Rethinking Fantasy Races - Slaughtering Your Sacred Minotaurs

Rethinking Fantasy Races Part 01 - Elvenpath
Rethinking Fantasy Races Part 02 - Be My Dark Angel
Rethinking Fantasy Races Part 03 - Almost Human
Rethinking Fantasy Races Part 04 - Dark Side of the Womb 
Rethinking Fantasy Races Part 05 - DwarfStar 
Rethinking Fantasy Races Part 06 - It Is Pitch Dark
Rethinking Fantasy Races Part 07 - The Gnome 
Rethinking Fantasy Races Part 08 - Mushroom Dance 
Rethinking Fantasy Races Part 09 - Half Jack 
Rethinking Fantasy Races Part 10 - The Orcish March 
Rethinking Fantasy Races Part 11 - Zombie
Rethinking Fantasy Races Part 12 - Internet Troll 
Rethinking Fantasy Races Part 13 - (Ko)Bold as Love
Rethinking Fantasy Races - Hybrid Theory

Fantasy tabletop roleplaying games have hardly been more popular, and every modern RPG (Pathfinder in particular) owes at least a part of its lineage to Dungeons and Dragons. Not only that, but D&D directly owes its lineage to JRR Tolkien. Its where we get our basic opinion of what an elf should be, what an orc even is, and how many breakfasts a halfling can eat.

And a large part of it is ridiculous.

Elves are a particular problem for me. I have a hard time reconciling the fact that they are two completely separate concepts fused into one, like some sort of racial chimera. On the one hand, elves are woodsy wisefolk, climbing trees and hunting trespassers in their groves. On the other, they're refined geniuses casting arcane magic and lording their superiority over the "lesser races". Not that they realistically couldn't be both. As a group there should logically be as much variation on theme as humans have. In the shorthand of race (fantasy race, mind you) however, boiling them down to a single subset of facets makes life a hell of a lot easier.

Fantasy humans are known for being mercurial, adaptable, and wildly survivable. Dwarves are known for being gruff traditionalists with a penchant for smithing and stonework. Orcs are, perhaps unfairly, known for being aggressive barbarians bent on raiding whatever is nearby. Gnomes are quirky, halflings are shifty, goblins are fecund, and kobolds are weak.

Why then, are elves multiple archetypes? When every other common race can be summed up in just a few words, elves require more effort because of how broad their racial concept is.

Look, I get it. Modern elves were born out of Tolkien's elves and Tolkien's elves were his babies. Hells, the man wrote the books he wrote not because he wanted to tell a good story, but because he wanted people to know more about his elves. I can't abide something existing because "it's always been that way". I just don't like it.

And there, friends, is a major crux of this project. "I don't like it". Not that it's wrong. Not that you're wrong if you do like it. I am but a man with an opinion, as so many before me, and I deem a thing unpalatable to my tastes. Therefore, I shall put forth an effort to rectify the perceived shortcoming. Some of what I change may very well be "wrong". I look forward to some constructive discussion about what does and doesn't work. And, this being the internet, to reading swathes of vitriolic insults. Fun times.

I've been harping on elves, but I have problems with a lot of the other races as well. Elves are just the big easy example. We'll touch on other races as we go along. So join me, won't you, on a quest through the (admittedly flawed) race builder that will surely provide a little loot and experience. I'm going to try to hit 15 race points for each of these reworks. A bit more powerful than the core races as standard, but about as powerful as aasimars are.