this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2024
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What's your favorite fantasy monster race? (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 months ago by MisterNeon@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
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I love goblins and lizardmen. Goblins because deranged little dudes running around is always a blast. Lizardmen because alligator people with melee weapons are the way I wish dinosaurs evolved instead of being birds.

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[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 28 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Tieflings. The "alignment" section of the 5e PHB (before they decided describing alignments was racist and removed it) read:

Tieflings might not have an innate tendency toward evil, but many of them end up there.

Which is such a powerful storytelling device. It does what sci-fi and fantasy are so often great at: comment on real-world social issues with a step of indirection that makes the story feel less on the nose. Their internal innate selves are indistinguishable from humans, but because they have horns, a devil's tail, and often reddish skin, people assume they're evil and treat them accordingly.

It's an element that is handled so excellently by Erin M. Evans in her Brimstone Angels series:

A woman stood in the doorway opposite the bench, watching Farideh with a wary eye, no subtlety in her distaste. Farideh shifted uncomfortably.

“You waiting for someone?” the woman said after an interminable time.

“My friend,” Farideh said. “He won’t be long.”

“Buying spices from another devilborn.” She sniffed. “Your kind do like to stick together.”

Farideh’s tail flicked nervously. She pulled it closer to lie along her thigh. “My friend’s human, many thanks.”

“Is he now?” Farideh met the woman’s skeptical gaze. Without the ring of white humans were used to, Farideh’s eyes were unreadable. Emotionless. Inhuman. The shopkeeper could stare as long as she liked and Farideh knew she wouldn’t see anything there, not without practice.

“Do you want me to have him show you?” Farideh said. “Or do you want to say what it is you’re getting at?”

Farideh knew perfectly well what the shopkeeper was getting at: she didn’t belong here. Whatever clientele the shopkeeper was used to dealing with, a seventeen-year-old tiefling trying to rein in the tendrils of shadow that curled and coiled around the edges of her frame was not a part of it

Longer excerpt available on author's blog. (It's book 3 of the series, but no significant spoilers here.)

Of course that's only one small part of the characters, but it's done so well. They're well-rounded full people who, like any real human, have to deal with getting through life (in their case, fantasy action adventures) while other people react to them.

[–] PyroNeurosis@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I believe getting rid of innate alignments was the right choice. The racism might have been why, but the issue I always took with it was the alignments being too broad and ill-defined.

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

In general I don't mind getting rid of alignment. I just think that D&D did a really clumsy job of it. Look at the Pathfinder 2e remaster for a much better way to go about it. Paizo removed alignment in a way that actually improved the flavour and variety of the game.

But with the 5e tieflings in particular, removing that one paragraph from their statblock completely takes out a lot of really evocative ideas. It was also accompanied by the removal of most of the sidebar flavour text for tieflings, which previously read:

Mutual Mistrust

People tend to be suspicious of tieflings, assuming that their infernal heritage has left its mark on their personality and morality, not just their appearance. Shopkeepers keep a close eye on their goods when tieflings enter their stores, the town watch might follow a tiefling around for a while, and demagogues blame tieflings for strange happenings. The reality, though, is that a tiefling’s bloodline doesn’t affect his or her personality to any great degree. Years of dealing with mistrust does leave its mark on most tieflings, and they respond to it in different ways. Some choose to live up to the wicked stereotype, but others are virtuous. Most are simply very aware of how people respond to them. After dealing with this mistrust throughout youth, a tiefling often develops the ability to overcome prejudice through charm or intimidation.

That got cut down to the far more brand-safe but dead boring:

Met With Mistrust

Ignorant people tend to be suspicious of tieflings, assuming that their infernal heritage has left its mark on their personality and morality, not just their appearance. The reality is that a tiefling’s bloodline doesn’t affect their personality. They are gifted with magic from the infernal realms but chart their own course in life.

Because tieflings were my absolute favourite race in D&D (thanks in no small part to Ms Evans' excellent writing), I was really, really disappointed by the changes. Those changes, as well as all the others that came out around the same time (removing whole pages of content that had already been purchased without any recourse), played no small part in my decision to switch over to Pathfinder