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Phoenix_Dragon · 05-28-2009, 09:45 PM

Bugs are good, yeah. Typically, Insect Men seem to be portrayed as ants, both in appearance and "society," although with a hive mind. I like to mix things up when I can, though, so the ones in my campaigns are more beetle-like, with a social structure more like bees than anything else. They have no hive-mind, but they have various castes, and some of them are incredibly simple-minded. The smarter castes generally consider the other species to be rather disorganized, poorly-structured, and chaotic in their social structures (And why do you give your menial laborers free will and no bred-in sense of selflessness? Then you wonder why you're facing yet another revolt...).

I also stole the name Coleopteran from DF, just because it both sounds cool and exotic enough to fit them, but it also seems like a much better name than just "Insect Men" (Even if that's what most people still refer to them as, for simplicity).

As for others... Even in the very D&D-style fantasy settings (Like my Kaldrum world), I like to both mix up the species a bit, so they're not quite the stereotypes (Mainly, this involves fleshing out the "monster" species, such as gnolls, to be less slavering-mindless-evil-monsters and more of actual beings with some more depth to them), as well as adding in some new ones. And quite often removing some, as well, for various reasons (Ranging from "I don't like them" to "there's no room for them" to "they got killed off!").

05-28-2009, 09:45 PM	#37
Phoenix_Dragon Join Date: Apr 2005	Re: fantasy races Bugs are good, yeah. Typically, Insect Men seem to be portrayed as ants, both in appearance and "society," although with a hive mind. I like to mix things up when I can, though, so the ones in my campaigns are more beetle-like, with a social structure more like bees than anything else. They have no hive-mind, but they have various castes, and some of them are incredibly simple-minded. The smarter castes generally consider the other species to be rather disorganized, poorly-structured, and chaotic in their social structures (And why do you give your menial laborers free will and no bred-in sense of selflessness? Then you wonder why you're facing yet another revolt...). I also stole the name Coleopteran from DF, just because it both sounds cool and exotic enough to fit them, but it also seems like a much better name than just "Insect Men" (Even if that's what most people still refer to them as, for simplicity). As for others... Even in the very D&D-style fantasy settings (Like my Kaldrum world), I like to both mix up the species a bit, so they're not quite the stereotypes (Mainly, this involves fleshing out the "monster" species, such as gnolls, to be less slavering-mindless-evil-monsters and more of actual beings with some more depth to them), as well as adding in some new ones. And quite often removing some, as well, for various reasons (Ranging from "I don't like them" to "there's no room for them" to "they got killed off!").