DF World: Do non-humans have their own countries?

[Greg 1]

In your DF world, do non-humans have their own countries, or do they just hang around in human countries?

[thulben]

I tend to think of Elves as a stand in (or allegory) for Native Americans. That is, noble protectors of nature; they probably live in the forests (and most others understand the forests to be theirs). Orcs I think of like stereotypical Mongolians - tribal and nomadic. As such, they probably don't have a place you can point to and say "they live right here in this city", but there's probably an area where, if you go there, you'll probably encounter one group or another of them after a while. I'm not sure who dwarves were patterned after.

But my point is that early (hell... even contemporary) fantasy tends to paint the humanoid races with a broad stroke and the brush is "existing human cultures".

[robertsconley]

Non-humans have their own countries. The only difference in how I treat them compared to the different ethnic groups in our own history is that the rate of intermarriage is way lower than human norms. This tends to make certain regions to become associated with specific races.

Within each race however there are multiple cultures where things work out pretty much like our history. Again with longer lived races it plays out over a long time span than human norms.

The norm for most culture is that they are independent of each other. Except for what I call the Sylvan cultures. Over the years I been running the Majestic Wilderlands (using GURPS) is that one region I deliberately make more like the D&D default where the demi-humans (elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes) and allied humans are allies that sometimes bickers but otherwise united against the humanoids like orcs and goblins.

I developed this into the idea of the Sylvan culture. Intellectually it is dominated by the Elven conservatism who created this idea of the races united against the darkness. It is the "benevolent" elves who provide wise guidance to the shorter lived races.

For various reason while there is the concept of unity, more or less each race lives in their own area and their an idea of each race having a proper "role".

By and large I always portray it a set of culture that are pleasant to live within. However there are a some dark aspects to it particularly for PCs with more lofty ambitions.

The ironic twist is that it not really the Elves that make it work. It is the halflings who are the master manipulators behind their sunny dispositions and gosh-darn attitudes.

The point of my doing this is to rationalize how traditional DF is setup and use it as a foundation to run the type of adventures and campaigns I am good at.

[chandley]

For me:

Elves clearly have their own countries. The age gap, the brutal Sense of Duty, the fact that Half-Elves have a Social Stigma AND dont get the equipment perk... However, I tend to mix the TYPE of elves in a given country pretty thoroughly. There are mountain elves in forests kingdoms and winged elves in shadow elf caves. Fairies are found co-existing with elves while maintaining their own royalty, policies, and politics. Both groups see nothing unusual about any of this, and it all seems to work for them.

Dwarves (Dwarfs?) too get their own countries, largely based on the gear perk. They stay homogeneous largely because none of the other friendly races care to live underground.

Coleopterans dont so much have countries as autonomous hives. Very homogeneous, other races find them too creepy to really settle down to live in a hive.

The friendly races, Cat-folk, Corpse-Eaters (as criminals or in hiding), Dark Ones, Gargoyles (as pests), Gnomes, Halflings, Half-Elves, Humans, and Minotaurs all live mixed together in countries that are not particularly racially branded. They are not "human" countries with other races as minorities, but each country does have it's own mix. Some of these countries tolerate some of the other cross breeds (Half-orc and Half-Ogre) as well. No one would raise an eyebrow at a gnome king with an adopted cat-folk heir or a republic to have a halfling candidate set against a human. Goblinoids outside of the half-breeds are visitors or second-class citizens at best.

The Goblinoids form their own societies, and some of those rise to the level of country. Most half-orc, half-ogre, and ogre populations are in these countries as well. They dont reach the pinnacles of technology available in the campaign, and tend to be bad neighbors (lots of raiding and brush wars).

The Dragon-blooded have their own countries. Legend has it, these are founded on the bones of other countries, and may contain slaves of other races. Or not, depending.

Lizard Men, Trolls, and Wildmen are benighted savages amassing in large tribal groups at best.

Of my non-official races, Arukun mix with the friendly races, Snake-Men have their own "lost" (mostly just isolationist) civilizations, and hags and treants are Fairy. Centaur and their variants form nomadic groups with a surprisingly high tech level.

[Bruno]

My countries aren't "The human country #4", "Dwarf country #2", they have a pretty diverse mix - although some have a majority of a particular species, which in turn suggests the most populous minority groups.

A country with 60% elves is a good place for the other fey creatures, exalted animals, and wildmen, due to the high incidence of Sense of Duty: Nature. A country with 70% goblinoids is going to be a mishmash of goblinoids, probably with high minority populations of ogres, humans, and worgs (all species that get along reasonably well with goblinoids). The so-called dwarven kingdoms might be ruled by dwarves, but there's a lot of gnomes and humans, and probably small groups of coleopterans.

Humans are everywhere, being the cockroaches of the fantasy world: happy living anywhere almost any of the other races are happy to live, and nearly impossible to get rid of once they show up. In human-dominant areas I think you'd see more halflings, gnomes, dwarves, and goblinoids. Elves might be welcome (they're so pretty) but elves probably won't be happy to stay; goblinoids on the other hand may not be welcome but they're definitely willing to stay regardless.

The two reptilian races seem to prefer different environments so they won't mix with each other much, but there are guarenteed to be elves that like either environment. With Lizardfolk being fairly primitive (typically), they are more likely to get along(ish) with elves and wildmen. At least, they won't be clear-cutting woodland and digging peat for burning, so they won't be at odds in that sense. And of course humans again, because cockroaches.

Dragonmen in desert or mountainous regions will probably be co-existing with coleopterans, humans (of course), and dwarves (the amount of mineral resources under deserts is really staggering).

I have trouble imagining a halfing-dominated country, same with gnomes. I just think someone else would come in and take it from them - probably humans, dwarves, or a pile of goblinoids.

[talonthehand]

I had Goblins develop a bizarre version of a meritocracy based civilization. The goblins would go into neighboring villages and kingdoms and the like and steal babies, and then fully adopt them and raise them as goblins. These were now goblins psychologically even though they were elves or dwarves or whatever physiologically (kinda like Valentine Michael Smith in Stranger in a Strange Land).

This eventually led to the ruler being King Kal-Thuz the Eternal Conquest, an elf-goblin.

[Buzzardo]

Some do. Some don't.

Elves, Dwarves, Catfolk, Wolf-folk, and Orcs all have their own kingdoms. Halflings, Gnomes, Faeries, Goblins, and Ogres have enclaves inside other kingdoms. Lizard folk have territories but aren't organized enough to have something like a kingdom.

(I'm not sure my campaign qualifies as a DF campaign. I make my own races and have lots going on outside of dungeons, including several smaller story arcs with an over-arching story arc. But it is a fantasy campaign with umpteen races, and some do have their own kingdoms.)

Oh, the undead have a kingdom, too. :)

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Bruno

I have trouble imagining a halfing-dominated country, same with gnomes. I just think someone else would come in and take it from them - probably humans, dwarves, or a pile of goblinoids.

I do like the idea, however, that there's a nation with a majority of gnomes and halflings, somewhere, who seem to have an endless succession of rulers of other races who just never seem to make much difference - they come in, declare they're in charge now, the halflings and gnomes smile and nod, start serving them really big dinners and putting on entertaining illusion shows, nodding whenever the new boss delivers some kind of order, and telling them that, oh yes, master, it's being done, just as you say, sir!

Meanwhile, they're quietly getting on with their lives and doing just what they'd be doing otherwise. They basically think of it as a way of hiring some mercenaries to defend the nation, and just skipping the whole step of "mercenaries get too powerful, think they can take over their former masters". Whenever a new boss comes in to try to take over, they just stay out of the way and let the old boss fight it out.

[Humabout]

I generally prefer to treat all nonhumans as supernatural beings, fae, spirits, or the like. As such, they don't necessarily have countries, affiliations, or even reasons to exist where they are found. No one asks why there's an ogre, they just grab pitchforks and torches.

This doesn't mean BBEGs don't occasionally gather up supernatural creatures to their causes. It also doesn't mean some benevolent demigod might not keep a court of supernatural good guys. But nonhumans get a mythological treatment.

Humans do get countries, or at least city-states. Corrupted or mutated humans (supernatual bastard humans, sorcerers turned to goatmen by their demonic dealings, etc.) may form outcast tribes and bands or even establish their own countries.

It's also worth noting that I like my delving with two scoops of Conan/sword and sorcery and not too much Tolkein.

[simply Nathan]

In mine it's less that races have their own countries and more that different nations have different demographics.

Fay Kingdoms have large numbers of pixies and leprechauns because you can feed and shelter so many of them with little resource consumption, a climate-appropriate Elf as the majority human-sized entity, and the odd talking animal or dwarf lumberjack.

Dorf Clans have large amounts of dwarves, but also gnomes, minotaurs, an ogre here and there, beast-folk based on traditional burrowing animals like moles and badgers, and some of the smaller, more sociable types of dragon.

Barbarian Tribes are full of goblins, ogres, trolls, and humans with some of the more comely races as occasional threats.

Ditto Empire of Evil, when that wakes up every 987 years.

The default dungeon delver culture that PCs get for free has beast-folk collectively as the majority, humans more common than any specific species of furry, and half-human hybrid races like half-ogre, half-goblin, half-halfling, etc. as the next most common. Many people have two half-nonhuman templates as well.