Monday, September 2, 2013

Thirty Days of D&D, Day 2: Favorite Playable Race

Favorite playable race? There's a short, boring answer to this.

Humans!!! 
Frell yeah!

Humans. Some people get sick of playing little old humans, but I find there's always relevant play opportunities present with humans. I dabble in dwarven characters, sometimes elves, or half-elves a little more, but humans are my default as they are for many settings.

Tiefling by Tony DiTerlizzi
The longer answer without relying entirely on the old stand-by of humans? That would be Aasimar. Again, a half-human variant, but why the plain homely aasimar instead of other more thematic planetouched?

The genasi offer an immediate dose of elemental cool, the mortal descended embodiment of primordial forces like fire or air (or water or earth or any of the para- or quasi- variants).

What about tieflings, progeny of the lower planes, spawned by fiends and corrupted or violated mortals (perhaps with a Faustian pact or two amongst their ancestors). Lots of potential there from angsty to noble-despite-their-heritage to utterly without redemption. Sure tieflings are blatantly sexier in the sense of character potential. They have easy, immediate character hooks.

Aasimar by Tony DiTerlizzi
The aasimar by comparison seem more monotone and one-dimensional. Yet they're still firmly outside of the norm and deal with all the same questions, peculiarities, and prejudices as the other planetouched, but that's in-spite of their innate predilection towards goodly tendencies. Depending on the setting specifics there is something 'ur-mythic' about them from the pseudo-Nephilim angle.

They're a spark of the cosmic factions constantly under siege and barely holding back the ravenous hordes of fiends from all sides. Definite underdog vibe to them and I find plenty to work with there.


No comments:

Post a Comment