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In a fantasy setting which (somehow) has the generic gaggle of "D&D-style races" like dwarfs and elves and whatnot but not humans, how would members of various races respond to/try to identify the first human they've ever seen? A giant dwarf? A hairy elf? A midget giant? A half lemur, half chimp?
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>>85854233
Elves would think 'lumpy clumsy elf that dies at at 40'. They'd probably see us as a bunch of scrappy retards. Sort of like kobolds.

Dwarves would see humans as tall people, but Dwarves tend to be insular, so I doubt they'd spare much thought about it. 'They aren't dwarves, so they aren't worth thinking too much about'.

Orcs I don't see 'suddenly' encountering humans, but if they did, they'd probably think 'weak, easy to raid, pink, but don't get lulled into a false sense of security' given Humans tend to organize and defeat more than their fair share of orcs.

Hobbits tend to care mostly about farming, food, and occasionally some good trading. So they probably just think 'tall, stuffy, decent at parties but not great at parties'.
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>>85854338
> decent at parties but not great at parties'.
Humans over engineer parties.
A rich human's party isn't complete until the turkey explodes into finches when cut open there's a naked girl in the cake and the wine comes from a fountain made of enchanted ice.
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>>85854414
Yeah and the Hobbits are sitting there being like 'man, just play some music and drink some beer dude, it's not complicated'.
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>>85854338
i would think elves would dislike them, as humanity is known in the fantasy realm as the short lived (compared to the other races), but breed like rabbits and spread like a plague.
Cutting down forests, destroying the balance of nature and animals.
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>>85854637
Perhaps but not necessarily. Depends on the setting, which is why I didn't bring it up. More common are the shorter lifespans, the broader builds, and the not being as skilled as elves.
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>>85854585
What about human peasants, or humans that aren't rich and consider a party a nice night at the tavern? I think they'd get along with Hobbits really well.
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>>85854637
I'd bet on at least one faction of Elves that would try to wipe humanity from the face of the earth.
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>>85855264
You know, you never see a hobbit king or aristocracy. Not saying they are communist, but they are similar sorta to a peasants republic.

Would be interesting if hobbits just straight up dont get the hubbub of monarchies. A long shows up and the hobbits treat it like a novelty.
>Honey, the King of Franconia is at the door.
>That's nice honey.
>Hes asking if he can come in.
>Make sure he cleans his shoes! I just finished sweeping!
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>>85854338
This does make me wonder about what would happen if they were all part of one realm. Who would be interested in seeing a thread discussing that?
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>>85854338
I would see Orcs benefitting from Human wars and battles, basically being hired out as mercs.
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>>85854233
Homonculi made by some depraved wizard as a mockery of the existing races' qualities.
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>>85854233
>wetrainedhimwrongonpurposeasajoke.jpg
but gods and
>wemadethemwrongonpurposeasajoke.jpg
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>>85854338
Yeah, and the Hobbits are sitting there being like 'man, just play some music and drink some beer dude, it's not complicated'.
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>>85855938
You got your HFY turned around.
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A better question is how other races reconcile the fact that they are suspiciously similar to apes
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>>85855309
Hobbits are little English mixed with - remember that Tolkien was fairly well read in scripture - Israelites before they screamed for a king.
So the highest authority is whatever arbitrator is recognized.
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>>85855938
Agreed, it's a missed opportunity that more fantasy should take advantage of. Orcs like to fight, they're good at it. Naturally you'd hire them out. Actually you know what would be an interesting fantasy story? A human king just giving orcs the land to stop them raiding it.
>oh what a dumb sjw idea you're stupid, why would a king ever give up land to the people who are killing their subjects?
Literally the Normans.

The vikings kept raiding the northern coast of France, the King was unable to defend it because by the time the Kings troops showed up, the Vikings would be back on their boats sailing back to Norway. So eventually the King of France gave up and said 'will you stop raiding my land if I just give it to you?'. Now there were preconditions, the vikings had to convert to christianity, and had to promise ot pay taxes to the King and defend the lands they'd been given. Conditions the Normans accepted. The Normans would then go on to conquer England, as well as southern Italy.

An orc version of the above would be fun.
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>>85858765
Rhen the orcs invade England. I see you're planing long term Frenchman and I respect it
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>>85856600
Nah, it's right where it needs to be.
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>>85854233
>humans sail into my setting on a few hundred ships
>meet goblins first, mostly trade with them for a few months while the humans settle on a recently depopulated piece of continental real estate
>develop raport with Goblins and teach them how to build firearms in exchange for favorable trading deals

>Orcish first contact: Orcs poking human ears and bodyparts, trying to figure out if they're elves who nipped the tips of their ears off, trying on their tricorn hats, trying the rum and firing muskets into the harbor
Orc conclusion: Hums weird but rum and hats are good
Human conclusion: Orcs are like mud colored gorillas, strong but negotiable
Trade outcome: Positive. They share a love of leather headwear

>Elven first contact: ambivalent. They find humans to be their equivalent of unncanny valley. They look off, lumpy, bizarre. They find their powdered wigs and their vaguely 17th-19th century fashion interesting, however.
Elven conclusion: They are strange but dress better than most.
Human conclusion: Elves look like us but pointier, with sharper features and odder colors.
Trade outcome: Buckles for booze.

>dwarven first contact: amicable initially. Dwarves yearn for lumber and humans are in desperate need for more land, so forests will be cleared. Dwarves find muskets initially a curiosity, but find the human's pets, cats, of great interest. In time they realize the potential applications of gunpowder and find it to be a threat to their livelihood.
Dwarf conclusion: Future valuable trading partners.
Human conclusion: Future valuable trading partners.
Trade conclusion: They will become bitter rivals, with dwarven trade initially fueling their rise.

>Kobold and Halfling first contacts: Orcs but in reverse. Humans love both of them and were poking & petting them. Kobold slaves were initially bought as pets.
K/H conclusion: Very touchy but nice enough.
Human conclusion: Urge to pet.
Trade conclusion: Slavery got a bump.
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>>85854233
Honestly? Genocide within a generation or two most likely. Look at how needlessly hostile we can be even with other humans who are just very slightly different. Then consider how we'd react to different species with different gods and culture.
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>>85858765
More than the normans. The eastern romans, every non-mongol chinese dynasty, thr achaemonid, egyptians, etc. "Give one marauding tribe many gifts and legalize their claim to your borderlands" has been a go-to move with empires and raiders since civilization began. Granted it's usually steppe tribes not sea raiders.
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>>85855309
>aristocracy
Well they do have landed gentry. Even before his share of smaug's horde bilbo was an eccentric gentleman living on family wealth who'd never worked a day in his life.
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>>85854233
Elves would react with excitement for sure, particularly the girls.
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>>85865315
His grandfather or something was a war hero who brought back a lot of loot and built his manor with it.
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>>85854338
Dwarves would see us as flimsy whimsical twinks. Just scrawny, stretched gnomes in essence.
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>>85855309
Three of the 4 main hobbits in LotR were aristocrats. One became Thane of the Shire and the only ruler above him was Aragorn half a continent away, another became governor of the colony on the other side of the river and Frodo went remained a landed gentry until he sailed west.

I'd argue that there could be halfling kings and lords and dukes or equivalent it's just that they don't really see the point in excessive finery or elaborate ceremonies. They're a simple folk who find joy in simple things.
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>>85865906
I think they were subjects of gondor. technically. didnt they send a regiment of archers to some war?
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>>85865970
They did but it was a very long time ago.

The hobbits originate in what because northern Rohan, but the whole place got super fucked and they moved westward. They were permitted to settle in what is now The Shire in exchange for military aid in times of need and keeping the roads and bridges in working order.

Then Arnor collapsed and everyone kind of forgot that The Shire existed. Hobbits maintain a standing military force of about 12 people but with the right to conscript a force of Hobbitry-at-arms if shit goes sideways and have maintained the roads and bridges.

Smeagle was the last surviving Hobbit of the original Rohan Hobbits.

They're subject to Gondor as heir to Arnor. Gondor was unaware of this.
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>>85866252
Smeagol was, if memory serves me, a stoor, of the extinct hobbit ethnicity that wore shoes. That's how they found the Ring, they were fishermen and sailors. There were actually three hobbit races that I don't think were mentioned in the books: harfoots, which are the basic bitch hobbits, by far the most numerous and shortest, fallohides, who lived in Mirkwood, were elfaboos and got pretty tall (this is the aristocracy); and stoors.
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>>85866252
I wonder how most of middle-earth views the Hobbits. The early chapters make it clear that Hobbits are familiar with men and elves, though elves are very much a novelty and the Hobbits think they have a bunch of magic (Sam is a bit put out when he gets to the elves and they tell him 'we don't really have all that much magic, just this mirror here').

Most of the Fellowship seem to take a parental role to the hobbits, and Pippin is seen as a massive joke when he's made a guard for the Gondorian garrison. But we know Hobbits rarely travel, so I imagine most people would find seeing a Hobbit very novel.
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>>85855413
It's definitely worth thinking about. I'd guess Hobbits would be the main farmers.
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>>85867772
They would be known of by the people on the western side of the Misty Mountains even if it was just as "those little people from the Bree Lands" and nothing more.

It was mentioned in Fellowship that there were a lot more hobbits outside of the Shire than the Shire hobbits knew about. They lived a more primitive life than the Shire or Bree hobbits.

When Farimir's men caught Frodo and Sam one of the suggested that they might be elves. Another corrected him saying he'd heard elves were fair to look upon and no smaller than men.
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>>85868214
Wild Hobbits are interesting to think about.
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>>85868283
We got those in Darksun.

Wild Hobbits would probably really up the paranoia and stealth; they'd wind up as barely-seen cryptids that must have powers of invisibility.
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>>85868315
Lord of the Rings is pretty low-fantasy. Hobbits are supernaturally good at hiding, but you know, they'd have day jobs. Probably herding sheep or something.
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>>85868330
Burrows in The Shire by Bilbo's time were falling out of fashion and were mostly owned by big poor families that couldn't afford to build a new house or old aristocratic families like Bilbo's branch of the Baggins. Being more primitive I'd imagine that the wilderness hobbits have burrows. The floors and walls made of clay to keep the water out and then stone packed with more clay. The door being simple square wooden and unpainted. The windows have no glass in them and are covered with wooden shutters and simple cloth curtains. Furniture would be crude and wooden but sturdy. The heat would come from an open fire in the centre of the main room, the smoke rising through an opening in the centre of the ceiling, it's also the cooking fire. From the outside the home is almost invisible if you don't know to look for it.

They'd live off of a mixture of hardy crops, semi-wild fruits, fish if they're close to the river, sheep (mostly kept for their wool) and maybe some wild game.

Clothing would be simple and made of mostly wool with some leather.

Main concerns would be goblins and wargs. They give food to the Dunadain for protection but the rangers are few and goblins many, they'd know how to endure suffering and they'd know how to fight.
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>>85854233
In isekai ojisan, a Japanese guy is transferred to a fantasy world. They think he's an orc.
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>>85869239
I'm picturing their simplistic social order as being very tribal. Hobbits have large families but such scarce resources probably wouldn't allow for population growth. There'd be in a family one married pair and a shit load of children but not many of those children would go off to marry. Women stay with the house that they are born into as they are it's continuation, the matriarch and patriarch of the house then arrange a hobbit man of good standing from a nearby settlment to meet them and for thing to be discussed. Should the hobbit man be found of good character and sufficianetly distant relation he is then permitted to marry the best suited daughter of thier house, he will then move into the house.

The unwed are tha aunts and uncles of the children that are produced and continue to support the family.

On rare occasions two hobbits from different houses will decide that this life is not for them and runaway together to start a new house of their own. This is extremely risky as they will be outside the safety of the group in a wilderness shared with wolves, wargs, werewolves, goblins, trolls, restless undead, angry trrees, feral humans and possibly many other things of a terrible nature to say nothing of starvation and winter cold. The kin they leave behind mourn them as if they are already dead and celebrate should they prove not to be.
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>>85868330
Lord of the Rings is superhigh fantasy.
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>>85854233
recently played a short ICON campaign with some friends, we made humans be there, but they where found in kind of vats with no memory of what or who they where inside a ruin by a Throgg adventurer dude called Huma and he became their godfather, took the few that he could wake up and stablished a small town for them and it's teaching them professions and stuff so they can travel and expand because his train of though was "they will expand though the land, they will be great artisans, traders and soldiers and everyone will say "there they go! the Humans, the people of Huma!"
also all humans are around 12 to 20 years old so it's this weird gigantic dude teaching trades to a bunch of kids in hte middle of nowhere
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>>85868330
>Lord of the Rings is pretty low-fantasy.
"Low Fantasy" means that it's set on earth, but has fantasy components tossed in. The MCU is low fantasy.

"High Fantasy" means that the whole world is fantasy. There's no common history. There's no Irish or African because Ireland and Africa don't exist.

You mean "low powered". Like goat-herders. ....But even then, man, I gotta call bullshit. Gandalf and Sauron are older then the moon. Did you not see that Balrog? Shelob? Ents? The characters just kinda happen upon Bombodil, barrow wights, Shelob, and the ents. They're not directly related to the plot. This is just random powerful entities they happen upon because they were in the way. Might as well be off of a random encounter table. If you try to keep a consistent world-view, there's this sort of shit everywhere. It is indeed a fantastic setting.


If you're playing a game set in Middle Earth during the 3rd age, you can play a high-powered spell-slinging mission with Elrond, Wizards, necromancers, and giant monsters. They're just not everywhere. These are the power players of the day. You can also play a low-powered goat-herder that more than likely will never have to deal with any necromancer or giant monster.
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>>85854233
Physically, then culturally: Humans as seen by...
Elves
> clumsy guy with round ears who can't see in the dark
> They can sometimes be surprisingly cultured for such a short lived race but they lack the perspective we have and this makes them prone to many foolish mistakes and ridiculously fractured as a society.
Dwarves
> tall guy like a less skinny elf who can't see in the dark
> Not REAL craftsmen but their dedicated workers are okay for people who don't live long enough to pass an apprenticeship and can be reasonably fun to drink with if there's no dwarves about but the goofy ones can be fucking annoying.
Orcs
> weird elf but not elf guy who can't see in the dark
> Some of them appreciate a good hunt but most of them put too much stock in the guy who lives in the biggest house instead of who can lead.
Halflings
> it was like an elf but he can't see in the dark
> At least they appreciate good meal and a good story. If they're not a performer they rarely have anything worth telling themselves, it's almost always something intended to make them look cool.



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