Self-Duplication: Roughly once a year, a mushroomfolk is capable of creating a clone of itself, which takes about 5 years to mature.
Piney
- Gender Bender: A piney who wishes to reproduce can change sex as required to ensure successful reproduction.
- Nay-Theist: Pineys do not worship the gods or their masks or innately understand concepts such as spirituality and faith. Prayer is strictly forbidden and is seen as an expression of outsiders' moral inferiority. Pineys who are caught worshipping gods are swiftly banished from their villages.
- Plant Person: While the pineys were once human, their organs are partially made from plant matter, and they feed through photosynthesis.
Ramag
- Creepily Long Arms: Ramags' limbs grow too long in proportion to their bodies, giving them a stooped, odd posture.
- Mage Species: Lifetimes of exposure to the warping effect of their runaway magical energy have given the ramag innate control over magic, as well as sharp resistance to it.
Ratfolk
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Ratfolk seldom use real names among non-ratfolk. Instead, they seem to derive perverse pleasure and great humour from giving themselves nicknames that make humans and elves uncomfortable, such as Plaguesores.
- Rat Men: Ratfolk are small, rodentlike humanoids with twitching snouts, bony feet, and long, pink tails.
Ravenfolk
- Bird People: Ravenfolk are humanoid avians whose face resembles that of a great raven or crow, but do not have actual wings.
- I Gave My Word: Ravenfolk are scrupulous about keeping their word. That's not to say they don't lie, but if a promise or a vow can be extracted from one, it's as reliable as gold—which may be why ravenfolk seldom make promises or vows.
- Mouth of Sauron: Ravenfolk are counted a great race because of their role as messengers for the gods. They hear the words of Wotan most clearly but also claim to speak for Aten, Lada, Khors, Thor, Loki, Ninkash and Sif. Rarely, they bring dark prophecies from Chernobog, the Hunter, Mammon or Vardesain.
- Sticky Fingers: No matter what trade a ravenfolk takes up, they are all thieves. They build their rookeries from found items, and much like normal ravens, have a great fondness for shiny baubles.
Satarre
- Fantastic Racism: All satarre have a deep hatred of the volmar (also called the children of Yggdrasil) and the ravenfolk, for these two have long opposed the satarre's efforts on behalf of darkness and destruction.
- My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Some satarre are simply in no hurry to bring on the end of all things. Other satarre call these renegades latje (slothful ones). The latje often see little purpose in destruction for its own sake, or they see their role as warning others of the dangers of the dark gods and the widening grasp of the cold, uncaring Void. Most latje are exiled from their communities or seek the company of other races.
- Omnicidal Maniac: Most satarre strive to destroy the worlds of mortals and bring about the end of all things.
Shade
- Our Ghosts Are Different: Midgard is no stranger to ghosts, but sometimes a person's passion, purpose and will to live are so strong, their tie to the living world so unbreakable, that their memories create a vessel for their soul after their body dies. Shades, as these people are called, possess a physical body that looks, acts and feels similar to a living member of their original race, but are not composed of flesh and blood. Their bodies are a memory of who they once were, inhabited and quickened by the presence of their soul.
- Scatterbrained Senior: The older a shade gets, the memories that keep them tethered to the living world begin to fray. They might grow forgetful, losing track of where they are or what year it is. Their memories might drift together, causing them see people around them as figures from their past.
Shadow Fey
- Day Hurts Dark-Adjusted Eyes: The eyes of the shadow fey, creatures of shadow, are sensitive to the sun's light.
- Deal with the Devil: According to the official history of the Shadow Courts, the shadow fey were beleaguered elves who made pacts with forces of darkness out of desperation millennia ago, most likely during the Black Sorceress' Revolt.
- The Fair Folk: The enigmatic shadow fey of the Shadow Realm are at turns benign and cruel, purposeful and whimsical. They vanish from the world and reappear seemingly at random, then profess shock at the changes that occurred during their absence. Their actions can seem illogical or even mad, but there is always a method in them. While the shadow fey are often antagonists and usually are described as malevolent, they are neither inherently evil nor good. They are fey, and mortals must always be wary in their interactions or pay a steep price.
- Horned Humanoid: Many shadow fey have horns, from subtle to obvious, either satyr- or fiend-like depending on the chronicler.
- Shadow Walker: Every shadow fey slip from a shadow or patch of darkness to instantly appear elsewhere.
- Undying Loyalty: Guardians are fanatically loyal to their superiors. Employed as house guards or personal bodyguards for important shadow fey, guardians are unshakable in their duty. The shadow corruption reaches into their minds and souls, so that not even powerful magic can bend their hearts or break their resolve.
Tosculi (Hiveless)
- Rogue Drone: Hiveless tosculi are drones who are physically unsuitable to the tasks for which they were bred, or do not fit seamlessly into the well-tuned social mechanics of the hive. Since nonconformity is not tolerated in tosculi society, renegades who are not killed are driven out or flee.
Trollkin
- Alternate Company Equivalent: Vanilla Dungeons & Dragons half-orcs don't exist in the world of Midgard; their unique traits and setting-specific lore are fulfilled by trollkin.
- Arch-Enemy: Though the reasons why are lost to history, trollkin are implacable enemies of dwarves; the two races despise one another.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Trollkin are the descendants of ogres, trolls and fey who took human mates in ancient times.
- No Need for Names: Trollkin don't attach much importance to names. They carry names more as a convenience to other races. Among themselves, trollkin refer to each other by identifying marks, deeds or characteristics (Bent-nose, Long-claws, Fears-lightning). These labels change depending on what the trollkin has done recently and who's doing the talking. As long as other trollkin know who is being referred to, that's all that matters.
