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

[Redthistle]

Hey, maybe this is a good place to ask about this; am I crazy, or do I remember someone posting a homebrew "Baconian" race of anthropomorphic pigs here a while back? Possibly it got lost in the Great Data Munch of 2016. Does anyone still have a copy, or know where else it can be found online?

Idk, but if you can't find it please recreate it to the best of your memory. And please include a subrace with wings.

 

[Gradine]

Hey, maybe this is a good place to ask about this; am I crazy, or do I remember someone posting a homebrew "Baconian" race of anthropomorphic pigs here a while back? Possibly it got lost in the Great Data Munch of 2016. Does anyone still have a copy, or know where else it can be found online?

When they die, do they turn into bacon and crumble away?

And if they do, how would they taste on a salad?

 

[MechaTarrasque]

If anyone picked Tortles, luck appears on your side: http://www.sageadvice.eu/2017/04/25/should-we-add-tortles-to-5e/. Or maybe not, the poll's categories make me think it is humorous by intent. Of course, it would fit in with some of the UA subclasses of late......

 

[Brandegoris]

Mephits vs Grimlocks. Whoever wins gets to be a new player race?

 

[Dire Bare]

My point was that if you were going to change what draconians are - and make changes so that they can be raised if they die, for example, you might as well not use draconians at all.

I agree, that draconians, as originally presented in the Chronicles novels and classic modules, don't really make for good PC races. Or, at least, it wouldn't be easy to balance them with the more standard races. But, as others have pointed out, the draconian race evolved quite a bit within the Dragonlance setting from the original trilogy of novels, and as developed, can make VERY interesting PCs. YMMV, of course.

Mechanically, it's still tough to evoke the original "feel" of the race and keep things balanced, but I'm sure someone has or will come up with a decent conversion. Dragonborn and draconians are different flavors of the same archetype, and how well one substitutes for the other is a matter of personal taste.

Personally, I'd like to see draconian subraces for the existing 5E dragonborn race that evoke the feel of each draconian type, but don't include some of the more potentially game-breaking or unbalanced abilities. Perhaps with some "racial feats" that can add back some of those death-abilities, or powerful not-yet-dead abilities. Not sure how close to canon my thoughts are (and, don't really care), but I like to view "modern" draconians as a balanced race without some of the wild powers of their ancestors, with occasional exceptional throwbacks. And for draconians that have survived from the initial "batch", they would have monstrous stats equivalent to the originals from 1E. That would work well for me!

I mean, I'm reaching back through the foggy and rosy crystal glasses of time and nostalgia, but the draconians went through a LOT of retconning as Dragonlance evolved from a trilogy of novels to hundreds of novels and from the 1E game through 2E, Saga, 3E, 4E, and now into 5E. And like most shared worlds, some of that evolution is a bit silly and not always consistent.

First we had the original created, all-male race with powerful abilities with deadly death-throes. Later, the female draconians were "found" allowing for draconian babies. I vaguely recall something about "heartstone" draconians in the novels which were a new batch of created, almost mindless draconians that joined the original draconians. Somewhere in there we get "proto" draconians on Taladas and "noble" draconians created from evil dragon eggs and then additional (evilish) metallic draconians in 4E . . . . there's a lot of material there to be distilled into the race.

Why bother designing a 5E draconian race, regardless of how different it might be from the original conception? Why not? Why play orcs, gnolls, goblins, and other "evil" races? Because some of us want to. It's that simple, and it's all okay!

 

[Shasarak]

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.

**Wonders if it would be worthwhile to point out that "good" Draconians were not actually a 3e retcon but a creation of Margaret Weis then realises that the creators of Dragonlance have no actual say in the Dragonlance in Hussars headspace.**

Rant On, Brother, rant on!

 

[Hussar]

Three issues--

1) You're making a lot of assumptions about how Draconians would be adapted to be a PC race. Right out of the gate you're just assuming that we change how they die (e.g., no turning to stone), when no one has proposed any rules. I actually wrote it up a first draft set of house rules yesterday and I kept it just the way it is. When a Baaz dies he turns to stone, then crumbles. No Raise Undead for you. Don't like it? Play a different race.

Which is perfectly fine for your home game. But, what about Adventurers League games? A new PC race has to be as broadly applicable as possible. Meaning that this is very problematic.

2) Your beef that they're monsters and don't make a good PC race runs counter to a very long tradition within D&D of playing monster races as PCs. Volo's Guide to Monsters has rules for orcs and hobgoblin (aka, Uruk Hai) PCs, for instance, and I used to own AD&D 2E's Complete Book of Humanoids. This fight was lost a long time ago.

Note the title of your book. "Humanoids". Not demons, which are essentially what a draconian is.

Does this mean we can take lemure, run them through a horrific curse and we get angels? Neat.

3) You're ignoring the canon developments in the published setting. First generation draconians were created as you described but the setting has come a long way since the War of the Lance. There are noble draconians and also they figured out how to reproduce and founded their own nation, Teyr. You don't like the post-WotL canon developments? Fine, but complaining that other players want rules to support canon setting is unreasonable.

Fair enough. I'll admit to my own ignorance. My point is, once you've gone that far, these aren't actually draconians anymore. No more than if you took demons and ran them through the same process. But, again, as I said, once you strip away all that flavor, since it doesn't actually apply to a PC race outside of Dragonlance, these aren't draconians anymore. All they are is a stat-block. Think about it. I'm a draconian that was born, have no ties whatsoever to Takhisis or anything in the Krynn setting, and I'm good aligned.

In what way, beyond a stat-block, is this actually a draconian?

**Wonders if it would be worthwhile to point out that "good" Draconians were not actually a 3e retcon but a creation of Margaret Weis then realises that the creators of Dragonlance have no actual say in the Dragonlance in Hussars headspace.**

Rant On, Brother, rant on!

Because Margaret Weiss wrote all the material for the new Draconians? All the novels and source books? Really?

A quick perusal of the wikipedia article points to a Bestiary written by Andre La Roche and Cam Banks.

Heck, a bit more research shows that Noble Draconians are the creation of James Chambers in an unpublished story, Swing of the pendulum. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.fan.dragonlance/O4-7Nkxyaco

So, yeah, keep trying to appeal to authority. A fan fiction story that makes it way into a 3rd party supplement in 3e, some thirty years after the setting is released isn't exactly my idea of a strong canon element.

 

[Shasarak]

Because Margaret Weiss wrote all the material for the new Draconians? All the novels and source books? Really?

A quick perusal of the wikipedia article points to a Bestiary written by Andre La Roche and Cam Banks.

Heck, a bit more research shows that Noble Draconians are the creation of James Chambers in an unpublished story, Swing of the pendulum. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.fan.dragonlance/O4-7Nkxyaco

So, yeah, keep trying to appeal to authority. A fan fiction story that makes it way into a 3rd party supplement in 3e, some thirty years after the setting is released isn't exactly my idea of a strong canon element.

Sure man, Margaret Weiss just writes fan fiction.

:wipestearfromeye:

Nah youre right, it must have been 3e that did it!

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Which is perfectly fine for your home game. But, what about Adventurers League games? A new PC race has to be as broadly applicable as possible. Meaning that this is very problematic.



Note the title of your book. "Humanoids". Not demons, which are essentially what a draconian is.

Does this mean we can take lemure, run them through a horrific curse and we get angels? Neat.



Fair enough. I'll admit to my own ignorance. My point is, once you've gone that far, these aren't actually draconians anymore. No more than if you took demons and ran them through the same process. But, again, as I said, once you strip away all that flavor, since it doesn't actually apply to a PC race outside of Dragonlance, these aren't draconians anymore. All they are is a stat-block. Think about it. I'm a draconian that was born, have no ties whatsoever to Takhisis or anything in the Krynn setting, and I'm good aligned.

In what way, beyond a stat-block, is this actually a draconian?



Because Margaret Weiss wrote all the material for the new Draconians? All the novels and source books? Really?

A quick perusal of the wikipedia article points to a Bestiary written by Andre La Roche and Cam Banks.

Heck, a bit more research shows that Noble Draconians are the creation of James Chambers in an unpublished story, Swing of the pendulum. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.fan.dragonlance/O4-7Nkxyaco

So, yeah, keep trying to appeal to authority. A fan fiction story that makes it way into a 3rd party supplement in 3e, some thirty years after the setting is released isn't exactly my idea of a strong canon element.

Dude, your hang up on only OG canon being real canon isn't anyone else's problem. Just stop.

Draconians, and their story, evolved. Don't like it, don't play one, or allow it if you're the DM. That's it.

 

[Hussar]

Not entirely sure why this turned into a canon wank. Probably my fault.

The point is, draconians, as written, make a terrible PC race. In order to make them a PC race, outside of Dragonlance (in DL? Knock yourself out - go for it), you have to strip virtually everything that makes a draconian, a draconian.

Think about it for a second. Take a Baaz Draconian. Strip out all DL background - no Takhisis, no dragon armies, no evil ritual to create you, nothing. Then, strip out the one thing that actually makes draconians stand out - the way they die - and what's left?

A lizard folk with wings. That's it. It's not a draconian anymore. It's not even draconic anymore.

That's my issue here. All the lore stuff, well, that's great and all, but, at the end of the day, we're talking about adding PC races that are not for specific settings no? Most of the races listed here are generic enough that you can plunk them down in pretty much any setting without much, if any work. Orc? Hobgoblin? Those are bog standard in pretty much any D&D game. Orcs are big, violent humans. Not too much of a stretch to add them in pretty much anywhere. It's not like they come parceled with much background. Nor is that background that they do have integral to an orc being an orc.

Tolkien orcs don't worship Gruumsh after all. But, they're still instantly recognizable as orcs. Warcraft uses orcs as well, with completely different lore from D&D, and yet, they're still instantly recognizable as an orc.

Strip the lore away from draconians, and you're left with ... what? Lizardfolk with wings? Dragonborn? They certainly aren't draconians.