D&D 5E Nonstandard Races You Love And Want Back

[Hussar]

Pretty easily, actually. Draconians have actually been stated to be an inherently neutral race, just forced into evil by their creators, since... ooh, the Age of Mortals? Saga Edition? Whenever the hell the post-War of the Lance material came out. I only know Dragonlance from its 3.5 update and I've never bothered to chase after the older material. Setting doesn't interest me too much... too much of the original creators thought processes in it, to its detriment.

As for abilities... well, that's problematic, but not quite the way you think it is. Draconians have a wide variety of skills. Baaz are pretty much orcs of a different color, yeah, but then there's the shapeshifting Sivaks, the incredibly magical Auraks, even the thief-like Bozaaks and warrior-wizard Kapaaks have things to recommend them.

Ahh. I never got into any of the 3.5 MWP lore at all. And, really, that whole "let's make everything a PC race" is very much a 3e thing. AFAIC, draconians are an evil mutation of good dragons. They have no redeeming qualities. They have no free will. They're in complete service to the Dragon Queen.

Like I said, the 3e retcons to the setting were something I completely ignored. From my point of view, they took all the things that were distinct about the setting, stripped them out, in order to sell more books to players. "Hey! Play our new Dragonlance and you can play a DRAGON!" Blah. No thanks.

 

[cbwjm]

I'm kind of torn between the draconians. On the one hand, I like the idea of balance that dragonlance has. By corrupting the good dragon eggs into something evil, performing the same ritual on chromatic dragon eggs ended up producing something good. But on the other hand, what I read of Kang (I think that is his name, he was a Bozak draconian) and how he lead his people to a new life free from Takhisis was actually quite cool.

I wouldn't mind seeing race stats for draconians or at least subraces for dragonborn that take into account draconians but I probably wouldn't want them to be PCs in a dragonlance campaign unless it was set later in the age of mortals. During a war of the lance campaign I think I'd prefer that draconians are squarely in the evil camp.

 

[Hussar]

Ok I'll cop to my own ignorance here. Are you saying they took evil dragon eggs and warped them to make good draconian? And this was considered anywhere near a good act? Yikes.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Shadar-Kai, Centaurs, Thri-Kreen, a new plantfolk, a better-than-the-UA Warforged.

Sent from my LG-D852 using EN World mobile app

 

[cbwjm]

Ok I'll cop to my own ignorance here. Are you saying they took evil dragon eggs and warped them to make good draconian? And this was considered anywhere near a good act? Yikes.

I don't recall the specifics, but I think the dragon armies or knights of takhisis or someone on team evil decided that they needed to bolster the ranks of draconians but they only had access to chromatic dragon eggs. Since the balance had to be maintained they ended up being predisposed to good rather than evil just as the draconians made from metallic eggs were predisposed towards evil.

 

[Mecheon]

In regards to Draconians, please note I don't really care much for Dragonlance, but it'd be an idea to take Dragonborn and use that as a base is probably the best idea as a sort of subrace thing

Don't forget the 4E Draconians as well if someone does do this

 

[Bitbrain]

Reply to Opening post.

Mul (Half-Dwarf)
Thri-Kreen
Warforged

 

[QuietBrowser]

Ahh. I never got into any of the 3.5 MWP lore at all. And, really, that whole "let's make everything a PC race" is very much a 3e thing. AFAIC, draconians are an evil mutation of good dragons. They have no redeeming qualities. They have no free will. They're in complete service to the Dragon Queen.

Like I said, the 3e retcons to the setting were something I completely ignored. From my point of view, they took all the things that were distinct about the setting, stripped them out, in order to sell more books to players. "Hey! Play our new Dragonlance and you can play a DRAGON!" Blah. No thanks.

Except those "3e retcons" actually predate 3e. The fight of the Draconians for their independence took place in the novels leading up to the 5th Age, aka the Age of Mortals, which was covered as a tabletop setting when Dragonlance updated to run under the Saga System in 1996... four years before 3rd edition was released.

Now, I don't know if 2e/Saga rules for Draconian PCs were a thing, like I said I don't like the setting enough to really pursue its pre-3.5 materials, but the concept that draconians were not an inherently evil race but instead forced into evil by their creators did exist prior to Dragons of Krynn, that existed well before 3.0 was a thing.

Ok I'll cop to my own ignorance here. Are you saying they took evil dragon eggs and warped them to make good draconian? And this was considered anywhere near a good act? Yikes.

I don't follow the vast novel-verse to know where they appeared there, but yes, there's an entire offshoot of draconians called Noble Draconians made by using chromatic dragon eggs in the creation ritual and who have a strong natural inclination towards good as a result. It is indeed one of the many ways in which Dragonlance's inherent mortality is messed up.

Anyway, personally, I think Draconians have a lot of potential as a PC race in other settings; their origin as dragon eggs warped to create slave-soldiers by some evil wizard, cleric or regime only to be orphaned after its defeat is one that works in any D&D setting with a higher magic level than, say, Westeros. The big issue is giving them a balanced set of racial abilities, something I struggled with in my own attempts to convert all ten.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Non evil draconians is a novel thing from before 3e, and predates "noble draconians", which are a separate thawing.

 

[BookBarbarian]

Shifters. And the should be better than what we got in that old Uberron UA.