Periodic Table of Dragons/RaceDescriptions

Periodic Table of Dragons articles
The Table of Elements Rules and the World - Races - Bestiary - Stories

Descriptions of the civilized (player?) races.

Humans

• Widely distributed across the worlds, found in all regions. Mostly group together into village or city communities.

Elves

• Divided into two subgroups: Forest Elves and Stone Elves.
  • Forest Elves are, on the whole, your typical elves. They're long-lived, prefer to make their communities in forests, and can tend to be full of themselves. They revere nature, have a natural inclination to magic, yada yada yada, you know how they are. Standard fantasy elves, more or less. The large majority of the setting's elves are of this sort.
  • Stone Elves are similar to normal elves, but have branched off from their fellows. The Wilds are harsh and unforgiving, and some forests even moreso. In some forest regions, even the elves have been unable to break the Wilds and make a secure community. In areas like this, if there are old dwarven settlements nearby, some elves have been known to take refuge in the carved mountain fortresses and underground complexes of the dwarves. These elves are referred to as Stone Elves, and have more dampened and subdued personalities than their forest-living cousins, tending to be less prideful and arrogant but otherwise still elven. 2nd and 3rd generation Stone Elves, who have never lived in the forest, are even more down-to-earth and industrious, taking such traits from their hardy dwarven "kin". Stone Elves make up a very small minority of elven kind, and are sometimes seen as lesser by the Forest Elves.

Dwarves

Like the Elves, Dwarves are divided into two main groups, the Land Dwarves who are your generic fantasy dwarves, and Sea Dwarves.

• Most dwarves make their living in great halls of stone with largely self-sustaining communities. Having to depend on others is seen as a great weakness by dwarves, but at the same time, they place a strong value on dependable allies and trusted friends. With an innate connection to the earth they surround themselves with, dwarves tend to be great metal-smiths and stonework artisans. They also have be better understanding of Metallic and Crystalline dragons than most other races.
• Almost all dwarven communities have a king or queen, but whether that monarch actually rules with authority or is only a respected symbol of the collective varies from one community to the next.
• In recent (by dwarven standards) times, poisonous gas from Radon dragons under the granite where they carved their halls seeped into several of their settlements, and few were able to remain behind, though some are determined to reclaim their ancestral halls. These stubborn remnants took in the displaced Stone Elves, and together they are working to clear the tunnels.
• When Radon dragons filled the City Under the Mountain with choking gas, it drove the majority of survivors into a world already taken by other races. They had to go to the only available area, the sea. These dwarves built strange ships of metal that move without aid from oarsmen or the wind. They have also created large platforms out on the oceans, which draw up valuable materials and fuel from the sea floor through means that the other races have yet to uncover.
• They dredge the bottom of the sea for metals from within strange machines that they call Underships (submarines), bringing up metals once thought to only occur in dragons' scales.
• They rely heavily on farming the seas for food, and have some of the most refined recipes for seafood anywhere.

See Radon Dragons entry for more details.

Halflings

• The jungle race of the setting? There was a little bit of discussion to that effect in the thread, and their small frames would have an easier time moving around in a dense jungle that the bigger races, right?

Kobolds

• Kobold communities live almost exclusively underground, though individual exceptions are common enough. From the surface, the only visible structure even indicating a kobold dwelling below might be a small hut with a pit leading down in the center, and other kobold communities are built in natural caves, making them even harder to notice. Because of this, only major kobold settlements are commonly known among the other races.
• Many kobold communities have contact with one or more Cobalt dragons in the area. See the entry on Cobalt dragons for more detail.
• Kobolds love making stuff. While they can't match the dwarves for sheer skill when it comes to metal-working, kobolds produce a wider variety of goods. In particular, kobolds make lovely art. Because they are also less obsessed with being self-sufficient than dwarves, kobolds have a thriving trade economy, both amongst themselves and with the other races.

Orcs

• "YA WAN ARGUE 'BOUT SOME PHILOSOPHY, BOI? LEMME GET MY THUMPIN' STICK AND THEN WE'LL BEAT SOME DEONTOLOGICAL ETHICS INTO YER SKULL!"
• Orcs are nomadic philosophers. Tribes are less familial organizations and more collections of like-minded orcs united under one shared school of philosophy. Philosophical debates between orcs are a strange combination of elegant refutations and counterpoints with skull-bashing and fisticuffs. To many outsiders, it may seem like just a violent scuffle with a lot of screaming, but to orcs, it's about the only thing everyone can agree is important and worthwhile, a respectable institution where you show the superiority of your argumentative skills and muscles.
• In most ways aside from what is described above, orcs are still similar to the standard fantasy norm for them.Big and tough. If you're going to survive wandering around in the Wilds, you have to be.

Lophorans

• A desert race of plant people that are quiet, calm, and slow to act for most of the year. During the time of the brief desert rainy season, they become extremely festive and social, celebrating the rainfall as a sign of the favor of the spirits. The fruit they grow from the rain is also seen as a gift from the spirits, as the fruit holds the seeds of the next generation. The skin is used to dye striking ponchos to dance about in, and the flesh can be developed into a psychoactive drug which they use to commune with the spirits.
• During the few weeks that the Lophora party it up, some of the drugs are used recreationally. During the rest of the year, the drugs are used whenever an important matter of individual or communal significance is worth seeking the spirits' opinions on. However, in order to make sure supplies last through the year, the drugs are used sparingly.
• Owing to their green, grey and tan skin, rough and bumpy texture, and the fact that they don't normally wear clothes (the festive ponchos are the exception: clothing otherwise interferes with photosynthesis), lone Lophorans laying in the sand to meditate on an important matter are often mistaken for large rocks.
• They live in distinctly recognizable communities with a small number of pueblo houses surrounding a central area. During the cold desert nights, the Lophora gather together inside the buildings and (very cautiously) light a small fire to keep warm. During the day, the sit around outside to take in the sunlight while quietly discussing intellectual and philosophical matters. Young Lophorans, which are rooted to the ground and immobile for the first few years of their life, are planted in the central area, which enclose small gardens that are communally maintained and certainly a strange sight in a desert.
• They will gladly trade for brightly colored beads, cloth of unusual colors and anything else they can use to make festival clothes and jewelery, they cannot work glass or metal themselves and certain dye colors such as blue and white are beyond their ability to make.
• You might call them "Peyoteople", but that would be highly insensitive.

Unnamed Arctic Race

• Caribou people or blubbery saber-tooth bears. Still trying to decide.