A pureblood elf that looks like a human is raised by dwarves, learns to fight, befriends goblins, and gets super rich.
That sounds Abserd.
Greetings. I am Lávenæsh Twinkfist Heart3big, the unspeakable from the ironeater clan, but most people call me Larry
[off topic]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule
Back in the day, someone with one Black ancestor and 63 white g’g’grandparents was a slave.
“Blood always tells” - some racist jackass whose own family tree resembles a wreath, who probably suffers from a dozen hereditary afflictions themselves. But no, it’s melanin that’s the real measurement of superiority!
“Resembles a wreath” is a good line, very festive
Realistically, any White American whose family was here before 1800 almost certainly had some slave ancestors. Thomas Jefferson’s slave concubine, Sally Hemmings, was almost .certainly the daughter or granddaughter of Jefferson’s father-in-law. It was a big scandal when one of Sally’s descendants escaped and passed as White.
edited for clarity.
Thomas Jefferson’s slave concubine, Sally Hemmings, was almost certainly the daughter or granddaughter of Jefferson’s legal wife.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I suspect you mean the daughter or granddaughter of his father-in-law?
I’ll edit. Thank you
Carrot Ironfoundersson is the best dwarf, species notwithstanding.
Okay, second best dwarf. Cheery exists.
… Third best due to Cuddy (RIP).
Okay, Discworld in general has the best dwarves. Some are even dwarven!
Discworld Dwarves are my platonic ideal for dwarves. And the exploration of gender? Fuckin killer!
GNU Terry Pratchett
The religious schism in The Fifth Elephant was amazing worldbuilding and made me love them even more.
I also love the line “Tak [Dwarven god] does not require we think of him, only that we think.”
'Sup, fellow Sammie
o7
Reaper Man is definitely in my top five Discworld novels, and isn’t first only due to how amazing his other books are.
I don’t have a list of favorite Discworld novels, that would be too long, I have a list of novels I skip on rereads.
Completely unrelated question. Can a list with nothing in it still be considered a list?
I’ll admit I skip the first few books and start with Mort or Guards, Guards! during a reread depending on which subseries I’m craving. The early books aren’t bad, but they definitely improved as he fleshed out the world more.
The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic especially read more like Douglas Adams in style. Later Douglas Adams, when his cynicism was at its peak and he made his characters miserable in response. The following books are much softer and more philosophical in tone.
Death being straight up antagonistic in the first few books (even killing a random cat when angry IIRC) is the most bothersome part of the early stuff. He’s my favorite character in all of fiction, so seeing him characterized like that doesn’t feel great.
Yeah, funnily enough I felt Pratchett grew more and more frustrated with the world as time went on, just he found a more constructive way to depict it. Characters like Vimes, Moist, and Vetenari are deeply flawed humans who manage to nonetheless be the best they can and to aid the world as they are. Tiffany Aching is who he wants the world to have more of and meant to serve as a role model especially for his daughter, but for all young people, to encourage thinking and caring and to value the hard labor of taking care of those that other’s don’t.
Ohhh, that is such a good Idea. You can even make factions within who oppose those ideas which could create so much tension and possibilities!!
The party has to track down whoever is assassinating a bunch of nobles and burning down their manors. It turns out to be a dragon supremacist who’s upset about the wealthy getting honorary dragon status amongst their kin and decided to cull the soft and weak “infecting their race”.
Bonus points if in their dying moments they declare the party would make great dragons for not forgetting to back up their arrogance with personal might.
Damn it, I might have to write and run this campaign now.
Idea: Trans femme orcish mage who was excluded from their family and started to live with goblins and dwarfs. She kind of lives a happy mage life, studying the arcane until the orcish supremacists want to eradicate all weaker life forms. She has to team up with her group of orcish friends to infiltrate the orc court and help the orc resistance from within, basically being the middle man between Resistorc and DwarfGoblinkind. I’m talking about orcish, because when we lean in the direction that each “race” is socially constructed within the universe than it doesn’t make sense to write “orc” as fixed thing. Anyway turns out Ork Supremacists made a deal with a dragon-faction which gives them power as long as they bring half of the loot to the dragons. A side quest could be that they need to wake up a water dragon who’s just really sleepy and fond of natural beauty. They ofc are then way mad of the destruction the other dragonkind wrought on nature with their greed. Anyway, just some Ideas :3
Oh, supporting a transgender orc could be an entire campaign in itself! I’m of the opinion that transgender issues wouldn’t normally be an issue in a world with permanent polymorph, but for an orc? Even if the tribe had a caster of high enough level, becoming biologically female doesn’t sound great in a traditional orc society (assuming they use their women as baby factories to compensate for their high death rate), and that’s also a culture where not fitting in could have lethal consequences if found out. The orc being a mage adds a fun additional wrinkle if she’s capable of casting it herself but refuses until she gets somewhere safe.
So she’d be putting off the polymorph until after the players help her escape the tribe, while the elders attempt to stop them due to her being one of their few competent mages. Then they have to help her find a place in civilized society that looks down on her for all the things her previous culture praised her for.
I think I fell in love with this character already. Thanks for the inspiration!
