Dungeons & Dragons lore!

I ran the trick of "magic essentially replaces tech" on my nautical themed campaign. It's a 18th-century-esque setting, and the ship designs are taken from that era, but rather than cannons, the ships tend to have a bunch of spellcasters hurling fireballs at each other in the ship level where the cannons would be.

I'm picturing the Europe-equivalent of Avatar: the Last Airbender.

Heroes of Battle had rules for things like enchanted ballistae that shot lines of fire or lightning, or dragon-decorated catapults that converted gemstones into elemental bombardment. They were twice as expensive and slightly slower-firing than the crude bombards introduced in Stormwrack as ships' weapons, but more reliable in the rain, I suppose.

You could easily blame wizards for a lack of gunpowder in a setting. What's the point of spending years of intense study and practice to learn how to convert a pinch of bat guano and sulphur into a fireball if some idiot can get a barrel of the same and light a match to the same effect? So maybe mages have convinced local governments to crack down on gunpowder as unauthorized "magic" rather than a branch of alchemy, to protect wizards' monopoly on spectacular destruction. The military class may well be on board with it, to ensure the primacy of their knights and whatnot.

How about keeping the setting in a time-period reminiscent of the Middle Ages, but avoiding Medieval Stasis by reflecting actual societal development of the period? As a term the "Middle Ages" is very misleading, as it lumps together roughly a millennium and a half together, simply because the people at the time felt it was an irrelevant bother between a past they preferred and the awesomeness of their present. There was a lot of room for development and variation, depending on where and when something happened, which could be explored in D&D. From the eyes of an elf it could be freaky to see a Roman-equivalent empire first shatter and be subjected to chaos, but within a single elven lifetime the humans have created new empires that are again nuisances for them.

Speaking of elven lifetimes: Does anyone tweak life spans?

Halflings live maybe 20 years longer than Humans and Half-Orcs 10 years shorter.

Elves and Gnomes are weird. At some point, an individual stops aging. They instinctively know when that happens and are told that they have 100 years left, *to the second*, before they keel over. Elves will stop aging between 20 & 30, mostly around 25, and Gnomes between 15 & 50 with an even spread throughout.

Dwarves are weirder. They will live around 200 years and don’t experience normal aging penalties. Instead, depending on their breed’s elemental association, they will experience some uneven mix of mental and physical degradation and upgrades. (For example, mountain dwarves gain bonuses to Str, Con and Wis but take penalties to Int, Cha and Dex.)

As they age, dwarves show further and further signs of their element taking over their body. When they die, a small elemental is born out of their body. These tend to be revered as ancestral remnants and are preserved and groomed into greater elementals.

> They instinctively know when that happens and are told that they have 100 years left, *to the second*, before they keel over.

On one hand that's downer being acutely aware of their own demise,on the other hand they don't have the uncertainty because they know when it's time.

I tend to tone down the lifespans only because every goddamn mite seems to live for centuries; anything that lives longer than an average human gets its lifespan roughly halved in my campaign setting. Except for dragonborn; those things are supposed to be halfway between human(oid)s and the longest-living creatures in D&D, they should definitely live longer than an average human.

suddenly Lichdom/Vampire-ness doesn't sound so bad when a literal egg timer to your impending death is going off in your brain.

Weird related question, is there anything like a breakdown of proportion by race of liches? My assumption was that they all used to be humans.

That seems to be the most common origin, besides Dracoliches. I do remeber reading about elven liches, or some other similar undead creatures, but I can't think of any Dwarf-liches. Maybe it's justified as being more common among humans due to their cultural relationship with magic?

Elf skeletons look just like human skeletons, dwarf liches find hidey holes to while away the millenia and are never seen, nobody takes gnome liches seriously

I picture elven skeletons resembling stretched-out Greys. Then again, one thing I prefer settings where elves are taller than the average human, rather than them being shorter.

> nobody takes gnome liches seriously

they inspire fear and dread in Kobolds everywhere

Nobody takes *them* seriously either.

Speaking of kobolds: What’re the origin of beast-men in your setting, if any?

X5 Ooooh! Dragonborn liches! It fits perfectly in the Venn diagram of liches and dracoliches.

I've got something of a "born of the ichor of the gods / titans" situation, where there are races that were explicitly crafted (the usual fantasy core races with dedicated pantheons), and several that came about as a result of deific conflict or heightened emotion. The blood of the dragon gods creating Dragonborn, the tears of an elven moon goddess birthing Tritons, etc.

Unless the DM is a guy named Tucker: https://media.wizards.com/2014/downloads/dnd/TuckersKobolds.pdf

The above story is a great example of how even weak creatures can be a dangerous foe, especially with Death of A Thousand Cuts. I've always thought that weak monsters like goblins ought to be at least a bit sneaky, because explosive breeding shouldn't be the lone reason they are always so numerous. Especially if they are constantly bossed around by bigger goblinoids, I'd prefer to portray at least some of them as potential manipulators within evil armies. I picture them as the guys who will lay traps and shoot arrows or poison darts from the shadows, only attacking openly if they believe they have the advantage.

Ooooh! Dragonborn liches! It fits perfectly in the Venn diagram of liches and dracoliches.

I'd be surprised if there aren't any canon examples of that. An undead draconic humanoid sounds awesome.

To be honest, my knowledge of D&D lore is limited to pre-2000's novels and PC games set in Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance, so I'm asking: The Dragonborn are basically the same as Draconians in Dragonlance and Dragonspawn in Wo W, right?

Not really. The Dragonborn introduced in Races of the Dragon (3.5th edition) were not a natural race, but humanoids who had pledged themselves in service to Bahamut in his war against Tiamat, and were reborn into draconic forms as both reward and to prepare them for that fight. 4th and 5th edition are treating them as a natural race of draconic humanoids that was created by dragon deities in the distant past. Meanwhile the Dragonlance Draconians are, if I remember correctly, born from the corruption of good dragon eggs, and Warcraft Dragonspawn are... lacking in lore, even the D20 Manual of Monsters has nothing to say about their origins beyond that they're a mystery.

Humans are the best-positioned to pursue lichdom, since they tend to be more ambitious and innovative than longer-lived races, and are known for embracing magic. Half-elves would probably be more likely to go that route than full-blooded elves, while half-orcs traditionally don't have the mindset for the wizardry required to make a phylactery. Elves and dwarves can be considered to have racial biases against lichdom - both believe in reincarnation, so someone who traps their soul in a rotting shell is denying themselves a chance to be reborn in Moradin's forge, or return to Arvandor for a time. Halflings aren't known for a strong wizardry tradition and more to the point don't fear death as much as other races, while gnomes accept death as natural and believe that while a part of a gnome's soul goes to live with Garl Glittergold in the Golden Hills, another portion remains in the mortal world to bond with a newborn gnome.

That said, Libris Mortis has a lot of atypical liches - an elf who was insulted by the very idea of mortality and devoted himself to Wee Jas, a goblin adept who somehow manged to make a phylactery, a githzerai who broke his race's taboo on lichdom, even a halfling bard lich masquerading as a castle cook. I think Faerun introduced the notion of good liches, the elven baelnorns who guide and guard their communities. It's also easy to imagine a tiefling who is so concerned about what fate awaits their soul in the afterlife that they do everything they can to stay in the mortal world.

Fun note about halflings I found in Races of the Wild - if a funeral is held for a halfling who was presumed dead, but who later turns up alive, they have to take up a new name because their previous identity has been laid to rest, and must start over as a member of their caravan or community, even if everyone recognizes them. Which has interesting roleplaying implications for adventurers who need resurrection magic.

Back when I still played Wo W in its early years I recall that the Dragonspawn had a roughly similar origin to how you described Bahamut's Dragonspawn, in that they were mutated members of other species made to serve dragons. There aren't many practical details on how this worked, no mention of whether they had been reborn as draconic creatures or mutated while alive. But they were apparently capable of breeding amongst each other, at least. The real-life reason for adding Dragonspawn was probably just to add more diverse mobs to dungeons with dragons for bosses. IIRC they were first seen in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne from 2003, so they are probably inspired more by the Draconians or some other D&D dragon-kin from before the Dragonborn.

As I do beast-folk: Created by mages my imbuing animals with humanoid essence so that following generations are born with humanoid shape and intelligence. The usual reason for this is ready-made slaves or soldiers, who are also slaves, but there have been a few times where a deity’s favored animal is “uplifted” in such a way to honor them or a mage creates them to simply play god themselves.

For this reason, beast-folks are often looked down on as a slave race but for their part they just as often rebel against their lot in life.

Gnolls were made with hobgoblin essence to be soldiers by mages serving Gorrelik and, later, Yeenoghu. While there is ancestral precedence for the hyena-folk to serve these demon lords, in the proceedings millennia they have long drifted from being slaves of the Pit.

Kobolds were made by a the dragon Kurtulmak by hybridizing dogs and lizards before imbuing them with goblin essence. He intended to make them slaves, the end result were creatures that considered dragons to be enormous pets.

Polar kobolds are more dog-like and tropical kobolds are more lizard-like. Urd kobolds are more draconic kobolds descendant of Kuraulyek Dracowhisperer, a tropical kobold that befriended dragons easily and was imbued with draconic essence by the dragon Asgorath. These kobolds are more servile towards but also more ambitious.

Lycanthropes are made from humanoids imbued with animal essence and the result are maddened man-beasts that carry the bestial essence as a virulent poison. Dragonborn are the exception, being humanoids imbued with draconic essence that came out just fine.

Mostly, I tend to stick with origins similar to those assumed by sourcebooks (so, mostly forgotten realms-based). However, a couple Dragonborn ideas I've toyed with before, but not used yet:

1. That Dragonborn were originally members of another race (whether some kind of Lizardfolk or Humans/Elves/whatever) that were enemies of dragons, and ended up drinking the blood of dragons they slew to become stronger and better able to hunt and kill them. The repeated blood-drinking then changed them over time into more draconic shapes, but culturally they would remain dedicated to hunting and slaying dragons and their minions. In some drafts, in order to justify the name, I had them be created in some way by dragons at first, but that the dragons eventually became tyrannical and enslaved them, thus leading to the events outlined above.

2. That Dragonborn used to be Orcs, who were either already dragon worshippers or became such for protection (most likely due to being threatened on all sides by armies from the stereotypically "good" races, and ran the risk of being subjected to genocide), then being blessed by their dragon masters with forms more closely resembling them. I recall that I got the idea for this when I realized that both (Half-)Orcs and Dragonborn get +2 Strength, and I wanted to try and justify why Half-Orcs were around but not full Orcs (this was before there were any official 5e playable Orc available except the sucky "monstruous" variant in Volo's Guide, and I'm generally a bit afraid of homebrewing gameplay elements - as opposed to fluff elements, which I'll happily homebrew ).

For one reason or another I have previously abandoned those ideas, but maybe there's some merit to them?

I just don't like the gnoll origins or always evil races in general. Monstrous humanoids have something about them, some instinctual behavior that will show up no matter how or by whom they're raised. Hobgoblins are militant and disciplined, gnolls are militant and nomadic (and matriarchal like hyenas), kobolds are attracted to big strong creatures to pamper and condescend, goblins are servile.

Fire giants see protection and subjugation as the same thing and inherently believe the strong must protecjugate the weak, ice giants see weakness as a sin that must be expunged one way or another, hill giants associate size with personhood, ogres and trolls are brutal creatures who struggle with the concept that other creatures aren't as resilient as they are.

I've never liked Always Chaotic Evil races either; as a result, while the races exist in my homebrew world, their gods aren't allowed the kind of influence they'd need to force any race to conform completely to any specific standard. Drow and Gnolls can be perfectly friendly people, and even chromatic dragons, without Tiamat breathing down their metaphorical necks, have no strong desire to go do evil besides what would drive any other sapient race to evil.

Case in point, a blue dragon I've yet to introduce to my players who's lawful neutral, and who really would just like to be left alone. Or a neutral good red dragon who doesn't quite understand how paladins work, but really tries his best.

Random thought,I was watching videos of cats reacting to their reflection in a mirror and I'm now imagining a scenario where a Tabaxi comes a across a mirror a spends a great deal of time glaring and hissing at the mirror

Dragons: Metallic dragons are very social with humanoids, preferring to be among them, interacting with them, helping them or crushing them under the dragon’s iron claws.

Chromatic are anti-social, preferring to stay from humanoid save perhaps a closely related tribe they favor and some kobolds. They may just choose to live somewhere remote or burn down every settlement in a hundred miles.

Hey, how do y'all design your Planescape, if you bother to go into such detail?

I normally take the Great Wheel, with some details taken from Pathfinder's version, and condense it down into something resembling Dante's Inferno, with all the good-planes in Heaven, all the evil-planes in Hell and all the neutral-planes in Limbo, with different areas leaning towards Chaos and Law, creating different places, like the Abyssal Pit at the center of Hell.

Hoo boy.

For sake of not limiting player choice, it's still in the D&D multiverse (and all the gods that that implies)— but it's essentially behind the yellow "Hazard: Do not cross!" lines thanks to Ao having deemed it a "natural" and "soon to die" casualty of a successful Gotterdamerung.

The Centimani got loose, killed all the gods and most of the higher demons, devils, angels, modrons and slaadi etc, and then proceded to chow down on the Prime Material Plane and half of the different afterlife planes (and it is absolutely messing with the soul situation). The setting is now an empty void mass of Centimani ravenously killing and eating it's way through the bits of the outer elemental planes that fall into in from their "decaying orbit" around the PMP's void.

One of my players thinks they're adventuring in a humanoid civilization that somehow got mixed up in the Elemental Plane of Earth. But it's actually a demi-plane prison for Titans who have long since died. Yes, they are literally crawling around the fossilized remains of titans. If and when they near level 10+, they're going to have to somehow either make the demiplane the new PMP, or find some other solution. Because the Centimani are still hungry.