12-25-2019, 01:03 AM
Quote:too many races = bad
Quote:One city means everyone is buddy-buddy
idk chance, it's weird how when there's only one cultural backstory to speak of and no real character choice beyond what trees you slot into characters tend to meld together and people are buddy-buddy.
Races are a cheap way to introduce character dynamics and contrast, even if it's just with stereotype. In practice, races tend to equal culture, adding a divide like between a French and Chinese person that could naturally create conflict in some manner, but in general just established they're different people from a different cloth altogether. Take the venerable example of Dungeons and Dragons, which kinda defines the genre on this sort of thing unfortunately; you can roughly expect elves to be prissy, timeless creatures who think they're better then you and probably like trees, dwarves to be stubborn, timeless creatures with incredible bureaucracy and intricacy. And other things, etc, but you get the example.
Right now, characters who are either human, two flavors of beastkin or drakanite are supposed, as well as backstories from Esshar or Rhony. People can come from other places if they so wish, but it's not really hard-supported via lore snippets and the like and given Eternia's odd mono-language get up doesn't really amount differences to much unless someone presses the weeb button pretty hard with someone from Sheng.
But races do. In fact, every race that was fundamentally different and had a different wavelength from their more straight human derivatives were cut, leaving just flat humans and humans with animal ears/horns. We should add those back, especially considering the art assets are still, you know, there and already made and the code has probably been merely commented out, so that's a whole lot of value for hopefully little effort on nandrew's part.
Chance, at the time, commented that "like only five people" played Sirenia, to which my response to (both then and now) is; so? That's five obviously different characters from the get-go. Five characters other players can get a decent jive for on sight, and five characters who run at different wavelengths from everyone else, creating potential substance to roleplay off of. That effects way more then five people.
As for the races, let's take a look at our past here;
In Eternia, we had;
Sirenia, which I already touched on. Probably the most alien, but still approach race from the bunch simply because they're aquatic. Esshar is a peninsula, they definitely could be around with ease. They're also cute. Cute!!
Sarradians, which have enough going on that might be a little complicated to simply add and, to be honest, I forget most of their details. I do believe they were the elemental adepts, though, and given the tome's set up having elementalist characters might be either interesting, lacking the other trees, or just wholly derivative.
Cyclops, dumb giants. I do think adding some manner of giant species, dumb or otherwise, might be a boon, but making them cyclops is also pretty restrictive as to finding inline images and the like. They certainly stand out in a crowd.
Mimics, who own bones and are good and cool. By their nature and short-lived lives they are hedonistic and #YOLO, as well as of course being able to change their forms with ease. Even two people playing a mimic would create quite a bit of entropy in the city, particularly given as long as they can get away there might not be any downsides - beyond making paranoia. Disguises already more or less let's this sort of exist, why not double down on it with an alien creature too? While the illusion tree lost their similar ability, being app-only would allow behavior to be policed well enough and it could be encouraged more to take up disguises then doppleganging other people willy-nilly. Mimics are great.
Neries, which are Weird and have their own thing going on, enough to stand out. Also impactful enough to show up on Spires, evidently. Admittedly, their direct link to Dreamer might not make them feasiable for Esshar, but my memory on Neries in either game is weirdly sketchy.
And of course, the ever popular fairies. Fairies are cute, people like playing cute things. With Moonfall functionally being all about spirits, on either alignment side, adding a fae in touch with them, too, only has benefits I'd say. Basically good-demons, basically.
And some others, like vampires but fuck vampires. Oscuri as well, but unless you take up Felara's that would be a no-go.
Spires had some too, of course, but many of the new ones were set up to be their PvP faction's Big Cheese, so they'd hardly fit in Esshar. Still.
It add drakanites coming in two other flavors. Having more choice to our dragon friends beyond just being fire-man is good, and can lead to fun competition between other draks for best lizard-type title and etc. A harmless addition.
Dryads wouldn't really make sense from their Gehenna derivative, but are basically druid++ the race. Their time to shine was with Moonfall's inclusion I'd say, but maybe it could still work.
And of course the most important of all species, equal to mimics in their potential to set a scene are of course the ultimate character option; oni. No really having alcoholic big muscle kinda dim red/blue oni would obviously be fun, the fact that it never actually got into Spires is laughable to me as they would've made Sheng dramatically more spicy and simply fun even if there were only a few. Instead you got lusty kitsune. And still have lusty kitsune! Damn.
Beyond re-introducing older races, there's one in particular I think would be a good inclusion, too; not-elves. Going in line with the current Arc/Esshar's theme, people touched by Spirits during birth/their bloodline that gives them pointy ears and a certain aloof, not-all-there air about them. Tend to be somewhat feral, giving spirits are more prevalent out in the wilds. Pop spectral sight on them or some racial like Premonition giving them +Crit and huzzah, now everyone requests for something elf-y for all those cool but unfortunately elf-earred inlines and aesthetics can be met, without literally elves.
There are of course the various demons. Allegedly they're set to be introduced at some point as is, so I mostly skipped it. I personally think they would be best without the evolutionary chain, though, as I think that was too restrictive. Most players going into demons just skipped by the baby one with a rebirth or solo-RP, and then they're locked into a specific tree or build which made things bothersome, while also just having wild inlines completely different from their demon sprite in the first place - which is fine, but also means the in game stuff wasn't wholly enforced and so could be relaxed. If I want to play basically a Phoenix demon then gimme that sprite and let me go CAW, or Snove-2-but-not-faceplanting let me ice it up and just be ice, etc. But one element+occult+melee is a little boring. The evolutionary set up was flavorful and cute, but in practice in my opinion was only meaningful to one character in an arc whenever an Imperfect was either threatened or existed. Adjust! Or just add two different versions and do both, fuck it. Monster away.
Demons, sirenia, mimics and oni alone, individually, would add a pretty substantial impact both in character variety and scene hooks. All four and you get a much livelier place, one that gets away from set ups solely about devving their magic and awkward politics about Sudsbury and the like. Maybe. Hopefully!
