Inspired by a line at the bottom of a wiki, tangentially related to the main subject - peoples were known to others by their main mode of transportation. A 'canoe people' and a 'horse people' are identified in the article - what others might we find traipsing about our fantasy world?
As a second thought, this also can serve to identify what encounters might be had - peoples may stick to their home turf, even where that might be at close proximity to others in places. A party of adventurers taking a direct route to a place might cross-cut a bunch of different folks territories where those people normally would have little to do with one another due to very different life-styles.
You will often find three broad categories when a people is mentioned by others - this is what you get if you ask their neighbours.
- how they move around
- where they dwell
- what they herd
Starting with our named examples and continuing:
1. Horse people - typified by plains or steppe nomads
2. Canoe people - can be lake and/or river based
3. Worg people - traditionally goblins, tend to be highly nomadic due to the appetites of their mounts. Bounding cavalry raiders, hit & run strikers, fierce and territorial about their food sources. Giant weasels are similar but in more forested terrain.
4. Leyliners - travel along the currents of magic following thin-spots through the seasons. Can be planesteppers (hellrunners, astral, ethereal, shadow, fey) as outsiders tend not to know 'where' they step to for their travel.
5. Treesteppers - strong druidic traditions allows migration through trees, differ from typical forest societies in being seasonally migrational
6. Canopy runners - forest dwellers but off the ground - either along sturdy branches, constructed bridges or with strong presence of misty-step or similar talents
7. Camel people - ridden and herded, tend towards long-haul trading traditions. Alternatively may ride giant lizards.
8. Goat people - their big goats for riding up/down steep surfaces. Giant ram peoples are similar.
9. Cliff folk - use networks of climbing/abseiling ropes. Tend to be best informed about their local region
10. Sea peoples - deep-water ship-borne folk, usually sailing ships. Traders and raiders, may be welcomed or dreaded depending on their attitude
11. Star peoples - like sea-folk but spelljamming. Rarer, usually found only at certain traditional places and times. Sought by the most adventuresome youths. Often tied to a specific local site.
12. Giant riders - symbiotic relationship with hill, stone or sometimes ogres if small-folk. Modes can vary from riding in pockets and harness to elaborate gondolas worn as hats or dangling from shoulder-yokes
13. Longship folk - sea and river going, shallow draft ships that allow them to trade and raid further than canoe or sea-folk
14. Spider people - ride giant spiders, more often jumping spider types, typically forest, mountain or underdark based. Use lots of climbing and sheer surface traverses to secure their homes and surprise foes. Climbing lizards also.
15. Wasp people - riders of giant wasps or other hive-insects; frequently a few ridden among a larger group
16. Dolphin people - use dolphin-drawn sea-chariots, frequently combined with island dwellings
17. Airship people - move by balloons and dirigibles, live on the ground.
18. Skyrock people - dwell on drifting aeroliths, may use gliders, flying beasts or rope-lifts for access.
19. Skycastle people - more sophisticated than skyrockers, big slow directable sky-castles, stay far from 'civilisation' as kings prey on them
20. Wyvern riders - similar to worg-folk but further-ranging, see also eagles, hippogriffs, pegasi, pterodactyls and griffons.
21. Dragon riders - often dragon cults on very good terms with their dragons, generally a mis-understanding about who is in charge
22. Rail folk - can be both living on one or more train-like vehicles which travel along a built path or also users of other abandoned infrastructure. May or may not have much understanding about how their home works, frequently found with muscle-powered replacements for engines of the builders.
23. 'Circle-jumpers' - have ink-splot territories around fae rings, teleport circles, old ruins, transmission towers, etc.
24. Stilt-walkers (swampers) - traverse swamp and other difficult terrain with tall stilts. Can also be found inhabiting deadly terrains like lava flats and other
25. Raftfolk - lake-dwellers, generally conflict avoiders,
26. Tunnel-runners - surface dwellers who use caves and tunnels in contrast to subterranean dwellers
27. Wyrmriders (burrowers) - exist as both fast and slow types, with fast types riding within their giant boring wyrms and slow types having wyrm-guides who dig paths to where they want to be for the rest to follow
28. Shellriders - on snails or tortoises, frequently small traders and artisans, moving between others settlements.
29. Bone people - users of undead, could be anything from people skeletons with sedan chairs to skeletal horse drawn wagons. Tends to have strong magical tradition.
30. Skyfish-riders - similar to aerolith dwellers but they travel in howdahs or gondolas on giant drifting creatures.
31. Wagon-people - ox-folk or other slow draft animals pulling wagons - can be reindeer, yaks, rhinos, stegosaurs or other stronger, slower creatures that are uncomfortable to ride
32. Sled-people - similar to wagon-folk but for colder or worse terrain and with people typically travelling dismounted alongside
33. Ostrich-riders - also covers giant emus, velociraptors and similar. Typically light fast raiders.
34. Bronto people - travelling with herds, living on the backs of these huge dinosaurs.
35. Carnosaur riders - riding things like allosaurs and T-rexes, like worg-folk but driven by larger appetites, travel in smaller groups, more of a champion-alone culture. Tiger peoples are similar.
36. Crocodile-riders - river drifters, often low-energy, stealthy. Often you can stray deep into crocodile country before they reveal themselves.
37. Roc-riders - riding on these massive birds, dreaded as a single roc can land a significant raiding party
38. Hyena people - either small-folk on standard hyenas or medium sized on giant hyenas. Tends towards twilight raiding & scare tactics, relationships with gnolls vary widely
39. Brassbone people - those who have found a way to co-opt old automata, from golems to animated objects, may or may not be able to command them or may just be using them as they do some ancient instructions
40. Crab people - coastal, found in places where the difference between high and low tide changes the landscape. Great at finding things lost at sea, surprisingly adaptable to circumstances. Confident they are favoured by fate.
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