HYPERBOREA / Demihumans!

**Posted by mordegast** 7/13/2019 9:22 am

Thread resurrection: I’ve been thinking about this a lot, not because I want demihumans in Hyperborea, but because This rule set is my favorite of all the editions or clones of D&D. I’m about to run Highfell, and while running it in B/X or LL would be easy, knowing there’s a rule set I enjoy more is gnawing at me.

I think I’m going to just make the races cosmetic. Infravision/dark vision is my least favorite demihuman ability, and ability score modifiers are boring and munchkin-y IMO.

If I were to differentiate them from humans , I’d probably go race-as-class with some modifications. Elves are warlocks, but if they get infravision I’d take away weapon mastery. I’d do Dwarves as cataphracts or berserkers, minus the mounted stuff for cataphracts (or maybe keep it in with weird mounts like war pigs or similar).

Thoughts?

Last edited by mordegast (7/13/2019 9:23 am)

**Posted by Spider of Leng** 7/13/2019 6:39 pm

mordegast wrote:
Thread resurrection: I’ve been thinking about this a lot, not because I want demihumans in Hyperborea, but because This rule set is my favorite of all the editions or clones of D&D. I’m about to run Highfell, and while running it in B/X or LL would be easy, knowing there’s a rule set I enjoy more is gnawing at me.

You already got Highfell? Still waiting on my copy.

As for demi-humans, I'd say they're easy enough to incorporate. I'd use approximations of their Labyrinth Lord advanced classes if you want to limit what they can play. But some of the pseudo multi-classes here, like Purloiners, could work well for elves, for example.

**Posted by Doctor_Rob** 7/15/2019 6:46 pm

Elves and gnomes and hobbits... I have heard tell of these mystical creatures. But surely, any Hyperborean of sound mind wouldst see them for what they are; things that old wives conjure from the depths of their imaginings to frighten small children into doing the household chores.... Come now, the Long Night of winter draws close, and there are real enough horrors lurking in the darkness to freeze the blood of the mightiest.

**Posted by Spider of Leng** 7/17/2019 10:36 pm

Having recently read some of the Shannara books, making gnomes twisted and evil and prone to chaos could certainly work for Hyperborea.

**Posted by BlackKnight** 7/18/2019 1:23 pm

DemiHumands as NPCs I've already done. As a PC, I'd not allow it. Some interesting thoughts on them in this thread though...

**Posted by francisca** 7/18/2019 2:55 pm

Spider of Leng wrote:
Having recently read some of the Shannara books, making gnomes twisted and evil and prone to chaos could certainly work for Hyperborea.

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**Posted by Spider of Leng** 7/22/2019 12:23 pm

Yeah, it is easy enough to make "gritty" demi-humans who fit the setting. One of my old characters was a gnome gladiator (Hackmaster rules) whose tag-team partner in the arena was a minotaur. His specialty move was a tumble into a groin strike. In one adventure he lost his foot so he just carved another out of a piece of wood and stuck it on the stump!

In our current Labyrinth Lord/AS&SH mashup campaign, one of the PCs is a female half-elven samurai who wields a Highlander inspired dragon katana. So she's pretty bad-ass.

I'm sure I'm in the minority on these boards, but I enjoy demi-human characters. That being said, thus far I've pretty much kept them in my original setting. I dropped Hyperborea in as the north pole of our existing world so it's difficult to get there and vice versa.

Last edited by Spider of Leng (7/22/2019 12:27 pm)

**Posted by Spider of Leng** 7/25/2019 2:07 pm

And, there are the "other" demi-humans, like half-orcs, or half-daemon picts, if you will. The leader of the Faceless Masks, an order of assassins and Nyarlathotep worshipers in our version of Fazzuum, happens to be a half-orc. So I think that creative integration would work fine and not "break the game," if that's a concern.