Half Elves fall into the category of a race without a home. They feel out of place among humans and among elves. Being that they don’t look quite like either, half elves, where ever they go, are going to stand out. They are welcome in human cities, but still remain apart, whereas elves tend to look down on them for their mixed blood. This is going to be a pretty standard hook that you can use for your player character to go adventuring, they’ve needed to wander for a long time. I will say, play this carefully, though, as racism is going to be an issue for some people at your table who have been passed over for race or some other ism in their life. Just be aware of your table to know if it will work to play that trope.

Statistically, Half-Elves are a great race to play. You get a bump to Charisma and two other abilities of your choice. That means that the half elf is set-up to play anything and often is the face of the party. And the two other ability scores makes it really good at anything else, whether your want to be a barbarian or a wizard. They also pick up Dark Vision and Fey Ancestry, which gives them advantage against being charmed, from their elven half, and two skills of their choice from their human half. The skills, again, make them good at anything.

Beyond that, how do you play a half elf. I think the big thing is that you don’t have a home. But beyond that, when you did have a home, where did you grow up? Did you grow up in elven society or human society. If you grew up in Elven society, check out my article on Elves. If you grew up in Human society, check out my article on humans. You are going to have some traits of the other, but where you grew up is going to shape you. If you were cast out at a young age from both societies, that is going to shape you as well.

I don’t know that there is a ton more to say about half elves, so let’s jump into some backstories.

I was born to an elven mother and a human father. I’ve been told that is the way that you don’t want things to go. But from what I’ve seen, no one treats half elves all that well. We were cast out of elven society, and that was that. Things were fine for a few years, until my father died at the age of 50 while I was still fairly young. Our Elven clan wouldn’t take us back in when that happened as I was still a half breed and we were forced to live on the street before my mother became a handmaid for a noble house. It wasn’t the work that she wanted, but human nobles value elven help as they can live through generations and be with the family a long time. I was being groomed to join the nobles guard when another elf in the families employ accused me of stealing, which I didn’t do, and got me kicked out of the house as well as my mother. I want to clear my mothers name so she can have at least a decent life again and make whomever did frame us pay.
Class: Fighter
Background: Soldier/Urchin
Alignment: Chaotic Good

I come from a noble house. As a half elf, t hat is pretty nice, and better than I’ve seen a lot of half elves treated. It was a treaty that was signed between a human house and an elven house that was sealed with a marriage that led to me. I was given a nice comfortable life and I didn’t have to do anything that I didn’t want to. What I wanted to do was sit around and read books, so that is what I did. Then, however, someone broke the treaty. I don’t know who broke it first, but the humans claimed the elves did, and the elves claimed the humans did, and my family was torn apart. Things were said on both sides, but I haven’t seen my father in several years now. The war that is breaking out is bad, and I’m searching for a way to solve it. I believe that I’ve found something in a higher power, but until I know for sure, I try and help as much as I can.
Alignment: Lawful Good
Class: Paladin/Cleric
Background: Sage/Noble

A deal was made before I was born for my soul. I don’t like it at all, but that is what my mother decided for me. She was in a tough spot, on the run after she’d stolen money from a crime baron and she had been nearly caught. She was hiding in the woods and crying, praying that someone would help her, when a beautiful and powerful looking elf showed up and agreed to help. He was able to deal with the criminals who were chasing her, in exchange for me. I wasn’t conceived yet, but nine months later, there I was. We lived a simple life with my mother using her stolen money to set-up a shop. I worked with her there, eventually taking over most of the business. Then one day, the same elf knocked on the door and said that they had a job for me, and that it was time for me to start fulfilling my part of my mothers deal. And what I need to do for him starts with dealing with the crime baron.
Alignment: Anywhere on the good spectrum
Class: Warlock – Fey Pact
Background: Guild Artisan

Those are just some ideas. You can see that I lean into playing with the birth of the characters to determine some of their life story and how it’s influenced them as a half elf.

Have you played a half elf in a game of Dungeons and Dragons? Was it for the stat bonuses or for the role playing aspect?

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Dragonborn, are a bit like tieflings or other races where they get some heritage from something non-standard fantasy. And because of that, in Dungeons and Dragons, they are treated as a rarer race. They pull both from their draconic ancestry, including getting a breath weapon. But with that draconic heritage, that means they often also take haughtiness and aloofness of the dragons. This can make them a bit temperamental in a party.

Mechanically speaking, besides that breath weapon that you get which you can use sparingly, you also get bumps to strength and charisma. For that reason, Dragonborn make good fighters, but also charisma casters. Their strongest class is probably Paladin, a charisma casting class that is also good in melee. You also get resistance to the element that your breath weapon is. This also helps you tank as an enemy caster might be using whatever element you’re resistant to, and you’ll be able to stay in melee longer.

Other than those stats, the real things we’re looking at is that Dragonborn tend to role play as haughty. I mentioned that before, but I think it’s worth mentioning again. They think that they are better than you, and that they can probably do it themselves. This can also lead to foolhardiness because they are more apt to rush into something if they feel like someone else is going to be able to do it first.

They are also going to be rare and the chromatic ones distrusted. In Dungeons and Dragons, while the metallic dragons aren’t necessarily helpful, they aren’t evil either. The chromatic dragons, aren’t helpful, and they might decide they want to rule or go on a rampage. So, the people who know this, and I suspect it would be fairly common knowledge in most D&D worlds, are going to distrust a Dragonborn that is chromatic. Even the metallic Dragonborn might be looked at askance.

So let’s talk about some backstories, why might a Dragonborn decide to join an adventuring party.

I was, what I would consider a legend on the battlefield, there were few who could stand up to me. I was able to shrug off spells like it was no ones business, and I was only ever bested once when my “rival” got a lucky blow in on me. That took me out of action for a few weeks, but I’d done enough damage to the opposing army that our forces were able to continue routing them and I was given a retirement. But retirement doesn’t suit me well, so I feel the need to save sad adventuring parties who don’t know what they are doing.
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Class: Fighter
Background: Soldier
Notes: The point of that background, while it wouldn’t make sense for a level one character, is that the dragonborn exaggerates. They were in the army, but got injured, and were in bed for a long time, probably over a year, and now they want to actually do something worth their boasting so when people look them up, it’s something actually true.

With my size, people always thought that I would go into the army. But that wasn’t that interesting for me. I was much more interested in finding out about my draconic background. I spent years researching, trying to get a better understanding of who I was and where I’d come from. That led me all over the world, and I picked up some interesting skills and because pretty good at avoiding trouble. It might not be the most glamorous way to deal with problems, but smashing things with a club isn’t my style. I now want to go to the mountains where my people allegedly came from.
Alignment: Lawful Good/Neutral
Class: Ranger/Rogue
Background: Sage

People always looked at me like I was strange. I can’t help it if my parents left me in the big city at a young age. I don’t even know what happened to them for sure. I wanted to show people that I was better than just a kid who bounced around from temple to temple, helping when I could and getting a free meal. To do that, when you can’t go to school and life in the city is hard and dangerous, I could only come up with one way. I made a deal. I have some power now through it and I can help other people because of that. But mainly, I just want to find out why my parents left me.
Alignment: Neutral Good/Chaotic Good
Class: Warlock
Background: Urchin

There are some ideas for character backgrounds of a Drabonborn. In the game I’m going to be running soon, I’ll have a player who is playing a Dragonborn.

Let me know about some background ideas that you have for a Dragonborn character. Have you played a Dragonborn before?

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When playing a half orc, like the Tieflilng, you have to know that you’re going to stick out like a sore thumb as you’re going to be larger than most any human or smaller than most any orc. It’s really a race that is stuck between two things. I think a half-orc adventuring makes a lot of sense for that reason, because you don’t fit into human society, you might take up adventuring or mercenary work to get into a situation where you can become a hero, or people like you because you are big and strong. And with getting stat bumps to strength and constitution, you are certainly big and strong.

Half-Orcs, beyond their strength score bump are really made for melee characters. They get two abilities, relentless endurance and savage attack that make them great at going into the middle of things. Relentless endurance allows them, once per day, when they would have hit 0 HP, they go back up to 1 HP. And savage attack means that when they strike with a melee weapon and get a critical hit, they do an extra die of damage which means that they hit even harder. Things like Champion Fighter and Barbarian really are where the Half-Orc is going to shine.

When role playing one, it is really about playing a character who is out of place. In a human society, people are going to be scared of you because orcs are a monstrous race. In orc society, you are going to be a weakling and a liability on their hunting and raiding parties. Those things are reason enough to play against type if you want to. Since you would be stuck with menial tasks in an orc tribe, maybe you’ve spent more time honing magic or some other skills such as scouting, since you’d be the smallest orc. Or in human society, maybe you joined a religious order as a way to show that you aren’t just a big brutish monster.

Let’s hop into some backstory ideas, as I think there are interesting game elements that you can tie into a half-orc.

Times were difficult in your tribe and being the child of an orc who loved a human was even more difficult. When a drought hit and all the animals left the area and food was scarce, you were the first to be kicked out of the tribe. You were small for your tribe and you couldn’t hunt as well. You had to make it on your own if you wanted to survive, and you learned to live off of the land better than your old tribe had. Now you’ve been doing that for several decades, and the drought has come back every ten years, to the date and you are worried about the land you live on and that something more might be happening than just a weather pattern.
Class: Druid
Background: Hermit/Outland
Alignment: Neutral/Neutral Good

They said that you were lucky, besides your larger size, you don’t look that unlike a human compared to other half orcs. That made you a perfect choice to join the kings guard, someone who is stronger than the other guards. That worked out great and you grew to be one of the favorites of the King. You followed his rules to the letter, but the other guards became jealous and planted fake letters from you to the prince/princess and had those shown to the King. As a lowly kings guard and a half orc at that, you were kicked out and banished from the kingdom. Little did the guards know that you actually do care a lot about the prince/princess and they care for you. Now you have a new goal, to get back to them.
Class: Fighter
Background: Soldier
Alignment: Lawful Neutral/Chaotic Good

You have a very nice job working for the Black Coat Mercenary guild. They pay you well and give you a spot where you feel like you fit in. You mainly go on missions that are to squash insurrections or other things like that, bolster a kingdom when needed. You aren’t supposed to have any attachments, but when you saw that one mission was supposed to have you kill a well known wizard who was helping a town survive from a powerful kingdom that wanted that land, you decided not to do your mission. Instead you helped the wizard and the townfolk move miles away and relocate then you went and burned down the village. But now that wizard has popped up again under a new name, and you are worried that your secret is going to come out and your standing with the guild will be ruined and you might become their next target.
Class: Rogue/Fighter/Ranger/Barbarian
Background: Soldier/Criminal
Alignment: Lawful Good/Neutral Good

Have you played an half-orc before? Were there anythings that you leaned into with playing a half-orc? Would you play on of these backstories?

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We all know about dwarves from such classics as Snow White and more so Lord of the Rings. Really, Lord of the Rings is the basis for so much of Dungeons and Dragons, because it is the basis for so much fantasy in general. Dungeons and Dragons has built upon it, to really build out the dwarven structure of society that you don’t really fully see in Lord of the Rings.

Dwarves tend to live in a pretty rigidly structured society, and that’s one of the defining features. I think that Wizards of the Coast recommend that dwarves are lawful in their alignment. This comes because dwarves are generally part of a large family group and so you have certain family expectations to live up to.

Dwarves also live for a longer than human life span. It’s not as long as elves, but dwarves still live for several hundred years. Instead of taking that time out to go adventuring, they are going to be working on honing their skills to create their masterpiece, whether that is some ale, sword, piece of armor, etc., that work is how you’re going to get recognized as a dwarf in your society.

Even with that, dwarven society is rigid. So while you can probably work your way up the societal ranks by creating a masterpiece, the amount of time you have to work on that is going to be low if you’re in a lower rung of a family. However, being in a family is very important, you could also call it a clan, though they are generally set-up as a family group from ages ago. If you are clanless, you are an outcast who other dwarves really look down upon. You’d be hoping that someone will invite you into their clan so that you can have some standing in your life.

And I think that’s one of they key points, dwarves really like order in their lives. A dwarven adventurer is going to be seen as a bit of an outcast from normal dwarven society and might have troubles coming home again, if they just up and left their clan. However, clans will most certainly send out dwarves to adventure to help maintain stability, to spread the word of dwarven deities, and to look for some great treasure that would be the centerpiece for the clans standing among the other clans.

Mechanically, dwarves are slower than other races such as humans and elves, but their make up for that by having a bonus to constitution. You really get the double down on constitution with some of the dwarven sub races which get more HP per level on average than other races playing a similar class. Dwarves also have advantage against being poisoned, and even if they do end up being poisoned, they are poisoned less. You also gain some proficiency with various tools and weapons to start, so if you are playing a class that wouldn’t get access to some weapons, you now are going to have access to them.

But let’s talk about some Dwarven backstories…

My clan is the black sheep of clans. We generally deserve our reputation. Our clan is known for employing shady methods of gathering trinkets. If something goes missing in your clan, it might show up in our clan a generation later, I’m not saying how it got there, but it might happen. I, with my particular set of skills, got asked not just by my clan, but by the clans as a whole to head out into the world. The older generation said it felt like there was some changes on the wind that might be an issue for us. They were possibly also tired of me taking their stuff.
Class: Rogue
Alignment: Lawful Evil/Lawful Neutral
Background: Criminal

I miss my little blacksmithing shop. It was a quaint little place that gave me peace, but I can’t ever see it again. I was kicked out of my clan for a misunderstanding. I had started to build up a name for myself and go up in the clan, which was getting on the nerves of some of the family members who were closer to the main family. I was set-up on day when one of the nobles staged it so that I thought I saw an assault in progress. I snapped and used my smithing hammer and killed a dwarf before they could stop me. The whole issue came out, and while the noble was punished, for my crimes I was exiled. Now I’m searching for a treasure or something that will get me back into my old clan so I can go back to my black smith shop.
Alignment: Lawful Neutral/Lawful Good
Class: Barbarian
Background: Guild Artisan

All praise Moradin, the god of Dwarves who heats our forges and makes our armor and weapons strong. Brothers and Sisters who have fallen away, I am coming for you. My clan has sent me out from our sanctuary against the ravages of the underdark in a time of need when the Drow and Duegar attack. I am coming when I can to bring you back to your faith and stop whatever or whomever is driving you away from your faith. That was the letter that I sent out two years ago, I’ve been on the road every since. I know that just showing up as a lowly member of Moradin’s church will not grant me an audience with someone so fully corrupted. I seek a way to show Moradin’s power to them.
Alignment: Lawful Good
Class: Paladin/Cleric
Background: Acolyte

Dwarves are an interesting race to think about and give good role playing opportunities if you lean into some of their traits. I didn’t talk about the rivalry/dislike between dwarves and elves, because I did in the elf article last week.

Have you played a dwarf in a D&D game? How have you built your dwarf up?

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