100 Random Alien Races
Actually, way more than 100 if you factor out all the possible combinations. If you need a weird alien race on a moment’s notice for your sci-fi RPG, this table offers 100 different traits divided into four categories: culture, physical, language and technology.
This is another one of those weird d100 tables that’s really a D25 table, and they don’t make D25s, so that’s a little awkward. Just roll D100 and divide by four? Anyway, this obviously has a sci-fi angle — I just saw Prometheus last week, and I’m in the middle of China Miéville’s Embassytown, so it’s been on my mind. With some finagling, though, I think you could bend most of the results on this table into a fantasy race, especially if you’re traveling the planes or descending into weird hell dimensions.
A few of the categories are, by nature, a bit abstruse. The culture category includes elements of religion, politics, and overall societal structure. Language entries vary between conceptual and strictly mechanical.
Feel free, of course, to roll within a category multiple times. This might give you a nuanced alien race with different, perhaps competing, cultural priorities; a formal language alongside the vernacular; or multiple forms of strange tech. Or it could signify the different attitudes of multiple nations of the same alien race. Our only existing example of a sentient race (humans) is not a monoculture, after all. These entries also require a certain amount of development on the part of the GM. We don’t know why, for instance, the Nuragasi of Nuraga Prime never speak their language aloud, nor do we know the nature of the ancient tech used by the Gr’Xlorthox of Epsilon Aurigae (perhaps they don’t either).
Click the image below to see the full-size table, or download the handy printable PDF version.
June 26th, 2012 11:23 AM
…and their dastardly plan is to sell you the d25′s you need to use the table. Then the elphantine-footed rednecks will use the proceeds to take molecular-level scans of Taylor Swift and Katy Perry!