The D&D books use the word “race”, but many people in the community have shifted to talking about “ancestry” instead. Either way, we’re talking about fantasy people, not skin tones: humans, dwarves, elves, etc.
Any of the ancestries (races) found in the Player’s Handbook is open to you. That includes most of your “typical” high fantasy ancestries. In general, most regions in Tellaria have a “dominant” ancestry, but none are homogeneous. You can play as an elf who grew up in the heart of Tal-Faerol, or an elf who has lived their whole life among humans. See below for the kingdoms/regions where each ancestry is generally dominant.
| Ancestry | Region(s) |
| Dragonborn | Zir |
| Dwarf | Vorndihm (hill dwarf), Kagh Tharum (mountain dwarf) |
| Elf | Tal-Faerol (high elf), Tai-Rinn (wood elf) |
| Goliath | Goliath Confederacy, Kronoglinn (ice giants) |
| Gnome | Encorin |
| Halfling | No ancestral homeland (city of Verdania destroyed), many in Pyrith |
| Human | Ellandria, Pyrith, Caedyrn |
| Orc | Kar-Tronag |
| Tiefling | No ancestral homeland (tieflings are born from other ancestries) |
See also Geography for a complete list of major regions.
Note that the campaign setting is a work in progress; the regions listed above are large kingdoms and empires. Feel free to invent the name of the village, town, or city where you grew up or lived. The page for each region has suggestions for sample names for people as well as settlements.
For determining your character’s traits as a result of their ancestry, there are two methods:
In general, what's written in the Player's Handbook for a particular ancestry is broadly consistent with the world of Tellaria. Here are a few notes about some specific ancestries that may differ.
Dwarves generally favour the use of technology, and most mistrust magic-users, particularly of the arcane variety (wizards, warlocks, and sorcerers). Some dwarves do practice magic (either from innate sorcery or arcane study), but they are often shunned by other dwarves.
Dwarves who have grown up in dwarven communities have a finely-honed sense of depth, such that they always know exactly how deep beneath the surface they are, and can detect even a very gradual slope.
Dwarves generally have strong beliefs in ancestor worship, believing that their ancestors continue to watch over them after death. Most dwarven homes will have a small alcove used as a shrine, but richer families will have more elaborate setups, possibly multiple shrines for different ancestors.
Elves are more likely to practice magic than most other ancestries, and many elves have innate wild magic that they learn to control only after years of practice.
Elves generally believe in a cycle of rebirth, with souls being "recycled" into new bodies. They don't have a sense of karma, per se, but they do use this idea as a way of explaining some of an individuals' innate talents (i.e., they must have learned to do that in a past life). It is believed that souls generally stay close by to where the previous body was, so elven communities generally have a funerary pyre near the centre of the community, and pregnant people will often play a role in funerary rites, especially for highly respected and beloved members of the community who have died.
Humans are broadly adaptable to many environments and circumstances. They are unlikely to have innate magical powers (i.e., to be sorcerers), but are able to be adept spellcasters through other means. They have the ability to detect when magical effects or creatures are nearby, seeing a vague rippling haze in the air.
The term dragonborn use for themselves is Varana (singular: Varan). Varan culture generally includes belief in a sort of animism, paying reverence to spirits that inhabit the natural world; they believe that the magic they wield (for those who wield it) comes from these spirits themselves. Varana who interact with non-varana often don't feel the need to explain these practices, and sometimes intentionally cultivate an “air of mystery” when interacting with people of other cultures and ancestries.
Orcs generally live in tribal communities, often nomadic, and while not every orc is a warrior, orc tribes generally place great emphasis on martial prowess and on the combat abilities of the tribe as a whole. Generally, the chief of the tribe is the strongest member of the tribe, and new chiefs are made by defeating the old one in combat. In rare cases, a wise or shrewd person can gain power, typically by demonstrating tactical ability on the battlefield.
Orcs believe that their souls live on after death in the realm of Kodzat; those who died nobly in battle will live in power and wealth in Kodzat. Those who showed cowardice, or who died by other means (old age being about the worst way to die) will be servants in the afterlife.
No one truly knows why some children are born with strangely coloured skin and eyes, and horns on their heads. Common superstition holds that these children were born from a devil, or their parents (or someone in their family tree) made a pact with a devil; others believe that it is the result of a curse from the gods. For this reason, tieflings and their families are often persecuted, and some families must make difficult decisions about their newborn child. But are they truly the product of a devilish bargain? No one can say for certain.
Common pejoratives: Devil's Children, the Accursed, the Diabolic Ones. Tieflings generally prefer to call themselves Arizai, named after a famous historical tiefling poet named Ariza.
Tieflings who find their way to a community of other tieflings (whether from birth or later in life) undergo a “baptism” ceremony of sorts, celebrating their new birth into the community. During this, they are given a “prophetic name” by a diviner within the community; this is a name that provides an indication of the person's destiny, and may describe good fortune or woe. As such, some tieflings have names like Mission, Sorrow, Answer, or Winter.
D&D has had plenty of strange creatures added as playable races over the years—everything from talking bird-people to mechanical robots. If you are interested in playing something more exotic, we can talk about whether it fits with the setting, and if so, where your character may have come from. I’m not opposed to having someone play a more eclectic type of character, but you should have a character concept that is more developed than “wouldn’t it be cool to play a talking bird-person”. You need to have an idea for where this person came from, and how they ended up in a small (mostly-human) village starting life as an adventurer. You might want to use the “more flexible method” above, to create a backstory of an “unusual” character who was taken in and raised by humans, elves, or whatever.
In general, though, my perspective on heroic fantasy stories is that your character, and the world they know, starts off (relatively) mundane, and it’s through the course of adventuring that you encounter the weird and wild mysteries of the world—including strange anthropomorphic talking birds or whatever. But if you have an idea you’re passionate about, I’m happy to hear about it, just please talk to me about it first.