D&D 5E Greyhawk?

[meomwt]

Ah, but the demigod cambion tyrant Iuz is an exceptional individual, and the crashed starship in the Barrier Peaks is an extraordinary circumstance; both are unique. Those are hardly the same as having an entire PC race, hundreds of thousands of dragonmen, wandering around the Flanaess.

As I have said before regarding an overabundance of magic; making the fantastic too common reduces its impact and renders it mundane, no longer extraordinary, and ultimately boring. Including a PC race of dragonmen reduces something that should be extraordinary to an everyday, commonplace occurrence.

In Greyhawk, elves and dwarves are supposed to be somewhat exotic; adding dragonmen to the mix is nudging things quite a bit too far.

With the caveat that I don't have the 5E PHB yet, and so I don't know how Dragonborn are defined in the RAW, I can't comment on their level of exoticism compared to elves and dwarves.

Were I to be DM and a player in my Greyhawk game wanted to be a Dragonborn, then I would explain that they were the offspring of a human and a dragon (and they would have to determine which type of dragon) and that they have yet to meet another of their kind, etc. Human/ Dragon offspring - whilst not common - do occur on Oerth and if an easy, well-defined race is available to represent this, so be it.

And, as with anything a player wants to bring to the table, DM has final say over exactly what abilities the Dragonborn would have, to avoid over-powering other players.

Dragonborn would certainly not be common in the Greyhawk lands (no more than, say, 1 in 100,000 would be so born) - but player-characters are supposed to be a cut above the general populace, and making a Dragonborn an adventurer would be a bold and innovative RP choice (especially in a campaign where dragons played a large part in proceedings - Tyranny of Dragons, for example - where the PC has to act against his own heritage).

 

[mflayermonk]

Dragonborn would certainly not be common in the Greyhawk lands (no more than, say, 1 in 100,000 would be so born) - but player-characters are supposed to be a cut above the general populace, and making a Dragonborn an adventurer would be a bold and innovative RP choice (especially in a campaign where dragons played a large part in proceedings - Tyranny of Dragons, for example - where the PC has to act against his own heritage).

Wouldn't people be trying to capture you and sell you in the Dragon Markets?

 

[aramis erak]

Not sure I agree with your assessment of the situation, but having dragonborn PCs does not mean there are hundreds of thousands of dragonborn running around. The PC could be unique or part of a very small group.

If they aren't 1st-5th generation immigrants, then that implies a stable population of at least 100 per color... because 5 generations of inbreeding in a smaller population starts resulting in notable issues with deformity and recessive genetics.

Still, given magic, the implication could be wrong.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

As far as dragonborn, I'm not really sure why people feel the need to include them in settings that have never had them. I mean, is it a matter of PHB inclusion? If the PHB had Kender would you stick them in Greyhawk and the Realms?

I have always believed that the reason why the Forgotten Realms is "the favorite setting of D&D" always had far more to do with TSR and WotC's aggressive marketing and pushing of the Realms, rather than any inherent value of the two settings.

You got it. They published Greyhawk material sparingly in the 2e era, and basically decided to stick a huge amount of material into the Forgotten Realms--whether it fit or not. Let's take that Oriental Adventures Kara-Tur setting and stick it over to the east of Faerun. We've already got more than one middle-eastern themed area of the Forgotten Realms, but let's take this Zakhara setting from Arabian Adventures and just stick bolt it on to the southeast of Faerun as a subcontinent anyway. That way we'll make darn certain that there is at least 50% more middle-eastern inspired territory than European territory in the Forgotten Realms, so we can snicker to ourselves when people ignorantly comment on how it's a euro-centric fantasy setting. Let's make a large turkic themed area and stick it into Faerun as the Horde boxed set. We've mostly neglected earth's western hemisphere, so let's make a meso-american setting, we'll call it "Maztica," and stick it across the sea from Faerun.

It was ridiculous.

 

[Nellisir]

If they aren't 1st-5th generation immigrants, then that implies a stable population of at least 100 per color... because 5 generations of inbreeding in a smaller population starts resulting in notable issues with deformity and recessive genetics.

Still, given magic, the implication could be wrong.

Your conclusion, while correct on it's face, makes a number of assumptions that could easily not be true.
You're assuming that:

• dragonborn are born, not created.
• dragonborn colors breed true
• the dragonborn community in GH is self-contained and does not receive periodic genetic "infusions" from some outside pool (either another community outside the Flanaess or 1st-gen half-dragons)*
• that dragonborn reproduce in numbers similar to humans
• that dragonborn genetics function like humans

and of course, as you noted, "science".
I'm not saying you're wrong; I'm saying there are a number of explanations for small stable dragonborn populations that don't automatically result in recessive genetics.

*Somewhat related, I just read a book title Britain BC. The population estimates for neolithic Britain are staggeringly low.

 

[aramis erak]

Your conclusion, while correct on it's face, makes a number of assumptions that could easily not be true.
You're assuming that:

• dragonborn are born, not created.
• dragonborn colors breed true
• the dragonborn community in GH is self-contained and does not receive periodic genetic "infusions" from some outside pool (either another community outside the Flanaess or 1st-gen half-dragons)*
• that dragonborn reproduce in numbers similar to humans
• that dragonborn genetics function like humans

and of course, as you noted, "science".
I'm not saying you're wrong; I'm saying there are a number of explanations for small stable dragonborn populations that don't automatically result in recessive genetics.

*Somewhat related, I just read a book title Britain BC. The population estimates for neolithic Britain are staggeringly low.

Considering the studies on genetic diversity are NOT done with humans, but with a variety of other mammals, that, aside from gender selection, the genetics works the same across all species to date... at about 100 individuals, a species can have be stable multi-generationally. At about 1000, you get noticeable diversity.

it is a reasonable assumption that it should work for dragonborn, provided they aren't Draconians ala Dragonlance (and thus merely improperly gestated dragons), or magically produced/protected-from-recessives. If they are dragonlance style, they count their progenitor dragons in the genetic pool...

... which gives me a rather wicked idea... well, that and Glorantha's Dragonnewts... I think on my homebrew gameworld, all dragonborn will be males. All dragons will be females...

And yes, neolithic britain was probably only a couple thousand people. Meanwhile, Byzantium may have been almost a million in the 8th century.

 

[GameDoc]

With the caveat that I don't have the 5E PHB yet, and so I don't know how Dragonborn are defined in the RAW, I can't comment on their level of exoticism compared to elves and dwarves.

Were I to be DM and a player in my Greyhawk game wanted to be a Dragonborn, then I would explain that they were the offspring of a human and a dragon (and they would have to determine which type of dragon) and that they have yet to meet another of their kind, etc. Human/ Dragon offspring - whilst not common - do occur on Oerth and if an easy, well-defined race is available to represent this, so be it.

And, as with anything a player wants to bring to the table, DM has final say over exactly what abilities the Dragonborn would have, to avoid over-powering other players.

Dragonborn would certainly not be common in the Greyhawk lands (no more than, say, 1 in 100,000 would be so born) - but player-characters are supposed to be a cut above the general populace, and making a Dragonborn an adventurer would be a bold and innovative RP choice (especially in a campaign where dragons played a large part in proceedings - Tyranny of Dragons, for example - where the PC has to act against his own heritage).

The 5e PHB presents humans, dwarves, elves, and halflings as common races and dragonborn, gnomes, tieflings, half-elves, and half-orcs as less common, but doesn't really quantify what that means. It encourages players to make sure their DM is okay with them using an uncommon race before doing so.

From a power standpoint, a dragonborn character should balance with other PCs right out of its entry in the PHB without any modification. And they do get to pick a draconic heritage that flavors them towards a specific chromatic or metallic type of dragon. If narratively you want to say it's a half-dragon you could proobably do so with no other steps needed.

 

[Aaron L]

As far as dragonborn, I'm not really sure why people feel the need to include them in settings that have never had them. I mean, is it a matter of PHB inclusion? If the PHB had Kender would you stick them in Greyhawk and the Realms?

That sums up my opinion on the matter quite succinctly. Should Kender and Tinker Gnomes and Draconians and Athasian Muls and Half-Giants all be shoehorned into Oerth just because they exist in other settings? (Thri-Kreen, on the other hand, have always been lurking around the Oerth.)

Should Half-Orcs be injected into DragonLance or Dark Sun just because they're in the PHB, even though there are historically no orcs on Krynn and Athas? (at least anymore.)

It would be a bad case of race inflation; Oerth has always been a human-dominated setting, where the sweep of human history has been a big part of the flavor, from the Twin Cataclysms to the migrations and displacements of the various human ethnicities to the history of the Aerdi tribe of humanity and the establishment and breakup of the Great Kingdom leading to most of the dominant realms of the Flanaess.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

That sums up my opinion on the matter quite succinctly. Should Kender and Tinker Gnomes and Draconians and Athasian Muls and Half-Giants all be shoehorned into Oerth just because they exist in other settings? (Thri-Kreen, on the other hand, have always been lurking around the Oerth.)

Should Half-Orcs be injected into DragonLance or Dark Sun just because they're in the PHB, even though there are historically no orcs on Krynn and Athas? (at least anymore.)

You don't have to inject anything. You don't have to include Dragonborns in Greyhawk: a player could just play THE Dragonborn, which, to me, sounds like a very exciting possibility.

 

[Nellisir]

Considering the studies on genetic diversity are NOT done with humans, but with a variety of other mammals, that, aside from gender selection, the genetics works the same across all species to date...

I'd revise my statement to say dragonborn genetics function like animals, but that gets into the realm of "magic!" What I was actually thinking was that perhaps dragons have a large quantity of viable but unexpressed genetic material that gets shuffled and randomly expressed in each generation, so functionally you've got a larger pool in a smaller number of individuals and rather than white + blue = white or blue, white + blue might = white, blue, green, silver, or (other). Whether that's real science or not, I dunno and it's not worth researching.

at about 100 individuals, a species can have be stable multi-generationally. At about 1000, you get noticeable diversity.

And if we assume dragonborn are a race, and not 10 different races, we've cut the number for stability from 1,000 to 100. 20 here, 50 there, 10 here, and 20 over there and *bam*, they're good - and that's not even including adding new half-dragons to the mix.

And yes, neolithic britain was probably only a couple thousand people. Meanwhile, Byzantium may have been almost a million in the 8th century.

Yeah, but the question isn't how many dragonborn we can have, it's how few. Neolithic Britain also lasted a lot longer than a hundred years. Or a thousand. (the time scales at work are pretty cool, honestly). And was, by any measure, a lot more isolated than the Crossroads of Eurasia. I don't see Byzantium as relevant.