Kobold mimes.

Going by the fact they are basically tyrannical samurai but worse, hobgoblins should be all about haikus n' shit. Furthermore, they practice magic to an extremely high degree, so there is probably considerable magical overlap in their arts. Torture is probably regarded as something of an art. Overall, they are quite utilitarian so I'm not sure how much significance art would have in their society.

>>12359015
>Kobold mines
FTFY. Jewelcrafting, engineering and trapmaking would have a big aesthetic appeal in kobold society.

This is a good thread that will die because /tg/ is shit these days.

Kobolds are basically chinese communists, with the dragons and all that. So they could pull out some awesome dragon parades and pretty great poetry and art.

>>12360028

Thanks for contributing!

I can imagine illithid theatre would involve using mind controlled 'puppets', and the illithid would be judged on how well they could make the actors seem natural.

"pfft, this show is a farce! Look at how jerky that human is moving! Even I could animate him better than that!"

>>12360040
Illithid art is actually covered in Lords of Madness.

>>12360041
Do tell.

Elvish ballet is so gay that is actually badass.

>>12360028
Now, now, anon, don't be so bleak.
This thread won't DIE, per se.
It'll just become a Quest Thread!

Yes, Quest threads for allll....

>>12360034
This is actually a fucking awesome idea. Stolen.

>>12360034
Also fireworks. Fireworks are SERIOUS BUSINESS for kobolds.

>>12360130
Even better, firework traps

>>12360107
>>12360028

samefaggin'

bump for awesome.

>>12360220
Not samefagging, bro.

>>12360146
>step on pressure plate
> FIRECRACKERS
> FIRECRACKERS EVERYWHERE

Drawfag. Now.

I'm now picturing Home Alone, except it's a kobold in a dungeon and the invaders are human adventurers.

>>12360249
This. A million god damn times THIS.

Dwarves go for epic poetry, handed down for centuries, with the best artists being those who can play with the words while keeping the meter and rhythm. Think repeated retellings of the Odyssey or Beowulf where the artist is encouraged to embellish the story or add extra lines of description. Of course, being Dwarves, the audience is encouraged to join in on any chorus or famous line (with a drink at the end of that line).

>>12360130

Oh, God, this whole Kobolds = Chinese thing is absolutely amazing. Now I'm just imagining a bunch of Kobolds firing off bottle rockets and roman candles from crossbows and shit.

That would actually give Kobold raids some excitement in DF.

Gnomes place high value on art pieces that feature baffling pictograms and optical illusions. The best paintings, poems, and plays have a simple message that is cleverly hidden between the lines, prompting audiences to not only pay attention but to unravel the puzzle.

Kender appreciate bloodsport. There's nothing that fills a kender and his friends with glee so much as the site of two 5 year olds with beartraps on one arm, and tied together with the other, frantically punching one another.

The sport is gaining popularity elsewhere, Kender's fighting artistry being the talk of the land.

>>12360040
Reminded me of a scene in a Dark Heresy campaign where high society types put on a play where one of the actors is a drugged-out underhiver with no knowledge of the play. They're typically killed at the end.

I had to populate a D&D museum once, which meant I came up with a lot of idea but have subsequently forgotten.

A couple of things stuck though - Eladrin Leaf Sculptures, where plants are magically grown into pleasing forms that tell a story (if you're eladrin - just looks like a particularly nice tree to everyone else).

Drow "Ink", which is a hallucinogenic drug designed to offer a particular hallucination. They range from the entertaining (all voices are heard as music) to the breathtaking (you are the central character in a grand drow opera) to relaxing (you are transported to a world of snow and cherry blossom) to dangerous (you are filled with the rapine fury of a Northern barbarian). Particular vintages of Ink are worth large sums of money and houses have gone to war over especially precious vials.

Changeling theatre is entirely reliant on masks to establish non-changeling characters, who are always either stupid or evil and generally outwitted by the changeling heroes.

Dragonborn see singing as a competitive sport - who can hold the note with stability and length is the winner. Particularly difficult feats of breathing are also praised.

>>12360309

>Drow "ink"

My first thought when I read this was hallucinogenic ink that is pretty much inert and normal when used to write a poem or story or whatever, but if the page that said story is written on is burned, you inhale the fumes and "see" the story take place.

>>12360327
I called it that because it had the consistence and colour of ink, but that's good too.

>>12360249
stolen. So fucking stolen.

Goliaths totally dig those giant "dug into the side of a nice big slope or cliff" figures. Especially when they feature a Goliath pounding the crap out of something.

>>12360028
>after this thread
Suck It.

>>12360373
like drawings, or are we talking about Mount Rushmore: Goliath edition?

Aboleths have cool art. They can cast illusions at will, so their paintings and sculpture have literally thousands of different ways of interpreting it. The better you are at seeing through the illusion, the more clear the real thing at the core of the piece becomes (which is bad, because it's probably dat statue of cthulhu).

>>12360383

like this. but typically in slightly more mountainous terrain.

>>12360383
Why not both?

>>12360405
Cool in that if the terrain is sufficiently steep it may appear as different things from different angles.

Halflings have a highly codified tradition of hospitality. Even enemies will be hosted as long as they do not breech code of conduct, even if with gritted teeth. Customs in halfling societies are ancient and honed to near-ritualistic form centered around themes of giving and receiving in grace and preserving peace and good relations between communities and individuals, and as such, mutual prosperity.

There are darker traditions, though, such as those for times of great drought and famine. When deprived of food, halflings have been known to resort to highly efficient and practiced forms of banditry and war. Even darker are the rumours of ritualistic cannibalism during times when great sacrifices must be made to feed the young.

Raptorians put on air shows like we do with fighter jets. They fly in formations and carry special large torches that leave giant trails of smoke behind them.

/tg/ I'm making a Hobgoblin character.
I am intrigued by the idea of having him come up with haiku's in the middle of a battle.
Can I get some help making these haiku's up? 'Cause that sounds pretty fucking awesome, I must say.

>>12360486
SO GOOD

>>12360495

5
7
5

>>12360496
>>12360496
Why thank you sir.

>>12360495
I will eat your heart.
Drink the tears of your children
This is delicious

>>12360495

DIE PUNY HUMAN!
COME, MY SWORD WILL DRINK YOUR BLOOD!
RRRRRRAAAAAAGGGGH!!!!!

>>12360495

I hear that your race
Finds certain things disgusting;
Gnoll hemipenis.

>>12360495

Blood for the blood god,
Fuckin' skulls for the skull throne,
Crossovers kick ass.

>>12360541
Actually, I think you're talking of a pseudopenis. Hemipenis is what lizardfolk and kobolds and dragons have.

>>12360541
>>12360546
Correcting mistakes
You reveal your true nature
Die filthy furfag

>>12360546

Meh, fits the rythm either way. Besides, the Hobgoblin is clearly extemporaniously translating his haiku into common on the fly, to further terrify his opponents. He can be forgiven for confusing such uncommon words.

>>12360555
Not a furfag, just an animal biologist. Though I suppose there's no distinction these days, is there?

>>12360563
Point.

>>12360546
>Some species even have forked hemipenes (each hemipenis has two tips)
>Kobolds have four dick heads each

come on people i know yall have some more ideas

captcha stalemare thronged

I would assume that tiefling plays would be very bloody, very cynical, very grimdark, and there would probably be a lot of spectacle at hand (So a wizard would be a must).

I assume that Giff plays would be like "Star Trek meets The British Navy". Dear god I love Speljammer. I hope they bring it back.

Gnolls like to laugh a lot, and often practice jokes, whether verbal or practical, up to the point of basing their entire culture and power system upon this. Those in charge of gnolls are the ones that can make the others laugh the most, assassinate their superior in the most ridiculous manner, or challenge him into a joke contest.

Anyone that's not a gnoll will find their constant use of puns absolutely cringeworthy, and their mad cackle has been known to drive people on a murder spree in how annoying it is.

>>12359963

I was more thinking of them following a roman tradition.

Largly because Roman Theatre is alot more accessable then Japanese, and because EVERY hobgoblin is in the army at some point.

Pixie songs are primarily spoken in the Sylvan tongue, but a few are also sung in Druidic for a select few. The emotion within the songs often jumps unexpectedly between deep anger - the likes of which humans cannot feel - to exuberant joy.

Ogres = Juggaloos

>>12360789
dont ruin ogres

changleings have an art form based around shapeshifting, in which they slowly shift from one shape to another as slowly and smoothly as possible.
common themes:
including picking a subject and trying to realistically "age" them and fading from one subject to another

Orcs have a spectator sport similar to a human circlejerk, particularly the "soggy biscuit" variant.

Hobgoblins are martial and into discipline and skill, so I figure that should be similar when it comes to their art. They'd be strict on form (none of that modern poetry nonsense that doesn't have an established meter) and appreciate skilled craftsmanship. Accomplishing something very well or making something original within the form would be praiseworthy, while needing the deviate from form to accomplish your goals is a failure and a sign you lack the necessary skills to do what you tried to do.
Their martial bent probably means a focus on such subjects. Epics on a strict meter about martial exploits, pictures of battles, that kind of thing. And armor and weapons, of course. Likely more the craftsmanship of making it really damn good more than elaborate decoration (if they're as utilitarian as was said before).

>>12360759

I love gnolls
This made me love them more

>>12360759
I see you there Gnollbard...

>>12360868
Hobgoblins are big into magic, discipline, torture, tradition, rulership and proper military procedure too. I think that view is a little narrow.

>>12361049
It's not like I've excluded any of those. I just considered what style the art would be in. How does them being big on rulership contradict it at all?

Trolls annoy other races and make a game out of it.

The tribal paintings that adorn most Lizardmen warriors are actually based off complex astrological sightings and charts.

Lizardman carvings also seem to follow this same pattern, although these star charts seem to map out constellations that do not, and should not possibly, exist.

>>12360745
>I assume that Giff plays would be like "Star Trek meets The British Navy".

Even better: "Star Trek meets The British Navy in the style of a Gilbert and Sullivan opera".

>>12361749
oh God. it's genius!

Merfolk focus on clothing, jewelery and make-up.
The most creative ones compete to see who's going to be the creator of a new trend.

They make their "craft" out of mostly colored algae or pretty shells, but humanoids/animal parts (or even live animals!) aren't unusual material of choice in any way.

The trends tend to last for a couple of tendays, in which the merfolk go on a "shopping" frenzy for materials.

Sahaugin tend to go in for sports as their main art form. While sahaugin sports are brutal and bloody, poems are written commemorating particularly skillful or beautiful "plays" and truly great ones are remembered in song and story for generations, even entering the sahaugin lexicon as commonplace phrases.

High Elves see how byzantine and new-agey they can make their art, and then refuse to explain why it is good to the lesser races.

Wood Elves chain their enemies down, tattoo their scalps, and then scalp them. Beautifully tattooed scalps are their primary form of artistic endeavor, next to boastful storytelling.

Drow make infinite pornography.

>>12362074
Weren't they originally based on Aztecs?

>>12362075

Fucking Drow, how does it work?

>>12362132
There was some Mesoamerican civilization that played a sport to determine who got sacrificed. That was my inspiration.

Orcs are fanatical lovers of THEIR dance and music.

It resembles (in the eyes of others races) some kind of violent orc tantrum with angry music using mostly war and fighting themes for songs.

Almost every villagge has a unique collection of sophisticated performances, and some even are mockeries of other village's dances.

And they dance and sing out of any reason. There are songs for exercising, songs for fighting, songs for emerging victorius, and songs to find the nearest body of water.

(so when orcs seems to be throwing an angry tantrum 40% of the times they are just dancing...the other 60% they are really angry)

Sometimes all this dancing and singing are the reason why the orcs villagges can't get along. You know when you are trying to sleep and there's a party in the neighborhood? Like this, but you are a angry orc and you always fucking hate the neighbor's music.

>>12360883

>>12362217
Incidentally, in places where orcs and half-orcs are better integrated into whatever the prevailing civilization is, they make the best, most insightful, and most cutting critics, able to elucidate *exactly* what's wrong with any given piece of art.

>>12362075
It's impossible, because even though 2/3rds of that pornography would be gay, the High Elves' art STILL sounds gayer to me than the Drow's.
The Wood Elves, as usual, just sound like Native Americans who somehow got into the iron age.
I.E., the scariest thing ever.

bump?

>>12362254
Which is often that it don't feel "angry" enough?

>>12362287
nonono,

All drows are BI there isn't a single gay or hetro person among them.

>>12362364
Lack of emotion and being overly-mannered are two of their major complaints, yes.

Ogres tend to hold Roman republic style debates about politics, including where to raid, who to ally themselves with, and what to focus on for the year. Every 10 households elect one member to go and to serve their interests leading to some rather large meetings. Nobles and commoners alike do this.

For the ogres, their main form of art is reason and debate. They do not believe in material art as it is foolish but instead choose the art of manipulation and the art of reason. The only problem is their manipulations tend to be little more than "I am the biggest" and their reasons "I am the strongest."

Minotaurs like repeating patterns, priding themselves on the complexity of their work.

>>12362411
This is what a band of ogres ruling over a republic looks like.

Goblin "art" is scent based and, to other species, utterly horrendous

>>12362411
"Grugnak according to your latest anouncment you stated that you where the biggest member of the senate, am i correct?"
"More like biggest belly..."
"Lurka, please"
"I indeed stated that i'm the biggest, for i you recall i have been considered the most cunning for 8 years now."
"Yes, but Orksmasher have proven himself the biggest for 12 years now at at the last tournament he defeated you. I most also Remind that Gruggnar have proven himself a very cunning, cunning enough to threaten your position."
"I will surely smash Gruggnar if he tries, becouse i'm far stronger than him..."
"May so be, but..."

Did i catch the feeling?

>>12362524
"Bear in mind that Gruggnar still has the people's veto. If it were to come to that, he would surely use it to undermine your position. Re-elections come in the new season, which is not far off. You do not want the people's ire against you."
"To the hells with his power of veto! He wouldn't be stupid enough to use it. The senate is on MY side."

>You are now imagining an ogre using the word ire

>>12362524

haha, man. I can just imagine the middling-sized ogres arguing for -days- over endless qualifiers.

"Khol-Godnak is the second-biggest, third-strongest pale ogre on the eastern quadrant of Elf-Scalp Hill, and demands to be recognized!"

"Friend Godnak, if you would recall the minutes of our last senate, we all agreed that spending a month in a cave hiding from the sun does not qualify one as a pale ogre. Take it up with heraldry administrator Hoah Dukkar Man Stomper, if it please you."

>>12362649
"Gurgot Staircrusher demands to be recognized!"
"Thank you, Cunningnest, I wish to put before the senate the proposal that the biggest debate may be more easily settled if we include material goods in the matter!"
"Wut, you mean eating things?"
"Oh dear-"
"Damn it Thraka-"
"-you just had to-"
"CORCRUD DEMAND RECESS TO FEAST"
"*Sigh* The...The floor is surrendered to the Biggest."
"WANT EAT ELFS THEY CRUNCH WELL AND ARE MINTY"

>>12362649
And apparently now the ogres care about lineage.

"I am Grobbstok son of Stokgrobb who presided over this senate for 20 years. A vote for me is a vote for justice!"

Thri-kreen have several art forms which are utterly foreign to non-kreen, or "dra" ("Sleepers") as the kreen refer to them.

One of the ways in which kreen express themselves is through pheromones. A combination of these with body language and voice is a big part of their social interaction. Pheromones in particular are strong indicators of social bonding and emotions. As such, some kreen artisans create pheromone cocktails that evoke powerful emotions. Skilled artisans can create delayed-release cocktails that can tell a story entirely through scent. Non-kreen can experience these cocktails with the assistance of magic to heighten their senses and help them understand the scents.

Another type is that of communal storytelling through racial memory. It is practiced almost exclusively with children who are coming of age, having survived the trials of infancy and been accepted as packmates, needing only to prove themselves capable before they form or join clutches outside of their siblings. The shaman (or other wiseman [wisekreen?]) begins first with their oldest and most important stories, urging the children to unlock their racial memories and join in. Assisting him are the pack's dancers and warriors (or tribe's, if the kreen packs are on friendly terms with one another, in which case they come together once a year for the event), who silently pantomime the seminal events of the tale being told. As the racial memories flare up in the youths, they start to fill in gaps that the shaman leaves intentionally, eventually telling the stories to one another all by themselves. From there, they are encouraged to delve into their own memories, awakening ones that are more recent, or exclusive to their particular bloodline, perhaps as recent as a generation or two ago.

>>12362792

Ogre elections would more likely resemble elections in 19th century America; party members with billy clubs standing beside the open ballot box, to "encourage" you to make the right decision.

Goblins have an unbridled fascination with fire. Combined with a high manual dexterity, and cunning mind, their favoured style of art consists of creating impressive carvings, or structures from flammable materials, that when ignited produce a one time artistic conflagration that will move as it is consumed.

Think a burning man scarecrow that starts with an upheld axe that as it burns, shows the axe falling into the head of another scarecrow, then liftings its arms back up in celebration.

Dwarven beermaking is considered a kind of art, usually just among other dwarves, but occasionally by some non-dwarves as well fortunate enough to sample true dwarven brews.

Because of the hardier dwarven constitution and resistance to intoxication, many dwarven brews are made not solely for the sake of getting drunk, but as a kind of testing-ground for various mixes, not unlike other races do for wines. During the brewing process, various ground herbs, mineral powders, and other additives are blended in, with the final result bearing a rainbow of aromatics and flavors both strong and subtle.

It is not uncommon for dwarven clans and families to create "signature brews" - nor is it uncommon for rivalries to form between clans and families as to whose ale or lager is better.

There are even rumors of some particularly-adept brewmasters whose concoctions border on alchemy, in that a flagon of their special blends bear similar - or even stronger - effects akin to many magical potions and elixirs...

>>12362411
>>12362473
>>12362524
>>12362581
>>12362649
>>12362706
>>12362958
Now I may be in the minority here but this idea seems terrible... I'll propose an alternative

Ogres rule by consensus, exclusively. It turns out that blunt trauma causes an excessive release of dopamine in ogres, which makes them more agreeable and happy. So they literally club each other over the head until they come to an agreement.

As to ogre art, I imagine it would consist mostly of tastefully arranged piles of rocks and/or remains. They just really lack the intelligence to go much beyond this. Now the half ogres are another matter entirely of course and could very well be like you suggest, if there were ever a large enough group assembled for some reason.

>>12363021
First off, I really like this (though brewery rivalry is hardly exclusive to dwarves, but they probably take it even more seriously than others).
I'd just like to point out that beer is certainly not brewed only to get drunk by anybody else either, and that wine is several times more potent in that regard, anyway. Just some strange implications from your phrasing. That was all.

>>12363150
Eh, was just trying to dispel the claim that dwarves are a bunch of drunks who just drink to get drunk.

>>12363170

but they -are- a bunch of drunks that drink to get drunk.

doesn't mean they have to be tasteless fratboys about it, of course.

>>12363170
Obviously, given their innately higher resistance to it, they have more space for working with the flavor (and being used to that, they find the weaker brews of other races pretty flavorless), and dwarf beer so ends up more potent than that of others. Non-dwarves most often fail to notice the subtleties in it, being overwhelmed by the potency of it instead, and so make the assumption the dwarves are just in it for the alcohol by volume.

Bugbear art is hard to specifically define. The essential element is it must somehow entice the viewer into wanting it, even though it is NOT shiny. To this end, a very drab dirty axe that has a short poem detailing how it knocked down a tree that had a silver arrow embedded into the trunk near the top and hinting at the idea that more trees could have silver arrows if you had this ax......

>>12363255
Exactly the point I was getting at.

>>12363334
I felt it was worth elaborating on.

Ogres consider cooking to be a great art form, and great chefs are immortalized in legend. When these great chefs grow old, or die through other means, it is only proper that their proteges cook their remains and serve it to the clans, so that their greatness might not be wasted.

Ogres favorite method of cooking is stewing, but they practice strange methods of food preservation, from pickling and brining to drying and chemical preservation. These ingredients, thus aged, are prized ingredients in their recipes, and some great chefs have lasted hundreds of years, properly preserved, to feed generations of future cooks.

Thanks for your request.
It has been added to our database and the thread will be archived as soon as enough request for that thread have been made.
This thread has been requested 1 times now.

I still want my Roman Circus Maximus style Hobgobs.

Think A funny thing happened on the way to the forum.

>>12363287
Bugbears are one of the most no-bones-about-it evil races in the game, and their whole society is pervaded by that. Torture games should probably be the highest form of Bugbear art, or maybe Tenchu-style stealth kills.

bump~

>>12363701
I always equated bugbears with ogres. Each of the goblinoid races mirrors a humanoid race.
Goblins>Hobgoblins>Bugbears
Halflings>Humans>Ogres
Like some dark god's attempt at duplicating a successful design and repackaging it as his own work.

I usually write up Lizardmen as cliff dwellers, like those of the American Southwest, crossed with desert lizards. They are effectively colorblind, a protection against the harsh sun that warms their broad cliffside villages, though they can discern shades of gray and brown. Their vision relies on pattern recognition, movement, and light/dark contrast. They produce weavings of unparalleled skill. Their blankets and tapestries use incredibly complex and intricate patterns, and their preffered public artworks are in the forms of flags, which they hang from poles out in the blowing winds outside their vertical homes. Watching the intricate patterns ripple and fold in the wind is quite a spectacle to them, but usually lost on other races. Ironically, in pursuing their intricate shading patterns, Lizardmen often dye their works many bright colors that other races find appealing. ore often than not, both sides of a trade don't realize that they're not even looking at the same values or facets of a weaving when it is purchased.

>>12364646
>Goblins>Hobgoblins>Bugbears
>Halflings>Humans>Ogres
...what?

Bugbears and Goblins are alterations to Hobgoblin stock. If anything, Bugbears should be equated with elves.

Perhaps the Drow apreciatte woven craft.
Baskets, tapestry, fabic and clothing.

They weave intricate patterns, often inspired on a spiderweb.

These patterns marks a drow for rank, social class. A clan's weave pattern is often also aplied in the hair, in a family's jewelery and weaponsmiths.

>>12364681
Except that Bugbears are larger, stronger, and dumber, just as Ogres are basically larger, stronger, dumber humans. Orcs are usually used as the elf-analog on the evil side. But elves are completely unrelated to humans, just as Orcs are not true goblinoids. Each was made to be their god's 'perfect race', and resembles existing races without actually being one.

>>12364711
But they are also stealthy, sadistic and totally removed from the human mindset. Bugbears are good frontline troops, but they are also incredible assassins.

I don't understand why you have to equate shit here. Goblinoids have their own, interesting backstory where the races tie in with each other. Hobgoblins are probably one of the most interesting mook villain races in the game, their society essentially being a microcosm of that of the Hells with overtones of samurai culture. Why do you feel the need to come up with some flimsy parallel to other races that aren't even related to each other?

Illithid sculpture is often completely unappreciated by non-mindflayer society, simply because the medium is incomprehensible.

An artistic mindflayer will take a living subject and devour the brain, then lovingly etch the inside of the skull with writings in their language. Frequently, these writings are the equivalent of poetry, describing the memories and feelings gained while consuming the victim. Other mindflayers "read" the work by inserting their facial tentacles into the skull and feeling the patterns etched into the brain cavity.

Exceptional pieces of work are said to put the mindflayer into a mental state that mimicks the original act of consumption almost perfectly. It is considered the height of marital and artistic prowess to be able to properly prepare a skull while in the midst of fighting or the like, as the chemicals released heighten the sensations delivered when another mindflayer touches them.

Beholders have a long and rich tradition of oral poetry. In addition to ancient epic rhymed extolling the exploits of the individual beholders that composed them, beholder communities often have competitions where they challenge each other to rhyming duels where the most creative insults are considered the winners.

>>12364766
I used to work half-ass-edly on a setting in which, after an Ice Age ravaged the main continent, humans were on the decline and Goblinoids were split by civil war. Half clung to the old Ways, the other half said 'Civilization, fuck yeah' and started building a cross-species goblinoid Rome. When you look at the statblocks of basic goblins in DnD, they're essentially identical to halflings, or very close to them. So, goblinoids took on all the humanoid rles in the campaign, and demihumans took on all the 'monstrous race' roles. Dwarves became drow, Humans became Orcs. Halflings, gnomes, and Orcs were extinct. Elves were subjugated as a beseiged slave race to the Hobgoblins (They picked a fight they couldn't win, slaughtered one too many hob villages, and a charismatic survivor rose up to lead the largest combined army in history against the elves, slashing and burning the forests as he went, with a second wave of troops replanting fertile fields and groves two miles behind the advancing line of troops.)

I guess my comparison of goblinoids to humanoids kinda stuck harder than I thought.

>>12363184
Perhaps achieving different types of drunkenness is a feature of dwarf art-brewing. Trying to create a drunk that is the correct kind of sad for a funeral, for instance, or the boisterous yet nervous drunkenness proper for the night before a wedding.

The Dwarves' greatest artistic achievements can only be truly appreciated by those with the affinity for life deep beneath the earth. The greatest of the dwarven sculptors hunt down enormous natural caverns to carve and shape over time amounting to generations in human years.

These cavern complexes are not designed to be pleasing to the eye. That itself would be worthless to a race that spends countless days in lightless surroundings. Rather, in sculpting the stone just so, the artist alters the pitch and tone of the winds passing through the cavern. It is likened to walking through an eternal symphony by the rare surfacer who wanders those halls. The works of the finest dwarven wind-shapers can bring a tear to even the most stoic dwarven king's eye.

>>12366867
Dwarves make literal living sculptures out of earth elementals.

FUCKNO

GOOD THREAD STAYS ON TOP

Halflings do topiary, naturally!

Aboleth art is practically incomprehensible by any other species, and only discovered recently by a band of psionic adepts who miraculously survived an encounter with one such creature. The aboleth appears to entertain itself by formulating psionic patterns, imprinting bizarre equations and alien memes into the gestalt-mind of the aboleth master and thralls.

Duergar art is socialist realism. Sculpture celebrating the endless toil of life.

BUMP! I'm getting sad at /tg/ tonight, and I need my corpulen/tg/entlemen to make some awesomes with me.

>>12367433
Most of /tg/ is in the "fag" thread bitchfest.

Hm, what races don't have art forms attached to them yet?

Spellscales (Fuck them), Desmodu and Loxo (Like anyone remembers then), and Karsites are the olny ones I can think of.

>>12364921
So beholders hold rap battles?

Can you guys do some of the other Eberron races?
Shifters (without Native American beading)
Warforged (something unique, not mimicing humans or something like that)

Or something for lower HD Raptorans, since they can't really fly until they've got a bunch of HD under their belt?

Or expand on the chinese kobolds, because that was really good stuff.

Another request for the archives.

Derro are avid fans of public surgery. They gather in amphitheaters and watch their savants and priests slice open living victims. What is interesting is that after each cut, the surgeons wait for a period of time. The derro are actually fascinated by the internal biology of other creatures, and enjoy watching how the organs are put together, like a collage. After a period of time, the savants make another series of cuts, and the process is repeated. Particularly entertaining surgeries will have organs for sale later; hearts, lungs, stomachs, and other vitals can bankrupt a small house, while kidney stone, strips of skin, and whole nails make excellent good luck charms

>>12367781 Desmodu
Dog shows, but for the bats and lizards they care so much for.
Their love of alchemical concoctions and incredible hearing could lead to making items that cause pleasing, low-frequency sounds, or something. Or pop rocks.

For people talking about illithids, you should check out the 2e fluff book The Illithiad

>>12369255
Personally, I think of shifters as sitting around a campfire every night, giggling at dirty limericks.

Of course, I had a PLAYER who only ever played shifters who was like that, so maybe that's where I got that from...

>>12369499

A goblin from Balinor's Sorrow
Gives blowjobs on every clear morrow,
When the sun's shining bright,
She'll suck morning to night,
When it's cloudy, it's, "Come back tomorrow!"

>>12369499

There once was a fellow from Kyber
Who loved to get drunk on hard cider.
He passed out when he drank,
So his friends pulled a prank:
The next morn, he woke up with a drider!

>>12364711
>>12364951
Actually, bugbears had Int 10 in 3.0 and 3.5. They were never dumb at all, though lacked charisma.


>>12369483
Does anyone have the Illithiad? I've been looking for it for awhile now.

How about ghouls, or would the fact that they're undead exclude them as a race?

>>12369659
I don't think ghouls organize or have any sort of culture.
But necropolitans and civilized vampires could.

>>12369499

There was once a bi-curious changeling
Who was also a rather apt mageling.
He was sometimes a she,
And sometimes a 'he/she,'
And sometimes his loins foiled all wrangling.

>>12369255

As presented in Eberron, warforged tend to adopt human culture and customs. The entire race is less than ten years old in most cases, by the book... but hm, a warforged specific cultural form in general could be some sort of wild artistic body modification, presented at gatherings and festivals. Somewhere between tattooing/acid-etching on the really tame end, and full on ricing-out of the chassis at the extreme end: "Another spoiler? I didn't think that was even possible."

Halflings write short stories. Mostly pastorals praising country living.

Pretty much every story ends with a feast.

>>12370870
High elves do complex paintings with hundreds of shades of paint that are indistinguishable to those without elven perception.

Humans see a black square and do everything they can to praise it as a masterful deconstruction of artistic traditions and stunning commentary on the nature of artistic forms. Elves laugh behind their fern fans, knowing that the piece is actually a very subtle representation of a masked politician in front of a peaceful river at night.

Usually very hardworking creatures, that devote most of their time in working for their tribe and their draconic master, kobolds usually have little time for leisure. It's hard to say anything definitive about kobold art, because they tend to mimic dragons in this regard - and dragon art and culture is as diverse as it gets. So, if they are looked after a gold dragon interested in painting, kobolds will of course try and paint as well. If the red dragon protecting them likes to think of himself as a chef, his underlings will likewise pick up cooking. Reasons for this vary between trying to impress their masters and trying to be more like them, and the reaction of dragons in question can go anywhere between being amused, annoyed, and even occasionally impressed, if their little protegés actually manage to create something notably awesome.

Mind you, since dragons can technically stay with a single tribe for millennia, kobolds have plenty of time and countless generations to hone their chosen skill, eventually becoming very, very good at whatever it is they're doing.

Aside from this, however, there are two kinds of art forms that unite all kobolds everywhere. The first is traps, which are used to protect their homes without any kobolds needing to risk their lives: master trapmakers are looked at with awe and impression, and they constantly try to outdo each other, creating what others may consider some macabre form of art.

The second type is fireworks, which kobolds manufacture in massive amounts, usually going as over the top as possible with them as well, creating as mighty and impressive explosions as possible. Some are even able to make them show certain images or visions, very briefly, in the explosion: a roaring, fire-breathing dragon is possibly the most common picture. Indeed, most sages agree that kobolds use fireworks as an attempt to mimic the dragons even more.

>>12371352
Finally, researchers and explorers occasionally discover something strange from the tombs of well-known ancient dragons: thousands upon thousands of kobold statues, each completely unique with a different face and shape and size and equipment. Crafted by master artisans, kobold or dragon or human, to protect the deceased dragon even beyond death? Nobody knows. (An occasional sage sometimes brings up the suggestion that these were in fact living kobolds once, magically turned to stone to serve the dragon forever, but nobody tends to ever take them seriously.)

This is a great thread and I bump it.

>>12370967
>halflings
>short stories

Complete Adventurer (i think) notes in the intstrument section that Kobolds claim to have invented the fiddle.

I don't see any reason to dispute this, and in every game I've run since I got that book that fact has been true.

>>12369791
Vampires would generally stick with the same art style they favored during life (although they would likely pick up a morbid flavor for anything they made after becoming a vampire).

Whether or not they favored shit like painting with blood or finding art in how something dies depends on how much of a scumbag they are.

>>12371352
I have the mental image of a kobold presenting some artwork for a dragon, and it amuses me.

>>12372166
"Look at what I did, master!"
"Yes, dear, it's, uh... very nice... thanks. (Yeesh.)"

>>12371952
Hmm. Now I sorta want to make a kobold bard.

bump

>>12369255
To warforged, there is nothing more beautiful than a clockwork piece, whether it be a clock or watch of excellent make or a toy of some sort, spinning gears fascinate them.

>>12372166

And now I can't stop picturing a kobold presenting the fruit of his labor to a metallic dragon, the result of a misunderstanding.

"I did an art!"
"Did you?"
"It's The Dude!"
"... Who?"
"The Dude!"
"... This vaguely resembles Pelor."
"That's what that means in Kobold."
"Huh. Explain."
"You said he was laid-back and shines light and is a good guy, so I thought he was like that one adventurer you talked to last year that was like that, who had this weird robe and kept offering us funnyweed and..."

>>12373742
I lol'd.

>>12371358
oh man!

bump

Bumping for fuckwin.

>>12360745

Tiefling plays are often considered cynical and depressing by human viewers. Tieflings insist that they are all comedies.

Hey, this thread is still alive. Sweet! I had a thought:

Because Elves live for hundreds of years, a marriage is a much more significant commitment than it is with humans. Therefore, much of Elven art and poetry is intrinsically tied with their courtship and mating rituals. A poetically inclined elf would not be impressed by a gorgeous sculpture, but a piece of original poetry, or a novel reimagining of a classic, would impress her far more. As a marriage is not over until death, Elven artwork is never finished until the artist has passed away. For an elf to destroy another Elf's artwork is a grave sin, and death is considered the only redress. Elves would go literally to the ends of the earth to recover a lost dowry piece. The greatest Elven nobles have been known to build entire castles, write tens of thousands of pages, in dedication to their loves.

I remember this from an old thread.


Drow put on plays where two or more males dress up in green leaves and bright leather garments while dying their hair and applying a sticky powder made from crushed beetles they call "Paleface". The drow males are then placed in a hemispherical theatre with a poorly constructed forest backdrop. They then act like stereotypical elves going on about trees and archery and how they're so much dumber than those brilliant, beautiful dark-skinned cousins of theirs. This part is usually met with cruel laughter and jeering, except by those that know what happens in the next act.

A troupe of drow warriors, led by a lesser noblewoman, appear and set fire to the forest backdrop while the round up all of the drow-elves who are busy bemoaning their forest ("OH NO THE TREES!" "I'M SAD"). The noblewoman then kills each and every one of them in increasingly brutal ways to great applause, before sacrificing the last one to their goddess, Lolth. This part is led by various community leader priestesses. Afterwords all of the stands break out in orgies.

Orcs have gladiatorial "ballet" where they re-enact old battles with wooden weapons and a furious, tribal dance form. They use slaves for enemies" who have wooden arms, to ensure their quick defeat.

Kender - Collaborative street-artwork spanning blocks, spontaneous flash-mob dance productions and musical theater. Not to mention the 'exploding barrel factory' architecture.

>>12379526
Don't give them wooden arms. Defeating the slaves is part of the art, and slaves who perform well are given their pick of the slave women, better food, etc. For gladiatorial slaves, life can actually be pretty good. Most of them, however, are not so lucky.

>>12379560
This could be the custom among the more civilized, honorable or proud Orc communities

Did this get archived?

In the visual arts, Beholders often etch beautiful panoramas; works of art in domed rooms or caves where all surfaces are meant to be viewed at the same time.

>>12379464
"So I say to him: 'Slay-Her? Okay, I think I will!' And then I hit her in the head with a club."
Tiefling audience is in a roar.
Human audience is looking at the tieflings.
Aasimar audience is in shock.

>>12379702

I was thinking more like Chekhov.

Lycanthropic theater is often preoccupied with the dichotomy between people's social masks and their inner-selves, whether the characters are lycanthropes or not.

A common (if trite) theme is that the lycanthrope characters will be more true to their core principles (whatever their form) than others around them.

>>12379793
...

Actually, I can see that. Tieflings as a race full of comedy so black the other races have to take it seriously.

Indeed, twice.

It could use another, though.

Bugbears invented kabuki.

>>12379702
"Waiter, this soup has a metallic taste"
"Already? I told the chef he was using too much poison"

"I wasn't expecting a Spanish Inquisition."
"I know, I felt the thumb rack was a nice touch too."

"You've been a great audience, You cheers are so loud they could probably raise the dead!"
[assistant casts animate dead on prepared bodies under the tables]

>>12381920
ZING!

Spell weavers have turned pattycake and cat's cradle into art forms. The beauty of the lattices they've made and the orchestral, rhythmic clapping of their many hands would bring tears to your eyes.

>>12381920
Devil art is very structured, and varies according to the Hell. One particularly prized art form is contracts. The more labyrinthine and unfair, the more prized it is. True devilish master artists can create contracts of such breathtakingly obtuse wording and incredible lopsidedness, that none but elementals of law can decipher them.

bump

3e describes Kobolds as expressing their tribe's history through carvings in the walls of their dens. I imagine it like dorf fort

One of the most decadent and expensive art forms of the drow is living sculpture. Youthful and attractive slaves may find themselves holding candles or glowing stones aloft, clinging to a wall or vertical column, or dangling from a vaulted ceiling. Adorned with tattoos, piercings, and various uncomfortable implements, such sculptures are often contorted into an elegant or exotic posture, and left in place for extended periods of time. The more attractive the slave, the more exotic the arrangement, the more prestigious the resulting sculpture becomes.

The intrinsic risk of such a slave losing consciousness, or otherwise ruining the effect, is what restricts such practices to the wealthiest of Houses, on those occasions when the most vulgar displays of wealth are called for.

The lifespan of such slaves is notably short, for a variety of reasons.

>>12384442
This is an inscription of a kobold and a carp and some dwarves. The kobold is riding on the carp. The carp is roaring ferociously. The dwarves are screaming.

Scrimshaw, the carving and inscribing of bones, is common among the savage races. Orcs, gnolls, bugbears, and other creatures will often laboriously carve records of their victories into teeth and bones of the fallen, and create other works of art to adorn their bodies.

Harpy scrimshaw is surprisingly subtle and elegant, with larger bones hollowed and carved into complex three-dimensional structures. It is generally impossible to trade for such pieces, however, and they are all the rarer for it.

>>12384756
It is even a rite of ascention, among some Orc tribes, for a leader to have scrimshaw work done upon his own tusks, depicting a notable event of his life, typically a great battle he participated in, for example.

>>12381920

The 1st 2 were actually pretty funny, the last one was a bit cliché unfortunately.

>>12385360
I get the feeling that they wouldn't bother the tieflings.

>>12360303
Kender liking bloodsports? No. I don't see that.

When I think Kender art, I think sophistry. A love for the spoken word, they write essays that prove impossible things: that arrows cannot actually fly through the air or that even the fastest runner cannot win a race against a turtle with a five minute head start. A very popular essay is one that proves three points- that everything doesn't exist, that we cannot comprehend existence if it did exist, and we cannot communicate existence if we could comprehend it. Kender love pondering impossibilities that make perfect sense.

>>12386150

The cliché joke or the undead rising as part of the joke?

>>12386496
Yes.
>Captcha says liberty rules
Only if you're an ogre, Captcha.

Drows are largely into sexual stuff.

In a drow city, you can see everywhere pictures and statues of sexy drows. As the drow society is female-dominant, most of this art depicts male drows.

Drow shows consist of some drows having sex. Female homosexuality is seen normal by drows but male homosexuality is not, and having sex with another male drow is extremely humiliating for other male drows; so these shows often have two or more male drows having sex.

There are also shows where kidnapped surface elves get gang raped and killed by male drows.

Other shows depict female domination over males.

Drow music is extremely chaotic. No song is based on a simple scale; they use more complex scales and constantly shift between scales. The lyrics are macabre, they speak of non-drow races getting killed and tortured. Praises to Lloth is also a common theme in drow lyrics.

Drows have a special kind of theater where the play always ends with a fight, but this fight is not fake. The actors really fight with each oher to the death. Needless to say, only male drows act on this kind of plays.

>>12386233
Brilliant! Well told, Anon.

>>12387063
I'll bet there are female drow who fetishize being transformed into a lowly male. Drow fetishes are likely extreme, given how extreme their 'normal' sexlives are.

>>12364921

I dun made da yankee hat more famous than a yankee can. Lol beholder rap.

Centaurs tend to an oral tradition; storytelling is the only art that's as mobile as they are. They take it very seriously: meetings between Centaur tribes almost always feature feasting and storytelling. Disputes are often settled by story telling competitions.

>>12390876
It is a common courtesy for travelers who are welcomed into a centaur tribe's campgroung to give a story of their travels and adventures.

Indeed, in some tribes, it is even considered a minor insult NOT to tell of one's journeys.

Once every one thousand and ten days, the Modrons of Regulus celebrate opposite day. Every 1 becomes a 0 and every 0 a 1. No one else can tell the difference, but supposedly Primus finds it [EMOTION CLASS: AMUSING].

bump

>>12391035
I love modrons.

>>12394494
Who doesn't?

>>12395787
WotC. That's why one of the last AD&D adventures written was The Great Modron March, they were pushed into the background for 3.shit and completely written out of 4rry.

>>12396037
Could WotC even directly influence what happened in AD&D?

>>12396037

...personally, I'd have Modrons be the 'civilian' law elementals and Inevitables as the 'martial' law elementals.

Creatures of the Far Realm sculpt things that terrify and confuse them, things with the angles all wrong and the colours all bizarre and shifting.

Okay, so to us they look like garden furniture, but to them, well, no right angle should have 90 degrees in it, all Im saying...

>>12397692

Actually, that brings up an interesting question - do creatures of the Far Realms find the regular planes as maddening and unsettling as we'd find the far realms? Or, to put it another way, are Gibbering Mouthers like that because they got shunted into the mortal plane and actually *did* go insane?

>>12388260
>>12387063

I actually tend to think the "RRAGH FEMALES DOMINATE ALL" thing drops off significantly once you get out of the upper nobility and the priesthood. Drow society isn't (IMO) so much about all females being superior to all males; but the female priestesses being superior to everyone else.

Everyone kowtows to the priestesses, sure; but a female thug and a male thug are probably on more equivalent footing.

I figure their public arts are similar to that of Ancient Rome: lots of slaves around to show off how rich and powerful you are, lots of monuments showing victories in war, and a heavy dollop of erotica and fertility symbols.

>>12397728

I think the Far Realms are meant to be more of a plane of pure chaos and madness, the same way that Elemental Planes were places where only one element predominated.

So it's not that the difference in culture is so great that they look insane; they are made out of insanity.

Aberrants that you meet on the Material Plane tend to be aggressive and violent because those are the ones that 'want' to cross over and eat people.

bump

This is still alive?

>>12402271
Against all probability, yes.

The slaadi, for obvious reasons, have no culture to speak of, and very few traditions of any sort. However, there is one traditional challenge which every Slaad recognizes. Groups of slaad (at least two, and sometimes many hundreds; there seems to be no upper limit to the number involved) will gather together, armed with hammers, spikes, sticks, balls of all shapes and sizes, and other, seemingly random implements. Their 'game' seems to have no set rules or scoring, with the Slaadi making both up as they go along. There is one overarching rule, however: players must never do the same thing twice in one game. These games sometimes go only a few minutes, and other times last for weeks, often ending only when the participants get bored and leave. In fact, it's often difficult to tell when a game is being played, and when the denizens of Limbo are up to their usual shenanagins. Still, as one of the few consistent events in a plane of eternal change and chaos, these "Kaal'fin-ball" games are of great interest to scholars and adventurers alike.

Gnolls are masters at poetry, creating various epics. Haven't you ever heard of The Illithid and The Clawdyssy?

>>12402877
seeing what you did there, sir

>>12402916
Oh, yeah that's good.

Gibbering Mouthers are quite fond of nonsensical poetry and their most appreciated form of music is scat.

>>12402877

I've been laughing for like, 5 minutes now. I wish there was a good way to get this into a game without party instantly fireballing them all.

>>12403342

Maybe the party is hired by an ancient mage to travel to Limbo and research this 'sport' for a book he's writing. Or perhaps the party scrys a game from a great distance/another plane.

Also, >>12402877

fuckin' stolen.

bamp

Holy crap, this thread has been here since Thursday!

Also, a favored form of entertainment among Trolls (as with many of the evil humanoid races) is gladatorial combat. What is unique among their species is the scoring system: a fight between two trolls will last a set amount of time, at the end of which the victor is the combattant who has been cut/ripped into the least number of pieces. It is rumored that powerful Troll kings stage fights in which both contestants are armed with swords of sharpness: It is said that it can take days to re-assemble the contestants after such a bout.

Ithillid have a particularly varied and complex catalogue of art styles, as is appropriate for a race that devours brains, but their culinary arts are what deserves mention. Different thoughts have different tastes, and as such, inducing these thoughts and emotions in one that is about to die is - after a fashion - much like cooking is to other races, though with the requirement of deception and/or enchantment. Recently, those that die thinking about waffles have become a bit of a fad.

OP here.

I need to think of some thrull fluff.

because dammit, fallen EMPIRES.

Minotaur are greatly known for their presence in mazes and labyrinthes, but what is not widely known is that they delight in telling lost travelers and adventurers how to get OUT of whatever maze they are in. To most, the small scratches and cracks in the rocks, stones, and statuary of their domain is simply that, but to a Minotaur, or one taught by them how to decipher the meanings, an in-depth analysis of the dungeon/maze can be readily found in nearly every room, including points of interest and permanent fixtures. While the risk of outsiders decipherying the subtle scratchings is present, the more obvious or 'jumping out' that the code is, the more enjoyment the Minotaur will get out of it, making it something of a game of hide-and-seek for an entire race.

This thread is fantastic.

>>12408299
Consider this stolen if I can actually muster up the nerve to run a game.

The songs of the different races have always been something of a fascination of mine.

Elven ballads are long and intricate, as beautiful and maddening in their complexity as the elves themselves. Subject matter ranges from the tragic to the decidedly comic, usually depending on the season in which the song is sung. An elf would find the singing of a comic springtime courtship tune in the dead of winter to be incredibly distasteful as it does not show respect to the unique beauty of the season.

Dwarves sing simple tunes with long, low notes. Dwarven bards delight in listing long lineages and epic deeds of ancient warriors and kings. Shortened versions of these long epic sagas are sung joyfully as drinking songs and the full forms are only used to commemorate special events.

Gnomes delight in comic songs, oftentimes that end in a pun or play a trick on the audience. It is a common theme for long, complicated songs full of scheming characters to end with an obnoxious pun and no real plot resolution. Another common practice is to rephrase a popular song and see how long it takes the audience to realize the joke that has been played on them.

The songs of the goblinoids are surprisingly complex and interesting for a group long considered entirely savage.

Goblins sing shrill songs joined in to by the masses of the community in the chorus and accompanied by bone flutes and small stringed instruments. The subject matter of these songs varies, but one of the most common tropes is the untrustworthiness of outsiders. In these songs a member of another goblin clan or, just as likely, a gnome will attempt to trick the goblin protagonist and humiliate him. The hero will seem to haplessly follow along in the schemes of the outsider until the very last minute, turning the would be con-man's own scheme against him. These endings are greeted with raucous laughter and applause from the goblin audience. Less commonly sung are quiet songs where the goblins lose, and the whole community is brought low by the folly and gullibility of a single individual. These songs are sung usually only by elders as a warning to the children that they must never trust an outsider.

Hobgoblins are great lovers of rhythmic war chants which they sing to keep time as they march. The songs range from accounts of specific battles to vulgar predictions of the horrors they will wreak on their foes and all are accompanied by the constant pounding of drums. Sung epic poetry is also common, detailing the exploits of great warriors of years past. A surprising number of what one could call love songs exist among the hobgoblins, although their conception of courtship is somewhat repulsive to the sensibilities of the more docile races.

>>12410899
Bugbears whisper quiet songs when stalking their prey. The aim of these songs seems to be the inspiration of fear and uncertainty in the target. A song starts out soft, mimicking the rustling of grass or leaves in the night wind and steadily grows in volume. Occasionally the singer will intersperse imitated animal calls, or the make the sound of snapping branches to further confuse the listener. When the time is right the song will rise in pitch and take on real melody so that the target is left with no doubt in his mind that the predator is upon him. At this point the "performer" works to throw his voice to further toy with the victim before ending the song with a single quiet laugh from directly behind him.

The music of orcs is most assuredly what one would call an acquired taste. The background of the songs is provided by the constant thunder of drums and semi-rhythmic shouts, roars and grunts used by the musicians to keep time. While the drumming of orcs lacks much of the rhythmic complexity and beauty of the hobgoblin war-chanters the system of vocalizations adds a savage sense of order to the songs. Songs are always narrative, indeed orcs have no songs which do not explicitly tell a story and very few in which there lies some measure of deeper meaning. The stories are always of a savage and violent nature, detailing exploits of mythic orc heroes, the ancestors of the tribe and the martial prowess of the current chieftain. The comparison with hobgoblin war songs is once again tempting, but the complexity of narrative in goblinoid songs sets them far apart from the savage tales sung by the orcs.

>>12410623
Orcs sing only to commemorate defeat. They need to remember why, exactly, and in great detail, they are going to rip their enemies' heads off the next time they meet.

>>12410905
This is mostly unrelated but, is there a notable difference between WOTC and Pathfinder portrayals of Bugbears?

Elves have a form of art involving guiding the growth of trees into aesthetically pleasing shapes. This practice can take decades, or hundreds of years for the largest of species. A managed forest can see trees taking on shapes which non-elves would scarcely believe possible.

I've always tried to associate music in my games with the equivalent era in our own history (That is to say, whatever the tech level is in my games, that's the musical period they're in as well). For western music, the following (very) rough eras might provide some sense of what state of development music might be in (Western music, that is. Other cultures were, and in some cases still are, doing their own thing):

Roman Era: Stringed intruments are common; most are plucked, but bowed instruments do exist, mostly as imports. Horns are present, but fingered horns have not yet been invented. These horns are mostly used for utilitarian purposes (military calls, fanfares announcing generals or nobility, etc.). Woodwinds are common, mostly recorder-like constructs. Much of our knowledge of performance is uncertain, but performances were probably limited to a single type of instrument or voice type (male, female, prepubesent). Harmony as we understand it did not yet exist. Rhythm instruments (hand drums, primitive tamborines, etc.) were common, though not invariable, additions to the melodic line.

Early Medival Era: Popular music was similar to Roman Era music. Most was vocal, and popular subjects included all the 'usual suspects:' love, infidelity, legends and folk stories, and so forth. Religious music of the early part of the era was, for the most part, exclusively vocal, and entirely in unison. Later parts of the era saw the invention of parallel voice writing, where one singer or group would sing the melody and a second group would sing the same line, above or below the first group by a 4th or 5th. This is the first confirmed example of harmony in western music (Though not the first example of harmony in the world).

cont.

>>12415507

the problem with this is that it presupposes a teleological western development and robs the world of a lot of possibilities. What if the elves play a complex 12 stringed instrument with strange, winding songs more like an indian raga than a gregorian chant?

>>12415507

Late Medival Era: Religious music continued to develop the concept of harmony, eventually extending to four or more vocal parts. Unlike modern western music, songs were expected to end with all parts in unison on the root. So, if a song was in the key of C (though the idea of a key was still not developed), all voice parts would end on a C. This eventually broadened to encompass ending on any 'perfect chord' (perfect chords: unison, octave, 5th, 4th. Imperfect chords (which were allowed, but not to begin or end a phrase): M3, m3, M6, m6. Dissonances (which were not allowed, except as passing notes (to transition from one chord to another)): m2, M2, TT (tritone), m7, M7). This era also saw the development of keyboards as instruments capable of playing multiple notes (Keyboard instruments had existed earlier, but were relatively uncommon and only used to play a single note at a time, in most cases). However, religious music still mostly limited keyboard instruments to practice tools, and performances remained the domain of the a cappella choir.

Popular music, meanwhile, had explored and inhanced the concepts of harmony developed by sacred music. Performances including multiple instruments/instrument and voice were now the exception, rather than the rule. Simple percussion was still the norm (little changed from roman times), but it was during this era that pitched percussion (hand chimes, most likely) is believed to have first developed. Metalic horns were also present in this era, but fingered horns would not come into play until the 1700s. Woodwinds were still common, and the forerunners to the clarenet and oboe were already present.

(Incidentally, I consider this the most facinating musical era. It was a period when western civilization was exploring what it meant for something to be 'music,' and the level of artistic innovation present at this time has, imho, never been equaled.

cont.

>>12415715

Early Rennaisance Era: Music at this point developed something akin to our modern understanding of keys. There were 7 modes, each of which corresponded to a seperate start point on the modern 7-tone scale (In other words, if you played only the white keys on a piano, the mode would tell you what key you started on). In contrast, today we retain only two scales for the majority of composition: Major (Which, in modal terminology, would be Ionian mode, which would start on C using our white-keys-only piano), and Minor (Aeolian, which would start on A). On the other hand, it was standard practice at the time that every phrase had to end on a major chord, even if the song itself was in a mode where the root chord was minor. This gave us the distinctive "Piccardy Third," where the last chord of a phrase/song has its third raised by a half-step, altering the tonality on the last chord.

In this era, the forrunner to the trombone emerged, allowing brass instruments to participate more fully in musical performance. The modern violin family was also invented at this time, replacing their predicessors, the viols (except in the case of the bass viol (string bass), as the bass violin would be to large for any but an NBA center to play) and giving us all the components of the pre-industrial orchestra. Modern opera was invented at this time in Italy. Sacred music underwent little change, though it became common (especially in Prodstant denominations, following Luther's reformation) for entire congregations to sing, rather than only the choir performing.

>>12415875

Late Rennaisance and after: At this point, the basic concepts of music were in place, as were most of the instruments. Fingered brass instruments weren't created until the industrial revolution, Saxephones weren't invented until the mid-late 1800's, and electric guitars (or electric anythings, for that matter) are obviously a recent invention. All the musical concepts which we know and love, even such modern-seeming ones as 12-tone music and 'Chance music,' were (if not common or even accepted)present, at least conceptually, by this time. In short, music from this time forward is 'music as we know it.'

also, >>12415643

Don't let me stop you from doing your own thing. I'm just trying to point out that music, culture, and technology are all very much interconnected, and looking at our own history gives us all a chance to make our worlds that much more realistic. And, as you point out, there's nothing wrong with using a cultural basis other than western; that simply happens to be my area of interest, and so the era which I can best speak of when I try to offer historical perspective.

>>12415974

A few other, random bits which I thought of after posting all that:

-Castrati (males who were castrated before puberty, so that their voices wouldn't change) have been around since Roman times at least, and the last (deliberate) castrati died only 100 years or so ago. In early opera, female roles were generally played by young boys or castrati, depending on the age of the part. At various times, castrati were also in great demand by churches as soloists.

-The modern piano did not exist until the 1700s, and wasn't really common until the industrial revolution. Until then, keyboard instruments (such as the harpsichord and clavichord) could only produce notes at a single volume, and had little or no sustain.

-During the Early Medival (and part of the Late Medival) Era, it was forbidden to write a tritone in religious music, as it was believed that only the devil himself could have produced such a discordant sound.

>>12415507
>>12415715
>>12415875
>>12415974
>>12416055

That was very interesting. Unfortunately, none of it is very useful for gaming.

>>12417030
It is pretty useful for roleplaying and world building. It's not all about mechanics and rollplaying.

>>12410899
Bullshit. Goblins sing awesome songs.
Fifteen birds on five fir trees,

Their feathers were fanned in a fiery breeze,

But, funny little birds, they had no wings!

O what shall we do with the funny little things?

Roast 'em alive, or stew them in a pot;

Fry them, boil them and eat them hot?

Burn, burn tree and fern!

Shrivel and scorch! A fizzling torch

To light the night for our delight,

Ya hey!

Bake and toast 'em, fry and roast 'em!

Till beards blaze, and eyes glaze;

Till hair smells and skins crack,

Fat melts, and bones black

In cinders lie

Beneath the sky!

So dwarves shall die,

And light the night for our delight,

Ya hey!

Ya-harri-hey!

Ya hoy!

>>12417126
shit was so cash

>>12417274
Songs were cash, yes.
Clap! Snap! The black crack! Grip, Grab! Pinch, nab! And down down to Goblin-town you go, my lad! Clash, crash! Crush, smash! Hammer and tongs! Knocker and gongs! Pound, pound, far underground!

>>12359001

Hobgoblins: Cat mutilation gifs
Kobolds: Rube Goldberg machines
Drow: Masquerade Balls.

>>12360028
>glorious thread is still up five days later
>my face when your distrust in /tg/ has been thoroughly trampled

>>12417597
Kobold traps are complicated as shit. Trip a wire in a warren, and exactly twenty-three minutes later you'll get in an accident with a llama and a hedgehog.

Goddamn, it's been like a week and this is STILL here?

bump.

The Giff are, surprisingly, accomplished poets. Their poetry tends towards the picaresque and sentimental, but displays a vitality and ingenuity that often surprises human and elven readers.

>>12420338
Indeed. "Barrack-room Ballads," an anonymous collection of Giff poetry, is popular among soldiers of all races.

The Warforged are a very young race, created only during the Last War, as such, their art-forms are primarily copied from other races. High-status art, such as painting, is practiced by warforged looking to understand humans. One such painting,. featuring a crow, an anvil, and Merrix d'Cannith, is considered to be *the* warforged masterpiece. The painter, a warforged named Entry attached to the navy, claimed that the painting came to him in a dream - a common statement among humans, but baffling considering the warforged's lack of need for sleep.

>>12360028

>This is a good thread that will die because /tg/ is shit these days.

>Posted 10/07/10(Thu)07:37

No anon, fuck YOU.

Not as much an art form as it is a challenge, some medusae have been known to have specific goals when they turn someone to stone. The most common are usually people cowering in fear, looking around a corner or some for of protection, or preparing to strike, such as with a sword lifted overhead.

Because these are so common, these 'artists' strive to make harder-to-happen statuary, similar to how some architects might aim to make a more challenging structure simply for the thrill and accomplishent.

One such 'medusartist' had . . .
A dwarf mid-chug, with a minor illusion of everflowing water enchanted into his tankard.
Two lizardmen holding a third at shoulder height.
An infant red dragon hatching, shell included as part of the 'installation'.
An elf swinging an axe into a tree.
A halfling refusing food.
A lone kobold charging.
An ogre writing in his journal.
An elderly human attempting to commit suicide by jumping off a cliff - he is suspended with permanent levitation, and 'floats' about the room, cushioined from the occasional impact.

Yuan-ti (well, some variants, anyway) regularly shed/molt their scales, it is simply a part of being so snake-like. Some tribes/groups/organizations make use of these for crafts and decorations. However, because the shed skins cannot be repaired (like the ones that still have bloodflow), tend to be rather delicate.

However, at least one catalogued cult has used the shed skins as writing material. Because of the scarcity of high-quality material, tomes made from these skins fetch an extremely high price to collectors and sages, regardless of the writings inside them. But, since the Yuan-ti are known to be devious beings, these tomes are often trapped and enchanted, causing the buyers and studiers to either go insane or to realign themselves to the Yuan-ti's goals. The more subtle the turning, the greater the success is considered to be.

>>12397692
Creatures of Far Realm are more varied than those of all planes combined.
There is no single art style.
Some may love transmuting living organism into terrible, yet mathematically beautiful (fractal) structures, all while keeping them alive.
Other race may sing in multiple voices at once, speeding up or slowing down the tempo for some of them, only to synchronize them at the end.

Dwarves living underground have a progressive music: it starts with a rhythmic (the music, which may be complex, is created around a simple beat) part, stops, and then comes the chaotic part involving mostly high tones.
As the lack of light dims colors (even to dwarven eyes), dwarven artists tend to use shapes, engravings, sharp corners and acoustic constructions instead of paintings, spheres etc.

>>12387063

nice

I can see drow plays having 3 different ending depending on how the fight goes.

Was gonna post

>>12367009

That image, but I see someone already has it covered.

Orc children aren't known for their art, but they do tell a wide variety of jokes, ranging from tasteless to shocking. One, however, is worth note. Orc children will often gather in a circle, and one will ask, "Why did the chicken cross the road?" The other children will shake their heads, and the first child will cry, "To throw poop on his friends!" The children will burst out in laughter, until one of them regains his breath enough to say, "My turn, my turn!" He will then tell the exact same joke, to which all the children will again respond with unbridled hysterics. This can go on for hours, and there is no known case of any group of orclings abanoning the joke as repeatitive or stupid.

At this point I'm just bumping on principle.

>>12424869
According to >>12360759, I think gnolls like to laugh at orcs and their pathetic attempts at humor.

Ogres are tattooed through out their entire lives, to mark grand occasions and to keep track of personal and tribal history. Once an ogre dies he is skinned and his skin is stretched across a frame, kept in his clan's hall, so that future ogres can follow the personal history of its line back to its beginning. As a result, an ogre without tattoos is one that can't be trusted,, since he hides or has no his history.

>>12427508
Maybe scarification instead/on top of that?

It is a little known fact that Lizardmen create beautiful, ever-shifting silt mandalas in stream beds.

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bamp

bampu

Someone do werewolves.

>>12437026
Lupines were already done! Someone should do... Pixie or Elemental art? Oh, or Giants! They are huge!

>>12360028
less than one hour before this is one whole week old. Now if only I could come up with something...

bump

>10/07/10

>>12440287
The animui existed long ago in a distant land, yet their habit of making vocal declarations of the obvious led to a band of frustrated and annoyed ogres pummelling them into extinction.

>>12440297

shake... shake?

Troglodytes have very little in the way of culture, as they are quite primitive by any standard. There is one notable exception to this. The main chamber of a troglodyte warren will contain vast ammounts of wall carvings depicting noteworthy events in the tribes history. Anything from an invasion of morlocks to locating a source of water. These carvings are quite small yet detailed. An adventurer who can interpret these engravings will learn a staggering ammount about not only the tribe but the layout of the cave network, or even this neck of the Underdark.

Gnolls = Folk Rock
Orcs = Metal, obviously.
Goblins = Drum 'n' Bass
Hobgoblins = Industrial
Kobolds = Techno-shit with lot of synthetic flutes
Elves = Techno-shit with REAL flutes.
Drow = Goth and Darkwave....like duh.
Dwarves = Country. No, really.
Incorporeal Undead = Britney Spears and Katy Perry. I don't know why. Nobody knows why. It makes no sense. But SoundScan stats don't lie.

This thread has been around for a week. That's insane.

Travelers to the Abyss would say that demons lack any high culture. While it's true that they have little to no permanent artwork, such as sculptures, literature, or paintings, demonic "artists" do exist, and are constantly at work. The most highly praised art from is the element of surprise. Because of this, most performances are spontaneous, one-time-only events.
It is increasingly difficult for a demonic artist to get anything done because of how jaded their audiences have become. Jokes, illusions, and cat-scares fall flat because they've all been done before.
Replication of previous tricks goes in and out of vogue depending on whether or not anyone is expecting it. A famous trickster has become known for repeating the same gag daily until it becomes expected, and then disappearing for a week.

What bothers me about this thread is that it makes gross generalizations about non-human's cultures. Humanity is varied and has many different forms of art and music, but non-humans lack this diversity? Each nation, city state, or people should have their own culture, which may transcend race in some instances. I so rarely see these ideas elaborated upon.

That said, this is an awesome thread full of cool ideas and it's great to see it's a week old.

>>12444250

In most campaigns, demi-humans are present to represent different aspects of humanity (elves are frivoulous and carefree! Dwarves are dour and taciturn!) and/or to give the PCs something they can kill without having to worry too much about moral perogatives (Well, yes officer, I did stab the victim 15 times in the throat...but he's a KOBOLD!). Note that this applies to human cultures in the same manner as it applies to non-human races: the Just Kingdom of Good and Light is full of paladins and contented peasants (the happy negroes of the imaginary middle ages when most campaigns seem to take place), while the Dark and Evil Realm of Badness is full of oppressed slaves and sadistic death knights. The corrupt court official in the Good Kingdom or the lieutenant with moral qualms in the Bad one is the exception that proves the rule.

This is not unreasonable, or even undesireable, really. If all demi-human and humanoid races were as varied and diverse as humans are in real life, then there'd be little or no thematic reason to include them--a human could fill the role just as well.

bump.
>campaign gramicti

herpity derpity doo

THIS THREAD IS IMMORTAL! 357 hours of life!

Do sport like events count for this?

>>12449041
Go fer it, dood. What sorts of sports do the races play? Flesh out the cultures more!

Despite being the same species, androsphinxes and gynosphinxes could almost be called completely separate from one another. Gynosphinxes are well known for their love of riddles and puzzles, practicing and thinking on them for hours. But androsphinxes? Not even close. They don't have the patience for it. If there's any evidence that sphinxes are related to celestials, it's with the androsphinxes. They can guard a single location without so much as blinking for hours, silently watching, waiting for a disturbance to pounce on.

But it's what's really going on that's fascinating. Once a year, an androsphinx finds a gynosphinx mate. The entire time since she last bred, the gynosphinx has been concocting a single, impossible riddle just for a suitable mate. The androsphinx toys with her a while, humoring her minor puzzles and chit chat. Finally though, when she's had her fun, the gynosphinx pops the question. The androsphinx departs immediately afterwards. If it's a good riddle, the androsphinx takes at least a year to fully contemplate it. This is why he will suffer no distractions; he doesn't want to lose focus. When he has an answer, the androsphinx returns to his mate, and delivers his response. If he's correct, the two will mate and stay with each other a while. If he's wrong, then the gynosphinx will drive the androsphinx off her territory, possibly even kill him. This is also a reason that gynosphinxes and copper and brass dragons are so amiable. Both dragon species are chatty, like the sphinxes, and have a fondness for riddles mixed with the kind of patience that can only come with a lifespan of several millenia.

The beings that reside within Pandemonium enjoy n̔ͬ̿̔̆ͩ̎̕͏͎̟̬̝̗̯̥i̡̗̙̞ͫͥͨ͗͛̌̓̀c̨ͪ́̽́ͦͯ̃̔̽ͨͫ̓̍̓͡͏̸̠̥͎
̤͟ȩ̷͔̥͉̰͙̹̮̜̮̦͈̟̝̣͉͔̫̔ͫ̏̿͛ͭ̓̍ͧͮͫͮͬ ̔̉̍̾̉̅́͏͠͏̣̲̟̲͖͓̯̦͇̫̦͉̩̫ͅs̺̞̜̦͙̘͔͙̪̯̝̮̠̥͓̪͖̱̦͐ͣ̇̏̌ͮ
̐̋ͪ́̿̈́͢͞c̷̸̶̛̗̖̫̙̞̲̬̭͔͉̯͖̞̯̼͉͆̔̎ͧͨ̌ͥ͂ͬư̸̧̨̦͈͔̖̩̙͍
̤̘͔͚͖̘̰͇̩̜͖̋̃ͪ̽̓l̛̮̳̱̥̻̣̪̦̣̻̗̝̭̰̼̰̹̺͌͊̄ͮ͌̇̓ͩ͂ͩ͊̍̑̄̕
͝ͅp̡ͩ̽̈̇̄̄ͧ̓̔҉̷̭͎̭̞̣͘t͒̄͗̍̃̅̆͋̈̈́͂͂̄ͨ̎̆̈́҉̪̹̫͉̮͕͕̳̣
͍ͅū̡ͯͪ̿̌̏̌̇̈́̾̾̽͊̚͜͟҉̠̙̮̮̦̱͕͔͙͎̀ͅͅr̴̷̷̨̻̪̩͇̲̼̗̐̈́̀
͂̆͊͆͆́ͅę͚͔̭̰̠̟͓̝̺̖̤̑͌̍͑͝͠͝s̴̺͙͉̖̜͚͗ͮ̃͌̏ͭͬ̽̉ͣͫ̂̒͘ͅ

>>12449085
I've only got ideas for a few races... Starting with kobolds, as they're the only ones I have it thought out for.

Those few Kobold communities that have grown large enough to not be under constant threat of attack commonly will hold "Trap running" competitions. The master trapmakers of the community are assembled and given two weeks to build a course of traps out of a given selection of materials. Then, groups of volunteers try to run the courses and reach the end. Spectators place bets on the competitor's chances of survival. The rewards for surviving to the end are huge, but few groups ever make it that far. If there are not enough volunteers, prisoners are used instead, with freedom being offered to those that reach the end.

Smaller tribes will instead funnel adventurers into the courses, and watch from concealed positions. These never have rewards at the end, unless you consider a wall of crossbow bolts and spears to be a reward.

>>12449153
Beings native to Pandemonium are like most creatures with darkvision. Such beings live in a world of blacks and whites, and dim shades of gray. Even drow and mind flayers only keep enough light around for their slaves to see where they're going. Darkvision is far more perceptive of textures, though. It stands to reason, then, that scarrification is the underdark equivalent of tattoos. Dark elves and goblins will carve intricate patterns and pictures into their skin, and use funguses to heal wounds but leave a scar to brag about later.

Long live the king!

Despite being a horrific, alien society that most races find abhorrent, the Neogi do have some traditions.

Some cultures inject their Great Old Masters with dyes and potions, so that when the young erupt from their bodies, fountains of psychadelic gore burst into the air and make interesting patterns.

Others decorate their Umber Hulks to match whatever local holidays are being recognized, the better to endear themselves with the customers. One one prime world, it's not unheard of to see an Umber hulk dressed in green and surrounded by a dancing lights spell while festooned with glittering tinsel during the winter solstice.

However, their sensitivity in these matters is spotty. The githyanki were not amused when the neogi came to town apparently celebrating the githzerai "death to the githyanki" holiday.

This is an awesome threads. Some real gems in here.

bump

Halflings excel in the art of landscape architecture. Even the poorest halfling hovel is built in such a manner as to be pleasing and harmonious, while richer halflings have elaborate gardens, lakes, follies, and even defensive features.

>>12449085
I once designed an Orcish sport. It was based on aztec/mayan 'ballgame' (precursor to basketball).

Two teams of twelve orcs each take the field in large stone arena. Each is wearing only a pair of trousers, boots, tribal/team paint, and metal gauntlets. Each game is presided over by three priests of Gruumsh, who ensure no weapons are brought in and the game's rules are obeyed, and to declare a winner and ensure that proper ritual is followed after the game. There is a large stone ring set on a pedestal on each end of the field, with a ring of fire along the inside. The ball is a forty pound hollow metal sphere, about the size of a large cannonball, filled with pitch. The game is played until six points are scored. by one team or the other. As you can probably guess, this is harder than it sounds, since the ball leaks pitch into specially carved channels, covering it in highly flammable muck and lines of fire whenever a goal is scored. Add on the fact that there are very few 'fouls'. Players are not allowed to throw a punch against anyone who does not hold the ball (the player holding the flaming ball may attack freely). Body-checks, shoulder rams, and kicks are freely allowed. Fire pits and marble pillars dot the field at regular intervals, making an obstacle course.There are no extra team members, so if a player is incapacitated during the game, the rest of the team plays on.

>>12454766

The game never ends until one team has won, sometimes lasting hours or days (the fire pits and flaming ball make for spectacular night matches). One near-legendary game lasted for three days, not even stopping when an elven attack force attacked the orcish settlement. Defending orcs actually lured and forced the attacking elves into the arena, and they were declared additional terrain to contend with. Interestingly enough, this lead to an elf being adopted into the orc tribe. The last survivor of the attack had attempted to distract the orcs by stealing the metal sphere (a plan born of desperation). The winning team lifted him bodily and hurled him through the opposing team's goal to score the final point, still holding the ball. Ironically, he was awarded the widows of the orcs he had slain during the attack as victory prize.

Typically, the tribe the losing team belongs to must provide a victory feast for the entire winning tribe, culminating in a ritual sacrifice of the losing team, as presided over by a priest of Gruumsh. In this way, Gruumsh himself feasts upon the weak in celebration, and leaves only the strong. Winning important victories in the games brings great prestige amongst orcs, and frequent winners and star players often have a harem of slaves (taken as spoils from the defeated team's tribe, usually widows of the losers) and mates from their own tribes eager to become attached to successful players.

Holy hell. An 8-day-old thread. This is why I love /tg/. The good conversations keep going. This whole thread is fucking amazing.

>>12455248
We once had a thread which lasted for more than 4 months, this is nothing.

>>12454770
The most badass elf ever.

>>12366867

About dwarven underground art:

Check out pictures from a salt mine in Wielkiczka. It is amazing. Miners have carved many blessed statues and even entire chapels underground. Hundreds of years ago!