Subrace and Subculture

Birthright does something interesting with humans. It divides them up into cultural groups and gives them bonuses as though they were separate races. The bonus modifiers for the Cerilians are the following:

Anuirean, +1 Wis, -1 Dex
Brechtian, +1 Dex, -1 Wis
Khinasi, +1 Int, -1 Con
Rjurik, +1 Con, -1 Cha
Vos, +1 Str, -1 Int

On the one hand, I really like this. On the other, I have some reservations about it. These single point perks and flaws are meant (I'm sure) to represent the various inclinations, cultural leanings, values, and training amongst those populations. That's neat, because cultural norms SHOULD be reflected in the game.

And yet... cultural norms shouldn't, to my mind, be as decisive a factor as the blatantly inhuman nature of demihumans. That +1 Dex, -1 Wis is no different from the dwarven alteration from the PHB (though to be fair, in Cerilia, dwarves get a +2, Con, -2 Dex which sort of addresses the problem). I almost want to adopt the more dramatic adjustments from Birthright for my own demihumans (almost, but won't).

I really like cultures and subraces. I really like stat adjustments. I really like when they work together. I think Birthright, alone amongst the AD&D supplements, solves this issue in the best way (eg, exaggerating the inhuman qualities of demihumans). Things such as the Complete Book of Dwarves tend to blend the idea of distinct subraces and distinct cultures—in fact, the notion of non-cultural subraces is something that might not make sense, though that's a debate about genetics in a primarily fantasy setting which is a road we probably don't want to go down.

The Strangeness of Demihumans

There are three common problems that I see cropping up with demihuman races. Not all settings suffer from these, so I'm not saying this is a universal issue. Rather, these are common pitfalls when attempting to depict something so strange as a race that is almost like men but not quite in some significant ways.

The first is the little men with beards/tall men with ears flaw. This is something that has plagued me personally for a long time. I've struggled to find solutions to this time and time again and I think I have finally hit on a method of depiction that satisfies me. Why bother to have dwarves and elves and halflings and trolls and orcs if they're all just people with different skins on? So I've gone through great lengths to differentiate my demihumans, to make them somewhat strange and unlike men.

The second issue is the problem of the monoculture. I have tried to address that in the 10th Age by explaining it (though even in the 10th Age there is no monoculture but rather two-five racial cultures for each demihuman race  which are determined by a number of factors). Dwarves are intensely conservative and purposefully try to replicate ancient social structures. As something more-than-human (or less-than-human, as the argument may go), they have an almost supernatural ability to recreate their own societies. Their language has barely changed in centuries.

Elves, on the other hand, actively promote a mono-culture through teleportation magic (the Silver Road) and the standardization of elvish classics and grammaticians taught to all wind elves the world over.

The third issue is one that I remembered when I started writing this essay but which I've now forgotten, so maybe it wasn't all that important. Anyway, what I really want to talk about today is the first -- making demihumans a little less human.