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

• http://dailybestiary.blogspot.com/2013/01/mongrelman.html
• http://errantd20designer.blogspot.com/2012/06/pfrpg-mongrelkin-race.html
• http://luduscarcerum.blogspot.com/2011/04/reworking-mongrelfolk.html
• https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Mongrelfolk
• https://dailybestiary.tumblr.com/post/40312989538/mongrelman
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongrelfolk
• https://faerunian.fandom.com/wiki/Mongrelfolk
• https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Mongrelfolk
• https://gomakemeasandwich.wordpress.com/2016/09/28/curse-of-strahd-correctly-labels-strahd-an-abuser-yet-troublingly-racist/
• https://monstersandstuff.home.blog/2018/11/23/salvaging-a-good-design/
• https://nerdarchy.com/chimes-discordia-rise-mongrelfolk-birth-race/
• https://nerdarchy.com/customized-races-mogrelfolk-dungeons-dragons-5th-edition/
• https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Mongrelman
• https://trailblazerrpg.wordpress.com/2018/10/17/lost-races-part-11-mongrelfolk-rastipede-bariaur-wemic-and-dracotaur/
• https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/monstrous-humanoids/mongrelman-tohc/
• https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/monstrous-humanoids/mongrelman/
• https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Mongrelfolk_(5e_Race)
• https://www.dndbeyond.com/races/60615-mongrelfolk
• https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/104108
• https://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?133058-quot-Mongrelfolk-quot-what-the-!

Lesser known varieties of planetouched

Let's face it: despite having five alignment poles of law, chaos, neutral, good and evil, the first three play second fiddle to the last two in traditional D&D. That's generally how it's always been. The most popular planetouched have been the tiefling, aasimar and genasi. Even so, other varieties of planetouched have been published in obscure supplements.

What follows is a list of planetouched I have seen published under the OGL, sorted by plane. I do not expect this list to be remotely exhaustive, but this is the only list I am aware of so far. It took a long time and a lot of effort to put this together for me. I also provide my personal commentary.

Theriocephalus race concept

The theriocephalus (from therio- + -cephalus) is a human with the head of an animal. He is not anthropomorphic: his body is entirely human without fur or feathers or scales, while only his head is that of an animal.

 Theriocephaluses come in at least three flavors: the animan, the verman and anumus.

• The animan (plural animen) is an animal-headed aasimar descended from immigrants from the upper plane ruled by the beast lords. They have the heads of terrestrial vertebrates (i.e. mammals, reptiles, avians and amphibians). An animan is a humanoid with the aasimar tag.
• The verman (plural vermen) is a vermin-headed tiefling descended from the forgotten creations of a demon lord. They have the heads of terrestrial invertebrates (e.g. arthropods and gastropods). A verman is a humanoid with the tiefling tag.
• The anumus (plural anumi) are created from beasts given a special potion made from the mystical anumi plant. They may have the heads of any terrestrial animal that is given the anumi potion. An anumus is a humanoid with the beastfolk tag.

Sources: The anumus is from Remarkable Races: The Anumus by Alluria Publishing. The animan and verman are from Legends & Lairs: Mythic Races by Fantasy Flight Games.

Reimagining the planetouched

After reading many interesting sourcebooks my idea of the planetouched has expanded considerably. In my holistic cosmology, the planes are inhabited with civilizations little different from the material plane. The inhabitants of those planes are much like the races on the material plane, and they are truly native to those planes rather than being immigrants or something similarly silly. Whether a character is native to another plane, or descended from someone native to another plane, I refer to them all as planetouched.

Planetouched primer

Planetouched is a general term for player character races who are descended from the planes. Perhaps their ancestors were mere mortals who made a pact with or married angels or demons, lived in close proximity to a source of planar radiation or toxins, tourists from another plane of existence, or maybe nature itself is literally their mother.

When creating a character who is planetouched, take some time to consider their origin and how this would affect their appearance and history. Many sourcebooks have given colorful origins for planetouched: Legends & Lairs: Mythic Races, Secrets of the Planes: Planar Races, Children of the Planes, etc. I advise treating these as backgrounds and reskins of existing races from the rulebook, third party sourcebooks, and Vault of the 13th Age. There's no need to waste your one unique thing on being planetouched.

For example, the Neirut from Planar Races may be represented by Forgeborn whereas the fiery races from The Traveler's Guide to the Elemental Plane of Fire may be represented by Elementborn. I will try to present more examples in later posts.

Truskin

Of all the planes, the one that is at once the most familiar and the most inscrutable is the Material plane. Home to the natural world, and to the human race, the Material plane is host to a great many secrets, perhaps the most wondrous of which is the fact that it is not one plane, but simply one of many. Known to the majority of its inhabitants as a single localized place, the Material plane stretches vast across innumerable multitudes of worlds, each largely ignorant of the others’ existences. These worlds often share many similarities, from the overall climate and weather patterns to the many varieties of flora and fauna. But there’s something else that’s common to all these material worlds.

Fiend-touched

Not all mortal races hail from the various Material planes. Deep in the bowels of the Hells and the Abyss, deities of evil have created their own forms of sentience, races who are born into a life of predetermined damnation. Most labor for entire lifetimes, suffering at the whim of demons and devils, but a select few escape to other worlds, or obtain sufficient power and skill to make themselves a force to be reckoned with even amidst such primal evil. Some sages believe that these beings have true souls, as much as any human or halfling born on the Material plane. Others maintain that no soul can journey to the Lower Planes (or any of the Outer Planes, for that matter) until death, and that these beings have no more of a true soul than any outsider. That they are as alive as any human or elf on any other world, however, cannot be in doubt. They are the fiend-touched, and they are perhaps the most racially unlucky people in all creation.

Leonork

Unlike many of the other planetouched races, the Leonork tribes are not originally from the Material Plane. They first came into existence eons ago when a rogue Orc deity, whose name has been lost to the mists of history and time, was outcast from the Orc pantheon for being “too softhearted”. She was created from the calls of fallen Orc warriors, who wished for a quick, merciful death on the battlefield but the head of the Orc pantheon banished her shortly after her creation. Upon leaving, she wandered into the celestial realms of the Leonals and was welcomed by the celestials and given a realm to call her own. There, with the blessing of the Leonals, she created a race in the image of the Orc but with the spirit of a Leonal and named them “Leonorks”. The Leonorks came to live much like their Orcish relatives but with benevolence and celestial ideals. Eons have passed since their creation and the tribes of the Leonorks have found their way to many planes. Here, in the Material Plane, they have joined together with the goodly races in a war upon the Orc and Goblinoid races, an endless crusade to destroy all evil from the world.