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Originally Posted by LoneWolf23k
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A lot of interesting stuff here.
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-Yrth is a bit more cosmopolitan in terms of sapient species. While humanity is still dominant, there are many other races on Ytarria and on surrounding lands. Generally speaking, while there is still a line seperating "Peoples" from "Monsters", there are a lot of subversions of this rule, from "Beastiary" slums for nonhumans to isolated "monster towns" out in the wilderness.
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I think I could do more with the idea of non-human communities on the fringes. There are hidden cultures in my Yrth (I took the ghouls from FANTASY FOLK and treated them in a sympathetic way) but there should be at least some villages of giants and others. Not all the non-humans should be pushed to the edges by human expansion.
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Their origins are a complete mystery, although evidence of their existence was first discovered in the 1500s when Michaelite Inquisitors discovered Hider Doppelgangers amongst the heretics they had brought in for interrogation. This later led them to discover Hunter Doppelgangers hiding in the streets of Megalan cities. As the Hiders at least make a good show of acting like good, law-abiding christians, the Michaelites don't actually have a policy of persecuting them for the most part. Similarly, Hiders in muslim lands behave as good, faithful muslims, and tend not to attract attention to themselves. Hunter Doppelgangers, on the other hand, are considered monsterous beasts to be hunted down and killed. As it is often difficult to tell the difference between Hider and Hunter Doppelgangers, this has led to some unfortunate incidents in the past.
It should be noted that the Ministry of Serendipity is aware that the Hiders are afraid of something chasing after them, and are themselves quite concerned about what that "something" might be, and whether it may threaten the Empire itself.
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I suspect Dopplegangers could be replaced (hah!) by an infiltrating mind controlling alien species. (I know there's one in 3rd Ed ALIENS.) And that would give me, now I think of it, a good reason for the governments of Yrth to tolerate the existence of the secret communities of psis I introduced to my version. Not only are they very useful as spies they can sense and lead the defence against this sort of infiltrator. (In my Yrth the Mages do their best to depict the psis as 'witches' being both afraid of the things mind control can do and of the competition for the favour of the people with money.)
Kitsunes, selkies, jaguar warriors... tick, tick, tick.
Dragons! Ah, now we're talking! I've never made them common enough (on Ytarria at least) to have people say 'oh cha! Just another firedrake!' I've taken license from the Black Dragon of Tredroy (and the Black Dragon who is the symbol of Megalos) to have various dragons with differing breath weapons appear: it makes it easier to differentiate between them. The Blue Dragon of Ware (who may have originated in an official publication: I can't recall now) was an ice dragon and a major adversary. (The Grey Dragon, her mother, breathed a paralysis gas and appeared in my YRTH 1100 game.)
That's on Ytarria. On the other continent (the one that is Eurasia and Africa to Ytarria's North America) I have dragons as the dominant species. Their culture is something I should probably write up at some point. A race of greedy, immensely powerful, quarrelsome aesthetes and artists. Their marital law is especially interesting and often resorted to. "I thought I loved them but they dissed my collection!" is a very common reason for divorce.
The dragons on Ytarria all seem to have learned shapeshifting magic to mingle among the lesser species.
Yes! The Lung should be treated as a separate species. And tied into the spirit magic.
Dungeon XXIII! Oh yes!
I won't comment on your deep conspiracy background except to note that every Yrth needs one. Or several. Amongst mine are:
Who Is Really Behind the MoS and others.
Who Really Created The Orcs.
What was going on before the Dragons arrived and who they fought the ancient wars against.
I would note that I thought Yrth had enough native conspiracies without introducing the Cabal. The Cabal would probably regard Yrth as a bit of a trap being easy to get into but hard to get out of. On the other hand
somebody has access to a way off the timeline and loaned it to the ISWAT team. Probably for a high price mind.
Multiplanar Banestorms are a bit much even for me, though I did send my PCs to Atlantis on the Pearl-Bright Ocean as part of the campaign called THE SEVEN VOYAGES OF SIR ALISANDE DE LACEY, KNIGHT OF THE STONE.
And part of Sir Alisande's saga involved the Jesuits co-operating with the Dark Elves to produce the Targeted Banestorm spell. Which caused a Banestorm to form around a named person. It was excellent for getting rid of irritating people and had only a mild tendency to wear holes in the structure of reality.
The stuff on ethnic groups on Yrth is very good. There should also be odd groups of mixed origin from collisions between cultures.