Re: Homanii - Dysonspace Original Race

From: "Dreamer" <dreamer@??????.?????.??.uk>
Subject: [SPELLJAMMER] Homanii - Dysonspace Original Race


> This is a basic write-up of one of the races that I intend to use
> in the background for Dysonspace, that I am writing up. What I
> wanted to check was, how similar is this to other, existing SJ
> races, as far as anyone knows?
>
> You will probably guess that I am going to see if I can make them
> credibly Progenitors, who are the reason for all the humanoid
> races around in SJ.
>
> Thanks.
>
>
> Homanii - Dysonspace Original Race
>
> These were hairy, pelted, humanoids, and were the construction
> experts among the three main original races who created
> Dysonspace. Rather than being human (homo sapiens) they resembled
> orangutans ('forest person'; pongo pygmaeus). As a race they were
> interested in all sorts of construction, and how things were
> made, including living things. They lived in cities made from
> bio-engineered trees, which produced a wide range of fruit, all
> year round, edible bark, or were places where the insects that
> they ate flourished.
>
> There were many homanii sub races, adapted to living in different
> environments, including on and under the ground, rather than
> mostly in trees. All of these sub races were hairy and pelted.
> They ranged in size from goblins to giants. The homanii also
> blended other races with their own, in particular the sauranii,
> producing the elves, the illithanii producing the mind flayers,
> and the barakanii producing the gnomes and dwarves.
>
> It is thought that the loss of (most of) their hair produced a
> form of racial hysteria in the homanii and their sub races, and
> some died out, some became vicious, and some became solitary. One
> of the most successful at bouncing back from this racial shock
> was the humans, though these regressed to a state of savagery
> which lasted many millenia. Many of the races have a racial
> memory or a legend of a time, a golden era, when all lived
> together in harmony.

This seems to be a subject that is handled differently in different D&D products. Some
seem to mention some sort of evolution, but others seem to describe races arriving fully
formed in a more creationalist manner.

As this is fantasy, either approach is valid. And a mixture of approaches might also be
valid.

I've seen a number of different D&D books that have used evolution. One that springs to
mind is the Complete Book of Elves (which even mentions elves in SJ somewhere). This book
describe the different elven subraces as being like branches off of a tree.

I've even seen a book that described the evolution of all the races in a particular
campaign setting. I can't remember what this was, but from what I remember it made
halflings evolve from humans.

The Homanii are certainly interesting, but if you want to make Dysonsphere the homeworld
of the *human* race you will need to double-check *all* the products that are compatible
with SJ to make sure it doesn't clash with any established facts. There will be a lot of
work to go through all the Dragonlance, Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms stuff. Don't forget
that you need to do all the Al-Qadim, Hoardlands, Maztica and Oriental Adventures stuff
when you check the Realms. As the Astromundi Cluster does link the Dark Sun setting to the
SJ Setting, you do need to check that as well. If you have time you should check the other
TSR worlds in case people want to add them onto known space.

That is a lot of research to have to do to make sure there isn't already a SJ creation
myth for the human race. I don't think I could be bothered to go to all that effort.

Do you really need this to be the home sphere of the human race? Because your Homanii
could easily have been the ancestors of the Grommams or the Hadozee. Or either of those
races could have once shared Dysonspace with the Homanii and been one of those other sub
races you talk about.

Having said that the Hadozee homeworld description seems to imply a normal world rather
than a dyson sphere, so they would probably be ruled out from your sphere. They also seem
to still live on their homeworld, so that rules Dysonsphere out if you want it to be
empty. I bet the Hadozee would live in the tree tops of giant trees (maybe in mile high
tree houses) and glide from tree to tree without walking on the ground. Their world should
have nasty predators on the ground to make the gliding ability something that would be
used.

Back to the Hormanii, I think that if you are going to have a number of different sub
races from the size of goblins to giants, you should instead make them different races
instead. A size difference of that magnitude may well be too much to allow the different
Hormanii to still interbreed. Each race could still be descended from a common ancestor.
In game terms the different races will need different ability scores and other attributes
to reflect its different size. They should also really have different names. Instead of
saying that a certain Hormanii is the size of a goblin (which may imply to some people it
is related to a goblin) you can then give it its own name and a specific description that
relates its size to the Hormanii.

You could still use the Hormanii to justify the spread of humans or other races, without
Dysonsphere being their homeworld. Perhaps the Hormanii for some reason liked to
transplant races from one world to another.

Maybe instead of the hair loss making the Hormanii have a racial hysteria you could make
both of these things the symptoms of some sort of disease that was slowly killing of the
race. (You did want the sphere to be empty now didn't you?)

The wizards/clerics/sages/government/whatever of the Hormanii could look for some sort of
alchemical solution to whatever was slowly wiping them out. They would test all of the
natural things around them for a solution, but when they didn't find them they would have
to look further afield. If you made this disease slow enough you could give the Hormanii a
thousand generations to search for a solution among other spheres. They might have sent
out ships to transport in other races to help with their research (this could be
vivisection if you want to make them evil or more benevolent research if you want to make
them good). These ships could have functioned like slave ships, grabbing people of various
races and moving them towards Dysonspace.

I say towards, because moving a race across 1000 spheres in one go is not possible.
Hormanni exploration colonies built in spheres between Dysonspace and more distant spheres
would house several non-native races that were being trafficked inwards. You could either
allow some of these races to escape over the years (with the Hormanni not caring as long
as they have enough specimens left) or have the whole operation collapse when the Hormanni
disease becomes so bad that they can't reproduce any more.

Unique races like the Kender, could be explained away as races that the Hormanni have
overlooked. Maybe they thought they were halflings and didn't bother collecting *another*
sample. Alternatively they might be a race that appeared after the Hormanni did their
thing. You would need to check the Dragonlance stuff to work out how to fit them in *if*
you want to use them.

Actually, if you wanted to use an idea like this you would have to double check with a lot
of products to see that it didn't clash with established cannon. It might be a lot easier
(from a continuity point of view) to connect this race with the Grommans and a few other
hairy races, but ignore humans.

David "Big Mac" Shepheard
Virtual Eclipse Role Playing Club
http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/virtualeclipselrp/links/d20_system_001071937434/Spelljammer_001071430476
http://virtualeclipse.aboho.com/