note: using the Imperium god names here...
Thanks for starting this thread... I was thinking about this stuff but not motivated enough to get it down.
from
here
garyh said:
The Empire of Jade looks to be the designated default for tiefling and dragonborn PC's. I like having a default place each PHB race fits in the world. If someone wants to do something different, there's always room for exceptions, but it otherwise it's nice to have some kind of vague baseline.
We're on exactly the same page.
I've had this in mind for a while too... here's where I am.
I want to make sure that for each race
1. There is a primary culture that is interesting and fun
2. There are viable secondary offerings for people who want to play "more traditionally" or unfettered from rp constraints they don't like.
So we can have "most hobgoblins are like this" without "all hobgoblins are like this...."
Dragonborn - until recently dragonborn were quite rare, appearing in small bands of mercenaries. A few lived in Daunton of course and a small band is said to rove the seas as "ethical pirates".
Dragonborn currently dominate the upper ranks of the Kingdom of Jade. With the fall of the Jade Emperor to the touch of the shadow the surivivors have shifted to full war footing, and the discraced genasi noble families have been replaced by their loyal servants and warriors, the Dragonborn. Dragonborn from the Jade Empire have grown more common on Daunton, the most prominent Dragonborn in the city is Madame Redscale; she seems to have close to twenty burly and aggressive young claws. Her neighbors in the upscale neighborhood she lives in are "quite sure she's happy to have so many big strong sons".
Both native Dragonborn and those from the Kingdom share a culture that embraces and emphasizes honor; but the immigrants are much more extreme living -- an intense athsetic lifestyle that verges on religion.
Some of the natives are inspired by this intensity, others see it as "self-absorbed, impractical scale polishing"
Dwarf - Dwarves are the largest and by far the most prosperous group in the Valley of Bone. Savage in appearance traders who have attemtped to take advantage of the "primitives and their gold" have found them cunning, wiley and ruthless. They also have an odd sense of black humor and an intense distain for fear of death.
Few dwarves choose to feel the destruction of Allaria to Daunton (at that time called new daunton); but those that did remember the Kingdom with much greater clarity. It's not something that happened in the distant past, but something their grandfathers and grandmothers experienced.
Eladrin - Eladrin dominate the Imperium as its leaders, masters of oratory and blessed with long lives they dominate the senante (where once elected one serves for life) driving it forward and spreading civilization to the.
Eladrin are the rarest of the Great Races who formed the Allaria, they have left the lands of the fey long ago, but they still remember it's touch. After the destruction of their home many forsook their long-lives transforming into elves but a handful of those who escaped Allaria could not give up their nature, and seeing themselves as Allarians still dwell among the "survivors".
Elf - Intrinsically connected to the Eladrin the Elves have given up their connection to the faerie. While the practice was frowned upon by Eladrin in the past the destruction of Allaria drove most of the Eladrin to forsake their long lives, and the painful memories of the Destruction*.
A small group of Eladrin, driven by the shame of the excesses of the Imperium, have also reportedly forsaken their race; their two century campaign of assassination and murder has only recently (as they see it) come to a stop.
*=I assume that this involves petitioning the goddess Proserphones (since both fey and nature are her perviews and she's also changed in reaction to tradgety she's willing to bless and effect the change)
garyh said:
Half-Elf - Wherever humans and elves meet, I assume
Personally I prefer Half-Elves to actually be a race, with their own culture, like the Khorvaire in Eberron.
(this happens too occasionally in the real world, the
Peranakan are the decendants of chinese merchants in SE asia who married locally and developed a distinct, unique culture)
In that sense the Imperium half-elves are sort of a half way point a distinct culture that's still linked with it's Eladrin creators
The Temperavir are the upper middle class of the Imperium, a vast strata of bureaucrats, technicians and skills laborers who both oversee the day to day operations of the Imperium and act as its most common faces abroad, while some are still tied to their Eladrin "patron" many are simple Temperavir.
Halfling - I liked the idea that the halflings are the only ones who still have (some of) their lands in Allaria. They won't fight people and give them stuff (food) if invaders come. Beloved of Erath and devout pacifists they've avoided destruction.
They're also the sneakest little **** alive; a small subset brings righteous revenge one knife-in-the-dark at a time.
There are also tribes of Halflings in the Valley of Bone for those who like their little people "Athas style".
Humans - main race in Daunton and compromise the largest proportions of the masses of empires like the Imperium and the Kingdom of Jade.
(I've never loved the idea of humanity as "the perfect ascendant race"; sometimes they dominate, but they can be sheep too.
Tieflings - An unfortunate problem among all cultures (demons and devils are everywhere); a few cursed families have lived within Daunton and Bacarte for centuries, laboring under the stigma of their ancestors actions.
As the shadow's reach grows longer and longer they are being born more frequently among the subjectes of the Kingdom of Jade. Many of them would love to travel from the Kingdom, where the stigma against them is still extremely strong.
garyh said:
Doppleganger - wherever they want to be
Because of the problems arbitrarting how change self actually works I think we should have them as NPCs for now.
The rational would just be that with cults and so forth being such a problem (including one dedicated to a mysterious force called the Unseen Lord) changelings are not loved within the Shifting Seas; so they don't reveal themselves.
I was imaginin
g Xil'th as being the only changeling living openly in the city, and he's bound by a magical orb (currently on display at the Hanged Man) to never change his shape or lie. He mostly hanges around acting pretenous, arguing that "there is no such thing as good and evil" and supports himself by useing his minor mindreading abilites gull merchants into beleiving he has "mysterious insights".
Of course the character works with other changelings around too.
garyh said:
Bugbear - Amongst both the pirates of Bacarte and the Empire of Hzaka
Goblin - Amongst both the pirates of Bacarte and the Empire of Hzaka
Hobgoblin - Amongst both the pirates of Bacarte and the Empire of Hzaka
Kobold - Amongst both the pirates of Bacarte and the Empire of Hzaka
Minotaur - Amongst both the pirates of Bacarte and the Empire of Hzaka
Orc - Amongst both the pirates of Bacarte and the Empire of Hzaka
Sure! I made a comment about the Empire
here.
garyh said:
Drow - Daunton, the Temple of Night and Day
Shadar-Kai - possibly another island with a portal?
My love of Shadar-kai is small. I say they're both exiled elves from the Imperium. PS The imperium history has the drow progenitors as "not demonworshipers" they were just an extreme religious cult that got exiled.
-Then- they turned to demonworship.
So the Shadar-kai just went and hid in the shadowfell after the exile unstead of falling in with demons.
Actually, I like the idea that they're tied to Hadeys; he likes the unification of fey and shadow because it is apes his relationship with Proserphones.... maybe they were a wedding present?
(One she was probably significantly less exited to receive than you might think).
garyh said:
Gnoll - Amongst both the pirates of Bacarte and the Empire of Hzaka
Could be. I like Gnolls enough to want to split them out from goblinoids.
garyh said:
Githyanki - possibly another island with a portal?
Githzerai - possibly another island with a portal?
Gnome - Fey Isle?
Shifters - Forests of Daunton isle or on Fey Isle?
Sure?
No good ideas myself. Though I think gnome-from-fey-island is a synch.
garyh said:
Warforged - Property of the Imperium remnant, but some have been sent abroad on missions or escaped
This... is a very interesting idea.
I wouldn't mind it at all.
There are a fair number of race tied to the Imperium in one way or another; another possibility would be that they are the "old bodyguards of the kings of Allaria".
The souls of loyal warriors are pledged to the Kingdom, and reborn through the magic of the creation forge (with no memories) to serve again. Now the kings are all dead, and there is only one creation forge left. Tended by some very old warforged it turns out a new forged every decade or so.
Now that the kingdom is dead some forged have grown disillusioned and abandoned their mission, others have adapted devoting themselves to an ideal of what Allaria stands for, or to the surivivors of Allaria (i.e. Daunton).
If a bunch of people play 'forged then we can whip up some sort of subplot (either about a threat to the surviving kingdom, or the "coming of the new king" or something).
