"It's tiki time, fuckers!"
First of all, this is not something recent. The threads themselves are rather old (more than half a year, I believe) but I didn't get the full story until now, so for me it's "news".
Regardless, it's still worth telling everyone who wasn't there about it because it's FUCKING AWESOME.
Really. Words cannot describe how awesome /tg/ can be when they really get going, but I'll try:
Someone asked "we all know how a tropical elf would be, but how about tropical dwarves?", and this turned into an entire campaign setting where classic D&D races/species were reinvented as they would be if they lived entirely on/around tropical islands.
In the end, the overall agreement was this:
Elves are peaceful natives. They would be... Not hedonistic, but they would have a easygoing society and lots of free time.
They worship spirits of the forest and/or ocean. More or less depends on where they live.
They're basically just chilling and enjoying life.
Some of them feel the need to take on responsibility (and the fuckwarm clothes that comes with it) and become shamans/witchdoctors, while the rest fish/gather fruits and just generally relax.
There are some conflicts with merfolk, but they get along wonderfully well with dwarves. They trade a lot with eachother.
Elves are good at gathering fruits and such since they're still "elvenly attuned to nature", and are pretty good fishermen. Dwarves make good tools. Food, pearls, probably wood and crafts are traded for tools and maybe jewelry.
Clothes are a status symbol rather than used to cover "naughty parts". Witch doctors and shamans wear lots of clothes, dyed in different colors for rituals and to show their status. Everyone else just figures that it's way too fucking hot to wear all that. If they HAVE TO wear something, a leaf skirt is good enough.
They don't understand the concept of clothing as anything else than a status symbol and thus they do not have much "modesty". Or rather, they have no nudity taboo.
They also have a much more lax attitude towards sex because hey, it's one of the great pleasures of life and life is meant to be enjoyed.
Someone summed up "the basic elven principles of [the] setting" as:
"enjoy life"
"all the time is party time"
"what's modesty?"
"I'm still faithful to my partner, that has nothing to do with sex"
With a bit of "respect nature", I can add, because they're still elves.
Dwarves are "regular dwarves, but TOTALLY TROPICAL!" The original suggestion was "very stout jamaicans. Exchange beer for rum" and that's basically the core concept.
They still mine a lot, digging for gems and obsidian (which they make tools/weapons of), when possible. Otherwhise they tend to do a lot of woodcrafting, and building very large huts that are almost makeshift boats if you turn them upside down. (Tropical storm washes them off their island? No problem, just paddle your house back home again.) These huts can sometimes appear to be large hills or even small mountains, due to their size.
As someone put it, "you can take the dwarf away from the mountain, but you can't take the mountain away from the dwarf".
They would worship dragons living in volcanoes and the sea. (The volcano "gods" bring land and wealth e.g. gems in the lava to the faithful, but also destroy life. The sea "gods" bring life/food but destroy land. Sort of a duality of creation/destruction.)
They are also a bit of a protective big brother to the elves, who are too mellow for larger conflicts with other groups who might exploit them.
Merfolk are sharkpeople. If you get in the water, or even too close to it, they consider you fair game/lunch. They sometimes raid coastal settlements, mostly elves, sometimes others. Almost never dwarves.
There are many skirmishes with elves, who fish a lot, but not so much with dwarves. Dwarves keep more to land and they have the "standard dwarven solution" of dumping magma at the problem, boiling them alive.
All the others tend to travel in large ships rather than smaller fishing boats, and as such are generally too much trouble to bother. There are the occacional merfolk attacks on those too, of course, they're just not very frequent.
Orcs come from "far away lands", suggestions vary between a continental country or just very large islands (to keep the island theme). They are there to spread their religion and way of life. They have a pantheon of gods, that they share with humans (and possibly the gnomes) but orcs tend to worship the god(s) of conquest (and possibly warfare) more than more peaceful ones. If they also manage to get their hands on some gold and/or other valuables, including slaves, that's a bonus.
Humans are similar to the orcs in theme, but are more about trade and exploration/exploitation than religious conquest.
Gnomes are also along those lines, and are bitter trade rivals with the humans. They are in a constant state of half-war, with regular raids on ports and piracy (privateers) between them.
Goblins are more ruthless. Forcing the natives into unfair "trade agreements", raiding other ships (more open piracy than humans/gnomes) and running slave trade on a much larger scale than the others.
Lizardfolk are the most mellow of them all, as long as you don't disturb them. They're content with lazing around on warm rocks, but they WILL get angry if you bother them/make too much noise around them. You don't want to piss them off, because they're kind of like semi-intelligent, humanoid komodos with a hint of iguana in their looks/attitude.
There was a suggestion that they would have had an ancient civilization that looked sort of Aztec, but that was mostly just to give them an excuse to laze around in those wonderful ruins full of flat rocks in the sun. Step-pyramids just means more sun for everyone.
The halflings are really interesting because it's a fitting stereotype while also making so much sense.
They're the "cannibal pygmies" except they're not at all uncivilized. (Compared to the party-elves and rasta-dwarves, at least.)
They're cannibalistic because of their unique religious beliefs.
Basically, they believe in an evil Blood God that will one day rise to destroy the world, and for every soul he devours that day draws nearer. Therefore they themselves consume the bodies of the fallen instead of burying them, to keep the soul from going to the Blood God.
They sometimes raid the others because they know that everyone else bury their dead. Most of the time, they're trying to kill the elderly, sick and otherwhise weak or crippled to "free their souls" so the Blood God can't take them.
Also, there are Tiki warforged (warforged are sort of like intelligent golems with free will).
Seen here and here, along with a party-elf.
They are apparently created through some magical ritual which involves dumping virgins into volcanoes, because we can't have a tropical setting without virgins -> volcanoes!
I think that sums up most of it. It's way too late, I should have been asleep 7 hours ago (and I'm supposed to get up in 2½ hour) but DAMMIT this is just too awesome.
The 4chan threads are a bit messy to read since they tend to be a bit like a room full of people all talking to (and at) eachother at the same time, but if you want to read the archived threads that are the main source for this, they can be found:
Here
Here
and
Here
I higly recommend that you do check them out.
It's a wonderful fresh (and tropical) breeze when it comes to fantasy settings.
Due to the general 4Chan style of conversation it's not completely worksafe, but these threads are good enough. Some pictures contain nudity, mostly ones dealing with the party-elves, but (almost) everything still keeps in line with the subject so it's not BAD.
Basically, just don't click the thumbnails if you don't want to see it.
Regardless, it's still worth telling everyone who wasn't there about it because it's FUCKING AWESOME.
Really. Words cannot describe how awesome /tg/ can be when they really get going, but I'll try:
Someone asked "we all know how a tropical elf would be, but how about tropical dwarves?", and this turned into an entire campaign setting where classic D&D races/species were reinvented as they would be if they lived entirely on/around tropical islands.
In the end, the overall agreement was this:
Elves are peaceful natives. They would be... Not hedonistic, but they would have a easygoing society and lots of free time.
They worship spirits of the forest and/or ocean. More or less depends on where they live.
They're basically just chilling and enjoying life.
Some of them feel the need to take on responsibility (and the fuckwarm clothes that comes with it) and become shamans/witchdoctors, while the rest fish/gather fruits and just generally relax.
There are some conflicts with merfolk, but they get along wonderfully well with dwarves. They trade a lot with eachother.
Elves are good at gathering fruits and such since they're still "elvenly attuned to nature", and are pretty good fishermen. Dwarves make good tools. Food, pearls, probably wood and crafts are traded for tools and maybe jewelry.
Clothes are a status symbol rather than used to cover "naughty parts". Witch doctors and shamans wear lots of clothes, dyed in different colors for rituals and to show their status. Everyone else just figures that it's way too fucking hot to wear all that. If they HAVE TO wear something, a leaf skirt is good enough.
They don't understand the concept of clothing as anything else than a status symbol and thus they do not have much "modesty". Or rather, they have no nudity taboo.
They also have a much more lax attitude towards sex because hey, it's one of the great pleasures of life and life is meant to be enjoyed.
Someone summed up "the basic elven principles of [the] setting" as:
"enjoy life"
"all the time is party time"
"what's modesty?"
"I'm still faithful to my partner, that has nothing to do with sex"
With a bit of "respect nature", I can add, because they're still elves.
Dwarves are "regular dwarves, but TOTALLY TROPICAL!" The original suggestion was "very stout jamaicans. Exchange beer for rum" and that's basically the core concept.
They still mine a lot, digging for gems and obsidian (which they make tools/weapons of), when possible. Otherwhise they tend to do a lot of woodcrafting, and building very large huts that are almost makeshift boats if you turn them upside down. (Tropical storm washes them off their island? No problem, just paddle your house back home again.) These huts can sometimes appear to be large hills or even small mountains, due to their size.
As someone put it, "you can take the dwarf away from the mountain, but you can't take the mountain away from the dwarf".
They would worship dragons living in volcanoes and the sea. (The volcano "gods" bring land and wealth e.g. gems in the lava to the faithful, but also destroy life. The sea "gods" bring life/food but destroy land. Sort of a duality of creation/destruction.)
They are also a bit of a protective big brother to the elves, who are too mellow for larger conflicts with other groups who might exploit them.
Merfolk are sharkpeople. If you get in the water, or even too close to it, they consider you fair game/lunch. They sometimes raid coastal settlements, mostly elves, sometimes others. Almost never dwarves.
There are many skirmishes with elves, who fish a lot, but not so much with dwarves. Dwarves keep more to land and they have the "standard dwarven solution" of dumping magma at the problem, boiling them alive.
All the others tend to travel in large ships rather than smaller fishing boats, and as such are generally too much trouble to bother. There are the occacional merfolk attacks on those too, of course, they're just not very frequent.
Orcs come from "far away lands", suggestions vary between a continental country or just very large islands (to keep the island theme). They are there to spread their religion and way of life. They have a pantheon of gods, that they share with humans (and possibly the gnomes) but orcs tend to worship the god(s) of conquest (and possibly warfare) more than more peaceful ones. If they also manage to get their hands on some gold and/or other valuables, including slaves, that's a bonus.
Humans are similar to the orcs in theme, but are more about trade and exploration/exploitation than religious conquest.
Gnomes are also along those lines, and are bitter trade rivals with the humans. They are in a constant state of half-war, with regular raids on ports and piracy (privateers) between them.
Goblins are more ruthless. Forcing the natives into unfair "trade agreements", raiding other ships (more open piracy than humans/gnomes) and running slave trade on a much larger scale than the others.
Lizardfolk are the most mellow of them all, as long as you don't disturb them. They're content with lazing around on warm rocks, but they WILL get angry if you bother them/make too much noise around them. You don't want to piss them off, because they're kind of like semi-intelligent, humanoid komodos with a hint of iguana in their looks/attitude.
There was a suggestion that they would have had an ancient civilization that looked sort of Aztec, but that was mostly just to give them an excuse to laze around in those wonderful ruins full of flat rocks in the sun. Step-pyramids just means more sun for everyone.
The halflings are really interesting because it's a fitting stereotype while also making so much sense.
They're the "cannibal pygmies" except they're not at all uncivilized. (Compared to the party-elves and rasta-dwarves, at least.)
They're cannibalistic because of their unique religious beliefs.
Basically, they believe in an evil Blood God that will one day rise to destroy the world, and for every soul he devours that day draws nearer. Therefore they themselves consume the bodies of the fallen instead of burying them, to keep the soul from going to the Blood God.
They sometimes raid the others because they know that everyone else bury their dead. Most of the time, they're trying to kill the elderly, sick and otherwhise weak or crippled to "free their souls" so the Blood God can't take them.
Also, there are Tiki warforged (warforged are sort of like intelligent golems with free will).
Seen here and here, along with a party-elf.
They are apparently created through some magical ritual which involves dumping virgins into volcanoes, because we can't have a tropical setting without virgins -> volcanoes!
I think that sums up most of it. It's way too late, I should have been asleep 7 hours ago (and I'm supposed to get up in 2½ hour) but DAMMIT this is just too awesome.
The 4chan threads are a bit messy to read since they tend to be a bit like a room full of people all talking to (and at) eachother at the same time, but if you want to read the archived threads that are the main source for this, they can be found:
Here
Here
and
Here
I higly recommend that you do check them out.
It's a wonderful fresh (and tropical) breeze when it comes to fantasy settings.
Due to the general 4Chan style of conversation it's not completely worksafe, but these threads are good enough. Some pictures contain nudity, mostly ones dealing with the party-elves, but (almost) everything still keeps in line with the subject so it's not BAD.
Basically, just don't click the thumbnails if you don't want to see it.