The Power of Names on a Map

Whatever do you think of this? 

A moderate amount of prep. 

Driving around in the city looking at the street signs and the Google map, it’s clear that before the advent of the car, place names referred to much smaller areas. Inside a city the size of providence (175k) there are 39 neighborhoods or something stupid like that. 

So I have decided, just decided right this minute, that I am going to give a place name to literally every hex on the board. 

This will help establish flavor and make the world seem bigger than it is. Every time the several players cross into a hex and meet someone local, we can say “this is Durkwood” or “this is Elm Grove” or whatever. 

I’ve kinda decided to use about 35 different random encounter tables anyway - one for every two or three areas. Might need more. Why not continue down this delicious path? 

After crossing through lands x, y, z, a, b, c, the several players will feel a much greater sense of accomplishment than “you cross three hexes today. They are forests.”

Additionally, settled areas have a village every one or two miles. Borderlands have a settlement every five to ten miles. So those will have to be on the encounter tables too, in some fashion. Probably nested tables.

Elevator Pitch for the The Ongoing Cyfandil Campaign

 The handbill on the wall of the Brass Dragon reads, 

Role-Playing Is

No. 

Role-playing is not using a funny voice or inflicting your OC on the rest of the table. That’s play-acting. 

Role-playing is accepting the shared fiction of the game world and finding an appropriate place into which to insert your figure. 

You can still do the funny voice and chew the scenery, but in order to actually play, you must first accept the premise and play a role with it that advances the shared fiction.

Welcome to Cyfandil

An enjoyable rustic pastime 

Cyfandil is a temperate island chain at a northern latitude, consisting two major islands and hundreds of smaller ones. Its land area is about the same as Madagascar, or a little larger than the British Isles. 

Demi-Men live here and there, but are somewhat uncommon. Besides, there’s quite enough cultural variety in Man’s tripartite lineage: Aluvian, G’harundim and Sho. 

Our part of the realm is Aluvia, which is a lot like Medieval Northern Europe. 

Aluvian civilization has risen at times and fallen at others, leaving mysteries and secrets in the deep forest; but the Aluvian people carry on regardless. 

Now the Aluvian League is experiencing spots of turmoil, as it does from time to time. Robert, the Duke of Sutton, is attempting to unseat King Bradnwyr. Nobles have begun to form up in support of one or the other. Little skirmishes have commenced here and there- the usual vainglorious summer nonsense.

Thus far, the war has kept itself at a sensible distance. Merchants and pilgrims bring news from the corners of the Realm. War news has been interesting and non-threatening, like hearing the final result from a rousing shinty match at Glenden Wood. It’s something harmless for the old gainsayers to gainsay about when meeting in town.

 

Welcome to Cragstone

 

Our little part of Aluvia is called Lleannedd March. Our town is Cragstone, named for its founder, Thorsten Cragstone, the hero of times past. Neither a village nor a city, Cragstone is home to 100 families. The economy is based on trade by road and river. Among those men and Hobbits whose business it is to know such things, Cragstone is known best for producing an excellent grade of honey. 

Where You Come In

You are members of the mysterious Order of the Brass Dragon, a society by, of and for adventurous men. However, it is a society with absolutely no benefits, nor dues, nor oaths whatsoever. Benefits, that is, aside from your brooch: a smart brass brooch with which to hold your cloak in place, and the moderate air of mystery such a brooch might lend. 

A nigh-distant but fitting goal for a character when he starts will be to collect enough money and power to conquer a hex, build a castle or other great dwelling, and become a Lord. However, a player must decide what each of his characters truly wants from his paper life.

 

What Everyone Knows in Leanned March

• Strange noises come from the accursed wood just outside town.

• The Empire is enjoying civil war again.

• Roads are dangerous! Monsters and bandits prey on unsuspecting travelers. Stick together.

• Locusts destroyed the crops last year in Glenden Wood.

• Rithwic was hit by the plague. Some say it was G’harundim merchants who brought it there. 

• Most people say Druids are a myth.

Patrons and Factions:

•Lord Alberz, Marquis of Rithwic. His delegate in Cragstone is Lieutenant Kenneth.

•Dockmaster Brodus Stoneriver of the Dwarven Sea Clans. 

•Brienne of the Collectors Guild.

•Various Chaotic types outside the towns. 

Concepts of Note

 

Character death is close so decisions are more meaningful. 

Henchmen are important. 

Cha > Str.

Speak in natural language. I will adjudicate. I will show you what rules I use when applicable. 

Town is safe. Your character cannot die in town. 

House Rules

 

The Bullpen.

Any adventuring party is permitted to have a maximum of 40% demi-men.

Race as class.

Strict observation of time.

Slow Healing.

Clerical discontinuity and other unusual rules. 

Stochastic Rounds.

Bandages.

No initiative. 

Light sources. 

Opportunity attacks. 

Splintered shields.

Bullpen Chargen

No, not that bullpen. But close.

I think what I'm going to do is have each player roll up four sets of stats and a job and then have them assign a character class to each one. One limit is that only one of the four can be a demi-man. I'll call this the "Bullpen" and each player will have one. 

He will then choose one of the four and flesh it out into a whole character, and that will be his PC. When that PC dies (as they do) or needs a rest or retires, then they will go to their bullpen to flesh out the next guy. 

Let me show you the bullpen sheet. It will get better, but this one is functional:

Note the "Job" box. I made a list of bad medieval jobs (and some good ones too) and put them on a table. This is where the character came from before he was an adventurer. About 70% of all PCs will be farmers. A very few will have a useful background skill. If they get one, that's great, they can use it. 

Here are the Jobs tables:

This sheet is completely unfinished. I don't know what I will do to make it more attractive. I'm only showing it so you can see what jobs there are. 

Go ahead, ask me what a penfolder does. I dare you.

Cyfandil's One-Page Campaign Document

This will change of course. Here is a screenshot of the document. It's not exactly the way I said it should be but it has all the information I want it to have. And it's a very readable single page. (Trust me. It looks good in hard copy lol.)

I will give this handout to the several players either before Session Zero or at the start of it.

Then we will talk about some of the finer points, such as how to make characters and what classes are available.

The Realm of Cyfandil

Cyfandil is a world of Men. Our little principality is called Lleannedd March. Our town is Cragstone, named for its founder, Thorsten Cragstone, the hero of times past. Demi-Men are rare upon these isles. Besides, there’s enough going on with Man’s tripartite lineage: Aluvian, G’harundim and Sho.

Cyfandil is a fairly standard medieval fantasy setting, something like Northern Europe in 1300, but with the opportunity to travel to different lands. It is low fantasy. The greatest monsters are rare and distant. Even the allied races of Mankind are only seldom seen in any great numbers.

Cyfandil’s primary purpose is the backdrop and sandbox for teaching the folkstyle D&D of yesteryear. Its secondary purpose is to backdrop teaching my particular folkstyle philosophy.

The nominal goal for the players when they start will be to collect enough money and power to conquer a hex, build a castle, and become a lord. Of course, that’s just the opening bid. Players can decide what each of their characters truly wants from life. In fact, we should all voice our dreams and desires about what we want to happen in our campaign story.

To that end, it is a most suitable realm for presenting the challenges of problem-solving, role-playing with reaction rolls, exploration overland and underground, and combat using surprise and morale checks that constitute D&D.

 

What Is New

 

We play face-up, toward each other, and speak in natural language.

The players, not the Referee, will push our story forward.

We will use gold for XP, roughly 80-20, with monsters filling in the difference.

Differentiation comes not from your character sheet, but from you. In folkstyle, class is an element of your character, but “build” is not. In terms of game mechanics, one fighter is about as good as another. Most clerics are almost identical. So, it is down the line (except for wizards and elves, who have more latitude due to spell selection.)

Henchmen and other hirelings are a big part of expanding your character’s power, so hire them and cultivate them. The difference between one fighter and another will largely be in his equipment, his henchmen, but super-especially, the player’s ingenuity.

We will observe strict timekeeping, light, rations, slow healing, etc.

Death is always nearby. Your paper man will die. Because of easy death and regular PC indispositions, be prepared to play three or four different characters at different sessions. “Next man up” as they say.

The seasons and even the years will matter. Characters will age. They will carouse, they will love and befriend, they will war, they will politick (at least personal politick) and of course they will adventure. In time, even the elves retire and leave the field of valor to their children. So will our paper men.

At least 60% of the PCs must be Human.

 

Common Knowledge:

Things Everyone Knows in Lleannedd March

·         Strange noises come from the accursed woods just outside town.

·         The Empire is shattered by civil war.

·         Roads are dangerous! Monsters and bandits prey on unsuspecting travelers. Stick together!

·         Locusts destroyed the crops last year in Glenden Wood.

·         Rithwic was hit by the plague. Some say it was G’harundim merchants who brought it there.

·         Most people say Druids are a myth.

Factions and Patrons

1.      Our ruler is Lord Alberz, First Marquis of Rithwic (L FM 9,) at Castle Rithwic, the seat of Lleannedd March. He has ruled for 35 years. He has a deep, booming voice and has turned several of the castle’s rooms into additional kitchens. He will always accept the help of up and comers, at least until he feels like they are a threat to his power. Lieutenant Kenneth is the captain of the militia and town guard in Cragstone. (N FM 4.) Kenneth is the Lord’s representative here. If you want to work for the Marquis, speak to Kenneth.

2.     Brodus Stoneriver is the master of the docks and minder of the traders. He is an elder of the Dwarven Sea Clans, and he has settled in our town. If you need mercenaries or need mercenary work, speak with him.

3.     An informal guild of curators, crafters, and natural philosophers haunt Cragstone. You can get in touch with them through Brienne, the barman’s daughter, at the Brass Dragon Pub. If you want to gather strange knowledge and artifacts, or get answers to strange questions, she’s the one who can put you on the right path.

4.     Outside of the towns there are roaming bowmen, weird cultists, Orcish men, mad Wizards, and maybe some Druids. Chaotic types might want to seek them out, but then again, they might not.

Lines and Veils

 

There are three distinct races of people, analogous to Nordic White, East Asian and North African.

We will track the months and years. The characters will have “real lives” away from the dungeon (but we don’t have to role-play them if we don’t want to.)

I would prefer to have only traditional boy-girl type romance. Half-humans are not a thing (although the several common races might intermarry if they please.)

Towns are safe. Dungeons, roads and wilderlands are not. A henchman or even a PC can face deadly situations at any time.

Writing a One-Page Campaign Document

The one-page campaign document is a primer on what kind of world you’re running and what the next campaign is going to be like. High Medieval fantasy? Survival Horror? East Asian warlords? All Dwarves (and that one Hobbit?)

The Realms of Cyfandil

It helps players understand what they’re getting into and what characters will work better in the world. It will also give them a chance to feed back to you during your Session Zero.

Send this to the players before Session Zero. Or at least tell them that the several of you will be spending some time with one of these. When Session Zero arrives, read this to the players and then hand out the page.

Make sure that everything fits on one page. People won’t read more than that.

Each one-page campaign document will be different, but here is the template I like to use.

“One Sentence”

One sentence to tie the characters to the world and to each other. This limits options somewhat, but it ensures that the players have a good idea about making characters which fit with each other and with the world. 

For example, the one sentence for my Port setting  is, “Prince Jaroslav lays dying.” This sets the mood with an evocative and strongly cultural name, and with the sense that things are at least in transition, if not in decline.

“What Is New” 

Things that set the campaign world apart from others they have played. For folkstyle d, you would write about the problem-solving nature of the game, the nearness of death, the face-up play style, and the rulings, not rules.

Campaign Truths - “Things Everybody Knows” 

The next section of the document gives the players a few nuggets of common knowledge. These are things that both the players and the characters will know. They are not hints or secrets. They just help define the premise of the world. Do not write more than six of these. Fewer is okay. 

“Factions and Patrons”

give the players some background on the power centers, at least in the immediate area. 

I use seven (!!) factions in my Port setting, but players generally choose among four of them. (Reasons. Unusual settings sometimes require unusual solutions.) In your setting, I recommend at least three and maybe as many as five, but over five, and players’ eyes tend to glaze over. (I’ll use fewer in Cyfandil.)

It’s also quite possible that the players don’t care much for factions and politics at all; or they wish to travel the majestic wilderlands far and wide. Factions and patrons still gives the players two things:

1. a better feel for the construction of the world, so they can better mold their character concept, and

2. a place to get their starting quests. Much better than “you meet in a tavern” or in media res. 

Who knows? They may end up liking factions after all, since they provide powerful allies.

“Lines and Veils:”

Lines are hard lines about what sensitive topics will, and won’t, appear in the campaign. Veils are softer lines - a veiled idea might happen offstage rather than being played out. 

Tell the players which sensitive topics might come up, and which will come up. Ask each player if there is a topic or topics they would like to avoid. This establishes trust and boundaries. Sometimes these lines and veils will cross each other. It’s better to sort out what is out of bounds prior to session one. 

Here’s an example. In my Cyfandil campaign, there will be three distinct races of people, analogous to Nordic White, East Asian and North African. I don’t plan to broach controversial issues of race at all, but there is a real-world shade to the campaign where three different peoples make up Mankind. I also want to have traditional boy-girl romance and very little human-demi human race mixing, if any. 

By the standards of this decade, these are all controversial ideas. There were nonwhites in actual medieval Europe (in small numbers.) I will have a multiracial table including at least one mixed race child. I want my several players to be

able to choose a character that’s like themselves (without limiting them so.) I will explain the romance and mixing expectations as adhering to the genre. Certainly, your world will be much, much different. 

Additionally, ask the several players if there is something they absolutely want to try. And then try to find a way to make that possible. There are some concepts that simply won’t work with some settings, but do your best to make them work somehow. 

One important line to mention straightaway in folkstyle d is that your paper man will die, and that’s okay. You, the player, don’t lose when your character dies - his story ends. You just use another character and carry on playing with your friends. 

After Session Zero you should update the document based on your conversation and send it out or hand it out to everyone again. 

That's a lot!

Yes. Yes it is. That’s a lot for one page. Write small. Use two columns. But make sure it’s one page.

 

In the header, put the name of the campaign and the version number of the document.

In the footer, put your name, email and phone.

 

You can do this. I can do this. In fact, I’m going to do it for my Cyfandil campaign now.

 

Don’t Invest in Your Character?

Yes you read that right. Don’t invest in your character. 

What does that mean? It simply means that you can enjoy playing just as much - or even more - if you don’t consider your own character to be the center of your game experience. Here, I’ll explain why and then I’ll give you some suggestions how. 

OSR, or folkstyle d&d, is about problem-solving, not narrative. The primary problem is something like: “there’s treasure underground and monsters and traps protect it. How are we gonna get it out?” This leads to numerous other fun problems that we call “the campaign.” In the campaign, there is narrative - but it comes from solving problems, not from acting in the story the Ref has scripted for you ahead of time. 

This implies that your own brain is your primary tool for success. And that your character - sometimes I’ll call it your figure - is how your brain manipulates the game world. Again, your character is your tool, much like a chess man is a tool for solving the problems your opponent presents to you in a chess match. 

Now, nobody invests too much emotion in a pawn or a knight in chess. And I’m not suggesting you should be so cavalier about your character in d&d. But there is a happy medium there where you feel comfortable risking the figure’s death without breaking down in tears if he meets his fitting end. 

There’s another force at work against investing in your figure, and that’s time. The old games kept strict time, sometimes on a 1 day = 1 day basis. Whether your Ref plays like that or time is less iron-bound to real time, characters each need to spend time training to gain their next level, to heal injuries, to make magic items or supervise their castle’s construction, or just to learn spells. 

You see, healing magic only works while on adventures. God doesn’t grant you miracles for any old reason. You have to heal up in the normal fashion once you head back to town. 

Similarly, in folkstyle D, it takes time to learn spells: a full night’s rest and then 15 minutes of preparation for each spell level. Easy at your first few levels, but to reload a master wizard, it will take a day or so of study. A spell scroll takes a week to write; a potion, a whole day. A permanent magic item can take weeks. 

Characters also have lives away from the dungeon. Much of a character’s might is derived from land, alliances and favors owed. Gaining these takes time in town or at Court. A boy character may take a mistress or wife; that wife may bear him a child. This may suggest new adventures or alliances. A girl character might have a baby. This will keep her out of the dungeon for 12 months or more. 

At my table, and yours may vary, adventurers are only free to delve for about 18 weeks a year. They are required to serve in their Lord’s wars, they must do labor, politics or religious service, and the weather is just too frightful to expedite for many winter months. 

All these time squeezes mean that “Your Character” might not be ready to delve when the time comes for it. 

So what do we do when “Your Character” is tied up? Run a different figure of course. 

In the old days, men would run three, four, five different figures. Not all at once (but sometimes two at a time.) If the wizard died? Oh well, he’s dead, let’s get on with the fighting-man. 

I’m toying with the idea of a chargen minigame that pops out seven characters all at once. Not sure what I will call the system, but I will share it when I have it set. Doing seven at once ensures your backup guys are ready to go when needed. 

Preparing a world, Preparing a session

 The essence of play in the folkstyle of D&D is to push into unknown places, to explore, to meet new people, to acquire resources such as gold, magic items, allies and land, and to eventually build your very own domain where you can be the Lord andmold the world in your image.

To begin a campaign, some folks will want to start with the whole continent and kingdom. That’s fine. It’s fun. There are a lot of tools to help keep track of a whole world. But you don’t have to do nearly so much. In fact, if your goal is to get started in a reasonable amount of time and with a manageable amount of prep, then coloring in the whole world map is quite inefficient. We do not need a world; we need a neighborhood.

1.       Devise the premise of the world. That is, explain the nature of your specific game in a few sentences. What makes your campaign world special? Make it so you can tell someone what’s special about it in under one minute or print the information on one side of a business card. Consider your tone, what races and classes will be available, and what is special about your particular world.

2.       Think about one six-mile hex and then its surrounding hexes. That’s seven hexes and a total of 224 square miles. Place your starting town in the middle of the map. Realistic medieval cities and towns take up no more than a single one-mile hex. Consider water and food sources. Consider defense.

Then place the entrance to a dungeon somewhere nearby. Other points of interest can be generated procedurally as you go along. A village every 2-3 miles and a castle or fort every 12-15, a witch’s coven, an accursed fairytale forest, a goblin redoubt, a magical stone circle, a guard golem who dispenses quests and rewards. All of these can come later. The really important things are the haven of town and the entrance to the adventure site.

3.       Map out at least three levels of the starting dungeon. Each level should have a theme of some kind to distinguish it from the other levels. A good guideline is that the first level should have about 7-13 rooms, the second 13-25, and the third 25-30. Not every level has to be bigger than the one above it; these are only suggestions. We will talk more about just how to do that later on.

4.       Go back and draw the layout of the starting town. Think up some inhabitants. The party will need some shops to buy and sell, a place to sleep, a place to hire henchmen, a reason adventurous men may be available for hire, a place to hear rumors, and two or more power centers.

Power centers could include a chaotic temple, a thieves’ guild, a septarch’s tower, a league of fighters’ hall, NPCs of various backgrounds, roles and secrets.

5.       If the starting town does not have a castle or fort, place at least one within a day’s travel – about 12 miles. Consider placing a couple of towns 5-10 miles away from one another too. Use several kinds of terrain surrounding the starting town, for terrain provides the players with meaningful choices. Place roads and other pathways in logical places and at a logical technological levels.

Going through the steps above, this is what I have devised.

6.       Premise: The starting realm will resemble medieval northwest europe c. 1100. There will be three races (phenotypes) of Men, but the vast majority of NPCs will be Aluvian, the White European analogue. Starting classes are limited to fighter, wizard and cleric; and demi-men are limited to dwarf, elf and hobbit with race-as-class rules. Level cap is 14 and there are not many people in the world who have reached level 9. All classes other than fighting-man will be rare and exotic. At any one time, only 40% of the PCs can be demi-men; the balance must be human. This is to enforce the human-centric nature of adventuring. The several players shall decide among themselves who gets to play the demi-men, should there be excess demand. Most D&D monsters will be present. Some monsters will be new. Some monstrous races will be presented as unique individuals rather than myriad.

7.       Starting location: The town is named for Thorsten Cragstone, a legendary Aluvian general. Lore has it that he founded the town and he is buried somehwhere nearby. There is an impressive patinaed bronze statue to him in the middle of town, even though no one really knows what he looked like. Whosoever is in town when the church bells ring noon gathers before the statue and pledges their allegiance to it, as it is the embodiment of Cragstone’s fighting spirit. The townspeople believe they are all descendants of his or of his friend Zenopus the Septarch, or of both. When a man from Cragstone swears an oath, he will say, “by Cragstone’s beard,” or “by the crook’d staff of Zenopus,” or perhaps simply, “by the Founders.”

It is located at an elbow in the Rith, which is a broad, slow river with ample littoral marshlands. It has average quality farmland. The locals are known for their honey and their candle wax, since beekeeping is a point of pride.

Because of its location on the river and halfway between the towns of Rithwic and Glenden Wood, it is also known as a decent market town. In addition to the permanent shops, there is a paddock down by the river where merchants will sell wares from their wagons. There’s a small chance that you can find just about anything down there, and a slightly smaller chance you can sell just about anything.

Demographically, Cragstone is a town of 100 families. At least one is Dwarven; at least two are Hobbit; none are Elven (PCs aside.) There is one G’harundim woman in town who is the jeweler. (G’harundim are a North African type of people.) The rest of the town of course is made up of Aluvian Men and their kin.

Since this is the starting town, I can be certain that we will spend at least several sessions there. Therefore it makes sense to stock it with lots of NPCs. I have created about 50 NPCs to be “the people in the neighborhood.” Name, race, job, most common locations. This includes the town guard and a number of ne’er-do-wells from which henchmen can be hired. I have also established several craftsmen who will be useful to the players for specific equipment, information, and to buy unusual items they may find. I don’t know how much the players will decide to utilize any of these resources, but they’re available.

The power centers in town are threefold: There are two churches (one Catholic and one Protestant) and there is a sheriff named Lieutenant Kenneth who leads the town guard and acts as the chief civil authority in town. He is a neutral Hero, or fourth-level fighting-man.  The town has one true cleric, a first level Lawful named Edrick the Coward and one second-level fighter who acts as Kenneth’s sergeant.

I have not assigned traits to any NPCs in advance since I prefer to assign them procedurally as I go along. That way, I can be surprised and delighted right along with the several other players.

Greater Cragstone

This is greater Cragstone. The little hexes are 1 mile across and the bigger ones are 6 miles across. 

In reality, the towns are a little close together. Real towns would be 8-10 miles apart. I put them where they are for ease of mapping. 

The map is about 95% done. I think I need to connect a road and maybe I should blank out the lair at 2315.

Click to enbiggen.

Races and Places

Not the map - just an example 

On the People of the Realm

One of the implicit assumptions of vanilla d&d is that the people are analogues to European Whites. I will retain that here but it bears mentioning that I even considered some alternative, which I would not have done a few years ago.

White European types will be a supermajority. This is the principality of Aluvia, a White country in a White region. There will be a very few demi-men and a very few nonwhites. The other races of Men in the world are East Asian analogues and North African analogues. There will be one G’harundim (North African type) in town. 

I don’t anticipate any racial politics between human groups unless the players force the issue, and I don’t expect they will. I’m certainly not going to broach it. It’s just flavor. Later, the players may decide to travel to the other lands and find different cultural norms and different kinds of dungeons and wilderness.

On the Shape of the Realm

Cragstone is going to be the middle town in a three-town run along the as-yet-unnamed river. There will be significant trade along the river and the road. Therefore it makes sense to put castles nearby. 

About half the six-mile hex will be farmland and half will be forest, including some dense forest. It will be hilly too, giving some verticality to the land. This helps to take the land out of the realm of a board game and into the realm of the real.  

On the Landmarks of the Realm

I’m going to put a proper castle at the confluence of two rivers a little northwest of the northern town, Rithwic. I’m going to put B2 in the next hex over. Rename everything and reskin the monsters to provide a little mystery. 

That gives the townspeople a defensible position within a day’s walk in either direction and provides sites for interesting adventuring opportunities. 

I’m also going to put a bandit “castle” (fortified house) somewhere nearby, with a charismatic Sho (East Asian) warlord and 300 men, either north or south along the trade road. Probably two hexes away, so the patrols from one of the castles will have skirmish with the bandits. Idk how much it will come into play, but imo it’s important to prepare factions for the players to encounter as well. 

Past that, there will be a ruined Septarch tower and two other dungeons in the same hex. (Septarchs are the archmages of the realm.)

On the Monsters of the Realm

As far as local monsters, I’m going to have new humanoid monsters that aren’t really new. They will be reskinned and renamed but retain the same ecology and society as the ones we all know from a million years of playing, but they will look different and act a little different, giving the same-but-different that people seem to enjoy. 

Drudges are cat men who breed like crazy. The least of them are 1-HP monsters. The most powerful of them cast war spells such as lightning bolts. They are like goblins. 

Tumeroks are tall grey warriors. They present kind of like romans and kind of like cavemen, and are obsessed with honor and order like Dwarves might be.

Monoguas are various colors. They have three eyes vertically in the middle of their face. Monogua eyes are prized for magic material components and potions. 

I’m going to keep ogres and trolls and minotaurs as is. Kobolds, I don’t know. I may make kobolds like Doozers. Neither benign nor malign. Into mining and building underground.

Orcish is an affliction men get, similar to lycanthropy.

I might introduce Ouphes, which are a dark mirror to elves and gnomes. They are merchants, jewelers and bankers. Nepotistic and ruthless and sour and obnoxious. Rarely, Ouphes gain character levels like men do but they should not be PCs.

I’ve been and will be super busy. Regional maps to come.