Lore Deepguard plus previews (Patreon)

Thought I'd share some WIPs along with the latest finished lore post!

The Stone Druids one is early stages, as I'm working on redesigning it. They were previously mentioned in the Kofoten lore post, a group of militant stone themed druids, essentially earthbenders, hunting drakes n shit. Been rethinking it, the main ability I wanted to give them was the idea of shaping stone fpr both defense and offense. Thought it could work with a reworked wildshape to be more stone focused, but it feels more like a fun barbarian subclass than a druid one? My original thought was that it was a fun juxtaposition, they are a druid circle but instead of being all about balance and nature, theyre militant af and focuses on the mountain rather than the living. But gameplay-wise, should they be able to wildshape into animals? Doesnt really fit the rest of the vibe imo, and then, what's the point of starting from the druid class? S might aswell make it a barbarian with some magical goodies, keep it simple.

Also wanna redesign Klinka a bit too, similarly to what I'm doing to Dal, not 100% on her design just yet. Would still LOVE to make something with the Mountainbound idea, which is about a group of Dwarves that form the Rakrund Reclaimers company to retake the lost Dwarven hold of Rakrund before the time runs out (in Dwarven law, lost Dwarven holds still "belong" to the descendants and kin of their lost inhabitants for three centuries after lost contact. Before that point, a suitable representative can lay legitimate claim to the Hold, no matter who lives there now but after three centuries, they've lost their claim and it's fair game for anyone to move in).

On the Jotnar page, it's basically a flavour thing for the Goliath species. Mechanically I like it in DnD 5.5, but respectfully the species designs are boring, often sadly dumbed down to tall Humans with scars/tattoos. So this is my attempt of making a little bit of a distinction visually from the other species.

On that, I've found that Wizards use of "species" instead of "races" is growing on me. Doesnt quite ring right, a lot more clinical and stuffy to say species than races and if one says "the Elves despised the younger races" you think of intelligent beings like dwarves and humans, but if you say "younger species", it's less clear who are included. Cats?However, it's growing on me. It feels more stuffy and less fantasy-coded than just "races" BUT it feels more correct in a technical sense? Race can be both the "human race" and racial categorization of humanity, whereas species is cleaner. In Swedish we use race in terms of as it's a subcategory of "species", "what race is that dog" - fuck that sounds weird in English... Though it's rarely used nowadays to refer to Humans, ethnicity is more often used.

It's a bit of a mess. Racial categorizations of Humans is a topic I'm not well-versed enough in to offer insight and have a decent enough take on to. I kinda get were WOTC is coming from when they stated they wanted to move away from using "race" as a term for what boils down to woke reasons (on "woke" - I don't use that derogatory, not a bad thing for companies to strive to be woke imo. Personally, I try to be as aware of social, racial and injustice as I can and not perpetuate harmful steroetypes n shit. It's a word that boils it all down very neatly, despite being ) but it felt a bit forced at the time. Was it an issue? Personally I never thought of it as a potential issue unless you were really splitting hairs. But then again, I personally experience racism and racial insensitivity purely through the internet. I'm not racially profiled or treated differently and none of my friends (afaik, fingers crossed) are racist, so wtf do I know eh? Better to shrug and chill. I'm fine with using Species.

Unhinged stream of thought over, thanks for reading.

Comics are coming!

Also back to writing Undercover Lich, been stuck on the next chapter for a LONG time, decided to just say fuckit and finish it so I can move on to the next chapters. I can change it later :P

Peace and carrots!