[DF] How big are the settlements built by the PC races?

[mburr0003]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

"Civilized" means whatever flavor of "High Men" you have in the campaign as well as Dwarves.

Why do dwarves always have to be "civilized? I like my grubby little barbaric cave dwarves.[/QUOTE]

The "Pastoral Races" - Elves, Gnomes, Halflings and Pixies

There is nothing about these races (except kinda Elves) that say they have to be pastoral. I've had river boating "gyspy" halflings, "big-city" halflings, steppe riding nomadic Mongol halflings...

I've had sprawling megalopolis elves complete with grubby homeless elves despairing in the dystopian alleyways. The cities are in balance with nature, sometimes in woods, on/in mountains, river deltas, plains, etc, bu there is nothing saying the elves cannot have huge sprawling cities, they will simply be less far "dense" and filthy/polluting than races that do not have a drive to protect nature.

Pixies, like elves, just have to maintain a good nature/industrial balance that favors nature over industry, but to can have sprawling megalolopolii. They will always be in at least a normal mana area and there are likely no No Mana Zones in their areas, or if there are they'd be marked as "unsafe". Though those markings may not be immediately obvious or understandable to non-Pixies.

How civilized the "goblin races" are is up to the GM. Orcs might have cities just as large as the largest human cities or dwarven freeholds or they might be savage barbarians with no permanent settlements.

For RAW DF versions of these humanoids...

Gobbos: There is nothing inherent saying gobs cannot have semi-advanced and civilized cities*... somewhere far, far away from where the game is generally taking place. Any settlement or tribal group encounter by PCs in "closeish" proximity to the "civilized lands" will be gerbs that have been browbeaten by orcs and hobs and others, or they may have been founded by groups of escaped slave gebs who are struggling to even survive.

* They are slightly less intelligent than most, bui they're tough and have no problems working in groups. They are just easily dominated by those bigger and meaner than they are.

Hobs should have some level of organization, even if again those encountered close to civilized lands should be barbaric. They are fractious though, so their idea of "civilized" will include ways to violently relieve social tensions. Bar fights, street fights, etc, are likely to be common. If you want a more militarized cast to them, make dueling a formalized and highly (maybe even religiously) ritualized part of their society.

Orcs have even less stopping them from being organized than hobs, orcs will work together, but they very quickly establish pecking orders where the 'bad stuff' all rolls downhill. Being the smallest and weakest does make for a good life in orc society, this is why orcs love to force gobbos to 'work' for them, there is always someone around smaller and more cowardly to push around.

Now, the above is predicated on Social Stigma (Savage) not just being a flavor of "colour-coded-for-our-convenience" racism. If they are only considered "savage" because they tend to be enemy raiders or just happened to already be living on land the king wanted to colonize, then they might all have large cities with some levels of industry.


Lizard Men. Nothing stopping the lizzards from having civilization.... except their preference for hot climates, which tends to make technology a bit more difficult. In my games I add Jungle to their terrain adaption, and they have sprawling empires in the more "undesirable" areas of the world. I fyou want to emphasize the Social Stigma (Monster) and not have it just be racial bias, you can have be slavers and man-eaters, or just have dark elder gods that require lots and lots of non-lizie sacrifices.


Basically, for the Monster and Savage races in The Next Level you have to decide for your games how much of that stigma is earned versus how much is just jingoism.