[Sword&Sorcery] Racial Selection

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

You could also do the serpent people as the fallen empire - they appear in the Cthulu mythos but I think they're from someone other than Lovecraft ... ...

Howard probably. Though perhaps not directly in his Mythos material.

The model for Ken Hite's reptoids were hiding among humans in Kull's time. They may have been extinct by Conan's.

[Phantasm]

For the bird-men, why have them "men" at all? Giant eagles, considered non-sapient by humans and reptile-men alike, unable to learn to speak human or lizard languages due to their beak, roosting in the mountains with their own divergent-tech society.

One thing I do with my own setting's lizard-men is I made them carnivorous stone age hunters with a belief that "civilization" is "living apart from nature", actively rejecting the trappings of civilization beyond the minimum needed to survive (shelter and cooking).

Otherwise, I think you've got the makings of a good world.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

For the bird-men, why have them "men" at all? Giant eagles, considered non-sapient by humans and reptile-men alike, .

Why make them birds? Pterodactyl men would be scarier and possibly more in genre. Burroughs' Pellucidar series isn't quite S&S but it's from the same period and it had the Mahars who were pterodactyl-like.

Generally speaking dinosaurians were more in the pulp era than medieval fantasy dragons and their relatives.

This may be related to why you have ape-men instead of orcs.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by Anders

I may not be temperamentally suited to S&S, as I love world-building

Why do you assume that the sword and sorcery genre can't support an intricate setting?

[Anders]

It's just not the common assumption. Yes, it can. I mean, Conan has a fair amount of worldbuilding - it clearly takes place in one universe. But I don't think it's ever a priority of the genre.

[sjard]

Originally Posted by Anders

I also consider making the "Fish"men modelled on Giant Isopods, because that is sheer nightmare fuel to me.

So something like the Makrura from World of Warcraft perhaps?

[Anders]

Something like that with more legs.

I think it's the many legs. *shudder*

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by Anders

I don't think it's ever a priority of the genre.

I don't think it's a priority of any genre; it's a tool for verisimilitude and sophistication. You can't tell stories in a vacuum.

[Anders]

It was an offhand comment, not meant to be taken entirely seriously.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

I don't think it's a priority of any genre; it's a tool for verisimilitude and sophistication. You can't tell stories in a vacuum.

It's a necessity for some genres, particularly the forms of science fiction focused on the social sciences and human relationships. From what I've seen, it's also important in the more exotic Romance genres - if you're focusing very heavily on social interaction in a foreign or fictional society, you have to clearly show the rules and assumptions of that society for anything to make sense.

But that's a side point.