Hey there!

I'm working on a design document for the hobby isometric RPG I'm planning to make. I'll introduce it slightly so you have some context:

It's going to be a social-oriented roguelike. This means there will be permadeath and a fair bit of procedural generation, but very little combat. The idea is to focus on the slower paced element of exploring new villages, interacting with its NPCs, solving side quests and so on.

Villages will be procedurally generated, but obviously I know what the limits to that technology are, and I can't pretend I can use PCG to create entire cultures and architectures because that will just produce a random mess. So the idea is to have certain loosely defined races, or more precisely ethnic groups, and have the particular villages be variations on these. So rather than orcs and elves, I'm talking about the general distinction you could make between, say, south eastern asia cultures or mesoamerican pre-columbine cultures.

Since this is going to be a social game, it's not about combat related abilities and racials, it's more about how these races would tend to behave, how their languages and architecture would be, and so on. It should be a general guideline, since each particular village would be slightly different (one may prefer to paint the walls black, while other may have a particular god or idol, and so on). One important mechanic, by the way, are taboos, which are stuff you shouldn't say or do on a village. They are randomly generated based on the culture, and they're important to the nomadic player as the main task of the game will be to adapt to different NPC cultures.

So, I have a first draft of three of these races (by the way, they're all human). I'd love to hear feedback on the concept, as well as possible names (the ones you'll see are rather lame placeholders), and any ideas you may come up with. It's obvious I've put a bit more thought in the first race, so the other two are a bit lackluster. Also, I apologize beforehand for my poor descriptions, English isn't my native language:

The Shining People

Inspirations:

Islamic Golden Age

Ancient Egypt

Dark Elves (specially the Forgotten Realms interpretation)

Mediterranean / western European.

Physical traits:

Tall and slender, their skin tones range from pearl white to a sand-like tan. They're agile and athletic, but often fragile. Natural hair colours are usually shades of brown and yellow. The most common eye colour is also brown, with the occasional honey or light orange.

Architecture:

Architecture is decidedly Islamic (as in 10th century Persia), with some Egyptian (and even steampunk) influence. As you will see now they tend to be the more technologically advanced people, and so their buildings are taller and more intrincate.

Social traits:

They are intellectual, proud and independent. The Shining People place great value in knowledge and protect it as their strongest asset. They are the least religious race, dismissing adoration of gods and idols as a sign of weakness. Instead they focus in studies of sciences and the arcane. Their libraries are the most detailed and complete, but they strongly restrict the access to foreigners. They're smart, provocative and enthusiastic, but can be arrogant and treacherous.

They have a tendence to technocratic and aristocratic governments. Meritocracies based on academic achievements also happen.

In conflict, they attempt to resolve disputes through discussion and logic, but they aren't afraid to poison or stab a rival in the dark when a compromise can't be found.

There are few taboos among the Shining People, but they are the most dangerous. When they find themselves unwilling to mention a certain topic or eat certain food it's often because of a mishap related to arcane experimentation, and they may easily murder a foreigner on sight before risking a second catastrophe.

Their weapon of choice is usually the dagger.

(Name pending): Medieval/Nordic guys

Inspirations:

Medieval Europe

Norse / Viking

Physical traits:

Loud voices and muscular builds. Their skin tone is tanned by work on the fields. They have the highest variety of eye colour, with black, brown and blue being the most common.

Architecture:

Medieval European mostly. Sorry, can't expand much here: think Game of Thrones!

Social traits:

They are temperamental but generally good hearted. They are open to experience and have a good sense of humour, but can also get really angry really fast. They're prone to violence, choosing to resolve their disputes through dueling. However they also have a natural sense of justice. They love to eat and drink, and their culinary products are well known.

They usually adopt monarchic or democratic regimes. Their government is often unstable.

They are indifferent when it comes to both religion and magic, and a village may lean towards either, both or none.

Among the races, they're the least concerned by taboos, although they can be superstitious.

Their weapon of choice is the sword.

(Name pending): Whisperers

Inspirations:

Celtic

Mesoamerican

Hobbit-ish architecture

Physical traits:

They're usually short and have gentle facial features. Eye colour is most predominantly green.

Architecture:

Architecture should always merge with nature. Anything from cave-houses similar to hobbit dens in LOTR to tree villages would work.

Social traits:

Whisperers are quiet (thus the name) shy and attuned to nature. They are caring and thoughtful. They make good and loyal lovers, but have trouble when dealing with conflict. They can also be hermetic and mysterious, showing unexpected abilities in critical moments.

They are the most religious race, fearful of their gods and idols, but also most favoured by them. They generally reject the usage of magic for being unnatural, sometimes to the point of prosecution.

Whisperers are extremely respectful, and have many costumes and taboos. By breaking them, a foreigner can expect to be ostracised and kindly asked to leave, but very rarely directly attacked.

Their weapon of choice is the bow.

So that's what I have for now. Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear any ideas you have to give these groups more character. Keep in mind all that I said are guidelines: Villages will be randomized, and ethnic groups will impact the weights of each factor, but it will still be possible to land on a religious Shining People village, or a particularly peaceful and devout Castle/nordic village.

Taboos are a cool idea. I will list some of the most interesting ones I've seen in my reading, maybe you will find it helpful.

- Forbidden to touch the king of the village. In one interesting case, the king has a natural immunity to 'unclean' people like foreigners and slaves, so they can touch him, but none of his own people can touch him without a ritual to protect them from being burned by the king's holiness.

- Forbidden to kill bats and owls: owls contain the souls of women and bats the souls of men.

- Forbidden to remove mistletoe from a tree without a proper religious ritual and blessed cutting tool.

- Forbidden to bring closed, opaque containers (especially boxes/crates) into a village because these can shelter demons from the anti-demon protections built into the village entranceway.

- Forbidden to cut a tree or kill a deer without permission from the leader of the village or nobleman to whom the village gives fealty, because all trees or all deer belong to him. (This is usually do to a historical shortage of trees or deer.)

- Forbidden to sit with one's knees apart because it is unchaste.

- Forbidden to tie knots, braid, or weave near the house of a pregnant woman, because the umbilical cord or baby's intestines may get tangled. Similarly pregnant women must wear their hair loose or use only barrettes/bobby pins/a headband.

- Forbidden for non-nobility to wear purple, and nobility pay a tax or tithe to the king for the right to wear it.

- Women forbidden to touch tools and weapons used by men (and in some cases men also forbidden to touch those used by women). The tools and weapons are believed to be imbued with the user's yin or yang, and being exposed to the opposite energy would cancel the power they have stored up.

- Forbidden to court a man's sister without permission from the man's blood brother/vow brother/shield brother because the ideal marriage pattern is for the two blood brothers to marry each others' sisters.

- Forbidden to gather a particular kind of seashell and craft with it unless a tithe of the shells is given to the local shaman.

- Forbidden to gather the last herb from a bed (because some should be left to replenish the bed).

- Forbidden to enter a temple unless one is both a member of that religion and ritually cleansed. (Skin-to-skin contact with a foreigner, among several other things, caused ritual uncleanness.)

- Forbidden to go out in public without a mask on a particular holiday. If you don't have a mask on people pretend you don't exist and won't talk to you. But they will still casually hit you with a stick if you try to steal something.

The Shining People

In conflict, they attempt to resolve disputes through discussion and logic

When they find themselves unwilling to mention a certain topic or eat certain food it's often because of a mishap related to arcane experimentation, and they may easily murder a foreigner on sight before risking a second catastrophe.

These might be hard to sustain within the same dogme... It feels a lot like Vulcans (emotionlessly cold and thought) meets Romulans (deceptive and hot-tempered), and I'm not sure how you can reconcile these two?

- Forbidden to gather the last herb from a bed (because some should be left to replenish the bed).

A very interesting quote from the game Magic: The Gathering:

Thank you guys, really really awesome feedback here!

@sunandshadow: Great list of taboos! Some may be a bit out of the scope of the project, but others are spot on. In fact, I have to thank you for broadening the idea of taboos, I had only thought of them as conversational taboos, as in things you can't really talk about (such as sex in a really conservative Whisperer village). Your ideas really expand on that, and I particularly like stuff like the seasonal one (the game will involve deity festivities and events that might impose temporary taboos like that).

@Orymus: I certainly want to convey the image that Shining People are thoughtful, but it wasn't my intention to show them emotionless. In fact, the Whisperers would be closer to the Vulcan idea of emotions than them. I picture the Shining People like less evil Dark Elves from R.A. Salvatore novels, intellectual but also very prone to passion and emotion (often negative). In contrast, the Whisperers behave more like Japanese society; polite, reserved and calm.

You're right that in case of The Shining People it may be hard to put together these two concepts. I think it works best if you picture them in a frame of moral ambiguity (not sure if I'm making sense there) they're highly ambitious, and often see themselves above good and evil, so if killing an "inferior" foreigner is needed to protect their people, they will not hesitate to do it.

Well assuming you have an idea of how to do it, then its great. Conflicting values are great to flesh out 'real' characters.

Here's a taboo I faced in life before: Hassidic Jewish engagement party, made the mistake of extending my hand to a woman I was being introduced to. They were very nice and patient while explaining it, but it was incredibly awkward. My point of this being: have different methods of how the culture reacts to the taboo. I wasn't stabbed or anything, but the room got very quiet and conversations died. Would be creepy as shit, even in a video game, if you did something wrong and every NPC in the viscinity stops and stares at you.