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[Balathustrius]

Balathustrius: So, if elves are evil, green things that live in dark forests and worship strange, alien nature gods, what does that leave for the goblins?

Well, I didn't say the elves would necessarily be evil.  Goblins can still cover that, being the twisted, demon-worshiping, technologically advanced race of kidnappers that they are.

One thing I really did like about Tolkien was his take on goblins; that they are debased, mutilated elves.  It was such a powerful, disturbing concept that Tolkien himself became uncomfortable with it and actually tried to retcon it out later, unsuccessfully. 

I think immortality, once the implications of being able to spend six thousand years becoming really good at your chosen profession are properly implemented, will be enough to set them apart from the humans. Along with whatever cultural things end up making the most sense. It's not like every race HAS to be new and innovative, as long as there's adventuring to do in the world. You could do a deep and rich fantasy world with just humans if you wanted to.

Well, sure, but I guess to me, if you have a race of regular ol' humans, and a race of perfect, immortal humans-with-pointed-ears, what reason is there to play the regular ones?  If the only differentiation between your fantasy races is that one has eternity to become good at their chosen profession, while the other dies, it just strikes me as a little dull.

[LordNagash]

Balathustrius: So, if elves are evil, green things that live in dark forests and worship strange, alien nature gods, what does that leave for the goblins?

Pretty sure DF goblins are supposed to be grey

[Fault]

Pretty sure DF goblins are supposed to be grey

well, if we're going with their default tile colours, then DF dwarves, elves and humans are all supposed to be dark blue.
not that I mind grey goblins, I've worked with that design before:



also, yeah the design of my beak dog's mouth is fundamentally flawed.

[Sensei]

I think a good way to think of it is 'how would they function in modern society'?

For goblins, I usually picture them as wielding black market-bought AK47's and raiding small towns, making their (temporary) homes in caves to hide from those who would seek to wipe them out, and quickly squandering any wealth they come into.

[Fault]

oh someone has to draw that now.

[Deon]

Yout gobbo has a bullet-belt across his body D:.

well, if we're going with their default tile colours, then DF dwarves, elves and humans are all supposed to be dark blue.

Color-coding in ASCII rarely depicts the real colors of the things, it has to be "informative", not "real".
I'd go with colors Slaves to Armok I, and there gobbos are gray.

[Dae]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Balathustrius, usually your work is outstanding, but here the ears look really weird. In an added-after-faces-were-done-and-not-meant-to-go-with-pointy-ears way. They look quite ethereal, and given their length I feel like the other one should be visible too.

[HAMMERMILL]

I dunno. Just because the elves are insane warmongering cannibals with bizzare ethic systems doesn't mean they should look like aliens or furries or whatever the hell. The elf diplomat in game is too much of a passive-aggressive pantywaist to really make me think of them as being very primitive anyways.

When people think of elves, the typical Tolkien-style generally comes to mind. That or little 4 inch tall guys that run a baked-goods factory out of an old tree. Probably not the Blue Man Group with pointy ears.

[Balathustrius]

Balathustrius, usually your work is outstanding, but here the ears look really weird. In an added-after-faces-were-done-and-not-meant-to-go-with-pointy-ears way. They look quite ethereal, and given their length I feel like the other one should be visible too.

Thanks, and yes, lol.  The ears are unfinished because I'm lazy; they're mostly placeholders.  I know they look bad.

[Hungry]

Strange, I always pictured elves as evolved murderously fanatic treants...

[Davion]

Thanks, and yes, lol.  The ears are unfinished because I'm lazy; they're mostly placeholders.  I know they look bad.

The elf on the left also looks like Marilyn Manson.

[Nexii Malthus]

[Soadreqm]

One thing I really did like about Tolkien was his take on goblins; that they are debased, mutilated elves.  It was such a powerful, disturbing concept that Tolkien himself became uncomfortable with it and actually tried to retcon it out later, unsuccessfully. 

Tolkien had some serious trouble resolving irredeemably evil goblins with his Catholicism. I think he had several theories going, but I don't know any of the others. This might actually work in DF, considering both goblins and elves are immortal.

Well, sure, but I guess to me, if you have a race of regular ol' humans, and a race of perfect, immortal humans-with-pointed-ears, what reason is there to play the regular ones?  If the only differentiation between your fantasy races is that one has eternity to become good at their chosen profession, while the other dies, it just strikes me as a little dull.

Yeah, but all differences don't have to be physical. I think there are ways to make people look exotic without giving them weird skin colors and messing with their biology. If you have a race of immortal half-trees, a race of mermen, a race of people made of fire and a race of dragons, and the only cultural differences between them are different name files, it'll still be pretty dull.

Consider Morrowind. There's a bunch of different species, each with their own inherent powers, and there are some very drastic physical differences with them. But, since the borders have been open for quite a while, they're spread pretty evenly across the island. You see less Argonians in the more xenophobic regions, but that's pretty much it. Instead, you have a whole bunch of very distinct architectural styles: there's Imperial castles, Dwemer steampunk ruins, Telvanni mushroom houses, Daedric ruins with the creepy geometry, Vivec's pyramids, flat-roofed Hlaalu buildings, Redoran insect shell buildings, little wooden shacks and ashlander tents. Once you get the cultures feeling different, it doesn't matter whether the people are starfish aliens, energy beings or completely mundane humans.

So, yeah. My point is that you can make the places feel different by making the cultures different. DF actually has quite a bit of this going on already, it's just not properly implemented outside Worldgen. The goblins have a interesting might-makes-right ethical system, where you are allowed to murder anyone you want provided you can get away with it. The elves are in touch with nature, get in wars all the time because the other races keep violating their weird but extremely rigid laws, and will probably have magic or something when that gets implemented. The kobolds are sneaky kleptomaniacs stuck in the Bronze Age with no religion or properly structured language. And it'll probably get more diverse as time goes on. I think one of the far, far future dev pages mentions something like random culture generators.

[DJ]

oh someone has to draw that now.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Goblin guard.

[Balathustrius]

The elf on the left also looks like Marilyn Manson.

Yeah, and it was worse at earlier stages.  I don't know why that happened.  Too bad the Dark Eldar already corner the market on Marilyn Manson elves.   

Yeah, but all differences don't have to be physical. I think there are ways to make people look exotic without giving them weird skin colors and messing with their biology. If you have a race of immortal half-trees, a race of mermen, a race of people made of fire and a race of dragons, and the only cultural differences between them are different name files, it'll still be pretty dull.

Consider Morrowind. There's a bunch of different species, each with their own inherent powers, and there are some very drastic physical differences with them. But, since the borders have been open for quite a while, they're spread pretty evenly across the island. You see less Argonians in the more xenophobic regions, but that's pretty much it. Instead, you have a whole bunch of very distinct architectural styles: there's Imperial castles, Dwemer steampunk ruins, Telvanni mushroom houses, Daedric ruins with the creepy geometry, Vivec's pyramids, flat-roofed Hlaalu buildings, Redoran insect shell buildings, little wooden shacks and ashlander tents. Once you get the cultures feeling different, it doesn't matter whether the people are starfish aliens, energy beings or completely mundane humans.

So, yeah. My point is that you can make the places feel different by making the cultures different.

Morrowind is a great example of fantasy culture done well; I agree, and I agree that cultural differences are extremely important.  But even in Morrowind, I'd still say that all the races were essentially humans; tall, golden skinned humans, lizard humans, furry humans with tails, green humans with tusks, etc.  There's nothing particularly wrong with that; I just think that its a trope that's overdone and a little stale.  It reeks of the ubiquitous Tolkien influence that's dominated fantasy since the 70s.  Imo, fantasy is more fantastic when humanity is our only point of reference and the imaginary beings are alien and impossible to relate to; contrast, not mere variety, is where it's at.  Humans have different cultures already, elves and goblins and abhumans should be more different from humans than Chinese are from Peruvians.

It's just my preference.  Here's some pictures.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I never posted this in this thread, I don't think.  It's unfinished, and getting so old that I'll probably never go back to it.  But it's a goblin and thus relevant, so I'll put it in here.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And here's a little sketch.  It's sort of a gremlin or something, I think.