Bernard grabbed another glass from the bar, dipped his rag into a bucket of beer-colored water, and polished the glass to no obvious effect. He looked out at his patrons. It was the usual lot: crusty old farmers, local ruffians, gangly stable boys... He saw a couple of farmers drain their glasses and push them away. Bernard was about to draw it to the attention of one of his barmaids when the door burst open. Sunlight briefly streamed into the bar before being blocked out by the newcomers. First came an ugly brute of a half-orc with a glowing greatsword strapped to his back, followed shortly by a hooded figure with a black cloak and brandishing a wicked staff topped with a gruesomely realistic human skull. Next through the door was an anthropomorphic raven in spiked red armour with a mandolin in one hand and a flaming katana in the other. Last but not least was a black-skinned elf with piercing red eyes, dressed only in woven ivy and riding a monstrous tiger.
"The conquering heroes return!" Bernard called out from the bar. "What'll it be, fellas? The usual?"
~~~~~
Adventuring parties are a strange thing. Oftentimes, they are actually comprised of many strange things. It's not much of a problem when you have a group of humans with the occasional elf, dwarf, or halfling. But there are a huge variety of strange playable races available to your players, some of which are quite literally monsters - in a game where fighting monsters is not an uncommon occurrence. Some would say it is a defining characteristic.
So if your party includes
crow-men,
fox people,
frog-folk,
horned hellspawn,
winged monsters,
talking monkeys,
the bad guys from Lord of the Rings, or
magical robots, you should probably give some thought to how they are going to be seen by the people they are trying to save. This applies equally whether you are GMing a game or writing a fantasy story.
