Dungeon Fantasy races in a real world medieval town

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Who gets treated more inhumanely, those that are prettier and better off than you, or those that are uglier and worse off?
History seems to say, "yes.", or "it depends."

Pretty much, yeah. That's in real life.

In myth fay and mortals seem to be spending their time obsessively robbing each other, enslaving each other, and even raping each other. Rather like Cossacks and Tartars.

[Flyndaran]

Assuming fey existed, who would be telling myths of how they came to town hung out at the pub, talked, then left?

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Assuming fey existed, who would be telling myths of how they came to town hung out at the pub, talked, then left?

Witches of course. Who else?

[Phantasm]

An elf, a dwarf, and a cathar with a horse-drawn cart stop at the walls of the town. The guardsmen at the gate look at them oddly. "Where you fellas from, that you're dressed so oddly? And what is that?" the senior guard asks them, indicating the cathar with the latter question.

Do the three visitors say:

A) "We're from up north/down south/away east/away west, and are simply passing through. He/she is a poor soul, a result of a mad alchemist's experiment we've taken in. S/he's helpful standing guard at night when on the road, though, so s/he earns his/her keep. Is there a tavern nearby, or a place to lodge for the night?"

or

B) "We're from another world. I'm an elf, this man's a dwarf, and that there's a cathar. We fell through a magical gate and have no way back. Are there any dungeons in this area to loot?"


The smart party would pick A, which leads to sympathy rather than fear for the clearly non-human cat-folk and fewer questions overall, though they may be asked for news from abroad when they reach the tavern. That said, I know one player - we call him "Putz" when referencing him, as we haven't invited him to a game for several years - who would immediately pick B before the smarter heads prevailed.

[gruundehn]

Are you positing this for a campaign? If so, what matters is your campaign.

Otherwise, is this the first time this town has seen "whatever" or has it happened before? Even if it has happened long ago (grandpa's time) stories would be told and the reaction would be based upon those stories.

Look at how differently humans dressed and acted in Europe; people from Scandinavia dressed and acted if they were massively differently than Italians, for example. And Italians, to a certain extent, were different from each other depending on where in Italy they were from. If the fantasy races could be seen as just another group of foreigners arriving at a trading town then the reaction would be different than a non-trading town.

And, let us remember that the differences between villages, towns and cities were not primarily size, although that was a factor, but markets and walls. A village had no market, a town had a market, and a city was a town with walls. There were variations, but that was the main difference. Some villages had walls, but never a market, if they were in a dangerous region.

[Flyndaran]

I think most of us are actually in agreement. There is so much variation in what realistic human groups would do that everything from abject murderous terror to confused acceptance makes sense.