Damsels and Dragons Races, Part 2

Dark Elves: Dark Elves appear to be standard D&D (the other D&D) Drow elves, with matte black skin and hair ranging from white to silver to platinum blond, and al the way to alumininum if they're cheap. Like surface elves, they average about six inches shorter than humans. In dress they have adapted for living deep underground close to the Earth's volcanic mantle, favoring skimpy wraps or spider silk bikinis for females, and equally skimpy breechclouts and loincloths for the males. Both sexes supplement this with lots of flashy jewelry.

Dark elves are, by almost everyone else's standards, a deeply wierd people. Tens of thousands of years ago they came in conflict with their light skinned cousins, and either fled or were driven underground, adapting to a cave dwelling existence. It is said that they worshipped a mad goddess, and sacrificed many fellow sentients on her altars, but it is difficult to find evidence of this today. Some time in the recent past (two or three thousand years ago) a great reformation overcame the Dark Elf temples, and they renounced their blood sacrificing ways. Today they are doing their best to convince the rest of the world of the sincerity of their transformation, but Gnome and Elf memories are long, and they've had little luck so far.

It doesn't help that, aside from ditching the blood sacrifices and raiding other races for slaves, Dark Elf society hasn't changed much. They've got a fetishitic fascination with snakes, spiders, lizards, and other cringe inducing species, they see nothing wrong with using zombie labor, the average sorceror won't think twice about calling up a demon to heat his jacuzzi, and they tend to be horribly, horribly cheerful when they talk about the Bad Old Days, especially when describing just what Auntie Gonvor used to do when she managed to get a hold of a hunky looking surface elf.

That, and they have an utter love of Sven and Ollie jokes, who hold a place in Dark Elf Culture similar to that of Coyote, Loki, and other trickster gods in surface cultures. Alas, few outside Dark Elf culture find the jokes as fascinating as they do. Indeed, inflicting Swen and Ollie jokes on foreign troublemakers is considered a valid substitute for interrogation via torture.

Burned by more than one failed outreach program, the Dark Elves avoid contact with other races for now. Gnomes they treat with caution, aware that both them favor the same territory and resources. They regard surface Elves as terminally stuck-up and humorless. Humans fascinate them, mostly because until the recent reformation there hasn't been much attempt to contact them. Dragons they have little knowledge of at all, except rumors filtered through the occasionally Gnomish captive.

In speech, Drow are percieved by humans to have a broad Norwegian accent.

Damsel & Dragons Races - Part Three

Possible other races, which I might use if I can find a reasonably amusing place for them:

Beast-Kin: Mage-created chimeras, with both human and animal traits, designed to serve as slaves for human wizards. At the command of the High King however, the Beast-Kin were recently freed, and have wasted no time in joining en masse the International Union of Overlord Support Personnel (IUSOSP) aka "The Minion Union." While most of them still work for their former masters, the ability to wave a union card in their boss's face has made personnel dynamics... fascinating.

Orcs: Orcs are, to put it simply, green, smelly, ugly, warty, scabrous...

...and quite possibly the finest scholars on the planet. This is rarely noticed, since most folk can't get past the green, smelly, ugly bits, but Orcs have a rich oral and written tradition dating back thousands of years. Even the roughest Orc clan's cave is filled with voluminous tomes examining the rich diversity of life across the continents, and observations of the movements of the stars and planets in the sky. Orcish children spend half their life sitting in front of skalds and scientists, learning the history of the natural and political worlds, and the rich culture of their people.

Oh, and they also don't bath much, believe maggots add 'flavor' to their food, have a propensity towards wearing spiky leather armour, and consider clubbing someone across the skull with a spiked mace a friendly greeting, but everybody has their quirks.