EP 2: CASE STUDY: Create your own unique (but believable) fantasy race

[Music] hey folks it's me Matt today I'm going to be going through my Approach in creating a new race in our upcoming Adventure the swamp of Souls and I'll hopefully give you lots of ideas and a structured approach for you crazy creative types out there but I also want to hear your approaches too so let me know how you approach it down in the comments below and I may steal it my Approach has actually evolved over years of playing survival games if you didn't know I'm a concept artist for Icarus a survival game set in a dangerous alien planet so I like to treat my race creation as a survival game Loop where we figure out how far we have progressed and how we got there the environment is my major factor in a Race's cultural development unless of course the race becomes so Advanced that it can ignore the environmental limitations that it faces and and think there would be no consequences for doing that but what kind of race would be that stupid now I think the best approach for any 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 what's their General disposition what would they be if they lived in a vacuum for the Hein folk I said they are a tall elegant type of bird folk based on a crane I decided to stay away from Wings though as that's a bit of a gamebreaking mechanic and they always tend to get in the way of a nice design in terms of silhouette I think especially for a race that I wanted to feel thin and stilt like and I'm going to leave the more fleshed out descriptions on the screen so you can pause it if you want to have a read as for their General disposition it matches that of a typical Heron well all the herens that I've ever met so they're calm watchful and 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 got the broad Strokes down it's time to throw your race into the environment this is where your race can start to vary wildly our surviving for centuries underground will be quite different than those that survived in the forest so they almost become a subspecies like the Dr versus the elves this process will involve a bit of back and forth as you develop your environment to accommodate your race both impacting each other for example I introduced the s tooth trout as the Heron's main source of food and they swarm like piranha whenever any sort of bleeding character falls into the water and some sort of maybe r-based encounter so don't fall on the water so we go to the most basic level how does your race survive in its environment how does it get food shelter clothing water basically what sort of resources do they use in this environment to survive my Heron folk live in the wetlands that surround a corrupted swamp they are simple Fisher folk who also gather rice from the Patty fields on the edges of the wetlands and so then I'm thinking how do they fish do they use rods traps and I leaned into the crane light description and they hunt like the bird spear or Longbow poised as they wait for the trout to swim by perhaps the fish is seeking bloody bait the heren folk have laid out so now they use the spear and bow and they will become skilled Fletchers and Bowers probably using their own feathers as Arrow flights water won't be a problem is drizzling rainfall is constant and the surrounding mountains slow off freshw 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 sort of threats do they face and how do they deal with them my Wetlands is a relatively safe Zone compared to the swamp but there are still threats of mading lizard men I've already established the Heron folk know how to use a spear and bow as fishermen and this becomes a practice skill taught to all herin folk at a young age so they not only become skilled fishermen but capable Defenders of their Village in fact maybe those with a rare skill might become trained even further and that led me to develop the monastery which ended up becoming a major Hub of this adventure but uh more on that in a few future episode The Village is also on a high plateau and that can be cut off from Invaders with a simple drawbridge system 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 spearmen not to mention a handful of terrifying monks never goes well so my Heron folk have managed to carve out a safe little corner of the world and that's their basic survival sorted when we've got our race surviving in the environment we go to the next layer asking how are they thriving maybe they're not maybe they're barely surviving just getting enough to eat Staying Alive in shelters just spending off threats but if they've got on top of that they might find time to develop into a small Society maybe even a culture here I still like to use the environment to influence things it just makes the race feel more grounded and more part of the world so their Philosophy for example is based around their Stillness as Fisher folk their weaving of baskets and their Keen skills of observation I put a thermal stream running through their Village and that led them to using the pure mineral water to become Brewers of a highly sought after rice W they call mooch I went a step further and I had their best barrels of mooch being rolled into the Mon's meditation chamber and sitting there for decades absorbing the Monk's Key Energy and taking on almost mythical properties these rare bottles of blue Mo were often delivered to the noble houses of rulan and yor for huge sums of gold and so my herin folk monks began making their way to the outside world and in turn the monastery grew very rich able to maybe fund an adventuring party or two so now my heren folk are also Brewers and that leads them to become glass blowers and Barrel makers now they're not just survivalists but they become Craftsmen then we take all of that everything they do and we figure out how they put it all together how they govern themselves how they work as a society fortunately the village of Roost is quite small so an elder Circle can govern most things biggest societies might need a clear leader or King with the hering 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 to the last layer the flavor all sorts of tidbits to help the games master play this race and make them feel unique I like to do this in a number of ways say with naming conventions the phrases and sayings they use the mannerisms and how they interact with the party I also figure out their place in the world their history in it their impact and I like to add a few stories or observations from Outsiders I think D and D player handbook does this very well with their races I also like to introduce a few NPCs from the race that offers layers to the Race's General disposition giving them unique quirks and personalities so that we can see the race as a wide spectrum rather than everyone being a stereotype and of course I like to include a lot of art to capture slices of Life conveying 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 and it also makes life easier when I want to paint a scene in the village from a tricky angle so that's my approach to creating a race the heren folk will be a fully fleshed out race in the adventure swamp of souls as will the starting Village the roost and much like the open-minded Heron folk whose communal approach to problem solving is underscored by the metap for floors 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 and then with a heap of comments we can help out other aspiring World Builders and also help my algorithm so that's the end of De blog 2 thanks for watching I'm going to jump over to a differently dressed Matt I'm hoping from a different timeline and he's going to tell you other ways to follow our progress so over to you different M there's going to be a link below with the pre-launch page if you just want to be notified when the kickstarter is ready to go otherwise we'll keep up this development blog process so follow along with us we've also set up a website to document this development in the form of a Blog so if you want to check out the artwork and notes head on over there link is also in the description below and there's a button there to click to be emailed with our updates thank you for watching and talk soon [Music] bye

Channel: Worldbuilder Matt

Views: 5,106

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Id: FXsSVPDDxmc

Length: 9min 13sec (553 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 03 2024