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You want to talk about similarities: They have a spell in the book called Serpent Arrow, which allows the caster to shoot a venomous snake as an arrow; in my book Poisoncraft (which came out two months ago, btw), I have a spell called Serpent Arrow, which allows the caster to shoot a venomous snake as an arrow.
Is this where I mention Crown Nagas from Creature Collection II?
That said, I don't really dig the idea of Yuan Ti being lesser versions of anything. But I guess with FR, home of uber-monsters like Phaerim and Sharn, it's only to be expected.
I've been reading this book all afternoon, and while there is more FR flavor in there than I originally thought when I flipped through it at the store, overall there's still plenty of material that would be useful to any campaign. I don't play FR anymore and I would still recommend it.
Just curious, Darrin, how would you compare the sarrukh with the creator race from Dragon #303, since that's supposed to fill the same niche? I know that the creators are adapted from the Neverwinter Nights PC game, but its still interesting to consider, since it says in the magazine (IIRC) that they're the original reptilian race.
Is this where I mention Crown Nagas from Creature Collection II?
That said, I don't really dig the idea of Yuan Ti being lesser versions of anything. But I guess with FR, home of uber-monsters like Phaerim and Sharn, it's only to be expected.
(snip) One of the things I did for this book was create (and name) the sarrukh, which is the progenitor race for most of the various scaled races. Right now I'm reading through the Dawnforge campaign setting and noticed that despite the fact that it is not FR, it alludes to a scaly progenitor race, which could allow the sarrukh to easily fit into that setting as well. Dawnforge also has yuan-ti and lizardfolk playing prominent roles, so there are two other sections that could be dropped right into that setting with little modification. (snip)
I'm planning on using the book as much (if not more) in my upcoming Dawnforge campaign as in my FR campaign.
Justin D. Jacobson said:
You want to talk about similarities: They have a spell in the book called Serpent Arrow, which allows the caster to shoot a venomous snake as an arrow; in my book Poisoncraft (which came out two months ago, btw), I have a spell called Serpent Arrow, which allows the caster to shoot a venomous snake as an arrow. (snip)
... and Sean K Reynolds has had something similar on his site for about three years. Heck, I can remember statting something like this up for 1E. The first Conan movie made this a rather common feature in most games, methinks.
Well, if you have a scaly progenitor race in your campaign, I could see calling your race being a lesser form. Their basic body form is close (modeled after the yuan-ti abominations) as is their name, but that's where the similarity ends. The sarrukh are an extraordinarily powerful race, with 14 Hit Dice and a +8 level adjustment, and fairly large ability bonuses. Given the fact that today was the first time I've seen your site, I'll have to chalk the slight similarities up to coincidence.
I don't have a scaly progenitor race as such, all the intelligent reptillian races were raised up the evolution ladder by an ancient Dragon sorcerer because... well dragon's don't usually need reasons. Given the number of different names I went though before I came up with the final version I was surprised, and somewhat amused, that a very similar sounding name was used for a race in Serpent Kingdoms.
Just curious, Darrin, how would you compare the sarrukh with the creator race from Dragon #303, since that's supposed to fill the same niche? I know that the creators are adapted from the Neverwinter Nights PC game, but its still interesting to consider, since it says in the magazine (IIRC) that they're the original reptilian race.
That article created a lot of debate among the design team. We made every effort to stay true to the previously published Dragon articles, but at the same time there were things we were trying to do creatively with this book that superceded some of the more obscure things that had been previously published. While the Silicon Sorcery article was interesting, it just didn't match the direction we wanted to go with the sarrukh. There was some talk about reconciling the two, but ultimately we scrapped that idea because the version I came up with and the one from the article were just too far apart.
There was a similar issue with an article that was published at the end of our design process which made Set an aspect of the World Serpent. Again, that was something that just didn't fit with the lore we had built up for this book. I think the final product turned out best by selectively choosing which items to consider canon and incorporate, and which to drop.
Trivia Time! What was the 1st appearance by a Sarrukh in a Forgotten Realms Product?
Hint: Club +2/ +3 vs. Bullywugs
I have a mixed reaction to this book, on one hand it is great that we have finished revisiting 1st and 2nd edition territory and are now moving into unexplored areas of the realms. And this book does cover some of the forgotten Scaly races like Ophidians, Fire Newts and the Lizard King from the original Fiend Folio.
But the book suffers from some bad editing in the way it is written, maybe it's the three authors stlyes conflicting. The Dinosaur entry does not reflect the modern view of dinosaurs, Pteradons are not dinosaurs, they are reptiles. The Jaculi's abilities are described as Psionic, but not listed as Psionic. The Two Yuan-ti templates from the FR: Monsterous Compendium (Tainted One & Broodguard) are mentioned many times, but are not included. They should have been updated to 3.5 with this book. Two new types of Yuan-Ti are introduced Holy Guardians and Magelsayers, but they should have been done as either templates or a Prestige class.
And of course there is one other problem, the Yuan-Ti are a Psionic race, but Psionics is almost completely ignored by this book. This is complicated by a new Forgotten Realms novel, Venom's Taste in which the psionic abilities of the Yuan-Ti play an important part. Scroll down to the Search inside this book and enter "Psionic", 40 responses.
One thing I have always hated about the FR novel line is when they introduce something interesting and the RPG line then counters, or ignores it outright. I wonder if the Shining South will mention that the last king of Halruaa was both a Diviner and a Seer? That's how he got around the other mages wards.
Unlike some of the negative posts that does the Serpent Kingdoms injustice, I find the book to be exactly what it was meant to be, just another supplement for the DM to use or not to use... It is in my general opinion, well written and covers just about anything I NEED TO KNOW AS A DM as far as the serpent people are about and so on.
As with most supplements that come out these days ( i buy just about everything that is released), a lot of the material presented is either useful or useless.. Find what it is you like and then discard the rest...
