Monday, August 5, 2019

Mongrelfolk and chaotic planetouched

The mongrelmen were introduced in early editions of D&D. Their backstory was that they were the result of extreme interspecies miscegenation. In later editions their name and backstory was changed for the sake of political correctness. They were renamed mongrelfolk (not an improvement) and their backstory changed to them being the result of fusion experiments by a mad wizard (not original). They now inherited the genetics of creatures they ate a la kroot in Warhammer 40,000.

The Tome of Horrors recycled their old miscegenation origins and this was reprinted by Pathfinder through the OGL. Aside from that, homebrew typically devise new non-miscegenation origins. The Daily Bestiary mentions that mongrelfolk could easily fit any backstory the GM desires.

For the most part, mongrelfolk look like bizarre patchworks of body parts from other humanoid species. Reptilian, insectoid, piscine, mammalian, avian, etc. In 3e they briefly changed to looking like a generic demikind race that could pass for members of the demikind races, but this was never used again. Personally, I like the idea that mongrelfolk could exist on a continuum between both extremes, maybe with some social friction between the two kinds of mongrelfolk over how other humanoid races treat them.

It doesn't make any sense to me that "mongrelfolk" is their racial name, since it is clearly a racial slur. I imagine they probably have their own name for themselves, like "the people," "the race," or "human beings."

New ideas for backstories came to me after some thought. Maybe they could be patronized by a Beast Lord of Chimeras (as in chimerical creatures, not the Greek Chimera). Maybe they could be chaotic planetouched?

Here is a list of chaotic planetouched from third party products I perused:
  • Doathi, Frogfolk of Porphyra from Purple Duck Games
  • Eirling, Secrets of the Planes: Planar Races from Lion's Den Press
  • Ganzi, Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Planar Adventures from Paizo Inc.
  • Warpling, Dark Roads & Golden Hells from Kobold Press
  • Xaoling, Planar Races: Chaos, The Xaolings from Purple Duck Games
  • Xiokin, Children of the Planes from Tangent Games

A recurring theme of chaotic planetouched is that they have chimerical features. The eirling take the cake because they used randomized tables to determine their body parts, just like the mongrelfolk in Tome of Horrors! Being planetouched doesn't necessarily mean that you had an aboleth, chaosiic, ogdoad, protean or whatever in your family tree. Planetouched may be the result of pacts, transfusions, mutations by planar radiation or wild magic, surviving attack by a chaos beast, infection with pan-demoniac corruption, etc. For that matter, the term planetouched may just as easily apply to mortal inhabitants of the planes. The latter is the premise of the supplement Secrets of the Planes: Planar Races.

Regarding the doathi in particular, I think they could be conflated with the deep ones, gillmen, and skum presented elsewhere in Pathfinder. I could easily link the aboleth and ogdoad.

Research links

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