D&D5 Build a World for SS19's next game

I have always like the idea of two distinct kinds of humans existing. Just never could decide how that would happen. Maybe this would be the avenue.

Perhaps your now died off Revrotex once took the world from humans. Then over time and servitude all knowledge of human beginning and origin was lost. They were used as slaves, and were magically/genetically (not sure you defined tech level of the previous world owners) modified with greater ability and other qualities that would make them a good slave. Some managed to escape and hang onto life in the "wilds" of the world.

You could do two things with that. The modified slave Humans were crafted into Dwarves over time. Small, stout, and strong, with hard bones and tough constitutions. The humans that escaped slavery built colonies in the wild, with the soul purpose of avoiding becoming slaves, and over time morphed them to Elves. Sharp hearing, reflexes, one with the "wilds" of the world (be that a giant city or actual wilds) and due to some event, longer life spans. Or maybe it would be interested to give them Human life spans, and figure in what difference that would make to the pre-defined "Elf" race.

You could also just have two versions of the Humans, completely different from the others. One is strong and enhanced, but not built for intelligence and self-reliance. Maybe they are like "Clone Troopers" in Star Wars. The age fast and die young. The other Humans lived in the wilds trying to avoid capture and enslavement for how ever many years, and maybe they get some Elf like traits. I am thinking Human Sub Races kind of thing here, not just cultural and skin color changes, but a separation of the one species into two distinct.

(I've been wanting to hit this thread and lurking around. Love what your are doing here man.)

I like the idea that both the Pelagitash and the Revrotex civilizations left artifacts - not capital "A" Artifacts in the sense of unique and awesomely powerful items, but artifacts in the sense that they are ancient relics - that are closely guarded and used by the existing powers that be. Either they've lost the ability to make more and can only maintain the existing ones, or they only know how to make a few (or one) type of artifact device, which is important for trade and/or military control.

Elves were Revrotex fodder, so if anything, it would be the other way around: humans are degenerate elves, along with halflings and gnomes (see this post). Dwarves are a subterranean species completely separate. Orcs are descended from the Revrotex themselves. Tieflings are mutations that appear in every race's population. Minotaurs and Dragonborn are somehow related to the Pelagitash.
I really like this idea. The other races in the game have sub-races; humans will, too: the Free People and the Slave People. But in terms of mechanics, would we treat these like the demihuman sub-races with bonuses to only some ability scores (a primary and secondary)? If we did so, what game mechanic benefits should we grant to humans (since their primary benefit in the base rules is +1 to all abilities)?

This is straight off-the-cuff, but maybe restrict the +1 to all attributes to one subrace of human, and the variant rule to the other?

Brilliant! I'd give the Subservient Humans the variant rules, and the Free Humans the normal rules. I might consider some social variations, too.

Right on. I think I read that post, but when I start going on something I just go. :)
That's a tougher question. The variant in the PHB says +1 to two abilities and an extra skill and feat (if you use them). That's a far cry from +6 it seems though with the standard array. Maybe +2 strength +1 Con for Slave sub-race, +2 Dex +1 Wis for the Free. Just off the top of my head. Strength and Con justified by selective breeding for the slaves, Dexterity and Wisdom for the Free because they move around a lot and know more of the world beyond slavery.

You could give them an extra skill from a small list even, and take that +2 down to a +1.

Well, no, it's not a select group, it's just an awesome group of gamers who jump on open games. Generally, it's first-come, first-in-the-game, and everyone I've played with is great. It's one of the reasons I keep coming back to Gamers' Plane every day.

So here's what I envision: at some point, I will start a game in this campaign setting. I may make an Obsidian Portal wiki for the setting, also. If that game goes well, I may run other games in the setting. Of course others are welcome to run games in the setting, too, if they like. It is a collaboration, after all.

So far, we have some world-building ancient history (Pelagitash overwhelmed by the invading Revrotex) in a fantastical setting (a world-wide ring city ruin surrounding an ocean supplied by an eternal waterfall dropping from the moon), and we have a nice web of racial attitudes.

Generally speaking:

Elves, descended from slaves of the Revrotex, fear and respect orcs (and half-orcs), who are descended from the Revrotex themselves. Elves consider humans, halflings, and gnomes to be disgusting mutations of the elven standard, while they consider dwarves to be beasts. They feel that dragonborn and minotaurs, as creatures of the Pelagitash, are alien enemies who should naturally be subjugated.

Humans are educated second-class citizens in the elvish civilization, but in the wilds roam free and ignorant. Tame humans view elves and orcs with awe and resentment, while Free humans are somewhere between indifferent and xenophobic. Free humans consider halflings lucky (and generally can't tell gnomes and halflings apart), while tame humans are generally envious of the halflings and gnomes, for the cushier jobs they tend to get (humans tend to do heavy labor for the elves). Free humans view dwarves, dragonborn, and minotaurs as dangerous, while tame humans adopt the manner of their masters, viewing dwarves as sub-human animals, and dragonborn and minotaurs as fearful foes.

Dwarves are hairless subterranean creatures that resent the occupation of the Pelagitash and Revrotex both. They pay little attention and have little interaction with other races, so they don't bother to make a distinction between those races and their descendants. So they despise the "Pegtash" (what they call dragonborn and minotaurs) and "Revex" (what they call elves) both. They have pity for tame humans, halflings, and gnomes as weaklings who cannot escape the Revex. They respect the free humans as much as they can respect anyone so alien as to live aboveground.

The dragonborn and minotaurs both believe that they are descended from the Pelagitash, and that the other race is descended from their slaves or companion races (depending on whom you ask). Elves are oppressors.

How do halflings, gnomes, dragonborn and minotaurs feel about the other races?

My first thought is that dragonborn and minotaurs harbor a deep resentment of orcs and half-orcs, viewing them as an eternal reminder of their lost world. They likely view elves and the sub-elves in the same light, while dwarves are probably ignored or thought of as quaint and unassuming.

I think if you still want to incorporate the PHB halfling and gnome personality traits, they could be one of the world's most-tolerant and equal-opportunity of races. Perhaps their different height-perspective has garnered them a new philosophy and find it difficult to understand why everybody just can't get along. They'd likely find kinship in the dwarves, but wish those hairless beings would also lighten up.

I hadn't assumed that we'd keep any of the base racial personalities - no one I know has played to racial type, opting instead to rely on background to provide direction for role-playing.

But it is a good thought, and an example of why this is a great exercise for me. I would never have thought of that on my own. I like the idea of either the halflings or the gnomes generally having personalities that are completely out of sync with everyone else's. Baseline, normal individuals of one of them - gnomes, perhaps? - have an innocent childlike, trusting attitude, like Eloi in The Time Machine. They'd been created by the Revrotex to be cheerful slave technicians, after all. Any PC gnomes would likely by antisocial monsters compared to "normal" gnomes, though still remarkably credulous from the point of view of any other race.

Sorry I'm drawing this out, by the way. This first week of Christmas has had me busy enough I haven't spent much time thinking about a game to run in this world (much less a campaign). So I'm going to mull it over for a while and continue to hash out ideas here, before I start an actual game in the setting.