OSSR: Bastards and Bloodlines

[radthemad4]

Are you going to finish this?

[Prak]

Oh, hey, this thing.

Eh, I'll work away at it a bit more, I guess.

Ok, so I left off on Mind Rippers, the Illithid Rape Babies. That means thatthe next half breed is Morlock, which has nothing at all to do with The Time Machine, and is just what they call the mind-bleedingly-dumb combination of Gnome and Troglodyte.

sigh. and me with no cider

Morlock
Gnome/Troglodyte
Medium-size Humanoid

So, the section starts out admitting the concept makes no fucking sense-

This half-breed occurs only when a gnome commits a crime so heinous the gods themselves take notice, banishing him to the depths of the subterranean world and afflicting him with madness. Why such stricken gnomes seek out or are accepted by troglodyte clans is unknown (...)

(emphasis added)

Look. This is an out there combo, but if you want gnome/trog crossbreeds, for whatever fucking reason, there's a pretty simple way to explain it, simply by elaborating on the above and then deciding what the reason is- Laogzed, the Troglodyte diety, is making it happen. They already said the crimes are so heinous the gods take notice, so Laogzed is seriously contacting gnomes, driving them crazy and making them commit vile sacrificial murders. The gnomes get ousted, maybe the official punishment is seriously to chuck the gnome into the underdark, and Laogzed leads the crazed gnome to a troglodyte community, where the trogs recognize the gnome is touched by their god. Hell, Laogzed is described as looking like a cross between a lizard and a toad, and I don't think "gnome+lizard person=toad-like attributes" is really all that out there, so you could even say that Laogzed is the result of an ancient, forgotten alliance between the gnome pantheon and some lizard race pantheon, so Laogzed is settling a score and making a high holy sect in his people by replicating the circumstances of his own creation. There you go, a reason why gnomes are fucking trogs, why they breed true, and a plot thread you can use.

Anyway. The exiled gnome and his new troglodyte family engage in cultural exchange, the gnome sharing art and wisdom, and the trogs sharing their lifestyle, which could legitimately make for a creepy adventure, where the party starts finding obviously gnomish crafts in the underdark, and then being attacked by some small, undiscernable thing that fights, and smells, like a trog but is way smaller.

Apparently trogs are cool with exiled gnomes, but morlocks can go pound sand, and are chucked out into the darkness. There's no explanation why. Whatever. There's also no picture, but basically take a gnome, give him skin like a callous, or like what Killer Croc is given when the writers are trying to make Batman quasi-realistic, and stretch their limbs out so they qualify as medium creatures. Oh, and give them sharp teeth and large, yellow eyes.

...actually...

the book says they have pinched faces, but I think this is otherwise pretty much exactly what they had in mind.

...which gives a whole other origin and plot to use morlocks in...

They don't wear much clothing, but use pouches and armor, and can reach any part of their body due to flexibility and limb length. I'm sure there's a dirty joke to be had there, but, fuck, I'd like that just for shaving purposes.

As usual for an evil, degenerate hybrid race, "morlocks are ruthless and without pity. They are cannibals (...) when (they think) of others at all, it is only to judge them as a potential threat or, more rarely, possible ally." Because shut up they're evil why aren't you killing them already?

Most are CE, none are lawful, and "even good-aligned morlocks are quintessential consumerists feel the urge to use and discard.

One sort of interesting thing is that they don't have an actual sapience before the age of 15. Prior to this they are "animals," but at 15 they gain their full size and intellect, then seek out others of their kind and learn basic skills like speech and reasoning. Oh, and plotting, because evil.

Honestly, the acquisitive nature they ascribe to morlocks, and the fact that anyone who feeds them or gives them stuff earns a grudging respect, and that whole "use and discard" thing makes them sound really familiar- morlocks are born adventurers. Hell, even the thing about not being sapient before 15 sort of fits. It's like they as individuals aren't created until they're fully grown. Yeah, no, morlocks are adventurers, it fits.

-2 str, +4 con, -2 int, -2 cha; 30 ft base speed; +3 natural armor; Darkvision 90 ft (woo!); detect poison and know direction 1/day each if their wisdom is 10 or higher; can't be tracked by scent because they smell so bad it fries the tracker's sense of smell for 1d6 hours (that's sort of cool, actually), but just finding out if they've been there in the last 1d6 hours requires only a dc 15 spot (yes, spot) check because their smell is so strong and distinctive; +who cares to Alchemy and Listen, +4 to hide in rocky environs because of their skin texture. They have a +1 LA which isn't terrible, except their ability scores are shit, and nothing else is really that amazing. They have Rogue as a favored class, but you could do better which pretty much anything else as a rogue.

Piper
Elf or Halfling/Satyr
Medium-Size Humanoid


er... no.


Also no.


I wish.

No, pipers are the result of a satyr schtupping an elf or halfling. The section starts out by talking about how satyrs are an all male race that mate with other fey, with the male offspring being more satyrs and the female children being the mother's race and I suddenly want a transgendered satyr or nymph character.

Basically it talks about how satyrs fuck anything that moves, but are fertile with elves and halflings and like children in the not-creepy sense, but are shit fathers because they're fae and have no real sense of time or responsibility. Makes sense, I guess. The section gives a handful of other names for the half breed that no one cares about, and literally calls them "party animals." Yeah, basically pipers are college sophmores in Rush Week. Again, that sort of makes sense.

Apparently they're fertile with pretty much any other sentient race and "Indeed, many crossbreeds are truly a mix of piper and something else, though pipers do not advertise this fact" and the book DOESN'T FUCKING ELABORATE ON THE POTENTIAL CONSEQUENCES OF THIS FACT MECHANICAL OR OTHERWISE. GODDAMNIT.

Pipers basically look like elves with horns and really long ears, and I'm starting to wonder if the writer has a foot fetish because this is another race that doesn't wear shoes, but they grow thick callouses on the soles of their feet which does provide them the benefit of immunity to dangerous terrain, which is a nice little fluff bonus. ...but then it falls flat on it's fucking face by saying pipers try to mimic the stance of satyrs, walking on the balls and toes of their feet but "lack the proper muscle structure to do this, (and) inevitably get sore calves." Pipers who can't learn to walk normally have to get special high-heel boots or get their speed halved.


*SIGH*

It's called digitigrade, goddamn it, and normal, real humans can walk that way with little difficulty and if you do it enough I'm pretty sure you can develop the muscles to do it. I seriously walk that way when I'm outside bare foot to minimize the contact of soft foot with possible pebbles and spurs and shit and it's not even hard.

It then goes on to describe their demeanor, and basically they live in a permanent manic state. They "do not believe in being depressed of moody, for no situation can be improved by such behavior." Goddamn, these fuckers would be the most annoying shits ever, unless they're supplying booze to deal with them. Apparently the only thing that might possibly make them sad is "the destruction of a great beauty." So if you want to know if your piper SO truly loves you, break up with them. If they're still happy, they didn't give two shits, and you might be able to keep them as a fuck buddy (which is probably worthwhile), and if they proceed to sing mournful dirges for the next week they thought your relationship was a truly beautiful work.

Basically these things are natural good-aligned bards in the most disruptive, annoying sense possible, and I'm really glad my spotlight hogging acquaintance never saw this book.

+2 dex and cha; 40 ft base speed; low-light vision; Speak with animals (cha mod)/day as a free action; Verbal components of spells they cast must be some form of pipe music but this gives their charm and sonic spells +2 dc; Animal Empathy, Bluff, Gather Info, Innuendo, and Perform as class skills regardless of class and 3 bonus ranks of Perform even above their normal maximum, but only when dancing or using a woodwind; favored class bard (duh) and +2 LA.

It's strong if you want to be a bard, but if you want to be a bard you've already made one poor life decision, so I wouldn't go higher than LA +1, and maybe not even that.

---

I'll see about doing the next couple races later. That'll be Spring Child (Dryad+Humanoid) and Sthein (Elf+Naga).

I'm starting to think that the writers just had a random generator or something of sentient races in D&D and rolled on it to determine what they would combine. And they had some stupid rule of "write whatever comes up" but didn't then also require you to write something actually interesting. Using the 3.5 MM with the criteria "must be of human intelligence and/or able to speak" (so griffons are out, with Int 5 and no ability to speak, but pegasi are in, because Int 10 even without the ability to speak), I wind up with 111 entries (collapsing categories like "demon" or "slaad"). The standard races are in a separate table because everything in this book is at least half PHB race (or orc). So a test roll gives Kuo-toa+elf, which I could see, especially if you opt for sea elf or drow. But there are much weirder options too.

[Zaranthan]

Glad to see this continue. I'm totally stealing some of this fluff for the next special snowflake character I doodle up. The mechanics, not so much.

[Prak]

Yeah, some of the fluff is... weird, but entertainingly usably so. Some of the fluff is just bad (though, honestly, the Mind Ripper fluff isn't worse than the typical "edgy loner anime protagonist" background...) and the mechanics range from "good but overcosted" to "wtf!?"

Spring Child
Any Humanoid/Dryad
Medium-size Humanoid

The section starts by talking about dryad reproduction which is... understandably weird. There isn't just the all-female thing, but there's the tree bond thing. If I were writing dryad reproduction, I would probably make the planting and seeding of the tree an integral part of it. B&B states that dryads are born when a dryad mates with another fae and a new oak tree becomes a seedling (by which, I imagine they mean when an oak seed sprouts). The idea that a creature's reproduction is reliant on something so external is just weird to me, and I think it'd be better if it wasn't just "some tree, somewhere" but "a tree the mother plants."

Spring children are born when a dryad screws a humanoid instead of a fae. Apparently this is usually a dryad too, but "once in a blue moon the child is instead a delicate half-breed ... Very rarely, this child is male."


This picture both gives a good name for a party of Bastards and Bloodlines half-breeds, and promotes a local comedian's comedy tour, because why not

Apparently the lack of a tree bond is a real buzz kill to the parent child relationship here, and the spring child is either taken home by their non-fae parent, or they grow up in the grove but leave as a young adult.

The appearance description is... somewhat circular. It says they look like lithe humanoids, but then say they an "elven appearance but are more rounded and robust than most elves." So... they look like elves that are kind of human-ish. Got it. Their coloration is pretty typical season-tied fae, with hair that changes color with the seasons and eyes that look like sky, fire, metal, whatever (though these aren't said to change).

I kind of think their demeanor should have just been summed up as "know what a toreador is? They're like that but they're alive," because spring children are basically artistic, moderate hedonists. They like music, food, dancing, laughing, and so on, but are also drawn to tragedy and woe. Basically, they're another bard-y race, because in this book if you're pretty and fae, you're a bard.

They have a wanderlust that we see crop up in pretty much every RPG when the writers need to make a character seem wild and untamed. The fluff says they can't stay in one place more than a few months or a year, but the racial traits don't codify this at all, so it's basically just flavor. I do sort of like the idea that they're uncomfortable in a city unless they can see a copse of trees, and could see them seeking out either the best rooms in a city- high up, with a good view that happens to extend out of the city- of the least desirable, at the edges. Then again, there's really not a lot stopping them from buying a house and planting trees in the yard or something.

Spring children really have a bit of a "Mary Sue Anime Protagonist" feel to them, being super influential, making "lifelong friends and lifetime enemies with equal ease, and continually encounter jealousy ..." They also mature faster than other humanoids, and then are ageless.



Oh, and apparently they "do not mature mentally the way other races do. Each day they begin anew ... (they) never become wiser- or jaded- as other races do." So... they're emotionally/mentally stunted and super hot. ...fuck I think I've dated spring children.

Most spring children are chaotic good, taking after their mothers, and apparently literally cannot be lawful because their minds actually reject the entire lawful ideal. This would be less dumb if there was a lawful ideal for their minds to reject. Apparently (of course) evil spring children are rare, but are more disinterested in others than malicious. Because spring children are pretty.

Spring children are another half breed that seem really annoying to actually adventure with. They don't adventure for typical goals like money or power, but rather to travel, and they don't actually learn adventurer jobs for their own sake but rather so they're valuable to their party. So basically, most likely scenario, you'll wind up with someone playing a special snowflake anime protagonist who doesn't care about gold or power and just wants to wander, who will constantly agitate to move on, but won't give up their share of the loot because their player likely won't be a total idiot. But will still play the whole "I don't care about this adventure lets keep moving" thing to the hilt.

They are of course a strong choice for spellcasters and everyone eventually like them, but they are subject to anti-elf prejudice. Because they're fucking special snowflake anime protagonist.

-2 str, +2 dex and wis, +4 cha; 30 ft base speed; +2 DC on mind-affecting spells; Speak with Plants (cha mod) times per day*; Ageless, meaning they hit adulthood, and then never pass into later categories, which seems to mean they don't get the mental bonuses, so that sort of sucks, and they still die at max age; favored class enchanter; +2 LA

Yeah, no, totally not a +2 LA race. They're a strong 0, at best, and only then because large bonuses to ability scores do admittedly sort of matter.

[Prak]

I couldn't decide which "I'm Back" gif to use, so I used three

I'm running a game on discord, or working up to it, and people are talking about characters, and I said because one concept is maybe mechanically sub par, I might let them use some stuff that is intended for use by that sort of character but gets out of hand if it's just a normal option anyone can take, specifically thinking about the feat Lost Traditions in this book. Which got me thinking about it, and masturbatorily re-reading my review because fuck you I'm hilarious. So, hell, I'm back, I'll do some more reviewing while I give my back a rest (I moved into a new apartment last month and still have a bunch of boxes because at the same time I started working a kinda physically demanding job and fucked up my back. Also, executive dysfunction.)

So, next race, Sthein.

Sthein
Elf/Naga
Medium-sizeLarge* Humanoid

This section starts by writing some setting lore, saying that ancient myths talk about elves being lead by a snake-themed priestess class, then shit went down, the priestesses took snake forms to escape and hide, became nagas, and then both races sorta forgot about this ancient history. Which... part of me thinks this is absurd, because both races are incredibly long-lived, but then also, fuck we irl have little to no knowledge of some ancient civs in the real world, so.... what the fuck ever.

Some elves, who call themselves soothesayers and other elves call fucking lunatics, want to learn more about this secret history. So they go live with nagas to learn their myths, and find correlations, and then maybe also learn how to shapeshift into nagas, so they can truly live as part of naga society (read- fuck talking snakes).

Look, at this point, anyone who doesn't play their elf character as a horndog with a fetish for talking animals is doing it wrong, as far as I'm concerned.

Basically, there are a ton of varieties, depending on what kind of elf slithered into what kind of naga's cloaca, but the most common seem to be water naga/high elf and dark naga/drow. They're all mechanically identical, tho. They look like the typical "not on the kill on sight list" snake people, or WoW nagas, ie, elves from the waist up and with snake bodies from the waist down, but they can turn into a normal humanoid elf form, too.


Up there with the elf centaurs with being the least eyebrow raising half-elf half-animal race in the book. If you ignore the elves fucking nagas thing

There's also the fact that... if you ask literally any non-D&D fantasy thing, this is just what naga look like.

Even, or, ok, perhaps especially, porn comics say this (comic is Alfie, by InCase, and I recommend everyone who wants to read a porn comic set in a D&D world read it

Which is actually kind of odd, because so far as I'm aware, the "snakes with human faces" thing is actually a mythologically accurate depiction of nagas, which is cool, but... again, gorgons, gryphons, krakens, harpies.... why does "mythologically accurate depictions" start at the letter S in the monster manual?

Anyway, sthein are kind of like Lovecraftian scholars with some sense of self-preservation. They're really curious, but they don't take unnecessary risks. They also don't like to be rushed, and once they've, finally, made a decision, they're not going to change their mind. Also, because they live for multiple centuries, they're extremely patient.

I actually kind of want to play a character like that, now. "Oh, this door only opens once a decade? ...I mean, we can wait, that's barely any time at all." While all the other characters are struggling to figure out how to make it open *now*.

So, alignment-wise, their "examine an issue from all sides" attitude means that generally, sthein are neutral-something, with only chaotic neutral being particularly rare, and then non-neutral alignments are even more rare. And.. this would mean something to me if alignment-as-written meant anything at fucking all. The way I run games, where Lawful means "everyone should live the same way" and Chaotic means "everyone gets to chose their own way to live (and live with the consequences thereof)"... I'd say that Chaotic Sthein are very common, and CN sthein perhaps the most common.

*There's a discrepancy between the section header and the racial traits. The subheader says they're medium, and the racial traits say large. I'm going to assume the latter is correct, cuz they have big fuck off snake bodies.

Sthein have good strength, dex and con, and better charisma, with no penalties; a 40 ft speed, +1 NA, a 1d8 bite, poison they can use 1hr, can pick three cantrips and one 1st level spell from the Sor/Wiz to use as spell-like abilities once a day each, darkvision, can change into a medium humanoid form at will, elven sleep immunities and +4 vs enchantment, and +who-gives-a-fuck to listen, search and spot. Oh, and craft, all knowledges, profession, spellcraft and use magic are always class skills for them. Their favored class is Sorcerer, and they have a +4 LA. I could see a +2, or making them basically a "2nd level equivalent" race that takes two levels of Sorcerer and gives it the ability bonuses, bite, poison, etc, swapping the spell likes for 2nd level sorcerer casting. Sure, it boosts their magic a bit, and being a Sthein with no levels is expressly better than being a 2nd level sorcerer, but, meh.

Trixie
Gnome/Pixie
Small Humanoid


No.


I said no, damnit.

There's a drag queen with the stage name "Trixie Mattel" that I could use for the third beat of this joke, but fuck drag, and ESPECIALLY fuck high camp drag, cuz y'all cis gay drag queens are literally making shit a whole fuck of a lot harder for us actual trans femmes

Many gnomes live in forests inhabited by fey creatures. Such gnomes are less apt to construct mechanical apparatuses or mine for gems and precious metals, instead spending their days-

Fucking any fae they hit it off with? Sounds cool, I'm down.

-engaged in fine woodworking, brewing and baking.

Oh. Well, ok, go on, book.

Apparently, these half-gnome pixies named like a "Barely Legal" porn star or stripper arise from these forest-dwelling gnomes' yearly ritual of choosing a "Maiden of the Fields" to "spend an entire day and night" with a "Father of the Hunt," chosen by the fae. Usually, one Maiden will do multiple years' rituals, but "a few are blessed with a child after their first time, never to take up the Maiden's mantle"

So, we can now safely assume that whenever this book has said that a race arises from a ritual, they mean ritualized-fuckin'.

The book says that trixies are "more than just crossbreeds" and that they are specifically chosen by Mother Nature. Which must fucking make them goddamned annoying to deal with.

Trixies are basically pixies with some meat on their bones, looking like 2-1/2 foot tall humans with diaphanous wings and antennae-

The art commissions for this book must have been super lax. ...although I now kind of wonder if these were pieces that Ryman had already done, and then GRP bought the rights to. That actually makes a good bit of sense, if GRP was just looking through a portfolio and picking the images that worked for stuff in the book.

But I digress, they look like plumper pixies, they have light complexions (cuz fae can never have dark skin tones! There are totally no black or brown fae! Nope, never! Unless they're literal magical negroes in a White Wolf book, of course), and they have slightly over-sized eyes, giving them a perpetual wide-eyed innocence look. ....I'm really starting to think that the author has a thing for "young-looking" women. They can also take a Diminutive-size form in which they can actually use their wings to fly. Apparently they keep a back up wardrobe in their pocket for this form. Which is both absurd, and kinda funny, but also cements the "this is just your wank bank, isn't it!?" effect. They're "cheerful folk," curious, empathetic, and clever.

Holy shit, the writer is super into young-looking manic pixie dreamgirls, isn't he?. Seriously starting to think about going and grabbing the vodka from the freezer...

They're mostly neutral good, then lawful good, then chaotic good, and "feel the pain of others too easily to be evil or even neutral," I'm presuming they mean true neutral. Again, if alignment as written meant fuck all, I'd maybe care.

They're brought up in loving homes, raised by the whole community because they're super special chosen by nature children, and there's totally no way that this kind of upbringing would put a ton of pressure on a child that actually leads to depression, anxiety, and just a general "just let me be me and do my own shit!" outlook. Apparently because they're curious and caring, they're frequently "involved with adventurers" and make good scouts and rogues, and some make the terrible choice to be multiclass rogue/druids.

They have poor str, really good dex, and good int, wis and cha, they're small, have a base speed of 20', and in Diminutive form a base of 10' but a 40' Good fly speed. Changing size is a full-round action, and none of their gear changes size, and in this form take -6 str and -2 fort, cuz that's how size changing works, totally! And they have low-light vision, their favored class is rogue, and they're +3 LA. No, no they're fucking not. In normal size, all they have going for them is good ability scores, and in diminutive size, they can fly, but lose their equipment unless they carry a special second set of equipment which fucking sucks. I don't think I'd even give them a +1 LA when their big special thing is "I can drop my weapons and armor to fly."

Watcher
Dwarf/Gargoyle
Medium-size Monstrous Humanoid


No, not Uatu.


I've literally never fucking heard of any of this


No. I mean, fuck yeah, Mark Hamill-voiced demon of snark, I'm here for it, and I now demand anyone who plays one of these to ape this character, but no.

Woohoo! A race that is definitely not created by weird sex! Watchers are created when a dwarf dies of old age before finishing a super important task, and for whatever reason can't be resurrected but their soul can be bound to a soulless gargoyle body. And of course, only the most powerful of dwarven clerics can do this, and only rarely, so they don't have to bother to, like, give you rules for doing this. That said, Watchers are fertile, and can reproduce, and their offspring are always watchers. These watcher kids don't inherently have the single-minded focus of their parents, but they're taught it.

They look like dwarves made of granite with wings. They aren't actually stone, they just look and feel like it. They have some Natural Armor, but personally, I'd have just given them DR and said that if they're aren't actual living stone, they might as well be. They're stoic and patient and come off as dour killjoys. So, they're dwarves, with wings that don't let them fly.


Also, fantasy metal singer #48 for this book

Apparently, they love to suffer hardship, both in the form of setbacks, and just generally being uncomfortable, so they can "enjoy defeating (it)." It also says "It has been said that a watcher makes friends so he'll have someone to ignore." Fuck, they're Geralt. Like, seriously, I can totally imagine a watcher and Geralt both standing in the pissing rain when it's -40 out and just trying to out-hardass the other. They either have an over-riding task, or are raised to treat everything as that important, are mostly good, and their tasks usually involve study, violence and danger, so they're commonly adventurers. Most other races don't like them, and that's not really a surprise.

They have really good con, poor int, and good wisdom, are medium size, have a 20 ft landspeed, +2 NA, darkvision, can freeze motionlessly, don't need sleep, need only 1/10th as much food and water as dwarves (and treat each week without as a day if you're actually using starvation or thirst rules), and if they can spread their wings, they get +10 to jump with max distance and half all fall damage. Any favored class and +2 LA. If you took off the int penalty and gave them dwarven cultural traits (stonecunning, combat bonuses, etc), I'd call it +1 LA.

Wendigo
Dwarf/White Wolf
Medium-size Humanoid


Instead of starting this section with a joke, I'm going to start it with a person explaining how the wendigo myth is appropriated and misused in fantasy media. This is from the tumblr of Anishinaa-bae, who is, as the tumblr url implies, Anishinaabe.

Ok, so...

The race called Wendigo in this book is... well, it could be worse, but it's still ....just, really, really goddamned bad. When a dwarf gets lost in the frozen wild so long they "lose any sense of civilization" and join a pack of winter wolves. After they live with the winter wolves for years, killing and eating as they do, eventually they will join in on mating season (we're going to walk right past the question of whether a sapient race, as winter wolves are, would even have a mating season), and a member of this mixture race will result.

These creatures look like wolfy dwarves, they have a wolf-ish dwarf head, they don't have fur, but they have dense pale hair over most of their bodies, they stand hunched over and wear rough leather or cloth garments, "(un)comfortable in anything more carefully tailored."


Savage humanoid? Lemme draw another badass metal singer.--Ryman

They're "harsh and savage, with little interest in the trappings of civilization or the social conventions of humanoids." They literally live like animals, except with the moral agency of humans, they hunt and kill for pleasure, eat raw mean, sleep in trees, etc. And they generally view everything in terms of "the food chain," everything is either predator or prey. "Nearly all" are neutral evil, a few are true neutral, and they're viewed as abominations by both winter wolves and dwarves, and they're basically on their own within a few hours of both, but able to move and kill on their own. They mature at the age of 4, and if they survive past that, die within 80 years. Basically these walking cultural appropriations and erasures of indigenous voices are really good adventurers but would never work in an actual party, unless, maybe, you have a party of just them, or they're ok with the party considering them a particularly vicious pet.

They have very good str, good con and wis, and poor int and cha. They're medium, have a 40ft base speed, a 15' 1d6+(1d6/2 levels beyond first) cone of cold ability usable 1/minute a number of times per day equal to their con mod, darkvision, the cold subtype, +2 Wilderness Lore, and another +2 on checks for getting by in the wild. Their favored class is barbarian (big shock) or rogue (sure), and +2 LA. Give them a couple HD and take the use cap off of the breath weapon, and sure, they can be 2nd level characters.

Mechanically, I'm fine with them, but I'd rewrite the entire fluff, to strip off the culturally appropriative name, and make them work at least a little better in a party.

---

I'm gonna call this post here. That last entry took the wind out of my sails a bit. Maybe I'll finish up the last three races in the chapter later tonight, maybe not, iunno.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Ah.... yes.... I haven't caught up on Alfie in a few chapters. Thank you for that reminder.

[Thaluikhain]

Huh, the last post was 2 days before I joined.

Apparently, these half-gnome pixies named like a "Barely Legal" porn star or stripper arise from these forest-dwelling gnomes' yearly ritual of choosing a "Maiden of the Fields" to "spend an entire day and night" with a "Father of the Hunt," chosen by the fae. Usually, one Maiden will do multiple years' rituals, but "a few are blessed with a child after their first time, never to take up the Maiden's mantle"

Er...do you volunteer to be in the running to be chosen, and can you change your mind?

Also, are gnomes allowed to have relationships outside of this, and what happens to their kids?

Cause that could go from someone's weird sexual fantasy to, yeah, nope, territory pretty easily.

Wendigo

Oh, as soon as I saw the heading, I had a little cringe there.

[hogarth]

Half Ogres are totally a thing in the Dungeons & Dragons universe. They are called Ogrillons, and the other half is Orc.

The half-ogre even pre-dates the AD&D Fiend Folio: Gary Gygax had a write-up for half-ogres (human + ogre) in Dragon #29.

From the same article:

Pixie-storm giant half-breeds would not be impossible . . . . (For those who doubt the last claim, consider a lecherous male pixie equipped with several growth potions and a love philtre. And, when all is said and done, AD&D is fantasy.)

Um.

[Prak]

Huh, the last post was 2 days before I joined.

Apparently, these half-gnome pixies named like a "Barely Legal" porn star or stripper arise from these forest-dwelling gnomes' yearly ritual of choosing a "Maiden of the Fields" to "spend an entire day and night" with a "Father of the Hunt," chosen by the fae. Usually, one Maiden will do multiple years' rituals, but "a few are blessed with a child after their first time, never to take up the Maiden's mantle"

Er...do you volunteer to be in the running to be chosen, and can you change your mind?

Also, are gnomes allowed to have relationships outside of this, and what happens to their kids?

Cause that could go from someone's weird sexual fantasy to, yeah, nope, territory pretty easily.

I mean... I would like to think that an ostensibly "Good" culture would take consent into account. However, tradition and "It's such an honor!" would... also interact. I would imagine that the gnome is probably allowed relationshios outside of the ritual? Because it's hard for me to see a culture with a yearly sex ritual also being super, like, coercively monogamous?

Wendigo

Oh, as soon as I saw the heading, I had a little cringe there.

Yep. As soon as I got to it in the book, I was like "welp, time to put the fun back on the shelf."

Half Ogres are totally a thing in the Dungeons & Dragons universe. They are called Ogrillons, and the other half is Orc.

The half-ogre even pre-dates the AD&D Fiend Folio: Gary Gygax had a write-up for half-ogres (human + ogre) in Dragon #29.

From the same article:

Pixie-storm giant half-breeds would not be impossible . . . . (For those who doubt the last claim, consider a lecherous male pixie equipped with several growth potions and a love philtre. And, when all is said and done, AD&D is fantasy.)

Um.

Honestly, the fact that Gygax said it required a pixie with a penis and some growth potions means this is not nearly as kinky as it could be.

Also I now kind of want to play, like, a human or an elf, whose parents were a pixie and a frost giant.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Also I now kind of want to play, like, a human or an elf, whose parents were a pixie and a frost giant.

A fairly normal looking humanoid with even HALF of a Pixie's SLAs and a giant's stats sounds like it would be great fun, if you didn't get fucked into the ground by level adjustment. Your home life would probably be like a bad sitcom.

[Prak]

Well, like, I'm thinking a human or elf sorcerer or warlock, and your spells or invocations are themed to pixies and frost giants

[hogarth]

Honestly, the fact that Gygax said it required a pixie with a penis and some growth potions means this is not nearly as kinky as it could be.

Don't forget the Cosby-style Spanish Fly.

[OgreBattle]

On D&D enlargement and penises,
A gross image that I find funny is...

Fighter inserts into Troll, gets enlarged by wizard or cleric, the troll regeneration causes a tight sealed fit, troll condom

I guess you could also shrink the troll to fit a medium humanoid

As for elf boinking, long lifespan means that every single half elf in a city country or continent could just be the result of one successful melf adventurer who rolls on the carousing table a lot

[Prak]

I, for one, prefer my fantasy weird sex to be consensual, hogarth.

Ok, let's try to finish out this chapter-

Woodwose
Elf/Treant
Large Monstrous Humanoid

Ok, place your bets- How does elves and treants mix to create a halfbreed? Is it Magic? Weird Elf Sex? A God Did It?

Well, this book posits that treants, dryads, nymphs and elves can freely interbreed with one another. It goes on to say that treants rarely mate with more than one being in their long life times (dunno why that matters... are all elves polya? Like, if so, cool, but say that.) and if they mate with a fae, the resulting child is always a treant. However, if they give an elf some wood, the result is a woodwose.

Because Elves Are Better Than You, Even If You're Fae.

Woodwose are basically 7-ft tall elves made of wood with leafy/mossy hair. The hair is green when they're young, turns red as they reach middle age, then brown, then black. The text explicitly says that while they have no reason to fear the elements, they "do have a nudity taboo."

...Ok. I'm genuinely not sure why you feel you need to mention that, you could just talk about the kinds of clothes they wear, and we'll infer they're not all running around naked. You don't have to explicitly talk about whether each race runs around in the buff in those terms.

They think like ents, no surprise there. Fuck, just once, I want a long-lived race that's completely impetuous and rash, just for the fucking variety. They're all good. Like, literally, it says that all woodwose are good aligned, and most are chaotic.

I'm cutting out most of the disposition, background, adventuring shit, because it's all the goddamned same, and it's boring, and I want to finish this chapter. Woodwose get +4 str and +2 to everything else except dex, no penalties. Nice. We also have ANOTHER goddamned discrepancy, where the section heading says they're large and the racial traits say they're medium. The text describes them as 7-feet tall, so... go with the latter, I guess. They have standard medium base speed, fucking +6 NA, two slams, low-light vision, speak with plants at will, immunity to panic and fear spells and effects, and +fuck off to perception skills. Favored druid or ranger and +5 LA. If you give them two HD, I'd say they work as kind of mediocre 2nd level characters, but in no way do their stats justify a +5 goddamned LA.

Wretch
Hag/Orc
Medium-Size Humanoid

Ok, so... these are another rape baby, but... in an unusual way compared to others. They typically come about when a hag "takes control of a tribe of orcs," either killing their leader or hiring them, and then the orcs vie for her favors. And... That's not a social relationship where the orc can *really* consent. Like... if a fucking hag came up to you, and said "you! pants off, now!" would you feel you could refuse her without being killed, even if you kinda wanted it? Now granted, the cis het dudes who wrote this book would probably not consider this rape, but they're fucking wrong.

I think I honestly kind of have more of a problem with their whole "evil is ugly" shit at the end of the paragraph, saying that "wretches are slovenly, hateful, ugly creatures" and, like... why? Hags have at least a 10 cha, on average, with green hags and sea hags having 14. Orcs have only a -2 cha. So if you just take the orc and hag stats, an orc/annis would have 8 cha, and an orc/(green/sea) hag would have 12. I get that they want hags to be ugly, but... like, that's the same issue. In fact orcs being ugly is the same issue. It's bullshit, because it plays into this thing where us people who don't fit conventional beauty standards start to internalize this shit. Now, would the child of an orc and a hag look like a fucking flawless super model? No. But it'd probably be a good candidate for you standard "Roman Reigns in Cosplay" illustration scheme.

Most wretches are male, and male wretches are sterile. Wretches are emaciated, except for a distended belly, so they look like they're starving, hunchbacked with long thin necks, large pointed ears, yellow fangs, sunken eyes and stringy hair.

Because these are EVIL creatures born of EVIL witchy women and EVIL "least lovely mongol" orcs.


Fuck, even with all this focus on how ugly they are, they forgot to tell James to make the hair stringy.

Oh yeah, and they lack noses and have long claws. Almost all of them are Chaotic Evil, but some can be Good aligned.

Because good races are pure from birth but evil races can be cajoled into social acceptability. (Sorry, I'm a bit testy on this shit today, I guess) Oh, and they misuse the term "anarchy," in case we forgot these are written by a cis het liberal-at-best white dude.

Wretches are raised by orcs, who of course value strength above all, so wretches are bullied and beaten by older orcs.

...except they get +6 goddamned str. So not only are they always stronger than their peers, even if they mature slowly, they're stronger than, like, orcs five years older than them. A baby wretch can kick baby orc ass. These things should be respected from the time they throttle the midwife for slapping their ass. They're also as tough as an orc, and smarter and wiser. The only area they're not as good or better than an orc in is Charisma, where they get a -4. And honestly, when you're rougher looking and uglier than an orc, you should be "scare an orc shitless" "ugly." They also get a standard medium base speed, +3 NA, two claw attacks, and can Bestow Curse once a week as a 7th level cleric, delivered through a claw attack. They favor Wizard and have a +5 LA. ....look, make that bestow curse at least daily, fix their charisma, and we can talk, but I still think that'd be about +3 at most. More like +1, or 2 with some hd, and then say they get their Bestow Curse ability at fifth level, usable Ch Level-4 times per week or something.

Alright, last one!

Wyrd
Elf/Ogre Mage
Large Giant

Fuck, I'm just going to let this big-brain take speak for itself-

Ogre mages show little sign of kinship with ogres. They are more intelligent, resilient, agile, alert, and cunning than their simpler cousins, as well as having stronger personalities and innate magic abilities. Through ogre mages do not often form communities, they have an advanced civilization based on conquest, acquisition, and rulership. (ed- whaaaaa.......?) Scholars postulate that while ogres are somehow akin to orcs an humans, ogre mages are actually distant relatives of elves and dwarves. Though no dwarf/ogre mage crossbreeds are known to exist, the ability of ogre mages and elves to interbreed is well established.

I will repeat.

Whaaaaaa......?

So. Apparently Ogre Mages and Elves are related. First I'm goddamned hearing about it. This is another "maybe rape babies?" crossbreed, but also maybe a drow and an ogre mage arrange to fuck and either one of them gives the other a magic item or something for the kid, or they make sure they make two kids and each get one. Wyrds kind of look like elves cosplayng ogre mages. They're about 8 ft tall, slender, have long pointed ears, a pair of small horns, and dark skin in hues around the color blue (purple, black, actual blue, etc) with red, gunmetal, dark blue or copper hair. They wear fancy clothing and/or magical items. Like, if they have fucking italian loafers and a pair of threadbare sandals of striding and springing, they're not going to throw away the magic item, but they'll probably feel embarrassed about wearing them. They act like anime lancer protagonists. They're "confident" (read arrogant), and will betray those who slight them, even if the slight was pushing them over on the playground forty years ago. Most are neutral, caring more about what's effective than what's moral (at least I can relate there). +4 Str, +0 dex, and +2 to everything else, large size, 30-ft base speed, low light vision and darkvision, +30 jump with no max distance and half fall damage, SR 10+Cha mod, and they can cast as second level sorcerers, which is also their favored class. Supposedly this is worth +6 LA, but, no. Make them equal to 2nd level characters and it's fine.

And that's the chapter. 33 new races, nine of which are the results of elves fucking anything that can talk or cast spells, three more of which *can* be the result of that. Compared to two specifically halfling haflbreeds, three gnome, three human, five dwarf, one orc. The remaining seven can come from multiple base races. I think this is because elves are every fantasy writer's favorite Master Race. I think it's kind of ridiculous, because it really gives this impression of elves just walking around forests with their dicks out trying to fuck anything they can strike up a conversation with. Especially since this book, while it tries to pretend otherwise, is really about weird fantasy sex. Only two explicitly do not (necessarily) come from two things fucking.

I don't, necessarily, hate most of the concepts here. In fact there are some really cool concepts. Hell, even the "wendigo" starts from a cool idea, that's very close to the origin of the Wendigo myth, but it veers hard into "weird fantasy sex."

I'm not even, necessarily down on the whole weird fantasy sex thing. I've written some pretty weird fantasy sex, just... in actual smut fic. I didn't drop it into a D&D sourcebook.

The major issue, I think, is the execution, both in the lore for the various races, and in the stats, which are routinely over-costed and underwhelming. Is a +6 str awesome? Sure. But it's not fucking worth hp, base attack and saves and an actual class feature. I'm thinking about going through and re-writing these when I'm done with the review, but I'm not decided on it yet.

[OgreBattle]

ogre mages are D&D adaption of oni / demons Monkey King encounters yeah? So it seems fair to say they're not related to ogres as they come from another mythological tradition

[Prak]

I mean, I suppose, tho it does still leave the question of them being related to elves.


....unless you're running a game where "elf" means "yokai," I guess?

[RelentlessImp]

Wyrd are my favorite part of this book. It's just such a fucking cool idea, weird fantasy sex and inherent eugenics aside, and I'd kill to play one in a game. Sthein are also a neat idea that I'd love to play at least once.

[Thaluikhain]

They typically come about when

Why does this need to be a thing? It seems an oddly specific thing to be "typical".

Now, sure, maybe it happens that way, but I daresay you can think up a zillion ways a hag and and orc could get together, and that's without having to browse weird websites for inspiration.

[OgreBattle]

I mean, I suppose, tho it does still leave the question of them being related to elves.
....unless you're running a game where "elf" means "yokai," I guess?

D&D Elves have so much lore built up that yeah that sounds weird, but if we take a step back then "prettier than you supernatural humanoid" and "more muscly than you supernatural humanoid" are both things that show up in Asian yokai lore and novels as husband n' wife.

[Prak]

Wyrd are my favorite part of this book. It's just such a fucking cool idea, weird fantasy sex and inherent eugenics aside, and I'd kill to play one in a game. Sthein are also a neat idea that I'd love to play at least once.

Honestly, like I said, I don't hate a lot of the ideas in this book, I just think the execution, from fluff to mechanics, is dumb. The Wyrd are just... well, weird, and I don't think they really fit D&D's standard elf and ogre mage lore, but that's not to say it couldn't work. Hell, off the top of my head, what if Ogre Mages are the result of ogres gaining knowledge in a particular ancient and cyclopean magical tradition. And then Wyrd's are what happen when the famously nosy and magical elven people find out about that tradition and study it themselves?

They typically come about when

Why does this need to be a thing? It seems an oddly specific thing to be "typical".

Now, sure, maybe it happens that way, but I daresay you can think up a zillion ways a hag and and orc could get together, and that's without having to browse weird websites for inspiration.

Ask the book author. Except don't, because the book author is the kind of person who can't fathom an orc and a human being a consenting romantic couple, let alone an orc and a hag. Hell, even sticking to the idea of these being literal crossbreeds, birthed from actual intermingling, my personal take on orc gender*, works quite well, because a magically powerful woman being incredibly forward and saying "you, pants off, now" would be the sexiest thing imaginable to most orcs, and.... that's so basic-level kink, that it's basically "French Vanilla," instead of just "Vanilla."

I mean, I suppose, tho it does still leave the question of them being related to elves.
....unless you're running a game where "elf" means "yokai," I guess?

D&D Elves have so much lore built up that yeah that sounds weird, but if we take a step back then "prettier than you supernatural humanoid" and "more muscly than you supernatural humanoid" are both things that show up in Asian yokai lore and novels as husband n' wife.

Oh, sure. I didn't mean to sound dismissive of a concept like "in this world, elf is basically a synonym for 'yokai,'" and, indeed, Prior to popular fantasy media rewriting the meanings of a lot of supernatural being terms, 'elf' was one of those words that generically meant "supernatural humanoid."

*Orcs are a one-gender race, and that gender is "orc." To be orc-gender is to fight to live and live to fight. An orc does not give nor receive, an orc takes.

[Thaluikhain]

Hell, even sticking to the idea of these being literal crossbreeds, birthed from actual intermingling, my personal take on orc gender*, works quite well, because a magically powerful woman being incredibly forward and saying "you, pants off, now" would be the sexiest thing imaginable to most orcs, and.... that's so basic-level kink, that it's basically "French Vanilla," instead of just "Vanilla."

*Orcs are a one-gender race, and that gender is "orc." To be orc-gender is to fight to live and live to fight. An orc does not give nor receive, an orc takes.

Not sharing your ideas on orc gender, but the same still applies in my thinking. A fierce and terrible monster represents a paragon of orc virtues.

I'm thinking hags should be not unlike at least B-list celebrities and have orc groupies.

[OgreBattle]

If your orks are fungi though it opens up a lot of possibilities with gender

[Prak]

Chapter 3: Making More Crossbreeds

Chapter 3 goes beyond the 30ish weird specific half-breeds they created for this book, giving you templates so you can make your own weird crossbreeds. It talks about how "(s)ome creatures can breed with nearly anything, making the possible number of crossbreeds far too numerous to be handled as standard race descriptions." To it's credit, the book actually does have a pretty generic "a thing got crossed with a humanoid" template, two, actually, one bipedal and one quadrupedal. But there are also some intensely weird templates in here....

Half-Beholder

How do Beholders breed?

No, really, think about it. How the hell does a beholder reproduce? Now, how the hell does it breed with a non-beholder?

Now that I've put that horrible image in your head, I'll tell you what Lords of Madness says, possibly replacing it with an even worse image. Lords of Madness says that Beholders are a aparthogenic race, with a womb at the base of their tongue that produces up to a dozen young once in their lives. Just, like, randomly, within the first 40 years of a beholder's life, their womb will start gestating a litter of up to a dozen beholders, and over the course of the gestation, the womb expands, until the beholder's mouth is forced agape. It will then puke up its own womb, and bite off the trailing viscera, leaving it floating in the air and the young inside to chew their way out, at which point the Beholder will watch, choose the ones it feels look most like it, and then eat the rest, the remaining gore, and then fuck off.

Now, just because this is in an officially published WotC book doesn't mean it's any more legitimate than anything else, and if I had to dictate how beholders reproduced, I'd say that they're monecious and transfer sperm via their tongues, so beholder sex is a really sloppy french kiss-blowjob between two powerful aberrations that violently hate each other. And if you want to crossbreed one, you're sticking genitals near the mouth of one of those things.

B&B, however just shrugs and says "Iunno, dude. Maybe a wizard did it? Maybe they fuck? Who gives a shit, we just have this awesome pic of a hill giant with a beholder for a head"

Half-beholder can be added to any living corporeal creature that isn't an outsider, and the creature's type changes to monstrous humanoid for some reason? Except giants, they stay giants.

Like.... shouldn't they be aberrations?

I digress, they get +6 NA, a bite that has a truly weird damage table, 4-9 eyestalks that mimic the beholder eyestalks except they can't get the disintegrate stalk. It says to randomly determine the rays the creature gets, but reroll duplicates. They're all cast as by a 9th level sorcerer and have a 100 ft range; also all-around vision, darkvision, permanent feather-fall, +4 int, +2 wis and +2 cha, Improved Initiative and Shot on the Run (which is obsolete, I think?). The CR modification depends on how many eyestalks they get, and I'm not even going to bother with the LA.

I mean... it's a fucking bizarre template, but I don't hate it. Though I would have made the sample a half-beholder mind flayer, just because I think that image would be amazing.

Half-Creature (Biped)
So this is one of the generic templates. You pick a humanoid or monstrous humanoid as the base creature, and then an animal, beast, magical beast, or vermin to stick bits from on. We're going to ignore that Beast's not a type anymore, it was when this was written. The resulting creature will be monstrous humanoid.

So, then you "choose a size."

Well, ok, no, you decide whether to use the size of the base creature or the "donor" creature, or in between them. Then look at the racial HD of the two creatures, take the higher, add a die, and make them d8s, use the better of the two landspeeds of the creatures and it gets all other movement modes of the two, it gets the better NA, the natural attacks of both, it gets all the special attacks and qualities, the averaged physical ability scores, base creature's Int, and the higher Charisma+2. It's CR is HD+2 (X: doubt), and it's ECL "should be 2/3 of its total HD, plus 1/2 the base or donor creature's CR (whichever is higher), rounded up."

I can't say that's the stupidest thing I've read today, because I've also been working through FATAL's chargen out of boredom and morbid curiosity. But if not for that... it'd be in the running, damned sure. I'm not sure there's really a way to make this work as far as a general rule for ECL goes, the person running the game is just going to have to eyeball it.

The sample Half-Creature is a "Polar Bugbear," which is completely unnoteworthy beyond the word play.

There's also a Quadruped half-creature template which creates "centaur-like" things, and works mostly the same. The sample creature combines a lizardfolk and a basilisk, which is fucking awesome.

Half-Doppelganger
Sometimes a doppelganger becomes the mask and has a kid while it's pretending to be someone. The kid gets a completely unimpressive 2/day Alter Self supernatural ability, the ability to read others' attitudes with a free action and a Will15 roll, minor buffs to Con, Wis and Cha, Alertness and +4 to Bluff, Diplomacy and Sense Motive. Supposedly this is worth +3 LA, but... no. Make it like a 1 level racial class or something. Like, honestly, the Alternate Form and Empathy could just be a feat, and does anyone really give a shit about the rest?

Half Medusa
What do you get when a dude fucks a gorgon? Well, typically a statue and maybe a baby gorgon. But it could be a gorgon-ish human. Or whatever the dude's race is. Any humanoid or monstrous humanoid, type is monstrous humanoid, they get +1 NA, snake hair with 1d4/2d4 str poison, a Stunning gaze that stuns targets for 1d4 rounds, +2 dex and +2 cha, and Weapon Finesse (Snakes). Again, this could be either a one-level racial class, if you beefed it a bit, or just a feet for the thing people are really here for.

I literally just wrote a standard playable gorgon for Pathfinder, which is fucking better. Cuz I know what I'm doing. Which actually feels a bit mean, but... like... if a creature hits 0 str in D&D, they can't move. Which is functionally pretty goddamned similar to being petrified, especially because they can then walk up and stick a knife in you when you're standing there rock hard, at which point it no longer matters whether you were "petrified" or had your Str dropped to 0.

Half-Rakshasa
Fun note- in D&D, fiend refers to "evil outsiders, or outsiders originating from evil planes."

Rakshasa are outsiders.

You could just use half-fiend.

But, there's a "be half neko-oni" template. Improves speed, +3 NA, gives bite and claw, full spellcasting as a sorcerer of half your level if your Cha is at least 8, alternate form into a humanoid of your size or smaller once per day, darkvision, immunity to poison and Acid, Cold, Fire and Electricity resist 20. You also get +2 to everything except Str and Cha, and +4 Cha.

Challenge Rating: Increase by 25%

sigh


Half-Titan
Fun note- in D&D, celestial refers to "good outsiders, or outsiders originating from good planes."

Titans are outsiders.

You could just use half-celestial.

However, unlike Rakshasa, this template is even more unnecessary, because it literally gives spell-like abilities in the same exact model as half-celestial, albeit different ones. Now, half-celestial gives flight, and half-titan gives +8 NA and increased land speed, and different ability boosts. But... still, this could just be "Half-Celestial (Titan)" with a handful of modifications like this. It wouldn't save space, I don't think, I guess I just want to see the recognition that this is like making a "Half-Solar" template.

---

There's five more templates here, but I'm bored now, so I'll come back to this.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

What's wrong with the way Beholders reproduce?

[Thaluikhain]

Though I would have made the sample a half-beholder mind flayer, just because I think that image would be amazing.

Wouldn't you want to swap the head for a Beholder for your hybrid, and the Mind Flayer's thing is having an octopus head anyway?