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Races of Destiny is a supplment in the new races line, each detailing a number of races who share common characteristics. Races of Destiny covers humans and races related to humans.
Races of Destiny is an attractive hardbound volume, full-color and illustrated. I noticed no unusual number of typoes.
Chapter One
Describing humans as a fantasy race faces certain hurdles. First, since we are humans, the humans in a fantasy world must be recognizable to us. At the same time, however, they are not us, but inhabitants of a magical world populated by many other intelligent species. Further, genre demands that they behave, alternately, as pseudo-medieval characters mired in feudalism and superstition, and as idealized counterparts to the modern reader. How can such a balance be achieved, satisfying both the fantasy element and protagonistic desire? The second problem is that in a world of many races, all essentially the fantasy masks of human authors, depecting humans as a distinct race can be difficult. Dwarves are industrious, elves magical and aloof, and halflings deft and common-sense. Humans can not be merely average without raising, ironically, the question of what justifies their existence.
Humans are included partly for obligatory purposes, and this book is nothing if not obligatory. The way the authors have tackled the human problem is to romanticize human agentic traits. That is, industry, ambition, exploration, and other actions of sheer willfullness characterize human beings. Out of some political sensibility, as well as the demands of genre, the authors have described human cultures as more diverse and provincially different than nonhuman ones. Thus, you can have pseudo-Celts, pseduo-Arabs, and pseudo-Romans all populating your fantasy world, while nonhumans exist as monocultures.
There are three problems with this approach. First is the ethnic bias of the authors. The values ascribed to humans are clearly Western industrial values, and moreover, favor the masculine ideals of Western society over the feminine. Second, it pays little compliment to humanity. Not all humans are aggressive, and not all humans are agents of exploration or vision. Some humans are blessedly peaceful, others are piggishly superstitious, zealous, or stubborn. Third, there is no clear analog between human culture in this book and civilizations in literature or history. Right off the bat, human religion, with its plural deities, religious diversity, and emphasis on deific cults, resembles few real world religions, perhaps the heights of Greek and Hindu civilization. Certainly, the picture of religion does not resemble medieval Christianity or Islam, Roman pagan orthodoxy, shamanic traditions, or generic dualism (such as Mithraism, Zoroastrianism, Tolkien's spiritual allegory, or the divide of Light/Dark prevalent in modern fantasy literature). It pays little heed to D&D's sword-and-sorcery roots, with its snake cults, obscure deities, and empty-headed philosophies. This book also paints an odd picture of human nature, "looking to the future." Imperial China did not look to the future, nor did the Holy Roman Emperors, or the nationalists of the 20th century. It also depicts humans as innovators and invetors, despite a historical picture of humanity that I would call "resistant to progress except when obviously of benefit at the present time." In short, the book espouses a view of "humanity" consistent with mid 20th century American pragmatism. I expect that from Star Trek; I do not expect that from a game centered on the exploits of a pseduo-medieval society's highly armed and dangerous outcasts.
The only concession to humanity's sometimes regressive nature is the deity Zarus, a deity of human racial supremacy and tyranny. Urbanus is a contrived deity who resembles a city on legs, and seems to exist for the same reason so many things in D&D exist: because there was not yet a deity of cities, so they chose to provide one in a form that could be described entirely by the phrase "deity of cities." Like many such deities, he is as banal as he is redundant as he is obvious (and therefore uninteresting). He is also Neutral Good, which I find suspect. If the spirit of a city is anything, it is, "Things are as they are." The bookend to the deity section are some creaton myths hardly worth introducing into any D&D campaign. All essentially evade the question of why humanity has no creator deity.
The section on language speaks briefly about Common, considering in one paragraph the ramifications of no Common tongue. It then treats Gutterspeak, a possibly useful pseudo-Cockney cant that will probably ring familiar on the ears of Planescape fans.
Chapter Two
Half-elves lead the lives of loners, described in this chapter aptly as the "foreigner mentality." Largely without peers, living among short-lived, mundane humans or long-lived, aloof elves, they have no place but their own interests. What this section does not touch upon is the special parentage of every half-elf, the result of a human and an elf crossing racial lines to mate. Virtually every half-elf is the child of two exceptional parents. Why, then, are half-elves the most bog-standard of the common races, and what can be done in a game to remedy this? The most problematic part of this otherwise sensible section is its justification of half-elves "natural negotiator" bonus introduced in 3.5. Half-elves, as perpetual outsiders, are used to making their own way with tact and neutrality. However, this does not fit in well with the idea of half-elves being lonely souls existing at the edges of human and elven communities. While portraying half-elves as dual-natured, conflicted, and ambivalent, it does not escape the simplistic notion of the half-elf as existing comfortably in the middle of cultures. I do not agree with the notion of half-elf as natural diplomat, but this book is unfortunately saddled with that explanation. As such, this section does a passable job of explaining how half-elves, as go-betweens for all the common races, find a place in not having a place of their own.
The section on half-orcs is more consistently disappointing. The half-orc is the noble savage, the misunderstood brute, the lonely monster. Is he not more? What of his monstrous nature? What of his relationship to evil? No other race in D&D suffers from as narrow an imagination as the half-orc. If half-orcs are the shame of both their parents' society, how do they come to live in them at all? This book does not touch on the question, "Where do little half-orcs come from?" Most likely this is for the simple reason that the explanation is both disquieting and politically touchy. Logically, half-orcs must come from either: one, acts of rape, most likely male orc on female human, but possibly the opposite (and it's not difficult to imagine a female orc coercing a fragile human male into the act); two, the offspring of slaves, implying at best orc slavery of humans and at worst human slavery of orcs, and the resultant useful but marginal half-breeds; and three, acts of voluntary mating in places where orcs and humans trade and co-exist.
How does a half-orc arisen from an act of rape survive, save from an act of pity? A human woman would likely have to leave her community to raise the poor child alone. A female orc must either retain the child out of stubborn pride in her offspring, or possess a relatively un-orc-like love for a child of ill-fate. Either suggests many roleplaying opportunities. I can understand why Wizards of the Coast would want to skirt the issue, but it's a disservice in a book that is supposed to provide depth to the characters to not even hint strongly at the issues. It's easy to see, also, why they would want to avoid the issue of slavery and the inevitible incidence of master-slave procreation, whether through rape, bribery, genuine affection, or convenince. America is yet sore from the wounds of slavery, emancipation, and the struggle for Civil Rights. Likely, no one wants to hear an explanation of why a slaver would choose to fornicate with the farthest thing from society's standard of beauty, because the comparison draws accusing parallels between depictions of blacks as subhumans and the depiction in fantasy of subhumans in general. In the case of orcs and humans mating casually and without hatred, there comes the deepest difficulties from a gaming standpoint. Generally speaking, orcs are protrayed as monsters with only the barest pitable qualities, full of violence, race-hatred, and sociopathy. It is hard to imagine under what circumstances orcs and humans would live in harmony, but given that orcs in D&D are not destined toward evil, only predisposed toward it, it follows that there must exist such communities. Thus, the authors might have enriched the game world by describing border towns, rural outposts, and isolated societies where humans and orcs live and interbreed, not without hatred, but without continuous warfare.
In fact, both sections could have benefitted by describing communities consisting largely of mixed-race individuals. Surely there must be some, and they would represent a unique racial experience worth including in a sourcebook of this nature.
Chapter Three
Illumians are a human offshoot, a race arisen from human cultists dabbling in magic and divine ascendence. Illumians study symbols and runes. In fact, glowing sigils follow them around, empowering them with special talents. If humans (in this book) are ambitious, multitalented explorers, illumians are humans to the extreme. They live in stern cults organized around jealously guarded magical knowledge. In his heart, each illumian lusts for mastery over his fellows and, ultimately, the power of a god.
Illumians, in game terms, surrender the bonus Feat and skill points of a human for their magical symbols. Many of the symbols are meaningful only to multiclass characters. Illumians are also granted the ability to multiclass freely as a monk or a paladin. Unlike many of the new races debuted in this line of supplements, they carry no Level Adjustment.
Since Illumians are fairly interesting and small in number, they could be introduced quite easily into any campaign that can accomodate the existence of their cabals and the amazing secrets they possess.
Chapter Four
Chapter Four describes other races delated to humans, human society, or cities. Aasimar appear without any notable elaboration or improvement. In fact, the text is essentially cribbed from the Monster Manual. Doppelganers get a brief but worthwhile treatment, as well as a racial progress (in the Savage Species style). Half-Ogres receive yet another 3.5 treatment. This one adds them up as Large giants with a +2 Level Adjustment and no worse penalties to Intelligence and Charisma than half-orcs. Mongrelfolk I will address in a moment. Sea Kin are aquatic humans; they trade in the bonus Feat, but not the skill points, for the abilities you might imagine. Sharakim are intelligent orcs. But not. Actually, they are transformed humans, and although they resemble orcs, they still retain the human type, and are actually quite intelligent. They exist primarily, it seems, to get mistakenly attacked by heroic adventurers who don't clue in to the fact there's something a bit weird about an orc in wizard's robes. Skulks are degenerate, stealthy humans, who also get a Racial Progression. Tieflings, like Aasimar, don't get much beyond their MM treatment. Underfolk are subterranean, darkness-dwelling humans.
Mongrelfolk... I don't know where to begin. As they originally appeared in AD&D, mongrelfolk were the weird result of mixing too many ingredients. Part human, elf, orc, tiefling, whatever, mongrelfolk were themselves a special underclass of society, those too mixed to belong. They also had the weird ability to mimic sounds. While it is easy to question the logic of such a "race," they had a theme, and they worked with it: sneaky, weird-looking humanoids of dubious ancestry. This book has decided to riff on that concept further. Mongrelfolk are in fact so racially ambiguous that everyone assumes they are something else. Apparently, in the D&D world, nobody looks at a squat, ugly elf and says, "hm, could be some orc blood in there." They exist on the fringes of society, blending in as best they can, and yet somehow have their own deity. Humans haven't managed to acquire a unique deity, and yet mongrelfolk, everywhere and of whatever specific ancestry, share a deity. And the ability to mimic sounds. They just don't make any sense. This, apparently, is the truth about mongrelfolk, not the entry in the Monster Manual that descibres them as "hideous creatures decended from the generations of crossbreeding among the worst examples of many species." I can imagine such creatures having their own deity. Not the "passers" described in Races of Destiny. Mongrelfolk clearly need a homeland, a cesspool from which to arrive, such as the ruins of a kingdom shattered by war.
Chapter Five
Prestige Classes. It is all but obligatory for every sourcebook to offer more Prestige Classes. More than any one campaign could ever contain. Nonetheless, you always hope for a few diamonds in the rough.
The Chameleon is the master of versatility. They must be human or doppelganger. Essentially, they can meditate and take on a different set of talents, daily if need be. They can also mimic various class features. The price is three poor Saves, and of course, mastery of no particular area. You would expect Chamelons to be dabblers and con artists, but in fact they are members of a sort of monastary. Without spoiling too much, they do have an agenda. I see them as more useful in the role of a mysterious NPC, but I question how much more useful, or intersting, they are than a multiclassed NPC who is simply in disguise. The idea that an adversary might have different abilities each time they encounter him is... bizarre. As a PC choice, the class has problems. First, there is the organizational requirement. Second, they trample all over niche protection while presumably failing to cover an area in the party of real deficiency. Third, they are too weird an organization to have in the foreground of the campaign without substantially affecting the D&D landscape.
Loredelvers are an Illumian specialty, essentially rogue and wizard. They excel at getting into places and opening things. They could be described as magical tomb robbers with a mission.
Menacing Brutes are half-orcs living in human society who get by on their muscle. He has some intimidation based abilities, full BAB and fighter hit dice, and a minor sneak attack ability. I'm not positive this PrC adds much to the basic Fighter/Rogue mix, although a smart half-orc could possibly qualify without Rogue levels. For me, they fall under the category of "Prestige Classes that would have been Kits in AD&D 2e." That is, they are more a variation on the Fighter than a true expansion of the game. Also, I'm not sure what's so half-orcish about the class. I can easily imagine a dwarf being both menacing and brutish.
The Outcast Champion is for half-elves, half-orcs, and half-ogres. Basically, it's a partisan leader, a combination of folk hero and demagogue. It's an interesting notion. However, the class differs little from other champions of other causes with their own PrC, differing only in their unusual political orientation. It has the usual rallying abilities and morale bonuses. They might as well have called it the Outcast Purple Dragon Knight. As half-elves, half-orcs, and half-ogres do not form their own societies and rarely congregate, the class seems geared to the most quixotic characters. I can not think of any real world political movements that motivated half-breeds of any kind to seize power and equality. It is an unusual organizational PrC in that the champion is likely the only one in his organization who follows it. There is no corresponding Follower of Outcast Champion PrC.
Scar Enforcers are half-elves who have adopted an anti-human, anti-elf stance, forming their own society and financing their activities through violent crime. They're essentially a gang. They combine average BAB with d8 hit dice, good skills, and half spellcasting progression, plus sneak attack and favored enemy. The weird part is that at level 10, they "forgo heritage" and are no longer counted as members of either race for beneficial or harmful effects. I'm not sure what process would cause this magical thing to happen to a group of criminals of no particular magical might. Menacing Brutes, after all, do not become "super half-orcs" through some magical process. Also, I'm not sure what facet of such an organization would lend itself to a wide variety of magical talents. Spellcaster progression?
Shadow Sentinels are Illumian guardians who wield umbral blades. They are familiar with the Plane of Shadow and can harness it both against foes from the Shadow plane and attackers from the Material plane. Unlike most Illumian pursuits, multiclassing is not required, although it's easily possible. This is a pretty good example of a Prestige Class; warriors gain a distinctive, useful ability tied to their heritage. It's something only an Illumian would ever be trained in. It's useful, but not overwhelmingly powerful; rather, Shadow Sentinels are designed to be really good at guarding things from interlopers and evil outsiders.
Urban Souls are humans who worship Urbanus (although Urbanus accepts worshippers and presumably clerics of any race). Why not half-elves or half-orcs? They have a variety of powers that draw on the power of the city to sustain, hide, or empower them. Of all the deities who do not need uniquitous champions roaming around, Urbanus would be near the top of my list. Not only do we have the two-dimensional NG city to deal with, but his crew of Batmen roaming the city tops, using city magic more akin to a Charles de Lint novel than epic fantasy.
Chapter Six
A whole slew of "Character Options." It briefly touches on urban uses for old skills, before delving into a whole slew of Feats. Most are racial, many are Illumian. A few are for city dwellers. Diverse Background gives any "half-human" character a second favored class, making half-elves the ultimate multiclassers. Able Learners can buy cross-class skills cheaply, while Heroic Destiny gives a human or half-human character a bonus to a roll, once a day. Overall, the Feats are welcome and not overpowering, although Heroic Destiny and the Feats that follow can change the feel of a campaign if you prefer a certain level of grimness. But in a game where elves and dwarves are fading from the world and humanity rising, they make a certain sense. Menacing Demeanor goes a long way toward erasing the orc or half-orc disadvantage in Intimidation.
Initiate Feats are special feats that expand clerical abilities. Most have very basic requirements, and seem intended to diversify Clerics. They are somewhat like quasi-domains, with new spells for the cleric spell list and new class skills. Thus, they are superior feats, but each Cleric can have only one and they overlap somewhat with their normal abilities. I am not totally wowed, but they're a nice way of expanding the cleric without introducing one or two PrCs for every single deity, all of which offer "+1 level of existing spellcasting class." I wish more character options were handled through specialized Feats in this manner than with redundant and often problematic Prestige Classes.
Crowd Tactics and Roofwalker are two new Tactical Feats related to urban combat. If you are not familiar with Tactical Feats, they are Feats that allow several related maneuevers.
Racial Substituion Levels offer minor class variants for half-elves and half-crcs. Many are slightly better than the regular class, encouraging players to "play to type." For instance, a 1st level half-elf fighter can get what amounts to two Weapon Focuses for the price of one, for longsword and rapier. A half-orc Paladin may take a Righteous Fury ability in place of smiting. In some cases, this compensates for a weak ability score. For example, a half-orc druid gains a Tough Animal Companion (the companion gains Toughness), as half-orcs normally have a lower Charisma and hence have weaker wild empathy abilities. One problem raised by this approach is that there is often no reason not to take the substition level, meaning that using these rules constitutes an automatic upgrade for the campaign and demands equivalent material be found for other playable races. Another objection is that some of the abilities are simply strange. Half-elven fighter's Confusing Banter and the half-orc druid's Bully Animal stand out.
Chapter Seven
This chapter offers a plentitude of spells related to city life. Apart from the new City Domain, most of it blends seamlessly into the existing spell list. Some of the spells have racial aspects. For instance, the arcane spell Proud Arrogance only affects members of the caster's race. Why? There are also some new psionic powers, Anticipatory Strike, Realized Potential, Synchronicity, and Ubran Strider. Apart from Urban Stider, which makes questionable thematic sense as a psionic power, the others are of general utility and don't seem to have much to do with either humans or cities, but only destiny.
Chapter Eight
In Campaigns of Destiny, I would expect to find an exploration of the questions and opportunities raised by various sections of the book. It begins with a description of cities and cityfolk, cities being dominated, in the traditional D&D game, by humans. There are also some pre-made NPCs of various races and professions, such as a human blacksmith and an Illumian cabal guard. And that's it. I'm not sure what all belongs in a chapter titled Campaigns of Destiny, but I had hoped for more than a town to buy potions in and some encounter tables.
I might have expected to see a section talking about the idea of human ascendency and the waning of other humanoids. Perhaps a description of societal fringes might have helped position half-elves, half-orcs, aasimar, and tieflings in the campaign. A few pages might have been devoted to the throughtful creation of human cultures and an exploration of national conflict among humans as a source of drama.
Evaluation
Like other books in this series, this book is not without its flaws, but has plenty of useful material, too. From a game mechnical standpoint, there is nothing really wrong with any of the material herein. The deeper problems are ones of campaign design.
I undestand the challenges of writing a book like this. On the one hand, you are writing for an assumed Greyhawkian world, despite the lack of such a game world in print. While you do so, you must also be conscious of the fact that a large portion of your audience play in the Forgotten Realms. Since Forgotten Realms is such a croweded place, I might be inclined to write this book toward Greyhawk. But alas, the authors seems to have written not a merely supplementary sourcebook, but a transformational one. While using Races of Destiny in large chunks is not likely to change your campaign as much, say, as using the Expanded Psionics Handbook or the Book of Exalted Deeds, it does impinge on some assumptions of the core rulebooks. The authors seem to be reaching for an ideal of a new D&D, something outside the Greyhawk paradigm, as if young players need a new D&D to interact dialectically with nostalgia for an older game they don't even remember. This is not a book that describes a world with the same underlying assumptions as the core rulebook, and indeed of Greyhawk and Mystara.
What this game should have been was a treatise on the shape of the D&D world and the place of humans in it. But the lack of an established D&D world starts us off with a disadvantage, confounded by the authors lack of adherence to generic conventions. In particular, Races of Destiny does not describe humans in the way Leiber, Howard, Tolkien, or Vance did. Thus, this book takes the form of a new fantasy bible, a new model for a new fantasy. It freely mixes modern urban fantasy with Enlightenment humanism and overconscientious devotion to describing holistically what is suggested by game mechanics. Do we really need more than a paragraph describing how half-elves skill bonus make them especially suitable as diplomatic characters? And in the end, we are left without an explanation of why humanity has come to dominate the destiny of the world, or what forces prevent human kingdoms from being overrun by powerful outsiders, dragons, or undead. I would have preferred a torchlit world with sections like "The Human Dread of Undeath," "Favored Children of the Gods," "Origins of Human Deities," and how human craftsmanship differs from the matchless efforts of the dwarves of the elves. I would like to know how relatively short-lived people could give us heroes comparable to centuries-old elves and the match of cunning dragons. It is worth discussing what the Feat Heroic Destiny means to the campaign.
Instead, what we get is a combination of cookbook (in the form of races, feats, and whatnot) and gazeteer to an essentally amorphous "new D&D." Once again, I have reason to cringe that Wizards of the Coast did not see fit to develop a core game world firmly in the traditions of a now decades old roleplaying phenomenon. What, exactly, am I supposed to do with this thing? It's an awful lot of money to lay down for a big book of "ideas." I can get ideas off the Internet or through Dragon magazine or simply by developing them myself. When I buy a sourcebook, I want developed material. I want something that saves me some of the time of campaign preparation by laying out large tracts of reality. And, ideally, it should be better than something I can come up with myself.
Once upon a time, supplements like The Complete Elves Handbook offered additions to the game, not plentitudes of muck from which I was supposed to capture truffles. They offered canon positions in the D&D cosmos for things in the D&D game. Like Tekumel, or the world of Warhammer, and the other games, D&D possessed a unique mythology to which it adhered. Greyhawk was Greyhawk, and Mystara was Mystara, and neither of them had Chameleons or the god Urbanus or Illumians. And in those game worlds, humanity was the dominant force of history. Elves were fading, dwarves petrifying with age, halflings disappearing into the few quiet, shady corners of the world, and so forth. Humans practiced the widest variety of professions, and although individually weaker, as a group produced the mightiest champions. What, then, I feel is missing from this book most of all is the sense of human grandeur, the human new-ness, the understanding that the elder races were too perfect, too well-made for a world that had passed them by. Humans were the most mortal of mortals. And when you picked up a supplement, you understood this. And you had faith that what was in that supplement was part of a tapestry extending continuously back to D&D's roots. You did not have to think "How am I going to write this into my campaign?" but simply, "Do I want to use this?"
Halflings were hobbits, not kender or gypsies. Dwarves were fighters and clerics, not wizards. Elves were aloof and magical, and half-elves were natural loners. D&D 3.5, with its greater versatility and customization, should have opened the door for more nuanced examinations of the archetypal races. Instead, the trend has been to supplant old ideas with newer ones with shallower roots.
That said, it is a work of craftsmanship, if nothing but. Few of the issues of game balance seen in earlier D&D 3.0/3.5 supplements can be seen here. The writing is expert and fluid, the organization faultless. Material is introduced and elaborted. Overall, the authors have done a good job of providing utility, despite the lack of direction. While generally failing to provide support for a classic style of campaign world, this book does offer numerous ideas and options that will at least liven up the average game if applied judiciously and creatively.
