Anti Canon Ancestry
Art by Lucas Roussel (it absolutely slaps ass)
“Race” and all of its attendant baggage has rightfully weighed down those coastal wizards in recent years. It behooves any game designer to think long and hard before simply porting in stock fantasy races into a game. Without any other context, harmful tropes, racial essentialism and all manner of bugbears (not the fun kind) will creep into your game. To those who argue, “Orcs aren’t real; racism against orcs isn’t a problem!” I would direct you to a really well-researched history of the racialized past of orcs by James Mendez Hodes. There are various topics within this field that can be and have been explored, but here, I want to talk about how I approach ancestry in the Prismatic Wasteland (the first approach is simply calling it ancestry instead of race, but relabeling is only a first step).
Ancestries are defined collaboratively at the table. My style of running RPGs is highly improvisational and collaborative. During Session Zeroes, I begin to nudge the players to flesh out what it means to be, for instance, a cat-person (rest in peace, Meow Treatkins, wizard and martyr of the revolution). This approach is identical to how Luka described it in his article on Anti Canon Worlds:
“A player was the only Halfling in the party? Now they’re responsible for making up Halfling culture and history. Not up-front in unreadable prose but live, at the table.”
Players’ input on their character’s ancestry may surprise you—and that’s a good thing. Even when my games use the classic lineup of dwarfs, elfs, orcs, who are caked in tropes and baggage, there are basically two directions players will take it. Some players are not very interested in the collaborative world-building and are fine to rely on the standard tropes. Others relish the agency to define the world by defining their character and, although informed by tropes, will develop a history and culture all their own. In a Dungeon World game I ran virtually at the start of the pandemic, a friend played a dwarf paladin. Dwarfs were still stocky mountain-dwellers, but they were also neurotically courteous, disgusted by gnomes (it was later revealed that gnomes were a sort of prototype for dwarves), and obsessed with commerce and free trade. It was a fun character, and the player had fun shaping the world.
Lucas Roussel Again
The Prismatic Wasteland is a science-fantasy setting, and draws on both science fiction and fantasy for the listed ancestries. The fantasy element is that characters might be dwarfs, elfs, halflings, or orcs. However, the sci-fi spin (inspired by the UVG, oft-touted on this blog), is that all of these ancestries are technically “human,” encompassing all descendants of modern humanity, which diverged slightly as they spread across the stars. First, I have players choose their ancestry. I also have a table for those (like me) who would prefer to let the dice decide. Other, non-human ancestries are implied by some of the factions (also determined in Session Zero, but that is a different discussion), and players are welcome to choose those, but the default is to play as human characters.
To prompt player imagination and discussion of the cultures, histories and aspects of their respective ancestries, grounded in an anti-canon history of the Prismatic Wasteland, I provide a d6 table for each ancestry (reproduced below). Each description is enough to spark ideas without boxing-in player creativity. Some combinations may suggest relations between the groups (i.e., Dome Dwellers & Dome Defenders; Lower Class & Upper Class; Warrior Caste & Planetary Invaders).
| 1d6 | 1-3 | 4-5 | 6 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Retro Humans | Dome Dwellers. They fled their cities beneath the crysteel domes long ago to avoid the demon plague. When the domes cracked open, they left to rediscover the world. | Bomb Worshipers. They worship broken tech with ancient combat rituals which they don’t understand. The steel gods represent peace after eons of calamity and warfare. | Endangered Species. In humanity’s last days, the few remaining either keep to themselves in hidden enclaves or are invaluable to the communities in which they’ve integrated. |
| Dwarves | Lower Class. Workers in the earth’s bowels maintained ancient machinery powering the society above until the dwarves either unionized or overthrew their oppressors. | Warrior Caste. After a protracted guerrilla war against planetary invaders, they developed a strict warrior code and established isolated military bastions hidden underground. | Stellar Smiths. They built the cosmic subway to connect their factories across the galaxy. This galactic supply chain was severed when the dragons began to malfunction. |
| Elves | Original Wizards. At their zenith, they discovered all possible magic permutations. One notorious spell didn’t cause the apocalypse but it certainly didn’t help prevent it either. | Tree Huggers. They protect the mushroom forests, which produce cookies enabling the elves to commune with the mutant flora and fauna telepathically and spiritually. | Toy Makers. They were oppressed laborers in a far away, frigid climate, forced to ceaselessly build toys. After the revolution, they fractured and migrated across the world. |
| Halflings | Upper Class. Their ancestors lived decadently because all labor was performed by machines they forgot how to maintain. When the machines broke, they adapted. | Leprechauns. These green-clad redheads are often hunted for the apotropaic magics they produce. Portals awash in prismatic rays lead to their hidden enclaves of gold. | Puppets. A sentient arts and crafts factory built these humanoid simulacra in hopes of creating a very loyal customer-base for pipe-cleaners and other crafts products. |
| Orcs | Dome Defenders. TThey volunteered to stay outside the crysteel domes and fight the demon incursion. Their close contact with the demon plague left them irrevocably altered. | Planetary Invaders. They invaded planets and sold their conquests for profit. In retaliation, enemies destroyed their home planet, leaving those invading earth stranded here. | Uplifted Killer Whales. Either a science experiment or a fluke of evolution infused some humans with killer whale DNA. Like their marine relatives, these apex predators are matrilineal. |
Ancestries provide player opportunity to contribute to shared world-building at the table, not mechanical benefits. Elfs don’t get +2 Intelligence, nor are they born knowing how to handle swords and bows. Dwarfs don’t have an in-born ability to eat rocks. Elfs are no better at being wizards, and orcs are no better at being fighters. The ancestries are simply what the players make of them. They should be fun and give the players agency. They shouldn’t pigeonhole players or demonstrate racial essentialism. Having all ancestries be essentially human assists in not having to tack on mechanics. If some ancestries could fly or breathe under water, it may be different (N.B.: If orcs are infused with orca DNA, this doesn’t allow them to breathe under water. Killer whales breathe air too).
Any good rule should have exceptions. In the Prismatic Wasteland, there are 96 starting backgrounds a character might have. A few of them call for the character to be a mechanical simulacra of a human. In these cases, their starting ability states:
“MORE MACHINE. You resist poison damage and are immune to disease. In addition, you don’t need to sleep or breathe. You eat metal, drink oil, but rest and consume supplies as normal. Your ancestry is Machine Human.”
Because all backgrounds have starting abilities, I have no qualms with giving a bit of mechanical advantage to the mechanical people of the wasteland. I also am fine not having machine human as an option for ancestry outside of these few backgrounds: focusing on the standard fantasy array of ancestries helps foreground the fantasy elements in a world of ray guns and robots. Striking the right balance of fantasy and science fiction is as important a design principle for my game as striking the right balance of chocolate and peanut butter was for Mr. H. B. Reese, father of the peanut butter cup.
Lucas Roussel once again - the entire bestiary is so inspiring and you should check it out
In Prismatic Wasteland, ancestry doesn’t define a characters, players define their characters (and the world) through ancestry. Hopefully, there were some morsels for thought here, but I actually have a more sinister goal for this blog post. It’s #GoblinWeek! So this is part 1 of my thoughts on ancestries. Part 2 is ALL ABOUT GOBLINS, hopefully forthcoming this very week!
