Those that can be trusted, and thus in their pack, learn their real name which is composed of two parts: their role in the pack + their real name. They don’t care if it is confusing if they hand out three names to three different people all within earshot of them, as these people are not part of their pack and can’t be trusted.
They have a pack name, and then a wide variety of names they pass out to strangers, never sticking to a single name for the outside world. This simply allows you to sneak in a bit more information about this race without the player realizing they are being engrossed by your lore - it also helps you figure out how others of that race might be named themselves and how their names interact with the world at large.įor us, I wanted to highlight the relationship a cycan has with their pack and how they are distrustful of those outside of it. While you don’t have to provide information on this, it does help players figure out what names would be appropriate - though they may still end up calling their cycan character Fido or Spike. They prefer associating with their packs and don’t have much contact with others outside of it. I also drop in tidbits that these people align their identities with their pack and there is no general consensus as to who they really are. In addition, they aren’t a specific breed of dogfolk, but rather this race encapsulates all 190+ breeds of them. If you have a novel of history for a race, it’s better to add that to a section after the racial traits or else all your hard work will be for not when they just skip over to something they already know.įor the cycan, our hook is that they are dogfolk. Try to keep this as simple as possible, with a clear reason why someone might want to play as this race. When creating your race, provide a quick description for your players to quickly reference if they are confused about what they are reading about. So while the name basically means dog-wolf if you know what words were mashed together to make it, it’s a made-up word that offers something that covers an entire race of similar creatures. The ‘cy’ is taken from Cyno- which originates from the Greek word for dog and for ‘can’ I took it from Lycan, which also originates from Greek, this time for wolf. This is a mish-mash of two words that evoke canine, dog, hound, and more to me. While you can call your race ‘dogfolk’ to help players immediately understand what the race appears/acts like, save it for the first line in your description, not as the WHOLE name of a race.įor our race today, I decided to name them the cycan. The same can be said for people like the Tabaxi or Kobolds, they aren’t going to take kindly to you just calling them cats or lizards.
Humans don’t call themselves apefolk, dwarves as shortfolk, elves as forestfolk, or goblins as feisty-angryfolk. While it is quite descriptive to players, it is not a term that an entire race of creatures would call themselves. As a word of advice, avoid using a term like dogfolk, catfolk, lizardfolk, or other similar terms. You need a defining name for your new race. If you are wanting the playable race to be better represented, then it’ll be worth creating racial traits for them. It doesn’t provide the flavor of a unique race, but rather helps players make a specific type of build or allows them to create something weird without having their Game Master go through and build a new race for a one-off event. Other options include the Custom Lineage rules found in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything (2020), though that’s more of a temporary fix as it hands out a feat. This could be if you wanted to create a parrot-race and so you could take the aarakocra information and just change the Ability Score Increase from Wisdom to Charisma. It might make sense to simply reflavor an existing race into a new one, making a few minor changes or switching a few abilities around. Before you can begin creating your race, make sure you have a very clear idea as to what you are hoping to accomplish and what niche you are looking to fill.
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