Today I’ll go through my approach to creating one of the races found in our upcoming adventure “The Swamp of Souls” and hopefully give you lots of ideas and a structured approach for all you out of control creative types out there.
My approach has actually evolved over years of playing survival games, If you didnt know Im a concept artist on the survival game Icarus, if anyone has played that, so I like to treat my race creation as a survival game loop where we figure out how far they have progressed and how they got there. The Environment is my major factor in a races cultural development.
Now I think the best approach to nearly every task on this planet is to start with broad strokes and then refine, refine, refine…
So the first step is the General Description - what do they look like, whats their general disposition , basically what this species is like if they lived in a vacuum.
For the Heran Folk I said they are a tall, elegant type of bird folk based on a Crane. I decided to stay away from wings as thats a bit of a game breaking mechanic and they always get in the way of a nice design in terms of silhouette i think, especially for a race I wanted to feel thin and stilt like.
Their General disposition matches that of an actual Heron, well, all the Herons Ive met, calm, watchful, possessing an unnerving stillness which can be off putting until you learn their ways and they have taken the measure of you.
Now that you’ve got some broad strokes down, its time to throw your race into an environment. This is where your race can start to vary wildy. Elves surviving underground will develop into a culture much different from one living in a forest. So it almost becomes a subspecies depending on where they live,. Like dark elves and elves.
This process will involve a bit of back and forth as you also develop your environment to accommodate your race, both impacting each other.,
For example I introduced the sawtooth trout as the Herons main source of food, and that developed into a new game mechanic as this fish can swarm like piranha if any bleeding character happens to fall in the water in a certain raft based encounter.
So at the most basic level, how does your race survive in this environment? Food, water, shelter and clothing. Basically what resources do they use in the environment to survive.
My Heran Folk live in the wetlands that surrounds a corrupted swamp. They are simple fisher folk who also gather rice from the patty fields on the edges of the wetlands. Then I’m thinking, how do they fish? Rods, traps? I leaned into the Crane like description and they hunt like the bird, spear or long bow poised as they wait for a trout to swim by, perhaps the fish is seeking bloody bait the Heran folk have laid out. So now they use the spear and bow, they will become skilled fletchers and bowyers, probably using their own feathers as arrow flights.
Water isn’t a problem as a drizzling rainfall is constant and the surrounding mountains slough off fresh water streams.
They have built a fishing village called “Roost” on a high plateau overlooking the wetlands. Their huts are made of thatch and a rice flax weave. So they are also weavers, making baskets, mats and finer fabrics.
The next part of the basic survival layer is what threats do they face and how do they deal with them. My wetlands is a relatively safe zone compared the the swamp, but there are still threats of marauding lizard men. I’ve already established the Heron Folk know how to use a spear and a bow as fishermen, and this becomes a practiced skill taught to all Heran Folk at a young age, so they not only become skilled fishermen, but capable defenders of their village. In fact those with rare skill might be trained even further and that led me to develop the monastery, which ended up becoming the major hub of the adventure - but more on that in a future episode.
Their village is also on a high plateau and can be cut off from invaders with simple drawbridges. The lizard men of the swamp might try pick off a fisherman who has strayed too far but they have found trying to get to the elevated village full of skilled archers and spear men, not to mention a handful of terrifying monks never goes well. So my Heran Folk have managed to carve out a fairly safe little corner of the world. That’s their basic survival sorted.
When we have got our race surviving in their environment, then we go into the next layer. How much are they thriving? If they are barely surviving then maybe this is as far as they have developed. Each day is a struggle and little else is accomplished apart from eating and finding shelter.
But if they have got on top of this then they have time to develop as a small society, and even become a culture.
Here I still like to use the environment to influence things, this just makes the race feel more grounded and a part of the world. So their philosophy for example is based around their stillness as fisherfolk, their weaving of baskets and their keen skills of observation.
I put a thermal stream running through their village and that led to them using the pure mineral water to become brewers of a highly sought after rice wine they call Mootch. I went a step further and had their best barrels of Mootch being rolled into the monastery's mediation chamber and sitting there for decades absorbing the monks Ki energy and taking on almost mythical properties. These rare bottles of “Blue Mootch” were often delivered to the noble houses of Rhulorn and Yore for huge sums of gold, and so my Heran Folk Monks began making their way to the outside world, and in turn, the monastery grew very rich, able to maybe fund adventuring parties if needed.
So now my Heran Folk are also brewers and that in turn leads them to also being glassblowers and barrel makers. They are becoming not just survivalists but craftsmen.
Then we take all of that, everything they do and figure out how it works as a society. How do they make decisions, how do they govern?
Fortunately the village of Roost is quite small so the Elder Circle can govern it as a whole. Bigger societies might need a clear leader or a KIng. With the Heran Folks unique philosophy of welcoming all viewpoints they tackle their daily problems from all angles, voting for a few solution makers based on their personalities. The solution makers then present their proposals and these ideas are voted on at an evening gathering.
Then we go into the last layer - the Flavour. All sorts of tidbits to help the gamesmaster play this race and make them feel unique.
I like to do this in a number of ways, providing naming conventions, the sayings and phrases the race might use, their mannerisms and how they interact with the party.
I figure out their place in the world, in its history and I like to add a few stories or observations from outsiders. Something I think Dungeons and Dragons does well in their player handbook.
I introduce a few key NPCs of that race, that offer layers to the races general disposition, giving them unique quirks and personalities so that we see the race as a wide spectrum rather than everyone being a stereotype.
And I like to include a lot of art to capture slices of life, convey the look and feel of their home. I also like to make basic 3d models of their village to make sure everything fits and works with scale. It also makes life much easier when I want to paint a scene in the village from a tricky angle.
So thats my approach to creating a race. These Heran Folk will be fully fleshed out in the Swamp of Souls adventure, along with their village, Roost, which will basically be the starting hub for the adventurers.
And much like the openminded Heran Folk, whose communal approach to problem solving is underscored by the metaphor, "Flaws in the weave are found by surrounding the basket." i’d love to hear your own approaches to race creation in the comments below - So I can see what you see, and therefore see more.
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