For me, I adjusted the two of the three fey folk (Drow, Eladrin and Elves). Leaving Eladrin to the Feywild, I reimagined Elves as natural inhabitants of the world descendant from a race that had lost its ties to the Feywild. The Drow are not darkened versions of their Fey cousins, but a similar existance mirrored upon the Shadowfell, where they have adapted to the harsh life of the dangerous realm while eeking out their own empires on its lands. This naturally removes the Fey origin from elves, and gives Drow the Shadow origin instead, but not much mechanical alterations past this.
What have you fine folk done to spice up the inhabitants of your world out of the norm?
In my homebrew campaign: Serration I've been turning preconvied notions on their heads.
A few examples:
The initial races created by the gods were: Humans, Orcs, Elves, Illithids, Giants, Gnolls, Dragonborn
Each of the First Races were the mortal embodiment of a goodly virtue: Humans/Justice | Orcs/Innovation | Elves/Beauty | Illithids/Knowledge | Giants/Strength | Gnolls/Loyalty | Dragonborn/Honor
During the Dawn War, the dwarves were the soulless angelic workers of Moradin, the patron god of Innovation and the Orcs. In fighting and sacrificing for the Defense of Moradin's Forges against the primordial Xixeal, the dwarves were gifted with souls and freedom to live their lives as they saw fit. The orcs did not take to kindly to this and there is forever animosity between the two races.
Tiamat was originally goodly, her avatar bearing the scales of the metallic dragons. She was the patron deity of the Dragonborn and honor. She was seduced by the primordial Vezzuyu. She betrayed her fellow deities; her dragonborn disciples, and pledged herself to chaos. From their unholy union, chromatic and elemental dragons were born, and Tiamat's scales dulled to the chromatic colors as a permanent reflection of her betrayal.
What about Gnolls? How'd you change a race of demon spawn into a race prided for its loyalty?
However, when I began building the Eldritch Abominations I would be using for the big bad for the campaign, I ran into a bit of a problem: My players pretty much know every source book in and out, so if I used anything from a monster manual or such, it would be instantly recognized. I wanted a big impact from the reveal, so I scrapped my original plans for them and came up with something more devious.
Anyways, I created the Cold Ones, a race of living constructs that have pretty much evolved into the "perfect" organism since their defeat by a now extinct civilization approx. twelve thousand years ago. The overarching theme is that they are practically a force of nature: their silvery flesh-like metal encroaches upon the landscape, and everything before it will be food. For some of the types of creatures I only modified some slight things of existing creatures, for others I built the creatures from scratch. But I always kept the same basic rules for constructing any of them: insect and/or squid-like physiology, the limbs and fingers are always a prime number, and always include machine-like functionality (like the largest is able to fire a harpoon-like projectile from one of it's limbs so it can reel in smaller creatures and feed them through a thresher blade assembly grown in the center of its body).
When the PC's did the reveal encounter the Cold Ones, they were totally freaked out, not only did they not recognize the creatures, but the creatures were totally alien and their abilities were unknown. With no knowledge check to help them (something gone from the world for more than 12,000 years is a really high check), the PC's were immediately put on the defensive. They were even more confused when the Fighter of the party (who was actually paying attention for once) pointed out that all the creatures had limbs that came in prime numbers.
Overall, a really excellent addition for players who knew too much.
That's pretty nifty. I really like how the staple conflict of Orcs and Dwarves was slipped into Moradin's history with both races ^_^
What about Gnolls? How'd you change a race of demon spawn into a race prided for its loyalty?
Thanks. For the Gnolls, they're based of a fond memory from childhood. I had been introduced to Rifts at a young age and remeber fondly the picture of the doberman humaniod. Mechanically, the Gnolls in serration use the same rules as Gnolls in other worlds. 2 players are playing Gnoll characters. But instead of the canon history of demon spawn, they are the dog/wolf/hyena humanoid children of the god of Loyalty, Tori. (Tori was the name of my dog growing up). The modern Gnolls of the world continue devote worship of Tori and live within a theocracy. Their race is the last remaining race to hold the gods in high regards and respectfulness.
A little twist was added. Originally Gnolls had angelic like wings. When the Rod of 7 Parts was created (whole campaign is centered on reclaiming the rod), the 7 gods each requested a sacrifice from their chosen people. The gnolls gave up their wings, dragonborn their dragon form, humans their immortality, elves their connection to the feywild, illithids their ability shield their thoughts from others, giants their connection to elemental magic, and orcs their beauty.
A small portion of each population refused to make the sacrifice and retained their abilities. They were thrown out or destroyed.
In my campaign, they are mercenary armies that patrol the south borders of the Good Kingdoms, they are pretty much allowed free reign of the lands that none of the kingdoms claim, and are allowed to do anything they want there (and are paid for staying there in gold, treasure, weapons, and items), and are tasked only with defending the border from any threat that would try to invade the kingdom.
The elves are divided into Dark Elves (not drow, I still use drow) and Gold Elves, the Dark Elves followed an elf general that led them into the north, stealing the sword and crown from his brother, who he killed. Since then, the two groups of elves have been in a constant state of war (the evil brother who leads the dark elves is working with Lolth and Vhaeraun, who in my setting are allies, who plot to overthrow the Gold Elves, and conquer the surface).
The drow I've changed so that both men and women are equal, but both consider the other inferior, and both secretly plot (as do their respective deities) to cast down the other.
I use the idea of Thoon, which was created in Monster Manual V, in 3.5, as a substance from a plane (named Thoon) that isn't as much a place a state of mind, every thing that thinks has a 'string' that leads back to Thoon, the illithids plan to harness the 'strings' and use them to control the rest of the multiverse.