In Monte Cook`s _Arcana Unearthed_ he presents what could pretty easily be

viewed as an extension to the thinking of _Savage Species_. To wit: racial

levels. In a web enhancement he (and several of his friends) present

racial levels for humans, elves, dwarves, and all the rest of the standard,

D&D PC races. Each racial class has 3 levels. 1st level members of each

race are pretty much "standard" versions of those races, and as they gain

benefits based upon the themes of the themes and abilities of each

race. Half-orcs, for instance, can gain the ability to rage at 2nd level,

and a strength score increase at 3rd. It`s a very interesting idea and the

treatment is well done. In some ways it`s a throwback to the old basic D&D

rules in which one levelled up as a fighter, wizard, etc. if human, but

demi-humans levelled up according to their race. The document is available

at: http://www.montecook.com/arch_stuff48.html



It occurs to me that in BR we can take this same thinking and even extend

it a bit further by not only have racial levels for dwarves, elves,

goblins, halflings, etc. but also for each of the human races. 1st level

humans could have pretty much "standard" human characteristics, but several

of the special abilities of each race might be assigned to 2nd or 3rd

levels, allowing human characters to take levels as Anuirean, Brecht,

Khinasi, Rjurik or Vos rather than simply assuming all members of those

races/cultures have the exact same racial and cultural traits.



In fact, there`s no real reason to limit the racial classes to three

levels. While taking 20 levels in race might be a bit difficult to

justify, the concept could be used to go as high as one wants, and such a

system might be an interesting way of handling the differences between the

human races in addition to the differences between the other races. Anyone

have thoughts on this?



Gary