Wednesday, July 17, 2024

Species Expansion in PHB 2024

 Every species in the 2024 Player's Handbook has precedent in 5th Edition. While the Orc is being added to more or less take the place of the Half-Orc, as "half-" species are being phased out in favor of the idea that you're free to re-skin any of the species as hybrids with others, the Goliath and the Aasimar are making a full leap from supplementary releases (the Goliath first showing up in the Elemental Evil Player's Companion, but reprinted in other books since, and the Aasimar I think technically showing up in the DMG but introduced properly in Volo's) into the core options.

To a large extent, the general flavor of these species, and the ones returning from the 2014 PHB, are more or less the same. However, the Goliath and the Tiefling are both getting fleshed out in an interesting new way that I think bears consideration, with implications for worldbuilding.

Let's start with the Goliath:

Oddly, at least in the Volo's version, there's actually no mention of Goliaths as being related in any way to Giants. They're a big humanoid species, probably popularized more than anything by Travis Willingham's lovable brainless Barbarian, Grog Strongjaw, from Critical Role's first campaign. As Critical Role has generally tried to carefully spin out their own lore, such as by renaming some species, Goliaths in their campaigns are typically referred to simply as "half-giants."

The connection to giants is going to become far more explicit in the 2024 PHB, and in fact, Goliaths will be tied to the "true giants." The existing Goliaths are essentially being retroactively designated as the Stone Giant-affiliated subspecies, while you'll be able to have Hill, Frost, Fire, Cloud, and Storm Giant Goliaths as well (it'd be cool if we got a Fomorian Goliath at some point, as Bigby's new giant lore says that they were once one of the main categories of True Giants before their associated demigod broke away and was cursed).

What's interesting is that this means that the Goliaths we've known for almost all of 5th Edition are actually just a fraction of the species as it will exist moving forward. Aesthetically, the black tatoos/markings (I never could tell if they were meant to be tattoos or natural patterns in the skin) appear to be limited to the Stone Goliaths.

Generally, Goliaths have been portrayed as largely nomadic people organized into tribes and clans, but I wonder A: if Stone Goliaths are going to have some new lore tying them more closely to the subterranean craftsmanship-focused culture of Stone Giants, and B: if we're going to see other Goliaths given different vibes for their default cultures.

Tieflings have been a core species option since 2014 (possibly even in 4th Edition and maybe 3rd?) but the general assumption for tieflings has been that their lower-planar connection is really specifically the Nine Hells. In Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, this was made even more specific as a tie to Asmodeus in particular, with variant tiefling options based on connections to the other Dukes of Baator.

However, it looks like we'll be zooming out a bit in 2024, and broadening tieflings into three subspecies - the Infernal (like the 2014 version,) the Abyssal, and the Chthonic, with Infernal tieflings tied more to the lawful-leaning lower planes, the Abyssal leaning more toward the chaotic ones, and Chthonic sitting in the middle with the ethically neutral lower planes like Hades (sidenote: I personally love the word Chthonic).

Notably, if you look at the original tieflings from Planescape, they were not tied specifically to the Nine Hells. In fact, 2nd Edition tieflings were really weird - not just bearing fiendish horns and tails, but really just having weird, mutant-like forms, like an NPC who has writhing snakes that come out of her eye sockets rather than normal eyes.

The art for the tieflings suggests that they're going to stick with a narrower visual identity - big horns, rough, scaly skin, and tails - but with perhaps a little more variation in, for example, skin color. If I had to guess, in the linked image, the red and purple-pink tieflings are probably the familiar Infernal variety, while the green one might be Abyssal, while I feel pretty confident the grey one is probably Chthonic (not sure about the blue ones).

This doesn't go quite as broad as I'd imagined (I had a Chthonic tiefling NPC in a campaign I ran named "Dead Terry" who looked a lot like a Merrenoloth, but was actually a chaotic neutral (leaning good) gang leader in a city plagued by demon-worshipping cops) but I think should introduce some fun new vibes for tieflings.

Tieflings admittedly are already often playing against type - while they're touched by the evil of the lower planes, they're fully humanoids with free will and just as capable of being heroic good guys. I often see them portrayed as oppressed minorities (such as in Baldur's Gate 3, where a backlash to the events of the Descent into Avernus adventure has caused a lot of anti-tiefling sentiment) but I think it would be interesting to see how the different planar origins might influence the way that the tieflings see themselves in the world, and how they are seen.

While the Nine Hells are interesting as a story device, I also often feel like they're emphasized over the other Lower Planes. While The Abyss is probably in second place for "most likely to be involved in a campaign," the introduction of Chthonic Tieflings feel like they could give places like Hades, Carceri, and Gehenna their due.

As a note, while these two species are getting expanded outward, it does seem that a few will be consolidated. While Duergar were redesigned as their own independent species in Monsters of the Multiverse, the other dwarf subspecies are now being folded into a single option - Mountain and Hill Dwarves are now just Dwarves.

Similarly, Halflings, whose Stout and Lightfoot variants seemed even more of a stretch story-wise (I don't think I've seen any settings in which there's any real distinction between Halfling cultures - I did it in my setting, but even there, I never really fleshed out the Lightfoot culture, and am totally fine with just seeing them collapsed into a single mechanical entity).

Elves will remain multifaceted, and of course Dragonborn will still choose a specific draconic lineage. I don't recall if Gnomes will still choose between Rock and Forest Gnomes.

Aasimar are also sort of effectively being collapsed into a single entity, because you'll be able to choose between different Celestial Revelation options (either on a long rest or simply every time you use the feature - I can't quite recall).

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