Ættir: Races of the Ginnungagap
The different races of the Nine Worlds of the once mighty Æsr Combine include the Aelfr and Aelfblod, Dvergr and Dvergblod, Hrafnr, Manneskr, Niflungr, Trollr and Trollblod.
Manneskr – humanity, the majority race of Midgard, mostly living on the planet Midgard and in orbit around it. They might have ancestry from other races, but they’re mostly human.
There is a strand of genetic stock based on an enhanced Midgardian stock – which is how I’m allowing basic and alternate racial features for humans. Asgardian genestock gives bonuses to all abilities, Midgardian is more narrowly focused through quirks of fate and breeding.
Aelfr – elves, both Ljosaelfr (light elves) and Svartaelfr (dark elves). Unlike other D&D settings, I’m saying this is because the planet Aelfheim, where both races began, is tidally locked. The Ljosaelfr come from the side of the planet always in the light, and the Svartaelfr from the side always in darkness. The Svartaelfr have since left, establishing Svartaelfheim in the Midgard system.
Charisma is the main modifier for Aelfr, replacing Dexterity.
Aelfblod – half-elves, or near as can be. Genetic mixing between Manneskr and Aelfr has happened for centuries, so sometimes Aelfblod can be the product of two seemingly human parents.
They remain broadly the same as base D&D 5E.
Dvergr – dwarves, though I haven’t settled on how they split. They mostly live in the Midgard system, involved in industry, transport and production, particularly between various space habitats.
Physically very similar to D&D dwarven descriptions, but baseline Dvergr have a bonus to Wisdom, not Constitution. I’m also in the process of changing Stonecunning to fit the setting, but I’m still working on it.
Dvergblod – half-dwarves. I sat and looked at how the Aelfblod and Aelfr related and worked out potential abilities for Dvergblod that way.
Hrafnr – kenku, but like Kobold’s Press’ Midgard setting they’re based on Huginn and Muninn.
I’ve changed them a bit – Huginn is thought and Muninn memory, so Huginr bloodline have a Wisdom bonus and Muninr have an Intelligence bonus. I also pulled most of the basic kenku racial abilities in Huginr traits, and worked out some new ones for Muninr.
Niflungr – I’m calling them smallfolk so far. I was going to make them goblin/kobold variants or try and work out how to make kobold and goblin racial traits into bloodline traits for the same race. I definitely didn’t want them to just be halflings and gnomes.
Not much to tell on these so far. I know they’re probably going to be split into Carbonaceous and Metallic variants (like the asteroids – so might make an aquatic/ice variant too). I know they can’t breed with humanity as they’re completely alien genestock, and might have extra arms.
Trollr – I’m having the biggest problem with these guys so far. I had originally another race called Hargr, from the Icelandic word for tall, and they were going to be nature variants, probably based on goliaths for mountainfolk and firbolg for forestfolk, because looking at their stat blocks they seemed to work well together. Then at some point I decided I had too many races and Trollblod didn’t have a parent race, so…
Yeah, not sure how this is going to work yet.
Trollblod – see above, but originally they were half-orcs. I may still play them this way, I’m still working on it.
jot jot ïota 