I'm kicking off Sunlanders, my series on homebrew demi- (and non-) human classes for B/X, before I really explain what the Sunlands setting is. Maybe that's a smart way of introducing the world, maybe it's backwards. I don't know.
The short version is: the Sunlands is a setting in the aftermath of a mythic apocalypse, ruled over by a false sun that never sets. Its inspirations come from all over my personal Appendix N, but its biggest ones that come to mind at the moment are Elden Ring, Dark Sun, Blasphemous, the Viriconium series by M. John Harrison, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom. This list is sure to grow.
The Sun in His Wrath by William Blake (1816-1820)
Race as Class
I'm neither qualified nor inclined to go over the pros and cons of race-as-class in B/X. Love it or hate it, it's weird, which is what made me initially want to pry it open and see what I can make of it.
The reasoning behind race-as-class is pretty easy to grasp from an in-universe, Watsonian perspective: PC dwarves, elves, and halflings are archetypal examples of their race's typical heroes, not average people representative of the capabilities of all dwarves, elves, or halflings. Some of their abilities, you can infer are abilities of all or most of their kind, like infravision. But elvish spellcasting can't be assumed to be universal any more than spellcasting is universal for humans just because they have access to the magic-user class.
When taken as part of D&D's "implied setting", there's worldbuilding embedded in demihuman classes; it tells us what skills each society values in its heroes and leaders. (For an example of this kind of "implied setting" archaeology, see this compilation of posts by Wayne Rossi at Semper Initiativus Unum, who excavated the OD&D world by making assumptions from its rules).
There are three more pieces of worldbuilding embedded in the D&D class structure too:
1. Classed characters are expected to become leaders of some sector of society at name (9th) level, which applies to base and demihuman classes alike. Fighters are assumed to achieve peerage and establish strongholds; thieves have a system of omnipresent Guilds; halflings have Shires with Sheriffs.
2. Those societies are monoracial and somewhat uniform; a dwarf is a leader of dwarves (for example, a dwarven stronghold attracts only dwarves, can hire only dwarven mercenaries, but specialists of any race. Maybe this level of specialty affords a kind of labor aristocrat position that transcends racial barriers?) This can and should be problematized. It's an ethnonationalist's wet dream as written.
3. Some, but not all classed characters are expected to have other skills beyond fighting, which applies mostly to demihuman classes. How do dwarves detect construction tricks and elves detect secret doors? You can take a few paths toward explaining this. You can chalk it up to their naturally enhanced senses that allow infravision and 2-in-6 listening at doors, maybe. For me, this fails; why would an elf's sharp eyes not help them spot construction tricks too, for example?
Alternatively, you can take from this that dwarven adventurers are also expected, as a rule, to be skilled in mining and construction in addition to fighting. This is an odd career path. You can interpret it a few ways:
Maybe dwarven strongholds have mandatory mining conscription where everyone does two years (four? six? eight? they're long-lived) in the mines like the military in South Korea or Switzerland.
Maybe the B/X dwarf class, with its combination of fighter abilities and tunneling skills, represents a combat engineer or sapper. This is the role among dwarves that gains the most prestige (they establish strongholds at name level) and the most exposure to the outside world of adventurers (mixed-race adventuring parties hire dwarven sappers specifically for these skills).
You can do the same with elves' thing for hidden doors. Maybe they're skilled at finding them because elves are preternaturally a part of the "hidden world" away from the eyes of humans and outsiders. Entrances to elven lands are hidden doors through the forest: a fairy ring, or a pair of trees that, when crossed through from the correct side, at the correct time of day, while walking backwards, etc. leads one to their otherwise hidden groves. Elves have practice walking these hidden paths, which informs their skill as adventurers.
So, when we look at a demihuman class, we can make worldbuilding decisions about the implied setting based on inferences from the class's abilities.
I think this gets the closest to what the real fun of GMing is, at least for me: a kind of rulings > rules ethos for worldbuilding. Making rulings on the world is more dynamic and creative than making its rules, all the better when they're on the fly. Working within the constraints of a system's implied setting moves the GM further from an omnipotent narrator outside the game, and closer to another player of that game, and for me, working within those constraints is part of the fulfillment of the social contract that comes with playing that system. That's not to say it's gospel; if you don't like a rule and what it implies about the world, change it; it's your (plural) table. I'm sure that's what many have done with class-as-race as written.
Class as Race
Thought experiment: what if we took what B/X was cooking with the dwarf, elf, and halfling demihuman classes, and ran with that premise for the other four (usually human) classes? We take humans out of the equation and run the above process in reverse. Given only the description of of a base B/X class, could we reverse-engineer an imagined race of funny little guy that embodies the mechanical abilities of that class?
The end product will be a re-theming of the four base classes as race-as-class or demihuman-style classes, and four new races to populate the Sunlands.
Most of what I do here will be thematic only; the point is to pair the B/X mechanics with new fiction. I'm looking at the mechanical abilities of a class, and asking: if this is archetypal, what would this class's implied race be like?
In the same way, this opens up the possible reinterpretation of the elf, dwarf, and halfling later. Where I do add mechanics, it will be minimal, and only where it might enhance the fiction.
Understanding these as archetypes and not racial monoliths is key here (not to downplay the fact that I am inherently importing some of those racial-monolith assumptions here). The "fighter" race below, the Warborn, is only a typical example of their people. I would encourage players to play characters with a "matching" race and class the first time around. A Warborn who is a thief by profession has an interesting story to tell, but it's only interesting if we know why they're unusual for their culture.
From an in-universe point of view, the archetypal class is something imposed on each of these four races, both other cultures and their own. I may have laid this on a little thick in my adaptation of the fighter, and might lean on it a little lighter in the future. We'll see.
Without further ado, here is my re-themed fighter class as a race, and the first of the kindred inhabiting the Sunlands that we'll meet across this series:
Warborn (Fighter)
Requirements: None
Prime Requisite: STR
Hit Dice: 1d8
Maximum level: 14
Armor: Any, including shields
Weapons: Any
Languages: Alignment, Common
Level Titles: Ironling, Blunt Edge, Keen Edge, Razor Edge, True Steel, Myrmidon, Shield Hand, Blade Hand, (Lady/Liege/Lord) of Blades.
Warborn are robustly built humanoids with predatory features, steel-gray skin, and quicksilver blood. They stand at similar heights to humans, but weigh between 200 and 300 pounds due to the heavy metals infusing their flesh. Warborn are artificial beings, cast in sarcophagi and animated fully grown by means of a ritual now lost to history, but they are otherwise mortal beings of flesh and blood, not machines.
Most warborn alive today were created a century ago to serve as soldiers in the Crusade Solar. Many still ply the fighting trade; others have long since tired of violence and seek a life of peace, a rare treasure indeed in the Sunlands. The extent of a warborn's natural lifespan is unknown, as few die outside battle. In the last decade, a rusting plague with no known cure has spread among them.
The warborn form a single generation, with few predating the Crusade, and none born since its end. There are few communities of warborn alone, but they maintain a lifelong loyalty to those with which they fought, should they meet again.
Experience, hit dice, THAC0/attack bonus, and saving throws are the same as the fighter class.
Optional Abilities
Warborn characters in The Sunlands or elsewhere have the following optional class abilities if the GM/referee allows:
Steelhide: While not otherwise armored, warborn characters have an AC of 6 [13], between that of leather and chainmail.
A rust monster's feelers and similar effects damage a warborn's skin as they would a magic item, permanently worsening its AC by one point on a hit. If their AC reaches 9 [10], the warborn dies. Rust damage can be reversed with a Cure Disease or Remove Curse spell.
Blade Memory: Warborn have a 2-in-6 chance to instinctively and accurately identify the magical or cursed properties of a weapon after the first time they have killed with it. This increases to a 3-in-6 chance if the weapon is a sword. This doesn't offer them a chance to discard a cursed weapon, but they will know that the weapon is cursed.
Upon a warborn's death at 9th level or above, a sword they wielded may become a sentient magic sword containing the dead warborn's consciousness.
Inspirations
By far the biggest inspiration for me in creating the warborn are the Reborn Men of M. John Harrison's first two Viriconium books, The Pastel City and A Storm of Wings. They don't really suffer the fugue-states that plague Alstath Fulthor and Fay Glass, but their century-old existence as a single generation is meant to spark something similarly desperate and melancholy. They're out of place, a single generation without a history or a future.
The description above leaves their appearance vague, besides its metallic aspect. In my head, they've got animalistic or monstrous features that lean toward a sharp, fast, intelligent aspect rather than a blunt, brutish one. The krumar orcs of MTG's Tarkir plane really nail this look in my mind, as do aspects of the qunari of Dragon Age like their color scheme and typical physique.
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