Heroes and ordinaries

Earlier editions of D&D used to relegate most NPCs to "zeroth level." While they could have high proficiency in whatever skills they were expected to have, this did not translate to combat. Even the king of a country could be limited to zeroth level, meaning he would die to a single sword slash. Not all editions were like this.

So what does the monster eat?

There is a tv trope called "The Needless," describing characters which lack one or more of the same physical or mental needs as humans. In AD&D, every monster had an entry for "diet." 3rd edition ignored all that and made numerous monsters into perpetual motion machines. The vast majority of the time this detail is pointless and nonsensical.

Giants versus Ogres versus Trolls

In the dictionary, the words giant, ogre and troll are generally synonymous. A giant is "an imaginary or mythical being of human form but superhuman size." An ogre is "a man-eating giant." A troll is "a mythical, cave-dwelling being depicted in folklore as either a giant or a dwarf, typically having a very ugly appearance." If you did a little deeper you will find a surprisingly diverse mythology of giants all around the world. Greek giants have snakes for legs, trolls live under bridges, and so on.

Dark elves need diversity

The drow are one of those bizarre examples of fantasy's tendency for political incorrectness. Not only is their portrayal offensive to real world minorities, but within the fantasy world any racism directed at them is analogous to anti-white prejudice in reality. I do not care to discuss those issues, as other articles have done so at length. I am more concerned with the fact that drow have a huge diversity problem.

If you google "dark elves", you will get a huge diversity of skin tones in the image results. Drow skin tone should be variable like that. EverQuest Next once ran a poll to see which skin tone was popular, which I feel is a false dichotomy: there's no reason why the dark elf population cannot be variously light, medium, saturated or dark.

I don't think dark elves need to be pigeonholed into cartoonish evil. I've already written articles about how evil societies are generally nonsensical and my cosmology doesn't used alignments except for streamlined cosmic factions. You could have dark elf societies which are alien or even good!

I don't think dark elves should be limited to living in the underworld. They should be able to live anywhere they can carve out a niche. You could have dark elves living in temperate forests, jungles, the arctic, or even outer space!

Relevant links

• https://forum.rpg.net/archive/index.php/t-733484.html
• http://www.scifiwright.com/2015/10/my-elves-are-different-or-erlkoenig-and-appendix-n/
• http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2012/06/11/reinventing-fantasy-races-my-elves-are-different/
• https://zaewen.wordpress.com/2011/05/26/tropebusting-matriarchies-in-gaming-and-sci-fifantasy/
• http://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2010/03/drow-should-be-lawful-evil-among-other.html
• http://knighterrantjr.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-problem-with-drow.html
• https://www.geeknative.com/19332/drow-a-non-racist-alternative/
• http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2014/01/27/ravenflight-part-1-my-halflings-elves-and-dwarves-are-different/
• https://www.ragingheroes.com/blogs/news/tgg2-update-70-dark-elves-and-void-elves-stories-and-a-video
• http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/race/drow.html
• https://warriorsofmyth.fandom.com/wiki/Dark_Elf_Gallery
• http://somethingshortandsnappy.blogspot.com/2016/02/drizzt-dourden-and-failure-of-fantasy.html
• https://everquestnext.fandom.com/wiki/Dark_Elf
• https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eqnlandmark/index.php?threads/which-skin-tone-do-you-find-most-appealing-for-the-dark-elves-images-in-blog.41631/
• https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eqnlandmark/index.php?threads/which-skin-tone-do-you-find-most-appealing-for-the-dark-elves-images-in-blog.41631/page-3#post-437359
• https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eqnlandmark/index.php?threads/which-skin-tone-do-you-find-most-appealing-for-the-dark-elves-images-in-blog.41631/page-4#post-437514

An entire race of Smaug is boring, so take some inspiration from myth!

D&D has traditionally segregated dragons into a variety of arbitrary categories and devised pseudo-naturalistic explanations for them. I have decided to just ignore all that in favor of treating dragons as dragons. Take the statistics in the MM and reskin the dragon however you need to. They don't need to be a natural species with a place in the ecology. Every dragon could be unique!

Ecology of serpentfolk

Yuan-ti and sarrukh are not open game content, so I will be replacing them with a generic saurian and serpentfolk race.

© Beth Trott

Nomenclature: illujan, inphidian, nagaji, ophidokolasis, ophiduan, reptoid, samat, scalrath, serpentfolk, viskanya, etc

Description: squamous humanoids descended from lost empire, prone to mutation and crossbreeding

"Cecaelia" isn't a word and you should stop using it

Pathfinder labels the octopus mermaid as a "cecaelia." This isn't a real word, so you can be forgiven for thinking Paizo made it up. In fact, it originates from a wikipedia article posted in 2008 which has since been deleted for being a meaningless neologism. In all likelihood, "cecaelia" is a misspelling of the feminine given name Cecilia or the amphibian order of Caecilians. Both words are derived from the Latin word for "blind" and have nothing to do with octopuses, mermaids, or octopus mermaids. UPDATED 12/4/2018 8/17/2023 4/25/2025