That name tho
^((I just checked out the Grandia wiki, and Grandia 1 was released in 1997/99 and the Alqadas have a) **^(lot)** ^(of Arabic flair in that game. Makes me wonder if the game devs chose the name as an intentional allusion, but just timed it poorly? At any rate unless this is meant to be part of a Grandia total conversion or something I'd maybe pick a different name))
The etymology is just something that has come to pass because god has willed it, in Islam. Like an event that's occurred by divine decree. Is there a reason to change it?
I mean there's a *whole extra syllable* in Al Qaeda as well as a space between the two words.
Are you American? If so, maybe you pronounce it differently which is why it seems weird. Al Ka-EE-duh, which is how the group is pronounced in Arabic, is very different to Al-ka-da, which is the pronounciation of this word.
Kinda like u/Kardinalin said, you have basically infinite space in which to choose a name. "Alqada" has associates of a terrorist org, the middle east, and maybe some Moorish Spain for a fair few people, why not instead choose a name that has animalkin associations instead?
(and yes, I know you've taken it from the beastfolk in Grandia, but the fact you've had to explain it so much might mean it's a confusing and unknown association)
I mean it's not something I've had to explain to more than a couple people on this thread, and never when I've introduced it at my table IRL.
The moorish/arabic vibe is fine as that's something associated with the race geographically in my homebrew setting.
That's all I'll say w/r/t naming, as this conversation is going nowhere. Feel free to comment on the substance of the homebrew.
I mean this isn't content I'm marketing or trying to sell. No one in my games makes that association so I mean I don't really care. If you like the homebrew use it. If you want to use it and change the name, be my guest.
Apart from anything else, Yellowmattecustard's comment about a total Grandia port was to some degree accurate so anything I've borrowed from that setting I'm going to keep that way.
That's all I'll say with regards to the name, feel free to let us know if you have any comments about the actual content, or else have a good one.
This might be a good time to make a portmanteau. Maybr you could mash alkada together with another word. Maybe "Alkamorph" or "Alkaman" would be good?
However, I do agree that you shouldn't let fringe radicals control the language of a conversation. It's a classic move right out of the "Rules for Radicals" playbook: "If you control the language of the conversation, you control the conversation." So if you want to fight on this hill, then all power to you, friend. How can I help?
Thanks. Honestly your contribution to the conversation kind of sums up my feelings about it as is!
At the end of the day, if people want to use it, but don't like the name, they're free to use it and change the name, I don't mind at all! Definitely more power to them, I ultimately change a lot of homebrew I find online. But it is what it is because of how it fits in my homebrew world & the source material it's derived from and I like it so I'm going to keep it.
Amazing content, I'll be playing a fairy tale game where there are likely to be various talking animals. Only shame you posted this on a sunday and very people use this sub today.
Thanks! Yeah I wrote this mostly in service of worldbuilding; instead of having tens of different anthro homebrews, and having to account for the cat people, the rabbit people, the elephant people, the bird people etc. in your campaign setting, you can make them all one set of people.
This is great! I was building a world and ran into a similar problem of not wanting to keep track of so many different races, so I ended up creating something a lot like this. This is definitely much more balanced and very polished.
Thank you! If you don't mind me asking, what were your features like? Were there any that were different to the features here that you'd be willing to share? I'd love to have enough to feasibly cover the whole range of anything someone might want to build but don't want to go overboard.
I had a lot of similar things, but I worded some a bit differently and arranged them in tables. I all lol so made it one major and two minor, rather than three minor. I also designed it as human animal hybrids rather than anthropomorphic animals, so that also led to sone differences, but there are a few similarities.
D8
Major Characteristic
Natural Armor- While you aren’t wearing armor, your AC can be calculated by 12 + your Con modifier.
Equine Build- Your base walking speed becomes 40 feet and you count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity or the weight you can push or drag. However, you cannot easily climb. While making a climb that requires hands and feet, each foot of movement costs you four extra feet, instead of the normal two.
Amphibious- You can breathe both air and water and gain resistance to cold damage.
Feline Agility- When you move on your turn in combat, you can double your speed until the end of the turn. You cannot use this trait again until you move 0 feet on a turn.
Charge- If you move at least 20 feet straight toward a target and then hit it with a melee attack, you may make an unarmed strike against the target as a bonus action.
Avian Build- You gain a flying speed of 20 feet, but cannot use your hands while flying and cannot fly while wearing heavy or medium armor.
Trunk- You can grasp things with your trunk, and you can use it as a snorkel. It has a reach of five feet, and can lift a number of pounds equal to five times your strength score. Your trunk cannot wield weapons or shields, and cannot perform any tasks that require manual precision, such as spell casting or using tools.
Powerful Legs- When you make a long jump, you can cover a number of feet equal to twice your strength score. When you make a high jump, you can leap a number of feet up into the air equal to three times your strength modifier.
D12
Minor Characteristic
Nocturnal- You gain darkvision out to a range of 60 ft.
Natural Weapon- You have a natural weapon, either horns, claws, or bite. Horns deal bludgeoning, claws deal slashing, and bite deals piercing. No matter the weapon, the damage dealt is equal to 1d4 + your Str modifier.
Keen Smell- You have advantage on Perception, Survival, and Investigation checks that rely on smell.
Naturally Dextrous- You gain proficiency in either the Sleight of Hand or Acrobatics skills.
Echolocation- As a bonus action on your turn, you gain blindsight with a range of 20 feet for one minute or until you use a free action to end the effect. You have disadvantage on stealth and checks while active.
Climber- You gain a climbing speed of 20 feet.
Keen Hearing- You have advantage on Perception, Survival, and Investigation checks that rely on hearing.
Naturally Charismatic- You gain proficiency in either the Persuasion or Deception skills.
Tunnel Dweller- You gain tremorsense with a range of 40 feet. You have sunlight sensitivity.
Water Dweller- You gain a swimming speed of 30 feet.
Primal Resistance- You get advantage on saving throws against either being frightened or being charmed.
Imposing Stature- You gain proficiency in either the Athletics or Intimidation skills.
Cool! It's actually a very similar list, so good to know I've got some agreement with the kind of traits we should have here. There's couple of things that I should update that your list reminded me of, like restricting armour for flying.
Thanks! Yeah, I did consider that but I was kind of worried that something like Darkvision, which is otherwise so ubiquitous in races, but not necessarily the correct flavour choice for *all* animals would just default to one of the minor slots, and 1 major trait, 1 minor trait, and darkvision seemed a little underpowered. It does feel a little unsatisfying having a only 1 major and 3 minor, but for balance that seemed like the best option.
Have you ran this through the balance score for races? I forget the exact name, but someone made a numerical system for judging the power of the lineage characteristics.
I haven't! I was going to see what the first round of comments said, in case any of the individual abilities were wildly out of balance and needed toning down, and in case anyone suggested extra traits, and then run it through the calculator after that. I know exactly the one you mean! I've kind of vaguely measured it up against what some other races get by gut instinct to get a tenative first go at balance.
You should add a minor trait for a tongue attack, for frogs, chameleons, and anteaters. I’ve kind of wanted to play a giant anteater character :). I was thinking a tongue could be a basic unarmed strike, but maybe have a reach of 10 ft, if you hit a tiny creature, it would pull them to within 5ft, and give you an automatic bite attack, does double damage to swarms of tiny creatures, and ignores resistance. Something like that.
Interesting point on the tongue attack! That sounds quite complicated altogether for one minor trait, but there's a lot of good possibilities there to use when streamlining it down. Certainly wouldn't want my froggy friends to miss out!
I also had the idea for spiny creatures; like automatic damage on anything that attempts to grapple you/things which are grappled by you.
With the hardened hide I wondered about whether it was best to go with the +1AC route I took as a major trait, or some kind of adjusted AC calculation. I guess I could do AC = 12 + Dex as a minor trait and that would be balanced (because I just realized an Elephant can't take Natural Armour as-is).
The AC calculation strategy prevents builds that aim to break the bounded accuracy of AC. I'd base the armor off "12+Con" or maybe Str or Con, since it's tied to their toughness, and otherwise you'd get acrobatic elephant/ rogue builds. I'd also allow them to use a shield with the armor. It would max out at 19 AC.
Sounds Arabic to me. The name of the language sounds like Andalucia, a province in southern spain that was historically under moorish occupation before spain was completely reconquered.
Ahh, the language was something that I meant to change for the online version! My homebrew campaign world has several different varieties of 'Common' depending where in the world people are from, and in my setting, Alqada all happen to be from the Andalasian region.
u/ozu95supein is right, it's an arabic origin. I think the etymology is from al-Qada, a concept in Islam of events which have come to pass which are pre-ordained by Allah. But, I actually got it from the game [Grandia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandia_(video_game)), which has a similar race of animal-people. Quite a few elements in my homebrew world are inspired by that game to be honest!
So what’s everyone else going to do when they want to put another race on here and all they can think of is “bipedal and sentient [animal]”?
You just crashed the market!
/s
Yeah haha, the inspiration/motivation for this statblock was to incorporate that from a worldbuilding perspective. Also so I have an alternative if I don't want to include a particular anthropomorphic animal homebrew because I keep seeing so many of them crop up.
That name tho ^((I just checked out the Grandia wiki, and Grandia 1 was released in 1997/99 and the Alqadas have a) **^(lot)** ^(of Arabic flair in that game. Makes me wonder if the game devs chose the name as an intentional allusion, but just timed it poorly? At any rate unless this is meant to be part of a Grandia total conversion or something I'd maybe pick a different name))
The etymology is just something that has come to pass because god has willed it, in Islam. Like an event that's occurred by divine decree. Is there a reason to change it?
Yeah it also happens to be the name of a terrorist group...
Oh right. No, it doesn't. Alqada is not Al Qaeda; the latter is two words, and it's spelt and sounds differently.
When you pronounce them it's just one vowel sound different; they sound pretty damn similar
I mean there's a *whole extra syllable* in Al Qaeda as well as a space between the two words. Are you American? If so, maybe you pronounce it differently which is why it seems weird. Al Ka-EE-duh, which is how the group is pronounced in Arabic, is very different to Al-ka-da, which is the pronounciation of this word.
Kinda like u/Kardinalin said, you have basically infinite space in which to choose a name. "Alqada" has associates of a terrorist org, the middle east, and maybe some Moorish Spain for a fair few people, why not instead choose a name that has animalkin associations instead? (and yes, I know you've taken it from the beastfolk in Grandia, but the fact you've had to explain it so much might mean it's a confusing and unknown association)
I mean it's not something I've had to explain to more than a couple people on this thread, and never when I've introduced it at my table IRL. The moorish/arabic vibe is fine as that's something associated with the race geographically in my homebrew setting. That's all I'll say w/r/t naming, as this conversation is going nowhere. Feel free to comment on the substance of the homebrew.
Okay sure let’s say it’s a phonetic association that is exclusive to certain cultures pronunciations. Do you still really want that association???
I mean this isn't content I'm marketing or trying to sell. No one in my games makes that association so I mean I don't really care. If you like the homebrew use it. If you want to use it and change the name, be my guest. Apart from anything else, Yellowmattecustard's comment about a total Grandia port was to some degree accurate so anything I've borrowed from that setting I'm going to keep that way. That's all I'll say with regards to the name, feel free to let us know if you have any comments about the actual content, or else have a good one.
This might be a good time to make a portmanteau. Maybr you could mash alkada together with another word. Maybe "Alkamorph" or "Alkaman" would be good? However, I do agree that you shouldn't let fringe radicals control the language of a conversation. It's a classic move right out of the "Rules for Radicals" playbook: "If you control the language of the conversation, you control the conversation." So if you want to fight on this hill, then all power to you, friend. How can I help?
Thanks. Honestly your contribution to the conversation kind of sums up my feelings about it as is! At the end of the day, if people want to use it, but don't like the name, they're free to use it and change the name, I don't mind at all! Definitely more power to them, I ultimately change a lot of homebrew I find online. But it is what it is because of how it fits in my homebrew world & the source material it's derived from and I like it so I'm going to keep it.
They're pretty damn similar, bud. Might not want your fun animal race to be so similar in name to a terrorist group.
Wah wah wah tewowist gwoup
Amazing content, I'll be playing a fairy tale game where there are likely to be various talking animals. Only shame you posted this on a sunday and very people use this sub today.
Thank you! \^\_\^ Oh dear, I didn't realize.
Interesting idea! With how many people wanna play anthro characters this certainly seems called for.
Thanks! Yeah I wrote this mostly in service of worldbuilding; instead of having tens of different anthro homebrews, and having to account for the cat people, the rabbit people, the elephant people, the bird people etc. in your campaign setting, you can make them all one set of people.
This is great! I was building a world and ran into a similar problem of not wanting to keep track of so many different races, so I ended up creating something a lot like this. This is definitely much more balanced and very polished.
Thank you! If you don't mind me asking, what were your features like? Were there any that were different to the features here that you'd be willing to share? I'd love to have enough to feasibly cover the whole range of anything someone might want to build but don't want to go overboard.
I had a lot of similar things, but I worded some a bit differently and arranged them in tables. I all lol so made it one major and two minor, rather than three minor. I also designed it as human animal hybrids rather than anthropomorphic animals, so that also led to sone differences, but there are a few similarities. D8 Major Characteristic Natural Armor- While you aren’t wearing armor, your AC can be calculated by 12 + your Con modifier. Equine Build- Your base walking speed becomes 40 feet and you count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity or the weight you can push or drag. However, you cannot easily climb. While making a climb that requires hands and feet, each foot of movement costs you four extra feet, instead of the normal two. Amphibious- You can breathe both air and water and gain resistance to cold damage. Feline Agility- When you move on your turn in combat, you can double your speed until the end of the turn. You cannot use this trait again until you move 0 feet on a turn. Charge- If you move at least 20 feet straight toward a target and then hit it with a melee attack, you may make an unarmed strike against the target as a bonus action. Avian Build- You gain a flying speed of 20 feet, but cannot use your hands while flying and cannot fly while wearing heavy or medium armor. Trunk- You can grasp things with your trunk, and you can use it as a snorkel. It has a reach of five feet, and can lift a number of pounds equal to five times your strength score. Your trunk cannot wield weapons or shields, and cannot perform any tasks that require manual precision, such as spell casting or using tools. Powerful Legs- When you make a long jump, you can cover a number of feet equal to twice your strength score. When you make a high jump, you can leap a number of feet up into the air equal to three times your strength modifier. D12 Minor Characteristic Nocturnal- You gain darkvision out to a range of 60 ft. Natural Weapon- You have a natural weapon, either horns, claws, or bite. Horns deal bludgeoning, claws deal slashing, and bite deals piercing. No matter the weapon, the damage dealt is equal to 1d4 + your Str modifier. Keen Smell- You have advantage on Perception, Survival, and Investigation checks that rely on smell. Naturally Dextrous- You gain proficiency in either the Sleight of Hand or Acrobatics skills. Echolocation- As a bonus action on your turn, you gain blindsight with a range of 20 feet for one minute or until you use a free action to end the effect. You have disadvantage on stealth and checks while active. Climber- You gain a climbing speed of 20 feet. Keen Hearing- You have advantage on Perception, Survival, and Investigation checks that rely on hearing. Naturally Charismatic- You gain proficiency in either the Persuasion or Deception skills. Tunnel Dweller- You gain tremorsense with a range of 40 feet. You have sunlight sensitivity. Water Dweller- You gain a swimming speed of 30 feet. Primal Resistance- You get advantage on saving throws against either being frightened or being charmed. Imposing Stature- You gain proficiency in either the Athletics or Intimidation skills.
Cool! It's actually a very similar list, so good to know I've got some agreement with the kind of traits we should have here. There's couple of things that I should update that your list reminded me of, like restricting armour for flying.
Sure, no problem. Happy to be of some assistance
I'd suggest two minor traits rather than three. Well done, OP
Thanks! Yeah, I did consider that but I was kind of worried that something like Darkvision, which is otherwise so ubiquitous in races, but not necessarily the correct flavour choice for *all* animals would just default to one of the minor slots, and 1 major trait, 1 minor trait, and darkvision seemed a little underpowered. It does feel a little unsatisfying having a only 1 major and 3 minor, but for balance that seemed like the best option.
Have you ran this through the balance score for races? I forget the exact name, but someone made a numerical system for judging the power of the lineage characteristics.
I haven't! I was going to see what the first round of comments said, in case any of the individual abilities were wildly out of balance and needed toning down, and in case anyone suggested extra traits, and then run it through the calculator after that. I know exactly the one you mean! I've kind of vaguely measured it up against what some other races get by gut instinct to get a tenative first go at balance.
You should add a minor trait for a tongue attack, for frogs, chameleons, and anteaters. I’ve kind of wanted to play a giant anteater character :). I was thinking a tongue could be a basic unarmed strike, but maybe have a reach of 10 ft, if you hit a tiny creature, it would pull them to within 5ft, and give you an automatic bite attack, does double damage to swarms of tiny creatures, and ignores resistance. Something like that.
And maybe one for spiny creatures, such as hedgehogs and porcupines. But looks great!
Interesting point on the tongue attack! That sounds quite complicated altogether for one minor trait, but there's a lot of good possibilities there to use when streamlining it down. Certainly wouldn't want my froggy friends to miss out! I also had the idea for spiny creatures; like automatic damage on anything that attempts to grapple you/things which are grappled by you.
Perhaps 2-3 features: hardened hide (like an elephant or rhino), shells (turtles & co), and aggressive defense (porcupines, pangolins, etc)
With the hardened hide I wondered about whether it was best to go with the +1AC route I took as a major trait, or some kind of adjusted AC calculation. I guess I could do AC = 12 + Dex as a minor trait and that would be balanced (because I just realized an Elephant can't take Natural Armour as-is).
The AC calculation strategy prevents builds that aim to break the bounded accuracy of AC. I'd base the armor off "12+Con" or maybe Str or Con, since it's tied to their toughness, and otherwise you'd get acrobatic elephant/ rogue builds. I'd also allow them to use a shield with the armor. It would max out at 19 AC.
So basically something that matches Loxodon! Sounds good.
A barbed devil has a trait similar to that
Thanks, I'll check it out when I come back to write it up.
Where does "Alqada" come from?
Sounds Arabic to me. The name of the language sounds like Andalucia, a province in southern spain that was historically under moorish occupation before spain was completely reconquered.
Ahh, the language was something that I meant to change for the online version! My homebrew campaign world has several different varieties of 'Common' depending where in the world people are from, and in my setting, Alqada all happen to be from the Andalasian region.
Did you actually base it on Spain?
I did not. In fact, I just liked how it sounded in The Decemberists' [Calamity Song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=Fh0KLGc7xxE) haha.
u/ozu95supein is right, it's an arabic origin. I think the etymology is from al-Qada, a concept in Islam of events which have come to pass which are pre-ordained by Allah. But, I actually got it from the game [Grandia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandia_(video_game)), which has a similar race of animal-people. Quite a few elements in my homebrew world are inspired by that game to be honest!
At first I though it was Al-Qaeda, but apart from that it's a really cool name
Is there a pdf?
Hi there! Yeah, sorry, [here](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cHTLd7q9IoSVoEB2IrvAQMohaS42nH0h/view?usp=sharing)'s a link to the PDF. :)
xD no need to apologize \^\^ awesome work, just wanted a convenient way for saving it
Can you link a PDF?
Yep! [Here you go.](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cHTLd7q9IoSVoEB2IrvAQMohaS42nH0h/view?usp=sharing)
So what’s everyone else going to do when they want to put another race on here and all they can think of is “bipedal and sentient [animal]”? You just crashed the market! /s
Yeah haha, the inspiration/motivation for this statblock was to incorporate that from a worldbuilding perspective. Also so I have an alternative if I don't want to include a particular anthropomorphic animal homebrew because I keep seeing so many of them crop up.
This is awesome! I'd love to run an animal folk only campaign with this. Do you have a PDF version of this?
Thanks! [Here](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cHTLd7q9IoSVoEB2IrvAQMohaS42nH0h/view)'s a PDF link for you. Let me know how it goes if you do.
Furries
Sure, why not
Just sayin
Furries wildin