How have people been using Tamasic Men and Hohools in their games?

How have people been using Tamasic Men and Hohools in their games?

They seem to fill fairly similar niches mechanically and evocatively - miserable half-things slinking around in the twilight in unhappy and rough lives.

In your understanding of the species, can either communicate with language? Are both pathetic in the "cowardly, flighty" sense, or are one or both aggressive goblin/orc types?

The same questions go for Wormlings if you have an idea about them too

Comments

  1. For me, Honhools are like gouls. They are maybe a cursed village who gnaw at the edges of civilization after collectively spiting a spirt, godling, or oni. Maybe act in Yoon-Suin as manifestations of fear of displacement from the hierarchy of things.

    Tamasic Men and like beastmen for me. Representatives of chaos or individuals who were cursed or debased- letting one's sin transform you in a literal animal (or at least animal headed).

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  2. I view Golden Wormlings as perhaps indications of another evolution of humanoids. Like maybe the Slugmen initially brought them to Yoon-Suin but found humans better as servants and slaves.

    In my campaign, Slugmen (or some faction thereof) picked humans up from Carcosa and transplanted them to Yoon-Suin.

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  3. Great ideas. I think the original reason for them occupying similar niches was just that in the first Yoon-Suin dungeon I wanted a bit of variety among the 1-2 HD humanoid factions. Gradually they evolved a bit. The Tamasic Men were basically lazy - that is their karmic flaw which caused them to be reincarnated in that form - and so everything they do is half-hearted and half-arsed. But Hohools are more like things trying earnestly to be human but not understanding how. I suppose they are opposite sides of the same coin.

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  4. I'm glad you replied David and I'm also glad you replied after other people, otherwise it might be seen as a "correct" answer and discourage opinion-sharing.

    It was my instinct to portray Tamasics as violent beastmen, but actually like so many other creatures and monsters in RPGs I'm discovering it's more interesting if there's more to them than just being swordfodder. Lazy goat-people peddling shitty bits of bone and hack-handed pottery and getting pissy if you're not intersted is way easier than "they want to eat you".

    Was the same reasoning behind the similar-niche-occupation of Preta vs Thayé?

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  5. David McGrogan if there was ever a Yoon-Suin companion book, I think it would be interesting to list monster all the monsters on a karmic wheel- like an “ecology” but spiritually oriented.

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  6. Warren Denning Ha, yes, that might be fun!

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  7. Alasdair Lawrence I think the Preta and Thaye are a bit more differentiated - the Thaye are predatory and malevolent whereas the Preta are more just single-mindedly fixated on their hunger and pathetic. Although go with whatever the text suggests to you!

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