CLASS AS RACE II: Rangers, Druids and Clerics

 Part of a series on worldbuilding making whole races inspired directly by a class, each one having their own tactics to survive in a harsh world. In this entry we cover tribes which live a step further into the wilds.

3. RANGERS

When you play an elf, you get the ranger class, be it the ones from 5E, the playbook from Dungeon World, your homebrew or any else: adapt to it. These kind of elves are plant-based, and take elements from greek dryads and japanese kodama: just as Adventure Time huntress wizard, they have leaves for hair and their skin can be green and smooth like a stem or barky like a trunk when elves are older (or have leveled up enough).

Elves are greatly autosufficient in their forests and do not need for much outside them: they have a marked biorrhythm in which they are born, they form a family and they teach their kids to protect their sacred groves. Then they slowly become treants and then, one day they "die" and become sacred trees themselves. Normal trees are fond to grow around them, and this way the forest expands. As talk with trees is sometimes a ranger spell (when rangers are allowed spells), this means that elves can usually speak with their deceased elders providing they are still "awake" (When they cannot, they make use of druids: see below). Then the younglings protect their elder's slumber until their spirit finds some eternal rest or who knows when, and the cycle goes on.

from Stevesketches (twitter)

Until that moment, elves live according to their natural principles which consist in hunting and studying the Tao. All the things that Taoism and meditation suggest you are true for elves: they meditate, cultivate their spirits and try to flow with the path as much as they can. If you ever heard the thing about zen arrows, this is the secret of why they are so good shooters and fighters in general. They are contempt to live this way and to assume their place in the food chain. Sometimes young elves hire themselves as bodyguards or even assasins, which suits them perfectly.

4. DRUIDS

When forest people is in need of some religious or magical services, they recur to the Nymphs (Nixes, undines, sirens, etc). These aquatic ladies have magical powers and level up as druids (so depending in the rules you use, probably have a second shape and a good gang of animals to scout for them). They speak with trees when elves need to communicate with their elders; but they charge prices for that.

Nymphs are extremelly covetous and hoard treasure in their aquatic lairs. This treasure might be from gold to the most weird things: Corpses, weapons, mundane tools... etc. As people that don't like to abandon their rivers, lakes and shores, all signs of civilization hold some capacity of wonder. However, for the sake of making them playable, they can spend time outside of water providing they take baths in fresh water from time to time (its their equivalent of a long rest). 

It is mandatory for a good setting with Nymphs to have them play music, and if allowed by your version of class spells, they will try to charm listeners in order to find lovers or slaves. If Rangers and Druids are too similar in the rules you are using, you can always make Nymphs the Illusionist instead.

Level 1 nymphs are usually the males, which have not much magic and, because of that, are more prone to physical combat (AKA their role is cannon fodder for combat encounters). 

Level 6+ nymphs are renowned priestesses that offer spiritual services to all forest dwellers and are greatly respected. Which in that aspect makes them very similar, but not the same as our next guest class.

5. CLERICS

If you want to play a cleric, that is OK, but you have to be this:

That is a kirin, or quilin, a sort of chinese unicorn with divine power. They are not common, but really rare, as Gandalf's kin in LOTR. And as the istari, once they have leveled up a little they are gamechangers to any faction they decide to help. Luckily for you, you can assume human form! It would be hard to roleplay otherwise. In fact, you might have lost the ability to become a horse as part of the natural clerical training and might have to grind a little until you recover it.

Other races might have clerics in the sense that they have their priests and priestesses who carry their ritual endeavors, banish evil and maybe healing some diseases; but kirins are the only ones that progress beyond level 1. In fact, if another cleric does, it will be revealed that he has kirin blood or something, or be granted kirinhood. This manifests by assuming the shape in dreams first. It is the sign to continue developing your devotion (towards level 2 and beyond my friend).

I'm sure that a place in which all Kirins have a "village" of their own exists, which is probably designed for horses more than for people, but maybe its set in a mystic valley so otherwordly that it is in fact other plane of existance. Who knows. Its probably very extense as they love to run from one place to the other. But I do guess that is probably safe from monsters due to high level clerical spells: Blessing the perimeter regularly, a river used as a moat which they cross using Water Walk, or a forest filled with sticks that can turn to snakes if orc invaders set their foot on it.

This bitch is supposed to appear in naruto? I dont remember. I just googled "kirin human form"

Kirin that decide to develop their natural powers are blessed after a long career with powerful magics as reincarnation, raise dead, etc. Whatever your cleric rules allow to. But please no more stupid medieval monks with superpowers.

Part 3 soon. 

Class As Race part I: Fighters and Thieves.

There are some different approaches that one can take about fantasy races in settings or in games. They work great in books and movies where they play NPCs, incarnating all the mythic archetypes the hero has to meet across its tale. But in the way of making them playable, it is easy to end up turning them into humans of a slightly different size, color or accent. 

In many works of fiction, non-humans have classically assigned a "kingdom" on the map, and they build civilizations with their equivalent of towns, pyramids, inns or schools (Sometimes, like in Warcraft 2, the settlements are mirrored 1:1). This can be cool, but to contrast, all the folk tales commonly use dwarves, goblins, elves, etc as inhabitors of the mythical forest, representing the uncivilized peoples that lurk beyond the rational, civilized domains of man.

You got to find a middle point if you want to use them as playable races in a game, though. You want ideally to feel "different", but you cannot use something entirelly alien because, you know, somebody human actually has to interpret that guy.

Anyhow, I've been thinking about a setting without humans, but by trying to add to every race a different facet of mankind and keeping them as much as possible into that niche. I've had fun imagining how does each of the races organize themselves and which place they hold in the world. Also, each class is meant to advance mechanically as though if all their members had the same specific class, making them, as the title says, class as race. Let's start!

1. FIGHTERS

Trow are the feudal, warrior race. They live into mountain halls and stone fortresses to protect themselves from the terrible surface monsters, and in there they form monarchies who rule over a certain land. They replace dwarves in that aspect, but instead of hairy midgets they are a little taller and elegant as if they were drawn by Leiji Matsumoto. 

When you play a Trow, you level up as a fighter (doesn't matter which rules you use, if your game uses classes, pick the fighter sheet). The king in your fortress is also probably a high level fighter.

Following the inspiring entry about backloading complexity at Necropraxis, all PCs start as young Trow Knights, and further PCs will be taken from the hireling pool, so, to play a new race you must get them as a hireling first.

Trow Castles have a retinue of knights that are in charge of dealing with important tasks: They are a mix of arthurian knights, samurais, the MI6 and Final Fantasy 8 seeds (meaning that I can go there for inspiration on how to run them). They go into dungeons and wildernesses in the search of treasures, gold and all kind of weirdnesses. Who knows what can be traded to those gnome alchemists for their potions!

Noble houses store some potions as part of their patrimony. That potions are basically one-use spells and is the only access to magic for new characters, so if you get one as starting equipment, cherish it like if it was Q giving James Bond a gadget. In-game, the ingredient and potion economy might be also vital to the fortress itself.

I imagine them behaving and looking a lot like Korean nobles of the Joseon era, with that studded armors and wide brim hats (I've just watched the show Kingdom, is very very good)

They represent the way humans have organized themselves in complex hierarchies, and also the "honorable knight" facet that is many times exclusive of humans in many rpgs (humans are white in magic the gathering). 

2. THIEVES 

When you play a Hobbit, you level up as a Thief. They have a knack for hiding after all: because they are level 1 thieves. Those low level hobbits are not regarded as thieves by other people, of course. That is just some meta-knowledge. On the other hand, there is probably a legendary rogue out there that has lots of incredible adventurers and has performed legendary heists; and that is just a high level hobbit.

They are weak fighters, so, to protect themselves from orcs and other menaces, they normally live in a relationship of vassalage with trow lords. They live on villages and tend the lord's fields in exchange of protection, or maybe perform as squires or assistans: They are the first hirelings that will be available to PCs, be it as servants, or as freelance hobbits searching themselves for treasure. 

I imagine this little fuckers being good navigators and swimmers, riding oxen for transport in the summer, celebrating their holidays around the harvest seasons and staying comfy at home in winter nights. They are the rural peoples in oposition to the court peoples, and neither trow or hobbits cross their respective lines on a meaningful manner.

Even though most hobbits OK with their symbiotic relationship, they are potentially tough and adventurous people and they are who posess the mankind's ability to expand and conquer all biomes. No matter the terrain or the distance, it is always possible to find a hobbit cabin or outpost somewhere. They have that unique drive to expand and go further. Their key concept is adaptation. They develop symbiosis with trow, but maybe they could adapt to other lords, situations or dangers.

For their role of domestic helpers, I'm tempted to call them Kobolds instead.

And now, a note on goblins: They also fit the same thieve role as hobbits. In fact I cannot think of another fitting class for them. So I've thought that, though you can use them if you want, it makes more sense that, whenever an adventure calls for goblins, you substitute them for evil hobbits: bandits who turn their natural skill to find profit, and that may even form clandestine Thief Guilds. 

this episode is a good place to get inspiration for one

It makes much more sense that a single race is capable of both law and chaos; than to have an "always good" race and an "always evil" race. The best is that Tolkien also thought about that by showing us that Gollum, in the end, was just a hobbit turned evil; and his goblins are in the end just another name for orcs (which will be covered later as Barbarians)

These two are the starting point, the most human-like maybe, in the sense that they both belong to the most "civilized" states of the world. Beyond here, peoples get more wild, gregarious, strange and crazy. 

Stay tuned for part 2