D&D (2024) All about Ardlings

[Cadence]

I think ardlings as written are fine? Its not like one MUST pick those base animal types?

This is why Tiefling was (pre 4e) great. It looked how YOU wanted it to look because the beings of the lower planes are vast and diverse.

I wasn't complaining about them! I think it's a neat idea and am guessing tons of players will play them. I was just speculating on how it came about

 

[Malmuria]

What's that? You want more 2e planescape art? No problem...

Spoiler: Guardinals etc

 

[Umbran]

How do you interpret this? A mostly human head with animal ears on top like an Anime catgirl? or a fully animal head from the neck up like an Egyptian god?

The first thing that came to my mind was "Egyptian god".

Mind you, my brain is also telling me that "outsiders with animal heads" is not at all new to D&D - that back around the time that archons came into the game, there were good outsiders of this form introduced as well. My recollection is that they weren't very powerful, so largely got ignored.

Unfortunately, I haven't found the source for this.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

The first thing that came to my mind was "Egyptian god".

My first thought was Ganesha, the Hindu elephant-headed goddess. THEN I went to Anubis and all of those.

 

[NaturalZero]

I really don't like ardlings. Anthro races are great but the thing is that each one actually gets unique stuff associated with an animal - tortle with its shell, tabaxi with its cheeta run, loxodon with its trunk, et al. Ardlings poach the furry aesthetic without any of the actual animal stuff while aasimar sit on the sidelines with their wing-trait stolen. You got your mashed potatoes in my peanut butter.

If they really think that aasimar are too boring a counterpoint to tieflings, they could go back to the last time they tried to replace them and give us the devas. They weren't knock-off furries, they had a distinct aesthetic, and they had a much richer and more evocative background than the assimar.

 

[Parmandur]

I actually think the Ardling is pretty great, even if the name is only so-so. I think they might end up being very successful in the surveys.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Do we even need ardlings? or are they redundant when we already have Aasimar and Shifters?

Expand aasimar to sometimes have animalian features, if they're descended from guardinals, and we don't need ardlings at all.

If WotC wants to put a new species into the core PHB, warforged seem like a much more obvious choice. Players may love anthropomorphic animals, but they really love their magical robot people.

 

[Tonguez]

Expand aasimar to sometimes have animalian features, if they're descended from guardinals, and we don't need ardlings at all.

If WotC wants to put a new species into the core PHB, warforged seem like a much more obvious choice. Players may love anthropomorphic animals, but they really love their magical robot people.

so much this, after Autognome in Spelljammer, I really was expecting the return of a Construct race rather than adding another outsider template.

My first thought was Ganesha, the Hindu elephant-headed goddess. THEN I went to Anubis and all of those.

I thought:
1Ganesha
2Yag-Kosha (of Conan fame) - Winged, elephant headed outsider
3 Furry animal heads plus human boobs
4 Egyptian pantheon (and Tawaret as an example of 3)

 

[Umbran]

Expand aasimar to sometimes have animalian features, if they're descended from guardinals, and we don't need ardlings at all.

You realize that goes both ways? The aasimar could simply be ardlings when the "animal" is a humanoid? Then we don't need aasimar at all.

But thank you, the guardinals were probably the outsiders I was thinking of above.

If WotC wants to put a new species into the core PHB, warforged seem like a much more obvious choice.

Except the warforged are hardly new.

 

[Grogg of the North]