I started with the races. While I knew that the game needed humans as a basis, I wanted all the other races to be new. I didn't want to just create dwarf and elf analogs with different names.

First came the giants. I wanted to create a race that was size Large, for the interesting game applications that would have. I didn't want them to be hulking brutes like ogres or trolls, though. It will surprise few who have read the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant that the Arcana Unearthed giants owe as much to Steven R. Donaldson as D&D dwarves and elves owe to Tolkien. Still, I wanted to give them a unique spin, and I did that by having their culture emphasize ceremonies and rituals. This is really a big deal in the "implied setting" of Arcana Unearthed.

On Settings
Let me digress for a minute about "implied settings." People talk a lot about how D&D is a generic fantasy game, and I know what they mean. The thing is, though, D&D pretends to be a generic fantasy game, but in truth it isn't. It implies a pretty specific setting. Its setting is where warriors wear heavy armor to fend off the attacks of monsters that rampage across the countryside. In this setting the gods are demonstrably real and channel power to their faithful. Wizards prepare spells ahead of time. Heroes with friends who have money or power do not die -- at least not permanently. And so on. Try to run a "low-magic" setting using D&D, or one in which anyone can use magic, or the gods are distant and unreachable (all viable fantasy choices), and suddenly you're practically playing a different game.

Thus, Arcana Unearthed also has an implied setting. It's generally similar to that of D&D, in that you still have warriors fighting with swords and various people casting magic spells, but the specifics are different. Where these specifics differ the greatest, and thus where the implied setting comes through strongest, is in the races. Races have history. They interact with each other. They reflect the world they live in.

Back to the Giants
So then, I knew that I wanted giants to be important. I didn't want them to be like traditional D&D giants and I didn't want them to be exactly like those we'd seen before. I also knew that I did not want the humans to be "in charge" the way they are in D&D. Thus, it befell the giants to be the hub that the other races revolved around. Basically, a thousand years ago, the giants freed humans and other races from slavery to an evil race of dragonlike creatures (I'll get to them in a bit). But when they did, they set themselves up as rulers in turn. Remember how I said that ritual is important? Well, the giants can literally change themselves and their outlook through ceremony. (They can also evoke permanent physical changes to themselves through ritual, which is how they grow to such a large size.) So they changed themselves from a warlike race that defeated the dragons to a noble race of stewards and set themselves up as protectors of the land. Of course, while many appreciate and love the giants for what they did, some -- particularly many humans -- resent the giants and want no one ruling over them. This resentment is far more subtle and complicated than saying, "humans hate giants," which makes it a lot more interesting. It becomes more of a parent-child relationship. This tension, I realized, would lead to a lot of story hooks and roleplaying opportunities that players could use to develop their characters and DMs could use in their adventures.

So that was when I stumbled onto the idea of giving all the races some really interesting roleplaying hooks that would make them very different to play than the standard races. Thus, while each race has ability score modifiers and racial abilities and whatnot, what I actually focused on in their design was the roleplaying experience of each one. As playtests move forward, I'm soliciting feedback not just on the races' balance but about how fun and how different each race is to play.

Little Guys
But there are more races than just humans and giants, of course. The name "faen" is supposed to evoke the word "fey." It's supposed to be pronounced "fay-en." These were my concession to players who like to play "little guys." I'm not a huge fan of halflings or gnomes myself, but I know some people are. The twist here is that faen can enter a chrysalis at some point and permanently transform themselves into sprytes, which are tiny creatures with wings. And by "tiny," I mean the game term. That's right, these little guys are 8 to 9 inches tall. They should provide quite a different sort of roleplaying experience. Ironically, these, the small guys of Arcana Unearthed, get along with giants better than anyone else. Faen also have some interesting religious quirks and revere literally thousands of gods and divine beings.

Not Just Cats and Dogs
Litorians, for those who have been paying attention, were a minor race in my Ptolus campaign. They are slightly different in Arcana Unearthed, but they are still the wild, tribal, honor-bound but irreligious group described in the archives of The Stuff.

The initial germ for the race of sibeccai come from a cool-looking character in an old DC comic I had called Arion, Lord of Atlantis. It's really just an image, but I liked the idea of an "anubis-guy." Let me say right now that I am no real fan of "furry fantasy" -- a subgenre of SF/F in which all the characters are anthropomorphic animals. Sibeccai are not dog-men and litorians are not cat-people. Appearances can be deceiving, I suppose. What I mean is that I haven't attempted to think of canine personality traits and give them to the sibeccai (you'll disagree, I suppose, if you think dogs are arrogant and cynical city-dwellers). Instead, I've focused more on the idea that sibeccai are an indebted client, in the classic sense, to their patrons: the giants. They are like parent- or god-figures to the sibeccai, for long ago the giants used magic to grant them intelligence and a level of consciousness that took them beyond the level of the mere beasts they were. Interestingly, all these years later, the giants are not entirely comfortable with the sibeccai's dependence and devotion -- they were hoping that by this time the sibeccai would have achieved a culture of their own.

Dragon-Men
Mojh would love to be considered "dragon-men." Unlike litorians, for example, who are a humanoid race that happens to share some of the physical traits of cats, mojh were humans who used magic to make themselves as "dragonlike" as they could. They were only somewhat successful. Mojh do not possess the physical might of dragons, but rather their magical aptitude. In addition, they have the dubious position of being the "bad guys" of the Arcana Unearthed bunch. As with half-orcs, many people assume that mojh are evil, because long ago, the true mojh -- the offspring of dragons -- were indeed evil. These true mojh were the creatures that enslaved humanity, before the coming of the giants. The mojh of today are humans who have given up on their humanity to embrace dragonkind.

Rounding out the Races
Verrik look like humans with skin the color of red wine. They possess innate telepathic powers, akin to psionics (but not the psionics of the Psionics Handbook). They can focus on these powers or they can take up other classes -- particularly the witch. It was the verrik who first discovered witchery long ago. That magic involves innate powers that lie within all creatures but manifest themselves in different ways... but now I'm getting ahead of myself.

Runechildren are the weirdest race, because, well, they're not actually a race. "Runechild" is more akin to a template a character can take on, in lieu of a level or levels. Runechildren use magical rituals to grant themselves new identities, powers, and a mystical kinship with all other runechildren. Imagine a process where the members of different families in the real world could all undertake a conscious course of action to become more alike -- not physically, but mentally and mystically -- and you'll get the general idea. This practice forges bonds where none existed, and grants special powers to boot.

As with many of the broad-stroke aspects of Arcana Unearthed, the concept of runechildren is based on choice, not birth. You choose to become one. A faen chooses to become a spryte. Mojh choose to be mojh. Giants choose to grow large, and to become less warlike and more noble.

Choosing your own destiny, rather than accepting the consequences of fate, is a strong theme woven into both the implied setting and the rules of Arcana Unearthed.