More in-depth description of the Legarto race, in the confines of my Ziibi D&D campaign setting.
I added additional information as it came to mind and followed my outline. If there's anything that I may have missed, do note this to me.
I'm not completely happy with the organization of this, though, so that may tweak when I return to it.
(I also get the feeling that I may need to organize what is quickly becoming a cluttered Ziibi folder, heh)
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Posted by Sydney 13 years ago Report
I think I need to play a Legarto now. I was on the fence before, but they just sound really awesome. I see that you approve of my dread necromancer idea as well! Still torn between that and doing some kind of mixed melee/caster guy since I get the impression that str might be an important stat for vore rules. Have you thought more on those, by the way?
Stuff like this is what I wish Paizo included in the Advanced Race Guide. You've done a better job in making me feel like I understand your race than they ever have. All of those little details really add up into a comprehensive picture of what Legarto are.
That said, I do have a couple of questions. If the Legarto are so naturally powerful and have such a strong focus on military training, how is it that they've never won a war? Has the Empire always just drastically outnumbered them?
If they're all male, how does reproduction work? Is it magical in nature or do they all have some kind of womb that connects to their lower intestine? While we're on anatomy, is their genitalia internal or external? I'm guessing external since you mentioned that they're warm blooded, but I just wanted to clarify.
Posted by Garz 13 years ago Report
I... /didn't/ respond?! O_o Ack, sorry! I'd swear I did.
I have been toying with vore rules. My main flaw is that... well, okay. I think I have a balanced subsystem idea, but there's great incentive to just use something reflavored from regular D&D rather than making up something entirely new. It's the old 'do I really want to add complexity?' problem, heh. Regardless, _a_ goal is that if a legarto and a minotaur put the same stat into strength (so if they both put in an 18, resulting in the minotaur getting a 20), the legarto has a significant advantage in the vore arena of at least 10-20%, but I'm playing with numbers. Strength and size, however, will generally be positive things - but I don't want it to be entirely 'bigger is better', as being bigger is already a ton better in D&D for physicals... and presumably not /everyone/ will want to play a small race to purely hop down someone's throat...
Also, thank you for the compliment! That's exactly what I'm hoping for - hoping people get a good peek into their mindset.
As for why they keep losing wars... well, that's actually something the Legarto themselves would really like to figure out. From an external point of view, Legarto do have an array of troubles.
One is that they're not really unified. The empire is 'the empire', which spans their continent. Legarto are a group of somewhat associated city-states that don't necessarily agree with each other - they even used to fight it out with each other. Now to be fair, they all agree on 'we don't like the empire', but Burroni doesn't want to jump out and attack until there's what they consider a sufficiently effective plan as they're first on the retaliation block, D'arco isn't too keen on the strategies other city-states utilize, you get several city-states going, "Well I want to be in charge of this, not you", and it's a mess. It's nothing like the minotaur, mind you - they get along infinitely better than that, especially nowadays - but it's nothing on the empire's wholeness.
Two, related to one, is that they're sorely outnumbered. They would be outnumbered even if they were all unified, and since they're not they're really outnumbered.
Three, they are then out tactic'd. Legarto have more of the barbarian-style 'You be awesome', while the empire has more of the 'carefully planned army'. At the moment at least, the well trained army is beating the group of potent individuals.
Then in addition to this, a sizeable chunk of the empire are noncombatants. While this is partially a source of pride for the Legarto (All of our units can eat people, your have potters), it's a double edged sword: The empire has a lot of people dedicated to making the subordinate stuff that makes an army run. They have people more than willing to be food runners, lots more people who are willing to work on weapons or armour, and generally the empire is better built to have a war. Legarto who focus on noncombat areas are made fun of, but they are in fact swamped with work to do at all times.
Looking at gear in general then, the Legarto have less of it - less supplies in general to help them in a wartime setting, especially if they lose a battle (And thus lose the resources spent on it). Now, this can be solved with trade... but uh, the empire is a wonderful friendly trading partner, the legarto is a dangerous worrisome trading partner.
Then... well, being constantly on the winning side is pretty good for morale for the empire, and being constantly on the losing side kinda... kinda sucks for the poor Legarto.
Finally, culture is a powerful thing. The Legarto have last names now (city-state names), D'arco has a standing army, their childhood is a lot different, and all in all they're getting more and more imperial. A lot of things are basically converting to imperial standards in an attempt to beat the imperials, which might pretty much end with the Legarto losing purely on a cultural angle.
And those are some of their problems. Also granted, uh, these are problems an external eye is seeing - you'll probably get some arguments from within the Legarto about which of these are actually problems. I mean, armies have won wars in the face of many of these problems, and Legarto are freaking dangerous ^_^
(As a completely unrelated aside, culturally, about half of the races are 'losing' , while half are 'winning' . I find that more overall interesting than the more typical 'everyone's culture is strong in its own way'. ^_^ )
Anyway! Reproduction is something I'm analyzing a bit more - mostly in 'how much detail do I really want to get into'. This is further the case as everyone in Ziibi is joining the Legarto in being all-male!
It takes two to make a child, however. I'm waffling on how focal I want pregnancy in general - among other things, if it's not strictly /mentioned/, then I'm totally cool with PCs who want to focusing thereon, while PCs who do not want to never having it come up.
My intent was that Legarto genitalia is external, but that's another thing on that list. Leaving it up in the air means players can utilize whichever they prefer, and it can easily be handwaved as 'eh, some humans have red hair'. There is a point where voracious humanoid alligators no longer have to follow all the rules without it breaking verisimilitude, heh. ^_^
(As an aside, for my initial games, I'm totally going to allow - and in fact will request - people make up stuff for the setting. Thus, you're plenty encouraged to be a Legarto from a completely different city-state and make up rules thereon so long as they don't contradict existent ones. This may take a little back-and-forth, but they're likely to just end up canon (Although I'll probably end up taking the idea and running off with it, as an extra heads up). So please - make up a city-state of your own that has taken to metallurgy, or give Mendoza a brother, or make /that/ city-state that nobody trusts since it's known to have cooperated with the empire at some point in the past, or something.)
Sorry again for the really long gap before the response, whoa.