I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
I wasn't a fan of dragonborn when they appeared in 3e, or when their story got an overhaul in 4e, but Erin M. Evan's alien, godless dragonborn have some meat on their bones. Maybe I'll just quietly make ALL DB FR DB. 
Dragonborn in Faerun
- Thread starter KahlessNestor
- Start date
What, are there any other dragonborn?I wasn't a fan of dragonborn when they appeared in 3e, or when their story got an overhaul in 4e, but Erin M. Evan's alien, godless dragonborn have some meat on their bones. Maybe I'll just quietly make ALL DB FR DB.
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
What, are there any other dragonborn?
Heh, lets just say "I used to hate (what eventually turned into) tieflings," and "I love Bahamut so much I'm going to get magical plastic surgery" are not nearly as interesting as a slightly shell-shocked diaspora of refugee aliens forced to live alongside the world they're not a part of.
ccs
41st lv DM
So what do you think a female crossbreed between a reptilian dragon & a humanoid mammal would look like?
Eltab
Lord of the Hidden Layer
The earliest I have seen them mentioned - and they were 'offstage' for this - was in 3e: Races of the Dragon.
Back in the Year of Dragon's Rage*, many valiant warriors helped defeat the Cult of the Dragon's scheme to create a perpetual Rage of Dragons^. Bahamut offered to them a gift: become more like dragons. The result was the first dragonborn.
*1370 DR? I need to check my calendar (or Grand History of the Realms) ...
^ First-Speaker Samwise, founder of the Cult and by now a lich himself, reasoned that the dragons of Faerun would face this choice: go mad or become dracoliches. He wanted them to decide 'dracoliches'.
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
Nah, Dragonborn are great.
Have a nap or something.
Half of that isn't even true. Like, there are definitely evil dragonborn, they aren't universally liked or trusted in any setting, etc.
And they are a great version of dragon ppl. Most ppl I know who want to play lizards or dragon ppl, and don't have a hatred boner for 4e, like them.
Also, they have dragon heads, scaly bodies, and breath weapons that match the color they share with a type of dragon. Not sure where you get the idea they are mud brown, but they are literally the colors of dragons. There is even one in an adventure, IIRC, who is black, complete with black dragon style horns.
And I think most of the 4e phb DB art has them either red or one of the metallic colors.
Not sure why you want them to be alien and disruptive. That seems like a nonsensical goal.
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Ilbranteloth
Explorer
Half-dragons go back to the 2nd Edition, and in the Forgotten Realms were originally difficult to distinguish from their humanoid parents. They were the result of the union between dragons that had the natural ability to polymorph to humanoid form and some other humanoid. Thus metallic dragons, steel dragons, and later shadow dragons (primarily with drow).
I have no problem with what anybody else wants to run in their campaign, but I don't particularly care for dragon born as designed (and also tieflings, which were also much less conspicuous before), especially in the Forgotten Realms. Erin's books are fantastic, but I just wish they weren't FR.
It's easy to say that I don't have to use them in my campaign. Except that it seems that dragonborn and tieflings have become the favored races in D&D, at least around here. Which means either I have to allow them, or I have to tell people they can't play what they want. I specifically tell new players I don't care for tieflings and dragonborn, and invariably that's what they come back with.
The biggest issue I have with using any sort of 'monstrous' race that isn't fully part of the campaign and integrated into what is essentially a human-centric campaign world is that you either have to deal with the 'oh my god it's a monster' reactions, or you simply ignore that they look like a monster to the majority of the population. While that former can be an interesting campaign element, and has been used well at times, most of the time it just gets old. It works well in a novel (like Driz'zt), but not so much that every time your drow or dragonborn character enters a tavern that a significant portion of the NPCs would fear, hate, or just outright want to kill them. All in a world where killing 'evil' races and monsters on sight is acceptable. Actually, in many cases they wouldn't make it to the tavern.
Of course I understand that the world doesn't have to be this way, and everybody is accepted. But unfortunately my FR campaign started in 1987 and as they've added significant changes like these it's difficult to maintain continuity credibly. And sure, a part of that is just that I don't care for them as they implemented them. I wasn't a fan of the Dragonlance draconians, nor the Saurians that popped up in a couple of early Realms novels. The closer to their dragon heritage the half-dragon and dragonborn drifted, the closer they felt to draconians that we were just importing parts of Dragonlance to the Realms. I'm not particularly interested in importing kender, gully dwarves, or minotaurs as primary races either.
My Realms, like many D&D campaigns at the time, leaned heavily on Tolkien's human-majority with elves, dwarves, and halfling minorities. Heck, my FR was a reskinned version of my home campaigns which was a mix of homegrown and Greyhawk since that was what we had to work with in the late '70's/early '80's. As more and more of Ed Greenwood's articles appeared in Dragon, more and more of the Realms did too.
The last dragonborn I allowed in the campaign I reskinned as an older variation half-steel dragon, which actually turned out to be a very young steel dragon trapped in his humanoid form. The tiefling not only had less conspicuous traits, he was unaware that he was a tiefling at all.
I get that they are popular races, and because the point of the game is to have fun, I work with things as I have to. I just wish I didn't have to deal with these particular races in my campaign.
Ilbranteloth
I have no problem with what anybody else wants to run in their campaign, but I don't particularly care for dragon born as designed (and also tieflings, which were also much less conspicuous before), especially in the Forgotten Realms. Erin's books are fantastic, but I just wish they weren't FR.
It's easy to say that I don't have to use them in my campaign. Except that it seems that dragonborn and tieflings have become the favored races in D&D, at least around here. Which means either I have to allow them, or I have to tell people they can't play what they want. I specifically tell new players I don't care for tieflings and dragonborn, and invariably that's what they come back with.
The biggest issue I have with using any sort of 'monstrous' race that isn't fully part of the campaign and integrated into what is essentially a human-centric campaign world is that you either have to deal with the 'oh my god it's a monster' reactions, or you simply ignore that they look like a monster to the majority of the population. While that former can be an interesting campaign element, and has been used well at times, most of the time it just gets old. It works well in a novel (like Driz'zt), but not so much that every time your drow or dragonborn character enters a tavern that a significant portion of the NPCs would fear, hate, or just outright want to kill them. All in a world where killing 'evil' races and monsters on sight is acceptable. Actually, in many cases they wouldn't make it to the tavern.
Of course I understand that the world doesn't have to be this way, and everybody is accepted. But unfortunately my FR campaign started in 1987 and as they've added significant changes like these it's difficult to maintain continuity credibly. And sure, a part of that is just that I don't care for them as they implemented them. I wasn't a fan of the Dragonlance draconians, nor the Saurians that popped up in a couple of early Realms novels. The closer to their dragon heritage the half-dragon and dragonborn drifted, the closer they felt to draconians that we were just importing parts of Dragonlance to the Realms. I'm not particularly interested in importing kender, gully dwarves, or minotaurs as primary races either.
My Realms, like many D&D campaigns at the time, leaned heavily on Tolkien's human-majority with elves, dwarves, and halfling minorities. Heck, my FR was a reskinned version of my home campaigns which was a mix of homegrown and Greyhawk since that was what we had to work with in the late '70's/early '80's. As more and more of Ed Greenwood's articles appeared in Dragon, more and more of the Realms did too.
The last dragonborn I allowed in the campaign I reskinned as an older variation half-steel dragon, which actually turned out to be a very young steel dragon trapped in his humanoid form. The tiefling not only had less conspicuous traits, he was unaware that he was a tiefling at all.
I get that they are popular races, and because the point of the game is to have fun, I work with things as I have to. I just wish I didn't have to deal with these particular races in my campaign.
Ilbranteloth
I think he's being a bit of a hater. Though dragonborn are often described as being coopery in general with some rare members showing a strong resemblance to specific types with matching breath weapons.
I always took that as most or at least many NPC DB don't show a very strong color, but the PCs being exceptional almost always do. A sort of mark of future greatness in their society that in this case at the least resulted in class levels. No small feat in setting.
I always took that as most or at least many NPC DB don't show a very strong color, but the PCs being exceptional almost always do. A sort of mark of future greatness in their society that in this case at the least resulted in class levels. No small feat in setting.
doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
What I don't get is the idea that NPCs should want to kill them. Distrust teiflings? Of course. But I know ppl who distrust Italians.
But dragonbirn aren't an unknown thing. Ppl know they exist, that they don't habitually rampage and kill stuff, etc. its not like drow look like monsters, yet they are hated on sight because of their ppls reputation. Likewise, DB have a positive rep. Looking draconic isn't going to overcome that. No one is reacting "oh its a monster oh wait no its a ppl", they are going "oh look a dragonborn." In my campaign, they may even use Tymantheran more than dragonborn.
But dragonbirn aren't an unknown thing. Ppl know they exist, that they don't habitually rampage and kill stuff, etc. its not like drow look like monsters, yet they are hated on sight because of their ppls reputation. Likewise, DB have a positive rep. Looking draconic isn't going to overcome that. No one is reacting "oh its a monster oh wait no its a ppl", they are going "oh look a dragonborn." In my campaign, they may even use Tymantheran more than dragonborn.
Ilbranteloth
Explorer
Well, in the Forgotten Realms, anyway, they are an alien race that suddenly appeared in one distant realm. My campaigns center in the Sword Coast and the North, and if one appeared there it would be an oddity, and bear enough of a resemblance to yuan ti, lizard folk and other serpentine monsters which are known in the region, and also 'known' to be a threat and enough warrant at the very least some wariness on the part of the locals.
It's funny. Most of my current group were new to D&D and lump the majority of undead into zombies or skeletons of some sort or another. It never dawned on me that most people would do the same, regardless of the actual abilities of said zombie.
Ilbranteloth
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