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comment by user-inactivated
user-inactivated  ·  2827 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The first draft of the player's guide to my new world

Throwing my lot in here as a comment on the races, both as a (+1) to rd's and my own input:

Love that you delved into small details to characterize the whole. I'm with fleshing out the races a bit more (which I'm sure you're intent or at least ideas lead towards). An add-on to the idea of interactions that I thought of with was the idea of religions or expansion of philosophies that characterize the peoples and how that plays out in their relations to each other. I love how rd spoke to

    For example, are there whole blood humans or orcs who resent the half orcs? If so, how does this resentment play out?
My thoughts went in the direction of goblins' attitude for humans. Humans are the creation of goblins, how does that make them feel/interact with humans? What are the power dynamics if any, knowing as well that they have such a short life span brought about by their makers.

Life span is a brilliant factor in race population, view of the world, and so forth, as you had delved into. An interesting look into how race psychology works is comparing them to others in light of their physiological or ideological differences. Again, you've already done it (i.e. dwarves and alcoholism, and goblins not amounting to much) how they play into other races would bring (in my mind) good context as well. What is the goblin relation to orcs or half-orcs?





user-inactivated  ·  2818 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    An add-on to the idea of interactions that I thought of with was the idea of religions or expansion of philosophies that characterize the peoples and how that plays out in their relations to each other.

Yeah, I've been trying to put that off because it (edit : religious thinking ) isn't something I really think about in my own life. I know what the religious tendencies for the various nations probably are, but haven't thought much about how to play off that yet. For the Dwarves and the Elves I have a pretty good idea of how that affects them, but the other nations not so much yet.

    My thoughts went in the direction of goblins' attitude for humans. Humans are the creation of goblins, how does that make them feel/interact with humans? What are the power dynamics if any, knowing as well that they have such a short life span brought about by their makers.

Since I've gone with Goblins being based off of dogs (which I just told rd about), I think Goblins still feel a strong desire to trust humans. They're wary of them because of how most humans treat them, but they super loyal to the onces that are nice to them. The flip side of that is that they revere dogs and are very militant about keeping them from harm. Which leads to a lot of violence with other races.

I don't want to color too much of their relations off of the fact that a human made them, because it was just a human. They hold a grudge with him, but he was so magically advanced that he was pretty distant from the rest of humanity by that point.

    What is the goblin relation to orcs or half-orcs?

Not great. Most of the Orcs and Half-Orcs live in areas where dog sled teams are common, which is a major deal breaker for the goblins.

user-inactivated  ·  2817 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    Yeah, I've been trying to put that off because it (edit : religious thinking ) isn't something I really think about in my own life.

Religion arose as a means to understand the world. It was a defence mechanism for when people had no idea what happened and what were the reasons for it. Sure, tigers ate those humans who came too close - that one was blatantly obvious - but given our innate tendency towards wishful thinking, those of early protoreligions considered that, maybe, if one does something to please the tiger (or, the idea of said tiger, for the tiger itself is intangible while away), it'll stay away, not attack.

Then it snowballed from there. Some people got in power by asserting that they have contact with the spirits/the gods. Some good people tend to serve those in charge by believing into whatever the religion posits as the truth. Different believers felt differently about the truth and broke off with their own interpretations of the teaching (Christian branches). Others got inspired and made teachings of their own (Christianity from Judaism, later Islam from Christianity). As with any sort of thinking, religious outlooks take all shapes and sizes:

- "There is god" or "There are gods" (theism: mono- and poly-)

- "Maybe there is god; we can't be sure" (agnosticism)

- "There is no god" (atheism)

- "There is god, but he/she no longer takes part in the world" (deism)

- "I can be god" (autotheism)

- "Spirits guide the world" (animism)

- "God isn't a reliable moral source" ("God is dead")

- "God is and is good" / "...is not good" / "...is evil" (eutheism / dystheism / misotheism)

...and a lot more. I want to keep going - there are so many interesting belief concepts around the world, barring even those you can constuct yourself - but I'm sure you'll able to navigate the front without me.

It's telling, too, that once science gained traction in Ancient Greece, mythology lost its: people had a new, objectively better means of understanding the world - one that actually grants information.