Need the Communities help to come up with the ‘x’-words for each fantasy race
I’m working on a book called “The Dungeon Diver’s Guide to Slurs & Insults” (title subject to change), and I’d love some help from the DnD community.
The concept is pretty much exactly what it sounds like.
The idea was inspired by my current DnD campaign, where we have a pretty diverse group of characters: Drow, Humans, Dwarves, Orcs, and even a “clanker” (robot). Given the dynamic of our group, there’s been a lot of friendly name-calling and insults. We’re all good friends, and it’s very much part of the humor at our table.
That got me thinking: what if I made an actual in-universe book of fictional slurs, insults, and derogatory terms for the various races and species found in DnD?
The plan is to eventually have two editions:
Standard Edition – Focused on the races you’d typically associate with classic DnD/fantasy, such as:
Humans
Dwarves
Elves
Half-Elves
Drow
Orcs
Tieflings
Dragonborn
Gnomes
Halflings
Goliaths
And more
Expanded Edition – Basically everything else. Goblins, Gith, Fairies, the various “folk,” and all the stranger races/species that exist throughout DnD.
I haven’t completely decided which races will make it into each edition yet, but you get the idea.
Before anyone worries: I want to make it very clear that this is intended to be entirely fictional and fantasy-oriented. I’m not looking to incorporate real-world racial slurs or anything intended to attack or demean actual groups of people. The goal is to create the kind of ridiculous, creative, sometimes genuinely nasty terminology that might exist within a fantasy world between rival races.
To be clear, neither myself nor the other players use any kind of real slurs in our daily lives. We are not racist and think those words are bad. But we do enjoy roleplaying racists because c’mon we all know anytime people get together they come up with a bunch of mean things to call each other based on their differences. And that’s just good roleplaying!
And that’s where I could use your help!
I’d love to hear your ideas for fictional slurs, insults, derogatory nicknames, stereotypes, or general shit-talking terms for the various DnD races.
Ideally, I’d love to eventually have around 100 terms per race, although that’s a long-term goal and I’ll see how far I can get.
Feel free to make them serious, ridiculous, clever, lore-based, childish, overly elaborate, or just downright insulting. If it sounds like something one DnD character would yell at another in a tavern, I want to hear it.
Anyone whose contribution makes it into the final book will receive a shoutout in the credits, with your Reddit username included. We’ll also post your name across all our socials and tag it “pretend racist only”!
So, what have you got?
Give me your best fantasy insults.