Races of Wild

Illus. by C. Lukacslves, halflings, raptorans, and their kindredoffer a wealth of ideas that a Dungeon Mastercan use to make his campaign more varied andinteresting. This chapter provides advice ontailoring the campaign guidelines from theDungeon Master’s Guide to characters and cultures inspiredby this book, including sample NPCs for a variety ofchallenge ratings. It also includes new creatures the PCsmight befriend.ASSEMBLING THE GROUPChapter 5 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide addresses five basicways to bring an adventuring party together; the descriptionsincluded there apply to a group of characters including racesand material from this book just as they do to any group,though a few twists might be in order.Happenstance: Characters might come together as theresult of some disaster or other notable event. Perhaps a ragingforest fire sends refugees scurrying to safety, and the PCshappen to arrive at the same place of refuge to be chargedwith escorting the old and sick away from danger, or perhapsthey all answer the call to fight the fire and find themselvesthrown together afterward.History: Elf, halfling, and raptoran characters haveample opportunities to get to know each other over theyears. All the characters might hail from an area where anelf town stands near a raptoran flock’s territory, a localevisited regularly by halfling caravans. Perhaps the characterssimply grew up together. Between the elven practiceof fostering children and the halflings’ propensity foradopting orphans, the members of almost any groupcould have been childhood friends.Mutual Acquaintance: Elf elders, halfling heralds,and raptoran sunspeakers make contact with manypeople of all kinds and make excellent advisors andmentors for beginning adventuring groups.Outside Intervention: It isn’t very likely that agroup of new characters could come together at thebehest of a single NPC unless they all live in thesame community. Groups of influential NPCs, suchas some of the prestige classes described in Chapter5 of this book, might send individual PCs to join acombined effort.The Cliché: It is certainly possible for a group ofPCs to come together at a crossroads, border town,or roadside inn. They might also meet when a halflingcaravan comes to a town and sets up for business.177